Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:Jeesh, what a stickler.
DWill, you are engaged in a systematic effort in this thread to justify and redefine Christian apologetics. So when you play fast and loose with definitions by implying people can both hold beliefs and not hold them, contrary to logic, then the way you are using this convenient word to hold is worth some examination.
What are Christian apologetics? Do they not centrally involve such claims as the special divine characteristics of Jesus, the absolute reliability of the Gospels, the assuredness that Jesus died for our sins and rose to be reunited with his father? Not even at the end of that list would come, "oh, yes, that he really existed." You yourself have redefined apologetics in order to assert that that single element is more or less sufficient to qualify one as a believer. To get a ruling, the believer community is definitely who you want to consult. Is Donald Trump a conservative? Only if you say that his self-professing and being favored by many Republicans makes him so, in the terms of contemporary politics. It's much better to consult those who have a grasp of the principles conservatism has stood for over the ages, and avoid the hasty associations created in the political moment. Ehrman's reactionary stance (in your view) causes you to consign him to a group with whose principles he is in fact in marked conflict.
The larger question here is why it makes so much difference to stick a label on him or on anyone.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:How about the evidence in toto inclining one to believe that Christ grew out of a man Jesus? Is that 'holding'?
No, ‘inclining’ is not ‘holding’. That is like saying a hunch is knowledge. If I am “inclined to believe” that King David probably existed (ie if I have some uncertainty) then I cannot be said to hold that it is true. But we are not talking about beliefs held on evidentiary grounds when it comes to faith in Jesus; fervency and fantasy tend to be the rule among those who actively defend the HJ hypothesis. A useful rule of thumb here might be to ask if you would be perjuring yourself if a judge asked you if you hold something to be true and you said yes. Or do you feel unsure if you have a right to pursue happiness?
You seem to think of belief as a binary thing, either there or not. Just through observation, and without the benefit of neuroscience, we can see that belief is a word that covers a range of mental states, and that often belief is expressed with different degrees of certainty. That relates to 'holding' vs 'inclining,' I think. I'm afraid I can't take seriously your argument above, because you indicate that even the slightest 'historicity' regarding Jesus must come from the realm of faith not reason, deciding the matter in advance, as Flann said.
Or course, a matter such as we're discussing could never be the subject of a court case. But as a matter of fact, I could not answer yes or no to this question of my right to pursue happiness. I would need to qualify my answer, just as we often qualify our beliefs.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:Ask a recognized Christian apologist if Bart Ehrman is also one and you'll get laughter. That's the best way I know of to settle the matter of who's an apologist.
Apologists routinely resort to such argument from incredulity and mockery. We are talking about whether belief that Jesus existed involves apologetics. Someone with skin in the game should not be given sole power to define the rules, since they have a conflict of interest. Disinterested scholars should define apologetics, not Christian believers.
Flann did not misunderstand what I meant by the laughter remark. Can you cite a disinterested scholar who
has defined apologetics down to the fine details needed to prove your point? I'd be very surprised if one even wanted to touch the subject, because it's not a matter for scholarship in the first place.
You are now implying that Jesus must have existed because apologists would laugh at the suggestion he did not. Argument from laughter of those in positions of power is entirely fallacious. Logical argument engages with content.
Not saying that I haven't unintentionally twisted something you have said, but I didn't mean anything of the kind.
Did you even read my quote from the Baptist Pastor celebrating Bart’s return to the fold? Apparently not. For Ehrman to call Jesus Christ “the greatest figure in the history of Western civilization, the man on whom the most powerful and influential social, political, economic, cultural and religious institution in the world -- the Christian church -- was built” is Christian apologetics.
Good find, by the way. Of course I read it. Didn't I say that the "greatest figure" remark was inconsistent with his past and current work? It's even directly contradictory to it. But I strain to understand what you're saying about how this expression of piousness should affect how we see his work. That he can't be trusted, or that he must be wrong about everything?
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:So it's robustness that makes the difference. That explains your reluctance to label Elaine Pagels an apologist, since she has not directly addressed the point (though she does believe Jesus was historical--see below). That is at least somewhat clarifying for me.
I was talking about her earlier books, The Gnostic Paul, The Gnostic Gospels, Adam, Eve and the Serpent. The absence of HJ from her first works is striking. In The Gnostic Gospels (1979) she says the Gospel claims about the historical Jesus rely on Old Testament prophecy as proof, a statement that is not strictly compatible with apologetics, given the absence of any supporting comment on transmission from Jesus, required for historicism. But then, in exploring how Gnostics read this material, she notes that the Gospel of Philip criticizes the idea that Christ is external to themselves, believing instead in a doctrine of internal transformation “you saw Christ, you became Christ.” If she has reverted to apologetics in her recent work that is disappointing.
It seemed unusual to me for someone to go from non-HJ to HJ but not to faith, so I looked into
The Gnostic Gospels. You must must not have been so focused on mythicism when you first read the book. The strong historicism is there; see pp. 7-8. She says, for example, "But what we know as historical fact is that certain disciples--notably Peter--claimed that the resurrection happened." This, obviously, is not her saying that the resurrection happened, but you can see the clear historicism.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:You've effectively placed the apologist dispute in the 'not-debatable' category, so it seems the topic's time has surely passed.
What do you mean here? Which apologist dispute? The entire argument of Carrier’s whole book rests on the observation that believers in the HJ rely on apologetics not evidence. So the whole point of this thread is debating the apologist dispute. It is the apologists who say it is not debatable, as in your comment about laughing at critical ideas.
I was unclear and should have said, "the debate about who's an apologist." By stipulating that anyone who thinks that Jesus could have existed is doing so against reason, you've already decided the outcome.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:Some blindness on your part here, I'm afraid, Robert, regarding the relevance of the charge.
You have some gall DWill, wandering into a discussion about a book that seeks to prove that holding Jesus as historical involves apologetics, and making the false accusation that my agreement with that is blind, while for your part you refuse to even read the literature that refutes your emotional prejudice.
Okay, you're right that I shouldn't have kept dipping into this discussion. I've simply always thought it's unfortunate that a fine mind has a propensity for the scorched earth so often, when holding back and indicating some flexibility would be more effective. I'm going to say whatever else I might want to on this subject in a new thread.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:You say you take Carrier to task for his atheist influence, but regarding the main matter, you don't consider it an undue influence on his thinking. But Ehrman's sympathies are for you proof that his brain has been hijacked by faith.
Atheism is the religion of modern science, and is logical and correct in its positive claims. Ehrman’s atavistic Baptist Faith in “the greatest man who ever lived” is a primitive emotional throwback. I support atheism, while arguing that atheism needs respectful dialogue with theology from a non-compromising stance regarding evidence and logic, which should be our highest values. That does not mean respect for apologetics that accept the Bible as Gospel Truth. It is fine to talk with Pagels and Crossan and read Tillich and Barth, but fundy tub-thumpers are beyond the pale.
Woe be to science if it gets a religion. I could be forgiven for thinking that you have just called Ehrman a fundy tub-thumper. Try to forget your dislike of him and have a look at the topics he covers in his new book. Is that a fundamentalist writing or a godless heathen?
http://www.bartdehrman.com/jesus-before-the-gospels/
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:I do not recall the passage you mention, where he compares mythicism to Nazism. I should look at it. Has he been guilty of some immoderate language? The topic does seem to excite passions to that extent on both sides. I question whether such language amounts to censorship.
I was talking about the quote just here where the Baptist Pastor approves Ehrman’s statement that “In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?” That is comparing mythicists to Nazis and is a disgraceful censorious debating tactic.
I think you take that remark too far, though I agree that the comparison he suggests is not apples-to-apples in terms of being outrageous. He's not equating mythicists with Nazis; indeed, that wouldn't make any sense at all. He's saying the two claims are equal in terms of self-evident falsity, which does appear to be his own "taking too far."
Now you are engaged in the empty politics you criticized. The suppression of heresy by Christendom and the early church is abundantly documented, and easily refutes your assertion.
You have accidentally garbled and swapped our comments here. Your innocuous term “opposition” is a highly apologetic code for “Search and Destroy”. I have several times referenced the Edicts of Theodosius. See
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/theodosius.html for information on how the alliance of state and altar conspired to eliminate all trace of perceived heresy. I did not mention conspiracy because you are just using it as an attack word aimed at guilt by association.
The early Church is usually agreed to be the institution before 325. The edicts you refer to were issued in 380. Look, even before 325 there was an awful lot of heresy-hunting going on, as well as what could be called an orthodox establishment. No doubt this was hardball. It's important not to assume, though, that full-fledged persecution was happening, if you are assuming that. I saw an interesting interview with Pagels in which she is asked a question about persecution of gnostics.
"In popular culture there’s this romanticized vision of the Catholic Church hunting down Gnostics in the second and third centuries and destroying them. But we really don’t have any evidence. It’s more like they probably just faded away.
Well nothing like that. In fact I assumed when I first wrote that Irenaeus had said they were bad, and so they did just kind of fade away, but the fact is: where did we find these texts? We found them in Egypt in the fourth century-fourth century!-being read, we now think, in a monastery. So if they’re being read in a monastery in the fourth century, they didn’t fade away. People were reading this stuff intensely and with great interest, and they were only stamped out with huge difficulty by Athanasius at the end of the fourth century when he told them to get rid of these other books in his letter of 367. But Christians were reading this material intensely as devotional literature. We can now see that."
http://realitysandwich.com/96150/gnosti ... ne_pagels/
I don't use 'conspiracy' as an attack word. If the contention is that, for example, some group decided to produce false gospels in a effort to better corral the masses, then conspiracy is simply a description of what has been claimed to have happened.
If you bothered to read Carrier, you would note his extraordinary observation that we have basically no Christian literature except the Gospels for the half century or so after Paul, which is readily explained by the abundantly documented mass destruction of heretical literature on pain of death. That is a conspiracy.
Please tell me that Carrier doesn't accept this gap at face value as proof of destruction by enemies of divergent viewpoints. I'd have less respect for him as a historian if he does. He has a skeptic's duty to track down all the relevant facts and circumstances. A number of questions should be addressed before anyone arrives as such a conclusion. The first that comes to me is why is there
nothing in the way of Christian literature, if there has been such a mass destruction by an orthodox power? Wouldn't we expect to find the
right literature to have survived?
There is a good new article on conspiracy theory which explains why the moon hoax, vaccine, climate and cancer cure conspiracies are implausible. See
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... es/7129400 When similar analysis is applied to actual mythicist claims about Christian origins, rather than the vacuous smears by apologists, your rhetoric about conspiracy theory will be shown to be empty of content. As I noted in my review of Ehrman, his critique of The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S, whom he describes in terms worthy of a hysterical fatwa, is entirely empty of content except for a small date mistake.
Well, clearly not
all of mythicism is claimed by its critics to be a conspiracy theory, and I didn't say it was, either. I said, or meant, that it's likely that claims of particular conspiracies, such as the one mentioned above, will impede its acceptance. This is so because of lack of evidence but also, in certain cases, because of lack of basic plausibility.
We are talking specifically in this thread about views that Jesus Christ did not exist. The Bible explicitly makes such views anathema. Shunning of mythicism became the orthodox position early in the second century as churches found the traction available in the claim that their imagined Christ was actually a real person living a century ago, and the political advantage of excluding all who questioned this dogma.
Except that mythicism in this modern form had never occurred to these authorities. Perhaps you are thinking of Docetism as denying that Jesus ever existed, but it stated that he was not the same as other mortals in terms of physical reality. He was still present, though.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote: Before that, there was a great deal of jockeying for position regarding the true faith, with charges of heretical beliefs flung about, but power to suppress anything probably still rested with Rome.
Okay, lets settle for 90% of the time with a bit of slack where magistrates were not fanatical. The result is that almost all heretical literature was suppressed and lost from Christendom except for extracts quoted by its enemies and one bunch of jars carefully hidden in the desert sands of southern Egypt. There is also the fascinating extensive use of zodiac symbolism in numerous churches, apparently allowed within orthodoxy despite the fatwas against witches. What is your point?
Probably no strong disagreement other than when the bulk of this purging was likely to have taken place. But also, if you are saying that because after Constantine suppression greatly increased, we can then generalize about the period following as one where Church oppression was more or less constant, that isn't a valid assumption. You have to dig into the specifics of any period to the extent that the information is available. For anti-Catholics, it can be challenging to remain objective.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:Certainty is probably most felt in matters not involving pure fact.
Does that means you are not sure if New York is west of Virginia or if night follows day? Or are you sure but not certain? Pure simple fact is the main area of certainty.
That's right, I don't need to feel certain about those facts, or to generate the mental process of certainty about them. The feeling of being certain is really an important and necessary thing in our social lives. Back when I first joined up here, we read a book by the neurologist Robert Burton,
On Being Certain. He talked about that dimension of our minds whereby we defend some propositions as true. But these are not like the facts you mention, which have little to do with how we relate to others and so can be kept in the background as what you call knowledge. Individuals differ widely in experiencing feelings of certitude about those matters subject to opinion.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:We only need to generate feelings of certainty towards those propositions that we can have opinions about.
Sorry but that makes no sense. We are certain about basic facts of life. Certainty is about knowledge, not feelings. To say that emotional sentiments can be classed as certain is an abuse of language and epistemology, albeit one much perpetrated by apologists who are certain in their hearts that Jesus existed.
No, the feeling is like a propellant but has nothing essential to do with how true the proposition is. Often the most certain one in a group will be able to carry the day, though.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:We do well to recognize that the feelings of certainty aren't the same as validation of the truth.
Absolutely true. But, OHJ is not about “feelings of certainty”. It is about statistical analysis of evidence. Your personal “feelings of certainty” regarding the HJ are irrelevant in a historical debate, since if your feeling was justified you could back it up with facts. The problem here is that apologists impudently use the Pope’s stratagem against Galileo of refusing to look at evidence.
I didn't think that you'd take that direction from my statement. Obviously I implied that feelings are not related to truth. The feeling simply relates to how strongly we present our beliefs.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:I'm going to save Paul's writings for another time, perhaps. I assume that you have read them through recently enough to have them fairly fresh in mind. There is a lot of quote-mining that goes on in an attempt to selectively reduce the meaning of those letters, so that the purpose and concerns most prominent in them are obscured.
You might like to also read a detailed systematic analysis of the actual language Paul used about Jesus. It is called On the Historicity of Jesus, and is written by Richard Carrier. I have just read it and highly recommend it as an excellent informed analysis of current scholarship on this topic. There is a whole thread here ready and waiting for discussion of that chapter on Paul.
But let's not forget to read, was what I was getting at. If in the effort of "detailed systematic analysis" we bury or bypass the primary intellectual and emotional impact that literature exerts on our minds, we've missed the boat. From that higher level of meaning, we get much evidence, too.
Robert Tulip wrote:DWill wrote:These charges of piety and faith do become rather grating, I must say.
Well yes, when you are defending piety and faith by claiming there is historical evidence for Jesus Christ when in fact there is not, it is unsurprising that you would shy away from such observations. I have nothing against piety and faith in principle, except when people use them in a deceptive way to assert that claims based on faith must be true when modern standards of evidence and reason indicate they are false.
You really don't see that what you are doing here is begging the question?