Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Theoretical Skeptic on November 03, 2020, 11:18:20 AM
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Was Joseph Jesus' father? The simple answer to this question is that Jesus was actually the Son of God and the natural heir to the Kingdom by miraculous birth through the virgin girl Mary, of David's line, and Jesus was also the legal heir in the male line of descent from David and Solomon through his adoptive father Joseph. (Luke 1:32, 35; Romans 1:1-4)
The difference in nearly all the names in Luke's genealogy of Jesus as compared with Matthew's is quickly resolved in the fact that Luke traced the line through David's son Nathan, instead of Solomon as did Matthew. (Luke 3:31; Matthew 1:6-7) Luke follows the ancestry of Mary which shows Jesus' natural descent from David. Matthew shows Jesus' legal right to the throne of David by descent from Solomon through Joseph, who was legally Jesus' father. Both signify that Joseph wasn't Jesus' actual father, only his adoptive father and giving him legal right.
Matthew departs from his style when he comes to Jesus, saying: "Jacob became father to Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ." (Matthew 1:16) He doesn't say that 'Joseph became father to Jesus' but that he was "the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born." Luke says that Jesus was actually the Son of God by Mary (Luke 1:32-35) that "Jesus . . . being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph, son of Heli." Luke 3:23.
Frederic Louis Godet wrote: "This study of the text in detail leads us in this way to admit 1. That the genealogical register of Luke is that of Heli, the grandfather of Jesus; 2. That, this affiliation of Jesus by Heli being expressly opposed to His affiliation by Joseph, the document which he has preserved for us can be nothing else in his view than the genealogy of Jesus through Mary. But why does not Luke name Mary, and why pass immediately from Jesus to His grandfather? Ancient sentiment did not comport with the mention of the mother as the genealogical link. Among the Greeks a man was the son of his father, not of his mother; and among the Jews the adage was: 'Genus matris non vocatur genus ("The descendant of the mother is not called (her) descendant")' ('Baba bathra,' 110, a)." Commentary on Luke, 1981, p. 129.
Both genealogies show descent from David - through Solomon and through Nathan. (Matthew 1:6; Luke 3:31) They come together again in two persons; Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah, perhaps by marriage to the daughter of Neri - he was then the "son of Neri." or Neri's son-in-law. It is also possible that Neri had no sons, so that Shealtiel was counted as his "son." (Compare Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27; 1 Chronicles 3:17-19)
So Acts 2:30; 13:23; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8; Revelation 22:16 are accurate in that Joseph was through David's line and legal father to Jesus.
Hebrews 2:16 which refers to Jesus as seed of Abraham refers to the covenant God had with Abraham, which was for a "seed" which many nations would bless themselves. (Genesis 22:17-18; Galatians 3:8) The Jews were all of the seed of Abraham (John 8:39; Matthew 3:9) but they rejected it when they rejected the Messiah. Even in Genesis 22:17-18 it mentions Abraham's seed as being a blessing to all the nations. A spiritual seed that would surpass the fleshly inheritance of the people of Israel.
Matthew 1:8 and Luke 1:31-35 is given as a contradiction but Mary was from the Davidic line and Joseph was Jesus' legal father.
At Matthew 22:45 and Mark 12:35-37 Jesus quotes David in Psalm 110. Jesus never denied that he was a descendant of David, he only points out something the Pharisees were not aware of. Jesus existed in heaven as God's first born only begotten son before the earth was made and before Abraham. (John 1:1; 8:58)
Explanation Of Difficulties In The Genealogies Of Matthew And Luke
The first chapter of Matthew the genealogy of Jesus runs from Abraham forward. In Luke chapter 3 the genealogy goes back to "Adam son of God." Part of Jesus genealogy also appears at 1 Chronicles chapters 1 - 3, running from Adam through Solomon and Zerubbabel. The books of Genesis and Ruth combined give the line from Adam to David.
The latter three lists - Genesis/Ruth, 1 Chronicles and Luke - agree fully from Adam to Arpachshad, with minor differences on certain names such as Kenan, which is "Cainan" at Luke 3:37. The Chronicles and Genesis/Ruth lists agree down to David while another "Cainan" is found in Luke's account between Arpachshad and Shelah. (Luke 3:35-36)
From Solomon to Zerubbabel the Chronicles record and Matthew agree though Matthew omits some names. One needs to address these as well as the differences in Luke's account from David to Jesus.
Genealogy involved private family records in addition to the public records of genealogies which chroniclers, such as Ezra, for example, had access to when they compiled their lists. To the registers that existed in the first century up until 70 C.E. the matter of the descent of the Messiah from Abraham through David was very important.
Matthew and Luke no doubt consulted these genealogical tables.
The question is why does Matthew leave out some names that are contained in the listing of other chroniclers? For one thing it is not necessary to name every link in the line of descent. Ezra, for example, in proving his priestly lineage, at Ezra 7:1-5, left out several names that were listed at 1 Chronicles 6:1-15. Matthew seems to have copied from the public register - leaving out some names not needed to prove the descent of Jesus from Abraham and David. Access of the Hebrew Scriptures would have likely been used as well. (Ruth 4:12, 18-22 and Matthew 1:3-6)
Both the lists made by Matthew and Luke would have been publicly recognized by the Jews of that time as authentic. The Pharisees as well as the Sadducees - bitter enemies of Christianity, didn't challenge these genealogies. They could have done so up until 70 C.E. when the records were destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Problems in Matthew's Genealogy?
Matthew divides the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus into three sections of 14 generations each. There is a name count of 41 rather than 42. By taking Abraham to David, 14 names, then using David as the starting name for the second 14, with Josiah as the last and finally by heading the third series of 14 names with Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) and ending with Jesus. Matthew repeats the name David as the last of the first 14 names and as the first of the next 14. Then he repeats the expression "the deportation to Babylon," which he links with Josiah and his sons. (Matthew 1:17)
There is an omission of three kings of David's line between Jehoram and Uzziah (Azariah) because Jehoram married wicked Athaliah of the house of Ahab, the daughter of Jezebel bringing this God condemned strain into the line of the kings of Judah. (1 Kings 21:20-26; 2 Kings 8:25-27) Matthew named Jehoram as first in this wicked alliance, but left out the next three kings to the fourth generation - Ahaziah, Jehoash, and Amaziah.
Where Matthew indicates that Zerubbabel is the son of Shealtiel (Matthew 1:12) it coincides with other references (Ezra 3:2; Nehemiah 12:1; Hagai 1:14; Luke 3:27) but at 1 Chronicles 3:19 Zerubbabel is listed as the son of Pedaiah. This is because Zarubbabel was the natural son of Pedaiah and the legal son of Shealtiel by brother-in-law marriage or possibly after Zerubbabel's father Pedaiah died Zerubbabel was brought up by Shealtiel as his son and so legally recognized as the son of Shealtiel.
Problems With Luke's Genealogy?
Available manuscript copies of Luke list a second "Cainan" between Arpachshad (Arphaxad) and Shelah. (Luke 3:35 Compare Genesis 10:24; 11:12; 1 Chronicles 1:18, 24) Most scholars take it to be a copyist's error. "Cainan" is not found in this position in the Hebrew genealogical listings in the Hebrew or Samaritan texts, nor in any of the Targums or versions except the Septuagint. It doesn't seem to be in earlier copies of the Septuagint because Josephus - who almost always uses the Septuagint - lists Seles (Shelah) next as the son of Arphaxades (Arpachshad) - (Jewish Antiquities, I, 146 [vi, 4]) Africanus, Irenaeus, Jerome and Eusebius all rejected "Cainan" in Luke's account as an interpolation.
Bible Lists Of Jesus' Genealogy
Genesis And Ruth - Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jered, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abram (Abraham), Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Judan (and Tamar), Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz (and Ruth), Obed, Jesse, David.
1 Chronicles chapters 1, 2, 3. - Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon (Salma, 1 Chronicles 2:11), Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah (Uzziah), Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Amon, Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah (Jehoiachin), Shealtiel (Pedaiah) [1], Zerubbabel [2].
Matthew Chapter 1 - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah (and Tamur), Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon (and Salmon Rahab), Boaz (and Ruth), Obed, Jesse, David (and Bath-sheba), Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekia, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Jusus (foster son).
Luke chapter 3 - Adam, Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Arpachshad, Cainan, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Arni (Ram?), Amminadab, Nahshon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David, Nathan [3], Mattatha, Menna, Melea, Eliakim, Jonam, Joseph, Judas, Symeon, Levi, Matthat, Jorim, Eliezer, Jesus, Er, Elmadam, Cosam, Addi, Melchi, Neri, Shealtiel [4], Zerubbabel, Rhesa, Joanan, Joda, Josech, Semein, Mattathias, Maath, Naggai, Esli, Nahum, Amos, Mattathias, Joseph, Jannai, Melchi, Levi, Matthat, Heli (father of Mary), Joseph (Heli's son-in-law), Jesus (Mary's son).
Footnotes
[1] Zerubbabel evidently was the natural son of Pedaiah and the legal son of Shealtiel by brother-in-law marriage; or he was brought up by Shealtiel after his father Pedaiahs death and became legally recognized as the son of Shealtiel (1 Chronicles 3:17-19 / Ezra 3:2 / Luke 3:27).
[2] The lines meet in Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, afterward diverging. This divergence could have been through two different descendants of Zerubbabel, or Rhesa or Abiud could have been a son-in-law.
[3] At Nathan, Luke begins reckoning the genealogy through Jesus maternal line, while Matthew continues with the paternal line.
[4] Shealtiel the son of Jeconiah possibly was the son-in-law of Neri. (1 Chronicles 3:17; Luke 3:27).
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https://youtu.be/mVoPG9HtYF8
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Was Joseph Jesus' father? The simple answer to this question is that Jesus was actually the Son of God and the natural heir to the Kingdom by miraculous birth through the virgin girl Mary, of David's line, and Jesus was also the legal heir in the male line of descent from David and Solomon through his adoptive father Joseph. (Luke 1:32, 35; Romans 1:1-4)
So you think the 'simple' answer is that a monotheistic deity impregnated her as a means to manifest an avatar to its chosen people in order to make them no longer his chosen people so he could sacrifice himself to make nothing change rather than, say, an unmarried got pregnant and made up an excuse to avoid the unfortunate consequences?
The difference in nearly all the names in Luke's genealogy of Jesus as compared with Matthew's is quickly resolved in the fact that Luke traced the line through David's son Nathan, instead of Solomon as did Matthew.
The genealogy isn't really the holding point in the story; it's a useful tool to point out to the biblical literalists, but nothing more than that.
Luke follows the ancestry of Mary which shows Jesus' natural descent from David.
Over six hundred years and fourteen generations it would have been difficult to throw a stone and not hit someone descended from David in that region given his seven wives (presuming the 700 count is an exaggeration) and up to 300 concubines...
Matthew shows Jesus' legal right to the throne of David by descent from Solomon through Joseph, who was legally Jesus' father.
Notwithstanding that Solomon put it around even more than David, watering down the significance of the descendance claim, didn't you just say above that Joseph wasn't Jesus' father?
Both signify that Joseph wasn't Jesus' actual father, only his adoptive father and giving him legal right.
Which would mean more if adoption was a concept with the Halacha; the modern adoption precepts in Jewish tradition were coopted from the Roman practice.
Matthew departs from his style when he comes to Jesus, saying: "Jacob became father to Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ." (Matthew 1:16) He doesn't say that 'Joseph became father to Jesus' but that he was "the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born." Luke says that Jesus was actually the Son of God by Mary (Luke 1:32-35) that "Jesus . . . being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph, son of Heli." Luke 3:23.
Those people were writing decades and more after the alleged events, none of whom are the people they are today claimed to be, working from third and fourth hand accounts...
Both genealogies show descent from David - through Solomon and through Nathan. (Matthew 1:6; Luke 3:31) They come together again in two persons; Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah, perhaps by marriage to the daughter of Neri - he was then the "son of Neri." or Neri's son-in-law. It is also possible that Neri had no sons, so that Shealtiel was counted as his "son." (Compare Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27; 1 Chronicles 3:17-19)
It's also possible these were made up to try to fulfil older Jewish prophecies, and to slip in the conveniently revered number '14' into the lineage.
So Acts 2:30; 13:23; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8; Revelation 22:16 are accurate in that Joseph was through David's line and legal father to Jesus.
Except for being contradictory, unreliable accounts of concepts that didn't exist at the time trying to impart significance in unremarkable details.
Hebrews 2:16 which refers to Jesus as seed of Abraham refers to the covenant God had with Abraham, which was for a "seed" which many nations would bless themselves. (Genesis 22:17-18; Galatians 3:8)The Jews were all of the seed of Abraham (John 8:39; Matthew 3:9) but they rejected it when they rejected the Messiah. Even in Genesis 22:17-18 it mentions Abraham's seed as being a blessing to all the nations. A spiritual seed that would surpass the fleshly inheritance of the people of Israel.
Impressive given the mythological nature of Abraham...
At Matthew 22:45 and Mark 12:35-37 Jesus quotes David in Psalm 110. Jesus never denied that he was a descendant of David, he only points out something the Pharisees were not aware of. Jesus existed in heaven as God's first born only begotten son before the earth was made and before Abraham. (John 1:1; 8:58)
If Jesus and God existed in the same place at the same time how can they be the same person - surely, even discounting the angels and the Holy Spirit, this makes it a polytheism?
O.
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If Jesus and God existed in the same place at the same time how can they be the same person - surely, even discounting the angels and the Holy Spirit, this makes it a polytheism?
O.
Bit of info from a former believer in the very distant past - JWs don't believe that Christ and God are the same person. In Christian history this was originally known as the Arian Heresy. Their translation of John 1:1 "and the Word was a god" has indeed led to charges of polytheism.
I don't think we non-believers should get too steamed up about such theological imponderables.
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https://youtu.be/mVoPG9HtYF8
I clicked on the link - it appears to be a short burst of white noise, is that correct?!!!
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I clicked on the link - it appears to be a short burst of white noise, is that correct?!!!
No, it should, and does for me, take you to a YouTube screen where you have to click again and it plays a version of Dem Bones
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No, it should, and does for me, take you to a YouTube screen where you have to click again and it plays a version of Dem Bones
Though white noise may have made the point just as well.
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Was Joseph Jesus' father? The simple answer to this question is that Jesus was actually the Son of God ...
No actually the simple answer is that we really have no real idea who Jesus' father was as there is a paucity of credible evidence. However applying Occam we should reasonably conclude that Jesus' father was a human male - whether it was Joseph or another man is simply speculation but to suggest supernatural interference (e.g. god) requires conclusive evidence that the supernatural (e.g. god) actually exists and there is no credible evidence for this therefore we should not add a layer of unevidenced speculation.
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TS,
Was Joseph Jesus' father? The simple answer to this question is that Jesus was actually the Son of God...
As you seem to have missed it, there is a faith sharing area on this mb.
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Luke follows the ancestry of Mary
Nope.
Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli
He is quite clearly following the ancestry of Joseph there. He even says so.
Let's be honest: both genealogies are fictions made up out of whole cloth. The idea that anybody living in Palestine in the first century could reliably trace their ancestry back a thousand years is nonsense. How many of us could show an unbroken line back to William I? That's pretty much the same thing.
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Nope.
He is quite clearly following the ancestry of Joseph there. He even says so.
If Luke wants to show that Jesus is 'one of us', literally descended from Adam, but at the same time Luke knows that Joseph was not his father (evident from the words, "as was supposed, of Joseph"), he wouldn't record a genealogy of Joseph. So it has to be Mary's genealogy. Heli must be Joseph's father-in-law. Matthew gives Joseph's genealogy to show Jesus' right to the throne through Solomon, by adoption.
Let's be honest: both genealogies are fictions made up out of whole cloth. The idea that anybody living in Palestine in the first century could reliably trace their ancestry back a thousand years is nonsense. How many of us could show an unbroken line back to William I? That's pretty much the same thing.
Queen Elizabeth (and thus lots of other people in her family) can trace her ancestry back to king Rollo the Viking, William I's grandfather.
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If Luke wants to show that Jesus is 'one of us', literally descended from Adam, but at the same time Luke knows that Joseph was not his father (evident from the words, "as was supposed, of Joseph"), he wouldn't record a genealogy of Joseph.
That is possibly true, but no amount of wanting Luke to be recording Mary's ancestry can alter the text which clearly and unambiguously starts with Joseph.
So it has to be Mary's genealogy.
And it isn't. That mans your premise must be false.
Heli must be Joseph's father-in-law.
Luke says "Joseph son of Heli"
Queen Elizabeth (and thus lots of other people in her family) can trace her ancestry back to king Rollo the Viking, William I's grandfather.
Queen Elizabeth is not a carpenter in a backwater village in Berkshire.
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That is possibly true, but no amount of wanting Luke to be recording Mary's ancestry can alter the text which clearly and unambiguously starts with Joseph.
And it isn't. That mans your premise must be false.
Luke says "Joseph son of Heli"
Queen Elizabeth is not a carpenter in a backwater village in Berkshire.
If we take this verse as meaning Jesus was the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, etc down to 'the son of God', then the effect is to make Jesus supposedly (but not really) the son of Adam and supposedly the son of God. However if we understand it to mean that Jesus was supposedly the son of Joseph, but literally the son of Heli and so on down to Adam and ultimately God, then it fits with Luke's general teaching that Jesus is actually descended from Adam and actually the son of God.
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Who was Jesus' brother?
Jim Davidson.
He was called James, and was thus, like Jesus, descended from King David. Therefore, Jim Davidson. QED.
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If we take this verse as meaning Jesus was the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, etc down to 'the son of God', then the effect is to make Jesus supposedly (but not really) the son of Adam and supposedly the son of God. However if we understand it to mean that Jesus was supposedly the son of Joseph, but literally the son of Heli and so on down to Adam and ultimately God, then it fits with Luke's general teaching that Jesus is actually descended from Adam and actually the son of God.
Let's ignore the notion that it would have pretty well impossible to trace back so many generations in those days, without any kind of formal records of births, deaths etc.
But surely if the biblical suggestion that Adam and Eve were the first people then surely by that argument everyone would have to have been descended from Adam.
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Let's ignore the notion that it would have pretty well impossible to trace back so many generations in those days, without any kind of formal records of births, deaths etc.
But surely if the biblical suggestion that Adam and Eve were the first people then surely by that argument everyone would have to have been descended from Adam.
Yes, you're right. What does go in favour of one genealogy being of Joseph and the other of Mary is that everyone has two genealogies, and that there are a few ways in which Joseph's name could have ended up in Mary's line (levirate marriage, or the husband's name being automatically substituted for the wife's, for example).
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Yes, you're right. What does go in favour of one genealogy being of Joseph and the other of Mary is that everyone has two genealogies, and that there are a few ways in which Joseph's name could have ended up in Mary's line (levirate marriage, or the husband's name being automatically substituted for the wife's, for example).
I'm sorry - that's non-sense. There is nothing in Luke 23-38 to indicate that this is anything other than the genealogy of Joseph:
'He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, etc etc'
That's Joseph's lineage, not Mary's.
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Let's ignore the notion that it would have pretty well impossible to trace back so many generations in those days, without any kind of formal records of births, deaths etc.
But surely if the biblical suggestion that Adam and Eve were the first people then surely by that argument everyone would have to have been descended from Adam.
Luke knows that Joseph is not Jesus' real father, and that Mary is his real mother. What then is the point in him tracing Joseph's line back to Adam?
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I'm sorry - that's non-sense. There is nothing in Luke 23-38 to indicate that this is anything other than the genealogy of Joseph:
'He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, etc etc'
That's Joseph's lineage, not Mary's.
As a point of order, it actually says, "And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, son of Joseph, 24the [son] of Eli, the [son] of Matthat" (Youngs Literal Translation)
Given that Greek affords 'considerable latitude' in translation (to quote John MacArthur), and the lack of definite article before 'son of Joseph', MacArthur thinks it could be rendered, "Jesus Himself, supposedly Joseph's son, was about thirty years old when He began His ministry, being a son of Heli." link (https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-48/the-messiahs-royal-lineage)
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If we take this verse as meaning Jesus was the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, etc down to 'the son of God', then the effect is to make Jesus supposedly (but not really) the son of Adam and supposedly the son of God.
Which is actually what it says.
However if we understand it to mean...
Why would we understand it to mean something other than what it says?
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Luke knows that Joseph is not Jesus' real father, and that Mary is his real mother. What then is the point in him tracing Joseph's line back to Adam?
If Adam is the first man, then everyone, the entire human race would by default be descendants of him.
So what indeed would be the point of a pretty pointless exercise?
Do you know?
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If Adam is the first man, then everyone, the entire human race would by default be descendants of him.
So what indeed would be the point of a pretty pointless exercise?
Do you know?
Yes, to make it hard for whoever is doing the reading in church, and to sort out the men readers from the boy readers.
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Yes, to make it hard for whoever is doing the reading in church, and to sort out the men readers from the boy readers.
Gawd - a day I never thought to see - Spud making a joke! A weak one, but a joke nevertheless.
I mean, from my point of view ALL his posts are a joke, weaker even than the one above but, hey ho!
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If Adam is the first man, then everyone, the entire human race would by default be descendants of him.
So what indeed would be the point of a pretty pointless exercise?
Do you know?
So to be clear, if this is Joseph's genealogy then for no apparent reason Luke went to the trouble of showing that Joseph was descended from Adam.
Since Luke is clearly talking about Jesus being descended from Adam, and since he also implies that Jesus wasn't the true son of Joseph but he was the true son of Mary, then the genealogy must be that of Mary. The reason she is not mentioned is because women weren't mentioned in Hebrew genealogies.
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So to be clear, if this is Joseph's genealogy then for no apparent reason Luke went to the trouble of showing that Joseph was descended from Adam.
Since Luke is clearly talking about Jesus being descended from Adam, and since he also implies that Jesus wasn't the true son of Joseph but he was the true son of Mary, then the genealogy must be that of Mary. The reason she is not mentioned is because women weren't mentioned in Hebrew genealogies.
Baseless assertions - you have no evidence whatsoever that:
'...the genealogy must be that of Mary' or
'The reason she is not mentioned is because women weren't mentioned in Hebrew genealogies.'
I think the more likely explanation for some people to try to argue black is white, when it is pretty obvious that this is Joseph's genealogy, not Mary's is that Luke and Matthew disagree markedly on the genealogy creating an embarrassment for those people who want the Gospels to be true and therefore a convoluted 'work around' is proposed, in other words that Matthew has Joseph's genealogy and Luke has Mary's when there is no evidence for this at all.
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The reason she is not mentioned is because women weren't mentioned in Hebrew genealogies.
That is simply untrue - if we pop across to the very closest example, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, he mentions four women.
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So to be clear, if this is Joseph's genealogy then for no apparent reason Luke went to the trouble of showing that Joseph was descended from Adam.
There's also no apparent reason why he would go to the trouble of showing that Mary was descended from Adam.
Since Luke is clearly talking about Jesus being descended from Adam
As we've discussed that can't be the reason why he put the genealogy in, because as far as anybody believed, everybody was descended from Adam.
and since he also implies that Jesus wasn't the true son of Joseph but he was the true son of Mary, then the genealogy must be that of Mary. The reason she is not mentioned is because women weren't mentioned in Hebrew genealogies.
But it isn't. It is quite clearly a genealogy of Joseph. It says so in the text.
Can you give a reference from a reputable scholar of women not being mentioned in Jewish genealogies? Actually, can you give a reference to any Jewish genealogy at all from the first century other than those in the Bible?
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Here's a youtube video that, coincidentally, I watched last night that discusses the genealogies.
https://youtu.be/AymnA526j9U?t=1302
The link takes you to the rough time at which the discussion of genealogies starts.
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Can you give a reference from a reputable scholar of women not being mentioned in Jewish genealogies? Actually, can you give a reference to any Jewish genealogy at all from the first century other than those in the Bible?
There are also other examples of biblical genealogies that mention women. I've already referred to Matthew, but there is also the genealogies in Genesis 11, which mention women, some in general terms as just 'daughters' but also some are specifically named, for example Sarai and Milkah.
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There are also other examples of biblical genealogies that mention women. I've already referred to Matthew,
Yes, I know. I wrote my post before I saw yours, which made me laugh out loud, by the way.
but there is also the genealogies in Genesis 11, which mention women, some in general terms as just 'daughters' but also some are specifically named, for example Sarai and Milkah.
The reason I issued my challenge to Spud is that there is a lot of received wisdom about how people did things in 1st century Palestine that we just accept because we've been told by generations of Christians trying to reconcile the problems of their holy book. The one about not having women in genealogies is an example (probably - this is the first I've heard it).
Another is the idea that people in 1st century Palestine kept meticulous genealogical records. This is totally untrue - Joseph probably had no more idea who his great grand parents were than I have about mine. If they had the genealogical records of every carpenter in Palestine going back a thousand years, you'd expect some of them to survive.
Another is the idea of going to the place of your ancestors for a Roman census. I swallowed that one whole as a child and it was only later when I started thinking critically about such things that I realised it had to be nonsense.
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Yes, I know. I wrote my post before I saw yours, which made me laugh out loud, by the way.
Very good
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The reason I issued my challenge to Spud is that there is a lot of received wisdom about how people did things in 1st century Palestine that we just accept because we've been told by generations of Christians trying to reconcile the problems of their holy book. The one about not having women in genealogies is an example (probably - this is the first I've heard it).
Another is the idea that people in 1st century Palestine kept meticulous genealogical records. This is totally untrue - Joseph probably had no more idea who his great grand parents were than I have about mine. If they had the genealogical records of every carpenter in Palestine going back a thousand years, you'd expect some of them to survive.
Another is the idea of going to the place of your ancestors for a Roman census. I swallowed that one whole as a child and it was only later when I started thinking critically about such things that I realised it had to be nonsense.
Yes - I think you are right. There are a lot of aspects to the bible which are merely accepted due to tradition rather than through any rational thought.
One of the ones I think need most challenge is the view that in cultures that relied on oral transmission of information that somehow these people had photographic memories for detail and 100% perfect oral transmission. That is patently non-sense.
Firstly there is no reason to suspect that a witness to an event in a oral tradition culture would be any better, nor worse, than someone in a written culture (or other evidence culture such as through photography, recording etc) would be inherently better at observation and accurately remembering what they say. And secondly their mode of transmission will be significantly weaker on accuracy and detail. Indeed in oral transmission cultures transmission is often via stories, songs, poems etc which never aim at accuracy or detail - rather they aim at ease of learning and tranmission. If you have inherently more accurate recording and transmission methods (written, recorded, photographed) you will be able to capture much great detail and accuracy and transmit that accuracy and detail with greater fidelity.
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One of the ones I think need most challenge is the view that in cultures that relied on oral transmission of information that somehow these people had photographic memories for detail and 100% perfect oral transmission. That is patently non-sense.
Firstly there is no reason to suspect that a witness to an event in a oral tradition culture would be any better, nor worse, than someone in a written culture (or other evidence culture such as through photography, recording etc) would be inherently better at observation and accurately remembering what they say. And secondly their mode of transmission will be significantly weaker on accuracy and detail. Indeed in oral transmission cultures transmission is often via stories, songs, poems etc which never aim at accuracy or detail - rather they aim at ease of learning and tranmission. If you have inherently more accurate recording and transmission methods (written, recorded, photographed) you will be able to capture much great detail and accuracy and transmit that accuracy and detail with greater fidelity.
You can also cite the gospels themselves. John is radically different from the synoptics in style, but also content. If oral transmission is so reliable, how could John have such a different interpretation?
Another example: I listened to a fascinating In Our Time about the Epic of Sundiata. This is an epic of the Mali empire that has been transmitted orally over centuries. There are many different versions of it in spite of the alleged ability of oral cultures not to get things wrong.
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Here's a youtube video that, coincidentally, I watched last night that discusses the genealogies.
https://youtu.be/AymnA526j9U?t=1302
The link takes you to the rough time at which the discussion of genealogies starts.
A bit overconfident? Just to correct him here when he says Jews didn't know their family trees - Luke says Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census because he was of the house and line of David. (Lk 2:4)
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Does anyone know what has happened to Theoretical Skeptic?
He seems to have suddenly disappeared.
Too many atheists maybe?
Owlswing
)O(
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A bit overconfident? Just to correct him here when he says Jews didn't know their family trees - Luke says Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census because he was of the house and line of David. (Lk 2:4)
Yeah, that's not how censuses work...
O.
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Does anyone know what has happened to Theoretical Skeptic?
He seems to have suddenly disappeared.
Too many atheists maybe?
Owlswing
)O(
Reporting back to headquarters for his next tactics, no doubt. I'm sure he's a front for the Jehovah's Witnesses, pretending to be sceptical and presenting his own views, whilst simply spewing out Jehovah's Witness gumph practically word for word.
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A bit overconfident? Just to correct him here when he says Jews didn't know their family trees - Luke says Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census because he was of the house and line of David. (Lk 2:4)
So what - just because it is written in a book doesn't make it true. And the other nativity narrative has no mention of a census whatsoever.
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Luke says Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census because he was of the house and line of David. (Lk 2:4)
And of course Luke's account of the census and the requirement to travel to Bethlehem is so full of holes it could be used as a sieve.
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There's also no apparent reason why he would go to the trouble of showing that Mary was descended from Adam.
Because he wanted to show that Jesus was descended from Adam. Adam was created in the image of God and Seth had the image of Adam. When tempted, Adam lost God's image. Jesus was also tempted but kept God's image. So Jesus is also the son of God. But if Jesus wasn't Joseph's son, someone might wonder if God created him from the dust, like Adam? Tracing his genealogy back to Adam through Mary, as though he was Joseph's son, makes clear that Jesus was not a separate creation.
As we've discussed that can't be the reason why he put the genealogy in, because as far as anybody believed, everybody was descended from Adam.
See above. Also, Luke's Gentile readers might not have known about Adam.
But it isn't. It is quite clearly a genealogy of Joseph. It says so in the text.
It kind of hinges on whether the wording indicates Joseph is separated out from the genealogy. I'm not convinced about that yet, but there is still the alternative possibility that Joseph was son-in-law of Jacob or Heli, or some kind of levirate marriage took place. Imagine for example that Mary II and William III (of Orange) had had a son, and called him Jesus. If I was Luke and was omitting women from the family tree, I might write that Jesus was son of William (III), the son of James (II), the son of Charles (II), the son of Charles (I), the son of James (I and VI). If I was being accurate, though, I'd have put Mary (II) in place of William III. As it happened, William was king alongside Mary, so it would be fair to omit Mary. Another genealogy of William III by someone else might have said that his father was William II, who married Charles I's daughter Mary. So it would look as though William had two fathers: James II and William II.
Can you give a reference from a reputable scholar of women not being mentioned in Jewish genealogies? Actually, can you give a reference to any Jewish genealogy at all from the first century other than those in the Bible?
No, I'll retract that claim. However, it is significant that Luke doesn't mention a single woman in a 77-generation list. It's unlikely this was an unbroken line of father-son relationships.
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So what - just because it is written in a book doesn't make it true. And the other nativity narrative has no mention of a census whatsoever.
I don't think I need to prove any of this, only present reasons why I can believe it.
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Spud,
I don't think I need to prove any of this, only present reasons why I can believe it.
Which is fine provided you don’t expect anyone else to take your beliefs seriously. Anyone can have reasons to believe anything – Harry Potter flying around on a broomstick included if that’s your thing. If you insist that your beliefs are true for other people too though, that they should be taught as facts to children, that their proponents should sit by right in the legislature etc then you need much more than “reason why I can believe it” to justify these positions.
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A bit overconfident?
I should have warned you about his presentation style. I found it a bit over the top too, but it doesn't alter the truth of what he says.
Just to correct him here when he says Jews didn't know their family trees - Luke says Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census because he was of the house and line of David. (Lk 2:4)
That's a circular argument. You are claiming Luke's genealogy of Joseph is correct because Luke says Joseph knew his genealogy.
Up thread I cited the census thing as an example of blindly accepting what Christians tell you and I have discovered that it is nonsense. I didn't say why it is nonsense because it wasn't relevant then. Since you've brought it up, let's think about it.
Firstly, there is no historical evidence that it ever happened outside of Luke. There never was a census of all the World.
Secondly, it's possible that Quirinius did hold a census when he took command of Syria and Judea. Unfortunately, at the time, Galilee was not part of his jurisdiction. Why would Joseph, living in Galilee, take part in a census for a province of which he was not part.
Thirdly, it's nonsense to suggest that the Romans would let people travel to the place of their ancestors to register for the census. They want to know where people are living now; where they are economically active.
Fourthly, why your ancestors from 1,000 years ago? Why not your ancestors from 500 years ago, or 2,000 years? Why didn't all the Jews travel to the birthplace of Abraham to register for the census?
Fifthly, there is no evidence that the average Jew living in Galilee knew his genealogy going back a thousand years. None whatsoever. It's a myth propagated by Christians to account for the fact that the census story is a fictional plot device to get Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
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Because he wanted to show that Jesus was descended from Adam.
Adam was the first man. In Jewish mythology, everybody is descended from Adam. There's no need to show anything.
But if Jesus wasn't Joseph's son, someone might wonder if God created him from the dust, like Adam?
Well, if you wanted to show that, you wouldn't use a genealogy of somebody Jesus wasn't biologically related to. The whole story of Mary and the virgin birth is enough already.
Tracing his genealogy back to Adam through Mary, as though he was Joseph's son
He doesn't do that though. He traces Jesus' ancestry through his "adopted" father, Joseph.
Also, Luke's Gentile readers might not have known about Adam.
That would make the whole exercise of proving Jesus was a descendant of Adam completely futile. Better to just have a story in which he is born of a human woman.
Imagine for example that Mary II and William III (of Orange) had had a son, and called him Jesus. If I was Luke and was omitting women from the family tree, I might write that Jesus was son of William (III), the son of James (II)
That would be problematic because everybody knows that William III was not the son of James II. It would be a lie, in fact. Are you claiming that Luke lied?
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That would be problematic because everybody knows that William III was not the son of James II. It would be a lie, in fact. Are you claiming that Luke lied?
No, just that he didn't name any women in a 77-generation list, suggesting that Joseph could have been substituted for Mary. And it's not a lie if you state beforehand that William//Joseph is not the natural parent.
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is it not the case that - at that time - there was no concept of any genetic contibution from the mother?
Men sowed a seed into the woman and she was simply a cultivator within which the seed grew.
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is it not the case that - at that time - there was no concept of any genetic contibution from the mother?
Men sowed a seed into the woman and she was simply a cultivator within which the seed grew.
They might have noticed that some daughters look a lot like their mothers, though?
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He doesn't do that though. He traces Jesus' ancestry through his "adopted" father, Joseph.
If this is the case, there is still a possible explanation, which my man Eusebius gives here (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm). Note what he says about Herod burning all the genealogical records, and the family of Jesus writing it down from memory later.
Heli is (in this explanation) the legal father of Joseph and Jacob his natural father.
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If this is the case, there is still a possible explanation, which my man Eusebius gives here (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm).
Frankly Eusebius' agenda in large parts of his writing is to try to prove provenance and 'fix' contradictions etc in the bible rather than provide anything close to historical accuracy. Some of the most blatant interpolations of ancient texts (e.g. Josephus) are attributed to Eusebius. Frankly I would believe anything he writes which attempts to prove christianity correct.
Note what he says about Herod burning all the genealogical records, and the family of Jesus writing it down from memory later.
I thought Joseph was supposed to have been a poor carpenter - very unlikely he would have been able to write if that was true. And of course, even if we had an accurate family tree sat in a drawer at home, how many of us would be able to reproduce it accurately from memory.
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Would a carpenter have been "poor" or a well-off middle-class artisan?
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Frankly Eusebius' agenda in large parts of his writing is to try to prove provenance and 'fix' contradictions etc in the bible rather than provide anything close to historical accuracy.
I don't think that applies in this case. He is quoting Africanus, eu se. Btw in case you missed it, you need to scroll down to chapter 7 of the page in the link.
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I don't think that applies in this case. He is quoting Africanus, eu se. Btw in case you missed it, you need to scroll down to chapter 7 of the page in the link.
He is attempting to explain away the discrepancies in genealogy between Luke and Matthew - why, because as an early christian apologist this discrepancy is harmful to belief and confidence in the gospels. He has a clear, no-neutral agenda, and is looking for evidence (realistically scraping the bottom of the barrel) to try to justify his pre-formed opinion.
Eusebius is a master at cherry picking earlier writers, often adding to what they said, in order to prove a point - we see this with Josephus as his likely interpolation. For Eusebius earlier authors are largely a tool to be used (or abused) to try to justify his clear agenda.
And, of course, why would Africanus (likely born in AD160) have any great insight into what was happening in centuries earlier, in another part of the world and another culture. We also (I think) have no evidence that Africanus actually claimed this, as I think virtually nothing of his work independently exists. All we know of him is largely through the prism of Eusebius and we should all know better that to assume that something viewed the prism of Eusebius had not been altered to fit Eusebius' agenda.
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I came across a sentence in a medical book by Gerald Sandler:
"Contraindications to β-blockade [beta-blockers] include obstructive lung disease, especially bronchial asthma, heart failure and intermittent claudication."
This should really be phrased,
"Contraindications to β-blockade include obstructive lung disease (especially bronchial asthma), heart failure and intermittent claudication."
I can't help wondering if Luke may have done a similar thing, so that what he meant was "a son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Eli" instead of "a son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of Eli".
I don't know whether the Greek supports this view, though.
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He is attempting to explain away the discrepancies in genealogy between Luke and Matthew - why, because as an early christian apologist this discrepancy is harmful to belief and confidence in the gospels. He has a clear, no-neutral agenda, and is looking for evidence (realistically scraping the bottom of the barrel) to try to justify his pre-formed opinion.
Eusebius is a master at cherry picking earlier writers, often adding to what they said, in order to prove a point - we see this with Josephus as his likely interpolation. For Eusebius earlier authors are largely a tool to be used (or abused) to try to justify his clear agenda.
And, of course, why would Africanus (likely born in AD160) have any great insight into what was happening in centuries earlier, in another part of the world and another culture. We also (I think) have no evidence that Africanus actually claimed this, as I think virtually nothing of his work independently exists. All we know of him is largely through the prism of Eusebius and we should all know better that to assume that something viewed the prism of Eusebius had not been altered to fit Eusebius' agenda.
It doesn't really matter who said it. it's a theory anyone could put forward.
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It doesn't really matter who said it. it's a theory anyone could put forward.
The only people who might have put forward such an assertion (not really a theory) are people whose pre-existing beliefs requirement them to demonstrate that the gospels are correct, despite the clear evidence that the genealogies in Luke and Matthew cannot both be correct (as they contradict each other) - they could of course both be wrong.
To come up with such convoluted and un-evidenced assertion to, rather desperately, try to make out that both are correct demonstrates that the person making that assert is being neither objective nor rational.
Any rational and/or objective person would conclude that one, other or both of the genealogies in Luke and Matthew are incorrect.
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No, just that he didn't name any women in a 77-generation list, suggesting that Joseph could have been substituted for Mary. And it's not a lie if you state beforehand that William//Joseph is not the natural parent.
But Professor Davy has already shot down your assertion that women were not mentioned in genealogies. Why on Earth would Luke not mention Mary if it was Mary's genealogy?
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No, just that he didn't name any women in a 77-generation list, suggesting that Joseph could have been substituted for Mary. And it's not a lie if you state beforehand that William//Joseph is not the natural parent.
I'm sorry but your Luke is Mary's genealogy and Matthew's is Joseph's doesn't work for another reason (providing you think they are both correct).
If one is Mary's genealogy and the other is Joseph's genealogy then quite reasonably they will head off in different directions - Mary's father vs Joseph's father and so on. Now they could remain separate ever onward, but they could align again many generations earlier - in other words if you go far enough back both Mary and Joseph share a common ancestor (quite likely in the relatively narrow Jewish community of the time). And indeed we see this several generations back with Salathiel and Zorobabel in common. Let's ignore this issue of markedly differing number of generations to get to them.
However my point is that once Mary and Joseph share a great, great great etc etc grandfather all generations tracing back from this person should be the same, as their great, great great +1 grandfather will be the same, as will their great, great great +2 grandfather and so on.
Yet the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, having aligned at Salathiel and Zorobabel take off in different directions again.
So if they are both intended to be Joseph's lineage they are inconsistent and one or both must be wrong. But the same applies even if we accept that Luke is Mary's genealogy and Matthew's is Joseph's (not that there is the slightest credible evidence for this) - even in this case one or both must be wrong.
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But Professor Davy has already shot down your assertion that women were not mentioned in genealogies.
Women are mentioned when they are wives or daughters of a man, or if a man only has daughters. But genealogies always run through the male line. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
Why on Earth would Luke not mention Mary if it was Mary's genealogy?
I now think it's unlikely he would put Joseph down meaning the son-in-law of Heli, as illustrated in my example of William III. The reason I investigated it was because of a recent sermon at church which suggested something similar, where George I might have two genealogies leading back to James I: one going back through the line of succession - Charles II and Charles I (despite his not being descended from them) and the other going back through Sophia and Elizabeth to James I. The reason I think it doesn't work is that in Matthew, although he gives the line of succession of Kings of Judah, the line of succession is a continuous run of descendants, from David to the exile, at least.
Luke's purpose might have been to give the bloodline of Jesus, in which case Heli was the father of Mary. Since he doesn't mention women at all like Matthew does (Tamar, for example) and since he has provided the context of Mary's involvement, he might have felt no need to include her name. The commentator John Gill is of this opinion.
Another point to note is that when the Hasmoneans (Maccabees' descendants) ruled Judea, they were not of the house of David. Infighting led to Roman domination and the Romans set up the Herod dynasty as rulers over Judea. But the promised Messiah was expected to be from the house of David; no-one could claim to be the Messiah without proof of their descent from David. So it isn't surprising that Joseph's and Heli's(?) ancestries were preserved.
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Women are mentioned when they are wives or daughters of a man, or if a man only has daughters. But genealogies always run through the male line. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
You really are arguing yourself into a corner.
If genealogies always run through the male line, then how can Jesus' genealogy run through Mary.
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You really are arguing yourself into a corner.
If genealogies always run through the male line, then how can Jesus' genealogy run through Mary.
A very good question.
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You really are arguing yourself into a corner.
If genealogies always run through the male line, then how can Jesus' genealogy run through Mary.
By writing, "he was a son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli. Your question solves the riddle.
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Luke's purpose might have been to give the bloodline of Jesus,
But that is pure supposition and runs against your argument that genealogies always run through the male line.
in which case Heli was the father of Mary.
And where, exactly do you have corroborating evidence that Heli is Mary's father - note please don't use a circular argument.
And what about my earlier point - even if we accept that Luke is providing genealogy through Mary's line, Luke and Matthew cannot both be correct as the align at Salathiel and Zorobabel and then diverge again. So whichever way you look at it, Luke or Matthew (or both) have to be in error at some point. They cannot both be right, even if you think one is Joseph's line and the other Mary's.
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By writing, "he was a son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli. Your question solves the riddle.
You are tying yourself up in knots.
Either Jewish genealogies always run through the male line, in which case Jesus' must be through Jospeh, not Mary. If through Mary then, by definition, all Jewish genealogies cannot run through the male line, as this one runs through the female line.
Also who on earth is Heli - at one point you are arguing he is Mary's father (although you have no corroboratory evidence) and earlier you are arguing that he is Joseph's legal father. Which is it?
And you still have failed to address my issue of the genealogies in Matthew and Luke aligning at at Salathiel and Zorobabel and then diverge again. That means (regardless of whether they are Joseph's of Mary's lineage) both cannot be correct.
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Women are mentioned when they are wives or daughters of a man, or if a man only has daughters. But genealogies always run through the male line. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
I now think it's unlikely he would put Joseph down meaning the son-in-law of Heli, as illustrated in my example of William III. The reason I investigated it was because of a recent sermon at church which suggested something similar, where George I might have two genealogies leading back to James I: one going back through the line of succession - Charles II and Charles I (despite his not being descended from them) and the other going back through Sophia and Elizabeth to James I. The reason I think it doesn't work is that in Matthew, although he gives the line of succession of Kings of Judah, the line of succession is a continuous run of descendants, from David to the exile, at least.
Luke's purpose might have been to give the bloodline of Jesus, in which case Heli was the father of Mary. Since he doesn't mention women at all like Matthew does (Tamar, for example) and since he has provided the context of Mary's involvement, he might have felt no need to include her name. The commentator John Gill is of this opinion.
Another point to note is that when the Hasmoneans (Maccabees' descendants) ruled Judea, they were not of the house of David. Infighting led to Roman domination and the Romans set up the Herod dynasty as rulers over Judea. But the promised Messiah was expected to be from the house of David; no-one could claim to be the Messiah without proof of their descent from David. So it isn't surprising that Joseph's and Heli's(?) ancestries were preserved.
Luke says Heli was the father of Joseph. That’s the end of it really.
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PD,
See the OP on shealtiel.
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Luke says Heli was the father of Joseph. That’s the end of it really.
Jesus was son, supposedly through Joseph, of Heli
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Jesus was son, supposedly through Joseph, of Heli
Which means that Luke is citing Joseph's genealogy, not Mary's. You really are all over the place in your arguments Spud.
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Jesus was son, supposedly through Joseph, of Heli
Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph...
Clearly the "as was though" refers to Jesus' relationship with Joseph, not Joseph's relationship with Heli.
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Which means that Luke is citing Joseph's genealogy, not Mary's. You really are all over the place in your arguments Spud.
But fundamentally he's citing Jesus' genealogy, right? What if Jesus was due to inherit land that had been left to his mother by his grandfather? When Luke says, "being son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of Heli" this can be read two ways, just like the example in #53; it can also be read, "being son (as was supposed, of Joseph) of Heli". The context determines which way it should be read.
Given that Luke in principle omits women's names (compare with Matthew), what would he do if a man in the genealogy had no sons but did have a daughter?
Supposing a man gets engaged to a prostitute, like Hosea did. She becomes pregnant by someone, they don't know who the father is, but they know it's not her fiancee. Suppose also she has no brothers and is due to inherit her father's land, as stipulated by Moses in Numbers 27.
The baby boy is born and she wants to draw up a family tree to prove his right to inherit from her. If we make the assumption that women are to be excluded from the family tree, all the way back to Adam, then it would be necessary to replace her name with her husband's, with a note that he was the supposed father. This would also preserve the son's dignity by not mentioning that the mother was promiscuous (Matthew gives the names of 3 promiscuous women where Luke could have, but did not).
This could be what Luke has done. If for example Jesus had been due to inherit land from his mother, she not having brothers for it to go to, and to avoid people suspecting that Mary had been promiscuous, Luke as a solicitor could have written exactly the way he has done. Of course there are assumptions here (Mary had no brothers and a male-only family tree), but it shows that you can't dismiss the genealogy as wrong. It may appear like a desperate attempt to resolve a contradiction, however, even if Luke made a mistake and got the wrong Joseph, the Bible can contain errors and its message still be true: it wouldn't automatically mean the virgin birth wasn't true. It is the skeptic who appears desperate to prove the Bible unreliable.
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But fundamentally he's citing Jesus' genealogy, right?
He is citing Jesus' genealogy back through the male line, in other words via Joseph, not Mary.
Given that Luke in principle omits women's names (compare with Matthew), what would he do if a man in the genealogy had no sons but did have a daughter?
But a genealogy works backwards, not forwards. The question isn't about what happens if a man has no sons, only daughter, it is about whether an individual is the son of a man - and in all cases they are, albeit I get that sometimes there is an issue over biological vs legal.
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He is citing Jesus' genealogy back through the male line, in other words via Joseph, not Mary.
But a genealogy works backwards, not forwards. The question isn't about what happens if a man has no sons, only daughter, it is about whether an individual is the son of a man - and in all cases they are, albeit I get that sometimes there is an issue over biological vs legal.
The question for Luke was what happens if a man has no biological father?
It is correct to say that Jesus is son of Heli, even if Heli was not his biological father.
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The question for Luke was what happens if a man has no biological father?
He follows the lineage of the person acting as his father, in the legal if not the biological sense. Hence his genealogy runs from Jesus, through Joseph to Joseph's father and so on.
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It is correct to say that Jesus is son of Heli, even if Heli was not his biological father.
But Luke doesn't say that Jesus is the son of Heli, he says that Joseph was the son of Heli.
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But fundamentally he's citing Jesus' genealogy, right? What if Jesus was due to inherit land that had been left to his mother by his grandfather? When Luke says, "being son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of Heli" this can be read two ways, just like the example in #53; it can also be read, "being son (as was supposed, of Joseph) of Heli". The context determines which way it should be read.
Given that Luke in principle omits women's names (compare with Matthew), what would he do if a man in the genealogy had no sons but did have a daughter?
Supposing a man gets engaged to a prostitute, like Hosea did. She becomes pregnant by someone, they don't know who the father is, but they know it's not her fiancee. Suppose also she has no brothers and is due to inherit her father's land, as stipulated by Moses in Numbers 27.
In all of those cases, you would mention the mother's name. There was no taboo on mentioning women's names as you seem to think. It's just been made up as an excuse to explain away the contradiction between Matthew and Luke.
The baby boy is born and she wants to draw up a family tree to prove his right to inherit from her. If we make the assumption that women are to be excluded from the family tree
Why?
Why would we make that assumption?
This could be what Luke has done.
But it isn't. Luke gives Joseph's genealogy but just like Matthew's it is fictional.
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the Bible can contain errors and its message still be true
Likewise the Bible can contain errors and its message may also be untrue.
And the Bible can contain elements that are true and its message may still be untrue.
In order to come to a proper understanding you need to come to the subject with a neutral and unbiased mind, which expects evidence and rational engagement with the topic. That doesn't presuppose things as true regardless of whether there is evidence to support it. That uses the evidence to develop its conclusions rather than to try to fit the evidence to support a preformed conclusion. That doesn't allow belief to cloud rational judgement.
The question you need to ask yourself Spud is why you don't believe other sacred and ancient texts that have no more, or no less evidence to support them. And where your comment that the Bible can contain errors and its message still be true is applied equally to those text (and likewise my comments. I apply the same criterial to all supposed sacred texts, you on the other hand appear to apply a complete different level of credulity to the bible when compared to other sacred texts. That reveals inherent bias and therefore any comments you make need to be view in the context of that bias.
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it wouldn't automatically mean the virgin birth wasn't true.
The reason why the virgin birth isn't true isn't to be found in a couple of lines in a 2000 year old text. No it is to be found in fundamental human physiology and biology.
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but it shows that you can't dismiss the genealogy as wrong.
It's only one of many reasons why we can dismiss the genealogy as wrong.
Here's a couple more:
As PD stated earlier, the two genealogies have a point in common (between David and Jesus) other than Joseph. As soon as two genealogies got to a common ancestor, they should be identical thereafter. These two genealogies are not.
Almost nobody in 1st century Palestine would have had any idea of their genealogy going back a thousand years.
It may appear like a desperate attempt to resolve a contradiction, however, even if Luke made a mistake and got the wrong Joseph, the Bible can contain errors and its message still be true: it wouldn't automatically mean the virgin birth wasn't true. It is the skeptic who appears desperate to prove the Bible unreliable.
The virgin birth is definitely not true, but for different reasons. It's not completely impossible for an accurate genealogy spanning a thousand years to exist - after all, the Queen has got one. It is impossible for a human to be born from a virgin birth.
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Just a thought, maybe Luke wanted to demonstrate that Jesus is the 'seed' which would crush the serpent's head, promised to Eve (Luke's very next story is the temptation). Luke would, then, have to give a blood line from Adam and Eve all the way to Jesus to show that he was indeed descended from them, and the only way would be through Mary's line. Hence the complete family tree in Luke.
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But Luke doesn't say that Jesus is the son of Heli, he says that Joseph was the son of Heli.
'Son' can mean son of his father or grandfather in Luke 3.
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'Son' can mean son of his father or grandfather in Luke 3.
If true, then that would mean that Joseph might have been Heli's grandson, rather than his son. Doesn't really help your clutching at straws, must make up evidence to fit with my preformed belief, approach.
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Just a thought, maybe Luke wanted to demonstrate that Jesus is the 'seed' which would crush the serpent's head, promised to Eve (Luke's very next story is the temptation). Luke would, then, have to give a blood line from Adam and Eve all the way to Jesus to show that he was indeed descended from them, and the only way would be through Mary's line. Hence the complete family tree in Luke.
Just a thought, maybe Luke was making things up in order to retrospectively demonstrate that a prophecy had been met in order to fit with his clear bias and agenda in writing the gospel.
Hint ... he isn't writing a historical document, he is writing to try and support a faith-based opinion.
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Luke would, then, have to give a blood line from Adam and Eve all the way to Jesus to show that he was indeed descended from them,
Under what circumstance would he not be descended from the first man and first woman?
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Spud
1. You'll never know anyway, unless you invent a time machine and use it to ascertain who was fucking who (leading to pregnancy) in antiquity.
2. The notion that one human throughout the history of our species wasn't the result of two other humans reproducing biologically (even using 'test tubes' in more recent times) is just plain silly: not a serious proposition.
3. Since you can't exclude the risks of mistakes or lies in your Bible, and in the absence of DNA samples to establish parentage and lineage, then what it says about genealogy really is worthless.
While this subject might be important for card-carrying Christians, I find it hard to envisage that the rest of us would lose sleep over it.
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And even if parthenogenesis were possible in homo sapiens it would result in female offspring because no y-chromosone would be involved.
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As PD stated earlier, the two genealogies have a point in common (between David and Jesus) other than Joseph. As soon as two genealogies got to a common ancestor, they should be identical thereafter. These two genealogies are not.
We might think that way, but when you take the ancient practice of levirate marriages into consideration it becomes possible for lines to converge and diverge. We should possibly even assume that happened, since it was the law for a man to marry his deceased brother's widow if they had not had children.
This is interesting:
One thing to consider is that the Zerubbabel in Chronicles is not the same as the Zerubbabel in the New Testament. Chronicles lists Zerubbabel as the son of Pedaiah and Nephew of Salathiel, son of Jehoiachin (Jeconiah). Some think this is in error and try to force the NT Zerubbabel in there because of Matthew.
This is clearly a misunderstanding, as God promised that none of the male seed of Jehoichin (JeConiah) would ever be on the throne. He says he is no longer the "Signet of Authority" (Jeremiah 22:24). The Lord then says in Haggai 2:23 that Zerubbabel the son of Salatiel is now His "Signet of Authority". So the inheritance passed, not necessarily by Levirate Marriage, but by the Authority of God.
You do state that the Levirate marriage requires the next brother, although the case of Ruth and Boaz shows that it can be the nearest kin. When the royal family was taken captive into Babylon, many were killed or dispersed. So when she married her "next of kin" (i.e. the closest relative available), it ended up being another line from King David, thus fulfilling all of God's promise.
Matthew traces the "Kingly Line" calling them "sons". Men get so caught up in "this law" or "that law", but God is overall, and He can do what he wants.
https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/26932/can-differences-in-the-line-of-zerubbabel-in-the-genealogies-of-jesus-in-matthew
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In all of those cases, you would mention the mother's name. There was no taboo on mentioning women's names as you seem to think. It's just been made up as an excuse to explain away the contradiction between Matthew and Luke.
Why?
Why would we make that assumption?
Simply because it was common practice to give the names of males only in the genealogy. This video reasons that the reader would know Mary was being referred to because of the missing definite article before 'joseph':
https://youtu.be/qavIXRNXCbY
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He follows the lineage of the person acting as his father, in the legal if not the biological sense. Hence his genealogy runs from Jesus, through Joseph to Joseph's father and so on.
Matthew does that, for legal purposes, just as we would take the surname of an adopted father.
We wouldn't write a genealogy using an adopted parent's ancestry, though. So since there was only one natural parent, Luke would have used her genealogy.
I've noted your point about not believing other sacred and ancient texts. For another thread, maybe?
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Matthew does that, for legal purposes, just as we would take the surname of an adopted father.
Sure - genealogies may use either biological (obviously the strict sense) or legal parentage.
We wouldn't write a genealogy using an adopted parent's ancestry, though.
Yes you would, certainly in the Jewish context where there are many examples of either biological or legal parentage being used - indeed you've tried to explain away Salathiel and Zorobabel.
So since there was only one natural parent,
That is clearly not true, but nonetheless ...
Luke would have used her genealogy.
You may wish that to be true to get yourself our of a 'belief before evidence' hole, but there is no evidence for this - Luke is clearly talking about Joseph and Joseph's father as he starts his genealogy. Were he using her genealogy and did not want to mention women (why?, others do) then he'd simply skip a generation from Jesus directly to Mary's father - there would be no earthly point in even mentioning Joseph. Yet he does and is clear that Heli is Joseph's father, and onward from there.
I've noted your point about not believing other sacred and ancient texts. For another thread, maybe?
Nope, for this thread as it is an important issue - you are special pleading, cherry picking, bending arguments way beyond any evidence in order to prove your preformed belief to be true. Why is that the case and why not apply the same to other sacred texts. The point is that you aren't neutral in this discussion - you have a clear bias and you are only interested in 'evidence' as a means to justify your bias. That isn't objective - Jeremy and I are being objective - looking at the evidence (there is precious little of it) an applying a rational and objective approach to it, just as we'd do to other sacred texts.
And if you take an objective and rational viewpoint the following become clear:
1. There is no realistic way that people living in 1stC palestine would have been able to accurately trace back their ancestry over dozens and dozens of generations.
2. Matthew and Luke both include genealogies, and do so for a purpose and with an agenda, which is slightly different in each case.
3. Matthew and Luke are not in agreement - not unreasonable as neither would have access to credible information to substantiate their claims (see 1 above).
4. Their choices (and disagreements) likely reflect both inconsistent evidence available to them and the need to come up with the 'right answer' because of their agendas (see 2 above)
5. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the notion that either of them is describing Mary's lineage, rather than Joseph's.
6. Due to the inconsistencies Matthew and Luke cannot both be right, however they could both be wrong.
7. Trying to trace back to Adam is based on the myth that Adam was the first man - we know that not to be true and therefore the whole approach is flawed.
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Simply because it was common practice to give the names of males only in the genealogy. This video reasons that the reader would know Mary was being referred to because of the missing definite article before 'joseph':
https://youtu.be/qavIXRNXCbY
While we are on the subject of bias, any video that at its outset boldy states a conclusion that:
'We are simply not in a position to criticize, much less decide against the historicity of these accounts'
Prior to providing any evidence suggests an achingly biased approach - one that has already decided its conclusion prior to looking at the evidence, rather than one that bases its conclusion on the evidence.
So we aren't allowed even allowed to criticize the accuracy of the genealogies - here's news for you, chum, yes we are and we will continue to criticise until and unless you provide credible evidence to justify your claims of historicity and accuracy - which currently is painfully lacking.
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Simply because it was common practice to give the names of males only in the genealogy.
You still haven't provided any evidence for this assertion.
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Simply because it was common practice to give the names of males only in the genealogy. This video reasons that the reader would know Mary was being referred to because of the missing definite article before 'joseph':
https://youtu.be/qavIXRNXCbY
That's pretty funny. That video claims that the writer of Matthew broke with Jewish tradition in two ways
1. by mentioning women
2. by skipping generations
And yet your argument relies on the assertion that Luke would not break with Jewish tradition in his genealogy. If Matthew can do it, so can Luke.
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You still haven't provided any evidence for this assertion.
It goes further than that - there is clear evidence to completely debunk this notion, in that pretty well all the other genealogies in the bible (there aren't many by the way) mention women, in some cases just as 'daughter' but in other cases specifically by name. So this includes:
Matthew's genealogy of Jesus
The genealogy in Genesis indicating the descendent of Adam and Eve
Abraham's family tree
So the question isn't that Luke doesn't mention women because no-one else does, but why Luke fails to mention women when most other examples do. In that context the notion that Luke is describing Mary's genealogy but without mentioning Mary becomes increasingly bizarre.
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7. Trying to trace back to Adam is based on the myth that Adam was the first man - we know that not to be true and therefore the whole approach is flawed.
Abraham is also mythical and so, potentially, is David.
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That's pretty funny. That video claims that the writer of Matthew broke with Jewish tradition in two ways
1. by mentioning women
2. by skipping generations
And yet your argument relies on the assertion that Luke would not break with Jewish tradition in his genealogy. If Matthew can do it, so can Luke.
But it is patently non-sense that there was a biblical Jewish tradition not to mention women.
Genesis chapter 4 describes the lineage from Adam through Cain for several generations. In that description the following women are mentioned (by name); Eve, Adah, Zillah, Naamah.
Genesis chapter 5 describes the lineage from Adam through Seth for several generations - although no woman is mentioned by name the word 'daughters' appears 9 times in a very short chapter.
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But it is patently non-sense that there was a biblical Jewish tradition not to mention women.
Genesis chapter 4 describes the lineage from Adam through Cain for several generations. In that description the following women are mentioned (by name); Eve, Adah, Zillah, Naamah.
Genesis chapter 5 describes the lineage from Adam through Seth for several generations - although no woman is mentioned by name the word 'daughters' appears 9 times in a very short chapter.
And while we are on Genesis, what on earth is this non-sense of Adam living for 930 years and Seth living for 912 years etc etc. All just patent non-sense.
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It goes further than that - there is clear evidence to completely debunk this notion, in that pretty well all the other genealogies in the bible (there aren't many by the way) mention women, in some cases just as 'daughter' but in other cases specifically by name. So this includes:
Matthew's genealogy of Jesus
The genealogy in Genesis indicating the descendent of Adam and Eve
Abraham's family tree
So the question isn't that Luke doesn't mention women because no-one else does, but why Luke fails to mention women when most other examples do. In that context the notion that Luke is describing Mary's genealogy but without mentioning Mary becomes increasingly bizarre.
That's pretty funny. That video claims that the writer of Matthew broke with Jewish tradition in two ways
1. by mentioning women
2. by skipping generations
And yet your argument relies on the assertion that Luke would not break with Jewish tradition in his genealogy. If Matthew can do it, so can Luke.
Uh, hello, Luke is writing for gentiles. How about if the Greeks and Romans were not into including women?
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Uh, hello, Luke is writing for gentiles. How about if the Greeks and Romans were not into including women?
Grab that straw Spud.
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Behold one prominent Israelite, Jair ben Manasseh (Numbers 32:41, Deut 3:14) who judged Israel for 22 years (Judges 10). Manasseh was his great grandfather through his granddaughter (1 Chron 2:21-22).
Here then is an OT example of the expression "son of so and so" when it means great-grand-son-in-law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus#Maternal_ancestry_in_Luke
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Uh, hello, Luke is writing for gentiles. How about if the Greeks and Romans were not into including women?
I have never heard of this restriction about mentioning women in genealogies either by Jews, Greeks or Romans before this conversation with you. It looks like you are really just clutching at straws.
What you need to do is find actual evidence that your assertion is true. Until you do, we'll just call bullshit on your idea that you can't mention women.
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Behold one prominent Israelite, Jair ben Manasseh (Numbers 32:41, Deut 3:14) who judged Israel for 22 years (Judges 10). Manasseh was his great grandfather through his granddaughter (1 Chron 2:21-22).
Here then is an OT example of the expression "son of so and so" when it means great-grand-son-in-law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus#Maternal_ancestry_in_Luke
Let's see what it says
18 Caleb son of Hezron had children by his wife Azubah, and by Jerioth; these were her sons: Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon. 19 When Azubah died, Caleb married Ephrath, who bore him Hur. 20 Hur became the father of Uri, and Uri became the father of Bezalel.
21 Afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir father of Gilead, whom he married when he was sixty years old; and she bore him Segub; 22 and Segub became the father of Jair, who had twenty-three towns in the land of Gilead
The thing that jumps out at me here is how many women are mentioned in these family trees. It's not none.
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I have never heard of this restriction about mentioning women in genealogies either by Jews, Greeks or Romans before this conversation with you. It looks like you are really just clutching at straws.
What you need to do is find actual evidence that your assertion is true. Until you do, we'll just call bullshit on your idea that you can't mention women.
I do agree. There doesn't seem to be much online suggesting restriction on women in genealogies, and as you say women are commonly mentioned in the OT ones. However, Luke makes no mention at all of any in 77 generations, suggesting he has a men-only policy. It may be nothing to do with what was acceptable.
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I do agree. There doesn't seem to be much online suggesting restriction on women in genealogies, and as you say women are commonly mentioned in the OT ones. However, Luke makes no mention at all of any in 77 generations, suggesting he has a men-only policy. It may be nothing to do with what was acceptable.
Oh FFS.
If I decided to make a list starting with me and listing only the father of the previous person on the list, even going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens, there would be no women on the list. The doesn't mean I've got a man only policy, only that fathers are, by definition, men.
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Oh FFS.
If I decided to make a list starting with me and listing only the father of the previous person on the list, even going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens, there would be no women on the list. The doesn't mean I've got a man only policy, only that fathers are, by definition, men.
So the contention is that Luke would have included Mary if it was her genealogy. Maybe so, but I don't think we can assume it.
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So the contention is that Luke would have included Mary if it was her genealogy. Maybe so, but I don't think we can assume it.
The reason being: if this is Joseph's genealogy, then the passage comes across as stating that Jesus was thought to be, but wasn't really, the son of Joseph [which is consistent with the context] but also that Jesus was thought to be, but wasn't really, the son of Heli, of Matthat etc and the son of God. Obviously this is would be inconsistent with the preceding two verses which describe the voice from heaven calling Jesus his Son, and with the next passage where the devil tempts Jesus to prove that he is God's son.
Thus it seems very likely that Luke has indeed written Mary's genealogy, but omitted her name in order to add that Joseph was thought to be but was not Jesus' father.
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So the contention is that Luke would have included Mary if it was her genealogy.
Yes it seems logical that, when talking about a genealogy you mention who is in it.
Maybe so, but I don't think we can assume it.
Yes, I think we can.
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The reason being: if this is Joseph's genealogy, then the passage comes across as stating that Jesus was thought to be, but wasn't really, the son of Joseph [which is consistent with the context]
Yes.
but also that Jesus was thought to be, but wasn't really, the son of Heli,
No, it doesn't say that. It says Jesus was incorrectly thought to be the son of Joseph and that Joseph was the son of Heli.
Thus it seems very likely that Luke has indeed written Mary's genealogy
No it doesn't. It is never hinted or implied that this genealogy had anything to do with Mary.
but omitted her name in order to add that Joseph was thought to be but was not Jesus' father.
Those two options are not exclusive. And if he ws doing Jesus' genealogy through Mary, he wouldn't even need to mention Joseph. He could have said "Jesus, son of Mary, daughter of Heli". He didn't.
I think this conversation is over. Your arguments have been thoroughly debunked. Unless you can come up with some more sensible reason for Luke not mentioning Mary in a genealogy of Mary other than "because otherwise the Bible is wrong", we are done here.
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No, it doesn't say that. It says Jesus was incorrectly thought to be the son of Joseph and that Joseph was the son of Heli.
And this can mean son-in-law, as I said in #97: Jair was the son-in-law of Manasseh through Manasseh's granddaughter and is referred to as the son of Manasseh in Numbers and Deuteronomy without any mention of her.
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And this can mean son-in-law, as I said in #97: Jair was the son-in-law of Manasseh through Manasseh's granddaughter and is referred to as the son of Manasseh in Numbers and Deuteronomy without any mention of her.
Then why bother to mention Joseph at all.
Were that approach to be used, Jesus would simply have been described as he son of Heli - but he isn't.
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And this can mean son-in-law, as I said in #97: Jair was the son-in-law of Manasseh through Manasseh's granddaughter and is referred to as the son of Manasseh in Numbers and Deuteronomy without any mention of her.
I told you we are done unless you can provide some credible evidence for Luke not mentioning Mary.
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No, it doesn't say that. It says Jesus was incorrectly thought to be the son of Joseph and that Joseph was the son of Heli.
Actually, it doesn't say 'Joseph the son of Heli', but '...Joseph, of Heli'. Jesus, not Joseph, is the subject of the entire sentence ending at v.38 (thus: "Jesus himself... being son, so it was thought, of Joseph, of Heli...").
So my point still stands: if you read it as 'Joseph the son of Heli' then there is no logical consistency to the passage, because it implies that Jesus was also thought to be, but not really, the son of Zerubbabel, David and Abraham (not to mention Adam and God).
The reason Luke doesn't mention Mary is that genealogies were always patrilineal, from father to son, and Luke has already explained Mary's involvement at length.
I am not saying this is the explanation but that it is a credible one. Other possible explanations include that it is Joseph's biological line (notwithstanding the abovementioned logical inconsistency) and that there was levirate marriage at the points where it differs from Matthew's.
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Actually, it doesn't say 'Joseph the son of Heli', but '...Joseph, of Heli'. Jesus, not Joseph, is the subject of the entire sentence ending at v.38 (thus: "Jesus himself... being son, so it was thought, of Joseph, of Heli...").
So my point still stands: if you read it as 'Joseph the son of Heli' then there is no logical consistency to the passage, because it implies that Jesus was also thought to be, but not really, the son of Zerubbabel, David and Abraham (not to mention Adam and God).
The reason Luke doesn't mention Mary is that genealogies were always patrilineal, from father to son, and Luke has already explained Mary's involvement at length.
I am not saying this is the explanation but that it is a credible one. Other possible explanations include that it is Joseph's biological line (notwithstanding the abovementioned logical inconsistency) and that there was levirate marriage at the points where it differs from Matthew's.
I told you we are done unless you can find evidence that genealogies were always patrilineal and didn't mention women. Find that evidence and we can start discussing it again. At the moment you have no credible alternative to the proposition that both Matthew and Luke were describing Joseph's genealogy.
While you're at it, some independent evidence that ordinary people knew their genealogies in 1st century Palestine would interesting to see too.
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I told you we are done unless you can find evidence that genealogies were always patrilineal and didn't mention women. Find that evidence and we can start discussing it again. At the moment you have no credible alternative to the proposition that both Matthew and Luke were describing Joseph's genealogy.
While you're at it, some independent evidence that ordinary people knew their genealogies in 1st century Palestine would interesting to see too.
Genealogies were always father-son lineages, with relevant women sometimes mentioned. Luke mentions no women in a 77 generation list and has already described Mary's involvement so there is no reason to expect him to mention her if his genealogy was through her.
Anyway lately I've been more inclined to think of early church historians as reliable with regard to the order of the gospels, and so I'm inclined to prefer the view of Africanus and Eusebius that Joseph was 'begat' by Jacob (Mt 1) and legally 'son of' Heli (Lk 3).
I think I'm done too.
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Genealogies were always father-son lineages, with relevant women sometimes mentioned. Luke mentions no women in a 77 generation list and has already described Mary's involvement so there is no reason to expect him to mention her if his genealogy was through her.
Anyway lately I've been more inclined to think of early church historians as reliable with regard to the order of the gospels, and so I'm inclined to prefer the view of Africanus and Eusebius that Joseph was 'begat' by Jacob (Mt 1) and legally 'son of' Heli (Lk 3).
I think I'm done too.
So you are accepting that Luke is reporting Joseph's genealogy then?
But beyond that there is no evidence that the genealogies are actually correct, and there are glaring inconsistencies that Eusebius tries to explain away - but then Eusebius always tries to explain away things that cast doubt on the accuracy of the bible and christianity, because he has a clear agenda. He is not a neutral commentator and therefore anything he claims in relation to christianity must be taken with a massive dollop of salt.
And we have no idea what Africanus actually said on the topic as I think everything is seen through the lens of Eusebius, and the latter isn't averse to making stuff up and adding to the purported words of earlier writing in order to justify his thesis.
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Genealogies were always father-son lineages, with relevant women sometimes mentioned.
Two problems here.
1. You have no evidence
2. You've just claimed that Luke could not be giving Mary's genealogy because that wouldn't be a father-son lineage.
Luke mentions no women in a 77 generation list and has already described Mary's involvement so there is no reason to expect him to mention her if his genealogy was through her.
There's every reason to mention her if it's her genealogy. He doesn't, so the obvious conclusion is it's not her genealogy.
I think I'm done too.
You have been.
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So you are accepting that Luke is reporting Joseph's genealogy then?
I agree that we would expect Luke to mention Mary if it was hers, but I don't think he necessarily would. If the Greek points to one or the other, I'd be swayed by that. It seems that if it is Mary's line, then Luke has worded it so that it can be mistaken for Joseph's.
If it is Joseph's line, why would Luke insert "autos" (himself) when Jesus is already the subject of the preceding verse? If it is Mary's, however, this could be to highlight the contrast between what was believed about Joseph, and the reality. Thus the passage could read,
Beginning (his ministry) at about thirty years of age, being, so it was supposed, son of Joseph, Jesus himself was (son) of Heli, of Matthan, of Levi...
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I agree that we would expect Luke to mention Mary if it was hers, but I don't think he necessarily would. If the Greek points to one or the other, I'd be swayed by that. It seems that if it is Mary's line, then Luke has worded it so that it can be mistaken for Joseph's.
Again you are straying into the world of special pleading. We have no idea what the motivation of the author of Luke was in using certain words, and frankly we can never know. Indeed we have no idea who the author of Luke actually was, and nor can we know whether the words that have come down to us via multiple copyists, translations, alterations etc bear any meaningful resemblance to the original as written, let alone whether those words actually aligned with the author of Luke's actual view.
So this is speculation built on speculation on a foundation of special pleading. Frankly all we can reasonably take away from the genealogies in Luke and Matthew is that the versions that have come down to us are inconsistent between them, that they are part of a very partial text with a clear agenda and that it is implausible that anyone living in those days would have been able to accurately trace back their ancestry over dozens and dozens of generations. Plus of course that the very concept (tracing back to Adam and therefore god) is completely flawed as Adam was not the first human.
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.that it is implausible that anyone living in those days would have been able to accurately trace back their ancestry over dozens and dozens of generations
I think knowing their expectation of a Messiah, and their tradition of not marrying outside their tribe, keeping land owned by the same tribe, the Jews would have kept very detailed records.
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I think knowing their expectation of a Messiah, and their tradition of not marrying outside their tribe, keeping land owned by the same tribe, the Jews would have kept very detailed records.
Where are these records?
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Again you are straying into the world of special pleading. We have no idea what the motivation of the author of Luke was in using certain words, and frankly we can never know.
No, just trying to understand how the (what we presume is the original) Greek should be rendered. If that's 'Joseph who was the son of Heli', so be it.
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No, just trying to understand how the (what we presume is the original) Greek should be rendered. If that's 'Joseph who was the son of Heli', so be it.
Why are you so desperate for Luke's genealogy to be via Mary - I don't understand why this is so important to you, but it clearly is. Is it because it allowed you to get around the gaping inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke which mean one, or other, or both must be wrong.
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I think knowing their expectation of a Messiah, and their tradition of not marrying outside their tribe, keeping land owned by the same tribe, the Jews would have kept very detailed records.
So what happened to these detailed records Spud - they seem to have vanished, and of course if fastidious record keeping was important the the Jewish people prior to Jesus it would have been afterwards too as they were still waiting for the Messiah.
Again the special pleading and clutching at straws. Either the Jewish people kept detailed records, in which case we'd have evidence of this. Or they didn't, in which case the notion of being able to accurately trace back 77 generations is non-sense.
You cannot have it both ways.
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But it is patently non-sense that there was a biblical Jewish tradition not to mention women.
Genesis chapter 4 describes the lineage from Adam through Cain for several generations. In that description the following women are mentioned (by name); Eve, Adah, Zillah, Naamah.
Genesis chapter 5 describes the lineage from Adam through Seth for several generations - although no woman is mentioned by name the word 'daughters' appears 9 times in a very short chapter.
What he is saying in the video (from about 5 minutes in) is that there is no example of a woman's family tree being traced. (Yes, we find lists of descendants which might contain daughters, or wives from different families, but not in the opposite direction - "Sheila was daughter of Joe, who was son of John, etc". So Luke's situation would have been unprecedented, had he been wanting to trace Mary's ancestry).
Thus he says, if Luke wanted to trace a woman's family tree, but felt it would not be correct to name her, he would insert the name of her husband and use a grammatical device (omit 'tou' before his name) to indicate that it was not his but his wife's line.
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So Luke's situation would have been unprecedented, had he been wanting to trace Mary's ancestry).
Thus he says, if Luke wanted to trace a woman's family tree, ...
But there is no suggestion that Luke is tracing anyone's family tree other than Jesus. That's why his genealogy starts with ... err ... Jesus. Had he been tracing Mary's genealogy he would have started with Mary and Jesus wouldn't have been mentioned.
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Why are you so desperate for Luke's genealogy to be via Mary - I don't understand why this is so important to you, but it clearly is. Is it because it allowed you to get around the gaping inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke which mean one, or other, or both must be wrong.
The inconsistencies do not mean either or both of them must be wrong, but yes, there is a desire to harmonize the two.
So what happened to these detailed records Spud - they seem to have vanished, and of course if fastidious record keeping was important the the Jewish people prior to Jesus it would have been afterwards too as they were still waiting for the Messiah.
Again the special pleading and clutching at straws. Either the Jewish people kept detailed records, in which case we'd have evidence of this. Or they didn't, in which case the notion of being able to accurately trace back 77 generations is non-sense.
You cannot have it both ways.
I read that they had perished in AD 70 and also that Herod the Great had destroyed the Messianic ones to enable him to become the king.
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But there is no suggestion that Luke is tracing anyone's family tree other than Jesus. That's why his genealogy starts with ... err ... Jesus. Had he been tracing Mary's genealogy he would have started with Mary and Jesus wouldn't have been mentioned.
You seem to have missed the point. If Jesus had no human father then he only had biological ancestors on his mother's side.
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Why are you so desperate for Luke's genealogy to be via Mary - I don't understand why this is so important to you, but it clearly is. Is it because it allowed you to get around the gaping inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke which mean one, or other, or both must be wrong.
It should be obvious to you why Spud is so desperate for Luke’s genealogy to be that of Mary. If both Luke’s and Matthew’s purport to be of Joseph (as the actually do), then there must be a mistake in the Bible.
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You seem to have missed the point. If Jesus had no human father then he only had biological ancestors on his mother's side.
And "he" would have been female.
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I read that they had perished in AD 70 and also that Herod the Great had destroyed the Messianic ones to enable him to become the king.
But Luke and Matthew were written after the destruction of the temple in AD70 and decades after Herod the Great. So if they somehow had perfect access to the genealogies, why wouldn't the Jewish authorities who, let's face it, were much closer to the 'action' so to speak. So why wouldn't those Jewish authorities have just recreated those genealogical records to replace the ones that had been destroyed?
But frankly this is yet again special pleading - the destruction of the temple is used by christian apologists to explain away all sorts of things where there is a lack of corroborating evidence when there really should have been if the events claimed actually happened. Yet the Jewish people seemed to have comfortably protected their historical context and knowledge of their history despite (if you believe the christian apologists) everything going up in smoke in AD70.
Weird how they seem to have retained knowledge of the history of the jewish people, yet nothing is recorded about a guy who was purported to have performed miracles, and is purported to have come back to life after being dead. Weird indeed.
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Some notes on the Greek of Luke 3:23, in summary of an extract from this pdf (http://www.walkinhiscommandments.com/Pickering/Authority/In%20Defense%20of%20the%20Objective%20Authority%20of%20the%20Sacred%20Text.pdf):
The entire sentence itranslated literally from the Greek reads, "And himself was Jesus beginning about years (old) thirty being son as was supposed of Joseph of Heli".
"And himself was Jesus beginning about thirty years"
"beginning about thirty years". This is an independent clause. Putting the verbs 'was' and 'beginning' together (was beginning) does not make sense in the context. 'Was' refers to something else (see below).
'beginning' needs an object; most translators insert something like 'his ministry'.
"being son, as was supposed, of Joseph". The word 'as' is a literal translation, and implies that Jesus was the son of Joseph. This is inconsistent with the rest of the narrative, which tells us that he was not. Thus we should render it, "being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph".
"being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph". This clause is also independent from "And Jesus was". It's also independent from "of Heli, of Matthat etc", since otherwise the text would say, 'Jesus himself was being, so it was supposed, son of Joseph, of Heli'. 'Was' and 'being' cannot be in apposition.
These two middle clauses being separated from the rest of the text, we are left with: "And Jesus himself was ... of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
In full, then: "And Jesus himself was [beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph] of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
Or better, "And Jesus himself, beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph, was of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
After 'Joseph', Luke hasn't used 'son' throughout the rest of the list. This confirms that the above rendering of Luke 3:23 is valid, since Heli did not beget Joseph, according to Matthew, and God did not beget Adam.
Conclusion: the Greek does support the hypothesis that Luke gives Mary's ancestry.
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Some notes on the Greek of Luke 3:23, in summary of an extract from this pdf (http://www.walkinhiscommandments.com/Pickering/Authority/In%20Defense%20of%20the%20Objective%20Authority%20of%20the%20Sacred%20Text.pdf):
The entire sentence itranslated literally from the Greek reads, "And himself was Jesus beginning about years (old) thirty being son as was supposed of Joseph of Heli".
"And himself was Jesus beginning about thirty years"
"beginning about thirty years". This is an independent clause. Putting the verbs 'was' and 'beginning' together (was beginning) does not make sense in the context. 'Was' refers to something else (see below).
'beginning' needs an object; most translators insert something like 'his ministry'.
"being son, as was supposed, of Joseph". The word 'as' is a literal translation, and implies that Jesus was the son of Joseph. This is inconsistent with the rest of the narrative, which tells us that he was not. Thus we should render it, "being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph".
"being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph". This clause is also independent from "And Jesus was". It's also independent from "of Heli, of Matthat etc", since 'son of Joseph' is indefinite, whereas 'Heli' and all the subsequent names are definite.
These two middle clauses being separated from the rest of the text, we are left with: "And Jesus himself was ... of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
In full, then: "And Jesus was [beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph] of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
Or better, "And Jesus himself, beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph, was of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
After 'Joseph', Luke hasn't used 'son' throughout the rest of the list. This confirms that the above rendering of Luke 3:23 is valid, since Heli did not beget Joseph, according to Matthew, and God did not beget Adam.
Conclusion: the Greek does support the hypothesis that Luke gives Mary's ancestry.
Conclusion: No it doesn't - if Luke is giving Mary's ancestry there would be no need to even mention Joseph. And Joseph of Heli isn't distinct from the rest of the lineage which also (in the original) never says 'son of' but merely 'of'. This is the lineage - in other words via Joseph.
And realistically any document that has as its title 'In Defense of the Objective Authority of the Sacred Text' is going to be suspect in the objectivity of its findings. It is yet more special pleading to try to pretend that Luke doesn't contradict Matthew - he does, they don't agree, they contradict each other. Any rational and objective person can see that. Accept it Spud and move on - the gospels regularly contradict each other - they cannot all be right (therefore they cannot all be infallible), yet, of course, they can all be wrong.
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And Joseph of Heli isn't distinct from the rest of the lineage which also (in the original) never says 'son of' but merely 'of'.
I think it is, because if not then you get the two verbs 'to be' conflicting. I did edit the post to reflect this, as I realised that my original point about definiteness was wrong.
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I read that they had perished in AD 70 and also that Herod the Great had destroyed the Messianic ones to enable him to become the king.
But not everybody lived in Jerusalem. Those people who lived in other parts of the country would have kept their records with them surely.
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Afer 'Joseph', Luke hasn't used 'son' throughout the rest of the list. This confirms that the above rendering of Luke 3:23 is valid, since Heli did not beget Joseph, according to Matthew, and God did not beget Adam.
You're assuming that Matthew is correct. Maybe Luke is correct or maybe nobody is.
Conclusion: the Greek does support the hypothesis that Luke gives Mary's ancestry.
No it doesn't. Mary's name is not mentioned. Nowhere does Luke ever even hint that this is Mary's genealogy. You entire argument hinges on the fact that Matthew is different from Luke, but Luke would have no idea that both his and Matthew's document would eventually be put together in the same book. If Luke had wanted this to be Mary's genealogy, he would have said so because he could have no assurance that his readers would also have read Matthew.
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I think it is, because if not then you get the two verbs 'to be' conflicting. I did edit the post to reflect this, as I realised that my original point about definiteness was wrong.
No - you are twisting what is there to suit your own conclusion. So to look at your 'working'.
These two middle clauses being separated from the rest of the text, we are left with: "And Jesus himself was ... of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
No - inappropriate editing. It should be:
"And Jesus himself was ... of Joseph, of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God" - why have you left Joseph out, when he is described in exactly the same manner in terms of his ancestry as Heli etc etc.
In full, then: "And Jesus was [beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph] of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
Inappropriate use of bracket - if you want to take out the non-relevant stuff it is that Jesus was supposed the son of Joseph rather than Joseph being the son of Heli. So it should read:
"And Jesus was [beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed] of Joseph, of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
Or better, "And Jesus himself, beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph, was of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God".
Nope - why have you suddenly added an additional was, where there wasn't one to try to imply that the relationship between Joseph and Heli is somehow different to the relationship between Heli and Matthat etc - the original text doesn't imply that, it uses exactly the same language to describe Joseph's relationship to Heli as Heli's relation to Matthat etc.
So it should read:
"And Jesus himself, beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph, of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God"
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Nope - why have you suddenly added an additional was, where there wasn't one to try to imply that the relationship between Joseph and Heli is somehow different to the relationship between Heli and Matthat etc - the original text doesn't imply that, it uses exactly the same language to describe Joseph's relationship to Heli as Heli's relation to Matthat etc.
So it should read:
"And Jesus himself, beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (old), being son, so it was supposed, of Joseph, of Heli, of Matthat ... of Adam, of God"
Apologies. What I did was to subconsciously add 'at' to 'beginning' - 'beginning at about thirty years' in order to say that this clause is independent from 'And Jesus himself was...'. If the 'at' is removed, you get 'beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (of age)'. Does that work, without 'at'? It seems best to refer 'and Jesus himself was...' to 'about thirty years (of age)' rather than to 'of Heli' at the end, which is what I tried to do.
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Apologies. What I did was to subconsciously add 'at' to 'beginning' - 'beginning at about thirty years' in order to say that this clause is independent from 'And Jesus himself was...'. If the 'at' is removed, you get 'beginning (his ministry) about thirty years (of age)'. Does that work, without 'at'? It seems best to refer 'and Jesus himself was...' to 'about thirty years (of age)' rather than to 'of Heli' at the end, which is what I tried to do.
The issue of the age at which Jesus started preaching is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
The only relevant issue is the language used to describe the relationship between Joseph and Heli, and the language used to describe the relationship between Heli and Matthat and so on. Specifically whether the language is the same (in which the implication is that they are describing the same relationship) or different (in which case you may suggest the author is implying a different relationship).
In this case the language to describe the relationship between Joseph and Heli (Joseph of Heli) is identical to that between Heli and Matthat (Heli of Matthat) and indeed is identical in all the other relationships thereafter. You have no credible evidence in the linguistics to suggest that Luke is describing anything other than the same relationship between Joseph and Heli as between Heli and Matthat (or any of the other relationships back to Adam and God.
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The issue of the age at which Jesus started preaching is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
The only relevant issue is the language used to describe the relationship between Joseph and Heli, and the language used to describe the relationship between Heli and Matthat and so on. Specifically whether the language is the same (in which the implication is that they are describing the same relationship) or different (in which case you may suggest the author is implying a different relationship).
In this case the language to describe the relationship between Joseph and Heli (Joseph of Heli) is identical to that between Heli and Matthat (Heli of Matthat) and indeed is identical in all the other relationships thereafter. You have no credible evidence in the linguistics to suggest that Luke is describing anything other than the same relationship between Joseph and Heli as between Heli and Matthat (or any of the other relationships back to Adam and God.
I get that. But some people add Joseph to the parenthesis, so instead of "being son (so it was supposed), of Joseph, of Heli" it reads, "being son (so it was supposed, of Joseph) of Heli" so that it excludes Joseph from the actual line, and it is Jesus who is of Heli, not Joseph. If we know on other grounds that Joseph was not the son of Heli, then this might be a valid translation. It doesn't read very smoothly, though.
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I get that. But some people add Joseph to the parenthesis ...
But there are no parentheses in the original - so anyone adding these is just doing it to fit an agenda, just as you did.
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so instead of "being son (so it was supposed), of Joseph, of Heli" it reads, "being son (so it was supposed, of Joseph) of Heli" so that it excludes Joseph from the actual line, and it is Jesus who is of Heli, not Joseph.
But that is just making stuff up, isn't it Spud - there are no brackets in the original and to add ones to try and detach Joseph from Heli in the listing is simply disingenuous in comparison to the original.
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But there are no parentheses in the original - so anyone adding these is just doing it to fit an agenda, just as you did.
There is a parenthesis: "as was supposed". It's usually marked by commas - the question is whether we include "of Joseph" in it or not.
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to try and detach Joseph from Heli in the listing is simply disingenuous in comparison to the original.
But some people say the lack of the article 'tou' before Joseph means he is not part of the genealogy. I haven't seen anyone explain exactly why yet, though.
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There is a parenthesis: "as was supposed". It's usually marked by commas - the question is whether we include "of Joseph" in it or not.
There would have been no punctuation at all in the original. Or lower case letters. While we are at it, the idea of dividing the texts into verses is a sixteenth century invention.
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There would have been no punctuation at all in the original. Or lower case letters.
Spot on.
The original (or rather our earliest extant version) contained no punctuation, whether commas or brackets. The earliest version described the relationship between Joseph and Heli in exactly the same manner as between Heli and Matthat etc etc. Much later translators started to include punctuation to align with the norms of the new languages - but again these versions, even with punctuation, described the relationship between Joseph and Heli in exactly the same manner as between Heli and Matthat etc etc.
There is no evidence whatsoever to support a notion that the author of Luke considered the relationship between Joseph and Heli to be anything other than the same as the relationship between Heli and Matthat etc etc.
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There would have been no punctuation at all in the original. Or lower case letters. While we are at it, the idea of dividing the texts into verses is a sixteenth century invention.
But there is a parenthesis, which we mark with punctuation.
Spot on.
The original (or rather our earliest extant version) contained no punctuation, whether commas or brackets. The earliest version described the relationship between Joseph and Heli in exactly the same manner as between Heli and Matthat etc etc. Much later translators started to include punctuation to align with the norms of the new languages - but again these versions, even with punctuation, described the relationship between Joseph and Heli in exactly the same manner as between Heli and Matthat etc etc.
There is no evidence whatsoever to support a notion that the author of Luke considered the relationship between Joseph and Heli to be anything other than the same as the relationship between Heli and Matthat etc etc.
Yes, if we go with the standard location of the parenthesis - "being son (as was supposed) of Joseph" - it has the appearance of being Joseph's line. But we also know that it is calling Jesus the son of Heli et al and not just their supposed descendant, since it says by implication that Jesus is descended from David and Abraham.
We also know from Matthew that Jacob begat Joseph, and also from the Talmud that Mary was daughter of Heli (though I wouldn't jump to assert that as reliable evidence).
Lastly we can posit that Luke would substitute Joseph's name for Mary's since there are no examples of a genealogy beginning or ending with a woman.
So we have grounds to believe that Luke gives Mary's line. This is confirmed, some say, by the grammar: between Jesus and Joseph there's no definite article, which indicates that 'as was supposed' applies to Joseph but not to Heli, Matthat et al. which all have the article (tou). This may be refuted - there is some information on the Greek use of the definite article with proper names here (https://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm).
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But there is a parenthesis, which we mark with punctuation.
Parentheses are punctuation. There wouldn't have been any of those in the original text.
Yes, if we go with the standard location of the parenthesis - "being son (as was supposed) of Joseph" - it has the appearance of being Joseph's line. But we also know that it is calling Jesus the son of Heli et al and not just their supposed descendant, since it says by implication that Jesus is descended from David and Abraham.
We also know from Matthew that Jacob begat Joseph, and also that from the Talmud that Mary was daughter of Heli (though I wouldn't jump to assert that as reliable evidence).
Lastly we can posit that Luke would substitute Joseph's name for Mary's since there are no examples of a genealogy beginning or ending with a woman.
So we have grounds to believe that Luke gives Mary's line. This is confirmed, some say, by the grammar: between Jesus and Joseph there's no definite article, which indicates that 'as was supposed' applies to Joseph but not to Heli, Matthat et al. which all have the article (tou). This may be refuted - there is some information on the Greek use of the definite article with proper names here (https://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm).
This is all just wish fulfilment. You don't want there to be a contradiction, so you twist things to beyond breaking point to make it so.
You have no evidence that there were any parentheses
You have no evidence that Luke would not mention Mary if he wanted to.
Your "as was supposed" argument is nonsense. Nobody would have supposed that Jesus was the son of his own grandfather, so of course it only applies to Joseph.
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But there is a parenthesis, which we mark with punctuation.
Not in the original text there wasn't.
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Yes, if we go with the standard location of the parenthesis - "being son (as was supposed) of Joseph" - it has the appearance of being Joseph's line.
Nope, it is much more definitive than 'it has the appearance of being Joseph's line', it clearly is Joseph's line as the description of the relationship between Joseph and Heli is identical to the the description of the relationship between Heli and Matthat, etc.
And in the original (which has no punctuation) it clearly is Joseph's line as the description of the relationship between Joseph and Heli is identical to the the description of the relationship between Heli and Matthat, etc.
Any other interpretation is baseless, has no credible evidence to support it, and is clearly special pleading from people who are not being objective but have an agenda that they wish to try to prove - albeit fail to do so spectacularly.
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Not in the original text there wasn't.
A parenthesis is words, whether they are punctuated or not:
a word or phrase inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage which is grammatically complete without it, in writing usually marked off by brackets, dashes, or commas.
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You have no evidence that Luke would not mention Mary if he wanted to.
If writing a family tree of a woman was unprecedented he might not have wanted to mention her.
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Your "as was supposed" argument is nonsense. Nobody would have supposed that Jesus was the son of his own grandfather, so of course it only applies to Joseph.
Jesus is elsewhere called the son of David, so 'son of Heli' could mean biological grandson.
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If writing a family tree of a woman was unprecedented he might not have wanted to mention her.
In which case he wouldn't have described the relationship between Joseph and Heli in exactly the same manner as he does the relationship between Heli and Matthat etc.
Just give up Spud - there is no evidence whatsoever that Luke is describing Mary's lineage - it makes no sense at all. You'll just have to accept that Matthew and Luke contradict each other on the genealogies and that that cannot both be correct, although they can both be wrong.
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Moreover, does it really matter all that much anyway?
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If writing a family tree of a woman was unprecedented he might not have wanted to mention her.
Was it unprecedented? Have you got any evidence of that?
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Moreover, does it really matter all that much anyway?
It does to Spud.
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Your "as was supposed" argument is nonsense. Nobody would have supposed that Jesus was the son of his own grandfather, so of course it only applies to Joseph.
What I meant was, "as was supposed" applies to Joseph but not to Heli in the sense that Jesus was not Joseph's son but he was the son of Heli as a biological grandson. He was not biologically related to Joseph but he was to Heli.
The other way of looking at it that I've come across is that because Joseph doesn't have the article, he is to be included in the parenthesis. This means that Joseph is not part of the genealogy.
But I think that the missing article may be simply because 'son' is indefinite, and Joseph is in apposition to son, and also that Joseph has been introduced and so it was not compulsory to include the article. Heli however is a new character and thus needs the article (see the above link on Strongs 3588).
However, what we can be sure of is that one of the genealogies is that of Mary, because throughout the Bible the Messiah is stated to be the seed of David. So the other must be Joseph's, which would work with either.
It does to Spud.
What matters is that there are possible solutions to the problem, even if we don't know which it is.
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What matters is that there are possible solutions to the problem, even if we don't know which it is.
There isn't a problem. One of either Luke or Matthew, or more likely, both made a mistake. In fact it's likely they both got it wrong considering there is no chance that either of them would have know Joseph's genealogy.
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A couple of interesting excerpts:
From Clarke's commentary (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/clarke/luke/3.htm):
Being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph - This same phrase is used by Herodotus to signify one who was only reputed to be the son of a particular person: τουτου παις νομιζεται he was Supposed to be this man's son. Much learned labor has been used to reconcile this genealogy with that in St. Matthew, Matthew 1:1-17, and there are several ways of doing it; the following, which appears to me to be the best, is also the most simple and easy. For a more elaborate discussion of the subject, the reader is referred to the additional observations at the end of the chapter. Matthew, in descending from Abraham to Joseph, the spouse of the blessed virgin, speaks of Sons properly such, by way of natural generation: Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, etc. But Luke, in ascending from the Savior of the world to God himself, speaks of sons either properly or improperly such: on this account he uses an indeterminate mode of expression, which may be applied to sons either putatively or really such. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was Supposed the son of Joseph - of Heli - of Matthat, etc. This receives considerable support from Raphelius's method of reading the original ων (ὡς ενομιζετο υἱος Ιωσηφ) του Ἡλι, being (when reputed the son of Joseph) the son of Heli, etc. That St. Luke does not always speak of sons properly such, is evident from the first and last person which he names: Jesus Christ was only the supposed son of Joseph, because Joseph was the husband of his mother Mary: and Adam, who is said to be the son of God, was such only by creation. After this observation it is next necessary to consider, that, in the genealogy described by St. Luke, there are two sons improperly such: i.e. two sons-in-law, instead of two sons. As the Hebrews never permitted women to enter into their genealogical tables, whenever a family happened to end with a daughter, instead of naming her in the genealogy, they inserted her husband, as the son of him who was, in reality, but his father-in-law. This import, bishop Pearce has fully shown, νομιζεσθαι bears, in a variety of places - Jesus was considered according to law, or allowed custom, to be the son of Joseph, as he was of Heli. The two sons-in-law who are to be noticed in this genealogy are Joseph the son-in-law of Heli, whose own father was Jacob, Matthew 1:16; and Salathiel, the son-in-law of Neri, whose own father was Jechonias: 1 Chronicles 3:17, and Matthew 1:12. This remark alone is sufficient to remove every difficulty.Thus it appears that Joseph, son of Jacob, according to St. Matthew, was son-in-law of Heli, according to St. Luke. And Salathiel, son of Jechonias, according to the former, was son-in-law of Neri, according to the latter. Mary therefore appears to have been the daughter of Heli; so called by abbreviation for Heliachim, which is the same in Hebrew with Joachim. Joseph, son of Jacob, and Mary; daughter of Heli, were of the same family: both came from Zerubbabel; Joseph from Abiud, his eldest son, Matthew 1:13, and Mary by Rhesa, the youngest. See Luke 3:27. Salathiel and Zorobabel, from whom St. Matthew and St. Luke cause Christ to proceed, were themselves descended from Solomon in a direct line: and though St. Luke says that Salathiel was son of Neri, who was descended from Nathan, Solomon's eldest brother, 1 Chronicles 3:5, this is only to be understood of his having espoused NathanNeri's daughter, and that Neri dying, probably, without male issues the two branches of the family of David, that of Nathan and that of Solomon, were both united in the person of Zerubbabel, by the marriage of Salathiel, chief of the regal family of Solomon, with the daughter of Neri, chief and heretrix of the family of Nathan. Thus it appears that Jesus, son of Mary, reunited in himself all the blood, privileges, and rights of the whole family of David; in consequence of which he is emphatically called, The son of David.
(My correction and bold)
From Biblical Illustrator (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/illustrator/luke/3.htm):
The following possible explanation of the divergencies between the two genealogies of our Lord is deserving of consideration. The Jews, like other nations, gave more than one name to each individual. The life of a Jew was essentially twofold: he was a member of a civil state, and he was at the same time a member of a theocracy; his life was both political and religious. This distinction seems to have been preserved in the giving of names. Traces of the double name are found throughout the course of Scripture history. It is highly probable that the sacred name imposed at birth would be entered in a different list from the common name by which a man was known in his civil relationships. The conclusion to which we are brought is that we have before us two such registers, one drawn from public, and the other from private sources; or, as is conjectured above, one from a civil genealogy, the other from writings laid up in the Temple. In support of this view, we may note that in the genealogy in Luke — the evangelist whose opening chapters show a close familiarity with the interior of the Temple, and what took place there — the names appear to have a sacred character. Even an English reader may remark at a glance the different aspect of the two lists. That in Luke contains, with striking frequency, the familiar names of distinguished patriarchs, prophets, and priests, and thus confirms the impression that his genealogy, rather than that of a Matthew, is of a purely religious character. This hypothesis receives a remarkable confirmation by a comparison of the dates of the two lists with the dates of the first building, the destruction, and the second building of the Temple. What, then, is the relation between the two genealogies before Solomon's time, when there was no Temple? and during the lives of Salathiel and Zorobabel, who flourished at the time of the Babylonish captivity, when again, for seventy years, there was no Temple? It is precisely at these periods that only one list exists. The divergence in Luke's genealogy from that of Matthew is exactly coincident with the periods during which the Temple was standing. What explanation of this striking fact can be more natural than that at the point where the two genealogies unite there was but one list to refer to, and that the absence of entries in the sacred register required it to be supplemented by a reference to the state chronicles?
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A couple of interesting excerpts:
From Clarke's commentary (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/clarke/luke/3.htm):
Who on earth is Clarke?
And is he or she a genuine and objective researcher or just another christian apologist who starts from the premise that both Matthew and Luke must be correct (because he or she thinks that the gospels cannot be wrong as a matter of faith) and then looks for evidence and, frankly, makes up stuff to try to justify his or her prejudged view.
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Who on earth is Clarke?
And is he or she a genuine and objective researcher or just another christian apologist who starts from the premise that both Matthew and Luke must be correct (because he or she thinks that the gospels cannot be wrong as a matter of faith) and then looks for evidence and, frankly, makes up stuff to try to justify his or her prejudged view.
Actually no point as his or her agenda is obvious from:
Much learned labor has been used to reconcile this genealogy with that in St. Matthew, Matthew 1:1-17, and there are several ways of doing it; the following, which appears to me to be the best, is also the most simple and easy.
He or she is clear not event contemplating the obvious explanation - that they cannot be reconciled as on, or other, or both are wrong.
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Who on earth is Clarke?
And is he or she a genuine and objective researcher or just another christian apologist who starts from the premise that both Matthew and Luke must be correct (because he or she thinks that the gospels cannot be wrong as a matter of faith) and then looks for evidence and, frankly, makes up stuff to try to justify his or her prejudged view.
If there is precedent in the OT for a person having a legal and a biological father, then why not look for evidence to justify his view? Also Matthew and Luke set their narratives in a historical context, which when compared with Josephus has a high degree of accuracy. So he probably wasn't making the genealogy up.
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An interesting view in "Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges" is that Mary was the only child of Jacob, so that "probably Joseph was the son of Heli and the heir to Jacob."
Both Clement and Victorinus mention Matthew's genealogy and seem to say that it was Mary's:
"And in the Gospel according to Matthew, the genealogy which begins with Abraham is continued down to Mary the mother of the Lord." (Clement)
"Matthew strives to declare to us the genealogy of Mary, from whom Christ took flesh" (Victorinus)
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Actually no point as his or her agenda is obvious from:
Much learned labor has been used to reconcile this genealogy with that in St. Matthew, Matthew 1:1-17, and there are several ways of doing it; the following, which appears to me to be the best, is also the most simple and easy.
He or she is clear not event contemplating the obvious explanation - that they cannot be reconciled as on, or other, or both are wrong.
If one, or other, or both had been wrong, there would most likely have been claims to that effect from opponents of the early church. Also, both Paul and the gospel writers record that it was widely accepted Jesus was a descendant of David, which increases the likelihood of the genealogies' authenticity. And calls for study to find possible ways to harmonize the two.
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Also, both Paul and the gospel writers record that it was widely accepted Jesus was a descendant of David, which increases the likelihood of the genealogies' authenticity.
No it doesn't - all sorts of things are (or were) widely accepted which we know to be wrong.
So as examples - it was widely accepted (amongst the same people you are talking about) that the sun went around the earth - that isn't true. It was widely accepted (amongst the same people you are talking about) that Adam was the first man - that isn't true.
Just because something is widely accepted tells us nothing about its authenticity - what bolsters the likelihood of authenticity is evidence not acceptance (unless the latter is based on evidence which is not the case here).
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It was thought the earth was flat in those far off days.
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No it doesn't - all sorts of things are (or were) widely accepted which we know to be wrong.
So as examples - it was widely accepted (amongst the same people you are talking about) that the sun went around the earth - that isn't true. It was widely accepted (amongst the same people you are talking about) that Adam was the first man - that isn't true.
Just because something is widely accepted tells us nothing about its authenticity - what bolsters the likelihood of authenticity is evidence not acceptance (unless the latter is based on evidence which is not the case here).
We don't know that Jesus wasn't descended from king David. We can still say the lack of dispute over Jesus' relation to David is consistent with the genealogies and therefore increases the likelihood of them being authentic.
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We don't know that Jesus wasn't descended from king David.
You are making a positive claim - in other words that Jesus was descended from David - the onus is on you or anyone else making that positive claim to provide the evidence to back it up.
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You are making a positive claim - in other words that Jesus was descended from David - the onus is on you or anyone else making that positive claim to provide the evidence to back it up.
You implied that just as we know ancient beliefs in geocentricity were wrong, so we know the general NT record of Jesus' Davidic ancestry was wrong. We don't know that, so you can't compare geocentricity. If that record had been disputed, or if the Pharisees in the gospels had disputed it, it would make it more likely the genealogies were wrong than if the claim hadn't been disputed. That's my point.
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You implied that just as we know ancient beliefs in geocentricity were wrong, so we know the general NT record of Jesus' Davidic ancestry was wrong. We don't know that, so you can't compare geocentricity. If that record had been disputed, or if the Pharisees in the gospels had disputed it, it would make it more likely the genealogies were wrong than if the claim hadn't been disputed. That's my point.
I'm sorry Spud your points are poor.
Sure we don't know that Jesus wasn't descended from David, but that provides no evidence to support a claim that he was. And the fact that people in the gospels of the Bible (texts written by believers in the the notion that Jesus was descended from David) is hardly compelling evidence is it Spud. People who believe in a particular claim with texts which support their claim. We have no knowledge as to whether others around at the time disputed the claim. Although the fact that Jesus wasn't accepted as the messiah by the majority people living in the time and in the place where he lived and preached is very telling. Did these people accept that Jesus was descended from David? Well we don't know as there aren't records, but they certainly didn't accept he was the messiah.
And I may be wrong, but are there any independent corroborative texts (i.e. not biblical, or at least not NT biblical) that provide support to the claim - I'm not sure there are.
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PD,
Yes, my point assumes that the NT is reliable and accurate when it says that people believed Jesus was descended from David. I personally think it's a reasonable assumption, but it's for each person to decide. No, they rejected him as messiah for other reasons than his ancestry.
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PD,
Yes, my point assumes that the NT is reliable and accurate when it says that people believed Jesus was descended from David.
So you start with an assumption that the NT is reliable and accurate and therefore conclude that something written in the NT (genealogy of Jesus) is ... err ... reliable and accurate.
Surely even you can see that this is a glaring circular argument.
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PD,
Yes, my point assumes that the NT is reliable and accurate when it says that people believed Jesus was descended from David. I personally think it's a reasonable assumption, but it's for each person to decide. No, they rejected him as messiah for other reasons than his ancestry.
You hope the NT is reliable and accurate, but have no evidence to support it being so.
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I personally think it's a reasonable assumption, but it's for each person to decide.
Nope - whether or not the NT is accurate or not isn't just a personal opinion, akin to whether you or I like anchovies, or Mozart. Nope it is a matter that needs to be determined via research, scholarship and evidence.
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No, they rejected him as messiah for other reasons than his ancestry.
How do you know that? All we know with confidence is that the vast majority of people around at the time and place when Jesus was preaching rejected him as the messiah - their reasons for doing so are opaque.
However the fact that they did reject him casts massive doubt on what is written in the gospels - if the purported events of the gospels actually happened as written and were witnessed by countless people (as is suggested in the gospels) surely it would be implausible that the people witnessing these incredible events not only rejecting him as messiah but also failed to follow him as a prophet. What this suggests to me is that the people around at the time witnessed nothing like the hyperbolic claimed events of the gospels.
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PD,
Yes, my point assumes that the NT is reliable and accurate when it says that people believed Jesus was descended from David. I personally think it's a reasonable assumption, but it's for each person to decide. No, they rejected him as messiah for other reasons than his ancestry.
Then, in the absence of independent corroboration (or viable time travel), you're assuming too much.
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So you start with an assumption that the NT is reliable and accurate and therefore conclude that something written in the NT (genealogy of Jesus) is ... err ... reliable and accurate.
Surely even you can see that this is a glaring circular argument.
You can disbelieve the miraculous elements of the NT and still reasonably assume statements that Jesus was from the family of David to be accurate, and therefore consistent with the genealogies. But if you think the whole NT, including the non-miraculous details is fabricated or wrong, I would suggest this is not very sensible.
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You can disbelieve the miraculous elements of the NT and still reasonably assume statements that Jesus was from the family of David to be accurate, and therefore consistent with the genealogies. But if you think the whole NT, including the non-miraculous details is fabricated or wrong, I would suggest this is not very sensible.
Why?
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You can disbelieve the miraculous elements of the NT and still reasonably assume statements that Jesus was from the family of David to be accurate, and therefore consistent with the genealogies. But if you think the whole NT, including the non-miraculous details is fabricated or wrong, I would suggest this is not very sensible.
You could but you would look for evidence to support the genealogies being accurate. So a good starting point would be to look for consistencies between a reported genealogy and other reported genealogies. Which of course you can do as there are two of them in the gospels - problem is that they are woefully inconsistent.
Now if you take a biased starting point (that the gospels are true and accurate) then of course you can conjure up all sorts of convoluted ways to try and explain away those gross inconsistencies.
However if you come at this from a starting point of neutrality the clear conclusion is that at least one must be wrong. Add in some non-biased rationalism and ask how likely it is for anyone to be able to accurately report their genealogy over dozens of generations (even now, let alone then) and the notion that these genealogies are accurate becomes increasing implausible. Finally throw in the notion that they are fundamentally built on a lie (or at least Luke's is) that Adam was the first human and their credibility crumbles to dust.
There is no credible evidence to support the genealogies being accurate.
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You could but you would look for evidence to support the genealogies being accurate.
That Jesus was known to be the son of David, and no-one disputed that, is evidence the genealogies are accurate.
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That Jesus was known to be the son of David, and no-one disputed that, is evidence the genealogies are accurate.
Not it isn't: it is evidence only of what some people reportedly thought - but they could be wrong, and in any event you have no way of checking.
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Not it isn't: it is evidence only of what some people reportedly thought - but they could be wrong, and in any event you have no way of checking.
That nobody disputed it does to an extent verify the claim.
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That nobody disputed it does to an extent verify the claim.
How do you know no one disputed it?
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That nobody disputed it does to an extent verify the claim.
The timing is important here. When was it first suggested that Jesus was the son of David?
Your highly questionable history book (the Bible) says he was the son of God, or Joseph not David - he cannot have had three fathers!
The dating of the New Testament is also highly questionable. No two biblical historians seem to agree on a specific date.
Owlswing
)O(
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That nobody disputed it does to an extent verify the claim.
No it doesn't: stop being so gullible, Spud.
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The timing is important here. When was it first suggested that Jesus was the son of David?
Your highly questionable history book (the Bible) says he was the son of God, or Joseph not David - he cannot have had three fathers!
The dating of the New Testament is also highly questionable. No two biblical historians seem to agree on a specific date.
Owlswing
)O(
Actually they do. The majority opinion is that the genuine Pauline letters were written in the 50's and the gospels between 70 give or take five years and maybe 110.
OK, so that's not specific years, but it's a reasonably small window. It's good enough to tell us that there are no contemporary writings about Jesus and that the oral tradition had decades before it was committed to papyrus. It's also good enough to discount the "Eusebius fabricated the whole thing" conspiracy theory.
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Actually they do. The majority opinion is that the genuine Pauline letters were written in the 50's and the gospels between 70 give or take five years and maybe 110.
OK, so that's not specific years, but it's a reasonably small window. It's good enough to tell us that there are no contemporary writings about Jesus and that the oral tradition had decades before it was committed to papyrus. It's also good enough to discount the "Eusebius fabricated the whole thing" conspiracy theory.
A span of sixty years is hardly what I would call specific! Even for Chrstianity!
Owlswing
)O(
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A span of sixty years is hardly what I would call specific! Even for Chrstianity!
Owlswing
)O(
It isn't 50 years. 70 to 110 is the span for all four gospels. Each one has a smaller window.
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Actually they do. The majority opinion is that the genuine Pauline letters were written in the 50's and the gospels between 70 give or take five years and maybe 110.
OK, so that's not specific years, but it's a reasonably small window. It's good enough to tell us that there are no contemporary writings about Jesus and that the oral tradition had decades before it was committed to papyrus. It's also good enough to discount the "Eusebius fabricated the whole thing" conspiracy theory.
I don't subscribe to the view that Eusebiua made it all up.
But that doesn't mean that we can accept that the earliest papyrus fragments we have are the same as what was originally written in 70-110. We know that there are huge numbers of inconsistencies between early copies of the gospels. We also know that some key elements are missing from the earliest copies. So realistically all we can say is that that gospels said x or y by the time we have extant fragments to verify x and y. We cannot know whether the originals, from perhaps 150-200 years earlier, also included x and y or whether x and y were only added or created via alternation in that copy or its immediate predecessor(s).
So we might be able to conclude that the gospels were originally written in 70-110, but we cannot conclude that we know what they said at that point.
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I don't subscribe to the view that Eusebiua made it all up.
But that doesn't mean that we can accept that the earliest papyrus fragments we have are the same as what was originally written in 70-110. We know that there are huge numbers of inconsistencies between early copies of the gospels. We also know that some key elements are missing from the earliest copies. So realistically all we can say is that that gospels said x or y by the time we have extant fragments to verify x and y. We cannot know whether the originals, from perhaps 150-200 years earlier, also included x and y or whether x and y were only added or created via alternation in that copy or its immediate predecessor(s).
So we might be able to conclude that the gospels were originally written in 70-110, but we cannot conclude that we know what they said at that point.
Yes we can. Not 100% but it's definitely not right to say we don't know anything about what was in the gospels.
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Yes we can. Not 100% but it's definitely not right to say we don't know anything about what was in the gospels.
No we cannot.
I'm not saying that it is likely that none of the text that we have in the earliest extant fragments was in the original gospel text written perhaps 150 years earlier. What I am saying is that we cannot know for sure what was, and what wasn't in versions earlier than the fragments we have. In some cases we do know about changes - for example where none of the earliest versions contain text which begins to appear in later versions. However when we do not have this before/after shift we cannot simply conclude that the earliest version is the same as (or similar to) the original from 150 years earlier.
Given the number of inconsistencies between gospel versions and the number of active changes (additions or removal) in the first couple of hundred years where we do have fragments through to full texts (about 150-400) then we can be pretty confident of at least similar changes in the earliest 150 years (where we don't have fragments or full texts). Indeed it is more plausible that the number of changes in the earliest versions would be greatest, for a range of reasons including non trained copyists, lack of any orthodoxy of text and simply that versions of pretty well any text tend to change the most as they are initially drafted.
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No we cannot.
I'm not saying that it is likely that none of the text that we have in the earliest extant fragments was in the original gospel text written perhaps 150 years earlier. What I am saying is that we cannot know for sure what was, and what wasn't in versions earlier than the fragments we have. In some cases we do know about changes - for example where none of the earliest versions contain text which begins to appear in later versions. However when we do not have this before/after shift we cannot simply conclude that the earliest version is the same as (or similar to) the original from 150 years earlier.
Given the number of inconsistencies between gospel versions and the number of active changes (additions or removal) in the first couple of hundred years where we do have fragments through to full texts (about 150-400) then we can be pretty confident of at least similar changes in the earliest 150 years (where we don't have fragments or full texts). Indeed it is more plausible that the number of changes in the earliest versions would be greatest, for a range of reasons including non trained copyists, lack of any orthodoxy of text and simply that versions of pretty well any text tend to change the most as they are initially drafted.
Are you saying that there is some formula for how the gospels would have mutated? Would they have mutated to produce almost identical doctrine were they to have been following some law of generational degradation? Why would the doctrinal content of the Gospels not mutate from that of the epistles.
The copying of the Gospels would not have followed the same generational problems of translation as say VHS tape, is that the sort of degradation you envisage?
I think there are other factors that would have been at play that might not be at play for secular material namely because of the apparent holiness of the text greater care would be expected to be taken.
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No we cannot.
I'm not saying that it is likely that none of the text that we have in the earliest extant fragments was in the original gospel text written perhaps 150 years earlier.
That's what it seems like and you seem to have an obsession with proving it. Why not just shut up about it? You made your point.
What I am saying is that we cannot know for sure what was
We don't have 100% certainty about any documents from the ancient world. We don't have the originals of anything that wasn't carved into stone and yet we still manage to use them to understand historical events.
We proceed here on the basis that the genealogies are what Matthew and Luke wrote down. Yes, we don't know 100% that that is true, but we can be fairly confident that they are substantially correct.
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That's what it seems like and you seem to have an obsession with proving it. Why not just shut up about it? You made your point.
Why should I - it is an important point and highly relevant to the whole reading of the gospels.
Realistically, rather than consider the gospels (the ones we actually have to hand, rather than lost versions) as being from 70-110, we should consider them to be broadly 3rdC/4thC documents. That is the earliest that we can be confident about in terms of what they say.
Of course the earliest (lost) versions will cover largely the same territory - they aren't going to be a narrative about a holiday in Egypt. However given that christians pour over the precise wording and speculate endlessly over the meaning of those words, we have to recognise that those words may not be what was originally written but what had evolved through mistakes and more importantly alterations over about 150 years or so.
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We don't have 100% certainty about any documents from the ancient world. We don't have the originals of anything that wasn't carved into stone and yet we still manage to use them to understand historical events.
True - but in most cases these documents are used to give a broad historical perspective, corroborated by other evidence - e.g. archeological. In the case of the gospels we (or rather christians) are asked to to consider the details and precise wording as key.
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We proceed here on the basis that the genealogies are what Matthew and Luke wrote down. Yes, we don't know 100% that that is true, but we can be fairly confident that they are substantially correct.
I sorry - you cannot justify that claim.
The first fragments including the genealogies are from the 3rdC - how do you know that earlier versions of the gospels even included these genealogies.
You can make assumptions - fine - but those assumptions aren't evidence-based as there is no evidence that conclusively demonstrates the genealogies were present in the earliest gospels - for example within 100 years of their original writing.
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How do you know no one disputed it?
There was a claim that he was the son of a Roman soldier called Panthera. This was referred to by Origen who dismissed it as made up.
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There was a claim that he was the son of a Roman soldier called Panthera. This was referred to by Origen who dismissed it as made up.
Whoever his father was, I reckon they were a human male, not a god.
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Whoever his father was, I reckon they were a human male, not a god.
Assuming, of course, that Jesus Christ ever actually lived!
I have only ever had the BIble presented to me a proof that he did so and as I think that is one of the, if not the, most inaccurate history books ever written, and the last time I bothered looking the earliest proven written account of JC was written at least 100 years after his supposed death!
Owlswing
)O(
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Assuming, of course, that Jesus Christ ever actually lived!
I have only ever had the BIble presented to me a proof that he did so and as I think that is one of the, if not the, most inaccurate history books ever written, and the last time I bothered looking the earliest proven written account of JC was written at least 100 years after his supposed death!
Owlswing
)O(
No, some of the New Testament epistles are dated to a couple of decades after.
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No, some of the New Testament epistles are dated to a couple of decades after.
Dated by whom?
Owlswing
)O(
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No, some of the New Testament epistles are dated to a couple of decades after.
Not the versions we have - the earliest extant versions have been dated as 200-300AD, so perhaps 200 years after Jesus' death.
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Not the versions we have - the earliest extant versions have been dated as 200-300AD, so perhaps 200 years after Jesus' death.
And how have those changed since?
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And how have those changed since?
Irrelevant - the issue isn't to what extent the epistles have changed from the earliest extant fragments dating from about 200-300AD, but how they may have changed from the dates when they were first believed to be written until the point, some 200 years later when we actually have versions.
And given the huge variation between early extant versions of a range of new testament texts we may reasonably conclude that they changed an awful lot.
So as an example, and related specifically to the OP - I presume you are aware that one of the earliest versions of Luke (codex bezae) that includes the genealogy has a genealogy pretty well 100% different to the genealogy in other early versions. That isn't merely a mistake in copying or a minor error, but a clear and deliberate alteration in one version or the other.
Now we do not know for sure which version better represents earlier (but lost) version, nor whether either version of the genealogy even appeared in the original text of Luke.
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I sorry - you cannot justify that claim.
Of course I can. We have plenty of manuscripts starting from about the fourth century and whilst they do have variations, they don't change so much over the ages that you can't recognise the text.
The first fragments including the genealogies are from the 3rdC - how do you know that earlier versions of the gospels even included these genealogies.
But this is irrelevant. Spud is not claiming that the contradictions in the genealogies arise from copyist errors. He is claiming that they are different genealogies.
You can make assumptions - fine - but those assumptions aren't evidence-based as there is no evidence that conclusively demonstrates the genealogies were present in the earliest gospels - for example within 100 years of their original writing.
As I said before, if we adopt your approach, no ancient document for which we do not have the autograph could be trusted. You have to make reasonable assumptions about the documents you have or you have got nothing. It's reasonable to assume that the genealogies were in the original gospels and it's not actually relevant to the present discussion exactly when they were written.
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Assuming, of course, that Jesus Christ ever actually lived!
I have only ever had the BIble presented to me a proof that he did so and as I think that is one of the, if not the, most inaccurate history books ever written, and the last time I bothered looking the earliest proven written account of JC was written at least 100 years after his supposed death!
Owlswing
)O(
The Bible is not a book, it is a collection of documents. The gospels weren't intended as history, they were intended as propaganda. Most scholars believe the gospels to be written between 40 and 80 years after the death of Jesus. Paul's letters are believed to have been written 20 years after the death of Jesus. If nothing else, they do demonstrate the existence of a Christian church (or churches) prior to Paul getting involved. Somebody founded it so the only reasonable question is whether the gospels are based on the real founder of Christianity or a complete myth. I lean towards the former.
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Irrelevant - the issue isn't to what extent the epistles have changed from the earliest extant fragments dating from about 200-300AD, but how they may have changed from the dates when they were first believed to be written until the point, some 200 years later when we actually have versions.
And given the huge variation between early extant versions of a range of new testament texts we may reasonably conclude that they changed an awful lot.
So as an example, and related specifically to the OP - I presume you are aware that one of the earliest versions of Luke (codex bezae) that includes the genealogy has a genealogy pretty well 100% different to the genealogy in other early versions. That isn't merely a mistake in copying or a minor error, but a clear and deliberate alteration in one version or the other.
Now we do not know for sure which version better represents earlier (but lost) version, nor whether either version of the genealogy even appeared in the original text of Luke.
I think you need to justify what you mean by ''huge variation'' and ''changed an awful lot''. To give you a steer, are the differences doctrinal?, do they differ on the important facts?
For example does a difference in geneology constitute a major and critical doctrinal difference. I would say not.
As I understand it the codex bezae is most notable for it's differences with other copies to the point where it has long been recognised that it is not typical of the variations.
Of course it is important to know of variations subsequent to extant versions particularly if you are hoping to generate some rule of variation that applies to non extant material.
Also the tone of what you are saying seems to suggest that those copies dating from 200 years after are probably completely different to the source materials.
There is also, of course, at least implicit use of the NT material by the early church fathers.
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I presume you are aware that one of the earliest versions of Luke (codex bezae) that includes the genealogy has a genealogy pretty well 100% different to the genealogy in other early versions.
This is a false statement.
That isn't merely a mistake in copying or a minor error, but a clear and deliberate alteration in one version or the other.
This is true.
The codex bezae actually replaces the section between Joseph and David with the equivalent section from Matthew and three names from the Septuagint. The names between David and Abraham are mainstream Luke.The names from Abraham to Adam are mainstream Luke with the omission of one name.
https://peterlorenz.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Lorenz-Lukan-Genealogy-of-Codex-Bezae-2018.pdf
It's clear that whoever wrote the codex was well aware of the contradiction between Matthew and Luke and tried to fix it.
Now we do not know for sure which version better represents earlier (but lost) version
Why not? It's not the earliest manuscript and we have a pretty good hypothesis as to why it is a variant. Nor is it a choice between this and one other manuscript. You're just being obtuse at this point.
nor whether either version of the genealogy even appeared in the original text of Luke.
This is frankly ridiculous. Are there any complete manuscripts that don't have the genealogy?
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This is a false statement.
It isn't a false statement - the codex bezae is one of the earliest extant versions of Luke that includes the genealogies. There are a number of earlier fragments, but few of those include Luke 3 within the portions that have survived.
Looking at the papyrus and codex details I think there are only three potentially earlier papyrus versions where the genealogies are intact and perhaps just two uncial codices.
So the codex bezae is likely in the top 6 (at worst) earliest versions of Luke where the genealogy is present.
My statement is true unless you consider being in the earliest six versions doesn't count as 'one of the earliest versions of Luke (codex bezae) that includes the genealogy'.
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It's clear that whoever wrote the codex was well aware of the contradiction between Matthew and Luke and tried to fix it.
Speculation.
You will perhaps also be aware that the codex bezae is the earliest version of the gospels that includes the story of the adulterous woman - was that also an attempt to 'fix' an issue. That story, while not being present in the earliest versions appears in codex bezae and was retained in later versions and has become part of the orthodox gospel.
The point is that there is ample evidence of a kind of 'pick and mix' approach within the early gospel fragments we have (which are all from perhaps at best 150 years after they were supposed to have been written. This includes whole sections that are present in some versions and not in others from the same time. Also of sections (the ending of Mark being the most well known, but not the only, example) where early versions don't include a section or key wording (in some cases with major doctrinal importance) which then appear only in later versions so likely deliberately added. And other examples of sections which appear in early version, but then vanish.
Point being that with all this 'churn' going on in the gospels in the years from about 200-400 it is completely naive to assume that there was no similar 'churn' from 70-110 through to 200. Indeed it is more reasonable to argue that the 'churn' in the earliest years was likely to be greatest with a slow settling towards an establish orthodox version.
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I think you need to justify what you mean by ''huge variation'' and ''changed an awful lot''. To give you a steer, are the differences doctrinal?, do they differ on the important facts?
Well there are people who spend their time working out the number of variants between early versions of the gospels - and the typical view is that there are more variations than there are words in the bible - so an awful lot.
Now of course most of those are errors or minor variants that have no doctrinal relevance.
However not all are:
So here are some examples of changes that appear in later versions (from 400 onwards) that don't exist in the earlier version we have (from about 200-300 onward and are likely to have been deliberate additions:
John 5: 7-8 Doctrine of the trinity
John 1:18 - Jesus as unique god
Luke 22: 19-20 - doctrine of atonement
John - adulterous woman
Mark 16: 9-20
None of these appear in the earliest version but are included in later versions and from about 400 onwards are established as part of the gospels although they weren't included perhaps 100 years earlier.
We only know about those changes as by good fortune we have before:after versions so we can see that they start to appear. Of course we have no versions within the first 150 year-ish from original writing, so we have no idea what equivalent additions were made, or sections removed. We simply cannot say and we certainly cannot assume that the earliest extant version we have are the same as the original.
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Well there are people who spend their time working out the number of variants between early versions of the gospels - and the typical view is that there are more variations than there are words in the bible - so an awful lot.
Now of course most of those are errors or minor variants that have no doctrinal relevance.
However not all are:
So here are some examples of changes that appear in later versions (from 400 onwards) that don't exist in the earlier version we have (from about 200-300 onward and are likely to have been deliberate additions:
John 5: 7-8 Doctrine of the trinity
John 1:18 - Jesus as unique god
Luke 22: 19-20 - doctrine of atonement
John - adulterous woman
Mark 16: 9-20
None of these appear in the earliest version but are included in later versions and from about 400 onwards are established as part of the gospels although they weren't included perhaps 100 years earlier.
We only know about those changes as by good fortune we have before:after versions so we can see that they start to appear. Of course we have no versions within the first 150 year-ish from original writing, so we have no idea what equivalent additions were made, or sections removed. We simply cannot say and we certainly cannot assume that the earliest extant version we have are the same as the original.
That these might, with varying probability be additions has been known in most cases for centuries.
Some are thought to be Glossa or margin notes that have migrated into the text. Many bibles will therefore have a 'health' warning in the footnotes.
The question is though is do any of these introduce anything novel which significantly adds or changes fundamental doctrine. When we study the doctrine of the very early fathers we see that the answer is no and we can say with some certainty that trinitarian formulations were abroad at the time.
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That these might, with varying probability be additions has been known in most cases for centuries.
Some are thought to be Glossa or margin notes that have migrated into the text. Many bibles will therefore have a 'health' warning in the footnotes.
The question is though is do any of these introduce anything novel which significantly adds or changes fundamental doctrine. When we study the doctrine of the very early fathers we see that the answer is no and we can say with some certainty that trinitarian formulations were abroad at the time.
There is no certainty about that at all, and even if there was there is no evidence to support it.
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There is no certainty about that at all, and even if there was there is no evidence to support it.
There is documentary evidence....That is what all this is based on. NT evidence and the works that support the doctrine of the New Testament constitute probably the best corroboration of Religious Doctrine of the ancient world. Historical scholarship of it is exactly that.
Whether you agree with that doctrine is a completely different matter.
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There is documentary evidence....That is what all this is based on. NT evidence and the works that support the doctrine of the New Testament constitute probably the best corroboration of Religious Doctrine of the ancient world. Historical scholarship of it is exactly that.
Whether you agree with that doctrine is a completely different matter.
I was told but I am not sure that there are no original versions, and everything is a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy.
If you do not have the originals, you cannot be sure the versions you have now accurately reflect what was there.
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I was told but I am not sure that there are no original versions, and everything is a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy.
If you do not have the originals, you cannot be sure the versions you have now accurately reflect what was there.
Which is why you need some kind of model for how translations mutate and this of course is done by comparison of what you have. What I am saying is that for christian text there is much more material of any kind on which do do scholarship than for anything else in the ancient world. This is a reflection of whatever it is, probably reverence allows religion to pass down the ages more or less intact in comparison with say, civilisations and cultures.
NT Canon becomes fixed on documents which are extant around the fourth century. Fidelity from here is pretty high.
We should also note that Orthodox christian doctrine can also be tract through heterodox and heretical writings and of course if we have a theory about how inaccurate history is we should extend that to all of ancient history...but sadly rarely do IMHO.
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Which is why you need some kind of model for how translations mutate and this of course is done by comparison of what you have. What I am saying is that for christian text there is much more material of any kind on which do do scholarship than for anything else in the ancient world. This is a reflection of whatever it is, probably reverence allows religion to pass down the ages more or less intact in comparison with say, civilisations and cultures.
NT Canon becomes fixed on documents which are extant around the fourth century. Fidelity from here is pretty high.
We should also note that Orthodox christian doctrine can also be tract through heterodox and heretical writings and of course if we have a theory about how inaccurate history is we should extend that to all of ancient history...but sadly rarely do IMHO.
The copies you have may agree with each other, but you cannot know how close they are to the original, and no amount of study can tell you.
Either you can compare against the original or you can't.
If you can't (which is the case) then you can study all you like, you cannot know if they match the original.
Surely this is obvious?
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The copies you have may agree with each other, but you cannot know how close they are to the original, and no amount of study can tell you.
Either you can compare against the original or you can't.
If you can't (which is the case) then you can study all you like, you cannot know if they match the original.
Surely this is obvious?
Exactly - we can work forward from the point where we begin to have extant copies. We cannot work backwards through the approx. 150 years where there are no extant fragments to the point when the gospels were supposed to have been originally written. The copies we have might be identical or very similar to the originals - on the other hand they may be radically different as they evolved over those 150 years. We have no way of knowing which is the case. So effectively our only justifiable approach is to conclude that we know what the gospels ended up like in approx. 250-400AD, but we cannot reasonable infer what they were like in 70-110AD.
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The copies you have may agree with each other, but you cannot know how close they are to the original, and no amount of study can tell you.
But you can make an educated shot based on historical methods and be reasonably confident of it. That is how history works. Most historians woulld be confident with ecclesiatical history.
It does seem however that there is a body of documentation about christianity that other ancient history doesn't have.
As I say as long as you are applying the same rules to all ancient or modern history then at least you have a consistent view without special pleading or genetic fallacy. Whether it's recognised historical method is another issue. The trouble with the UK is academically we tend to specialise early and this injects a bit of trouble down the road in terms of coming up with educated criticism.
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But you can make an educated shot based on historical methods and be reasonably confident of it. That is how history works. Most historians woulld be confident with ecclesiatical history.
It does seem however that there is a body of documentation about christianity that other ancient history doesn't have.
As I say as long as you are applying the same rules to all ancient or modern history then at least you have a consistent view without special pleading or genetic fallacy. Whether it's recognised historical method is another issue. The trouble with the UK is academically we tend to specialise early and this injects a bit of trouble down the road in terms of coming up with educated criticism.
I disagree.
You knowledge begins at the earliest copy. You can say very little about earlier versions apart from there were earlier versions.
You cannot know what was copied correctly.
This is just a fact.
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It isn't a false statement
Yes it is. You said the genealogy is 100% different. It is, at most, about 35% different. You made a false statement. The fact that you are now doubling down instead of admitting you were perhaps exaggerating, makes me want to upgrade your statement to "a lie".
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I was told but I am not sure that there are no original versions, and everything is a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy.
If you do not have the originals, you cannot be sure the versions you have now accurately reflect what was there.
This applies to all ancient documents that are not literally carved in stone. It gets us nowhere.
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I disagree.
You knowledge begins at the earliest copy. You can say very little about earlier versions apart from there were earlier versions.
You cannot know what was copied correctly.
This is just a fact.
I think you have to look at this issue as probabilistic.
What is the probability of the original being completely different, not a lot in my opinion. And I certainly dont see it
as a "No originals so say no more about it" matter as you obviously do. Can I ask you in the sake of consistency to therefore follow your own advice.
Also I don't see any reason not to study the success rate of
Other scribes..not only biblical scribes but other scribes and copyist of other works prior to printing to get a better picture of your claim.
A
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Yes it is. You said the genealogy is 100% different. It is, at most, about 35% different. You made a false statement.
Fair enough, although I thought you were challenging me on whether they were 'early' or not - hence my response about how few earlier versions of Luke exist where the genealogy section survives.
However in the context of this thread which is largely about the discrepancies in the genealogies between Luke and Matthew then my comment remains valid. The key differences between the two are from Jesus to David (and indeed Matthew doesn't include anything beyond Abraham) - and in that key section of the genealogy (Jesus to David) where the debate exists about inconsistency Luke's version in codex bezae is pretty well 100% different to that in other early extant versions of Luke.
However the broader point is that we only know about this because we have before/after extant versions. The same is true in other major changes - e.g. end of Mark, adulterous woman etc. They don't stand out textually, nor do they not fit within the broader narrative. We know they are additions through the pure luck of having existing versions with and without the section. But we only have texts from about 250AD onwards, and most of those before/after examples appear in the 250-400AD timepan. How many other major additions were inserted between 100 and 250AD. We don't know and we cannot know unless further and earlier extant versions of the gospels are discovered.
The only reasonable conclusion is to say that we can be confident about the nature of the gospels from about 350 onwards and have some reasonable knowledge from about 250, but we do not know how the gospels changes and evolved from 70-110, when they were believed to have been first written, until about 250.
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This applies to all ancient documents that are not literally carved in stone.
Indeed - 100% correct, unless there is other corroborating evidence.
It gets us nowhere.
Wrong - it is being honest about what we know and what we don't know. To somehow assume that the original version of a text is identical, or close to identical, to the earliest extant version we have from hundreds of years later is naive, dishonest and poor scholarship.
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This applies to all ancient documents that are not literally carved in stone. It gets us nowhere.
Agreed it is the same for all documents.
I disagree that it gets you nowhere. It makes you honest in accepting that fact.
To increase confidence in historical documents you need other sources that corroborate the stories being told.
If you have one source written by biased people you cannot draw too many conclusions
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Agreed it is the same for all documents.
I disagree that it gets you nowhere. It makes you honest in accepting that fact.
To increase confidence in historical documents you need other sources that corroborate the stories being told.
If you have one source written by biased people you cannot draw too many conclusions
How do you know how bias ancient people were?
Careful now, if you say that people associated with the early church are more biased than any other ancient epistle writers and non church writers of the genre the Gospels are often included in i.e. Roman biography you are in danger of making the Genetic fallacy.
It seems to me that someone who is trying to point out that we don't know stuff about these writers is also making huge assumptions about the very people he is claiming we don't know about.
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How do you know how bias ancient people were?
Careful now, if you say that people associated with the early church are more biased than any other ancient epistle writers and non church writers of the genre the Gospels are often included in i.e. Roman biography you are in danger of making the Genetic fallacy.
It seems to me that someone who is trying to point out that we don't know stuff about these writers is also making huge assumptions about the very people he is claiming we don't know about.
Because the people copying texts that made the bible were not independent.
They had a vested interest in the stories.
Were are the same stories told by people having no axe to grind.
None of the stories are written by eye witnesses
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Someone on Youtube wrote in a comments section of a video about founders of religions relying on converts not being able to verify the founder's religious experience. For example, if someone has no witnesses to confirm that he has been visited by angels (whether he was lying or imagining it), someone gullible enough might still take his word for it. Or, he might claim that the miracle happened/would happen long enough in the past/future that it was impossible to verify.
He said that people apply to Christianity this rule about how religions get off the ground through gullibility. They assign later dates to the gospels because in order to get people to believe the accounts of miracles, they must have been recorded a long time afterwards when there was no way of verifying them. Since this is the only way to get people to believe in the miraculous (apart from having no other witnesses and relying again on gullibility to convince contemporary converts), the stories in the gospels must have been made up long enough after they were supposed to have happened for verification by witnesses to be impossible.
However, there is strong evidence the stories were written down pre-AD70. A five-sided pool in Jerusalem, mentioned by John as still in existence, was destroyed by the Romans. There is no mention of the deaths of James, Peter and Paul in Acts, which we know to have happened before 70. Luke would almost certainly have mentioned this, and the persecution under Nero, had he written after those events.
If as this and other evidence suggests, the gospels were published before 70, then the genealogies must be reliable. They would have been checked against the records, which were still extant in Jerusalem.
So we are then at liberty to make inferences as to why they differ in places.
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Someone on Youtube wrote in a comments section of a video about founders of religions relying on converts not being able to verify the founder's religious experience. For example, if someone has no witnesses to confirm that he has been visited by angels (whether he was lying or imagining it), someone gullible enough might still take his word for it. Or, he might claim that the miracle happened/would happen long enough in the past/future that it was impossible to verify.
He said that people apply to Christianity this rule about how religions get off the ground through gullibility. They assign later dates to the gospels because in order to get people to believe the accounts of miracles, they must have been recorded a long time afterwards when there was no way of verifying them. Since this is the only way to get people to believe in the miraculous (apart from having no other witnesses and relying again on gullibility to convince contemporary converts), the stories in the gospels must have been made up long enough after they were supposed to have happened for verification by witnesses to be impossible.
However, there is strong evidence the stories were written down pre-AD70. A five-sided pool in Jerusalem, mentioned by John as still in existence, was destroyed by the Romans. There is no mention of the deaths of James, Peter and Paul in Acts, which we know to have happened before 70. Luke would almost certainly have mentioned this, and the persecution under Nero, had he written after those events.
If as this and other evidence suggests, the gospels were published before 70, then the genealogies must be reliable. They would have been checked against the records, which were still extant in Jerusalem.
So we are then at liberty to make inferences as to why they differ in places.
Nope - you can liberally infer all you like, Spud, but the simple fact is that you have no external criteria to establish the reliability of claimed geneaologies so as to support your personal convictions (which is all you really have).
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Nope - you can liberally infer all you like, Spud, but the simple fact is that you have no external criteria to establish the reliability of claimed geneaologies so as to support your personal convictions (which is all you really have).
What sort of criteria do you mean?
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No idea, since DNA and birth certificates aren't available: but then I don't much care because I can't see why it matters and, anyway, it isn't my claim. I think you need to at least recognise that some things really are unknowable, and especially so when the provenance is uncertain and concerns people and events dating from antiquity, to the extent that a degree of scepticism is required.
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Because the people copying texts that made the bible were not independent.
They had a vested interest in the stories.
Then surely they would have preserved and taken care what they were vestedly interested in.
Since you have dropped your insistence that we know nothing or cannot do any surmising, let's carry on in that vain by saying that perhaps everybody has a vested interest and that no one was independent. Certainly not Roman historians who were also politicians, Certainly not the jewish authorities or religious sects who expelled christianity from their synagogues
Were are the same stories told by people having no axe to grind.
Axe grinding? Do tell.
As we all know, from this period only a limited number of documents are extant. Other contrary vested interests would certainly not want to write promoting Christianity because of the risk at upsetting social standing or maybe life. Which actually makes those willing to write about this stuff people risking their lives. The ever presence of the cross for capital punishment would have ensured that it wasn't talked about. Let us also remember that even though there were vested interests against Christianity, the non existence of Christ is rarely if ever one of their arguments.
None of the stories are written by eye witnesses
I would suggest that historians seldom are.
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Then surely they would have preserved and taken care what they were vestedly interested in.
Not necessarily - they would also have had a vested interest in strengthening their case through alterations in the documents through time. This happens all the time - don't forget what we now describe as the new testament is a document written by and sanctioned by 'the winners' in a historical sense.
In other words those that won the battle to determine orthodoxy in christianity and doctrine and, in effect, create the church. Throughout history 'the winners' tend to shape the historical narrative (including documents) to suit their own purposes and agendas rather than being scrupulously fair, even-handed and accurate. I have little doubt that this happened through the first couple of centuries of christianity and we can see all sorts of evidence for it, from the added ending to Mark, the interpolations of earlier texts by Eusebius, through to the most obvious and fundamental aspects being the selection of some texts to be included in the canon and others that were rejected (which is of course a political decision) and the labelling of others with the early church as heretics and their opinions as heresy, presumably not not accepting the developing orthodoxy of those that ultimately became 'the winners'.
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Let us also remember that even though there were vested interests against Christianity, the non existence of Christ is rarely if ever one of their arguments.
No - you've got this the wrong way around. The point is that there is pretty well zero mention of the existence of Jesus in non-christian contemporaneous or near contemporaneous documents. Sure there is mention of early christians, but that is a different matter. And given that Jesus was living within communities that included Jewish and Roman peoples (both assiduous record-keepers) that is mightily odd.
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Not necessarily - they would also have had a vested interest in strengthening their case through alterations in the documents through time. This happens all the time - don't forget what we now describe as the new testament is a document written by and sanctioned by 'the winners' in a historical sense.
In other words those that won the battle to determine orthodoxy in christianity and doctrine and, in effect, create the church. Throughout history 'the winners' tend to shape the historical narrative (including documents) to suit their own purposes and agendas rather than being scrupulously fair, even-handed and accurate. I have little doubt that this happened through the first couple of centuries of christianity and we can see all sorts of evidence for it, from the added ending to Mark, the interpolations of earlier texts by Eusebius, through to the most obvious and fundamental aspects being the selection of some texts to be included in the canon and others that were rejected (which is of course a political decision) and the labelling of others with the early church as heretics and their opinions as heresy, presumably not not accepting the developing orthodoxy of those that ultimately became 'the winners'.
I would be interested in what the vested interest Be Rational is talking about exactly is.
Yes an orthodoxy does come through but to talk of winners is incorrect IMV. Since other views of Jesus exist side by side with what we know as orthodox christianity.
And there writings persist side by side with orthodox christianity sometimes for centuries. Yes the new testament contains doctrine, yes patristic writers can show that some of them very probably not only knew the apostles but were educated and apprenticed to them. State christianity gives us a monolithic winning orthodoxy but even here the Roman state wasn't always in line with this orthodox christianity as witness when ''The world awoke to find itself arian'' arianism being similar to an earlier alternative view of Christ known as ebionitism.
The situation for the period we are talking about was therefore not nearly the winner take all, winner change all scenario I feel you are painting.
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No - you've got this the wrong way around. The point is that there is pretty well zero mention of the existence of Jesus in non-christian contemporaneous or near contemporaneous documents. Sure there is mention of early christians, but that is a different matter. And given that Jesus was living within communities that included Jewish and Roman peoples (both assiduous record-keepers) that is mightily odd.
Again the problem of extantcy arises.
What extant Roman and Jewish documents do you think should have mentioned Jesus?
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Again the problem of extantcy arises.
What extant Roman and Jewish documents do you think should have mentioned Jesus?
True - as with all ancient documents we have the issue of what the original said and what the earliest extant version (often from much later) says.
However in the case of Jesus there are no documents (as far as I am aware) from the period when Jesus was around or shortly thereafter (e.g. 30-50AD) that make any mention of him. As far as I'm aware the earliest mention of Jesus in non-christian documents (note this is the assumed date of the original not of the earliest extant version) is from about 90AD and even then there is doubt about its authenticity with strong evidence that some key information is a later christian interpolation.
Realistically non christian writers only begin to mention Jesus in the context of the developing christian movement, so in relation to christians - i.e. they believed in Jesus, rather than as a factual statement of his existence.
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True - as with all ancient documents we have the issue of what the original said and what the earliest extant version (often from much later) says.
However in the case of Jesus there are no documents (as far as I am aware) from the period when Jesus was around or shortly thereafter (e.g. 30-50AD) that make any mention of him. As far as I'm aware the earliest mention of Jesus in non-christian documents (note this is the assumed date of the original not of the earliest extant version) is from about 90AD and even then there is doubt about its authenticity with strong evidence that some key information is a later christian interpolation.
Realistically non christian writers only begin to mention Jesus in the context of the developing christian movement, so in relation to christians - i.e. they believed in Jesus, rather than as a factual statement of his existence.
Again, what extant documents should Jesus be appearing in since it seems we cannot be talking about the absence of Jesus in documents which are no longer extant.
With regard Describing Christianity as an outsider. Why would I go further than to mention that there were christians mooching about. It could be that I don't need to expand on it since what christians were and what they stood for was well known.
If I didn't like christians I might say they believe in a person who was non existent but as you say(or maybe it was me)that never seems to crop up.
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Vlad,
I would suggest that historians seldom are.
A great deal of academic history entails the examination of eye-witness and contemporaneous accounts.
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Vlad,
Again, what extant documents should Jesus be appearing in since it seems we cannot be talking about the absence of Jesus in documents which are no longer extant.
My point exactly! There are no surviving documents for leprechauns either, "since it seems we cannot be talking about the absence of leprechauns in documents which are no longer extant" right?
So...
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Vlad,
My point exactly! There are no surviving documents for leprechauns either, "since it seems we cannot be talking about the absence of leprechauns in documents which are no longer extant" right?
So...
Quite right. ;D
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Vlad,
A great deal of academic history entails the examination of eye-witness and contemporaneous accounts.
Once again, which extant documents of the period a) should Jesus be expected to appear in and b) Which documents of this period have actual eye witness testimony written into them?
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Vlad,
Once again, which extant documents of the period a) should Jesus be expected to appear in and b) Which documents of this period have actual eye witness testimony written into them?
Once again, which extant documents of the period a) should leprechauns be expected to appear in and b) Which documents of this period have actual eye witness testimony written into them?
You seem to think the absence of records for Jesus is an argument for the historical Jesus. It isn’t, any more than the absence of records about leprechauns is an argument for historical leprechauns.
Oh, and in any case this isn’t relevant. Your reply to “None of the stories are written by eye witnesses” was: “I would suggest that historians (sic) seldom are”.
I was merely correcting you on this point – histories often depend on close examination of eye-witness accounts and of other contemporaneous records.
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Vlad,
Once again, which extant documents of the period a) should leprechauns be expected to appear in and b) Which documents of this period have actual eye witness testimony written into them?
You seem to think the absence of records for Jesus is an argument for the historical Jesus. It isn’t, any more than the absence of records about leprechauns is an argument for historical leprechauns.
Oh, and in any case this isn’t relevant. Your reply to “None of the stories are written by eye witnesses” was: “I would suggest that historians (sic) seldom are”.
I was merely correcting you on this point – histories often depend on close examination of eye-witness accounts and of other contemporaneous records.
Why is the historical Jesus not largely negated by Historians and yet Leprechauns are?
Which ''eye witness accounts'' and ''contemporaneous records'' of the first century are you referring to?
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Vlad,
Why is the historical Jesus not largely negated by Historians and yet Leprechauns are?
Actually claims of both are largely ignored by historians as there’s insufficient evidence for either. That’s why “Jesus was alive, then dead, then alive again” isn’t taught in history lessons, and nor is, “leprechauns left pots of gold a the ends of rainbows” for the same reason.
Which ''eye witness accounts'' and ''contemporaneous records'' of the first century are you referring to?
Not my problem. If you want to say, “records from that time wouldn’t exist” then – true or not – that’s all you can say. Their non-existence has nothing whatever to say though about the supposed existence of Jesus.
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Not my problem.
I think you have two issues here
1) You are comparing for some reason the Historical Jesus with Leprechauns.
2) Secondly you are suggesting that there is a comparison to be made(since you brought it up) with the absence of direct written eye witness statement in the case of Jesus with some kind of direct written eye witness statement and contemporaneous accounts. Presumably this comparison does not favour Jesus so the question still remains ''Which documents are you referring to?''
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No - you've got this the wrong way around. The point is that there is pretty well zero mention of the existence of Jesus in non-christian contemporaneous or near contemporaneous documents. Sure there is mention of early christians, but that is a different matter. And given that Jesus was living within communities that included Jewish and Roman peoples (both assiduous record-keepers) that is mightily odd.
I don't think it's odd at all. It's likely that there were hundreds of these little cults at the time of Jesus and there's no contemporary documentary evidence for any of them. People weren't, as a rule, disposed towards writing things down. Most of them couldn't write things down.
I suspect the only reason we have anything at all about the early days of Christianity is because it was the one that survived and had members in later centuries with an interest in preserving the documents.
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Vlad,
I think you have two issues here
1) You are comparing for some reason the Historical Jesus with Leprechauns.
Wrong again. I’m comparing the quality of evidence for each claim. If you think the absence of evidence for one claim (Jesus) tells you anything about the truth of that claim, then the absence of evidence for any other claim (leprechauns) must be treated the same way.
2) Secondly…
You can’t have a secondly when your firstly has just collapsed in a heap, but ok…
…you are suggesting that there is a comparison to be made(since you brought it up) with the absence of direct written eye witness statement in the case of Jesus with some kind of direct written eye witness statement and contemporaneous accounts. Presumably this comparison does not favour Jesus so the question still remains ''Which documents are you referring to?''
This is incoherent - what are you trying to say here? The quality of written evidence for the biblical Jesus is not sufficient for the claim to be treated seriously by academic historians. That fact tells you nothing at all about whether or not the biblical Jesus was real.
What more do you need to know?
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Vlad,
Wrong again. I’m comparing the quality of evidence for each claim.
I'm sorry but we know the historic and doctrinal claims of Jesus but when you say ''each claim'' what other claims are you talking about? It would help if you told us which claims and the documentary evidence you think favours them as claims. Anything?
If you think the absence of evidence for one claim (Jesus) tells you anything about the truth of that claim,
sorry, but I think you might be straw manning here then the absence of evidence for any other claim (leprechauns) must be treated the same way.
There are no claims for leprechauns are there? Which later documents concerning Leprechauns are you referring to. In Christianity, there is of course apparently no directly written eye witness available from that time but a plethora of evidence which satisfies historians of a Jesus and a community which believed in him historically and doctrinally. Not so with Leprechauns.
What more do you need to know?
The other contemporaneous claims you suggest have directly written eye witness evidence and corroboration.
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Vlad,
I'm sorry but we know the historic and doctrinal claims of Jesus but when you say ''each claim'' what other claims are you talking about. It would help if you told us which claims and the documentary evidence you think favours them as claims.Anything?
Blimey but you struggle. The evidence for the Jesus of the Bible is no better than the evidence for any other supernatural claim. Which other supernatural claims is neither here nor there. That’s a comparison of the quality of evidence, not of Jesus and leprechauns.
…sorry, but I think you might be straw manning here…
Hysterical.
There are no claims for leprechauns are there?
Yes there are. Look – I’ve just claimed them.
Which later documents concerning Leprechauns are you referring to. In Christianity, there is of course apparently no directly written eye witness at the time but a plethora of evidence which satisfies historians of a Jesus and a community which believed in him historically and doctrinally. Not so with Leprechauns.
Wrong again. The evidence for a miracle-performing Jesus is no better than the evidence for miracle-performing leprechauns. You seem to be under the impression that this lack of evidence for the former belief somehow validates the claim. It doesn’t, but if you want to go down that road nonetheless then the same must be true of the absence of evidence for the latter claim.
The other contemporaneous claims you suggest have directly written eye witness evidence.
You want to know what ancient records exist? Seriously? Have you heard of the ancient Egyptians?
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Vlad,
Blimey but you struggle.
No but you are struggling naming the eyewitness accounts, claims of contemporaneous but non Christian history. The evidence for the Jesus of the Bible is no better than the evidence for any other supernatural claim.
We were discussing what was believed about Jesus, his existence and those communities which derive from his existence Which other supernatural claims is neither here nor there. That’s a comparison of the quality of evidence,
Again which claims and which evidence. You have already blatantly deflected from historical and doctrinal into the supernatural. That's handwaving.
Hysterical.
Sad I call it.
Yes there are. Look – I’ve just claimed them.[/quote]claimed what?
You want to know what ancient records exist? Seriously? Have you heard of the ancient Egyptians?
Yes what eye witness accounts are there which were written by those eyewitnesses and what document is it that corroborates those accounts? Should we make a concession to you to use anything from ancient Egypt although what would really help your case are examples from non christian sources in the first century.
I'm not sure that is appropriate since ancient Egypt covers several centuries more than our period of interest.
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Eye witness accounts, assuming there were any where Jesus is concerned, can be far from reliable, especially if related many years after the event and involving the supernatural.
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Vlad,
No but you are struggling naming the eyewitness accounts, claims of contemporaneous but non Christian history.
The only struggle here is your struggle with constructing a coherent thought. You seem to be trying to say something, but as it has nothing to do with anything I said I have no idea what it is. Eye-witness and contemporaneous records from many ancient civilisations obviously exist. So what?
We were discussing what was believed about Jesus, his existence and those communities which derive from his existence
No we weren’t. If you want to discuss that though, go right ahead. If you think what people wrote down about what other people decades earlier believed tells you anything about whether those beliefs were well-founded though, by all means try to make an argument that takes you from the account of the belief to the fact.
Again which claims and which evidence. You have already blatantly deflected from historical and doctrinal into the supernatural. That's handwaving.
Only if you’re not claiming the Jesus of the Bible. If you just want to claim a charismatic mortal whose story caught the wind later on that’s fine – there were many such, and it’s quite possible that your man was one of them. Is that the limit of your claim?
Sad I call it.
And not true remember.
claimed what?
Magical leprechauns.
Yes what eye witness accounts are there which were written by those eyewitnesses and what document is it that corroborates those accounts? Should we make a concession to you to use anything from ancient Egypt although what would really help your case are examples from non christian sources in the first century.
You’re really losing it now. How about the Egyptian records of the materials used to build the pyramids for starters?:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/
Ask Anchorman about this stuff if you don’t believe me.
I'm not sure that is appropriate since ancient Egypt covers several centuries more than our period of interest.
Relevance? You asked for ancient contemporaneous records – you didn’t ask that they be from a specific date.
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Eye witness accounts, assuming there were any where Jesus is concerned, can be far from reliable, especially if related many years after the event and involving the supernatural.
The unreliability you are talking about here is not established historically but from your own position with regards the supernatural.
Historians are pretty much agreed that there were epistles from 2 decades after Christ and that there were communities who believed in what are known as trinitarian formulations and the death and resurrection of Jesus'.
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You asked for ancient contemporaneous records – you didn’t ask that they be from a specific date.
You sued the words contemporaneous. Yes, I did ask for ancient contemporaneous records and no, you haven't provided a reference to any. ''what about ancient egypt?''is hardly a contemporaneous record.
As a reminder to you you said there was eye witness material written by those eye witnesses with corroboration from contemporaneous sources.... let's have it.
Put up or etc.
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Vlad,
The unreliability you are talking about here is not established historically but from your own position with regards the supernatural.
Gibberish. No claims of supernatural events satisfy the tests of historicity because there’s no frame of reference against which to validate them. Any claim of magic is exactly as (in)valid as any other.
Historians are pretty much agreed that there were epistles from 2 decades after Christ and that there were communities who believed in what are known as trinitarian formulations and the death and resurrection of Jesus'.
No doubt historians are pretty much agreed that various people lived and formed committees, and they agree too that all manner of people have believed all sorts of things over the millennia.
That though tells you absolutely sweet FA about whether any of these beliefs were true.
If you want to claim evidence for your beliefs, that’s your problem remember?
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Vlad,
You sued the words contemporaneous. Yes, I did ask for ancient contemporaneous records and no, you haven't provided a reference to any. ''what about ancient egypt?''is hardly a contemporaneous record.
Not true - I gave you a link to examples of exactly such ancient contemporaneous records. Why didn’t you look at it? Oh well – here it is again for all the good it’ll do:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/
As a reminder to you you said there was eye witness material written by those eye witnesses with corroboration from contemporaneous sources.... let's have it.
Put up or etc.
I already have - see above.
Coda
From the linked article:
"Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza just outside modern Cairo. Among the papyri was the journal of a previously unknown official named Merer, who led a crew of some 200 men who traveled from one end of Egypt to the other picking up and delivering goods of one kind or another."
How much more contemporaneous do you want exactly?
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Historians are pretty much agreed that there were epistles from 2 decades after Christ ...
There may have been - but we don't know what they said, as the earliest extant versions of the epistles we actually have available are likely from 200AD or later.
Indeed although the epistles are often considered to be the earliest parts of the NT originally written we simply don't have any really early copies of them, which means that they will have had a couple of hundred years of evolution, editing, amending, additions, deletions before we actually have something we can call evidence.
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Vlad,
Not true - I gave you a link to examples of exactly such ancient contemporaneous records. Why didn’t you look at it? Oh well – here it is again for all the good it’ll do:
There may have been - but we don't know what they said, as the earliest extant versions of the epistles we actually have available are likely from 200AD or later.
Indeed although the epistles are often considered to be the earliest parts of the NT originally written we simply don't have any really early copies of them, which means that they will have had a couple of hundred years of evolution, editing, amending, additions, deletions before we actually have something we can call evidence.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/
I already have - see above.
Coda
From the linked article:
"Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza just outside modern Cairo. Among the papyri was the journal of a previously unknown official named Merer, who led a crew of some 200 men who traveled from one end of Egypt to the other picking up and delivering goods of one kind or another."
How much more contemporaneous do you want exactly?
What is the corroborating evidence?
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There may have been - but we don't know what they said, as the earliest extant versions of the epistles we actually have available are likely from 200AD or later.
Indeed although the epistles are often considered to be the earliest parts of the NT originally written we simply don't have any really early copies of them, which means that they will have had a couple of hundred years of evolution, editing, amending, additions, deletions before we actually have something we can call evidence.
And what do you think the implications are of that?
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Vlad,
What is the corroborating evidence?
What on earth are you thrashing about with now? The “corroborating evidence” is papyri accounts from other merchants, boatyards, jetties, materials that could only have been transported by water, matching references to contemporary kings whose chronologies are already known from other sources etc.
What more corroborating evidence could you possibly want?
Now please provide a first century example?
Ah, so now you’re changing tack from “no ancient records” to “no ancient records from the time I’m interested in”.
First, there clearly are ancient (and well corroborated) records that are still available to be read so your (frankly bizarre) notion that there aren’t is wrong.
Second, of course there are records from the 1st century AD. Try the Plinys (elder & younger) and Seneca to start with.
I have no idea where you think you’re going with this, but you can’t escape the facts:
1. Ancient records exist.
2. Often those records are corroborated from multiple sources.
3. Some of those records are from the 1st century AD.
4. There are no eye witness records of Jesus though there are accounts written down later on (as there are accounts of other charismatics).
5. Such records as there are describe what people believed, but that's all.
6. Even if there were eye witness accounts of Jesus and his doings, they would tell you only what people said they saw which may or may not be what actually happened.
7. No records of supernatural events can satisfy the requirements of historicity because there’s no reference framework for validation.
Give it up Vladdo - you're all over the place here.
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"Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza just outside modern Cairo. Among the papyri was the journal of a previously unknown official named Merer, who led a crew of some 200 men who traveled from one end of Egypt to the other picking up and delivering goods of one kind or another."
How much more contemporaneous do you want exactly?
What is the corroborating evidence?
Err ... some ruddy great pyramid things. What better corroborating evidence could you possibly want.
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Prof,
Err ... some ruddy great pyramid things. What better corroborating evidence could you possibly want.
Well, yes – there's those I suppose...
...but apart from the pyramids though? ;D
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Vlad,
What on earth are you thrashing about with now? The “corroborating evidence” is papyri accounts from other merchants, boatyards, jetties, materials that could only have been transported by water, matching references to contemporary kings whose chronologies are already known from other sources etc.
What more corroborating evidence could you possibly want?
Proof they are not later copies which have evolved and contain additions and deletions?
Ah, so now you’re changing tack from “no ancient records” to “no ancient records from the time I’m interested in”.
I never said their were no ancient records so that's a straw man argument.
First, there clearly are ancient (and well corroborated) records that are still available to be read so your (frankly bizarre) notion that there aren’t is wrong.
Again I just asked you to come up with them. So again straw man.
Second, of course there are records from the 1st century AD. Try the Plinys (elder & younger) and Seneca to start with.
And what are the earliest extant copies we have of them?
1. Ancient records exist.
Very few contemporary ones do, in fact copies of the writings of most of the roman and Jewish historians (I can't think of one who's work has extant copies of the time they are dated by historians) are later than the NT literature as are the writings of Plato and Sophocles. As I said we are happy to accept those histories as being sufficiently accurate. The discovery of very Rare extant Papyri of ancient Egyptian business transactions with the Royal Family doesn't overturn the issue of extancy.
So the reaction to your Egyptian discovery is ''so what?''
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Vlad,
Proof they are not later copies which have evolved and contain additions and deletions?
You’re kidding right? READ THE FREAKIN’ ARTICLE WILLYA!
I never said their were no ancient records so that's a straw man argument.
You implied it – why else would you have kept asking for examples of ancient records, then changed the search criteria when I did it?
Again I just asked you to come up with them. So again straw man.
Nope – see above.
And what are the earliest extant copies we have of them?
And again you get the answer then change the search criteria. You asked for examples of records from the 1st century AD. There are quite a few of them. Constantly narrowing down the criteria (“OK, but what records are there then from No. 23 Acacia Avenue from 2.30pm on the second Tuesday of the month?” etc) isn’t helping you.
Very few. Contemporary ones do, in fact copies of the writings of most of the roman and Jewish historians (I can't think of one who's work has extant copies of the time they are dated by historians) are later than the NT literature as are the writings of Plato and Sophocles. As I said we are happy to accept those histories as being sufficiently accurate. The discovery of very Rare extant Papyri of ancient Egyptian business transactions with the Royal Family doesn't overturn the issue of extancy.
What issue?
So the reaction to your Egyptian discovery is ''so what?''
But I should be – “OK, I now accept that there are reliable contemporaneous records from ancient times”.
You’re welcome.
Anyway, what have all these diversions got to do with your assertion that the biblical Jesus was real?
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Vlad,
You’re kidding right? READ THE FREAKIN’ ARTICLE WILLYA!
You implied it – why else would you have kept asking for examples of ancient records, then changed the search criteria when I did it?
Nope – see above.
And again you get the answer then change the search criteria. You asked for examples of records from the 1st century AD. There are quite a few of them. Constantly narrowing down the criteria (“OK, but what records are there then from No. 23 Acacia Avenue from 2.30pm on the second Tuesday of the month?” etc) isn’t helping you.
What issue?
But I should be – “OK, I now accept that there are reliable contemporaneous records from ancient times”.
I never said there weren't.
You’re welcome.
For what?
Anyway, what have all these diversions got to do with your assertion that the biblical Jesus was real?
I believe I have been using the term Historical Jesus and exposing your error about the nature of extancy in ancient history where you seem to suggest that the problems of extancy were somehow unique to the documents of the New Testament.
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Vlad,
A great deal of academic history entails the examination of eye-witness and contemporaneous accounts.
And what do you base this on? A very rare surviving piece of accountancy from the ancient Egyptian royal family? While ignoring the problem of extancy?
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Vlad,
I believe I have been using the term Historical Jesus…
Then, as with pretty much everything else, you believe wrongly. If though by that you mean something like “a mortal charismatic whose story caught the wind” rather than the miracle-performing one of the Bible then just say so. I asked you the same thing a few posts ago but, as ever, you just ignored the question.
…and exposing your error about the nature of extancy in ancient history…
Very funny. What error do you (of all people) think you found exactly?
.. where you seem to suggest that the problems of extancy were somehow unique to the documents of the New Testament.
Ah, and now we actually are in straw man territory. Welcome back – I’ll alert the Canadians to have more straw ready for you…
Oh, and what on earth do you think “the problems of extancy” even means? Are you trying to say that not everything was documented. Well, yes – how does that help you though?
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Vlad,
For what?
Explaining to you what "corroboration" means.
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Vlad,
Then, as with pretty much everything else, you believe wrongly. If though by that you mean something like “a mortal charismatic whose story caught the wind” rather than the miracle-performing one of the Bible then just say so. I asked you the same thing a few posts ago but, as ever, you just ignored the question.
Very funny. What error do you (of all people) think you found exactly?
Ah, and now we actually are in straw man territory. Welcome back – I’ll alert the Canadians to have more straw ready for you…
Oh, and what on earth do you think “the problems of extancy” even means? Are you trying to say that not everything was documented. Well, yes – how does that help you though?
I forgot to add my concern that you were trying to undermine my historical arguments by referring to beliefs expressed elsewhere. Goodness knows how many fallacies you've roped in there.
You tried to conflate the historical with positions regarding the supernatural.
My position then is that the first documentation showing recognisable Christian belief in Communities is dated to around 2 decades after the event.
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Vlad,
And what do you base this on? A very rare surviving piece of accountancy from the ancient Egyptian royal family? While ignoring the problem of extancy?
The huge enterprise of academic history that relies heavily on eye-witness and contemporaneous accounts from multiple cultures and time periods (of which the papyrus example is just one of many).
Are you feeling unwell of something?
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Vlad,
I forgot to add my concern that you were trying to undermine my historical arguments by referring to beliefs expressed elsewhere. Goodness knows how many fallacies you've roped in there.
“Hello, is that the Canadian High Commission? It is? Good. Vlad needs more straw urgently please – and lots of it. Hurry dammit!”
Oh, and you don’t have any “historical arguments” by the way. As ever, you confuse “assertion” with “argument”.
You tried to conflate the historical with positions regarding the supernatural.
Where the hell is that straw delivery when Vlad needs it?
As I suspect you know full well, I did precisely the opposite of that. Historical records are not supernaturalism apt because such claims have no frame of reference to which the methods of academic history can apply. I’ve said this several time now, so why just lie about it?
My position then is that the first documentation showing recognisable Christian belief in Communities is dated to around 2 decades after the event.
And my position is that that tells you fuck all about whether there was actually a miracle-performing demigod.
Why is this confusing for you?
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No idea, since DNA and birth certificates aren't available: but then I don't much care because I can't see why it matters and, anyway, it isn't my claim. I think you need to at least recognise that some things really are unknowable, and especially so when the provenance is uncertain and concerns people and events dating from antiquity, to the extent that a degree of scepticism is required.
As I said, we know that the gospels were written within a generation of the events in them. So they could have been refuted if false; that they weren't suggests they were accepted as being accurate.
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As I said, we know that the gospels were written within a generation of the events in them. So they could have been refuted if false; that they weren't suggests they were accepted as being accurate.
Nonsense, Spud: a 'generation' means what exactly?
Even then, given that the growth of Christianity was slow a 'generation' after the alleged events in the Jesus story, what was recorded in what later became the NT reflected the outlook of the Jesus fan club at that time, so that chances of them looking to refute their own claims does seem rather slim - and in the decades immediately after the alleged death of Jesus I'm wondering who else would be intent on the refuting the claims of what, at that time, was a fairly small sect. As such, the lack of refutation in the first century CE doesn't imply that what the NT claims about the genealogy of Jesus is therefore correct since, it seems to me, the only people interested in the Jesus story at that time were already Jesus fans and bangers of the Jesus drum.
I'm sure even you can appreciate that risks or bias, mistake and lies that, from this distance, can't be discounted since there seems to be no method of investigating the family history of Jesus retrospectively, and independently of the NT claims. Why does it matter anyway, in this day and age?
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As I said, we know that the gospels were written within a generation of the events in them.
We don't know that at all and indeed the best evidence on the matter suggests your assertion is complete nonsense.
Back in 1stC Palestine I'd imagine a generation would be about 25 years, which would mean the gospels would have had to have been written in the late 50s to be 'within a generation. At best we think the earliest they were originally written was about 70, with some from as late as 110.
And of course the gospels were not written in the place where the purported events occurred, but geographically far away. This means that the gospel writers would have been completely detached in both time and place from the people who might actually have been witnesses to the events.
Add to that the fact that we don't have the original gospels, only many-generation copies from hundreds of years later the the text we have available to us is completely separated from the events they are supposed to describe.
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So they could have been refuted if false; that they weren't suggests they were accepted as being accurate.
No it doesn't - there are many ways of refuting a claim as false. Sure you might write a piece about how false a claim is - but that is unlikely in 1stC palestine and even if it did occur those texts would need to survive.
But the other way to consider whether the people who were around at the time and place when Jesus was supposed to be performing miracles etc refuted claims is their subsequent behaviour. Had they believed the claims of the gospels then surely they'd have followed Jesus - but by and large they didn't, the people around at the time didn't accept his claims as written in the gospels. They didn't need to refute the claims in writing, their decision not to follow Jesus tells us all we need to know about whether they accepted or did not accept the claims.
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No it doesn't - there are many ways of refuting a claim as false. Sure you might write a piece about how false a claim is - but that is unlikely in 1stC palestine and even if it did occur those texts would need to survive.
But the other way to consider whether the people who were around at the time and place when Jesus was supposed to be performing miracles etc refuted claims is their subsequent behaviour. Had they believed the claims of the gospels then surely they'd have followed Jesus - but by and large they didn't, the people around at the time didn't accept his claims as written in the gospels. They didn't need to refute the claims in writing, their decision not to follow Jesus tells us all we need to know about whether they accepted or did not accept the claims.
Sorry. are you telling us that the Christian account is not history because some people didn't believe bits of it?
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Nonsense, Spud: a 'generation' means what exactly?
A lifetime, about 60-80 years.
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Nonsense, Spud: a 'generation' means what exactly?
Even then, given that the growth of Christianity was slow a 'generation' after the alleged events in the Jesus story, what was recorded in what later became the NT reflected the outlook of the Jesus fan club at that time, so that chances of them looking to refute their own claims does seem rather slim - and in the decades immediately after the alleged death of Jesus I'm wondering who else would be intent on the refuting the claims of what, at that time, was a fairly small sect.
Anyone who wanted to verify if Jesus was qualified through ancestry to be the long awaited messiah.
As such, the lack of refutation in the first century CE doesn't imply that what the NT claims about the genealogy of Jesus is therefore correct since, it seems to me, the only people interested in the Jesus story at that time were already Jesus fans and bangers of the Jesus drum.
I'm sure even you can appreciate that risks or bias, mistake and lies that, from this distance, can't be discounted since there seems to be no method of investigating the family history of Jesus retrospectively, and independently of the NT claims. Why does it matter anyway, in this day and age?
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A lifetime, about 60-80 years.
A lifetime and a generation are not the same thing.
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No it doesn't - there are many ways of refuting a claim as false. Sure you might write a piece about how false a claim is - but that is unlikely in 1stC palestine and even if it did occur those texts would need to survive.
Fair point
But the other way to consider whether the people who were around at the time and place when Jesus was supposed to be performing miracles etc refuted claims is their subsequent behaviour. Had they believed the claims of the gospels then surely they'd have followed Jesus - but by and large they didn't, the people around at the time didn't accept his claims as written in the gospels. They didn't need to refute the claims in writing, their decision not to follow Jesus tells us all we need to know about whether they accepted or did not accept the claims.
Yet a lot of people did accept them.
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Sorry. are you telling us that the Christian account is not history because some people didn't believe bits of it?
Spud claimed that because people didn't refute the claims then they must have assumed them to be true. I think that is non-sense.
Whether or not those claims are true or not is a matter for evidence not belief.
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A lifetime, about 60-80 years.
Wrong - a 'generation' is not the same as a lifetime.
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Yet a lot of people did accept them.
Not amongst the people who were living at the time and in the place where Jesus lived and died.
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Jesus probably existed. It appears he had a personality, which attracted followers, just like many others over the centuries to the present day. It isn't hard to convince the gullible if you tell them what they wish to hear, like that awful man, Trump! ::)
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Anyone who wanted to verify if Jesus was qualified through ancestry to be the long awaited messiah.
So how would they do this verification: check the relevant birth certificates or maybe get a few DNA samples from both Jesus and the corpses of his proposed ancestors?
It isn't verifiable, Spud - you are, of course, free to believe the NT content on a personal basis but you have no basis to claim that the genealogies you set such store by are independently verifiable and, as such, you have no basis to assert they are correct: and since you are supporting the claim of correctness then the burden of proof is yours.
I'm not clear why it matters these days anyway.
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Prof,
We don't know that at all and indeed the best evidence on the matter suggests your assertion is complete nonsense.
Back in 1stC Palestine I'd imagine a generation would be about 25 years, which would mean the gospels would have had to have been written in the late 50s to be 'within a generation. At best we think the earliest they were originally written was about 70, with some from as late as 110.
And of course the gospels were not written in the place where the purported events occurred, but geographically far away. This means that the gospel writers would have been completely detached in both time and place from the people who might actually have been witnesses to the events.
Add to that the fact that we don't have the original gospels, only many-generation copies from hundreds of years later the the text we have available to us is completely separated from the events they are supposed to describe.
Just to add that, even if none of that was the case and by some process the later records described precisely what previous people really believed to have happened, still all that would document would be the explanatory narrative that happened to make sense to them (and by the way from a time when countless other miracle stories were believed too). "Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again" may have been the story, but there's no way to get behind it to eliminate the multiple possible but non-supernatural explanations for the same event.
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Prof,
Just to add that, even if none of that was the case and by some process the later records described precisely what previous people really believed to have happened, still all that would document would be the explanatory narrative that happened to make sense to them (and by the way from a time when countless other miracle stories were believed too). "Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again" may have been the story, but there's no way to get behind it to eliminate the multiple possible but non-supernatural explanations for the same event.
True - all this tells us is that some people believed some stuff - it tells us nothing about whether that stuff is actually true.
If if everyone in a community believes in something it doesn't make it necessarily true - to determine its veracity you need evidence not mere belief.
And in the case of Jesus clearly a lot of people did not believe in the "Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again" stuff, because surely you'd become a follower of Jesus if you believed that most remarkable of claims to be true. And we know that by and large the people living in the same place as Jesus and at the same time as Jesus did not become followers of Jesus.
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So how would they do this verification: check the relevant birth certificates
Yes. I mean, what is a birth certificate for - partly to tell you who someone's parents are and thus state their identity. Although a genealogy doesn't tell you the date of birth, it identifies a person.
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Yes. I mean, what is a birth certificate for - partly to tell you who someone's parents are and thus state their identity. Although a genealogy doesn't tell you the date of birth, it identifies a person.
Did they have birth certificates back then? They didn't, and even if they had how could you be sure that the identity of the father (if provided) was correct: in most cases it would be, but not necessarily in all cases.
Anyway, in the absence of birth certificates or DNA samples you have no independent verification so I take it you do now recognise the potential of error and/or misinformation if you were naive enough to take the NT contents about to be literally true?
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Yes. I mean, what is a birth certificate for - partly to tell you who someone's parents are and thus state their identity. Although a genealogy doesn't tell you the date of birth, it identifies a person.
What are you on about Spud - who on earth had formal birth certificates back in the centuries leading up to the 1stC.
The point remains that there is no credible evidence to support the notion that the genealogies are correct. Moreover there is a wealth of evidence to cast doubt on them, ranging from the basic notion that it would be pretty well impossible in those days to take an individual (even more so if that individual is supposed to have been born into a relatively low ranking household rather than a kings etc) and trace back their lineage over dozens of generations. It is pretty well impossible to do that now, with all the records and technology available to us, that you could do it in 1stC Palestine for a person who is purportedly the son of a carpenter is beyond belief.
Add to that the further problem that the genealogies we have do not agree - they cannot both be right, but they can both be wrong.
And of course the final point is that the burden of evidence rests with the person making the claim, or believing the claim. So it is for you Spud to provide evidence that the genealogies are correct - there is no burden on me (nor Gordon etc) to provide evidence that they are wrong, as we are not making a claim of correct genealogy.
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What are you on about Spud - who on earth had formal birth certificates back in the centuries leading up to the 1stC.
The point remains that there is no credible evidence to support the notion that the genealogies are correct. Moreover there is a wealth of evidence to cast doubt on them, ranging from the basic notion that it would be pretty well impossible in those days to take an individual (even more so if that individual is supposed to have been born into a relatively low ranking household rather than a kings etc) and trace back their lineage over dozens of generations. It is pretty well impossible to do that now, with all the records and technology available to us, that you could do it in 1stC Palestine for a person who is purportedly the son of a carpenter is beyond belief.
Add to that the further problem that the genealogies we have do not agree - they cannot both be right, but they can both be wrong.
And of course the final point is that the burden of evidence rests with the person making the claim, or believing the claim. So it is for you Spud to provide evidence that the genealogies are correct - there is no burden on me (nor Gordon etc) to provide evidence that they are wrong, as we are not making a claim of correct genealogy.
If you are saying something is or probably is wrong, you have a burden.
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If you are saying something is or probably is wrong, you have a burden.
Nope - it is critique of the claim being made (by Spud), and this critique says nothing about the claim being shown to be "wrong", which would be a positive claim, but simply points out that the claimant has failed to establish a robust verification for their claim, which implies that they haven't successfully demonstrated that their claim is factually correct: possibly because, as pointed out, there seems to be no basis for the independent verification of the ancient genealogies that are the subject of this particular claim.
Therefore that this claim might be incorrect remains a risk - and it is for the claimant (Spud) to address this risk, and if he can't then he'd surely have to concede that if the precise details are now unknowable, from this distance in time, then the account he has to hand cannot be substantiated, hence the risk that his claim may be incorrect. He can, of course, choose to believe it on a personal basis but he has no grounds to claim that what he believes is factually correct.
You've always struggled to understand what the burden of proof entails.
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Vlad,
If you are saying something is or probably is wrong, you have a burden.
No, you’re misrepresenting him. What he actually said was that, “…there is a wealth of evidence to cast doubt on them…"
This is manifestly true – a data capture environment that wasn’t nearly as granular as it is now, accounts written long after the events they documented and taken only from oral traditions, the problem of distinguishing belief from fact, the risks of translation error and author bias, and so on. The only “burden” is to show that such rickety systems are inherently unreliable – something no-one questions. That’s why such stories fail the basic tests of historicity.
As for whether the Biblical Jesus story as we now have it (or them) is wrong, that’s unknowable – despite the paucity of credible evidence it/they still could be, but that’s not a good reason to think that they are.
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If you are saying something is or probably is wrong, you have a burden.
It is you who has the burden of not providing evidence for your statements.
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Nope - it is critique of the claim being made (by Spud), and this critique says nothing about the claim being shown to be "wrong", which would be a positive claim, but simply points out that the claimant has failed to establish a robust verification for their claim, which implies that they haven't successfully demonstrated that their claim is factually correct: possibly because, as pointed out, there seems to be no basis for the independent verification of the ancient genealogies that are the subject of this particular claim.
Therefore that this claim might be incorrect remains a risk - and it is for the claimant (Spud) to address this risk, and if he can't then he'd surely have to concede that if the precise details are now unknowable, from this distance in time, then the account he has to hand cannot be substantiated, hence the risk that his claim may be incorrect. He can, of course, choose to believe it on a personal basis but he has no grounds to claim that what he believes is factually correct.
You've always struggled to understand what the burden of proof entails.
No if you positively assert with an IS, you have a burden of proof.
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It is you who has the burden of not providing evidence for your statements.
Several thousands hundreds dozens a handful the one or two individuals who actually read this forum are laughing at your post because of who wrote it.
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No if you positively assert with an IS, you have a burden of proof.
Not really - to say there are grounds that cast doubt on a claim is perfectly reasonable when the claimant mentions verification but offers none in support of their claim, where the absence of said verification by the claimant justifies that the critique that there are, therefore, reasonable doubts regarding the veracity of the claim (which is what Prof D said).
A critique of a claim on the basis that the claim is unsound as doesn't automatically, by default, become a separate claim - it is fair comment on a badly argued claim and the person doing the critiquing need do no more that just show a basis for disposing of the claim (such as by citing the absence of independent verification, as in this case, or show that the claim is fallacious).
You seem to have an aptitude for painting yourself into the nearest corner, Vlad.
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Not really - to say there are grounds that cast doubt on a claim is perfectly reasonable.
Only if there actually are grounds.
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Only if there actually are grounds.
Which in this case there are.
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Only if there actually are grounds.
There are: the obvious one being that Spud mentioned that these genealogies can be verified but he can't provide a robust and independent method for doing so - that is sufficient ground in itself to doubt his claim, without going anywhere near issues such as provenance.
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Vlad,
No if you positively assert with an IS, you have a burden of proof.
Did you not read what I said? The only burden of proof here concerns the inherent unreliability of rickety evidential systems (rickety in this case for the reasons I set out). There's no burden of proof test needed though re the truth or otherwise the of the biblical Jesus story/ies because that wasn't what the claim concerned.
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There are: the obvious one being that Spud mentioned that these genealogies can be verified but he can't provide a robust and independent method for doing so - that is sufficient ground in itself to doubt his claim, without going anywhere near issues such as provenance.
But if I have DNA or photographic evidence, you're then going to want that verified - ad infinity. Luke and Matthew simply give what in those days probably was the equivalent of a birth certificate and the only way to identify someone, other than by their appearance.
The differences between the genealogies may even be evidence of their authenticity, since there were traditions in the OT to do with what happened when a blood line was about to end, either through childlessness or through only daughters being born.
In 1 Chronicles 3:17 Shealtiel is listed as the son of Jehoiachin (the same person as Jeconiah in Jeremiah and Matthew).
Luke however lists Shealtiel as the son of Neri.
Thus we could infer that the line of David's son Nathan was about to end at Neri, if the latter only had daughters or died childless. If Shealtiel was adopted as Neri's son or became Neri's son-in-law through marriage, this would have enabled the line of David's son Nathan to continue, at the same time as continuing the line of succession through Solomon.
If a similar thing happened with Jacob and Heli, this would account for the different post-captivity names in Matthew and Luke.
Another example of this is related in the story of Ruth, where her son Obed though Boaz is called the son of Naomi, Ruth's dead husband's mother.
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But if I have DNA or photographic evidence, you're then going to want that verified - ad infinity.
But you don't have such evidence and you cannot obtain that evidence so the point it moot. From where we are today the genealogies are not just unverified, but unverifiable.
Luke and Matthew simply give what in those days probably was the equivalent of a birth certificate and the only way to identify someone, other than by their appearance.
No they don't - although provide is a list of names, with no evidence at to whether the claimed relationships are true or not. So even at the point when the genealogies are suggested to have been written - about 90AD, they were not verified, and given the challenge of recording relationships over multiple generations even today let alone in the 1stC, I would argue even then they were unverifiable.
Another point to note - these genealogies run through Joseph - yet we know next to nothing about him. He isn't mentioned in the earliest writing about Jesus (epistles and Mark) and references to him in Matthew and Luke are so limited, we know next to nothing about him.
Yet we are expected to believe that this person who is such an afterthought in a couple of gospels (and absent in the others) is so well understood that his lineage can be trace back though 40-70 odd generations. We are asked to believe that although we know basically nothing about him, that we know who his grandfather, great-great grandfather etc etc was. Total non-sense.
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Spud,
But if I have DNA or photographic evidence, you're then going to want that verified - ad infinity.
No really - it's a question or reliability. If person A says, "I have three pieces of a 1,000-piece jig-saw and the finished picture is X" and person B says, "I have 990 pieces of the jig-saw and the finished picture is Y" neither would have the definitive answer but chances are you'd consider B's claim to be more reliable than A's claim would you not?
Luke and Matthew simply give what in those days probably was the equivalent of a birth certificate and the only way to identify someone, other than by their appearance.
The differences between the genealogies may even be evidence of their authenticity, since there were traditions in the OT to do with what happened when a blood line was about to end, either through childlessness or through only daughters being born.
In 1 Chronicles 3:17 Shealtiel is listed as the son of Jehoiachin (the same person as Jeconiah in Jeremiah and Matthew).
Luke however lists Shealtiel as the son of Neri.
Thus we could infer that the line of David's son Nathan was about to end at Neri, if the latter only had daughters or died childless. If Shealtiel was adopted as Neri's son or became Neri's son-in-law through marriage, this would have enabled the line of David's son Nathan to continue, at the same time as continuing the line of succession through Solomon.
If a similar thing happened with Jacob and Heli, this would account for the different post-captivity names in Matthew and Luke.
Another example of this is related in the story of Ruth, where her son Obed though Boaz is called the son of Naomi, Ruth's dead husband's mother.
You can of course infer anything you wish, but there's a reason this stuff isn't taught as history whereas other lineages from prior, contemporary and later locales is.
What do you suppose that reason is?
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Spud,
No really - it's a question or reliability. If person A says, "I have three pieces of a 1,000-piece jig-saw and the finished picture is X" and person B says, "I have 990 pieces of the jig-saw and the finished picture is Y" neither would have the definitive answer but chances are you'd consider B's claim to be more reliable than A's claim would you not?
You can of course infer anything you wish, but there's a reason this stuff isn't taught as history whereas other lineages from prior, contemporary and later locales is.
What do you suppose that reason is?
Back to my earlier point that the genealogies were not refuted when they were published, which was well before the records would have been destroyed: except you assign later dates to their publication because you need the gospels to be written after Jerusalem's destruction so that nobody could verify the genealogies and so only the gullible believe them.
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Back to my earlier point that the genealogies were not refuted when they were published,
So, who would verify them, why would they feel motivated to verify them and what methods could they use to verify them?
which was well before the records would have been destroyed
If they've been destroyed then how on earth could they be verified now?
except you assign later dates to their publication because you need the gospels to be written after Jerusalem's destruction so that nobody could verify the genealogies and so only the gullible believe them.
Unsubtle attempt there at a straw man, Spud, so why not just stop believing them: after all, the details are unverifiable because the reality of 'who actually begat whom' is now unknowable in terms of verifiable facts - so why waste your time bothering about this issue?
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Spud,
Back to my earlier point that the genealogies were not refuted when they were published, which was well before the records would have been destroyed: except you assign later dates to their publication because you need the gospels to be written after Jerusalem's destruction so that nobody could verify the genealogies and so only the gullible believe them.
You're missing it still: genealogies may not have been refuted when they were published, but that still tells you little about how accurate they were. The accounts from which they were drawn would have relied on much less granular detail than the accounts we have now (basically hearsay vs verifiable data), so there would have been comparatively significantly fewer pieces of the jig-saw from which to infer the picture. The more pieces of the jig-saw = the more reliable your description of the final picture, and vice versa.
Again, these stories fail the basic tests of historicity so they're not taught in academic history classes. Why doesn't this trouble you?
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... which was well before the records would have been destroyed:
What records Spud. Where exactly were the records stored that provided a birth certificate (or equivalent) that indicated that Nagge was the father of Esli! Were they stored in the Camden register office ::)
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Spud,
You're missing it still: genealogies may not have been refuted when they were published, but that still tells you little about how accurate they were. The accounts from which they were drawn would have relied on much less granular detail than the accounts we have now (basically hearsay vs verifiable data), so there would have been comparatively significantly fewer pieces of the jig-saw from which to infer the picture. The more pieces of the jig-saw = the more reliable your description of the final picture, and vice versa.
Again, these stories fail the basic tests of historicity so they're not taught in academic history classes. Why doesn't this trouble you?
I'd say the NT as a whole provides most of the jigsaw, so that we can see the main picture.
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But you don't have such evidence and you cannot obtain that evidence so the point it moot. From where we are today the genealogies are not just unverified, but unverifiable.
That's where the other pieces of the jigsaw come in.
No they don't - although provide is a list of names, with no evidence at to whether the claimed relationships are true or not. So even at the point when the genealogies are suggested to have been written - about 90AD, they were not verified, and given the challenge of recording relationships over multiple generations even today let alone in the 1stC, I would argue even then they were unverifiable.
Temple records must have existed, as there were genealogies recorded up until the Babylonian captivity. When they returned from exile, there were some people who could prove their ancestry, and others who couldn't, according to either Ezra or Nehemiah. Babies were still presented for circumcision at the temple in the first century, so they must have kept records for that and for festival attendance.
The genealogies are also like a surname, giving further means of identification.
Another point to note - these genealogies run through Joseph - yet we know next to nothing about him. He isn't mentioned in the earliest writing about Jesus (epistles and Mark) and references to him in Matthew and Luke are so limited, we know next to nothing about him.
Yet we are expected to believe that this person who is such an afterthought in a couple of gospels (and absent in the others) is so well understood that his lineage can be trace back though 40-70 odd generations. We are asked to believe that although we know basically nothing about him, that we know who his grandfather, great-great grandfather etc etc was. Total non-sense.
We are told Joseph was from the family of David. Perhaps the genealogical records were updated each time a descendant was born?
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I'd say the NT as a whole provides most of the jigsaw, so that we can see the main picture.
That is what you wish to believe to be true, but cannot support it with verifiable evidence.
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I'd say the NT as a whole provides most of the jigsaw, so that we can see the main picture.
So you've checked the NT for mistakes, exaggerations and lies then?
I'd say you are clearly far too credulous to even realise just how weak your case is.
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That is what you wish to believe to be true but cannot support it with verifiable evidence.
How many times and in how many different ways do you have to tell these (insert the derogatory description of your choice) Christians that the Bible, as an accurate textbook of history, is about as useful as an ice-cream teacup, before they manage to get rid of their blinkers?
On this forum, there must be over 50,000 posts telling them that the Bible is not a viable history and they still prefer to deny this fact!
The amount of bullshit written on this Forum trying to prove the reality of Jesus Christ as a real person would choke the entire world's population several times over.
Put in the simplest terms I can find - Christianity is based on FAITH NOT FACT, as is my own religious belief and that of every other religious sect on Earth.
Why do I stay under these circumstances? Quite simple, this Forum is one of the very few contacts I have with the real world outside my flat, for which I am truly grateful, and talking to myself is terminally boring.
Owlswing
)O(
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So you've checked the NT for mistakes, exaggerations and lies then?
I'd say you are clearly far too credulous to even realise just how weak your case is.
See 312 above!
Owlswing
)O(
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Temple records must have existed, as there were genealogies recorded up until the Babylonian captivity. When they returned from exile, there were some people who could prove their ancestry, and others who couldn't, according to either Ezra or Nehemiah. Babies were still presented for circumcision at the temple in the first century, so they must have kept records for that and for festival attendance.
You could say the same about more recent generations and, for example, baptism ceremonies. Yet for an ordinary person it is pretty well impossible to trace your lineage back 70 generations, as suggested in the gospels. And, of course, even were records kept they'd never have survived intact over perhaps 1700 years, which is what 70 generations suggests.
Can you find the birth records of your many, many times grandparent born in 300AD Spud - didn't think so.
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We are told Joseph was from the family of David. Perhaps the genealogical records were updated each time a descendant was born?
Baseless assertion.
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That is what you wish to believe to be true, but cannot support it with verifiable evidence.
Each bit of evidence is like a piece of a puzzle - only when combined with the others is each piece shown to belong to the picture. I'm talking about the historical Jesus here, not his miracles.
So for example we have his family name (son of David), his place of birth, the town where he grew up (Nazareth), his place of death, parents' and other relatives' names, that he was sent to his death by Pilate, confirmed by Tacitus.
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Each bit of evidence is like a piece of a puzzle - only when combined with the others is each piece shown to belong to the picture. I'm talking about the historical Jesus here, not his miracles.
So for example we have his family name (son of David),
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
his place of birth,
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
the town where he grew up (Nazareth),
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
his place of death,
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
parents' and other relatives' names,
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
that he was sent to his death by Pilate, confirmed by Tacitus.
Ah finally you mention a non NT source for one of your claims.
Problem is that Tacitus was writing in about 110AD, by which point early christians were already making the claims about Jesus' life and death. So Tacitus is really describing Jesus' death in the context of christians - so effectively what they claimed, rather than being an independent account. Realistically he is just recounting what the early christians believed.
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Each bit of evidence is like a piece of a puzzle - only when combined with the others is each piece shown to belong to the picture. I'm talking about the historical Jesus here, not his miracles.
So for example we have his family name (son of David), his place of birth, the town where he grew up (Nazareth), his place of death, parents' and other relatives' names, that he was sent to his death by Pilate, confirmed by Tacitus.
The Bible is NOT a history book.
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No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
Ah, Professor. You want me to count the number of the day! Of course, I'd love to count the number of the day! One no we don't. Two no we don'ts. Three no we don'ts. Four, four no we don'ts. Five. FIVE NO WE DONTs!!!
#####
(Those are bolts of lightening)
FIVE, the Sesame Street Number of the day!
Now, professor. The problem with saying no we don't five times is that we Do have evidence to back it up: The Early Church writings #####
Ah finally you mention a non NT source for one of your claims.
Problem is that Tacitus was writing in about 110AD, by which point early christians were already making the claims about Jesus' life and death. So Tacitus is really describing Jesus' death in the context of christians - so effectively what they claimed, rather than being an independent account. Realistically he is just recounting what the early christians believed.
Professor. When someone writing a long letter states 'Jesus lived' presumably he has spoken to people who knew Jesus. Those people being believers does not make them biased. When reporters report things they usually believe those things. That doesn't make them biased.
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Spud,
I'd say the NT as a whole provides most of the jigsaw, so that we can see the main picture.
That’s like saying you know Harry Potter flew on a broomstick because you’ve read the novels as a whole, not just the chapters about quidditch.
Your argument here is just “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true”, which fails unless you can demonstrate that premise to be true a priori.
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Ah, Professor. You want me to count the number of the day! Of course, I'd love to count the number of the day! One no we don't. Two no we don'ts. Three no we don'ts. Four, four no we don'ts. Five. FIVE NO WE DONTs!!!
#####
(Those are bolts of lightening)
FIVE, the Sesame Street Number of the day!
Now, professor. The problem with saying no we don't five times is that we Do have evidence to back it up: The Early Church writings #####
All you need do now, Spud, is explain how you've addressed the risks of mistakes and lies: if not, then these "Early church writings" are indistinguishable from fiction.
Professor. When someone writing a long letter states 'Jesus lived' presumably he has spoken to people who knew Jesus. Those people being believers does not make them biased. When reporters report things they usually believe those things. That doesn't make them biased.
Except when they make mistakes or decide to tell lies: you really are breathtakingly gullible (possibly due to your own biases).
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No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
No we don't - all we have is claims in the NT, with no evidence to back it up and no independent non-partial corroborating accounts.
Ah finally you mention a non NT source for one of your claims.
Problem is that Tacitus was writing in about 110AD, by which point early christians were already making the claims about Jesus' life and death. So Tacitus is really describing Jesus' death in the context of christians - so effectively what they claimed, rather than being an independent account. Realistically he is just recounting what the early christians believed.
This appeal to Tacitus writing in 120. How old are the earliest Extant copies of Tacitus?
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Do have evidence to back it up: The Early Church writings #####
Ah the old chestnut of the early church fathers and their writings, trotted out as if we have a whole series of original tomes from the period up to 150AD setting out evidence. Sorry Spud - we don't.
A few points on the supposed early church fathers and their writing:
1. Many aren't early - i.e. before about 150AD - indeed you can pretty well count on the figures of one hand those believed to have been writing in that period.
2. In many cases we know next to nothing about them and their writing.
3. We don't have originals of the early writing in virtually all cases - what we have is either much later copies or mentions of their writing in later texts, for example the works of Eusebius - the arch re-writer and reviser of history if it didn't fit with his view of the church.
4. Christians love to focus on the early church fathers, but tend to ignore what I might call the early church heretics - don't forget that there are others in that early period who we believe had radically different opinions and interpretations of the past. The developing church denounced them as heretics. Yet there is no more, nor less, evidence that their views may have been correct - they just lost the argument.
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This appeal to Tacitus writing in 120. How old are the earliest Extant copies of Tacitus?
Absolutely.
So although we think that Tacitus wrote Annals in about 110-120 we do not have original extant copies. So we cannot be sure that the words ascribed to him in the context of Jesus were in the original or are later edits or interpolations.
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Absolutely.
So although we think that Tacitus wrote Annals in about 110-120 we do not have original extant copies. So we cannot be sure that the words ascribed to him in the context of Jesus were in the original or are later edits or interpolations.
Or that any of the words ascribed to him on anything were in the original or are later edits or interpolations. And yet, in your discussion with Stud you are appealing to Tacitus, vis: ''Problem is that Tacitus was writing in about 110AD'' You seem to be sure Tacitus IS writing in 120.
In any case you seem to have evaded the question. When are the earliest extant copies of Tacitus?
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Or that any of the words ascribed to him on anything were in the original or are later edits or interpolations. And yet, in your discussion with Stud you are appealing to Tacitus, vis: ''Problem is that Tacitus was writing in about 110AD'' You seem to be sure Tacitus IS writing in 120.
I think most historians are clear about when Tacitus lived and broadly when he was writing - the annals are considered to have been written in about 110-120. All I said that that was when he was writing - I never implied that we know exactly what he wrote in the original version of annals.
But even if we accept (for the sake of arguments) that the words ascribed to him about Jesus are exactly as he originally wrote them it provides no genuinely independent corroborative evidence for the historicity of Jesus - point being that as he was writing in about 110-ish he'd be aware of the developing narrative that christians were promulgating about Jesus and likely that would be the evidence he used for his very brief commentary on Jesus. There is no evidence that he know that Pilate sentenced Jesus to death independently from the narrative of the early christians.
In any case you seem to have evaded the question. When are the earliest extant copies of Tacitus?
I think the earliest version of Tacitus is I think from about the 9thC - so plenty of opportunity for changes to creep in. That said the section on Jesus does appear to be linguistically consistent with the rest of the writing, unlike some of the text in Josephus which is pretty well universally considered by scholars to be a christian interpolation.
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I think most historians are clear about when Tacitus lived and broadly when he was writing - the annals are considered to have been written in about 110-120. All I said that that was when he was writing - I never implied that we know exactly what he wrote in the original version of annals.
But even if we accept (for the sake of arguments) that the words ascribed to him about Jesus are exactly as he originally wrote them it provides no genuinely independent corroborative evidence for the historicity of Jesus - point being that as he was writing in about 110-ish he'd be aware of the developing narrative that christians were promulgating about Jesus and likely that would be the evidence he used for his very brief commentary on Jesus. There is no evidence that he know that Pilate sentenced Jesus to death independently from the narrative of the early christians.
I think the earliest version of Tacitus is I think from about the 9thC - so plenty of opportunity for changes to creep in. That said the section on Jesus does appear to be linguistically consistent with the rest of the writing, unlike some of the text in Josephus which is pretty well universally considered by scholars to be a christian interpolation.
It seems to me that in your system you can have extant documents 1,2,3,4 centuries from the time of writing which are, by dint of that, totally unreliable.
Or you can have extant documents 9 centuries from the time of writing that are reliable.
But you can't have both. Particularly if your interpolations date earlier than your earliest extant copies.
This what happens when an unskilled atomising methodology is brought to bear on history resulting in or motivated by special pleading and the genetic fallacy.
Also since you are now making the extent of recognition important that leads us back to the fact that the most accepted narrative is the interpretation you and your cohorts are trying to overturn now.
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It seems to me that in your system you can have extant documents 1,2,3,4 centuries from the time of writing which are, by dint of that, totally unreliable.
Or you can have extant documents 9 centuries from the time of writing that are reliable.
But you can't have both. Particularly if your interpolations date earlier than your earliest extant copies.
This what happens when an unskilled atomising methodology is brought to bear on history resulting in or motivated by special pleading and the genetic fallacy.
Also since you are now making the extent of recognition important that leads us back to the fact that the most accepted narrative is the interpretation you and your cohorts are trying to overturn now.
I think you are getting mixed up (again): the point is that nobody is saying the the earliest known versions of either Tacitus or the NT are reliable given all the problems associated with their provenance, such as their detachment in time from the events they contain and the risks of human artifice (errors, exaggerations, propaganda, bias, translation issues and fabrication).
As ever, anyone who claims the content is historically accurate has the burden of proof, which means they have to address the problems noted above.
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I think you are getting mixed up (again): the point is that nobody is saying the the earliest known versions of either Tacitus or the NT are reliable given all the problems associated with their provenance, such as their detachment in time from the events they contain and the risks of human artifice (errors, exaggerations, propaganda, bias, translation issues and fabrication).
As ever, anyone who claims the content is historically accurate has the burden of proof, which means they have to address the problems noted above.
Not sure what wanting the luxury to choose 2nd century copies as totally unreliable yet claiming 9th century copies as reliable apart from the christian bits has to do with burden of proof. Any assertion that something is or isnt Carrie's a burden.
Of course there is appeal to Tacitus here as there was with BHS when he appealed to Pliny to back stuff up.
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Vlad,
It seems to me that in your system you can have extant documents 1,2,3,4 centuries from the time of writing which are, by dint of that, totally unreliable.
Or you can have extant documents 9 centuries from the time of writing that are reliable.
But you can't have both. Particularly if your interpolations date earlier than your earliest extant copies.
This what happens when an unskilled atomising methodology is brought to bear on history resulting in or motivated by special pleading and the genetic fallacy.
Also since you are now making the extent of recognition important that leads us back to the fact that the most accepted narrative is the interpretation you and your cohorts are trying to overturn now.
It would help you avoid mistakes like this if you first understood some basic principles of historicity. To determine the reliability of accounts, historians apply various principles as follows:
1. Relics are more credible sources than narratives. Narratives are explanations people develop to explain the events they describe. “Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again” for example is an explanatory narrative but that’s not to say that it maps necessarily to reality. Absent physical evidence though, inherently unreliable narrative is all we have.
2. Any given source may be forged or corrupted. These things can be deliberate or occasioned by for example translation errors but in any case something being written does not of itself make it reliable, especially when the authors are also proponents of a belief rather than disinterested recorders of fact.
3. The closer a source is to the event it describes, the fewer the opportunities for mistakes or forgeries – basically the Chinese whisper problem. A 100 + years gap is plenty of time throw doubt onto the reliability of the accounts that had been passed down through the generations.
4. An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove etc. Tacitus was essentially recording hearsay.
5. Multiple independent sources with the same accounts adds to the credibility. This is where you went off the rails with the Egyptian example. The merchant’s account is aligned with the known chronology of the pharaohs, whereas the historical record the for biblical accounts narrows to one very quickly.
6. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If Tacitus had said, “Jesus liked a scoop of wine with his dinner” for example there’d be no particular reason to doubt him. Throw in the miracle stuff though and ancient, incomplete, potentially biased, non-contemporaneous descriptions of beliefs from people who regularly believed any number of miracle stories to be true don’t come even close for that purpose.
So given all that, can you see now why not just accepting such accounts of the Jesus story as we do have as necessarily true isn’t special pleading at all?
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Not sure what wanting the luxury to choose 2nd century copies as totally unreliable yet claiming 9th century copies as reliable apart from the christian bits has to do with burden of proof. Any assertion that something is or isnt Carrie's a burden.
Of course there is appeal to Tacitus here as there was with BHS when he appealed to Pliny to back stuff up.
Who is claiming that the content of 9th c Tacitus is an accurate historical record? After all, that version dates to 900 or so years after the events regarding Jesus, so lots of scope for human artifice to be a factor.
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Not sure what wanting the luxury to choose 2nd century copies as totally unreliable yet claiming 9th century copies as reliable ...
Who is claiming that 2ndC copies of the gospels are unreliable but 9thC copy of Tacitus is? Certainly not me. I think both have to be challenged as source materials, but the notion that earlier must be more reliable is simplistic and naive. You need to look at a whole number of issues in order to determine whether a later copy is more or less likely to resemble the original, and one of those elements is the number of generations of copies between the original and the version you are assessing.
So it is perfectly possible for copy from 200 years after the original to be a 10th generation copy, if the copying is on papyrus which doesn't last long and is regularly 'handled' in the field so likely to deteriorate rapidly. And indeed it is just as possible for a copy from 800 years after the original to be a first generation copy if the original was written on long-lasting parchment and held in a safe and secure location with limited handling.
And indeed there is evidence (or at least claims) that the gospels are examples of the former and Tacitus is an example of the latter, with claims that the earliest versions we have were copied directly from the original. Now I'm not going to provide justification for that claim, merely to make the point that this claim has been made.
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Vlad,
It would help you avoid mistakes like this if you first understood some basic principles of historicity. To determine the reliability of accounts, historians apply various principles as follows:
1. Relics are more credible sources than narratives. Narratives are explanations people develop to explain the events they describe. “Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again” for example is an explanatory narrative but that’s not to say that it maps necessarily to reality. Absent physical evidence though, inherently unreliable narrative is all we have.
2. Any given source may be forged or corrupted. These things can be deliberate or occasioned by for example translation errors but in any case something being written does not of itself make it reliable, especially when the authors are also proponents of a belief rather than disinterested recorders of fact.
3. The closer a source is to the event it describes, the fewer the opportunities for mistakes or forgeries – basically the Chinese whisper problem. A 100 + years gap is plenty of time throw doubt onto the reliability of the accounts that had been passed down through the generations.
4. An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove etc. Tacitus was essentially recording hearsay.
5. Multiple independent sources with the same accounts adds to the credibility. This is where you went off the rails with the Egyptian example. The merchant’s account is aligned with the known chronology of the pharaohs, whereas the historical record the for biblical accounts narrows to one very quickly.
6. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If Tacitus had said, “Jesus liked a scoop of wine with his dinner” for example there’d be no particular reason to doubt him. Throw in the miracle stuff though and ancient, incomplete, potentially biased, non-contemporaneous descriptions of beliefs from people who regularly believed any number of miracle stories to be true don’t come even close for that purpose.
So given all that, can you see now why not just accepting such accounts of the Jesus story as we do have as necessarily true isn’t special pleading at all?
Very good post.
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Spud,
That’s like saying you know Harry Potter flew on a broomstick because you’ve read the novels as a whole, not just the chapters about quidditch.
Your argument here is just “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true”, which fails unless you can demonstrate that premise to be true a priori.
The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word "biblia" which means "books". It's not one book claiming to be true.
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Vlad,
The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word "biblia" which means "books". It's not one book claiming to be true.
Yes I know – just like the Harry Potter novels are not one book.
Your point?
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4. Tacitus was essentially recording hearsay.
That can only be true if you abandon your claim that we can't know what is in copies previous to the extant copy. In this case from the 9TH CENTURY CE.
We can add this to your record of making special plea for Roman Historians Like Pliny and your amazing suggestion that Ancient Documents are usually extant from a rare case of papyral survival from Ancient Greece.
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Vlad,
Yes I know – just like the Harry Potter novels are not one book.
Your point?
None of the Harry Potter books claimed to be true, right?
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Vlad,
That can only be true if you abandon your claim that we can't know what is in copies previous to the extant copy. In this case from the 9TH CENTURY CE.
Wrong again. Tacitus (assuming the surviving versions we have now of his works were transposed accurately) recorded narratives that had been handed down and passed on multiple times before they reached his ears. That’s what “hearsay” means.
We can add this…
No "we" can’t because “this” has just collapsed – see above.
…to your record of making special plea for Roman Historians Like Pliny…
I took the time a few posts ago to set out for you the basic principles of historicity. Why don’t you familiarise yourself with them, if only to help you look less foolish here in future?
…and your amazing suggestion that Ancient Documents are usually extant from a rare case of papyral survival from Ancient Greece.
I said no such thing, and lying about that won’t help you either.
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Count,
None of the Harry Potter books claimed to be true, right?
Way to miss the point.
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Vlad,
Wrong again. Tacitus (assuming the surviving versions we have now of his works were transposed accurately) recorded narratives that had been handed down and passed on multiple times before they reached his ears. That’s what “hearsay” means.
You can't seem to escape from a claim that we cannot trust copies of works which didn't survive while simultaneously promoting the assumption that the surviving versions were transposed accurately....... those seem to be two opposing ideas you are able to hold true in your head
I said no such thing, and lying about that won’t help you either.
My Bad............... Ancient Egypt.
Vlad,
It would help you avoid mistakes like this if you first understood some basic principles of historicity. To determine the reliability of accounts, historians apply various principles as follows:
I have listed your howling errors and laughed at your pretentions to being a bit of an ancient Historian.
1. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.
Never said they were'nt....so straw man Narratives are explanations people develop to explain the events they describe.
Never said they weren't . What's your point?
2. Any given source may be forged or corrupted.
Never said they couldn't be and never suggested that all are but especially christian accounts, That is a logically shite route but one you people seem addicted to These things can be deliberate or occasioned by for example translation errors but in any case something being written does not of itself make it reliable, especially when the authors are also proponents of a belief rather than disinterested recorders of fact.
There are no disinterested observers here, they also have an interest .
5. Multiple independent sources with the same accounts adds to the credibility. This is where you went off the rails with the Egyptian example. The merchant’s account is aligned with the known chronology of the pharaohs, whereas the historical record the for biblical accounts narrows to one very quickly.
Again there are no independent sources on some issues because of their political and religious significance. A merchants account is a merchants account and is paydirt for disinterested and dispassionate observation of the type you are trying to inject into Roman history.
6. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
This statement and it's explanation may very well reduce to philosophical empiricism.
Exclaiming everything is nonsense because extant copies don't exist later then arguing from that document is charming in a child but upsetting when an adult tries it
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It's not one book claiming to be true.
So if the bible doesn't claim to be true, why do you assume it is and tie yourself up in knots trying (and failing) to prove that it is.
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Vlad,
You can't seem to escape from a claim that we cannot trust copies of works which didn't survive while simultaneously promoting the assumption that the surviving versions were transposed accurately....... those seem to be two opposing ideas you are able to hold true in your head
Are you literally not reading what’s being said, or are you choosing to misrepresent it deliberately?
Try reading what I actually said in plain words, and then respond that instead.
My Bad............... Ancient Egypt.
No, your “bad” was lying by claiming falsely that I’d said “and your amazing suggestion that Ancient Documents are usually extant from a rare case of papyral survival from Ancient Greece.” Ancient documents (from any civilisation) are not “usually extant” at all, and I've never said otherwise.
I have listed your howling errors and laughed at your pretentions to being a bit of an ancient Historian.
Seems unlikely that you’ve done any such thing, but let’s see shall we?
Never said they were'nt....so straw man
You’re off to a bad start. I was merely explaining the basic principles of historicity to you as your previous efforts had shown your ignorance of them.
Never said they weren't . What's your point?
See above. Writing down what people believed is not necessarily the same as writing down what happened.
Never said they couldn't be and never suggested that all are but especially christian accounts, That is a logically shite route but one you people seem addicted to
Again, see above. The documents on which you place great weight for your beliefs may have been erroneously reproduced or forged (as might any documents based on equally rickety epistemological foundations). Thus reliance on them for claims of certainty is ill-founded.
There are no disinterested observers here, they also have an interest .
Irrelevant. We were talking about the authors/transcribers of ancient records, not about commentators on them here.
Again there are no independent sources on some issues because of their political and religious significance. A merchants account is a merchants account and is paydirt for disinterested and dispassionate observation of the type you are trying to inject into Roman history.
Your use of language is so poor that I can’t work out what you’re trying to say here. I was merely explaining to you that corroborative evidence from independent sources tends to add to the credibility of those sources individually. It’s not a difficult concept.
This statement and it's explanation may very well reduce to philosophical empiricism.
Except it does no such thing. If you think extraordinary claims require merely the reliability of evidence that applies to ordinary claims, then you have to explain how you’d exclude all extraordinary claim from the same evidential benchmark – you know, the point at which you always run away.
Exclaiming everything is nonsense because extant copies don't exist later then arguing from that document is charming in a child but upsetting when an adult tries it
And the straw man to finish. As you know full well that I have never said “everything is nonsense because extant copies don't exist” nor anything even close to that, why do you just resort to lying like this immediately you’re out of your depth?
So to re-cap – there were no “howlers”, the basic principles of historicity that I set out for you still seem to elude you, and you still seem either unable or unwilling to engage honestly rather than lie and misrepresent at every turn.
Why do you bother?
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You can't seem to escape from a claim that we cannot trust copies of works which didn't survive while simultaneously promoting the assumption that the surviving versions were transposed accurately....... those seem to be two opposing ideas you are able to hold true in your head
That isn't what anyone is saying: so either you're misrepresenting or your reading for comprehension skills are sadly lacking (or both).
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Again either you assume accurate transposition to the extant version of Tacitus which BHS is prepared to suggest
or you assume that you cannot derive what earlier versions contain because they are not extant.
You cannot have both.
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Again either you assume accurate transposition to the extant version of Tacitus which BHS is prepared to suggest
or you assume that you cannot derive what earlier versions contain because they are not extant.
You cannot have both.
Let's try a simpler approach.
The uncertain provenance of both the extant versions NT and Tacitus, given both the risks of human artifice and the passage of time since the events being described in them, make them unreliable of sources of historical fact. Whether or not there were any preceding versions, and if so what the content of these was and to what extent they grew arms and legs over time, leading to the extant versions is unknown. Therefore, the extant versions are of uncertain provenance.
As such they are not reliable records of historical fact (though they may have other uses): too many risks attached to them, you see.
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Vlad,
Again either you assume accurate transposition to the extant version of Tacitus which BHS is prepared to suggest
WHY ARE YOU LYING AGAIN?
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Again either you assume accurate transposition to the extant version of Tacitus which BHS is prepared to suggest
or you assume that you cannot derive what earlier versions contain because they are not extant.
You cannot have both.
Setting aside Tacitus' teeny tiny comment on Jesus (if we accept the extant version to be similar to the original), much of Tacitus' content is backed up by clear independent evidence. So when he talks of Nero we have coins and all sorts of other artefacts that demonstrate that Nero existed, who he was and what was happening at the time. So Tacitus provides colour and narrative to basic factual historical evidence that is beyond doubt. The same is not true for Jesus.
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Setting aside Tacitus' teeny tiny comment on Jesus (if we accept the extant version to be similar to the original), much of Tacitus' content is backed up by clear independent evidence. So when he talks of Nero we have coins and all sorts of other artefacts that demonstrate that Nero existed, who he was and what was happening at the time. So Tacitus provides colour and narrative to basic factual historical evidence that is beyond doubt. The same is not true for Jesus.
That is correct.
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Setting aside Tacitus' teeny tiny comment on Jesus (if we accept the extant version to be similar to the original), much of Tacitus' content is backed up by clear independent evidence. So when he talks of Nero we have coins and all sorts of other artefacts that demonstrate that Nero existed, who he was and what was happening at the time. So Tacitus provides colour and narrative to basic factual historical evidence that is beyond doubt. The same is not true for Jesus.
Yes but if we apply the rules of recognition of historical documents that you yourself have imposed we have to ask 1) Is it Tacitus? 2) When are the earliest extant copies for the independent evidence?
These are just doubts you have imposed on literature about christianity.
Non Application can only mean a) special pleading or b) The genetic fallacy.
Inability to believe or extraordinary claims aren't historical arguments.
So under your rules there may be coins and artifacts but Tacitus can't tell anything because by the ninth century, the original words of Tacitus are consumed by history.
Of course, History is more consistently done in the way you have inconsistently treated Tacitus and the inconsistent honour Hillside has given to Pliny.
I suppose what I am asking is that you harmonise you historical method.
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That is correct.
I'm sorry he's shown himself up as wrong and so has shown you to be wrong.
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I'm sorry he's shown himself up as wrong and so has shown you to be wrong.
In your opinion! ::)
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Vlad,
Yes but if we apply the rules of recognition of historical documents that you yourself have imposed we have to ask 1) Is it Tacitus? 2) When are the earliest extant copies for the independent evidence?
No “we” don’t. There are versions of various documents that purport to be the writings of Tacitus. They may be wholly accurate transcriptions, partially accurate transcriptions, or entirely wrong transcriptions. The point the Prof was making though was that – whatever their provenance – their content in some respects at least is corroborated by different and independent historical records. As a general principle, independent corroboration tends to add credence to the reliability of the record under consideration.
This is one of the basic principles of historicity that I set out for you that you either ignored or misrepresented.
These are just doubts you have imposed on literature about christianity.
Non Application can only mean a) special pleading or b) The genetic fallacy.
Or that they fail the basic principles of historicity…
…which they do.
Inability to believe or extraordinary claims aren't historical arguments.
No-one has said otherwise. What has been said though is that if you want to make extraordinary claims you cannot rely on the standard of evidence generally accepted for prosaic claims to justify them. As I keep explaining to you and you keep ignoring, the reason for that should be obvious: if you set the evidential bar low for your particular fantastical claims then you have no choice but to set it equally low for any other fantastical claims. It’s an all or nothing deal – and any attempt to slip your claims under the wire while rejecting others is the actual special pleading on show here.
So under your rules there may be coins and artifacts but Tacitus can't tell anything because by the ninth century, the original words of Tacitus are consumed by history.
He said no such thing. Why have you just lied about that?
Of course, History is more consistently done in the way you have inconsistently treated Tacitus and the inconsistent honour Hillside has given to Pliny.
And more lies to follow. Why?
I suppose what I am asking is that you harmonise you historical method.
Some of us already have – the “harmonising” is the basic principles of the historical method that I set out for you. What you’re being asked to do though is either to apply them to your faith claims (in which case they fail the tests of historicity) or to explain why those claims should be exempt from those principles.
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In your opinion! ::)
No, In Professor Davey's.
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The point the Prof was making though was that – whatever their provenance – their content in some respects at least is corroborated by different and independent historical records.
Yes but if we can't accept pre Earliest extant copies of Tacitus on those grounds why are you accepting the testimony of Earliest copies of other and independent(?) historical records.
Which different and independent historical records are you referring to anyway and what is the earliest extant copy of them? (I just know you won't tell us because it knackers your argument.)
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No, In Professor Davey's.
No - I think you'll find that the opinion that LR was commenting on was your opinion that I was wrong and by inference LR was also wrong.
However, as ever you've provided no credible argument and evidence to back up your opinion, which as so often from you is hopelessly muddled and deeply incoherent. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but the rest of us are just as entitled to disregard your opinion as jumbled non-sense.
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No - I think you'll find that the opinion that LR was commenting on was your opinion that I was wrong and by inference LR was also wrong.
No, your own view is split between not being able to take anything as reliable if the earliest copies are from centuries later.........and appealing to Tacitus, earliest extant copy from the 9th century. This is particularly odd since you discount christian literature dating centuries earlier.
So if Littlerose agrees with you which of these arguments is she agreeing with? Since I agree appeal can be made to Tacitus she must be agreeing with the idea of not being able to appeal to Tacitus.
However, as ever you've provided no credible argument and evidence to back up your opinion, which as so often from you is hopelessly muddled and deeply incoherent. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but the rest of us are just as entitled to disregard your opinion as jumbled non-sense.
I think i've more than proved that not only is your opinion jumbled nonsense but there are two of them!!!! Both, are diametrically opposed to each other.
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........and appealing to Tacitus
You really are talking non-sense Vlad.
I never 'appealed to Tacitus' - show me where I did. Indeed I actually did the opposite, may argument being that even if we accept that the teeny tiny reference to Jesus in his work was in the original (a bit if and one I made clear was just for the sake of the argument), that it provides little comfort to christians because it is neither contemporary (being from about 110AD - if it is in the original), nor do we have evidence that it is genuinely independent. Indeed, quite the reverse as Tacitus refers to christians and therefore must have been aware of their existence and likely of their views and claims. Thus the evidence that Jesus was sentenced to death by Pilot could easily have come from christians themselves rather than independently. And, of course, what is in Tacitus is hardly 'hold the front page' news - merely suggesting that christians existed, that they worshiped Jesus and (they believed) that Pilot sentenced Jesus to death. None of that is controversial really, is it.
None of that negates the issue of whether the Jesus bit in Tacitus is in the original or added later.
, earliest extant copy from the 9th century. This is particularly odd since you discount christian literature dating centuries earlier.I think i've more than proved that not only is your opinion jumbled nonsense but there are two of them!!!! Both, are diametrically opposed to each other.
I'm sorry - again you are talking non-sense. The situation is much more complicated than your naive and simplistic that earlier must equate to more accurate. That simply isn't necessarily true. Here are a few reasons why not.
1. We need to consider number of times copied rather than just length of time. A text copied 20 times over 200 years is likely to be more susceptible to change than one copies once in 500 years.
2. We need to consider the quality and 'agenda' of the copyists.
3. We need to consider who the author was and whether there are other texts attributed to that author in existence that allow linguistic analysis to be performed.
4. We need to look for other corroborating evidence - so if Tacitus mentions Nero and we have coins with Nero on them, that provides supporting evidence for the veracity of that claim of the existence of Nero. Likewise if Tacitus talks of the Roman occupation in a particular land and the dates when they were there and we have archeological evidence of Roman occupation during those dates again it provides supporting evidence for the veracity of that claim.
There are others too, but I suspect in your Vlad-blinkered way you will simply ignore these points.
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Vlad,
Yes but if we can't accept pre Earliest extant copies of Tacitus on those grounds why are you accepting the testimony of Earliest copies of other and independent(?) historical records.
This is incoherent – what are you trying to say here? What would a “pre Earliest Extant copy” of something be?
Which different and independent historical records are you referring to anyway and what is the earliest extant copy of them? (I just know you won't tell us because it knackers your argument.)
The Prof has already covered this, but references to Roman emperors (whose details are documented independently in other source) provides corroborative support for the Tacitus (or whoever subsequently adapted Tacitus) accounts that we do have.