Holy Grail finally found?

[gay_Aleks]

"dailymail.co.uk"

You never learn, do you?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Me? It is the first time i quote dailymail.co.uk i think. Anyway it is similar to others article in English i found among the first four o five Google results, and this one have some nice images!

 

[Masada]

That is pretty interesting info, guys. So, Urraca´s chalice is probably a random cup found buried somewhere at Jerusalem by some Roman archaeologist (i find it somewhat bizarre to imagine archaeologists from 4th century , looking for something from the 1st century)

That's not at all bizarre! The Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, dug up a whole hill! On that hill she found among other things the True Cross, the Tomb of Jesus (which is now below the Church of the Resurrection) and the nails of the crucifixion which were placed into either Consantine's helmet or horses bridle. (None of which were probably what they were thought to be. But that's neither here nor there). As Plotinus noted, Helena kicked off the whole relic trade and did this by digging up a hill. A trade that found involved people finding the weirdest stuff in the Holy Land and carting it back to their homeland to be used as a sacred relic. At one stage there were a number of holy foreskins (prepuce is the technical term) floating around Christendom.

I think the problem with Christian sources in general is precisely that: way too many interpolations. After 2000 years of councils, schisms, biased interpretations, political interests... what remains?

You know, strangely enough we have very early versions of most (if not all) of the early Christian texts we still use (Gospels and Patristics mostly). Not quite at the date of first publication but close enough. And we have lots of versions of those texts. These allow us to tell where the errors and relatively rare interpolations occur and at roughly what time. Most of these are legitimate errors that occur when your copying and recopying the same text over and over again. In that sense, we have a rather good idea of what remains after all that time. It's also important to note that Christians like most religious groups obsess about the fidelity of the sacred texts they're transmitting. Islam provides an instructive example in the Qur'an which hasn't changed since it was written down in the 630s and 640s.

The original texts, if there were any (when was the oldest gospel written, 30, 50, 100 years after the alleged facts?)

That's not extraordinary or unusual in the ancient world. Josephus is often our only source for what was going on in Israel before the Great Revolt. (Because it was backwater part of the Empire that was inhabited by people who most Romans agreed were weird). But even he was often writing about events that occurred before his birth. For reference, he was born in 37AD, about four years after the Crucifixion and something like a decade after the death of John the Baptist. Tacitus was also writing about events in the past. So were most historians. That's, well, the nature of history I guess. We just don't have a lot of detailed contemporaneous accounts of events for, well, anything.

The original texts, if there were any (when was the oldest gospel written, 30, 50, 100 years after the alleged facts?), probably have been mutated ad infinitum. So probably something happened at Jerusalem the year 33 but to what point was it related to the figure of Jesus we have?

That's absurd. I wasn't alive 50 years ago but it doesn't follow that the memories of my parents or grandparents are defective and that I can't know what happened. Now the fine details might be wrong or off; but I can still be sure that Konfrontasi involved Indonesia under President Sukarno facing off against Malaya, Britain, Australia and New Zealand over the incorporation of Sabah and Sarawak into a proposed Malaysia. I didn't live through those events, but my grandfather can certainly relate lots of stuff about them. Remembering trivial things like that Jesus was a man who lived, breathed and ate and a few of his sayings shouldn't seem so extraordinary, especially when you consider how important Jesus was to his early followers. Konfrontasi is by contrast something my grandfather would rather forget.

How Jesus compares to Muhammad on historical evidence for example?

Depends on where you draw the line in the sand. But Muhammad's actual life is poorly attested outside of the Qur'an and Hadith. The success of the first few Caliphs are what made people notice a dude who otherwise wasn't at least during his lifetime that significant a figure outside of a peripheral region on the borders of the Roman and Sasanian Empires. Granted, he defeated some Roman and Sasanian confederates but it isn't clear that either side cared given that they were embroiled in a fight to the death while Muhammad was forming his state.

 

[Plotinus]

So even the only non-Christian source has been somewhat corrupted. I think the problem with Christian sources in general is precisely that: way too many interpolations. After 2000 years of councils, schisms, biased interpretations, political interests... what remains? The original texts, if there were any (when was the oldest gospel written, 30, 50, 100 years after the alleged facts?), probably have been mutated ad infinitum. So probably something happened at Jerusalem the year 33 but to what point was it related to the figure of Jesus we have?

As Masada said, none of this is really true. The New Testament doesn't have "way too many interpolations" - its text is extremely well attested. That's not to say there aren't some textual issues here and there, but the Gospels that we have are pretty much what was circulated in the late first century (although John, at least, seems to have gone through a number of editions). They haven't been "mutated ad infinitum", and if they had, we could check them against the vast numbers of quotations in the church fathers.

And as I said, historians have developed some pretty sophisticated tools for analysing the material in the Gospels (and elsewhere) and estimating its provenance. There are good reasons for thinking that there's lots of stuff in there that goes back to Jesus. That doesn't mean you have to believe it all does, any more than you have to believe any other historical source is perfectly accurate. But the mere fact that a source is imperfect is not grounds for dismissing it as utterly valueless. You need to have clearer reasons for doing that.

People often make vague sweeping statements about how the biblical texts have been corrupted and changed, often making dark allusions to councils and popes, but they tend to be short on specifics and evidence, and forget that we have the Greek original right there to check whenever we want to.

That's not at all bizarre! The Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, dug up a whole hill!

It's true, but Thorgalaeg does have a bit of a point, in that archaeological digs of this kind were extremely rare in late antiquity. I'm not sure I can think of anything comparable from the period. That alone attests to the unusual fervour involved in this case.

 

[The QC]

You guys are slightly overselling the case for Jesus's existence. First of all, there is no contemporary source. Josephus isn't contemporary, he wrote his works almost a generation later, and he only makes two mentions that can be interpreted in more than one way. Neither are the Christian sources contemporary and, in regards to the ones that mention Jesus as a person, it is possible that all are based on just one (The Gospel of Mark).

This doesn't mean that Jesus didn't exist, but it's certainly not 100% certain, even though most historians do believe that (a notable historian who is starting to disagree is Richard Carrier; follow the link to see his arguments).

It's also true that the existence of many other historical figures can be easily disputed, including some other important religious figures like Muhammad.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not 100% certain that Jesus existed, but it's also not 100% certain that Watt Tyler existed. That's the thing about poor people in pre-modern societies, they just don't have much of a presence on the historical record, and when they do appear it's often a brief, spectacular presence which doesn't lend itself well to the production of systematic records. The only thing that sets Jesus apart is the stakes.

 

[Plotinus]

You guys are slightly overselling the case for Jesus's existence. First of all, there is no contemporary source. Josephus isn't contemporary, he wrote his works almost a generation later, and he only makes two mentions that can be interpreted in more than one way. Neither are the Christian sources contemporary and, in regards to the ones that mention Jesus as a person, it is possible that all are based on just one (The Gospel of Mark).

Certainly there's no contemporary source, but why should there be? We don't have contemporary sources for anyone vaguely comparable to Jesus - not the other Jewish teachers mentioned above, not Socrates, and so on. It's hard to see what kind of contemporary sources one might expect for a person like that.

Moreover, I think you're over-stressing the importance of contemporary sources. The sources we have for Jesus aren't contemporary, but they're not very long after; whilst all kinds of legends can spring up about a person very quickly, it's a big jump from that to actually making up a person.

You say it's possible that all the Gospels are based on Mark, but this is very unlikely. Most scholars believe that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source and that they had other sources as well. No-one knows whether John was familiar with Mark. And of course Jesus is mentioned rather a lot in the rest of the New Testament, notably by Paul, who pre-dates the Gospels.

This doesn't mean that Jesus didn't exist, but it's certainly not 100% certain, even though most historians do believe that (a notable historian who is starting to disagree is Richard Carrier; follow the link to see his arguments).

I have seen that video before. I think that Carrier makes a better and more careful case than most of the conspiracy theorists I've seen on this issue before. However, his case is full of holes. Here are just a couple.

First, Carrier's theory is that Christ was worshipped as an ahistorical divine figure to begin with, and only later did this figure get re-invented as an actual historical person who had lived in the past. In defending this theory he argues that, if Christianity did develop like this, this was not an unusual thing to happen. He says that such a development would be a case of "euhemerising". But he's wrong. Euhemerising is not a matter of a religion developing in such a way as to regard its divinities as historical figures. Euhemerising is a rationalist attack on religion, where opponents of a religion argue that its gods are really just human beings who got mythologised. This is what Euhemerus himself did, in attacking classical pagan myths, and later Christians such as Clement of Alexandria and Lactantius did the same thing to try to undermine pagan religion.

What you don't find in antiquity, to my knowledge, is any religion where a god is first believed in simply as a god and then later this belief changes, so that the god is now believed (by his own worshippers) to have been a historical figure. This just doesn't happen. Yet this is what Carrier thinks happened with Christianity. So to support this theory he needs some pretty good evidence; he can't simply claim that it would fit in well with how other religions developed.

A second flaw with Carrier's argument is that he reads too much into the texts he discusses. He distinguishes between those texts that talk about Jesus as a historical figure (e.g. the Gospels) and those that talk about him in a less specific way (e.g. Paul). So he thinks that, for example, when Paul describes the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, what he's describing needn't be a historical event; he could be describing an ahistorical, timeless mythic event, rather like Mithras killing the sacred bull.

That is fair enough as far as it goes, but you'll notice that in that video Carrier frequently talks as if he's shown that Paul (and other, similar texts, e.g. Hebrews) speak of Christ as doing things "in outer space" (or in similar language). Well, no, they don't. Even if we leave out the pejorative language, which is inappropriate, the most he's shown is that they could be talking about Christ in that way. Everything Paul wrote about Christ is perfectly consistent with Christ's having been a historical figure - Christianity could hardly have got very far if it weren't; at best Carrier is entitled only to say that Paul might have thought of Christ in non-historical terms, not that he definitely did.

The mere fact that a Christian author makes no reference to Jesus as a historical person doesn't mean that this author did not believe that Jesus was a historical person. And it certainly doesn't mean that the belief in Jesus as a historical person didn't exist at that time. Take 1 Clement: this was certainly written at the end of the first century CE, at a time when at least two generations of Christians had already lived and died. And yet this letter, while it refers to Jesus frequently, does so in a way similar to the book of Hebrews (which evidently influenced it). The letter is just as consistent with an "ahistorical" Christ as Hebrews itself, or with Paul, on Carrier's reading. And yet 1 Clement was certainly written later than at least some of the Gospels, certainly from a context in which people believed in a historical Jesus.

An even more striking case is Theophilus of Antioch, who never mentioned Jesus at all, and yet he was writing in the second half of the second century! That's obviously considerably later than the Gospels. So if Theophilus could do it even in a context where people believed that Jesus was a historical figure, why couldn't Paul, or the author of Hebrews?

A third, and related, flaw is with Carrier's dating of the texts. For this theory to work, he needs to show that the "ahistorical" views of Jesus came first, and that the "historical" ones came later. This requires dating some texts improbably early. Thus, he cites the book of Hebrews as a key example of the "ahistorical" view; but in so doing he has to insist that Hebrews was written much earlier than most scholars think - earlier even than the Gospel of Mark! That is possible, but unlikely. But for this theory to work, it's essential. (And indeed, for the theory to work, 1 Clement would have to be earlier than the Gospels too, which is beyond credibility.)

The fourth flaw is the most obvious: he dismisses the Gospels completely. You'll notice in that video he spends all his time talking about the epistles, and only at the end says that there's no point discussing the Gospels because they're completely fictitious. He doesn't give any reasons for saying this. But we have good reason to think that they're not completely fictitious, and most scholars would reject such a view.

Carrier makes the best case one could for this kind of view, I think. His discussion of the ahistorical presentation of Jesus in Paul and Hebrews is provocative and insightful, though it doesn't support the conclusions he thinks it does. And his explicit disavowal of the popular "Jesus = Mithras" sort of claim is good. But while the arguments may seem superficially convincing, they don't hold water.

It's also true that the existence of many other historical figures can be easily disputed, including some other important religious figures like Muhammad.

One can dispute anything, but I don't see how Muhammad's existence can be reasonably questioned. Surely the existence of a man who actually led armies into battle is pretty verifiable - more so than that of an itinerant preacher who never wrote anything or did anything on the world stage in his lifetime.

 

[The QC]

Carrier makes the best case one could for this kind of view, I think.

I didn't want to imply more than that. I wasn't saying that Carrier is the bringer of truth etc. etc., just that he's the best guy to check out for the opposite view.

One can dispute anything, but I don't see how Muhammad's existence can be reasonably questioned. Surely the existence of a man who actually led armies into battle is pretty verifiable - more so than that of an itinerant preacher who never wrote anything or did anything on the world stage in his lifetime.

I think I phrased things wrong there, but I did mean to refer to persons who's existence can be "reasonably questioned". It's weird and, for non-experts like myself, quite shocking when you first realize it, but the existence on many historical figures and events is predicated on a pretty small number of sources, frequently secondary or worse.

Muhammad is such a case, although again the chances that he existed are higher than the opposite. He lead armies in battle just like Jesus turned water into wine, which is to say, in stories told by followers of his religion, centuries after the fact. But there is no evidence of the battles themselves, so the battles don't add any strength to the theory he existed. The credibility of Muhammad's biographies comes mostly from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be made up.

The same case can be made from Socrates, Pythagoras and many others. People defending the historicity of Jesus like to mention that the same type of arguments can be used to dispute the existence of Alexander the Great, which is also true (no contemporary sources etc. etc.).

I think that most of the history that we know is correct. But history is not an exact science and some of we *think* we know is actually incorrect. Some of the current errors in our perception will be straightened by future discoveries, while some will elude us forever, simply because there's not enough material to use.

 

[Masada]

It's true, but Thorgalaeg does have a bit of a point, in that archaeological digs of this kind were extremely rare in late antiquity. I'm not sure I can think of anything comparable from the period. That alone attests to the unusual fervour involved in this case.

That's a fair point. It's probably the largest such example in the period. But there were other examples of people digging up relics (well Saints) linked to the earliest days of the Church in around the same period. I happened to remember Bishop Ambrose dug up the bodies of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus in a garden outside of Milan in 395. Turns out he also dug up Sts. Gervasius and Protasius by ripping up the Church floor in front of Sts. Felix and Nabor a decade before he discovered Nazarius and Celsus. This led me to Bishop Eusebius of Bologna who discovered the bodies of Sts. Agricola and Vitalis in a Jewish cemetery.

One can dispute anything, but I don't see how Muhammad's existence can be reasonably questioned. Surely the existence of a man who actually led armies into battle is pretty verifiable - more so than that of an itinerant preacher who never wrote anything or did anything on the world stage in his lifetime.

His followers also memorized his words which were subsequently systematized and written down. Not to mention the Qur'an.

Muhammad is such a case, although again the chances that he existed are higher than the opposite. He lead armies in battle just like Jesus turned water into wine, which is to say, in stories told by followers of his religion, centuries after the fact. But there is no evidence of the battles themselves, so the battles don't add any strength to the theory he existed. The credibility of Muhammad's biographies comes mostly from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be made up.

The most contemporary sources we have for Muhammad were written shortly after his death. Even the sources we're talking about arguing for Jesus' historicity, including the Gospels, the Antiquities and Paul's letters, were all written within a century of his death.

I think that most of the history that we know is correct. But history is not an exact science and some of we *think* we know is actually incorrect. Some of the current errors in our perception will be straightened by future discoveries, while some will elude us forever, simply because there's not enough material to use.

This is a fair point. But it doesn't follow that we should assume automatically that all our sources are just wrong or lying which is what is required for this sort of musing to work at all. The truth is that we should only think a source is wrong if we have a reason for doing so. Often we do but seldom entirely. For example, the Sejarah Melayu is a really important source for Southeast Asian history. Unfortunately, we now know that it's in effect a dynastic propaganda piece that was never intended to be a (modern) work of history. While it certainly touches on history, we have to be wary of how we use it because we know the writer's intention was to burnish the legitimacy of his patron. This doesn't mean we have to throw it out though, it just means we have to be careful with how we use it. In short, historical sources even unreliable ones can still be used.

 

[The QC]

This is a fair point. But it doesn't follow that we should assume automatically that all our sources are just wrong or lying ...

I agree, really. The only reason why I intervened was my feeling that you are casting the historicity of Jesus as being ironclad and protected by indestructible proof. I think it's the more likely hypothesis, but it's still far from certain and it's proven by a very delicate construction based on evaluations like "the author of this writing doesn't have good reasons to lie about this", "the author of this writing had good sources" and so on.

 

[Plotinus]

I agree, really. The only reason why I intervened was my feeling that you are casting the historicity of Jesus as being ironclad and protected by indestructible proof. I think it's the more likely hypothesis, but it's still far from certain and it's proven by a very delicate construction based on evaluations like "the author of this writing doesn't have good reasons to lie about this", "the author of this writing had good sources" and so on.

True. I have a regrettable tendency to over-argue against whatever the other person is saying. It's not an entirely unheard of condition on these forums!

 

[Masada]

I agree, really. The only reason why I intervened was my feeling that you are casting the historicity of Jesus as being ironclad and protected by indestructible proof. I think it's the more likely hypothesis, but it's still far from certain and it's proven by a very delicate construction based on evaluations like "the author of this writing doesn't have good reasons to lie about this", "the author of this writing had good sources" and so on.

I understand the sentiment. I'm just not sure I agree. In my view, the evidence for a historical Jesus is very strong and the very unlikely to be proven otherwise. While this isn't quite as robust a proof as might be required for maths, it's still a very strong proof for most purposes. I also think the problem with that kind of argument is that it becomes impossible to say much about anything outside of the hard sciences. I mean, how do I know I didn't have breakfast this morning? Memory is fallible. So maybe I just clean forgot about it. As did the other people around me. So I could have had breakfast, but equally I might not have; while the one is more probable than the other, how do I really know? For that matter, why should I ever eat? Worked out you can start to see the problems with this sort of view.

True. I have a regrettable tendency to over-argue against whatever the other person is saying. It's not an entirely unheard of condition on these forums!

Muscle memory does a lot of my responses now.

 

[ParkCungHee]

This is a fair point. But it doesn't follow that we should assume automatically that all our sources are just wrong or lying which is what is required for this sort of musing to work at all. The truth is that we should only think a source is wrong if we have a reason for doing so. Often we do but seldom entirely. For example, the Sejarah Melayu is a really important source for Southeast Asian history. Unfortunately, we now know that it's in effect a dynastic propaganda piece that was never intended to be a (modern) work of history. While it certainly touches on history, we have to be wary of how we use it because we know the writer's intention was to burnish the legitimacy of his patron. This doesn't mean we have to throw it out though, it just means we have to be careful with how we use it. In short, historical sources even unreliable ones can still be used.

In fact, directly unreliable not only can be used, but are very frequently just as good or even better in the hands of a trained historian then sources which are describing things in a factually accurate manner.

I can't speak for the Sejarah Malayu, but in a comparable work, Annála Uladh the most seemingly reliable parts of the work are almost absolutely useless. In this year, so and so died. Sometimes In this year, so and so, son of so and so, died in a battle with so and so. We don't really have enough sources to flesh out who these people, and so they remain isolated pieces of trivia. But, when the work gets into its factually unreliable portions, it starts telling us stuff. Because it's being unreliable for a reason, with a purpose, and that can tell us a lot about the world the author inhabited and what mattered to him and his audience. And, by understanding the pattern of unreliability, we can also find the parts that break the pattern and therefor are likely reliable.

So I think you're underselling how really valuable unreliable sources are to history. It would be very hard to do history without access to unreliable sources, even if we did not lack for reliable ones.

 

[Traitorfish]

(I am very, very glad that I'm doing my dissertation on the 18th century.)

 

[Louis XXIV]

I've heard the argument before that the same arguments saying Jesus wasn't a real person could be used to say that Hannibal Barca wasn't a real person and was just made up by Roman parents to scare their kids into being good ("Be good or else Hannibal ad Portas."). I'm not sure that's entirely true, I suspect there are coins in Barcid Spain that confirm his existence (and not just his father), but it was an interesting idea.

One thing that, to me, suggests that Jesus was real (and that he was crucified) is the story of the not breaking his legs. In order to strengthen the argument that he was the Messiah, there's the passage about bones not being broken. But the writers had to explain away the idea that bones are usually broken during Crucifixion (at least the writers seem to believe as much). If Jesus wasn't a real person, they could have found another way for him to die besides Crucifixion that would have avoided this problem neatly. Likewise, I don't think Jesus would have been from Nazareth unless he actually was from Nazareth. They needed him to be born in Bethlehem, so they had to talk about a census to put him in the correct place.

 

[ParkCungHee]

(I am very, very glad that I'm doing my dissertation on the 18th century.)

Are you implying you've found some reliable sources from the 18th century?

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not so much that the sources I'll have to work with are reliable, more that reading them doesn't mean decoding a series of elaborately constructed fictions. Or, at least, not quite so elaborate. Or perhaps just less consistent.

Oh, god, why did I pick this major...

 

[ParkCungHee]

It's not so much that the sources I'll have to work with are reliable, more that reading them doesn't mean decoding a series of elaborately constructed fictions.

That's news to me.

 

[Traitorfish]

*inconsolable weeping*

 

[ParkCungHee]

Am I the only one who likes this part of the job?