It seems to be in the news again, at least in the small-pond news of New Testament scholars and we mythicists who aggravate them so much, so I'll take the opportunity to state my position at present.
Typically, academic Biblical scholars describe mythicists as amateurs and nuts. Unfortunately, they're right, with some rare exceptions such as G A Wells, and -- of course -- myself. But just because a lot of people argue a position ineptly does not mean that the position itself is unsound.
Those writing the news and quoted in the news -- and not just the journalists who are not Biblical scholars, but sometimes the academic scholars as well -- often repeat the erroneous view that mythicists are convinced that Jesus did not exist. But mythicists such as Robert Price, Richard Carrier, G A Wells and myself are not convinced that Jesus did not exist: we are all just none of us convinced that he did exist. [PS, 9 January 2018: Actually, G A Wells (22 May 1926–23 January 2017) ceased to be a mythicist some time before 2000; but the difference between himself and a mythicist remained so small that almost no-one noticed it.] And we all agree that the academic mainstream of Biblical scholarship is much too opposed to debating the matter. They, the academic Biblical scholars, are the pros. They're the ones with the advanced training. They are the people ideally qualified to investigate whether or not Jesus existed. And they're simply not investigating it. Four centuries ago, almost everyone assumed that Abraham was an historical figure, and that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Today, we don't assume that either Abraham or Moses is historical, and before the discovery of the Tel Dan stele there were some doubts about David as well, and their remains quite a bit of controversy over whether David's kingdom was anywhere near as large as described in the Bible. And all of that is due to the efforts of these very same Biblical scholars, the very same ones who are not subjecting the question of Jesus' historical existence to the same kind of scrutiny.
Typically, the academic Biblical scholars aren't nuts. But many of them are religious believers, and many more are somewhat reluctant to upset religious believers, and this may have something or everything to do with why they aren't asking (in spite of the title of that book by Bart Ehrman), Did Jesus exist? but rather continuing to routinely assume that he did, and go from there.
We mythicists don't all agree about much else other than that Jesus' historical existence has not been firmly established. What follows is my own position. Other mythicists disagree with some or all of it, so don't assume that I'm speaking for anyone else but myself. For their positions, read their books and their blogs.
With one possible exception, there are no known mentions of Jesus written earlier than Paul's letters and at least 3 of the 4 Gospels. That one possible exception is the Gospel of Thomas. Assuming that those who date Thomas to the 30's are wrong -- a very safe assumption in my opinion -- the earliest mentions of Jesus are from Paul, who by his own admission only saw Jesus "in a vision," whatever that means: in a dream, or a daydream, or an hallucination, or does it simply mean that Paul made Jesus up?
In my opinion, the only significant evidence we have at this time about whether or not Jesus existed is the New Testament. All that Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus have to tell us is about the existence of Christians, which is not the same as the existence of Jesus. The good news is that we just keep on finding more and more ancient texts. Mostly in Egypt near the Nile, but also some as far east as Mesopotamia. So, more evidence may turn up at any time. But in the meantime, it seems to me, only the New Testament can help us figure out whether or not Jesus existed. And I honestly don't see how it alone can answer the question conclusively one way or the other.
The problem with the New Testament as history, obviously, is that so much of it is legend. But we can't conclude from that that it's entirely legend and that Jesus is a fictional character. I like to compare the New Testament to the Nibelungenlied. Both contain a high percentage of legend. In the case of the Nibelungenlied we have a great deal of historical material about the same time and place, and because of that other historical material, we know, for example, that Etzel in the Nibelungenlied is an historical person: he's Attila the Hun. If we didn't have as much of that other historical material, we would have to rely much more heavily on the Nibelungenlied in trying to understand the history of 5th- and 6th- century central Europe. Because of the lack of other historical material, we have to rely very heavily on the New Testament when trying to understand the history of 1st-century-AD Judea and Galilee, because it comprises a very great portion of all the written evidence we have, and when it comes to the life of Jesus, it comprises almost all of the significant evidence we have.
Another comparison I find helpful is to compare Jesus to Achilles. In my opinion, there's about as much reason to assume that one existed as the other. This, of course, will cause academic Biblical scholars to point at me and laugh and laugh, because they think it's so obvious that Jesus existed. But it still isn't obvious to me, and they shouldn't laugh so much, because their job is to explain stuff to people like me, and as yet none of them has begun to convince me that it's obvious and certain that Jesus existed.
I'm not so upset about it. I'm a 54-year-old autistic man who wasn't correctly diagnosed until the age of 45, so I'm quite used to being laughed at for all sorts of reasons. And laughter is a physically healthy thing. Who am I to begrudge it them?
But they haven't convinced me, and that's their job. To convince me, or to admit that the matter is not yet settled. When it comes to Jesus, the academic Biblical scholars -- with a few exceptions -- are not doing their jobs.
Showing posts with label new testament studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new testament studies. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Constantine And The Council Of Nicea And The Bible For The Billionth Time
Oh, it's so awful, the way that laypeople talk about early Christianity without having either A) a clue or B) any trust of those who do have a clue because they study such things all day every day for a living, the theologians and Biblical scholars, and C), the way that the experts unfortunately often enough give the laypeople reason to distrust them -- it's all such a mess.
One example out of -- thousands, probably, is the way that the widespread error persists that the Bible was re-written or at least edited at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, a notion for which there is not a shred of historical evidence -- and there are quite a number of contemporary and near-contemporary descriptions of the Council.
It seems that two different things are being confused here:
1) The purging of the Arians. I don't dispute that this got underway on a large scale at the Council of Nicea. I certainly wouldn't call Constantine an innocent bystander in this process, although I speculate -- speculate! -- that if the Arians had formed a majority at Nicea, Constantine might've sided with them and begun the purging of their opponents, because his primary concern was that the Christians stop fighting among themselves and agree to some degree about what their religion was and what it stood for. He cared about political order, not theology.
2) A 4th-century rewrite of the NT. I do dispute that this took place. Some Gnostic texts were destroyed along with the wiping out of the Arians, but these all dated later than the texts which were later canonized, and the texts which were eventually canonized were all or almost all already accepted by most Christians well before Nicea. Irenaeus, for example, (ca130-ca200) refers to the four eventually canonized Gospels at around the time that the Gnostic Gospels were first being written. He quotes from 24 of the present 27 NT books, all but Hebrews, III John and Jude.
Hopefully it's clear that I don't have a theological stake in any of this. I don't believe in God, I'm not sure whether Jesus existed, I don't believe in walking on water or rising from the dead or other miracles. I don't believe in any Christian doctrine, canonical or heretical, nor do I have any non-Christian religious (or spiritual or mystic, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) beliefs. I'm interested historical accuracy here. That's all. And when it comes to the Council of Nicea and the Bible, the historical record is unusually clear.
One example out of -- thousands, probably, is the way that the widespread error persists that the Bible was re-written or at least edited at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, a notion for which there is not a shred of historical evidence -- and there are quite a number of contemporary and near-contemporary descriptions of the Council.
It seems that two different things are being confused here:
1) The purging of the Arians. I don't dispute that this got underway on a large scale at the Council of Nicea. I certainly wouldn't call Constantine an innocent bystander in this process, although I speculate -- speculate! -- that if the Arians had formed a majority at Nicea, Constantine might've sided with them and begun the purging of their opponents, because his primary concern was that the Christians stop fighting among themselves and agree to some degree about what their religion was and what it stood for. He cared about political order, not theology.
2) A 4th-century rewrite of the NT. I do dispute that this took place. Some Gnostic texts were destroyed along with the wiping out of the Arians, but these all dated later than the texts which were later canonized, and the texts which were eventually canonized were all or almost all already accepted by most Christians well before Nicea. Irenaeus, for example, (ca130-ca200) refers to the four eventually canonized Gospels at around the time that the Gnostic Gospels were first being written. He quotes from 24 of the present 27 NT books, all but Hebrews, III John and Jude.
Hopefully it's clear that I don't have a theological stake in any of this. I don't believe in God, I'm not sure whether Jesus existed, I don't believe in walking on water or rising from the dead or other miracles. I don't believe in any Christian doctrine, canonical or heretical, nor do I have any non-Christian religious (or spiritual or mystic, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) beliefs. I'm interested historical accuracy here. That's all. And when it comes to the Council of Nicea and the Bible, the historical record is unusually clear.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
There Is A Grave Crisis In New Testament Studies
This is a fine collection of links to information about the New Testament. It may not be the best one there is, but it's the best I know of. It gives you access to a lot of first-rate scholarship.
However, if you surf over there and begin to look around, it may disturb you that the scholars linked there seldom if ever mention that anyone has ever doubted that Jesus existed.
Let me repeat that: it's not just that they all are convinced that Jesus existed: they seem unwilling to acknowledge that anyone has ever doubted it. This is more than a minor problem; it's downright neurotic. And the few exceptions, when mainline New Testament scholars do address the question, they do so neurotically. Well, they do not actually address the question so much as beg it, and they usually seem to verbally abuse anyone who asks it. There have been plenty of books published on the subject, but very very few written by people with tenure in one of the relevant fields. One of these few books, of course, is Bart Ehrman's misleadingly-titled Did Jesus Exist?
which is just out in paperback. A title much more indicative of its contents would have been Jesus Definitely Existed And Anyone Who Doubts It Is A Big Poopy-Haid If Not Downright Insane.
I know that I keep harping about the question of the historical Jesus in this blog, and complaining about the way that academics duck the question. But that is only half of the crisis I'm alluding to. The other half is that many, many other people are also disappointed in these scholars' response, and/or lack of response, to this question, and many of them have concluded that these scholars are not to be trusted about anything.
Which is incorrect. When it comes to just about any topic having to do with Christianity from around AD 50 to the present, the academics are the go-to guys and gals. But large numbers of people, large and quickly-growing, I am afraid, are being turned off by the scholars' poor performance, and/or refusal to perform at all, on that one question: did Jesus exist?
They behave completely differently, these very same professors, when you ask about other people. They'll tell you that the stories of Abraham are legends and that there's no more reason to think of him as real as there would be with Zeus. With few exceptions, they'll tell you much the same about Moses. Most of them believe there was a David, but they'll be perfectly glad to tell you why, and they won't imply that you're a simpleton or a lunatic for asking. Totally different deal with Jesus.
And so non-scholars are turning to other non-scholars for answers. And what they're getting from the non-scholars is at best a summary of some of the finest scholarship of the 19th century, and usually they're getting books much worse than that best. People who would never think of shunning the academic community when it comes to climatology, or evolution, or extra-terrestrial life, are shunning Biblical scholars, not just when it comes to whether or not Jesus existed, where it's perfectly reasonable to shun them, but also on the history, not just of Christianity, but also of Judaism, and to a large extent, ancient history in general.
Even professors in some of those other fields, even world-class professors like Dawkins, are getting a Bizarro-World, History-Channel-worthy education in ancient history. Believe me, general public: you need to overlook the one question about Jesus and realize that otherwise, these people actually are the experts. I stand by my opinion of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? but his books which contain footnotes are the good stuff. As is the stuff referred to in those footnotes. I'm talking about Epp and Speyer and Rice and Holmes and Koester and Pagels and co. I'm talking about peer-reviewed stuff by people highly fluent in the relevant ancient languages and highly-skilled in the relevant methods. It's a weird situation. The historical-Jesus question is a huge elephant standing and pooping in their faculty lounge and they're just not dealing with it, and that's very bad -- but otherwise they perfectly resemble competent scholars.
However, if you surf over there and begin to look around, it may disturb you that the scholars linked there seldom if ever mention that anyone has ever doubted that Jesus existed.
Let me repeat that: it's not just that they all are convinced that Jesus existed: they seem unwilling to acknowledge that anyone has ever doubted it. This is more than a minor problem; it's downright neurotic. And the few exceptions, when mainline New Testament scholars do address the question, they do so neurotically. Well, they do not actually address the question so much as beg it, and they usually seem to verbally abuse anyone who asks it. There have been plenty of books published on the subject, but very very few written by people with tenure in one of the relevant fields. One of these few books, of course, is Bart Ehrman's misleadingly-titled Did Jesus Exist?
which is just out in paperback. A title much more indicative of its contents would have been Jesus Definitely Existed And Anyone Who Doubts It Is A Big Poopy-Haid If Not Downright Insane.I know that I keep harping about the question of the historical Jesus in this blog, and complaining about the way that academics duck the question. But that is only half of the crisis I'm alluding to. The other half is that many, many other people are also disappointed in these scholars' response, and/or lack of response, to this question, and many of them have concluded that these scholars are not to be trusted about anything.
Which is incorrect. When it comes to just about any topic having to do with Christianity from around AD 50 to the present, the academics are the go-to guys and gals. But large numbers of people, large and quickly-growing, I am afraid, are being turned off by the scholars' poor performance, and/or refusal to perform at all, on that one question: did Jesus exist?
They behave completely differently, these very same professors, when you ask about other people. They'll tell you that the stories of Abraham are legends and that there's no more reason to think of him as real as there would be with Zeus. With few exceptions, they'll tell you much the same about Moses. Most of them believe there was a David, but they'll be perfectly glad to tell you why, and they won't imply that you're a simpleton or a lunatic for asking. Totally different deal with Jesus.
And so non-scholars are turning to other non-scholars for answers. And what they're getting from the non-scholars is at best a summary of some of the finest scholarship of the 19th century, and usually they're getting books much worse than that best. People who would never think of shunning the academic community when it comes to climatology, or evolution, or extra-terrestrial life, are shunning Biblical scholars, not just when it comes to whether or not Jesus existed, where it's perfectly reasonable to shun them, but also on the history, not just of Christianity, but also of Judaism, and to a large extent, ancient history in general.
Even professors in some of those other fields, even world-class professors like Dawkins, are getting a Bizarro-World, History-Channel-worthy education in ancient history. Believe me, general public: you need to overlook the one question about Jesus and realize that otherwise, these people actually are the experts. I stand by my opinion of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? but his books which contain footnotes are the good stuff. As is the stuff referred to in those footnotes. I'm talking about Epp and Speyer and Rice and Holmes and Koester and Pagels and co. I'm talking about peer-reviewed stuff by people highly fluent in the relevant ancient languages and highly-skilled in the relevant methods. It's a weird situation. The historical-Jesus question is a huge elephant standing and pooping in their faculty lounge and they're just not dealing with it, and that's very bad -- but otherwise they perfectly resemble competent scholars.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Are the Biblical Scholars Partly to Blame For the Shortcomings of the New Atheists?
As I've mentioned before on this blog, Bart Ehrman is wrong to associate people who question whether Jesus existed with people who question the overwhelming consensus of meteorologists when they say that global warming is catastrophic, getting rapidly worse, and caused by humans; or with people who think aliens landed in Roswell in 1947; or even with people stupid enough to doubt that the Holocaust happened. Meteorologists and serious historians and journalists have gotten through with great ease to these people who aren't sure Jesus really existed; with tremendous ease compared to Biblical scholars who seem, the very great majority of them, to be sure that Jesus existed. Perhaps the problem isn't really so much that the doubters are terribly uninformed or resistant to reason, but that the Biblical scholars are, quite simply, unconvincing.
Perhaps even worse: maybe the Biblical scholars aren't even particularly interested, when push comes to shove, in sharing their findings to a broad public in a convincing way. If there is a general lack of a feeling of pedagogical responsibility in this academic field vis-a-vis the general public, an ivory-tower mentality, then it should surprise no one if that general public is more poorly-educated about the background and creation of the Bible than it is about most subjects.
Yesterday, online, I came across someone whose tagline reads "question everything," and who expressed the opinion, which is widely found among New Atheists and people who question Jesus' historical existence, that the Genesis story of Noah and the flood was "obviously directly plagiarized" from the Epic of Gilgamesh. I responded to this person that apparently the assumption that this "plagiarism" had not only occurred but that it was obvious and direct did not appear to be included in the "everything" of the person's tagline. This person hasn't gotten back to me yet. I've been wondering whether the response, if and when it comes, will include the assumption that I am a Christian interested in upholding a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. Such assumptions are quite common when I make such remarks. I'm so often prematurely labeled a Christian by New Atheists that I've been getting quite weary of correcting them on that point. Some friends of mine don't usually bother to make such corrections. Yesterday I thought for a short while about joining them in that respect, when I had a, you will please excuse the faddish expression, come-to-Jesus moment. Why had I bothered to communicate with this person at all? Was it only for the sake of making them look (even) sillier to a small onlooking group of my friends and admirers? Or was I actually trying to make them question whether their assumption about Gilgamesh and Noah might be, not necessarily wrong, but perhaps hasty?
It was the latter. I was actually trying to get through to them and convince them not to believe everything they read at jesusneverexisted.com or -.org, and not to mistrust everything said by an academic Biblical scholar other then the famous (in our circles) few who are skeptical on the Jesus question.
I have a feeling that the mainstream of today's Biblical scholars, who are so annoyed with all of these New Atheists for showing their scholarship so little respect, indeed so little heed whatsoever, have themselves brought about this state of affairs, by the lack of the will to make themselves and their work understood. Let's not forget, the New Atheists, who make the Biblical scholars cringe with their constantly-showing lack of competence in Biblical scholarship, include, indeed to a great extent are led by, Richard Dawkins. Who is about as far from a tinfoil-hat-wearing, global-warming-denying conspiracy theorist as one can be, so much for Bart Ehrman's thesis, with a mention of which I began this essay. Dawkins and many other New Atheists are in fact superbly well informed about global warming, aliens etc. The Biblical scholars are right that the New Atheists, even including Dawkins, are appallingly ignorant about fields of inquiry involving and overlapping with theirs. But how long are they going to stand pat with explanations of this state of affairs such as that the New Atheists are former fundamentalists who still apply fundamentalist preconceptions to the study of the Bible, and smile at the others in their little clique about how ignorant those people are who criticize them, before they actually decide to take responsibility, some responsibility, for the public being so ill-informed about their specialty? In the final analysis, whose fault can this be except the specialists'?
It's certainly easier simply to find fault and shake one's head and tell one another in the clique how learned and misunderstood you are.
Let's take the historicist/mythicist fooferah. 1) If on the one hand the number of specialists in the New Testament who are not strictly historicist is actually higher than the public perceives, whose fault could that mistaken perception possibly be except the specialists'? 2) If on the other hand the firmly-historicist position is so obviously correct to anyone with a basic grasp of the evidence as Ehrman, Crossan, Smith et al have insisted, whose fault can it possibly be that this obviousness has yet to be disseminated among people bright enough that they have no trouble understanding a consensus of meteorologists or evolutionary biologists?
I've been continuing to read the standard works of New Testament scholarship. And over and over I've been reading about how, although it's now agreed that the New Testament can tell us little if anything about what Jesus did or said, it has nevertheless by now been so firmly established that Jesus did exist that mythicism has been relagated to the realm of extremists and cranks, to tinfoil-hat territory -- wait wait, what?! Where was that firmly established? And how exactly? Yes, I missed it too, this convincing evidence they all insist is there. (WHERE?! Why TF can't any of them just point it out to me, or summarize, as the case may be, the dizzyingly-complex process by which clarity was achieved?) Gentle readers, I promise you, as soon as I gain the faintest glimmer of what these people are talking about when they say it's firmly established, if and when I ever have that come-to-Jesus moment, I will let you know.
Perhaps even worse: maybe the Biblical scholars aren't even particularly interested, when push comes to shove, in sharing their findings to a broad public in a convincing way. If there is a general lack of a feeling of pedagogical responsibility in this academic field vis-a-vis the general public, an ivory-tower mentality, then it should surprise no one if that general public is more poorly-educated about the background and creation of the Bible than it is about most subjects.
Yesterday, online, I came across someone whose tagline reads "question everything," and who expressed the opinion, which is widely found among New Atheists and people who question Jesus' historical existence, that the Genesis story of Noah and the flood was "obviously directly plagiarized" from the Epic of Gilgamesh. I responded to this person that apparently the assumption that this "plagiarism" had not only occurred but that it was obvious and direct did not appear to be included in the "everything" of the person's tagline. This person hasn't gotten back to me yet. I've been wondering whether the response, if and when it comes, will include the assumption that I am a Christian interested in upholding a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. Such assumptions are quite common when I make such remarks. I'm so often prematurely labeled a Christian by New Atheists that I've been getting quite weary of correcting them on that point. Some friends of mine don't usually bother to make such corrections. Yesterday I thought for a short while about joining them in that respect, when I had a, you will please excuse the faddish expression, come-to-Jesus moment. Why had I bothered to communicate with this person at all? Was it only for the sake of making them look (even) sillier to a small onlooking group of my friends and admirers? Or was I actually trying to make them question whether their assumption about Gilgamesh and Noah might be, not necessarily wrong, but perhaps hasty?
It was the latter. I was actually trying to get through to them and convince them not to believe everything they read at jesusneverexisted.com or -.org, and not to mistrust everything said by an academic Biblical scholar other then the famous (in our circles) few who are skeptical on the Jesus question.
I have a feeling that the mainstream of today's Biblical scholars, who are so annoyed with all of these New Atheists for showing their scholarship so little respect, indeed so little heed whatsoever, have themselves brought about this state of affairs, by the lack of the will to make themselves and their work understood. Let's not forget, the New Atheists, who make the Biblical scholars cringe with their constantly-showing lack of competence in Biblical scholarship, include, indeed to a great extent are led by, Richard Dawkins. Who is about as far from a tinfoil-hat-wearing, global-warming-denying conspiracy theorist as one can be, so much for Bart Ehrman's thesis, with a mention of which I began this essay. Dawkins and many other New Atheists are in fact superbly well informed about global warming, aliens etc. The Biblical scholars are right that the New Atheists, even including Dawkins, are appallingly ignorant about fields of inquiry involving and overlapping with theirs. But how long are they going to stand pat with explanations of this state of affairs such as that the New Atheists are former fundamentalists who still apply fundamentalist preconceptions to the study of the Bible, and smile at the others in their little clique about how ignorant those people are who criticize them, before they actually decide to take responsibility, some responsibility, for the public being so ill-informed about their specialty? In the final analysis, whose fault can this be except the specialists'?
It's certainly easier simply to find fault and shake one's head and tell one another in the clique how learned and misunderstood you are.
Let's take the historicist/mythicist fooferah. 1) If on the one hand the number of specialists in the New Testament who are not strictly historicist is actually higher than the public perceives, whose fault could that mistaken perception possibly be except the specialists'? 2) If on the other hand the firmly-historicist position is so obviously correct to anyone with a basic grasp of the evidence as Ehrman, Crossan, Smith et al have insisted, whose fault can it possibly be that this obviousness has yet to be disseminated among people bright enough that they have no trouble understanding a consensus of meteorologists or evolutionary biologists?
I've been continuing to read the standard works of New Testament scholarship. And over and over I've been reading about how, although it's now agreed that the New Testament can tell us little if anything about what Jesus did or said, it has nevertheless by now been so firmly established that Jesus did exist that mythicism has been relagated to the realm of extremists and cranks, to tinfoil-hat territory -- wait wait, what?! Where was that firmly established? And how exactly? Yes, I missed it too, this convincing evidence they all insist is there. (WHERE?! Why TF can't any of them just point it out to me, or summarize, as the case may be, the dizzyingly-complex process by which clarity was achieved?) Gentle readers, I promise you, as soon as I gain the faintest glimmer of what these people are talking about when they say it's firmly established, if and when I ever have that come-to-Jesus moment, I will let you know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)