CARR
Yes, he seems to have ‘cleaned up’ Mark’s claim that Jesus had a brother called James.

Yes, and the reference to Mary from Mark 6:3 as well. So what? Luke radically reworked the story in Mark 6:1-6, so it’s hardly remarkable that incidental details in Mark’s account were lost in the reworking.

CARR
Yes, he seems to have ‘cleaned up’ Mark’s claim that Jesus had a brother called James.

So Ramsey thinks it hardly remarkable that the Romans crucified Jesus while the Jews had hardly heard of him?

Causing enough of a fuss to be executed doesn’t necessarily make one famous. The crowd need not have known or remembered Jesus’ name or what he stood for. And since Paul is writing over a decade after the crucifixion was to have happened, there’s even more opportunity for what little notoriety that Jesus had to fade.

And I guess that it really doesn’t bother Ramsay that the only even remotely reliable church history never mentions such important things as who this James allegedly was.

Which “only even remotely reliable church history” is this? Please don’t tell me that you mean Luke, since he had a tendency to “clean up” some of the problems one sees in Mark. Just look at how he reworks Mark 6:1-6.

Historicists haven’t done the work.

They just cannot say why the author of Luke/Acts would hide such important information or even if he had ever heard of it.

Again, this is a pseudoproblem with regard to the question as to whether Jesus existed, since attestation of James as Jesus’ brother is in Mark, the epistle to the Galatians, and Josephus.

Why would they do that, when he was not causing the slighest fuss? Nobody had ever heard of him.

And I guess that it really doesn’t bother Ramsay that the only even remotely reliable church history never mentions such important things as who this James allegedly was.

There is no methodology here for finding an historical Jesus.

It is just all ad hoc hypotheses.

Historicists haven’t done the work.

They just cannot say why the author of Luke/Acts would hide such important information or even if he had ever heard of it.

Once historicists actually produce a methodology rather than spending time counting up how many quests for the historical Jesus have failed, then the debate can begin.

I would be interested to see how it would pan out. After all , Jesus could well have existed. Who can say?

RAMSEY
Since you are so familiar with the text, you obviously know that the book of Daniel fairly accurately “predicts” the events leading to the 167 B.C.E. desecration of the Temple, you know, the stuff Hanukkah was about.

CARR
So what?

There are many Christians who claim the prophecy is about Jesus.

Yes, Christians who are reading their previously obtained beliefs back into the text. It does not follow from this that pre-Christian Jews, including the ones who supposedly made up this Jesus in the first place, would say that the passage was about the Messiah rather than a very unfortunate prophet, priest, or king, any of which are also anointed.

As for there being pictures of Maitreya, take a look at this FAQ:

Q. Will Maitreya look physically like Himself – that is, as He really is – when His first interview takes place, or will He be in a different ‘guise’ – as He usually is when He appears to people?
A. When He appears to people He is usually using a ‘familiar’, a created person through which some part of His consciousness manifests. But when He appears openly to the world, although not using the name Maitreya, He will appear as in fact He is, in the self-created body in which He manifests now in the world

Paul does not mention James manifesting himself in such an out of the ordinary fashion.

As for the reference to 1 Cor. 11:23ff., it is there because it was part of the quote. Shirley Case (the 1912 author of the words that I quoted) mentioned it as a counter to Arthur Drews’ claim that Paul gives no hint of a historical Jesus in his letters. One of the reasons for quoting Case in the first place is to note that historicists were frustrated at the games mythicists played. Speaking of which …

If Ramsey saw another religion where people summoned up the dead , who was then ‘present’ in the food the cult members ate, he would think twice before accepting that the summoned up person had founded that cultic ceremony.

I notice that you used the phrase “summoned up the dead,” which suggests the conjuring of spirits or Hollywood’s take on voodoo, when the Lord’s Supper is described more a ritual meal of remembrance. Now, do I think the first communion meal happened as Paul described? I’d say that it’s a definite maybe. I would not grant it the certainty that I would the crucifixion. However, the text in 1 Corinthians 11:23ff is far more historically plausible than you grant, and I find it telling that you had to describe it in misleading terms to make it appear less plausible.

Furthermore, some of your argument is downright bizarre:

I guess Ramsey is going to cut and paste the answers to why Acts hides any relationship of James to Jesus, or why Romans 10 says Jews disbelieve because they either have never heard of Jesus or have rejected Christian preaching on the subject.

That Acts doesn’t mention James as the brother of Jesus hardly negates that Mark does. The same can be said for other places where brotherly relationships to Jesus are not mentioned. The idea that Jews hardly heard of yet another poor stiff that the Romans executed is hardly remarkable, and I already explained why many Jews would have rejected Christian preaching on Jesus–because Jesus looks like an utter failure to them.

I’ve always been under the impression that when it comes to the historicity of biblical/religious events/people that real scholars of history won’t bother.

That the majority of works we do have is either by theologians whose scholarship is coloured by their religion or by someone of weak scholarship who is trying to make a point (rather than discover the truth) or simply sell books.

The real historians are working on things that they believe matter more. They are perhaps also fearful there is a lack of funding for such contentious research which is really only going to piss people off.

However close this may be to the truth, it is a shame. I, for one, think there should be funding for this kind of research as long as is objective and based in science. I’d love for someone to find — and publish — definitive proof that the story of Adam and Eve is the story of the Agricultural Revolution. Then the meaning of the story changes drastically — it’s not a creation story for humanity, it’s a creation story for god.

The implications of religion are so incredibly pervasive in our culture, even among us atheists. We really need to understand all the other memes religion empowers.

CARR
Of course, Ramsey knows perfectly well that Paul uses the word ‘paradidomi’ to refer to God handing over Jesus, or Jesus handing over himself, and that for historicists to translate it as ‘betrayal’ in 1 Cor. 11 and ‘hand over’ in other Pauline passages is simply contentious.

The founder of the cult founds the highly symbolic cultic meal, where the founder of the cult is finally present among cult members , but in a symbolic, not literal way.

The one thing Paul mentions Jesus as doing is founding the cult meal.

That is *exactly* what mythical founders of a religion would be expected to do – found a cult ritual in which the mythical founder is made present, if only in a symbolic way.

If Ramsey saw another religion where people summoned up the dead , who was then ‘present’ in the food the cult members ate, he would think twice before accepting that the summoned up person had founded that cultic ceremony.

He would think that cult ceremonies were exactly the sort of thing cult members would assign to the cult ‘founder’.

But because historicists just assume Christianity was founded by Jesus, they take the Gospel stories of Jesus founding that meal as literal.

We can see with our own eyes today the founding of a religion based on a non-existent person.

There is even a picture of this non-existent person at http://www.share-international.org/maitreya/Ma_main.htm

How is Ramsey going to explain away pictures of people?

As easily as mythicists point out how Paul has Jesus being revealed ‘in him’, when Jesus was supposed to have been a real person, revealed to the whole of Nazareth?

Not, of course, that all Gospels record any such alleged event…..

CARR
So what?

There are many Christians who claim the prophecy is about Jesus.

If you want to explain Christianity, listening to Christians explain their religion is a first step.

As for James being the Lord’s brother, that is prima facie evidence for the existence of Jesus.

Just as Benjamin Creme claiming the Maitreya is an ‘elder brother’ is prima facie evidence for the existence of the Maitreya.

What historicists have never explained (because they take Jesus for granted) is why a semi-official ‘history’ like Luke/Acts hides all notions of this James ever having seen Jesus , let alone being his brother?

Or why the author of Jude thinks he can identify himself by calling himself ‘the brother of James’.

Why identify himself by the rather less important brother, James, rather than Jesus, and why hide the relationship to Jesus?

And if Jude was the brother of the famous James, and not the brother of Jesus?

All this is ignored by historicists, just as Ramsey has ignored the Romans 10 point.

Once historicists start to take the texts seriously, then the debate can begin.

For example, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08542b.htm claims this Jude was the real brother of James, , yet never wonders why he does not clarify which James he was talking about.

RAMSEY
Mythicism isn’t taken seriously anymore because it was tried a long time ago and found wanting.

CARR
Of course, this simply isn’t true.

I guess Ramsey is going to cut and paste the answers to why Acts hides any relationship of James to Jesus, or why Romans 10 says Jews disbelieve because they either have never heard of Jesus or have rejected Christian preaching on the subject.

But he won’t.

Because historicists have never done the work.

Even Acts says Christians ’searched the scriptures’ to prove Jesus was the Messiah.

SO presumably they did not appeal to anything Jesus did.

That presumption hardly follows. More likely, Christians took their own spin on what Jesus did and quoted Scriptures out of context as proof-text.

But Daniel 9:26 prophesies a Messiah who will be killed.

Harper-Collins Study Bible has this note on Daniel 9:26: “Anointed One, Onias III, the deposed high priest murdered in 171 B.C.E. (2 Macc 32-34). The prince. Antiochus IV.

Since you are so familiar with the text, you obviously know that the book of Daniel fairly accurately “predicts” the events leading to the 167 B.C.E. desecration of the Temple, you know, the stuff Hanukkah was about. This is how they date when the book of Daniel was finished, after the conveniently accurate prophecies.

As pointed out above, historicists assume Jesus existed and make the text fit that.

Funny, what I see is mythicists assuming Jesus didn’t exist, and torturing the text to fit, even if it means a spurious translation of kata sarka or finding kludgy explanations for why James is called “brother of the Lord,” or bad analogies comparing someone who is an “elder brother” to humanity in a spiritual sense to someone who was described as a flesh-and-blood brother of specific persons in the past, or klugey explanations for why the “brother of Jesus called Christ” passage in Josephus’ Antiquities is an interpolation, or, at worst, flat out making stuff up.

There are historicists who probably have taken Jesus’ historicity for granted. There are also historicists who see what a mess the mythicists make and react accordingly. For a while, mythicists were taken seriously, back in, oh, 1912. They stopped being taken seriously because of nonsense like this:

As might be expected, the fundamental problems of Pauline study are scarcely touched and no fixed principles of critical investigation are followed. One takes from the literature what he pleases and leaves what he pleases. We are told at the start that no compelling proof for the authenticity of any of the letters can be produced, and yet from them a somewhat elaborate and confident exposition of alleged Pauline thought is derived. Anything in these writings supposedly pointing to the historicity of Jesus is explained otherwise, or is called a later insertion. Finally it is asserted that “the Pauline letters contain no compulsion of any sort for the supposition of a historical Jesus, and no man would be likely to find such there if it were not already for him an established assumption.”

At once several familiar passages demand explanation. For instance I Cor. 11:23ff., describing the last supper on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, seems to point very clearly to a specific event in the life of a historical individual. This difficulty is avoided by assuming that “we have here to do with a clearly later insertion,” at least the reference to the betrayal is “certainly inserted.” Similarly the implication of a historical Jesus in I Cor. 15:5ff. is either another interpolation, or else these experiences are purely ecstatic in character and do not imply, as is commonly supposed, any thought of a definite historical person whose death preceded these unusual manifestations. It is a convenient elasticity of critical method which can allow these options. Again, the mention of “brothers” of the Lord, as in I Cor. 9:5 and Gal. 1:19, is to be understood in the sense of community brotherhood. Yet we are not told why Paul in the same context should not have included Peter and Barnabas in this brotherhood. Moreover brothers in the Lord, not brothers of the Lord, is Paul’s mode of thought for the community relationship. These are typical examples of both the brevity and the method Drews uses in disposing of the Pauline evidence. It is difficult to take arguments of this sort seriously, particularly when they are presented so briefly and with no apparent ground of justification except the presupposition that a historical Jesus must not be recognized.

Look familiar? The mythicists’ attempts to explain away “brothers of the Lord” haven’t gotten any more elegant since 1912. Or take this, from the same book written in 1912:

Much is made of the critics’ disagreement on questions of detail, and of their inability to fix upon a definite quantum of information

Again, this is not only familiar, it is one of your lines of argument. How many times have we seen in this thread you argue that because historicists disagree on various details, the bare fact of Jesus’ existence is suspect? It was no more cogent in 1912 than it is now.

Mythicism isn’t taken seriously anymore because it was tried a long time ago and found wanting.

CARR
Historicists also face this question.

Why did Paul claim Jesus was the Messiah?

Even Acts says Christians ‘searched the scriptures’ to prove Jesus was the Messiah.

SO presumably they did not appeal to anything Jesus did.

But Daniel 9:26 prophesies a Messiah who will be killed.

And historicists have to take seriously Paul’s claim that there were different Jesus’s being preached , rather than say there was just one Jesus being preached.

Sorry, but that is what the text says.

Historicists do not deal with the texts,preferring to engage in abuse and calling people ‘foolish’ who take seriously what Paul writes.

As pointed out above, historicists assume Jesus existed and make the text fit that.

That is a bad methodology.

Let historicists do the work and find out what Paul meant by saying people were following a different Jesus (and he preached a crucified Jesus)

And stop calling people ‘foolish’ for asking them to look at the text.

Abuse is not scholarship, even if historicists can think of no other answer.

Why would anybody make up ‘out of whole cloth’ the castration of Attis, or Adonis being impaled by a boar?

People did those sorts of things.

For Paul, it was *necessary* that Jesus was crucified.

Jewish religion was based on sacrifice.

Historicists also have to explain why Jesus was crucified – something they cannot agree on.