I was just now looking through some old posts on the blog — there over 2000 of them, since 2012 — and ran across one that struck me as particularly relevant, to me at least. It’s the topic I’ll be discussing with my PhD students on Tuesday, and it turns out this is what I first said about it in a post I made nine years ago. I’ll say pretty much the same thing on Tuesday!
It’s in response to a question from a reader, about how scholars try to determine what Jesus said and did.
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QUESTION:
I’ve seen, somewhere on the internet (I know, great source!) some discussion that modern scholarship is moving away from the idea of criteria (such as multiple attestation, dissimilarity, etc.) and that the use of criteria is becoming seen as outmoded. Is there any truth to this, or were these sources just blowing smoke?
RESPONSE:
This question is about the criteria that scholars use to establish historically reliable material about the historical Jesus. For background: there are several criteria that get used; the two most common are independent attestation and dissimilarity. To make sense of them, one needs to realize what was happening to the traditions of Jesus as they were being circulated, mainly by word of mouth, in the Roman empire. It’s a long story.
The short version of it is this: stories were being changed by the story-tellers and some stories were being made up. There’s simply no way around this, from a historical perspective. Just about the only ones who disagree are people who have theological reasons for thinking that every single story about Jesus in the NT is absolutely historically accurate in all its details – that is, conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who have a theological rather than a historical approach to the Bible. For virtually everyone else, of course the NT contains stories that have been altered or invented about Jesus.
So how do you know which ones are made up? That’s where the criteria come in. The criterion of independent attestation says that if you have a tradition about something Jesus said and did that is attested in multiple, *independent* sources (so that one of them did not get it from others), then it is more likely to be authentic (since no one author made it up). I think this is a good criterion: obviously if you have five people who independently have the same story and they haven’t gotten it from one another, it has a better chance of being authentic than if you have just one source that says so.
The second criterion says that if there are stories about what Jesus said or did that do not fit what the Christians would have wanted to say about him, those stories are more likely authentic than ones that could easily be imagined as something a Christian would have wanted to make up about him. This too is a good criterion, although it has limitations. But on the upside, if the stories are being changed (or invented) in light of the Christians’ self-interests in telling them, then anything that works against those self-interests found in the tradition are not stories that Christians have invented.
One can use these criteria to show that Jesus was born a Jew, that he had brothers, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, that he preached an apocalyptic message, that he had twelve disciples, that he was betrayed, that he was crucified, and lots of other things. I give the details in my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
Still, it is true that the criteria are under attack in some historical circles, because even if they are the best available, they are problematic.
Independent attestation, for example. Lots of things may be independently attested because they were firmly rooted in the tradition about Jesus early on in the process of telling stories about him, so that writers twenty or more years later could well have independently heard stories that were made up (say ten years before they were writing).
And dissimilarity assumes that we know what every single story teller among the Christians had as his or her agenda, and that there was not a wide variety of followers of Jesus with a wide variety of agendas. What might seem “counter” to what Christians would have wanted to say about Jesus (e.g., that he was baptized by someone else for the remission of sins) you can imagine some Christians very much wanting to say (he was baptized showing that we should be too).
So yes, the criteria are problematic and coming under attack. The question is whether anything can be put in their place (it is much easier to tear down than to build up!), and whether the flaws they have are on the margins or at the core. My sense is that they are on the margins, and that as history is not an objective quantifiable science, but based on value judgments rooted in probabilities (this is more probable than that), they are usable and useful for establishing what happened in the past – not just for Jesus, but for anyone who lived in the remote past.
How important is the timing of a report? Is an earlier report much more likely to be true than a later?
It’s one of teh important considerations, yes. But never definitive in itself (as you will know from personal experience; some peole lie on the spot, others faithfully tell what happened much later)
Mr. Ehrman, I’ve been meaning to ask you for quite some time now about something you have mentioned in another comment with regard to a particular saying of Jesus: more specifically, in Matthew 24:16 and Luke 23:9 where Jesus exhorts people to follow him, in order to be saved.
If I remember correctly, in that comment you commented that scholars tend to agree that these words can’t be traced back in Jesus.
I’ve been meaning to ask you why do scholars believe this and how have they reached this conclusion. Because, in my opinion, it is an extremely important quote, because you can relate it to the free will issue (because, if Jesus did actually say this, and if Jesus IS really God, then it’s like God directly telling you there *is* free will, and you can use it to follow me!). That’s my question, sorry for the enormous length of it!
I think you must mean some other verses than these? I probalby was referring to the verses (say in Mark 8) in which Jesus says that to be his follower and have life you have to “take up your cross and follow me.” That saying presupposes the knowledge that Jesus was crucified, and so almost certainly was made up after his death.
Yes, indeed, I was referring to the passage you mention. So it doesn’t pass the dissimilarity test, right! Thank you!
Yes, I don’t think Jesus could have said it. But Ranke’s goal was to find out what happened, not to discount everything said by someone who had an interest in the matter.
Hi Bart,
Thanks for the post! For me, an added value to the current “criteria” is to seriously weigh heavy on the author’s time statements, the original audience’s expectations of the message, and whether those expectations came to fruition. And if not, how did the original audience either abandon or continue to support the author’s claims/message.
I find it curious that every NT writer told their audience to expect a soon to come new age in their lifetime, and when it didn’t happen, the stories/message continued without condemning every NT writer as a false prophet. How did the NT authors get away with not being criticized for their errant predictions?
I find it hard to believe that nobody wrote about this after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Bart, what are your thoughts on this matter?
People redefined what “soon” was; and also maintained that he mean “soon” in their own day, not his. You can see how this played out in one community in 2 Peter 2.
Understanding Jesus mission as the Messiah is a wise criteria. Messiah means ‘anointed one’ which derive when kings were anointed with oil as a sign of God-given authority.
A Messiah is a servant of God with important status, priest, king or prophet and having responsibility of establishing a kingdom of God. He will be a respectable hero, righteous, with first-class abilities, exercise moral judgement and guided by God’s Revelation.
As a Messiah, Jesus was sent by God, with the status as a prophet, to save and guide his people, who had gone astray, to the straight path to achieve eternal life. “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of Israel”
The about is a justifiable reference. Anything not in line or against the responsibilities of Messiah should be considered as unreliable. Important to highlight that none of the writers of NT were eye witness of the history of Jesus. The function of a Messiah can be a yardstick to detect verses or stories to be discarded.
Do you feel this suggestion may receive blessing from the scholars?
No, I’d say these are theological reflections based on fatih-claims, not historical arguments based on scholarship.
Sorry to start off the subject so early in the comments but I’m writing a short story about Christianity and much of it deals with “predestination” or something being “preordained” or foreknown. (Acts 4:28/Romans 8:29-30/Ephesians1:5 &1:11, 1Peter1:20, etc.) Could you tell me something about the Greek words that they translated those concepts from please. Thanks, and thanks for your books and works for The Great Courses.
I’d be happy to tell you the words you’re interested in if you would tell us what the passage says — maybe just one or two a post. (That way others will know what we’re talking about and benefit from my reply)
Right. Okay, the storyline is a basically a debate about the concept of free will and how *later* Christian theologians have insisted we have it and that justifies “judgement”. But throughout the “27 Books” the terms *predestined*, *preordained*, *foreknown*, etc. appear over and over. The “Founding Fathers” seem not to have any problem with God deciding *beforehand* what’s going to happen and making sure it happens. 1Peter1:20 – “He (Christ) was chosen before the creation of the world” – (makes the Adam & Eve story somewhat suspicious?) Ephesians1:4&5 – “chose us before the creation of the world” – “predestined us for adoption to sonship”. Romans8:30 – “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
Paul anticipates people questioning the “righteousness” of this in Romans 9:18 – 21, “God has mercy on who he wants to have mercy and hardens who he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to question God?” Different translations use various wording, the *message* is the same.
Yes, that’s what the passages seem to be saying.
What about this very well known one: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). This of course also appears in Mark and Luke (which I understand does not count as independent attestation, since Matthew and Luke both knew Mark). In Thomas, Jesus says more or less the same thing but concludes with “… and give me what is mine” (which may or may not change the meaning of the first part).
Did Jesus say any version of this? How can we know? And what did he mean by it?
We can’t know for certain, but it does pass the criterion of multiple attestation and fits perfectly well in Jesus’ own context and coincides well with what appears to have been his own views that we can establish otherwise. On the other hand, you could certainly imagine followers of Jesus coming up with the statement to show that they were not opposed ot the Empire. On balance, I think Jesus probably said something like that.
If Yeshua perceived himself to be the king to come, then he wouldn’t condone the proxy kingdoms to the Romans.
On the contrary it is expected that he believed that these kingdoms will be overthrown (apocalypse).
In this case overthrowing can be by humans (e.g. ciccaries or rebellion) or cosmic (like sodom), & the later most likely be his view.
Considering that, wouldn’t any statement about enriching the Romans (Caesar) be a later addition from Paul’s disciples on Yeshua’s lips because Paul’s views were pro Romans vs fundamental Judaism (majority of the population)of the time which would be anti Romans (that is why Romans slaughtered everyone not just the leaders).
“for instance, mark uses a lot of latinisms, which is more consistent with a post 70 date. “legion” being cast into pigs seems to reference legio x fretensis which adopted the pig as its emblem around 66 to offend the jews during the war. and of course, “give unto caesar” references a denarius, which were very rare in the region until 70, and a tax to be paid in it, likely the fiscus judaicus instituted in 70 as punishment for the war.”
how could the historical jesus have said “give unto ceasar” using a coin with image of baal melqart ?
Denarii are extremely rare in pre-War Palestine. Danny Syon has a helpful article (and book!) about coinage zones, relating more to Galilee in particular: https://www.academia.edu/4018938/Galilean_Mints_in_the_Early_Roman_Period_Politics_Economy_and_Ethnicity
It’s not clear the episode actually goes back to Jesus. In any event, the event is recorded as taking place in Jerusalem, where Roman coinage was common (hence the need for money changes).
It seems that the lack of pinpoint accuracy of historical dating of documents adds to the uncertainties. If we could know what was written when and where with greater precision (to minimize overlapping date ranges and territories), then some of the weak assumptions turn into much stronger cases.
What I continue to see/read are many theories backed to a large degree by other theories. There seem to be personal “pet” theories that fixate ones base perspective (e.g. Matthew made up material to tie stories to the OT/Jewish traditions, or John’s epistles were not authentic, Isaiah predicted Jesus, etc.) This can create a big “researcher’s bias” challenge that is difficult to manage along with the criteria challenges mentioned above. I don’t think this is impossible to overcome as long as the bias is recognized or known during the research process. I think Bart has been very good at recognizing biases behind much of the research and blog contributions.
In 1957 in New York City, there was a fight between rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, where one person, a Jet named Tony, was killed. Since then, the Jets have grown and spread to other countries, and Tony has become a hero to them. In 1995, an account of the “rumble” and events leading up to it was written by an anonymous French Jet in French. The author does not claim to be an eyewitness nor to have interviewed eyewitnesses. The account contains obvious fabrications and is heavily slanted in favor of the Jets.
Since then, three more anonymous accounts have been written by Jets. Like the first, they are written in French, by authors do not claim to be eyewitnesses, and their stories contain clear fabrications. There are contradictions between the four stories, but also traces of collusion. There are no other accounts of this event.
So, what caused that fight back in 1957? Who killed Tony and why?
Right!
I am intrigued to note that you will be using content similar to this post with your PhD students. Are they, at this stage in their academic careers, not already very familiar with this material?
Yeah, pretty much. But we dig much deeper into it.
Is there anywhere that lists the stories bout and sayings attributed to Jesus that lists which ones are likely true, maybe true and likely not true? I’ve always believed that the ones that are most difficult, e.g. give up your earthly possessions and come follow me, are most likely true and they fit his apocalyptic vision.
I’d really like to have such a list.
There’s no definitive list because scholars debate and disagree. Any book on the historical Jesus will discuss the author’s view of which traditions are likely historical. You might start with my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium and then look at books by E. P Sanders, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, Geza Vermes, John Dominic Crossan — lots to choose from. Just pick the ones that look interesating.
I think the question of which stories or sayings reported in the New Testament actually happened (or not) is very secondary to the question of what meanings these stories and sayings had for the earliest Christians.
For example, the longest conversation Jesus is reported to have had with anyone (the one with the Samaritan woman at the well) is highly unlikely to be a verbatim account of an actual event, because even the apostles weren’t around to hear it.
But the story itself has great meaning in showing what the earliest Christians thought about Jesus’ compassion, understanding of human character, empathy with women and people of other cultures.
It’s a great story that people resonate with to this day (and used in some great gospel songs)
I find both issues endlessly fascinating: the historical question about what happened in the life of Jesus and the (other) historical question of what the stories about his life and teachings meant int he context in which they were told. ANd yup, that’s one of teh best.
If the story is accurate about geography or culture or people, how much do historians use this as a criteria for establishing the historical accuracy of the story?
Well, if it’s INaccurate, then there’s obviously a problem. But a story accurate in these ways is not necessarily historical. I can tell all sorts of stories that take place in New York City and get the geography culture etc. dcomplete right, but the story could be fiction.
I agree that in and of itself the story’s accuracy in geography, culture, etc. does not point to historical accuracy. But it could at least establish that if it gets everything right about the setting of the story that it likely had its origin close to the time and place of the story since it indicates that the author was familiar with the geography, culture, etc. of that time and place. It would be one more data point in favor of the story’s historical accuracy which together with other data points could suggest that the story is more likely than not to be historical. Do you agree?
I’d still say accuracy about geographical and cultural details are completely irrelevant to the accuracy of the story. They simply show that someone knew about geography and culture; every movie about NYC knows the geography and culture, but that has no bearing on whether the movie portrays events that actually happened.
“somewhere on the internet”
Where? Becasue I never get convinced about “multiple attestation, dissimilarity, etc” in the case of the early Christian writings.
Who are those of “some historical circles”, I Wolud like to read what they have to say !!!
In every tale about Jesus you found in any góspel, letter or whatever (canonical or not) you have two and only two posibilities :
1) It is totally made up, like Jesus trip to Egypt in Matthew.
2) It is based in some oral tradition coming from the core of Jesus followers.
The NT and other non canonical early chrsitians writings are full of n1’s , what about n2’s?
Even if some n2 could be found in these early writings we are talking about what a group of poor rural peasants from Galilee where saying about his cult leader, this tales corrupted by oral tradition for at least 40 years it’s what is called “firmly rooted in the tradition about Jesus””
It’s enough the “dissimilarity” criteria to conclude if this or that tale or saying about Jesus is historical??
Was Jesus baptized by John ? Perhaps in Jesus times John was a more prominent figure, so a link with him could be made up…don’t know !
I’m not sure I see these as the only two options — or even that these two are mutually exclusive. And no, no criterion can be decisive; all of them have to be considered.
In propositional logic we can say A or not A, there is not a third option.
A statement about Jesus in an early Christian writing could be based in an oral tradition or not, there is not a third option.
If it is not based then it was totally made up (my number 1) if it is based is my number 2.
All our written sources are based on oral traitions or were made up, yes. THe trick is knowing which passage or part or a passage is which.
yep!!!
the made ups do not help a lot in our search for the historical jesus
the oral traditions are sayings by cult members about his leader that were told and retold about 40 years (20 in Paul) before being written
Any conclusion about the “historical” leader from this kind of stuff has to be made with a great MAYBE , no matter if we are talking about a cult in Kenya in the middle ages, a cult in Bolivia in the 19th century or a cult in a border province in the first century Roman Empire , the fact that form this cult emerged the greatest religion in human history do not change anything
Yeah, basically the reasons you listed are why I have fully abandoned the Criteria of Authenticity. At this point, my position is that there is no reliable biography of Jesus, except the small pieces we can get out of Paul. After that, I don’t think we have any methodologically valid/sound way of parsing history from legend in the Gospels.
A key example is the Baptism. People cite Matthew, Luke, and John’s embarrassment at the baptism as somehow evidence of it being legitimate, but I think they gather all this information from the Gospel of Mark. And the Gospel of Mark has no problem with it that we can see, and has plenty of reasons to fabricate it, including the adoptionistic element that ties in well with his use of Imperial Cult imagery. I think the “embarrassment” is embarrassment *at Mark*.
IMO, the quest of the historical Jesus should be abandoned in favor of sociological approaches to early Christianity’s development as a whole. The historical Jesus was not as relevant as the theological Christ that they developed according to their various contexts.
I guess the problem is that you can use the very same argument to abandon the study of history completely. And *that* would have some very serious consequences. If we can’t established what happened….
I think many areas of history, even ancient history, will not face the same troubles due to having a variety of more sources, archaeological data, and more. The study of Early Christianity, in my opinion, suffers from the fact that until the second century, we only have insider mythmaking sources for information, and nothing else, and we have no serious archaeological data or similar. So, we have nothing with which to provide a baseline for discerning history from myth in the Gospels. There simply isn’t the data available. And the Gospels being so late and so agenda driven in nature, it makes more sense to view them as sociopolitical documents.
This is unlike other fields, where such baselines can and are established, and so we can actually form a valid mode of comparison by which to weed out history from myth. We just don’t have the sources to do so with the first century Christianity… save maybe Josephus, but I don’t think hypothetical reconstructions of documents like the TF can be used for reliable history at all. Josephus, thus, provides us a sociopolitical context, which I think is what we should then situate the Gospels in.
Just curious, why do you consider Paul’s writings about Jesus to be reliable? After all, he never met Jesus, and he claimed that all his knowledge came directly from Jesus after he was crucified.
The other authors have their problems as well, but at least their stories could have been handed down orally from someone who actually knew Jesus.
That is not true at all. He did not claim all of his knowledge about Jesus came from Christ after he was killed and resurrected. He claimed that his “gospel” did, which does not equate to his biography.
“I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” (Gal. 1:11-12)
This is specifically about Paul’s theological treatise of Galatians. This does not suggest, contra mythicists, that Paul never gained biographical information about Jesus from his disciples or relatives. This is purely a conflation of the contemporary associations with “gospel” as a word, with the ancient usage of it, which simply meant a proclamation of good news (the term is even used of Caesars, as Craig Evans pointed out). http://www.jgrchj.net/volume1/JGRChJ1-5_Evans.pdf
And it is more the incidental things that Paul mentions. Paul mentions Jesus had a brother named James, whom Paul met. Mythical people don’t have currently living human brothers. Simple as that. The mythmaking also indicates a human. Paul conceptualizes him as the human descendant of David (Rom. 1:3).
“The question is whether anything can be put in their place (it is much easier to tear down than to build up!) “
But why should we have to “put in their place” another thing??
If we don’t know and we never know something , why do we have to make up a story to fill the hole of ignorance?
Perhaps that it’s exactly what early chrsitians did ….
Perhaps Jesus was one more in a list of revolutionary jews that fought the Romans as Luke suggests in Acts 5:36-39.
Perhaps he never came from Galilee, after all nor Paul, nor Josephus nor Tacitus link the Jesus movement to Galilee
How much Mark invented, for what reasons ? How much the other gospels took from the very first one , there were really other “sources” or they just added what they wanted to the original Mark???
Perhaps we will never know for sure anything about Jesus .
This was very interesting. But I would have thought the other criterion, of contextual credibility, is pretty unassailable unless we are saying that our grasp of 1st century history is not as good as we think it is.
Yes, that’s the problem. We have enormous holes in our knowledge, more holes than substance!
Seems like the fundamentalists and the mythicists might have a common cause: fundies because they believe you have to take it all and can’t pick and choose based on criteria, and mythicists because if criteria are problematic then you can’t know anything for sure, so throw it all out! Religion makes strange bedfellows.
Yes indeed!
Hi Dr Ehrman!
Could you recommend any sources and reading material on the historical role of women in Paul’s churches?
Thank you!
YOu might start with Carolyn Osiek’s book A Woman’s Place.
So Professor, as you note “ The question is whether anything can be put in their place”, or alternatively, with nothing in their place, what can we consider likely historical? Logically, is that not less than we consider likely today? After all these criteria elevate periscopes from unsupported to more probable. Their absence leaves the text less likely.
Yes, my point is that if we are going to try to reconstruct the past (not just or Jesus, but of the anicent world, of Vietnam, of 9/11, of Jan 6, of anything) we have to have methods for doing so. And tearing down methods is earlier than building them up. If we can’t do history, if we can’t know what happened, or at least come up with good probabilities, we’re in a heap of trouble (for current affairs, among other things)
At some point is there a criterion that goes something like: we have more evidence for Jesus doing this than we have for some other event in ancient history that no one seems to question as having happened?
It seems like that would be an important point to make in a debate with, say, mythicists. Controversial history may seem less certain that non-controversial history even if the historical evidence for the former is significantly stronger than the latter.
I’m not sure how, at least for much of ancient history, you could conclude that it’s more likely that something did happen than that it didn’t happen. But you could make pretty good arguments that we have more evidence for event A than we have for unrelated event B. But whether either one is more likely to have happened than to not have happened may be very difficult to say without very strong evidence.
I think what I’m pointing toward, from an epistemological standpoint, is a coherence theory of truth.
No, I wouldn’t say that’s a strong criterion. Just because scholars accept one piece of information doesn’t mean that a more widely attested piece of information is superior. Maybe they accept the one for bad reasons, or haven’t thought of it. The resurrection of Jesus is multiply attested all over the map, but I don’t think it is therefore more likely than that John the Baptist preached an apocalypitc message, which is generally conceded but not as well attested. See what I mean?
Let me ask a follow up question. I take it you are saying that when you conclude that an event in Jesus’s life probably happened, you are saying it’s more likely that it did happen than that it did not happen. (Otherwise the evidence for it would not exist?) Is that correct?
Is there sometimes sufficient evidence to say that something in the gospels probably did not happen–vs that there is not sufficient evidence to say that it did happen–vs there is not sufficient evidence to say either that it probably did or didn’t happen? (The last “vs” may be redundant.)
Long ago when I studied hypothesis testing in the social sciences, we talked about Type I Errors (accepting a false hypothesis?) and Type II Errors (rejecting a true hypothesis?). Do historians in general or do you in particular lean more toward avoiding one or the other type of error?
1. Yes that’s right 2. Yup, lots of them. E.g. there was almost certainly no worldwide census under the emperor Augustus as claimed in Luke 3. Historians don’t usually put it that way, but as a rule if you claim that something happens (that’s your hypothesis) you bear the burden of proof.
Have a question about whether we can know if John the Baptist actually baptized Jesus. Here’s my rationale:
Independent attestation:
– Jesus’ baptism is first mentioned in Mark, which was used by both the authors of Matthew and Luke. I count that as a single attestation.
Dissimilarity:
– While it’s true that later Christians would not have wanted Jesus to have been baptized by John the Baptist, for the author of Mark it gave Jesus credibility. In fact the author begins with it in Mark 1: He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with[f] water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
To me it doesn’t appear to pass the test of dissimilarity.
Another issue is Paul never mentioned John the Baptist. He didn’t mention a lot, but it seems like a big deal to leave out.
Finally, Josephus wrote about John the Baptist and Jesus, but he never connected the two. It’s possible John the Baptist baptized Jesus and Josephus didn’t know about it or left it out, but it makes me wonder if the event happened.
It’s a probability judgment. We have Jesus’ association with John the baptist in Mark, Q, M, John, and Acts. All independent. There are parts that line up with later Christain ideas, but also parts of the tradition that don’t. It is perfectly consistent with what we know about the historical Jesus otherwise, and completely contextual plausible. So on the whole, I think it receives high marks on teh probability scale.
Dr. Ehrman, do you believe that Jesus’s followers originally told any stories about him in order to convince others that he had extraordinary powers? If so, then what?
Absolutely. I think that’s where the miracle stories came from.
When you say miracle stories, are you excluding the nature miracle stories where he controls the wind and waves? Do you believe these stories were exaggerated or invented through the oral tradition? In other words, not originally from his followers.
I don’t think it’s possible to know for certain who actually made up the stories.
I’m curious about your view of “oral tradition.” In other words, do you believe that Jesus’s disciples were probably exaggerating the stories about him, like everyone else? I was under the assumption (there’s that word) that you believed they told a fairly modest story about Jesus and it got blown out of proportion as time passed. In my opinion, if they were telling outrageous stories, then even the most outlandish could have been straight from their lips and not a later embellishment.
I have a book about this: Jesus Before teh Gospels. yes, I think there were huge exaggerations, but it is hard to know what role the disciples themselves would have played in making them.
Dissimilarity seems especially complex in light of your discussion a few days ago of the changes to Luke’s Passion. It seems like you really have to figure out exactly what Luke wrote first. And then apply dissimilarity only to the reconstructed original text (or as close as you can get).
With respect to added stories – like the text that was added with the blood-like sweat – not only does it potentially muddle Luke’s theological leanings, but we also have no idea who wrote it (I assume). And presumably it was added for explicitly theological reasons – at least that seems to be where you’re going. So it seems like we can comfortably doubt its historical plausibility.
Are there any examples of texts that were “added” to a Gospel that are considered historically reliable? Maybe an identical text that was added to multiple Gospels?
Dissimilarity is indeed tricky. It’s less about a particular author than about the kinds of things Christians in general would want to say about Jesus. But it’as all a matter of judging levels of probability. And no, there aren’t any examples like that. The later “additions” (woman taken in adultry; ending of Mark) are not likely historical.
Well, that post helped me to search the web for anti-criteria scholars and found this site by Dr James Crossley:
https://historicalchaos.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/the-criteria-of-authenticity-and-not-writing-about-the-historical-jesus/
just two passages:
multiple attestation
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“Irrespective of what sources (and forms) we count as ‘independent’ (and useful), the most multiple attestation can do is to establish that a given theme is early and possibly pre-Gospel. The multiple attestation of miracle stories can only show that they were popular and widespread early on. Obviously it cannot prove Jesus really was performing miracles.”
embarrassment criteria
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“I really don’t get the embarrassment criteria at all, and the verse you gave as an example, Mark 6.5-6, seems particularly embarrassing to the embarrassment advocates. All it suggests is the belief of a writer that healing was related to the ill person’s faith and that Jesus could be amazed at something. This makes the verse really interesting from the point of view of developing thoughts about Jesus/God’s omnipotence and omniscience, but does not necessarily imply anything about a historical Jesus.”
We know that Jesus was not that pale skinned blue eyed and blonde figure depicted in European artwork.
Time to accept that just as we don’t know how he really looked we don’t know even the basic elements about his life.
I’d say we do know the basic elements of his life: he was a Jewish preacher/teacher from rural Galilee who gathered disciples, taught them that the kingdom of God was soon to arrive, made a trip to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and while there offended the authorities and was crucified. I’d say there is in fact a lot more that we can say about him (I have a book laying it all out). But your completely right, we don’t know what he looked like, except that he almost certainly looked much more like a modern Palestinian than a modern Californian.
1) from rural Galilee
Maybe, but it is weird that the earliest christian(Paul), jew(Josephus) and Roman(Tacitus) sources about Jesus do not link him with Galilee in any way.
2) A preacher/teach… [that] made a trip to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and while there offended the authorities and was crucified
Well, I think he was a revolutionary jew , one day a traitor told the romans where his hideout was, the sentinels fell asleep , the soldiers stormed the camp he was captured , tortured and crucified under sedition charges.
Josephus wrote a brief recount in the same place where we now have the Testimonium but Eusebius didn’t like it and changed it all.
Luke knew the passage and so he wrote Acts 5:36-39.
Also Origen, and kept silent, not because it didn’t exist in his times but because it was the awful truth.
3) a modern Palestinian than a modern Californian
well it depends on the modern Californian….and Palestinian.
1. Not that weird. they don’t talk about his place of origin 2. Typical ones.
Place of origin? In the gospel narratives Jesus arrive in Jerusalem only in his final days
For Tacitus Judaea was “the first source of the evil”
I think you take a lot of juice from the gospels for your “historical” Jesus , it’s just that for me that’s the wrong fruit to use.
I think all four canonical gospels were written by Paul 1st and 2nd generation followers around 70-110 , probably in Asia (province) .
The Jesus “who was opposed to violence “ we found in the gospels is the Pauline Jesus of Romans 13:1-7, a “Pax Augusta” Jesus fully integrated in the empire as the Greek speaking provinces visited by Paul were.
Palestine had a very (very) different geo-political context , Jesus lived in first half century Palestine in the midst of the events that eventually ended up in the revolts and the roman-jew wars.
Not exactly a place and time for peace lovers.
Dissimilarity is based on false premise. You may think it is not in their interest to say Jesus chose a traitor because it doesn’t fit their purposes, but you don’t know their purpose! Their purpose in INVENTING JUDAS was to hide that ‘Jesus’ had a successor — James. Paul was starting a new religion and had to have some way to write James out of his rightfully prominent place in history.
So the writers of the Gospels created a fictional traitor to cover the life details of Master James, not least of which was Paul murdering James (Pseudoclementine Rec. 1.70).
Dr. Robert Eisenman established this without knowing why the authors did it. He pointed out that the murder episode of Paul killing James was Acts 7 with the totally fictional ‘Stephen.’ ‘Judas’ in Acts 1 similarly covers James’ succession! All he didn’t know was that Masters have successors. I know, so I wrote a book to finish what he started. Someday scholars will come around. Suggest one I might try?
There is no other way to explain the parallels to early gnostic writings and Pesherim Scrolls. I believe I prove it. My book did win an award for nonfiction. 😉
What I find problematic with the historical approach is that it, to me, seems to completely overlook the fact that the texts were written by highly educated theologians of their time.
Example, Jesus said: “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John.”
If we do not understand that this is a theological claim, then this statement makes no sense. The Law and the Prophets are still proclaimed to this day.
Science is all about making hypotheses and then testing them.
For example:
Hypothesis: John the Baptist was none other than Job from the Book of Job.
Test of this hypothesis: Hm, yes, that may explain the statement above. The book of Job is not in the Law or in the Prophets, but in the Ketuvim (the Writings) which is a subsequent section in the Tanakh. In that case, John could be said to be the end of the Law and the Prophets.
This hypothesis will also explain why John was not a prophet, but more than a prophet.
It’s all about theological foundations!
I am not against criteria, but I miss a more scientific approach to what are, in the highest degree, theological writings.
Hello Professor, hope you are having a good morning. My question is about the longer ending of mark. A person by the name of James Edward Snapp Jr. (Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition) is has written extensively on this and I want to ask some points he brings up.
1. First is that Clement was aware of the longer ending because of the parallels between it and 1 Clement 42:3-4
2. the longer ending conforms to a specific form of episodic structure (ABCX) that is exclusively Markan.
3. The argument that only a certain part of the world that produced these early manuscripts were void of the LE, (Alexandrian scribes).
Thank you again for your time and knowledge Dr. Ehrman
1. No, I don’t think so. It could just as well be that traditions of 1 Clement were picked up by the later author of the ending of mark. 2. Imitators of other writings typically try to imitate them. 3. There are lots of reasons for thinking they are not authentic, not simply teh manuscript evidence, even if it is veyr important.
Frankly, the evidence is so strong that the Gospel did not have the last twelve verses that it is not a disputed point among biblical experts. Most of the evidence has to do with changes in writing style, the inconsistencies created by the ending (even with the verse that proceeds), the vocabulary, and otehr internatl consideratoins.
Things didn’t change a lot in almost two thousand years.
In this blog we have an ortodox view, that of Dr Ehrman.
We have heresies and heretics , the Fundamentalists, the Mythicists …
We have heated debates about almost everything in relation to Jesus…
What we don’t have and won’t have in another two thousand years is an historical Jesus.
But don’t worry ! There IS something NEW.
We DO have NEW gospels !!!
The Gospel according to Ehrman
The Gospel according to Carrier
The Gospel according to Aslam
The Gospel according to Fellows
…
“Just curious, why do you consider Paul’s writings about Jesus to be reliable? After all, he never met Jesus, and he claimed that all his knowledge came directly from Jesus after he was crucified.”
Fantastic. Great observation. Jesus never appointed Paul. In Acts, Paul persecuted the genuine followers of Jesus.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS REJECTED PAUL. Acts 9:26 “And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.”
Disciples of Jesus knew Paul’s character and never trusted him. Paul had many companions on the road to Damascus and none of them confirmed his stories to be true. Paul’s stories in Acts contain many unacceptable contradictions. His teachings did not receive any official approval from trustworthy personality. Both the enemies of Jesus and genuine followers of Jesus joint forces to annihilate Paul. Long Story.
Paul ran for his life and escaped to the gentiles. Compelled to please the gentiles by reintroducing all their pagan practice- no circumcision, yes to pork, no LAW, etc., changed to accept Jesus as their new Lord, BLASPHEMY. Many who accept his theology or books did not realize these.
Dear Bart:
I have registered for the BBC discussion of Reza Aslan compared with your account. Did you happen to read Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Killing Jesus’? Maybe you have discussed it on your blog in the past. O’Reilly’s book was a best seller and Fox fans bought millions of copies and consumed it for the ‘truth’ about Jesus as a tax hater and rugged individualist. If you have discussed it on your blog, please provide me with the link.
Thanks in advance for your answer.
I think I did so back in October 2013. Here’s one of them. https://ehrmanblog.org/riled-oreilly/ You can find more by going to the month in rhe archives.
“I guess the problem is that you can use the very same argument to abandon the study of history completely.”
“If we can’t do history, if we can’t know what happened, or at least come up with good probabilities, we’re in a heap of trouble”
Why this “apocalyptic” view of the end of history as a research field?
Did OT, Judaism, or ancient Hebrews history scholarship stop when a majority of scholars agree that Moses is a “largely mythical ” figure?
What really difference does it make to accept that the historical Jesus could be far from the figure depicted in the gospels?
We know the historical Moses is not the figure depicted in Exodus,moreover, we just do not know if he ever existed !
I think the case for Jesus is far most attested in relation to his existence as a real human being, but not in the relation to the very basic facts about his earthly life, it’s just that outside the gospels (no matter how many we have, early christians were very prolific indeed but this is not “independent multiple attestation” for me) we have almost nothing.
Sorry, I don’t understand your question.
No problem !
I found the answer in your thread with Chris_Hansen.
Hey, sorry to come back to an old thread. Regarding multiple attestation, I wish sometime you would consider addressing the issue of John’s dependence on the Synoptics or allow a guest to do so. I know you’ve expressed somewhere on here that your view is independence, and it’s probably safe to say that’s still the majority opinion in scholarship. But recently, the work of Mark Goodacre, Chris Keith, Helen Bond, and others on this subject has rejuvenated this whole discussion that John is dependent on the Synoptics. And it’s hard to look at John the same way if it’s dependent on the Synoptics. And this raises significant questions about the criteria of multiple attestation as well since John is usually considered an independent and separate witness to the historical Jesus. Just something to consider.
Yes, I may take it on. I’m aware of the new conversations but I just don’t buy it. Yet. I seem to have a higher bar for establishing probability. I do discuss some of the relevant issue in several posts, if you’ll just do a word search for “John and the Synoptics”