did jesus exist?

[Masimsha]

God is great

 

[Oberon]

God is great

Good to know.

 

[Oberon]

We're talking about use of language in a religious context. Your insistence that this phrase has one meaning and one meaning only is of no consequence within a religious context. Religious language makes use of meaning in a creative way, and anyway it cares to regardless of your rigid rules of grammatical construction, it's called poetic license.

1) It isn't a phrase. It is a construction, which works entirely differently. See e.g.

Goldberg, Adele E. (1995) Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Croft, William. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford Universtity Press.

Croft, W. (2007). Construction Grammar. In Geeraerts, D, & Cuyckens, H. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 463-508.

Langacker, Ronald W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2) This isn't poetry, nor is the context particularly religious. Paul mentions he didn't see anyone else while with Peter, but as an aside notes that he saw James. In order to differentiate this James from who knows how many others, he uses a particular construction, which identifies James by his brother.

3) Pleading "it's religion, therefore I can interpret it any way I want" is really kind of pathetic particularly coming from a non-believer.

4) This isn't a matter of metaphor with words. In greek, nouns are inflected in particular ways for particular reasons. Pragmatics dictates certain structures be used in even more specific ways. You haven't offered any alternative way to construe the genitive construction here other than to say basically "it's religious so I don't have to explain it." Which is not only ridiculous, it's just plain incorrect.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Does this mean you would throw out a priori any claims that Jesus was thought to have healed the sick or cast out demons? In other words, a great many "fantastical" claims could have been interpreted as fanstatical when in fact they were not. This happens even today.

Personally I would set them aside. They're not important to me in determining a historical Yeshua.

Fair enough. But using what methods?

He was supposedly well know according to the 4 gospels. He had a huge following according to the 4 gospels. He had a high profile trial according to the gospels. He was said to have turned over tables in the temple in the city according to the gospels. So when looking into this character it doesn't seem like the Romans of the day were interested in such a supposed high profile character. The "history" of his existence seems to be sketchy from his very birth. Was there a wide scale (hit) out on the baby Yeshua? I don't think so. Did he have a high profile trial? It doesn't appear to be the case. These are the situations that interest me, not the healing the blind or walking on water.

Given the centrality of kinship ties not only in community organization but in personal identity, it isn't really possible for someone to have gone around a group of people and claim to be related to someone they were not. If you know someone well, you know their family. It is perhaps hard to understand this given modern western community organization, but family as a means to not only identify yourself but also to be identified by others was vital in the ancient mediterranean. It is unlikely people would go around claiming to be related to people they weren't, but far less likely that people who knew them would be fooled. Again, knowing a person meant knowing their family.

Point taken...but which James are we discussing. The son of Zebedee is dead at this point. The ("brother of the lord") seems to be a mystery unless I've overlooked his supposed lineage (parents etc.). Surely we're not talking about James, son of Alphaeus. If we are then Gatatians 1:19 makes sense that Paul was talking about one of the (brethren-servants of Yeshua)

 

[dogsgod]

1) It isn't a phrase. It is a construction, which works entirely differently. See e.g.

Goldberg, Adele E. (1995) Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Croft, William. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford Universtity Press.

Croft, W. (2007). Construction Grammar. In Geeraerts, D, & Cuyckens, H. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 463-508.

Langacker, Ronald W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2) This isn't poetry, nor is the context particularly religious. Paul mentions he didn't see anyone else while with Peter, but as an aside notes that he saw James. In order to differentiate this James from who knows how many others, he uses a particular construction, which identifies James by his brother.

3) Pleading "it's religion, therefore I can interpret it any way I want" is really kind of pathetic particularly coming from a non-believer.

4) This isn't a matter of metaphor with words. In greek, nouns are inflected in particular ways for particular reasons. Pragmatics dictates certain structures be used in even more specific ways. You haven't offered any alternative way to construe the genitive construction here other than to say basically "it's religious so I don't have to explain it." Which is not only ridiculous, it's just plain incorrect.

Unfortunately, a lot of religious language is left open to interpretation leaving it difficult to know what a religious author has in mind, this case is no different. By all your reasoning and descriptions and grammatical rules, brother of Jesus would have been far more apt, especially in this instance since we see the use of the word brother throughout the epistles and Acts to mean something other than a literal blood sibling. The religious don't give a rat's *** about construction.

 

[dogsgod]

Besides, one has to completely ignore the fact that the gospels nor Acts mentions a brother of Jesus having a ministry, nor do they mention his supposed martyrdom.

 

[Oberon]

Personally I would set them aside. They're not important to me in determining a historical Yeshua.

Why not? I mean, if the historical Jesus was thought by those around him to have been able to heal the sick and cast out demons and perform wonders, as many historical people have, and especially if Jesus himself thought that he was capable of such feats, wouldn't this be extremely essential to any portrait of the historical Jesus?

He was supposedly well know according to the 4 gospels. He had a huge following according to the 4 gospels. He had a high profile trial according to the gospels. He was said to have turned over tables in the temple in the city according to the gospels. So when looking into this character it doesn't seem like the Romans of the day were interested in such a supposed high profile character. The "history" of his existence seems to be sketchy from his very birth. Was there a wide scale (hit) out on the baby Yeshua? I don't think so. Did he have a high profile trial? It doesn't appear to be the case. These are the situations that interest me, not the healing the blind or walking on water.

I meant in general what historical criteria/methods do you use to determine which parts or likely to be historical?

Point taken...but which James are we discussing.

That's the whole point I've been trying to make about the kin identification construction. Because so many people shared the same last name, more was needed to tell them apart when the audience was unsure. Josephus, Paul, and Mark/Matthew all identify a certain James by his brother. There are other people named James, and unfortunately they aren't always identified. By the other people named James, when they are identified, are identified differently because they are different. That's the whole point of this ubiquitous construction.

 

[dogsgod]

Point taken...but which James are we discussing. The son of Zebedee is dead at this point. The ("brother of the lord") seems to be a mystery unless I've overlooked his supposed lineage (parents etc.). Surely we're not talking about James, son of Alphaeus. If we are then Gatatians 1:19 makes sense that Paul was talking about one of the (brethren-servants of Yeshua)

The son of Zebedee is not dead at this point. According to Acts he was killed in what would have been the year 44CE during Paul's second visit to Jerusalem, 14 years after his first visit. Paul himself makes no mention of James being killed nor that he met with a different James during his second visit. In any event, it was Paul's first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem that he refers to James as the brother of the Lord, while James, son of Zebedee was alive and well.

 

[Oberon]

Unfortunately, a lot of religious language is left open to interpretation leaving it difficult to know what a religious author has in mind, this case is no different.

According to you. But then, you can't read the language.

By all your reasoning and descriptions and grammatical rules, brother of Jesus would have been far more apt, especially in this instance since we see the use of the word brother throughout the epistles and Acts to mean something other than a literal blood sibling.

Wrong. Because it is quite clear whom Paul is talking about when he says "lord." The whole point of the construction is to make clear whom one is talking about. Jesus/the christ/lord etc are all equally good options because they can all be plugged into this slot in the construction and get the same meaning.

The religious don't give a rat's *** about construction.

I don't think you could have said anything which would reveal more your complete lack of understanding on what linguistic constructions are.

Language is a vehicle to pass on meaning. Within the pass 20+ years, linguistics research has shown that, at least at the cognitive and conceptual level, the smallest independent unit of language isn't the lexeme but the construction. At times, this can be a single word, but it often isn't.

How constructions can be ordered/arranged/construed/etc are limited by a number of factors, including both syntax/grammar and pragmatics.

IT DOESN'T MATTER whether one is writing poetry or religious texts, one can no more escape the limits a given language imposes on that languages construction than one can escape using words in that language. If you want to convey meaningful information, you are limited by the constructions of a particular language. I cannot say "I was thinking off the book" or "the higher you climb, falling harder" and expect to be understood no matter what I am writing. The verb think can take only particular prepositions (e.g. "of" or "about"), and the construction "the X-er, the Y-er" must use a comparative with the definite article in both clauses.

The construction in Greek "X the [identifier] of Y" is likewise limited. We can immediately see that the most typical and salient relationship profiled in such a construction is not only kinship but particularly that of a father. In the form of the construction "X of Y" the saliency of the kin-relationship genitive construction becomes clear because no specific lexical identifier is needed to make clear we are talking about a specific kin-relationship: that of father.

When, due to various reasons (the father is unknown, or another relationship, such as having a well-known brother, or a husband) it is necesary to use another type of kin-relationship, that name of that relationship (husband, brother, etc) is plugged into the construction.

To argue that somehow a religious text can simply ignore the restraints on constructions is just ludicrous.

Even more important is understanding the whole purpose behind metaphor in the first place. The only time we want to go around assuming that what people say isn't what they meant is when we don't like what they said and want to explain it away. People use metaphor all the time. But if they aren't clear about it, it looses any meaning. Paul mentions James in passing and uses a particular grammatical construction to identify him by his brother. Ignoring the syntactical/grammatical construction for a moment, let's look at the pragmatics. What basis do we have for assuming that paul DOESN'T mean brother when he says brother? To be sure, Paul and others use the word adelphos to mean non-literal brother, but it is quite clear when he does so. In order to explain the unique usage of the word here, Price and others are forced to simply make-up explanations about "titles" out of thin air. There is no reason at all to think that Paul means anything other than actual brother when he says so, and factoring in the construction it makes it quite clear.

The only reason for assuming another view, without any evidence, is because you are trying to prove your conclusion (Jesus was a myth) by assuming it to begin with.

 

[dogsgod]

I can't accept that the James Paul referred to was Jesus' brother because the gospels and Acts do not mention that Jesus' brother had a ministry nor do they mention his supposed martyrdom, in fact they tell us nothing about him.

When people claim that Paul is referring to Jesus' brother I would like to know how this escaped the attention of the authors of the gospel and Acts, especially since they were writing well after the fact and particularity Acts which makes a point of telling of the ministry after Jesus was dead.

 

[logician]

Besides, one has to completely ignore the fact that the gospels nor Acts mentions a brother of Jesus having a ministry, nor do they mention his supposed martyrdom.

Yeah, this "brother of Jesus" stuff is just plain hokey, there is no gospel equivalent of it, and certainly no real historical evidence of it. Just the usual third-hand, could be faked, evidence of it.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Why not? I mean, if the historical Jesus was thought by those around him to have been able to heal the sick and cast out demons and perform wonders, as many historical people have, and especially if Jesus himself thought that he was capable of such feats, wouldn't this be extremely essential to any portrait of the historical Jesus?

To me it wouldn't. But I can only speak for me. Turning water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few fish and a few loaves of bread and walking on water are claims I set aside. I can see trying to use the (turning a few fish and loaves of bread) into a seemingly unlimited cornucopia for the masses.... but to me it fails because this would certainly catch the eyes of the Romans but sadly it didn't. But really, none of these claims do anything for or against the supposed historicity of Yeshua. It's kind of like stretching to prove a negative.

I meant in general what historical criteria/methods do you use to determine which parts or likely to be historical?

What I mean is...can we use the information found in the 4 gospels to determine if the information given (i.e. the hit out on the baby Yeshua and/or the high profile trial) to determine whether the events happened. I personally don't see a connection of the claims in the 4 gospels and the recorded Roman record.

 

[Oberon]

Yeah, this "brother of Jesus" stuff is just plain hokey, there is no gospel equivalent of it

REALLY!??
Mat 13:55 Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
Mar 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

and certainly no real historical evidence of it.

Josephus, antt. 20.200: Iakabon ton adelphon Iesou tou legeomenou Christou/James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ

Just the usual third-hand, could be faked, evidence of it.

Paul's mention of James is first hand evidence. He knew him.

 

[Oberon]

To me it wouldn't. But I can only speak for me. Turning water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few fish and a few loaves of bread and walking on water are claims I set aside.

That's a small number of the various feats Jesus was thought to perform. And again, using the principle of analogy, the key historical method, we can see clearly that historical people were known to cure diseases, perform great feats, cast out demons,etc. To ignore these because it is clear (unless one is a believer) the actual interpretation of miracle is incorrect is to make a serious error. To pick one out of hundreds of examples, we have plenty of information to know that John Walsh of Dorset was a historical figure. But virtually all of our information about him concenrs his reputation as a cunning man/witch. He was known to do everything from using magic to find lost items to consulting fairies and other such things. Virtually all we know about him concerns magical practices. Yet we have court records detailing his trial and we know he was historical. Thus, in order5 to understand him as a historical figure, we have to acknowledge and understand his reputation as a witch/cunning man. Jesus is no different.

I personally don't see a connection of the claims in the 4 gospels and the recorded Roman record.

You wouldn't expect to, and even if we took literally the claims of the popularity of Jesus in the NT, we wouldn't necessarily see evidence in the roman recorded which is 1) extremely fragmentary and 2) generally not concerned with affairs that don't directly concern the roman empire. Most Jewish figures are unknown in the roman records.

More importantly, it is easy to imagine that Jesus' followers would exaggerate his early influence. And given the social and cultural circles in which the movement began, it would be extremely unlikely that any roman chronicler would mention Jesus until the movement had gained influence. And, indeed, a few historians who lived after Jesus but in the first century take notice at exactly this time.

 

[Oberon]

I can't accept that the James Paul referred to was Jesus' brother because the gospels and Acts do not mention that Jesus' brother had a ministry nor do they mention his supposed martyrdom, in fact they tell us nothing about him.

1) You called Acts a piece of 2nd-century myth-making. Now you are using it as a historical device to show that James isn't Jesus' brother? Either it is a valid source for history, in which case your argument against historicity fails for other reasons, or it isn't, in which case you can't use it to interpret Paul or Josephus.

2) We don't know what Acts says about James because James isn't always identified. It could be that Luke deliberately didn't want to talk about James the brother of Jesus. According to the very hypothesis you hold, that the author of Luke/Acts is dependent upon Mark, Luke knew quite well that James was known as the brother of Jesus, but didn't say so.

3) Why on earth would it be impossible for Jesus' brother to be a relatively minor or unmentioned character? The gospels show that by and large Jesus' family rejected him. James is a late-comer to the party.

Again, special pleading on your part:

"We can't accept the gospel or acts as historical, nor should we use them to interpret Paul. But when Paul alone shows that Jesus was historical, because he has first hand evidence of Jesus' brother, then I will use the gospels and acts and read them into Paul to come up with some convoluted argument on why Paul can't mean a literal brother, based on an argument from silence."

When people claim that Paul is referring to Jesus' brother I would like to know how this escaped the attention of the authors of the gospel and Acts,

The gospels DO mention Jesus' brother James, but also note that his family largely rejected him. The author of Luke/Acts was also clearly aware that Jesus had a brother named James because he used Mark who said so, apart from any other reason, but for any number of reasons may never have mentioned this James. To assert that a lack of mention in Luke/Acts constitutes evidence is not only an argument from silence (one of your classic fallacies, by the way) it is also a particularly poor one because James is attested to by at least four sources, and at least three of them are independent.

 

[Ilisrum]

To assert that a lack of mention in Luke/Acts constitutes evidence is not only an argument from silence (one of your classic fallacies, by the way) it is also a particularly poor one because James is attested to by at least four sources, and at least three of them are independent.

Josephus is forged, the gospels are fiction, and Paul didn't mean a literal brother. And that's that...

 

[Oberon]

Josephus is forged, the gospels are fiction, and Paul didn't mean a literal brother. And that's that...

I guess so. "My mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts."

 

[dogsgod]

What I believe or don't believe is completely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that the gospel writers and Acts failed to notice that Jesus' brother had a ministry and that he was supposedly martyred.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The fact of the matter is that the gospel writers and Acts failed to notice that Jesus' brother had a ministry and that he was supposedly martyred.

Sorry, but :biglaugh:

What an astute observation.

 

[dogsgod]

Some people see the same name and jump to conclusions and then have to make up all kinds of excuses as to why those conclusions are not reflected in the gospels or Acts. Sorry, but I'm not going there.