DiscussMormonism.com

I intended to continue this series months back. I abandoned it, or it felt like I did, due to a lack of time on my part. I realize as I started the previous two posts I was not able to get back to them very timely and while very interesting conversation took place, I didn't think I had the time to get as heavily involved as I'd like. If you'd like to read up on part I and II, please do: here and here.

People get pretty frustrated on this topic, I notice. A conversation on the matter often turns ugly quite quickly. Or it goes nowhere and dismissals are the name of the game. I signed up for a Bart Ehrman special this past Sunday. Signed up, paid for it, and then missed it. Life really gets in the way sometimes. Luckily they informed me they'd send me a recording (if anyone out there is worried about whether life cheated me again, ). Anyway I don't think he got much into the topic we're discussing, but I mention him because he's popular and in commenting on this topic (Jesus' historicity) recently I heard him say he's 99% certain Jesus lived (around 1:45:00 mark into this). He usually gets worked up and at times mocks those who are mythicists for their view. "they are laughed at", he says "so, why would we ever think about whether Jesus really lived or not?" He often, I notice, refuses to engage with mythicists, although he once debated Dr. Robert Price years back, and many, including some mythicists (myself included--not that I'm strictly a mythicist), think he won. Also, Dr. Ehrman also wrote a book on this: /0]Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. I recommend it. Although I don't think it makes the case he thinks it does. (and who am I? Might you ask...don't worry...just a fool with an opinion.)

Anyway, I notice most people ignore or take issue with the reference class Dr. Richard Carrier espouses in his evaluation of Jesus' historicity. Its an understandable concern. Dr Carrier put together are nicely summarized explanation of his argument found here. Hopefully it helps any who might need a better understanding of his case, which I continue to ineptly explain.

Please consider:

If you are new to the concept, a “reference class” is a set, whose members share enough in common that a “prior” prediction of a frequency can be derived. For example, “people who live in Florida” is a reference class; from it you can ascertain, empirically, a “base rate” (an average frequency) of, say, contracting covid or dying from it, for every member of that set. You can narrow the set when you know more; e.g. “obese people in Florida” have a different base rate, so if you know you are talking about someone who qualifies as “obese” in medical terms (which is far easier to do than colloquial understandings of that word would have it), then you have to use that reference class. Because you can’t legitimately ignore information you have. Nor can you run that trick the other way around. You cannot legitimately claim Jesus is “unique” and therefore belongs to a “different” reference class in which the base rate of resurrections is higher. Because there is none. You have no data in b relating to any such alternative class. You therefore must stick with what you know. And what you know is that the prior probability against a resurrection is even at best billions to one, because that’s the actual highest possible frequency it can have in any known reference class. You can’t substitute hypotheses for facts. A Christian will want to claim, for example, that “surely” the base rate of resurrections among genuinely divine beings is “higher” than for “just anyone.” But we have no data confirming that, nor any non-circular way to establish Jesus belongs to that reference class. It’s just something the Christian is making up. It’s a product of their imagination.

https://www.richardcarrier.information/archives/18711

Hopefully that sounds, at least, somewhat reasonable to everyone. So, I notice, if one is a Christian they want to eliminate Jesus from any possible reference class, because in their mind he is extra special, moreso than anyone in history. And, I'll say it, he could have been. But, as it turns out, we'd need really special evidence to support that claim. And there doesn't appear to be any (see the previous threads on the topic. By "there doesn't seem to be any" I mean that literally). Carriers says:

Jesus is the exact opposite of Alexander the Great, for whose historicity the evidence is extraordinary; for Jesus, it’s virtually nil.

Let us continue:

The best proxy I found to evaluate the frequency of historicity for figures like Jesus was the Rank-Raglan set, properly ramified. This is because it is the most clearly defined, and thus narrowest set (belonging to it by accident is statistically too improbable to credit) that contains the most members, enough to get at least a rough idea of a frequency of historicity from (no other sets so clearly and narrowly defined contain as many as 16 members). But we needn’t rely solely on that. Jesus belongs to more mythologized sets of people than anyone else in antiquity. In fact, he appears to be one of the most mythologized figures of the era. Whereas he belongs to no mundane sets capable of overriding that assessment. For example, unlike Alexander, he does not first appear in ordinary political speeches, memoirs, documents, and histories, and he was not a prominent political actor. Indeed, Jesus plays no significant role in the political history of Judea as recorded by Josephus (or by anyone else). And that’s the case even if we count the Testimonium Flavianum (even though we shouldn’t), which never ties anything about Jesus into any of the surrounding causal-political narrative—his existence makes no difference to the political or military course of events in Judea. He is solely a religious founder, a worshiped savior hero. And those people tend not to exist; unlike military leaders or major political actors (or even minor functionaries), and the like.

https://www.richardcarrier.information/archives/19009

This paragraph summarizes nicely the case for Jesus' reference class. We talked about the Rank Raglan set in one of the previous threads as well. Considering that his statement, "In fact, he appears to be one of the most mythologized figures of the era." This doesn't appear to be a contested claim. This leaves me wondering how we arrive at historicity. And yet, most people do.

Moving along, Carrier says:

In other words, what did people back then usually make up? People like Jesus. Not people like Alexander, Spartacus, Herod Antipas, etc. (See my whole chapter on how we determine the historicity of these and several other people back then, and why we lack for Jesus what we have for them, in Jesus from Outer Space). So we have to start with more suspicion about Jesus than we do with Alexander et al. This is represented in the logic of argument with a lower prior probability. As in fact it has to be. It would be dishonest to act like Jesus was “just the same” as all those other people. He’s not. He’s actually far more like a very different group of people, ranging from Osiris and Romulus to Hercules and Moses. And in that group of people, historicity is actually rare—not typical. In formal terms, if you put everyone Jesus is most like in a hat and drew one of them at random, the probability they’d be a real person has to be the same. You can’t “special plead” Jesus into having any different odds than that—except with specific evidence, which is what we get to next. It therefore cannot affect this frequency.

I think we covered the pieces of evidence people typically point to, although some of it is more nonsense then anything near evidence (like Thallus). But all things considered, it's not much, if anything, really. Paul makes a couple of notes that favors historicity (in a weak way, I'd say). Tacitus seems to be getting information from Christians and makes a brief mention, as if that can really be taken too seriously. Josephus makes two mentions, both of which, I'd contend, are suspect. So in other words, there's not much, it seems to me, to pull Jesus up from mythic hero god to real person.

And yet, without question, the majority ignore, it seems to me, this whole argument and maintain Jesus really lived. Again Carrier:

Putting Jesus in the correct reference class, I find the upper bound (the highest frequency one can at all reasonably believe) to be a 1 in 3 chance Jesus existed. Because in no way can more than 1 in 3 people in that set (of heavily mythologized savior heroes) have likely existed for real. If you check the list and the evidence pertaining, no honest person can disagree with that. There just is no credible evidence more than that many ever existed. This is, still, prior to considering any evidence that Jesus might be an exception to this. So it is not yet the probability Jesus existed. It’s just the prior probability. So if you want to get a different prior, you have to prove—and prove with empirical facts, not just gut “feelings” or unevidenced assertions—that Jesus belongs to a reference class whose members exist at a higher frequency than that. But you still can’t ignore classes he already also belongs to. You cannot ignore information you have—that is a defining feature of apologetics, not legitimate historical reasoning.

https://www.richardcarrier.information/archives/19009

So let's go with this for now. If Jesus doesn't belong to a highly mythologized reference class, where should he belong? Shall we not set his prior at 1 in 3?

In my experience, when people argue Jesus really did live, like Ehrman, there is no explicit statement or claim that Jesus belongs to a reference class. The argument gets more general leaving Jesus in the reference class, it seems, of humanity. Basically, summarized inadequately, if someone is mentioned by anyone in history, it is more likely that person lived then did not live. That seems to be about how Ehrman arrives at something like a 99% likelihood Jesus existed. Not because of much more than, Jesus lived because there were believers near to the time of his life, some of whom really thought he had lived previously, or so it seems. Who thought? We don't really know. Paul? ITs a maybe. But Paul's messages are unclear on that. Peter? Maybe, but we never heard from him, in the historical record, or any other later named apostle or follower. As it turns out its later anonymous people who thought Jesus had lived in any earlier era than they. And their stories are, it is agreed upon, all heavily mythologized accounts (including Paul's). That is enough, at least for Ehrman, to state 99% likely?

If anyone else has read Ehrman's book (I have, to be clear) and find better arguments, we should consider those. or anyone else's arguments, for that matter.

I've heard Ehrman argue, along with others, that Jesus is different than the others in the reference class in some way. Meaning his story is different. On that, I'm not sure what we're driving at. Of course, every person is different in some sense. Any obese person in Florida is different in some way than another. It's not the differences we're looking for, but the similarities. So I'm not sure how this objection should be considered effective. Surely, we can understand, that any mythologized figure, hero or god from history, even ancient history, is going to be different from another, in some way. The claim is not since Jesus and Romulus have similarities they must be the same in order to fit into a class. The objection feels flimsy and not considerate of the argument.

Carrier summarizes:

But in the end, this is how the math in there works out, leaving us with almost a 33% chance Jesus existed—at best. Because that’s with remarkably generous evaluations of the evidence, giving historicity every possible fair turn, assigning it remarkably high odds in every case of producing or matching the evidence we have, even despite how frequently unusual that evidential turnout was. To get a different result, you have to present good, true, empirical reasons to up the prior probability that comparable savior heroes existed (like Osiris or Hercules or Aesop or Moses) and/or to give historicity a higher chance at producing all this weird evidence (and thus upping the likelihood ratios), and/or present some evidence (something overlooked here?) that is significantly more likely if Jesus existed than if he didn’t (something like we have for all the other historical personages we are sure existed, from Hannibal to Pilate, as I document in Jesus from Outer Space).

All I found was that there just isn’t anything like that for Jesus. Nor can I argue the prior or any of these likelihoods should be higher; they are honestly already unreasonably high. What good reason can you have to raise them? That’s the question you have to answer—not avoid.

I've heard him many times before practically beg for someone, anyone to make a solid case for Jesus' historicity in order to compare. He doesn't think it's been done. I don't know that anyone here will take on the challenge. And of course, his work is always up for critique.

Thanks for considering. All comments and ideas are welcome.

He is solely a religious founder, a worshiped savior hero. And those people tend not to exist; unlike military leaders or major political actors (or even minor functionaries), and the like.

In life Jesus wasn't a religious founder or a worshiped savior hero. The closest analog to Jesus is John the Baptist - in life Jesus would have been considered in much the same terms. Jesus was in fact a disciple of John the Baptist.

As far as the savior stuff goes, that's very much influenced by Roman language. Caesar was the Son of God, savior of the world, Lord and redeemer. By calling Jesus that, the Jesus movement was in effect engaged in high treason. It was a rejection of the Roman imperial system.

Jesus wasn't thought of as divine until some of his followers, after his death, had a vision that Jesus was raised and taken up to heaven to God's right hand. By definition that means that Jesus was made a divine being - no one (in Jesus' circles) thought that ordinary humans could ever go to heaven after they die (that belief came far later). All the theology followed from that, but it has little to do with who Jesus claimed to be in life.

In other words, what did people back then usually make up? People like Jesus. Not people like Alexander, Spartacus, Herod Antipas, etc. (See my whole chapter on how we determine the historicity of these and several other people back then, and why we lack for Jesus what we have for them, in Jesus from Outer Space). So we have to start with more suspicion about Jesus than we do with Alexander et al. This is represented in the logic of argument with a lower prior probability. As in fact it has to be. It would be dishonest to act like Jesus was “just the same” as all those other people. He’s not. He’s actually far more like a very different group of people, ranging from Osiris and Romulus to Hercules and Moses. And in that group of people, historicity is actually rare—not typical.

This looks like another bit of sleight-of-hand on Carrier's part. He's putting undoubted historical figures of mostly political significance on one side, and legendary founder figures on the other. But there's a whole range of people in between.

Osiris belongs to the realm of pure mythology, beyond any remotely realistic chronology (some Egyptian texts give reign-lengths for gods like Osiris who are supposed to have ruled Egypt before its historical kings, but they are wildly variable, thousands of years in the past, and obviously made up). The traditions about Hercules, Moses, and Romulus recede back into the murky prehistory of those regions of the Mediterranean whose records did not go as far back as that of Egypt; when ancient historians tried to locate them in time, they ended up in the early first or late second millennium BC, well before solid written records.

But what about the Jewish prophets from the historical pre-exilic period, like Jeremiah and most of the minor prophets, or the exile, like Ezekiel, or after the exile, like Ezra and Nehemiah? Most of them are considered historical (the major exception being Daniel, whose corresponding biblical book was written centuries after the book is set). Or let's move past the Old Testament period to something more directly comparable, the last centuries BC and first centuries AD. What about John the Baptist, whose existence is also supported by Josephus? What about Honi the Circle-drawer, the miracle-working Jewish sage? What about the people from polytheistic backgrounds who were supposed to have worked similar wonders, some of whom also founded religious traditions, and on whom there is a long and complex scholarly debate regarding how comparable they are to Jesus? Ignoring all those people produces a ridiculous false binary.

Carrier simply isn't a trustworthy guide to the ancient world, which is why it's so irritating when people rely on him. And yet he seems to be the best advocate the the mythicists can dredge up.

Thanks for the comments, PseudoPaul.

PseudoPaul wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:21 pm

In life Jesus wasn't a religious founder or a worshiped savior hero. The closest analog to Jesus is John the Baptist - in life Jesus would have been considered in much the same terms. Jesus was in fact a disciple of John the Baptist.

What evidence is there of that? I get that's a fairly common type of view on Jesus, but that seems to assume there was a Jesus whom Paul and others used to mythologize.

As far as the savior stuff goes, that's very much influenced by Roman language. Caesar was the Son of God, savior of the world, Lord and redeemer. By calling Jesus that, the Jesus movement was in effect engaged in high treason. It was a rejection of the Roman imperial system.

Very good..

Jesus wasn't thought of as divine until some of his followers, after his death, had a vision that Jesus was raised and taken up to heaven to God's right hand.

Before Paul, what do we know of his followers and what they thought? By the time of Paul his followers, at least some of them (there were many versions of early Christianity in the first couple of centuries) already thought he was divine, apparently.

By definition that means that Jesus was made a divine being - no one thought that ordinary humans could ever go to heaven after they die (that belief came far later). All the theology followed from that, but it has little to do with who Jesus claimed to be in life.

Interesting. What did Jesus claim for himself?

Glad to see you chime in, Manetho.

Manetho wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:24 pm

This looks like another bit of sleight-of-hand on Carrier's part. He's putting undoubted historical figures of mostly political significance on one side, and legendary founder figures on the other. But there's a whole range of people in between.

I don't think that accurately reflects his take. But maybe.

Osiris belongs to the realm of pure mythology, beyond any remotely realistic chronology (some Egyptian texts give reign-lengths for gods like Osiris who are supposed to have ruled Egypt before its historical kings, but they are wildly variable, thousands of years in the past, and obviously made up). The traditions about Hercules, Moses, and Romulus recede back into the murky prehistory of those regions of the Mediterranean whose records did not go as far back as that of Egypt; when ancient historians tried to locate them in time, they ended up in the early first or late second millennium BC, well before solid written records.

But what about the Jewish prophets from the historical pre-exilic period, like Jeremiah and most of the minor prophets, or the exile, like Ezekiel, or after the exile, like Ezra and Nehemiah? Most of them are considered historical (the major exception being Daniel, whose corresponding biblical book was written centuries after the book is set). Or let's move past the Old Testament period to something more directly comparable, the last centuries BC and first centuries AD. What about John the Baptist, whose existence is also supported by Josephus? What about Honi the Circle-drawer, the miracle-working Jewish sage? What about the people from polytheistic backgrounds who were supposed to have worked similar wonders, some of whom also founded religious traditions, and on whom there is a long and complex scholarly debate? Ignoring all those people produces a ridiculous false binary.

Who ignored those people? And why do you think they belong in the same reference class as Jesus? The issue here is, Carrier made his case for the correct reference class. You say we shouldn't accept the class because its possible Jesus could fit in with others for a different reference class. How or why?

Carrier simply isn't a trustworthy guide to the ancient world, which is why it's so irritating when people rely on him. And yet he seems to be the best advocate the the mythicists can dredge up.

I note your take. I just don't know that we can rely on your take. I think he presents a good case and would like to see why it's not good. No one treats him, as far as I can see, as a trustworthy guide, per se. But, some do see him as providing a good argument. In the first thread on this topic, as I started all of this, I said:

know he's been severely criticized over the years but each criticism seems to come up short. He has far more on his take than sneering dismissals can defeat.

Sneering dismals can include something interesting. I hope you come back and explain why you reject the reference class at offer. I don't know that naming other possible players or your declaration that Carrier is performing a sleight of hand trick gives us much.

As a reminder...here are the elements of the reference class, under consideration:

From ancient stories there is a trend developed for defining a 'divine king' hero. Carrier calls this the Rank-Raglan hero-type. It is defined by these elements:
1. The hero's mother is a virgin.
2. His father is a king or the heir of a king.
3. The circumstances of his conception are unusual.
4. He is reputed to be the son of a god.
5. An attempt is made to kill him when he is a baby.
6. To escape which he is spirited away from those trying Old Testament kill him.
7. He is reared in a foreign country by one or more foster parents.
8. We are told nothing of his childhood.
9. On reaching manhood he returns to his future kingdom.
10. He is crowned, hailed or becomes king.
11. He reigns uneventfully (i.e., without wars or national catastrophe)
12. He prescribes laws.
13. He then loses favor with the gods or his subjects.
14. He is driven from the throne or city.
15. He meets with a mysterious death.
16. He dies atop a hill or high place.
17. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
18. His body turns up missing.
19. Yet he still has one or more holy sepulchres (in fact or fiction)
20. Before taking a throne or a wife, he battles and defeats a great adversary (such as a king, giant, dragon, or wild beast)
21. His parents are related to each other.
22. He marries a queen or princess related to his predecessor.

If you have something better or more to the point, then by all means, share.

Dastardly Stem

I have heard it said that everybody knows people do not rise from the dead so it is reasonable to think Jesus did not.

This statement, and I have heard people more respectable than me say it, contains the first point which Carrier presents without his load of analytic sounding decoration. It is reasonable. I find the proposal that for Jesus to have actually risen would require a lot of evidence unclear. It could have happened with no evidence ,small evidence or more evidence.

I find less persuasive the proposal the the New Testament is not evidence that a Jesus person who was a kind of apocalyptic prophet who got crucified by Roman soldiers existed. I think it is clear and strong evidence. I do not see the fact that the gospels are second hand accounts negates their status as evidence.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:32 pm

Thanks for the comments, PseudoPaul.


What evidence is there of that? I get that's a fairly common type of view on Jesus, but that seems to assume there was a Jesus whom Paul and others used to mythologize.

This is based on the gospel writers apparent embarrassment about Jesus' association with John. John made disciples by baptizing them. The evangelists couldn't omit the baptism story because it was apparently so widely known, but they add convoluted explanations, making John say he's not worthy to unlatch Jesus' shoes. Because the evangelists are apparently embarrassed, that helps us find the kernel of truth behind the story and their apologetic reframing of it. Similar to the legal concept of testifying against interest. If you admit to something embarrassing it's more likely to be true than saying something that makes you look good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion ... arrassment

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:32 pm

Before Paul, what do we know of his followers and what they thought? By the time of Paul his followers, at least some of them (there were many versions of early Christianity in the first couple of centuries) already thought he was divine, apparently.

From Mark we get the tradition that his disciples never understood Jesus' true nature until after his resurrection. In the sayings of Jesus (many of which are recorded about contemporary to Paul in the Q source) we have no record of Jesus ever claiming to be divine. The synoptic gospel writers insinuate that Jesus is divine, but they don't have Jesus make that claim for himself. Only the Gospel of John has Jesus make that claim, but John was written very late and is not thought to preserve the words of the historical Jesus.

So in our best and earliest sources for the sayings of Jesus, we have no tradition of Jesus proclaiming himself to be God or the Son of God. Because Jesus didn't claim that for himself in life, his disciples wouldn't have thought it about Jesus either - that is, until shortly after his death, when they had the vision of the resurrection. That vision is what convinced them Jesus had been made into a divine being.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:32 pm

Interesting. What did Jesus claim for himself?

There are two schools of thought - Jesus either thought he was the messiah (king of Israel) or he didn't. The former is the majority position, but the latter has support of some significant scholars too. The messiah however wasn't like a divine being and he wasn't supposed to be killed for anyone's sins.

So basically either Jesus thought he was the future king of Israel, or he thought he was a prophet like John the Baptist.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:32 pm

What did Jesus claim for himself?

And if He did make certain claims, how did/do they differ from the claims of other prophets/savior figures of that time?

Along with that, do the teachings which are attributed to Jesus have special and/or unique meaning/application to the human race that the teachings of others didn't have?

Why Jesus? Was he a 'one off' or another one of many? Why did he win the lottery of popularity among those that were looking for a figurehead...a God... to coalesce/form a faith/political group/faction together?

Was Jesus an ordinary man like so many others? What made him SO special to have a whole set of scriptural and apocryphal writings written in his behalf?

For all intents and purposes it seems as if he should have simply disappeared into the backwaters of history and of his geographical area without much of anything left behind.

And yet, here we are.

Regards,
MG

huckelberry wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:13 pm

Dastardly Stem

have heard it said that everybody knows people do not rise from the dead so it is reasonable to think Jesus did not.

This statement, and I have heard people more respectable than me say it, contains the first point which Carrier presents with a load of analytic sounding decoration. It is reasonable. I find the proposal that for Jesus to have actually risen would require a lot of evidence unclear. It could have happened with no evidence ,small evidence or more evidence.

I find less persuasive the proposal the the New Testament is not evidence that a Jesus person who was a kind of apocalyptic prophet who got crucified by Roman soldiers existed. I think it is clear and strong evidence. I do not see the fact that the gospels are second hand accounts negates their status as evidence.

Hey Huck--what do you make of the fact that there are no first-hand account Gospels of Jesus?

PseudoPaul wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 8:01 pm

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:32 pm

Thanks for the comments, PseudoPaul.


What evidence is there of that? I get that's a fairly common type of view on Jesus, but that seems to assume there was a Jesus whom Paul and others used to mythologize.

This is based on the gospel writers apparent embarrassment about Jesus' association with John. John made disciples by baptizing them. The evangelists couldn't omit the baptism story because it was apparently so widely known, but they add convoluted explanations, making John say he's not worthy to unlatch Jesus' shoes. Because the evangelists are apparently embarrassed, that helps us find the kernel of truth behind the story and their apologetic reframing of it. Similar to the legal concept of testifying against interest. If you admit to something embarrassing it's more likely to be true than saying something that makes you look good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion ... arrassment

I don't see how criterion of embarrassment can be elevated to the status of evidence. i've heard many concerned about this because it is typically only used in New Testament apologetic arguments, as far as I've heard. Additionally, I think it's near impossible to use as a qualified tool for discerning whether something really happened. What one calls an embarrassment might not be so at all. You mention John the Baptist having to unlatch Jesus' shoes. There is no embarrassment there. That is inserting, it appears, a story about a baptizer from an earlier generation in order to exalt this mythologized Jesus.

From Mark we get the tradition that his disciples never understood Jesus' true nature until after his resurrection.[ In the sayings of Jesus (many of which are recorded about contemporary to Paul in the Q source) we have no record of Jesus ever claiming to be divine.

Mark came after Paul, as most historians agree, as I understand it. Q is a hypothesized account. And while some think it really existed no one really knows what it might have had in it. There's no way to know it had sayings of Jesus or if it ever existed. It seems like a dead end to me.

The synoptic gospel writers insinuate that Jesus is divine, but they don't have Jesus make that claim for himself. Only the Gospel of John has Jesus make that claim, but John was written very late and is not thought to preserve the words of the historical Jesus.

None are said to preserve the word of the historical Jesus. I don't see how this answers my question.

So in our best and earliest sources for the sayings of Jesus, we have no tradition of Jesus proclaiming himself to be God or the Son of God.

This assumes two things--there was a historical Jesus and there was a source containing his sayings. Neither of which are anything more than assumptions.

Because Jesus didn't claim that for himself in life, his disciples wouldn't have thought it about Jesus either - that is, until shortly after his death, when they had the vision of the resurrection. That vision is what convinced them Jesus had been made into a divine being.

I'm not contesting all of this is possible, PseudoPaul. I'm asking what evidence is there for any of it? I grant it's possible. It's possible Jesus lived and didn't think himself divine in any sense. Its possible he lived and preached something. It's possible he upset authorities and got himself killed. It's possible he gained followers and taught them. The problem is we have no direct evidence of that. We simply have stories from anonymous authors that this all happened, without any claimed source to verify the claims.

There are two schools of thought - Jesus either thought he was the messiah (king of Israel) or he didn't. The former is the majority position, but the latter has support of some significant scholars too. The messiah however wasn't like a divine being and he wasn't supposed to be killed for anyone's sins.

So basically either Jesus thought he was the future king of Israel, or he thought he was a prophet like John the Baptist.

But neither school can demonstrate that Jesus actually thought that. All we can do is make some assumptions that seem reasonable. We don't' know anything Jesus said about anything, it seems to me.