Reading Robert M. Price "Deconstructing Jesus"

[_Aristotle Smith]

Ehrman relies, in part, on an Aramaic pre-gospel oral tradition. But then he doesn't say exactly what it is or how its existance is established.

Does anyone here know any more about this angle?

I've never heard Ehrman make much of Aramaic oral traditions. As far as I know, Ehrman is a neophyte when it comes to Aramaic. If you want someone to delve into Aramaic sources, you want Maurice Casey. See Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teaching (2010); The Solution to the Son of Man Problem (2007).

[_lulu]

Ehrman relies, in part, on an Aramaic pre-gospel oral tradition. But then he doesn't say exactly what it is or how its existance is established.

Does anyone here know any more about this angle?

I've never heard Ehrman make much of Aramaic oral traditions. As far as I know, Ehrman is a neophyte when it comes to Aramaic. If you want someone to delve into Aramaic sources, you want Maurice Casey. See Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teaching (2010); The Solution to the Son of Man Problem (2007).

Thanks, that the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Why do you think Josephus is reliable?

[_Kishkumen]

I am not focusing on the results of Price but on his methodology when I speak of applying it to the larger ancient world. Of course you could delete the entire Jesus movement and the history of the 1st century CE is not affected in the slightest. Of course the effects of Christianity upon the larger world are only felt later on. But that's not my point.

Again, my point is methodological. If you apply Price's methods to the sources of the ancient world you end up with not much left in the way of sources, and in that sense you lose ancient history. It's lost because Price's methods leave you with no sources, not because removing Christianity leaves 1st century CE inexplicable.

You keep saying that, and yet I don't see how it is true. Most everyone I have read who has presented such an argument invariably starts saying things about ancient history that are demonstrably false or deeply problematic. They underestimate the evidence for events and people in ancient history we have and overestimate the actual historical consequence of Jesus. I recall Peterson bringing up Alexander the Great as a comparandum for the historicity of Jesus, and it was clear to me that he had no idea what kind of evidence we have for the life of Alexander.

You bring up the Persian Wars, and I have to wonder how much you know about the archaeological evidence for those wars. I am guessing you don't know very much.

And this is the problem. You seem to forget that the archaeological evidence for a single person is problematic unless that person was of some larger historical significance--i.e., one of those rare cases like a wealthy and powerful Roman, a king, an Athenian ephebe. The rest lived and died with nary a trace that can be individually identified. But bring up a major war, an important person, etc., and you have quite a different case.

Now, I may be wrong, but Price begins with the understanding that we don't have the archaeological or contemporary literary evidence for Jesus that we have for these other people. Right away, one must admit that this makes the case for Jesus more problematic. That threshold makes a difference. So, no, using Price's methodology will not make the Persian Wars disappear. There is other evidence that confirms the reality of the Persian Wars outside of the text.

As for sources, I would put Josephus and Paul as solid sources for the existence of Jesus. The lengths Price goes to discount them are simply too drastic in my opinion. Those drastic measures applied to other ancient sources would leave most of the sources for ancient history in tatters and unusable. Plus, I think Mark and Q are close enough to Jesus (20-35 years) to provide good sources for his sayings and deeds. Yes, they had an agenda, so they have to be read carefully. But it's not like most other sources for ancient history don't also have an agenda that has to be accounted for. We all wish ancient writers were objective historians, but they were not.

I don't see how Josephus qualifies as nearly the quality of source that Paul provides. Josephus is writing in the late first century CE. He obviously had a knowledge of a number of the sects that had taken hold in Judea. I would be surprised if he was ignorant of the Christian version of the Jesus story, especially since he reports it (if you dismiss the argument that his Jesus material is an interpolation). An account of Jesus post-Paul could easily be dependent on the fictions accepted as factual by members of the group.

As for Mark, I would not accept a dating as early as 20 years after Jesus without some compelling evidence to do so. Where do you get that date? Which papyrus fragment of Mark is securely dated to the mid 50s CE? Any? Isn't the very earliest possible date for a papyrus fragment of the Gospels sometime in the 70s? Well, immediately we have jumped from your 20 years to 40+ years, and after the violent conquest of the place in which the Gospel of Mark was set. Furthermore, my understanding of Mark is that it actually gets some of the historical and topographical details of Judea and Jerusalem wrong, thus militating against the possibility that this text was written in Judea by someone who actually knew the place.

As for the sayings, I almost never accept the speech delivered in a Greek or Roman historical text as representative of what was actually said on the occasion. These usually represent the rhetorical talent of the historian. One cannot even assume that the published speeches of Cicero in every case reflect very closely the speech he delivered on the occasion. At least one or more of Cicero's Philippics were written to give the impression that they had been delivered, when other facts strongly militate against the very possibility.

Mind you, in the case of Cicero, we can be very confident that these speeches were actually written by Cicero. Only in some of the Post-Reditum speeches has any kind of argument persisted for pseudo-Ciceronian speeches.

So, now you would have me believe that sayings of a peasant prophet, delivered some 40 years before their publication in a Gospel written after the fall of Jerusalem and probably in some other city of the eastern Roman empire, are accurately reported in that Gospel? LOL. Sorry. I am not buying it. I have no idea why I would begin to buy it.

We do have information provided by Paul, Mark, and Q.

And the manuscript for Q? LOL.

[_lulu]

So, now you would have me believe that sayings of a peasant prophet, delivered some 40 years before their publication in a Gospel written after the fall of Jerusalem and probably in some other city of the eastern Roman empire, are accurately reported in that Gospel?

I like Doherty's framing of the question. "Is there any significant relationship between a 1st century Jesus and Christianity." Well, that isn't they way he said it but I think that's what he means. Can one connect the teachings with the person even if there was a person?

I agree with you that Paul is a better source than Josephus.

But I don't think I'd send a man to jail on the extant evidence.

[_Kishkumen]

Can one connect the teachings with the person even if there was a person?

As a Christian I do.

As a historian I don't know how.

[_Aristotle Smith]

You keep saying that, and yet I don't see how it is true. Most everyone I have read who has presented such an argument invariably starts saying things about ancient history that are demonstrably false or deeply problematic. They underestimate the evidence for events and people in ancient history we have and overestimate the actual historical consequence of Jesus.

At this point you are willfully misreading what I am saying. I have gone out of my way to say that I am not overestimating the historical consequence of Jesus (specifically in the 1st century). I am also not underestimating the evidence for events in ancient history provided you don't start with uber-skeptical criteria like Price does. But what they hell, you are going to read me however you feel like.

I recall Peterson bringing up Alexander the Great as a comparandum for the historicity of Jesus, and it was clear to me that he had no idea what kind of evidence we have for the life of Alexander.

I don't give a care what DCP is arguing. I'm not making that argument. If you want to argue with DCP or against his theories, let me help you out: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/. Allow me to suggest a possible argument with DCP: Is it possible to ride a tapir around an Asherah tree?

You bring up the Persian Wars, and I have to wonder how much you know about the archaeological evidence for those wars. I am guessing you don't know very much.

Keep guessing Kish, because what I say will likely have no impact on you. I was making a comparison between literary sources. And on that score Herodotus and the sources for Jesus are comparable. But, why focus on what I was saying when it's so much more convenient to miss the point by changing subjects? Look, I'm fully aware that there is archaeological evidence for the Persian wars. Did I ever say anything to the contrary? Nope, but don't let that stop you from putting words in my mouth.

And this is the problem. You seem to forget that the archaeological evidence for a single person is problematic unless that person was of some larger historical significance--i.e., one of those rare cases like a wealthy and powerful Roman, a king, an Athenian ephebe. The rest lived and died with nary a trace that can be individually identified. But bring up a major war, an important person, etc., and you have quite a different case.

Of which I am already aware. Which is why I stipulated up front there will be no coinage nor monumental architecture for a single person like Jesus. But, why bother reading what I wrote when you can pretend you are lecturing to the freshmen intro classes you are no doubt forced to teach.

Now, I may be wrong, but Price begins with the understanding that we don't have the archaeological or contemporary literary evidence for Jesus that we have for these other people. Right away, one must admit that this makes the case for Jesus more problematic. That threshold makes a difference. So, no, using Price's methodology will not make the Persian Wars disappear. There is other evidence that confirms the reality of the Persian Wars outside of the text.

If you want to say that ancient history can only be about people of the stature of Caesar and Augustus, because we have archaeological evidence for them (and only for the top %0.001 of the economic brackets could we possibly even have that type of evidence), then be my guest. But, I was not saying that the Persian Wars would disappear. But then again, actually reading what I say isn't of much interest to you. Making lots of assumptions and lecturing me seem much more interesting to you.

I don't see how Josephus qualifies as nearly the quality of source that Paul provides. Josephus is writing in the late first century CE. He obviously had a knowledge of a number of the sects that had taken hold in Judea. I would be surprised if he was ignorant of the Christian version of the Jesus story, especially since he reports it (if you dismiss the argument that his Jesus material is an interpolation). An account of Jesus post-Paul could easily be dependent on the fictions accepted as factual by members of the group.

I wasn't comparing the strength of each source. Yes, Paul is probably a stronger source. But Josephus is good corroborating evidence. The scholarly consensus is that the Testimonium Flavianum may be tampered with, but the core corroborates the existence of Jesus. Plus, he also mentions Jesus' brother James, in a passage which is overwhelmingly seen as original to Josephus. So, Jesus was a known quantity to Josephus. But, I'm sure Price rejects this because Josephus and Jesus were not in the same baseball card trading club.

As for Mark, I would not accept a dating as early as 20 years after Jesus without some compelling evidence to do so. Where do you get that date?

Here is what I wrote: "Plus, I think Mark and Q are close enough to Jesus (20-35 years)." By that I meant I would date Q as 20 years after Jesus and Mark at 35 years. My apologies for not being crystal clear, I had assumed you were familiar with the standard dates for Mark and Q.

Which papyrus fragment of Mark is securely dated to the mid 50s CE? Any?

None. But you know as well as I do that papyrus fragments only provide a terminus ad quem. If you insist on papyrus dating as the earliest possible secure date for an author then where does that leave scholarship on Tacitus and Suetonius whose earliest extant manuscripts date from the 9th century CE?

Isn't the very earliest possible date for a papyrus fragment of the Gospels sometime in the 70s?

There are no published 1st century manuscripts for any New Testament sources. There is a rumor that one dating to the first century will be published next year, but I'm withholding judgment until that time. In any case, the papyrus dates for New Testament sources are overwhelmingly more numerous and earlier than for any other Latin or Greek text. But, we both know that papyrus dating is a red herring, so lets both be adults and drop the issue.

Well, immediately we have jumped from your 20 years to 40+ years, and after the violent conquest of the place in which the Gospel of Mark was set. Furthermore, my understanding of Mark is that it actually gets some of the historical and topographical details of Judea and Jerusalem wrong, thus militating against the possibility that this text was written in Judea by someone who actually knew the place.

Awesome, I'll be sure to keep in mind that knowing what a person said and did is directly correlated to geographical knowledge of an area that person did not live in and visited once for a week at the end of his life. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mark's Jesus spends his entire ministry in Galilee, with only a week spent in Judea. Maybe that accounts for some of the errors.

As for the sayings, I almost never accept the speech delivered in a Greek or Roman historical text as representative of what was actually said on the occasion. These usually represent the rhetorical talent of the historian. One cannot even assume that the published speeches of Cicero in every case reflect very closely the speech he delivered on the occasion. At least one or more of Cicero's Philippics were written to give the impression that they had been delivered, when other facts strongly militate against the very possibility.

Thanks for the lecture, professor, especially since I already knew all of that and agree with it. I've argued on multiple occasions on this board that one of the major faux pas of Joseph Smith was to put Matthew's rendition of the Sermon on the Mount in Jesus' mouth in 3 Nephi. The sentiments most likely go back to Jesus, but the wording is Matthew's.

So, now you would have me believe that sayings of a peasant prophet, delivered some 40 years before their publication in a Gospel written after the fall of Jerusalem and probably in some other city of the eastern Roman empire, are accurately reported in that Gospel? LOL. Sorry. I am not buying it. I have no idea why I would begin to buy it.

None of which I have said, but you just can't help yourself in setting up these fundamentalistic straw men which you can then mercilessly burn. Here's a little advice, read what I write and attempt to understand it before making thousands of half assed and stupid assumptions.

And the manuscript for Q? LOL.

It's in Matthew and Luke. But just forget about Q as a distinct source. It's obvious that both Matthew and Luke are drawing on a common prior written source for their sayings traditions. So, whatever that source was, it antedates Matthew and Luke. Since Matthew and Luke are commonly dated to 80-85 CE, subtract a few decades for the written source to be in circulation and arrive in Matthew and Luke's hands. That's why I put Q at around 20 years past Jesus, and it's the scholarly consensus dating. The manuscript need not survive to provide historical information provided it is quoted in a later author. But you already knew that.

[_Kishkumen]

At this point you are willfully misreading what I am saying. I have gone out of my way to say that I am not overestimating the historical consequence of Jesus (specifically in the 1st century). I am also not underestimating the evidence for events in ancient history provided you don't start with uber-skeptical criteria like Price does. But what they hell, you are going to read me however you feel like.

Well, by using words like "they," my intention was not to single you out as a person who actually took that view. I was sharing my past experience with this kind of argument.

I don't give a care what DCP is arguing. I'm not making that argument. If you want to argue with DCP or against his theories, let me help you out: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/. Allow me to suggest a possible argument with DCP: Is it possible to ride a tapir around an Asherah tree?

OK. But it was not all that different from your argument about the Persian Wars.

I was making a comparison between literary sources. And on that score Herodotus and the sources for Jesus are comparable. But, why focus on what I was saying when it's so much more convenient to miss the point by changing subjects? Look, I'm fully aware that there is archaeological evidence for the Persian wars. Did I ever say anything to the contrary? Nope, but don't let that stop you from putting words in my mouth.

Ummm, the point is that this archaeological evidence makes a difference in the overall question of historicity. I don't get to place equal value on sources that don't have some connection with archaeology and those that do. Why not buy into LGT if we have no concern regarding the archaeological evidence supporting our texts?

The fact is that you and I were discussing the issue of the historicity of Jesus. Don't complain when I bring up the fact that we have nothing in the way of archaeological evidence to support his existence to drive this point home for the benefit of lurkers and others on this thread. It is also not unthinkable that such a thing might have existed for a Jesus-type figure. The messianic slave-king of Sicily, Eunus, minted coins. He clashed with Rome in the latter half of the second century BCE.

You know, though, I apologize for putting words in your mouth. I can only react to the words on the screen. If you knew about the archaeological support for the Persian Wars, then I am sorry for suggesting that you did not. My bad. I understand your point about the distance between texts and events, which is the point historical Jesus people make in these conversations. Yes, quite a few histories were written long after the events supposedly occurred. Yet even in antiquity this was felt by some to be problematic. As you know, Thucydides made a point of relying on eyewitness accounts of events specifically to attain a higher degree of reliability than Herodotus, whose work he essentially described as a collection of fables. This is part of the reason why the archaeology is so important--because even in antiquity there were big questions about Herodotus' reliability as a source.

It also helps that Athenian dramatists wrote about the Persian Wars independently, and that there is also independent Persian evidence of the wars.

And this is the methodological point that I am making. It seems to be different from the methodological points that you are making, and I am sorry that this difference is causing us to clash on this. I also apologize for chiding you, when I know you are very well studied on a lot of this material. Frankly, I would be expressing lulz at many New Testament and EC scholars, because I think that their base assumptions about the reliability of the material they work with are still too influenced by Christian tradition, even though many of these scholars are non-Christian.

What I am saying is that by the standards of my field, a lot of these New Testament and EC arguments are kind of ludicrous. It was not my intention to make fun of you personally, and I apologize for clumsily appearing to do just that. We can't ignore the archaeology, and we have to make informed comparisons with the Classical material. Just because we have a Herodotus as a text does not mean we rely blindly on Herodotus. We have a great deal of other evidence out there that corroborates what Herodotus has said, and it is that cumulative case that places Herodotus' text in a different category, as an object of historical inquiry, from the life of Jesus as described in the New Testament, for which we have zero direct evidence.

If you want to say that ancient history can only be about people of the stature of Caesar and Augustus, because we have archaeological evidence for them (and only for the top %0.001 of the economic brackets could we possibly even have that type of evidence), then be my guest. But, I was not saying that the Persian Wars would disappear. But then again, actually reading what I say isn't of much interest to you. Making lots of assumptions and lecturing me seem much more interesting to you.

Well, we can't very well have certain kinds of history for people of whom there is no evidence. Social history, archaeology, and anthropology, yes. But these kinds of history are not generally about the detailed life of a single "known" individual. What I want to distinguish between here is Hercules and Jesus. We have lots of "historical" information about Hercules, but very few people would assert that he actually existed. Because Jesus is placed in first-century Palestine, they see him as a completely different case. I think they should have to make better arguments for why that is. Other than Paul, who is writing in a very theological vein, I don't see a lot of basis for doing that. That is my opinion, and yet I still think that the odds are in favor of Jesus, unlike Hercules, having existed.

I wasn't comparing the strength of each source. Yes, Paul is probably a stronger source. But Josephus is good corroborating evidence. The scholarly consensus is that the Testimonium Flavianum may be tampered with, but the core corroborates the existence of Jesus. Plus, he also mentions Jesus' brother James, in a passage which is overwhelmingly seen as original to Josephus. So, Jesus was a known quantity to Josephus. But, I'm sure Price rejects this because Josephus and Jesus were not in the same baseball card trading club.

Well, regardless of Price, I am inclined to hold as suspect any source that does not provide truly independent corroboration of historical claims. I don't believe that Josephus qualifies. At least with Paul one can say that it is less likely, although not impossible, that he could go around talking crap about Jesus within two decades of the man's death and not make himself a target for easy contradiction by those who actually experienced the events. This is the Thucydidean standard, and I think it is a damn good one.

Here is what I wrote: "Plus, I think Mark and Q are close enough to Jesus (20-35 years)." By that I meant I would date Q as 20 years after Jesus and Mark at 35 years. My apologies for not being crystal clear, I had assumed you were familiar with the standard dates for Mark and Q.

I am familiar enough to know that these dates are both approximate and optimistic at the same time. Dating papyri is a notoriously imprecise exercise, and it is clearly the case that people are motivated by their desire to place these documents (one of which is unattested by any actual existing manuscript) as close to the life of Jesus as possible. I have seen arguments, equally plausible, that date the same material later.

None. But you know as well as I do that papyrus fragments only provide a terminus ad quem. If you insist on papyrus dating as the earliest possible secure date for an author then where does that leave scholarship on Tacitus and Suetonius whose earliest extant manuscripts date from the 9th century CE?

I am afraid that the problem with the earliest fragment is much worse than that. It is a tiny bit, and who knows but that it is taken from another document that had much in common with the texts we have, but may not even be the same text. After all, the material of the Gospels was obviously recycled and reproduced in different forms in different texts.

Tacitus (OGIS 487, an inscription in Caria) and Suetonius (Smallwood 281, an inscription in Hippo) have the benefit again of being attested outside of their texts. Many of the people and events they discuss are so well attested outside of the texts themselves that it would be positively ludicrous to compare them to the mythological tales of the Gospels.

But, we both know that papyrus dating is a red herring, so lets both be adults and drop the issue.

LOL. If you want to build a cumulative case for the likelihood of Jesus' historical existence, you use what you have, eh?

Awesome, I'll be sure to keep in mind that knowing what a person said and did is directly correlated to geographical knowledge of an area that person did not live in and visited once for a week at the end of his life. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mark's Jesus spends his entire ministry in Galilee, with only a week spent in Judea. Maybe that accounts for some of the errors.

LOL. Or maybe, and this is far more likely, the author did not know ancient Palestine very well because he or she had never been there.

Thanks for the lecture, professor, especially since I already knew all of that and agree with it. I've argued on multiple occasions on this board that one of the major faux pas of Joseph Smith was to put Matthew's rendition of the Sermon on the Mount in Jesus' mouth in 3 Nephi. The sentiments most likely go back to Jesus, but the wording is Matthew's.

The sentiments most likely go back to Jesus? Well, that's the real question, isn't it? We don't know. We can just agree to accept them... because. Or we can dismiss them... because. I have no way of knowing whether Jesus delivered a Sermon on the Mount or whether it conveyed this particular collection of sentiments because we have no firsthand account of the events.

None of which I have said, but you just can't help yourself in setting up these fundamentalistic straw men which you can then mercilessly burn. Here's a little advice, read what I write and attempt to understand it before making thousands of half assed and stupid assumptions.

Here's my advice to you: recognize that what I am writing is not aimed at you alone.

It's in Matthew and Luke. But just forget about Q as a distinct source. It's obvious that both Matthew and Luke are drawing on a common prior written source for their sayings traditions. So, whatever that source was, it antedates Matthew and Luke. Since Matthew and Luke are commonly dated to 80-85 CE, subtract a few decades for the written source to be in circulation and arrive in Matthew and Luke's hands. That's why I put Q at around 20 years past Jesus, and it's the scholarly consensus dating. The manuscript need not survive to provide historical information provided it is quoted in a later author. But you already knew that.

Well, I think we see can both understand why these assumptions often amount to gentleman's agreements that are highly influenced by wishful thinking. It is optimistic assumption piled on optimistic assumption, and hypothetical piled atop hypothetical. In a situation where we would love to put a lot of faith in the solidity of the life of Jesus, because we have grown up with an entire culture built on the assumption that this guy Jesus did something so amazing that it changed the entire course of cosmic history, even those who don't buy into the supernatural element are impacted by those centuries of cultural investment.

Scholarly consensus can be wrong. The importance of work like Price's is that it bucks a lot of these assumptions and provides a kind of corrective. In the end, I agree that the mythical Jesus is built on a historical Jesus, because I don't believe Paul just made Jesus up. But it is important to interrogate what is, in my view, very shaky history. Indeed, I don't think it comes anywhere close to qualifying as history as we would understand it. I think we can safely say that there was a local leader named Jesus in first century Palestine who was executed by the Romans.

[_Res Ipsa]

Kishkumen, have you read Richard Carrier's book Proving History: Bayes Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus? If so, what do think about his methodology?

[_Kishkumen]

Kishkumen, have you read Richard Carrier's book Proving History: Bayes Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus? If so, what do think about his methodology?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. In short, I have not read it, so I am unable to comment on his methodology. I am interested in Bayes Theorem and its use in historical argumentation, but I am not qualified to comment on it. CaliforniaKid is much more up to date on this kind of thing than I am.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Kishkumen, have you read Richard Carrier's book Proving History: Bayes Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus? If so, what do think about his methodology?

Here is a review from a mathematician (and atheist) that I think highlights the most important problems. Carrier has a problem with asserting things with authority that he isn't properly trained in, in this case it is probability theory.

The final problem I want to focus on in chapter three, is the claim of BT special status. Carrier asserts it is both necessary and sufficient for any probabilistic reasoning about evidence. This is indicative of a confusion of nomenclature that permeates the book, at times he uses Bayes’s Theorem to mean probabilistic reasoning generally, then switches to using his idiosyncratic equation form (as if his claims about the former, therefore lead one to the latter necessarily), and at other times uses it as a stand in for Bayesian reasoning...

I like Bayes, it is a great heuristic, but it has its limits. There is a reason why this came out via Prometheus Books instead of elsewhere.