McReal: "There are plenty of assertions the Pauline epistles and the Gospels are mid-late 1st century to early 2nd century but I have never seen a cogent-inductive or valid/sound-deductive argument for those assertions."

O'Neill: 'Yes, yet again all the scholars have got it wrong. But thankfully we have random internet nobodies to show us the truth. Lucky us.' Posted by TimONeill, Thursday, 1 January 2015 7:42:26 PM

So, what are the scholars' arguments for the early dating of the key NT texts??
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"Carrier simply makes the assertion that other scholars "assume" Jesus existed. Other scholars have responded to him and corrected him, explaining that they have *concluded* he existed. Spot the difference."

That is semantics/equivocation. Many 'conclude' he exits by assuming the NT texts are historical texts, rather than actually being redacted and embellished over a few centuries to give an illusion of documenting history.
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"So, by an amazing co-incidence, there were *two* groups called "Christians" who both traced their origins to a "Christ" who was executed by Pilate in Judea during the reign of Tiberius?"

There are many permutations: eg. a. NT texts were later redacted to make 'a Christ' the "Jesus-the-Christ"; b. Some think Tacitus is redacted favourably; c. there were several Christian sects borrowing stories.

There is much to yet be fully evaluated about the 1st-3rd centuries.

"Paul’s letters are written about 20-30 years after Jesus’ death, and the Gospels about 50-70 years after his death. Our oldest piece of papyrus with a fragment of John 18 is P25 and is dated to about 125-150 CE. Authors like Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus from the late first and early second century wrote about Jesus too."

The Josephus passage is a widely-acknowledged forgery; Paul's epistles are quite independent of a historical, earthly Jesus; and the other authors mention Jesus as being something in which christians believe. No-one is disputing that there were christians.

Every mythicist knows these basic points. This article is not directed at mythicists - it's simply preaching to the choir, reassuring them that even if they are a little too sophisticated and clever to actually believe the walking-on-water and casting-demons-out-of-pigs stuff, they can still pretend there was a person they can reasonably pretend was "Jesus".

The Mad Rabbi,

My comment was a side note, hence why it appeared at the end of my post and began with a "By the way...". Whether or not TimONeill is a Christian posing as an atheist says nothing for the strength (or lack thereof) of his arguments and I acknowledge that, nor would any attempts to divert attention from what he says with a personal attack make sense after I had just spent the majority of that very post addressing much of what he had said, so my comment was not an ad hominem. For the reason McReal pointed out, however, his atheism is still worth questioning.

TimONeill,

If you really are an atheist with no emotional investment, then why can't we just discuss this civilly? You have been on the offensive with a very snarky and sarcastic tone from the word go. Why do you have to be so unpleasant? Just chill. I have no definitive position on this topic and I'm happy for you to be right. That should have been clear from my first post. The fact that you have become so emotional about all this that you missed that suggests, to me, that there is something more to your position than a mere concern for historical accuracy and what you perceive to be nonsense arguments. Your blog's strong focus on this particular topic, too, only further arouses my curiosity.

Perhaps you're a far-Right Nationalist who wants to ensure the survival of Christianity for cultural purposes? Who knows? All I know - from my years of experience with atheist-theist debates - is that something's off here and it has me intrigued.

<<Write to your nearest university and explain this to the historians there. I'm sure they'll be devastated.>>

Not necessary. I sure they're already aware of the problem. I will grant, however, that this point of mine is probably more relevant to Christians who believe in a divine Jesus with an important message for everyone.

<<Carrier simply makes the assertion that other scholars "assume" Jesus existed.>>

Not quite. In the link I provided (at least), Carrier makes the point that scholars often assume that certain *evidence* for Jesus exists.

<<Congratulations, you've set a new world speed record for resorting to that weak slur.>>

As I explained to your sock puppet, that wasn't just some ad hominem (or slur). The fact that you interpreted it as such just goes to show how defensive you're getting. But, again, why?

<<Seriously, get a grip.>>

Nothing I have said, nor the tone I have said it in, suggests that I lost my grip. This is just more emotive language from you. I would suggest that it is you who needs to get a grip. Your behavior is manic.

Bird" "Authors like Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus from the late first and early second century wrote about Jesus too."

PaulMurrayCbr: "The Josephus passage is a widely-acknowledged forgery; Paul's epistles are quite independent of a historical, earthly Jesus; and the other authors mention Jesus as being something in which Christians believe. No-one is disputing that there were Christians" ... Posted by PaulMurrayCbr, Thursday, 1 January 2015 9:43:33 PM

But Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus did Not write about Jesus - they wrote about a Christ as being something in which early Christians believed ie. they, like Paul (or whoever wrote the Pauline epistles), also wrote about something likely to be independent of a historical, earthly Jesus.

These vagaries, along with the vagaries of the Josephus texts, and vagaries about the origins and likely redactions and embellishments of all the so-called 'core' texts, make claims about the historical basis of the NT narrative so nebulous.

There are other pre-Christian references to Christs too (mainly as Greek versions of Chresto/Chrestos), which make the terminology less Jesus-specific.

The word Chrestos is found on the epitaphs of almost all the ancient Larissians

010 CE - Philo Judaeus speaks of
.. a. theochrestos ie. "God-declared," or one who is declared by god, and of
.. b. logia theochresta ie. "sayings delivered by God" ...
which proves that he wrote at a time when neither Christians nor Chrestians were yet known under these names, but there was a 1st C sect likely known as the Nazarenes (see link below).

Writing around 134 CE, Hadrian purportedly stated "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the [Greco-Egyptian] God Serapis, who call themselves the bishops of Christ .."

Moreover, there were Galileans and Nazoreans/Nazarenes, etc - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_%28sect%29

and http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelnazoreans.html - that make a pot-pourri of various sects likely, before Christianity was cemented.
.

Amongst many other ridiculous things, AJ Philips wrote:

"Perhaps you're a far-Right Nationalist who wants to ensure the survival of Christianity for cultural purposes?"

That's the funniest thing I've read all week.

"As I explained to your sock puppet ..."

And that's the second funniest.