How many independent sources do we have of Jesus' life?

Great Debates
41

Let’s look at this another way. Compare other religions and cults. Mormonism was started by a single author who wrote a single book and everything is derived from it. Islam has a single author. Scientology (yes, for the purposes of this discussion, it qualifies) was derived from Dianetics and other works by a single author.

Because of the more recent authorship, we can confirm (or refute) much of what’s written, or at least who wrote it. Older works have a worse time. Consider when rabbis sit down to discuss that the Torah means; their sole source of inspiration is the Torah. AFAIK, they don’t cross-reference it with Egyptian documents of the time to interpret what God wants.

What if…some prophet, seer, or just wacky, fantasy-prone crackpot, drawing from other stories (Osiris, etc.) and local legends, some with a grain of truth, sat down and wrote Q, or something much like it? The story was passed around, either on parchment, papyrus, scroll, or word of mouth, becoming elaborated, augmented and distorted in the process. It developed a following, a mind of its own, became a meme. It was believable at the time and was eagerly adopted with little question by the gullible. Perhaps it filled a need for those who were searching and had a mental or social void to fill.

Much like followers of Nostradamus, scribes/priests/believers searched for and found references in older works (Old Testament) that seemed to predict this new story. If they didn’t match perfectly, the new story was altered to fit, or new sections added to “fulfill” a prophecy. Data was added when copies were made. This could explain the birth story and other episodes that were not in the earlier works.

Perhaps you find this preposterous. I don’t, as I see something like this happening every day. Think of how many times The Onion is treated as a valid news source. Urban legends abound. The Protocols is treated as a genuine document for world conquest; Report From Iron Mountain is believed by some to be a serious plan to perpetuate war.

We can refute these with our modern tools, yet some don’t accept the refutation, and certainly these tools were lacking in the First Century.

I find much to suggest that such a scenario could have happened. Is there anything we know that would strongly disconfirm my proposed scenario?

As an example of disconfirming evidence, suppose we can show that parts of the Jesus story came from a source that could not possibly have had any contact with the writer(s) of Q or the first NT books.

42

What is your source for the claim that Paul knew Peter the apostle, and this was the apostle who was personally a Jesus follower (that’s two links that need to be established)?

43

The more interesting question is not whether Jesus existed, but what he was trying to do. According to Reza Aslan, he was first and foremost a political revolutionary, not a religious reformer.

44

You asked how original we can get. I think that’s it. Paul is as original as we can get as far as an actual written independent source causally connected to the historical Jesus. (Arguably at least one synoptic gospel should be just as original, but the evidence for Paul is better since he actually names names.)

So yes, now we have to ask how we know Paul is causally connected to Jesus. You are right.

I can’t remember off the top of my head but doesn’t Paul at least say Jesus “appeared” to Peter/Cephas?

-KR

45

I don’t remember, either, but any such “appearance” would be a paranormal event. Pretty much the entire story of what Jesus did after the resurrection reads more like a ghost or spirit tale than an account of a physical, flesh-n-blood human being.

And if you mean before the resurrection, why would Jesus have to “appear” if he wasn’t yet dead?

46

John 21:

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the LORD. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, BBBRRRAAAAIIIIIIHHHHHHNNNNZZZZZZ!!!

27 And there was much wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and spraying of bodily fluids.

47

They fapped on Him?

48

Yeah, and he came to that conclusion by ignoring the main body of information about him & creating a straw man Jesus out of the social-political struggles of that day.

That stupid FOX interviewer is the best thing to happen to that joker.

49

Paul himself mentions meeting Peter and other leaders of the early church in Galatians 2, and such a meeting is also described in Acts 15. Peter the apostle appears earlier in Acts and in Luke (which is AFAIK universally acknowledged to have been written by the same person) as one of Jesus’s “inner circle.” I don’t know whether the text of Luke-Acts leaves room for doubt that these are all intended to be the same person, but I’ve never seen a claim otherwise.

50

Well, partly, Galatians 2:

And, in 1 Corinthians, he mentions that Jesus appeared to Peter/Cephas, which suggests he’s the same Peter/Cephas mentioned in the gospel narrative:

Well, I don’t know that that’s entirely true. I mean, you have to look at the society of the time to contextualize Jesus’s teachings, right?

Except, Q, if it existed, was a sayings gospel. It wouldn’t have the miraculous stuff, the walking on water, the multiplying loaves and fishes, the whatever. Compare, for instance, the Gospel of Thomas, also a sayings gospel. No miraculous stories, just a list of stuff that Jesus said or taught.

51

While browsing a completely different matter, I stumbled on a story very loosely related to OP…

I’d heard that the existence of Nazareth as early as Jesus’ time was in doubt. But an archaeology team, 4 years ago, found dwellings at Nazareth as old as Jesus.

52

Since that is * internal* evidence, and not independent of the canon, I don’t find it compelling. I can write a book right now claiming to have met Bill Clinton, but that doesn’t mean it happened.

I’m aware that Q is thought to be a sayings document. But without a copy available, not even a reference specifically to the content of the (possibly nonexistent) document, I find it hard to say exactly what was in there. How do we know that Mark, et al, didn’t pick and choose from Q and leave out a whole bunch of stuff? Maybe Q told some stories that even Mark didn’t find credible, and he deliberately left them out or rewrote them?

Same or similar reference, same objection.

53

I don’t understand why you think being external to the canon would make a source more compelling.

Your book claiming to have met Bill Clinton doesn’t become more convincing based on not being included in the Bill Clinton Presidential Library.

I think you’re confused about what Q is. Q is a source for Matthew and Luke, not for Mark.

Matthew and Luke contain material in common that is not found in Mark. The obvious conclusion is that they had some other source or sources, besides Mark’s gospel, that they both used. “Q” is simply an identifying label for that source or sources that (the writers of) Matthew and Luke both drew from, in addition to Mark and whatever independent sources each used.

54

Ok. What do you want, though? A photograph? I mean, what evidence would be compelling to you?

What I mean is, if Q did exist and it was a sayings document, there aren’t any stories. And the whole idea behind Q is that it’s independent of Mark. In fact, the reason a lot of people think Q exists is because Matthew and Luke contain a bunch of stuff that Mark doesn’t, which made people think that Matthew and Luke were relying on a source independent of Q when they wrote their gospels.

55

A color photo would be nice. Make it 6Megapixels or better, pls.

I want evidence that is independent of a religious source. Josephus would be nice, if it wasn’t for the strong possibility that his data was altered, probably by a religiously oriented dude.

How do you know what was in Q, if it even exists? Can you say for sure that this or that was or wasn’t included? How do you know what Q users thought was important to repeat and what was not?

It’s one thing to hypothesize that Q exists, it’s a greater reach to claim to know exactly what it contained. Now we’re in the realm of fantasy and less of scholarship.

Because religious sources are more driven by fantasy and wishful thinking than purely historical ones.

I was trying to illustrate that just because someone writes about an event doesn’t mean it happened* if that’s the only evidence you have.*

In that case, my mistake. But my point stands that we are merely guessing as to what was included and excluded in Q and what may have been cherry-picked from it based upon the desires and biases of the scribe.

Some may object that the New Testament isn’t a single work by a single author, but a canon, with books chosen or rejected by the church, and different church bodies chose slightly different works. All true, but the church(es) chose what they thought supported their thesis and rejected all else. Do you think an atheist, Satanist or buddhist-type document would have been included? The canon was put together for religious reasons, for “truth” as the extremely-biased church saw it. And the church was biased to prove or support the Jesus as god/savior theory from a supernatural point of view.

56

We don’t know what’s in Q. We don’t know if Q even exists. Here’s the deal with Q.

If you read Matthew and Luke, they’re very similar, in terms of stories about Jesus and sayings and teachings of Jesus. Then, if you read Mark, it has some of the things that Matthew and Luke have, but not all of them. (John, on the other hand, is totally different).

Since it’s generally believed that Mark is older than Luke and Matthew (It doesn’t have an infancy narrative, it didn’t originally have a resurrection story, etc), it’s thought that the authors of Luke and Matthew knew about the Book of Mark when they wrote their gospels, and used it as a source.

But Matt. and Luke have a bunch of stuff that’s not in Mark. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance (Our Father…), is in both Matt. and Luke, and pretty similar in both, but not in Mark.

So this led to what was called the “two source” hypothesis, which said that Luke and Matthew had access to a second source document (In German, Quelle Dokument) in addition to Mark. So, biblical scholars who believe in the two document hypothesis (and the three document and four document hypotheses) use Q to refer to the hypothetical source that Matt. and Luke share that’s not Mark.

57

What Captain Amazing said.

But there’s more. Almost everything which Mt and Lk have in common that’s not from Mk - that is to say, almost everything hypothesised to have been drawn from Q - is a saying attributed to Jesus. No events, no miracle stories, no biographical details - just teachings. So Q is hypothesis to have been a “sayings gospel” - a collection of sayings or teachings attributed to Jesus, with minimal or no narrative to link them.

Which brings us to the semi-facetiou questions already raised; how do we know that Paul didn’t find a copy of Q in a dumpster and embroider on that? We don’t absolutely know, but it’s a very improbably speculation. Nothing that, from Mt and Lk, we hypothesize to be in Q also turns up in Paul - literally nothing. Q, if it existed, was a saying gospel; Paul does not attribute a single saying to Jesus anywhere in his many letters. There is no evidence or likelihood that Paul drew on Q to any extent at all, and the parsimonious explanation for this is that he was unaware of it.

58

Um.

It’ only for religious reasons that Jesus is of any importance. Politically, he doesn’t even register as a blip. If he’s a historical figure, you would expect to find him recorded mainly in religious writings. Starting out by discounting all religious sources doesn’t look like a dispassionate attempt to establish the historicity of Jesus so much as an ideological attempt to exclude a priori the most likely sources of evidence, with a view to maximising the chances that you can conclude that he didn’t exist.

You’re missing the point. Q is hypothesised to account for the material which is common to Mt and Lk but which does not appear in Mk. So, if Q existed at all, we have a pretty good idea of (at least some of) what it contained. If Q didn’t contain that material, we have no reason at all to think that it existed. And, if it contained anything more besides (and we have no reason to think that it did) it’s reasonably likely to have been more of the same - i.e. more teachings attributed to Jesus.

None of that is fantasy. Fantasy would be hypothesising that Paul read Q and decided to write his own stuff about Jesus, but without incorporating any material at all from Q.

You’ve read three feet of books on this subject and you still think that?

There’s a couple of problems with this view. The first is that a good deal of the material which was debated and excluded from the canon survives, and by and large it’s much stronger on the divinity/miraculousness/supernatural qualities of Jesus than much of what was included. If the selection criterion was as you suggest, it’s very hard to account for the choices made. Which begs the question, why do you assert that that was the selection criterion?

The stated selection criterion, or at least one of the major ones, was apostolicity - i.e. authorship by an apostle, or by somebody close to an apostle - a criterion which necessarily involves antiquity (since only the earliest texts could have any credible claim to apostolicity). And, right enough, we do find that the texts which made the cut are the earliest texts, and by and large have a much greater case for being close to the time of Jesus and the people who would have known them than the rejected texts.

So, are you suggesting that the church chose the texts which best conformed to their preconceived notion of the truth, and which best supported their claim to the divinity of Jesus, and it was just by an amazing coincidence that these texts were, by and large, earlier than the rejected texts, and had a better claim to authenticity? Because, you know, the more parsimonious explanation is that the people engaged in this debate were actually looking, as they said they were, for the most credible texts, the ones with the strongest claims to authenticity and apostolicity. That explanation fits the observed facts quite well - on the whole, better than yours does.

Again, your explanation looks not like an attempt to explain the facts, so much as an attempt to justify rejecting the canonical texts as sources to which historians can attribute any significance.

59

Right. He sacrifices himself to himself to remove a curse on mankind he created. But it isn’t even a sacrifice, as much worldly pain crucifixion is he knows for certain paradise exists and he will go there because he created it, on top the fact he put himself in the position to start with.

Sacrifice requires losing something. What did God lose?

60

I think we’ve had other threads on this, but it’s not really relevant to this one.