Previous posts:
- PZ Myers interviews a historian about Jesus mythicism (2018-09-05)
- How do historians decide who was historical, who fictional? (2018-09-06)
- How do we approach the question of Jesus being historical or mythical? (2018-09-07)
I have as a rule paraphrased main points that each person spoke in their exchange.
–o–
PZ: You (Eddie) say it is unlikely that anyone would conspire to create a Jesus myth, but compare Mormonism. Joseph Smith invented this “ridiculous past history for the North American continent”. And people believe this.
Eddie: It’s not a question of what people believe. We have to account for the evidence. History of Mormonism would start with historical techniques. So it would start with a real Joseph Smith. And using the tools of history we can analyse the Book of Mormon itself and identify disparate sources and influences.
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Comment: I think Eddie has missed PZ’s point here.
–o–
PZ: We can do all of that, yes, but that does not give any credence at all to the mythology that was created and believed.
Eddie: Let’s look at what a historian means by “the historical Jesus”.
— The earliest accounts of Jesus are Paul’s writings. Paul believed “the historical figure of Jesus” becomes Christ, the Messiah, at his death or resurrection.
— Then the gospel writers thought there had to be something more to this Jesus before his death so they created the gospels.
— Mark says it (becomes the Messiah) happened at Jesus’ baptism.
— Then others said it (Messiahship) happened at his virgin birth.
— Then John pushed him right back to the beginning of time/creation.
Such is a linear presentation but in actual fact it would not have been so tidy; rather it would have been different community groups arguing with one another.
The point of this is to split the historical Jesus from the figure of Christ.
So we can account for why we have a virgin birth, using standard historical techniques. It is naive to say that a miracle could not happen so there was no historical person behind the stories. It’s part of an ongoing discussion about at what point Jesus becomes the Messiah.
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Comment: Technical point. In Romans 1 Paul writes that Jesus became the son of God at his resurrection, not the messiah or christ then. Same with the gospel writers shifting the moment back further, to baptism, to birth, to the beginning of time. What they were shifting back was when Jesus became the son of God, not messiah.
I take Eddie to be meaning that we can explain why miraculous or mythical stories emerged by means of rival interests and search for deeper meanings etc among the communities following Jesus. He appears to be saying that this is how historians “find” the historical Jesus. They package their historical explanations for the miraculous tales as a narrative and this is the evidence for the historical Jesus. At least this certainly appears to be Eddie’s message later in the discussion.
To say that the narrative itself is “the evidence” sounds a bit like one of the less conservative postmodernist views of what constitutes history. My readings about history and how history is done by historians thankfully assure me that not all historians accept this view.
–o–
PZ: So there could probably be a kernel of truth there but the communities were adding layers of myth to the story.
Eddie: The gospel writers added the myths because of what they meant to convey (though they may have also believed they really happened) — e.g. virgin birth. But that doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t really born.
PZ: Granted all of that. But where did the mythmaking start and end, and where was the reality? Continue reading “How a historian approaches the question of the historical Jesus: concluding the PZ and Eddie Marcus discussion”