6 ms·

exactly what, pray tell, does it say about historical consensus?

by bllguo 3y ago

notahacker 3y ago
That most of the historians involved in studying that period and forming that consensus were Christians (or Muslims) before they started... There's no particular reason to believe that a historical Jesus-figure didn't exist, but the attestations to his existence are the New Testament, written some decades after he is believed to have existed (generally believed to be based on a single document which has been lost despite its obvious significance to early Christians), a couple of secular Roman references to him as the figure the Christian cult was centred on also written some decades later, and a couple of lines in Antiquities of the Jews whose wording varies greatly depending on which of the much later copies you read... On the one hand, that's more attestations to his existence than most of the people who lived in classical antiquity. On the other hand, we have plenty of references to the angel Moroni that Joseph Smith met from a wider variety of sources written within a few decades of the meeting supposedly taking place, and I'm still completely comfortable doubting that the angel Moroni was a real historical figure.
- bllguo 3y ago
  compiling an argument that Jesus did not exist seems like one of the most obvious routes to take for a nonbeliever seeking to discredit Abrahamic religions, so I hardly think the historicity of Jesus is something of interest only to religious historians. Not to mention the significance of Christianity in Roman history - or do you also claim little non-Christian representation among scholars of Rome? and your final comments seem like a disingenuous comparison when you yourself point out the difference in standards we have when talking about the existence of figures in ancient history vs. the 19th century
  - notahacker 3y ago
    > compiling an argument that Jesus did not exist seems like one of the most obvious routes to take for a nonbeliever seeking to discredit Abrahamic religions, so I hardly think the historicity of Jesus is something of interest only to religious historians. There are more obvious routes to discrediting religious belief systems than searching for definitive proof that a particular individual 2000 years ago definitely didn't exist, something experts on the period would struggle to prove conclusively for Brian the Very Naughty Boy! The argument works better flipped on its head: proving the existence of the historical Jesus is of the utmost importance to the predominant belief systems of the Western World that preserved, transcribed or found the historical records throughout most of history and founded the academic institutions that studied them, and they believe his impact upon humanity was seismic. So far, they haven't found a single contemporary textual reference to his existence but have managed to allow the earliest and most detailed known source describing him to slip out of existence, and adulterate what might have been the most impressive secular reference to his existence. And all the purported physical evidence of his existence in the form of "holy relics" that have been scrutinised have failed the test Absence of primary source material or detailed secular accounts is not evidence of absence of the historical Jesus, but it is evidence that the "historical consensus" really doesn't have much to go on, and consists mostly of people with a keen interest in Biblical texts (apart from the New Testament there's not much evidence to study) not finding anything that particularly conflicts with their faith. > your final comments seem like a disingenuous comparison when you yourself point out the difference in standards we have when talking about the existence of figures in ancient history vs. the 19th century The difference in standards we have means we can't conclusively prove that minor historical figures referred to in legends did or didn't exist, not that we must abandon scepticism about religious texts and others' references to them if the belief is much older. Seems a bit disingenuous to accuse someone of making a "disingenuous comparison" whilst you yourself point out that I explicitly acknowledged the differences...
    - bllguo 3y ago
      I do not dispute that there are more obvious routes, nor that this is a topic of significant interest to believers. But I difficult for me to believe that secular historians have overwhelmingly less interest in the subject to the point where if there _were_ more representation, there would not be such a consensus. Or that there is some religious/secular split in opinion on this issue. > Seems a bit disingenuous... I'm more confused as to why you made this comparison right after poking holes in this argumentation
      - notahacker 3y ago
        > But I difficult for me to believe that secular historians have overwhelmingly less interest in the subject to the point where if there _were_ more representation, there would not be such a consensus I'm not sure why you expect a non-trivial proportion of secular historians to take a hardline position on the nonexistence of a Jew called Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth (I don't think you'll find much "consensus" about the historical accuracy of reports of miracles or virgin births or even donkey parades). The "consensus" comes from religious scholars being committed to their position, and secular scholars for the most part avoiding taking any particularly strong stance: even high school history lessons caution against arguing that figures must not have existed because they were referenced in mythology as well as against accepting that a legendary figure must have existed because he was referenced by a secular chronicler. Ultimately study of the sources has proved all the supposed archaeological evidence of Jesus' existence were late medieval frauds, reached consensus that the early Church belief that the Gospel of Matthew was written by Jesus's disciple was false and it was actually written decades later by an anonymous Jew who'd read the Gospel of Mark and a couple of missing documents, and mostly reached consensus that Flavius Josephus' references to Jesus were edited (to be fair to Christian scholars, they've been enthusiastic participants in discrediting much of what was once considered evidence). When cross referencing the few things written in the Gospels that can be validated against contemporary records, they've found the Gospel authors appear to have got basic stuff like Herod dying before the census Joseph supposedly travelled to Bethlehem to participate in wrong (the term "historical Jesus" is really loaded when the mundane details attributed to him are as problematic as the miraculous stuff). But there's no such thing as records to prove the nonexistence of a Jew called Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth and I'm not sure such a record ever could be a thing, so those whose faith relies of a priori belief that the late first century writings by cult leaders are particularly reliable evidence obtain "consensus" that he existed more or less by default. > I'm more confused as to why you made this comparison right after poking holes in this argumentation I would have thought my followup post would have made it reasonably clear. Any moderately successful cult will accumulate at least a handful of passing secular references to figures central to that cult after it has become popular. There is no reason to believe this confirms the existence of that figure. The figure doesn't become more likely to have existed if 2000 years pass; that's not how time works!
tgv 3y ago
Well, the evidence is pretty thin (and people have been looking hard, everywhere), and isn't necessarily even about the same person. Strong claims require strong evidence. If that is consensus on the historical existence of Biblical Jesus (because that's what the discussion is about, not some random dude who happened to be named Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus), it would make one lose faith. In history as an academic discipline.
- Veen 3y ago
  The evidence for Jesus's existence is about as strong as for any individual of the era, excepting some very prominent Romans. The standards of evidence for ancient history are necessarily somewhat looser than for modern history because so much evidence has been lost over the years. (There's really little point discussing stuff like this in vague generalities. If you aren't knowledgable enough to talk about the specific evidence and arguments ancient historians use, you can't expect to reach a conclusion anyone should take seriously).

exactly what, pray tell, does it say about historical consensus?

by bllguo 3y ago

exactly what, pray tell, does it say about historical consensus?

That most of the historians involved in studying that period and forming that consensus were Christians (or Muslims) before they started... There's no particular reason to believe that a historical Jesus-figure didn't exist, but the attestations to his existence are the New Testament, written some decades after he is believed to have existed (generally believed to be based on a single document which has been lost despite its obvious significance to early Christians), a couple of secular Roman references to him as the figure the Christian cult was centred on also written some decades later, and a couple of lines in Antiquities of the Jews whose wording varies greatly depending on which of the much later copies you read... On the one hand, that's more attestations to his existence than most of the people who lived in classical antiquity. On the other hand, we have plenty of references to the angel Moroni that Joseph Smith met from a wider variety of sources written within a few decades of the meeting supposedly taking place, and I'm still completely comfortable doubting that the angel Moroni was a real historical figure.

bllguo 3y ago
compiling an argument that Jesus did not exist seems like one of the most obvious routes to take for a nonbeliever seeking to discredit Abrahamic religions, so I hardly think the historicity of Jesus is something of interest only to religious historians. Not to mention the significance of Christianity in Roman history - or do you also claim little non-Christian representation among scholars of Rome? and your final comments seem like a disingenuous comparison when you yourself point out the difference in standards we have when talking about the existence of figures in ancient history vs. the 19th century
- notahacker 3y ago
  > compiling an argument that Jesus did not exist seems like one of the most obvious routes to take for a nonbeliever seeking to discredit Abrahamic religions, so I hardly think the historicity of Jesus is something of interest only to religious historians. There are more obvious routes to discrediting religious belief systems than searching for definitive proof that a particular individual 2000 years ago definitely didn't exist, something experts on the period would struggle to prove conclusively for Brian the Very Naughty Boy! The argument works better flipped on its head: proving the existence of the historical Jesus is of the utmost importance to the predominant belief systems of the Western World that preserved, transcribed or found the historical records throughout most of history and founded the academic institutions that studied them, and they believe his impact upon humanity was seismic. So far, they haven't found a single contemporary textual reference to his existence but have managed to allow the earliest and most detailed known source describing him to slip out of existence, and adulterate what might have been the most impressive secular reference to his existence. And all the purported physical evidence of his existence in the form of "holy relics" that have been scrutinised have failed the test Absence of primary source material or detailed secular accounts is not evidence of absence of the historical Jesus, but it is evidence that the "historical consensus" really doesn't have much to go on, and consists mostly of people with a keen interest in Biblical texts (apart from the New Testament there's not much evidence to study) not finding anything that particularly conflicts with their faith. > your final comments seem like a disingenuous comparison when you yourself point out the difference in standards we have when talking about the existence of figures in ancient history vs. the 19th century The difference in standards we have means we can't conclusively prove that minor historical figures referred to in legends did or didn't exist, not that we must abandon scepticism about religious texts and others' references to them if the belief is much older. Seems a bit disingenuous to accuse someone of making a "disingenuous comparison" whilst you yourself point out that I explicitly acknowledged the differences...
  - bllguo 3y ago
    I do not dispute that there are more obvious routes, nor that this is a topic of significant interest to believers. But I difficult for me to believe that secular historians have overwhelmingly less interest in the subject to the point where if there _were_ more representation, there would not be such a consensus. Or that there is some religious/secular split in opinion on this issue. > Seems a bit disingenuous... I'm more confused as to why you made this comparison right after poking holes in this argumentation
    - notahacker 3y ago
      > But I difficult for me to believe that secular historians have overwhelmingly less interest in the subject to the point where if there _were_ more representation, there would not be such a consensus I'm not sure why you expect a non-trivial proportion of secular historians to take a hardline position on the nonexistence of a Jew called Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth (I don't think you'll find much "consensus" about the historical accuracy of reports of miracles or virgin births or even donkey parades). The "consensus" comes from religious scholars being committed to their position, and secular scholars for the most part avoiding taking any particularly strong stance: even high school history lessons caution against arguing that figures must not have existed because they were referenced in mythology as well as against accepting that a legendary figure must have existed because he was referenced by a secular chronicler. Ultimately study of the sources has proved all the supposed archaeological evidence of Jesus' existence were late medieval frauds, reached consensus that the early Church belief that the Gospel of Matthew was written by Jesus's disciple was false and it was actually written decades later by an anonymous Jew who'd read the Gospel of Mark and a couple of missing documents, and mostly reached consensus that Flavius Josephus' references to Jesus were edited (to be fair to Christian scholars, they've been enthusiastic participants in discrediting much of what was once considered evidence). When cross referencing the few things written in the Gospels that can be validated against contemporary records, they've found the Gospel authors appear to have got basic stuff like Herod dying before the census Joseph supposedly travelled to Bethlehem to participate in wrong (the term "historical Jesus" is really loaded when the mundane details attributed to him are as problematic as the miraculous stuff). But there's no such thing as records to prove the nonexistence of a Jew called Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth and I'm not sure such a record ever could be a thing, so those whose faith relies of a priori belief that the late first century writings by cult leaders are particularly reliable evidence obtain "consensus" that he existed more or less by default. > I'm more confused as to why you made this comparison right after poking holes in this argumentation I would have thought my followup post would have made it reasonably clear. Any moderately successful cult will accumulate at least a handful of passing secular references to figures central to that cult after it has become popular. There is no reason to believe this confirms the existence of that figure. The figure doesn't become more likely to have existed if 2000 years pass; that's not how time works!

tgv 3y ago

Well, the evidence is pretty thin (and people have been looking hard, everywhere), and isn't necessarily even about the same person. Strong claims require strong evidence. If that is consensus on the historical existence of Biblical Jesus (because that's what the discussion is about, not some random dude who happened to be named Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus), it would make one lose faith. In history as an academic discipline.

Veen 3y ago
The evidence for Jesus's existence is about as strong as for any individual of the era, excepting some very prominent Romans. The standards of evidence for ancient history are necessarily somewhat looser than for modern history because so much evidence has been lost over the years. (There's really little point discussing stuff like this in vague generalities. If you aren't knowledgable enough to talk about the specific evidence and arguments ancient historians use, you can't expect to reach a conclusion anyone should take seriously).