This Sunday at 9am Pacific I’ll be doing a live Q&A on the historicity of Jesus. Post questions here in comments or on the matching Facebook post. (Comments here won’t publish, but I’ll see them. I’m still looking for time to get through my queue. But go ahead and submit questions through this blog’s comment field.)
Ask any and all questions you have. The more the merrier. This is your chance to ask that hard question you’ve come across in talking about this subject or that question that’s been bugging you all this time.
This is part of this year’s FtBConscience. Bookmark the free online conference’s Lanyrd page. There you’ll be able to find everything that’s going on this weekend (lots of speakers, talks and panels), including the page for my Q&A which will on the day explain how to watch.
There will also be an associated live chat (which will also be explained on that Lanyrd page in time for the show), so you can ask follow-up questions in real-time. The whole event will be archived for later viewing as well; but you can’t interact then.
I will also be on another panel, with several other commentators, immediately before that: “The True Version of the False: Can Atheists Argue Over the ‘True’ Version of Religion?” So if that sounds interesting as well, catch me there as well.
If Jesus did not actually make the (seemingly) failed prediction that ““some of you standing here will not taste death before they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power” (Mark 9:1), what would be Mark’s motivation for including this? Is this an interpolation? Does it need to be interpreted allegorically? What’s your evidence to support your position?
Thanks!
Do you have any opinion about the authorship of the Pauline epistles? Have you reviewed the arguments of the Dutch radicals?
I know that there are many “vexing” problems with dating the gospels … but if you could give your best guess/theory, when would you say each of the 4 gospels was written (and/or re-written, especially with John). What evidence do you rely on/find the most compelling? Mark’s use of Jesus Ben Ananias at a template? The use of the word “rabbi”? External references (or lack of any external references) to the gospels?
Thanks!
Great! I’d been wanting to ask you a question for a while, but couldn’t find an appropriate time/place…
(Side note: I’m an atheist, just so it’s clear where I’m coming from. And not in any way a scholar in the area, though I’ve been fascinated by it lately so I’ve read up on it — mostly online but not indiscriminately.)
So, by now I’m pretty much convinced (mainly by you) that St Paul was preaching a celestial Christ. But there’s one hypothesis that I keep coming up with and that I haven’t heard you (or anybody else) discuss as a possibility. That would be a “double Jesus” theory, as follows:
1) Paul preaches the celestial Christ, as in your explanation.
2) One of the many Jewish apocaliptic preachers of the time (possibly a disciple of John the Baptist) has some followers in/around Jerusalem.
3) After years of preaching the celestial Christ, Paul meets some of these disciples in Jerusalem (Peter, James, etc.)
4) The Jerusalem crowd decide that “their” rabbi was the incarnation of the celestial Christ, and adapt their belief and preaching accordingly. (And maybe Paul agrees with them, at least at one stage).
5) Each group (Pauline/Jerusalemite) preaches in Jewish diaspora communitites, so they keep meeting and treading on each others’ toes — hence the diatribes in Paul.
6) Eventually, a “blended” version becomes accepted and divergences are harmonized.
(At some stage in this process, the different Gospels and Luke’s Acts are written, reflecting both local concerns and the evolutionary stage of the “mythos”)
Right. As I said, I haven’t seen this possibility discussed, so I expect there are good reasons to discard it. And it’s even possible that it’s been championed and shot down before, and I’ve completely missed it. But I’d really like to hear your take on it — even just to say why it doesn’t work.
Thanks for offering this chance to ask questions, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the Q&A whether you pick this question or not 🙂
Anna
One question that’s been rattling around in my head since reading “On the Historicity of Christ” is what do you consider the possibility of conflation? Specifically the conflation of the mythic, celestial messiah with one of the historical various preachers of the day such as those mentioned in Josephus? Especially since as you yourself mentioned it was a popular name and the Jesus ben Damneus interpolation in Josephus suggests that later Christian scribes seem to mistake any use of the name as referring to the messianic Jesus.
I realise that as hypothesis it suffers from not being particularly parsimonious but one that might be addressed?
In the Gospels, it’s not conflation, but deliberate emulation. For example, it’s already in mainstream literature that Mark appears to have modeled the crucifixion narrative on the story of Jesus ben Ananias who died in the 60s during the siege of Jerusalem. (I discuss this and cite the literature in OHJ.)
And many sayings of Jesus actually originated as sayings of apostles, like Paul. They were then simply repackaged and rewritten as sayings of Jesus.
I have not seen any evidence of accidental conflation. When things get “layered on” to Jesus, it always looks deliberate.
I”m leaning toward the mythicist position but am wondering how you would explain Paul’s remarks in 1Thessalonians 2:14-15 where he seems to imply that Jesus was killed by the Jews (who reside on earth and not in a celestial realm)? Thank you for considering.
Since humans enjoy stories, I am wondering what you believe is the most likely story of the origin of Christianity since we don’t have a historical Jesus to blame.
Why did someone (Eusebius?) need to forge the “Testimonium” and the Emmaus incident in Luke?
Why did the Church retain the mutually contradictory “gospels”?
Why did Justin Martyr admit there was not much difference between the Christ story and older Pagan myths?
AC
Hi Richard,
Do you think 1 Peter and James could have been written by the historical apostles Peter/Cephas and James, mentioned by Paul in Galatians? The main arguments I hear against this hypothesis have to do with the supposed illiteracy of the Aramaic-speaking disciples of Jesus, but in the Mythicist theory I guess that goes out the window. Is it reasonable to suppose the Christ Cult leaders from Jerusalem would be able to write literary Greek?
Thanks a lot!
Roy
You believe that Jesus Christ was originally conceived of as a celestial being crucified in the lower heavens. Since this requires the early Christians themselves to have held this belief, and for other Christians (who considered Jesus a flesh-and-blood human) to have later outnumbered and finally replaced them, when did this transitional period end? How late a date does your theory posit for when the knowledge of Jesus’ “true” nature was lost? When did the last Christians live who believed in a non-terrestrial Jesus?
Hi Richard,
What do you think about this argument against the historicity of Jesus (argument I call Reductio ad Paulum):
1) If Jesus existed, the first evangelist would invent a biography, symbolic as you want, but still related to sayings or actions of Jesus (and only him).
2) Instead, the first evangelist operates the so-called Reductio ad Paulum: what Paul said, did, wrote and imagined he symbolically and narratively referred to his Jesus.
3) Point 2 shows that the first evangelist had no other source of access to Jesus that was not the mystical experience of the Apostle who had ”seen’ him via revelations and visions.
4) Point 3 is only possible if there were no other sources of access to Jesus.
5) the simplest explanation that explains the necessity of Reductio ad Paulum in the first gospel is that a historical Jesus never existed.
This Reductio ad Paulum operated in Mark (the gospel on which all others are based) reminds me to the argument listed from some theist apologists: see the reflection of the Creator in the beauty of creation. Now, if the only way for to see God is to see its reflection in his creation (which is not God), this means that you have no other evidence of the existence of God (probably because God does not exist).
Note that the more complete case for a real Reductio ad Paulum in first gospel is made from B. Adamczewski in his The Gospel of Mark – A Hypertextual Commentary.
Thanks for any reply,
Giuseppe
Hi Richard,
another question.
Covington made this interesting observation:
If Jesus was a celestial being, writing an account about him as if he had lived on earth is either intentional deception or it was not. Ruling out intentional deception as an unlikely hypothesis, the gospel accounts can be *intended* as literal truth or they are not. The hypothesis of *intended* literal truth is unlikely under the mythicist thesis (For brevity’s sake I’ll take this as obvious, if anyone needs an explanation I’d be happy to talk about it more). The only possibility left is that the gospels were intended to convey truth not of a literal kind but symbolic or figurative truth (Carrier discusses how this was done with other gods and how Plutarch approved of it).
Why we should think that ”The hypothesis of *intended* literal truth is unlikely under the mythicist thesis” like argues Covington?
Suppose for a moment that was Marcion the author of first Gospel, with our Synoptics (Mark too) only later reactions to it: Marcion’s Gospel is very similar to a kind of Ur-Lukas and you know that Luke sounds most biographical and ”historical” and not allegorical. And Marcion did no show of secrecy.
Is this more expected on historicity? It seems as if, on mythicism, it is necessarily more expected as the first gospel a gospel that is allegorical and full of hidden meanings (only for insiders), with an anonymous author, as Mark.
While under the historicity is expected as the first gospel a gospel that sounds biographical (as urLuca) despite all the midrash in it, and especially that does not include hidden messages for insiders only.
Under the hypothesis of Marcion’s priority, the fact that in his Gospel Jesus is an angel with no body and blood (docetism) is more awaited under the mythicism than on historicity?
I ask you: if you assume for a moment that was Marcion the author of first Gospel, you will derive which conclusion?
– that Marcion was a liar (seemingly historicist)?
– that Marcion *intended* literal truth (sincerely historicist)?
– what it would be more probable, historicity or myth?
thanks for any reply,
Giuseppe
Hi Richard,
what do you think about this criticism against OHJ? And about this from the same author?
His first point (on Epiphanius and Nazarenes etc) would see secunda facie (i.e.: on probability effect) persuasive against your view about a Historical Jesus historicized in a different place and time (he made a bayesian argument).
Thanks,
Giuseppe
Hi Richard,
if you are correct that religions typically begin with some sort of religious experience (dreams, visions, hallucinations, etc), why would you make that Paul’s (or Peter’s), rather than that of a historical Jesus?
It’s the same question that can move me to read this book of Stevan Davies: according this scholar, Jesus was an ecstatic healer who taught others how to meet God in ecstasy. Why even this Jesus never existed? It’s not ad hoc suppose an ecstatic Jesus of this kind (with relative weakness of priori probability of this hypothesis)? If Paul and Peter were ecstatic, why not an historical Jesus, too?
thanks for any reply,
Giuseppe
What do you think of the thesis of the late philologist and mythicist John Marco Allegro?
Is there anything (or lack thereof) in the Dead Sea scrolls that buttresses the mythicist arguments?
I only just read OtHoJ during my vacation (started and finished it during two rides on the Empire Builder, in opposite directions), and kept note of the pages that contained anything questionable or not completely clear (not including things probably to be found in references)…and i can’t find that note now, for which i’m frustrated with myself. It was about a dozen. Overall i found the book immensely enjoyable, in part because of its clarity and in part because i knew so little of the background material. That brings me to my overarching question:
Q1: What single, or small number, of historicist sources would you recommend a layperson read, in order to gain the best understanding of how the best historicist historians come to their conclusions?
I made note of a few from your footnotes, but if you made any explicit mention of where to gain an understanding of the historicist position, i missed it. (I also may have missed a blog about it.)
Also, now that i think of it, i also made a note to read David Hackett Fischer’s Historians’ Fallacies for earlier commentary on the logic of (better) historical method.
Q2: Would you recommend any other sources for a sense of how historians fail, and succeed, at identifying the historical explanations that are best supported by available facts? Alternatively, are there examples in the scholarly literature of similarly quantified reasoning aimed at answering specific questions (as opposed, for instance, to statistical analysis of the details of large numbers of separate events (e.g. the word frequency analysis that corroborated existing views of the authorship of the Federalist papers), which you draw upon for some of your probability estimates but is not the kind of analysis you’re doing)?
Thanks!
Has Bayes’s Theorem ever been applied to other historical questions? Such as who killed the princes in the Tower (Edward V and his brother)? Or the Shakespeare Authorship Question?
Question #1 Given the tendentiousness of Luke, is it feasible to read the martyrdom of Stephen as modeled on the Passion?
Question #2 Or can Luke be considered reliable enough to have preserved a real even in his story of Stephen’s martyrdom…implying the possibility memories of Stephen provided a model for the Passion story?
Question #3 As I understand it “Stephen” means “crown,” especially one for a victor. Yet, given the prominence of Stephen the crown, James and John the pillars and Peter the rock, which collectively an image of a doorway into the celestial temple [sorry, no, not a DS9 shout out] recalling Hebrews, can Stephen be read as a tradition of Jesus by another name, prior to elevation to the Godhead? In other words, Stephen’s martyrdom and the Passion are yet another doublet?
Question #4 Doesn’t the presence of “Herod” as well as Pontius Pilate imply that the first followers of the Way did not know who crucified Jesus, rendering all theories of origins of Christianity in a resurrection experience absurdities?
Question # 5 Or does the presence of Herod simply imply a syncretic effort to identify “Jesus” with John the Baptist?
Question #6 In general, do some of the refractory elements in the gospels, the ones that can’t be traced to scriptural precedents claimed as history, fit an effort to identify the Jesus who is expected to return with every serious claimant as political messiah in recent memory? (Not just John the Baptist, but Judas the Galilean, and even the Egyptian?)
Question #7 Can Paul’s marks be interpreted as tattoos, rather than crucifixion stigmata, which imply an Egyptian influence?
Question #8 Is it probable that an essential use of the early Gospels was in public readings to a largely illiterate audience?
Question #9 If so, then is it likely the abrupt ending of Mark introduced purely oral esoteric teaching, as revealed by Jesus to the naked young man? (Who was presumably to be identified with the reader/author of a suitable age for a first advent in Pilate’s era)
Question #10 Is the beloved disciple story possibly incorporated as bona fides, so to speak, for esoteric teaching by a man claiming to be the beloved disciple. after similar public reading of that Gospel?
Question #11 Is the rather abrupt end of Acts, which is very unlikely to have been written before Paul’s ultimate fate was determined, suggestive that no one really knew what happened to him? (As might be expected if Paul bribed his judges, then fled..or absconded. Or if he simply recanted.)
Question #12 Is it possible that the Simon Magus character was a fictional scapegoat for sayings or actions attributed to Simon Peter by hostile critics within the broader movement?
Question #13 Is it possible that the Gospel of Thomas (or Q if it existed) Is more or less the equivalent of an anthology of anecdotes designed for amateur speakers, with no sectarian commitment?
Question #14 Is it possible that Revelations is a revised non-Christian apocalypse adapted for polemic use by the addition of the seven churches material?
Question #15 Can the focus on the Temple attributed to Jesus reflect traditions of an historical person in the now lost (and likely misrepresented) Sadducee tradition, or is it more likely an expression of messianic movements after the Jewish War and/or leading to Bar Kokhba’s revolt?
I hope that you get a chance to see these, as I think they are interesting questions.
Question #1 Given the tendentiousness of Luke, is it feasible to read the martyrdom of Stephen as modeled on the Passion?
Question #2 Or can Luke be considered reliable enough to have preserved a real even in his story of Stephen’s martyrdom…implying the possibility memories of Stephen provided a model for the Passion story?
Question #3 As I understand it “Stephen” means “crown,” especially one for a victor. Yet, given the prominence of Stephen the crown, James and John the pillars and Peter the rock, which collectively an image of a doorway into the celestial temple [sorry, no, not a DS9 shout out] recalling Hebrews, can Stephen be read as a tradition of Jesus by another name, prior to elevation to the Godhead? In other words, Stephen’s martyrdom and the Passion are yet another doublet?
Question #4 Doesn’t the presence of “Herod” as well as Pontius Pilate imply that the first followers of the Way did not know who crucified Jesus, rendering all theories of origins of Christianity in a resurrection experience absurdities?
Question # 5 Or does the presence of Herod simply imply a syncretic effort to identify “Jesus” with John the Baptist?
Question #6 In general, do some of the refractory elements in the gospels, the ones that can’t be traced to scriptural precedents claimed as history, fit an effort to identify the Jesus who is expected to return with every serious claimant as political messiah in recent memory? (Not just John the Baptist, but Judas the Galilean, and even the Egyptian?)
Question #7 Can Paul’s marks be interpreted as tattoos, rather than crucifixion stigmata, which imply an Egyptian influence?
Question #8 Is it probable that an essential use of the early Gospels was in public readings to a largely illiterate audience?
Question #9 If so, then is it likely the abrupt ending of Mark introduced purely oral esoteric teaching, as revealed by Jesus to the naked young man? (Who was presumably to be identified with the reader/author of a suitable age for a first advent in Pilate’s era)
Question #10 Is the beloved disciple story possibly incorporated as bona fides, so to speak, for esoteric teaching by a man claiming to be the beloved disciple. after similar public reading of that Gospel?
Question #11 Is the rather abrupt end of Acts, which is very unlikely to have been written before Paul’s ultimate fate was determined, suggestive that no one really knew what happened to him? (As might be expected if Paul bribed his judges, then fled..or absconded. Or if he simply recanted.)
Question #12 Is it possible that the Simon Magus character was a fictional scapegoat for sayings or actions attributed to Simon Peter by hostile critics within the broader movement?
Question #13 Is it possible that the Gospel of Thomas (or Q if it existed) Is more or less the equivalent of an anthology of anecdotes designed for amateur speakers, with no sectarian commitment?
Question #14 Is it possible that Revelations is a revised non-Christian apocalypse adapted for polemic use by the addition of the seven churches material?
Question #15 Can the focus on the Temple attributed to Jesus reflect traditions of an historical person in the now lost (and likely misrepresented) Sadducee tradition, or is it more likely an expression of messianic movements after the Jewish War or leading to Bar Kokhba’s revolt?
I hope that you get a chance to see these, as I think they are interesting questions.
Just finished reading On the Historicity of Jesus. Question about the pesherim genre: you mention a few that are relevant to the currently canonical bible; do we have many still extant? Do we have any clues as to how seriously the Jews took these pesherim? I’m curious because the pesherim sound a lot like one of the flavors of “bible study” in the sect I grew up in: using the bible to interpret other parts of the bible. (But any unorthodox interpretations were heavily frowned upon, so these interpretations almost never actually gave any “understanding” into other obscure passages.)
If Paul believed that Jesus was crucified in the celestial realm, why is he never even slightly explicit about that fact? I know he mentions “third heaven”(although not directly relating to Jesus), but apart from that it would seem that he is just as silent on the multiple layers of heaven and the heavenly crucifixion as he is on placing Jesus in real history. Is this concept just so central to his worldview that it doesn’t bear mentioning?
Dr. Carrier,
Did you ever address the problem of why Luke goes out of the way to ensure and explain that Jesus was born in Bethlehem even while stating Joseph was an inhabitant of Nazareth? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to say Jesus was a native of Bethlehem if Jesus was initially only a spiritual/heavenly figure who only gradually gained the attributes of an individual in history?
I was wondering if anyone has specifically spelled out the scriptural references that support each attribute of Jesus in the Rank-Raglan hero class. Most of them I’ve found myself, but there are a few from OHJ that I’m less sure about. That is, which verses support each attribute supposed, and a brief explanation of how or why the verses support each particular attribute. This is one of the objections raised from the opposition, that several of these criteria are either not met or are a stretch at best. Having this info would thus be an excellent reference or reply to such objections. I greatly enjoyed both PH and OHJ, and appreciate the thorough analyses within both. Nice job Richard! ‘Tis a subject I’ve had great interest in for years now, and I’m looking forward to your next book! Cheers.
In what chapter does the Ascension of Isaiah mention a death and resurrection of Jesus in a lower heaven? I just finished reading the Ascension of Isaiah and was not able to find a death and resurrection.
How can you question the historicity of Jesus? Here’s his house, for Christ’s sake. http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/first-century-house-found-nazareth-did-jesus-live-there-n315871
LOL