Is Mormonism so bad?

[Kishkumen]

Just to be clear that's not what I'm driving at there. I'm saying the story is what we have on Jesus...we don't have other pieces of evidence. For the Josh story we're saying the story told in Paul's letters, is what we're trying to verify with corroborating evidence. That'd be the best way for us to go. For Jesus all we have is the story to use as evidence. I agree. I'm not saying anything about proof, at this point. I don't know how that got mixed up in here.

Based on that standard, we would be forced to dismiss many historical figures as fictional constructs. This is not a reasonable standard of evidence for antiquity.

In any case, for Jesus we have:

Authentic letters of Paul, who mentions meeting Jesus' associates, dating as early as the 50s CE.

Independently authored biographies of Jesus dating 20 (Mark) to 40 years later (John) than the earliest authentic Pauline epistles.

Josephus who writes roughly 20 years after the Gospel of Mark.

We have no evidence suggesting that Mark knew Paul or the other Gospel writers.

We have no evidence suggesting that Josephus knew Paul or the other Gospel writers.

The Gospel of John does not have a clear relationship with the other Gospels. It is roughly contemporary with Josephus' Antiquities (ca. 90s CE).

Tacitus mentions Christus who was executed by Pilate in his Annals (15.44; written in the first quarter of the second century CE).

There is also the Mara Bar Serapion letter, which mentions the Jews having executed their "wise king" who gave them a "new law" before the Romans destroyed their city (Jerusalem). Mara Bar Serapion was a Syrian Stoic philosopher. The letter dates between 73-200 CE.

Noteworthy to me is the fact that the undisputedly authentic Pauline epistles do not mention Pilate. Pilate first appears in Mark. Pilate also appears independently in the Roman author Tacitus.

Mythicists love to argue that Paul's priority in the chronology proves his influence over the entirely of the sources. I dispute that. We don't want to commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy by assuming that because Paul came first he, or his story, caused the other accounts, which arguably appear independent of his influence.

[Res Ipsa]

Hi Stem. What I wrote about hearsay was prompted by this exchange:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=562&p=14501&hilit=hearsay#p14501

You seemed to me to be saying that all the evidence we have that support the existence of real guy Jesus was hearsay. My intent was to suggest that (1) not all the evidence is technically hearsay and (2) hearsay is not a helpful concept in the context of interpreting historical evidence. It seemed to me it was getting in the way more than it was helping, and I wanted to suggest discarding it.

I tried to use "In general" as an indicator that I was no longer directing my comments to you. I should have been clearer. My apologies.

I do think folks have made arguments that would be interesting to discuss. As an example, I don't find this argument persuasive:

viewtopic.php?p=14416#p14416

We know that we ended up with a story about a real guy Jesus. The story had its origin at some point in time. It could have been during or shortly after the life of a real guy Jesus. Or it could have been, for example, an urban legend or tall tale that originated during the same period of time. In either case, it seems to me that there is little difference in the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses given that Pilate is part of the story.

The thing I puzzle over is how large is the difference between a mythologized real person and a mythological person? It doesn't seem that large to me, but I claim no training or expertise in how myths begin. Other puzzles include whether the wide range of written Jesus stories that we find are more consistent with a real guy Jesus or an invented Jesus. The answer isn't important to me, but trying to think about how to think about the evidence is a fun exercise for me.

[Res Ipsa]

Hello Reverend,

I'm not sure I understand your thinking here:

Noteworthy to me is the fact that the undisputedly authentic Pauline epistles do not mention Pilate. Pilate first appears in Mark. Pilate also appears independently in the Roman author Tacitus.

If I recall correctly, Paul's letters contain very few details about Jesus. The common explanation for this is Paul didn't set out to write a biography of Jesus -- therefore the omissions aren't significant. Why do you find the omission of Pilate as especially significant in contrast to other details Paul fails to mention?

Also, what do you mean by "independently." Given the timing, I'm assuming Tacitus was not a direct witness. That means Tacitus had to have a source. On what basis do you rule out Mark or other references based on Mark as that source?

Thanks.

[Meadowchik]

That's why Bayesian history is a silly idea. You don't need Bayes to tell you that overwhelming evidence is overwhelming, and you don't need it to dismiss completely meaningless evidence, either. What you want Bayes to do, in history or anything else, is help you weigh evidence that's somewhere between. And those are exactly the cases where it's very hard to assign probabilities reliably just by subjectively estimating.

With real Bayesian statistics you're not estimating the probabilities subjectively. You're computing them from your ample quantitative data. You may worry about how good the data are but you're not just picking 80% instead of 65% on a whim. You've got a table of 100 data points and 73 of them are A rather than B, so you're at 73%.

You can't do that in history.

Only speaking here as a novice and student (we're studying it in the context of simplified weather forecasting with the Kalman filter), but...

To be fair, there is still subjectivity in the use of Bayes. The model of the system under study can contain errors, there can be observational measurement errors and then there can be overall errors in our understanding of the system.

This is why I am hesitant to dismiss more subjective-seeming applications of it. Perhaps error can be mitigated enough to produce useful if not conclusive insight.

I'm also coming from the very heavy awareness that history is largely told by those in power. And yet...

I would guess that if there is potential in application of Bayes, the method is still yet to be clearly well established and used. It's early still.

[Kishkumen]

As an example, I don't find this argument persuasive:

viewtopic.php?p=14416#p14416

We know that we ended up with a story about a real guy Jesus. The story had its origin at some point in time. It could have been during or shortly after the life of a real guy Jesus. Or it could have been, for example, an urban legend or tall tale that originated during the same period of time. In either case, it seems to me that there is little difference in the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses given that Pilate is part of the story.

Of course, that is not Carrier's argument. Carrier's argument is that there was a mythical being who was turned into a fake historical figure named Jesus.

In any case, I don't agree with you. If you can offer some reasonably close comparanda, that might help. The evidence for Pilate's dealings with Jesus are about as solid as, or solider than, the evidence for other Roman officials' dealings with charismatic Jewish leaders of the first century CE, so I don't know who we would exclude on the basis of this idea that anyone of the others who are not attested by other, more reliable authors or in physical evidence could also be urban legends.

Consider Theudas, who is mentioned in Josephus' Antiquities at 20.97-98:

It came to pass, while Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain charlatan, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the Jordan river; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it. Many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them. After falling upon them unexpectedly, they slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem.

The same character may have been mentioned in Acts 5.36-38:

Men of Israel, be cautious in deciding what to do with these men. Some time ago, Theudas came forward, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. But he was killed and his whole following was broken up and disappeared. After him came Judas the Galilean at the time of the census; he induced some people to revolt under his leadership, but he too perished and his whole following was scattered.

The chronology of the report in Acts is off, as the speaker, Gamaliel, is making this statement ca. 37, whereas Fadus was procurator between 44 and 46 CE. Would we therefore dismiss Acts as evidence of Theudas, leaving us only Josephus, who might have been writing about an urban legend?

If we adopt the standard being championed here, we have no more reason to trust the reality of Theudas than we do Jesus.

Or perhaps Judas the Galilean (6 CE), mentioned by Josephus in Jewish War 2.8.1:

The territory of Archelaus was now reduced to a province, and Coponius, a Roman of the equestrian order, was sent out as procurator, entrusted by Augustus with full powers, including the infliction of capital punishment. Under his administration, a Galilean, named Judas, incited his countrymen to revolt, upbraiding them as cowards for consenting to pay tribute to the Romans and tolerating mortal masters, after having God for their lord. The man was a sophist who founded a sect of his own, having nothing in common with the others.

He, too, is mentioned in the same passage of Acts.

[dastardly stem]

Hi Stem. What I wrote about hearsay was prompted by this exchange:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=562&p=14501&hilit=hearsay#p14501

You seemed to me to be saying that all the evidence we have that support the existence of real guy Jesus was hearsay. My intent was to suggest that (1) not all the evidence is technically hearsay and (2) hearsay is not a helpful concept in the context of interpreting historical evidence. It seemed to me it was getting in the way more than it was helping, and I wanted to suggest discarding it.

I thought I was commenting on the two points Manetho had raised, not all evidence for Jesus. Ah well. Misunderstanding it seems to me.

I tried to use "In general" as an indicator that I was no longer directing my comments to you. I should have been clearer. My apologies.

I do think folks have made arguments that would be interesting to discuss. As an example, I don't find this argument persuasive:

viewtopic.php?p=14416#p14416

We know that we ended up with a story about a real guy Jesus. The story had its origin at some point in time. It could have been during or shortly after the life of a real guy Jesus. Or it could have been, for example, an urban legend or tall tale that originated during the same period of time. In either case, it seems to me that there is little difference in the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses given that Pilate is part of the story.

The thing I puzzle over is how large is the difference between a mythologized real person and a mythological person? It doesn't seem that large to me, but I claim no training or expertise in how myths begin. Other puzzles include whether the wide range of written Jesus stories that we find are more consistent with a real guy Jesus or an invented Jesus. The answer isn't important to me, but trying to think about how to think about the evidence is a fun exercise for me.

Thanks. Similar thoughts here.

[Kishkumen]

Hello Reverend,

I'm not sure I understand your thinking here:

Noteworthy to me is the fact that the undisputedly authentic Pauline epistles do not mention Pilate. Pilate first appears in Mark. Pilate also appears independently in the Roman author Tacitus.

If I recall correctly, Paul's letters contain very few details about Jesus. The common explanation for this is Paul didn't set out to write a biography of Jesus -- therefore the omissions aren't significant. Why do you find the omission of Pilate as especially significant in contrast to other details Paul fails to mention?

Also, what do you mean by "independently." Given the timing, I'm assuming Tacitus was not a direct witness. That means Tacitus had to have a source. On what basis do you rule out Mark or other references based on Mark as that source?

Thanks.

What it means is that we can exclude Paul as a source for Pilate. A number of mythicists claim that Paul made up Jesus, and that Mark is taking Paul's myth and imposing fabricated details on that myth to create a historically believable portrait. Paul's Jesus, however, is not really Mark's, and it is not clear that Mark is dependent upon Paul more generally.

My point is that if we have separate witnesses who provide different kinds of information (Pilate) about the same figure (Jesus), those separate evidences strengthen the case. It is perverse to argue that they weaken it, and it is only by engaging in a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that one can make Paul the cause of Mark and what Mark says dependent on Paul. That is one thing I have seen the mythicists do.

Furthermore, if an earlier version of the Jesus story (Paul) does not contain this information, but a later version (Mark) does, one cannot assume that the later version simply made that information up, or imported it fictitiously. The case must be made. That leads us to seeing how that information fits into a fact pattern. We can examine the interaction between Pilate and Jesus within fact patterns regarding the activities of Pilate and also the interactions between other Roman governors and other Jewish charismatic leaders. If those interactions generally fit, this should be taken as evidence in favor of the factual core of the story.

ETA: On Tacitus, it is insufficient to say that Tacitus "could have" read Mark; there are many possibilities of what he could have done, and what is the value in saying so? We should have to argue that it was likely he read Mark. It is much more likely, for what it is worth, that he read Josephus.

[Physics Guy]

Not sure why you think I'm talking proof when I haven't mentioned proof.

The fact that you haven't mentioned proof is why it seems to me that you're confusing proof and evidence, stem. You keep denying that something is evidence, or calling it very weak evidence, just because it doesn't compel us to believe. It sounds as though you often say "evidence" when what you are really talking about is proof. You seem to deny that something is evidence, or call it very weak evidence, just because it falls short of proof.

Identifying a possible scenario in which A could be false, in spite of some purported evidence B to support A, is a valid way to show that A is not proven. It's not a valid demonstration that B is not evidence for A. It's not even necessarily an indication that B is weak evidence. Far-fetched counterexamples don't have to be taken very seriously when you're weighing preponderance of evidence, even though they may be enough to torpedo a proof.

"Strong evidence that is still not strong enough by itself to convince me completely" is not a contradiction in terms. The grey zone of weighing likelihoods out of inconclusive evidence is exactly what both history and Bayesian inference are all about.

[Physics Guy]

To be fair, there is still subjectivity in the use of Bayes. The model of the system under study can contain errors, there can be observational measurement errors and then there can be overall errors in our understanding of the system.

Lem is the actual statistics person, so she would know more about this, but it is also my impression that you can't completely eliminate subjectivity with Bayes or anything else. The main advantage I see in Bayes over other approaches I know is that it is more flexible, and doesn't force you to impose inappropriate interpretations just because your tools are set up that way.

To me, though, the inevitability of subjectivity is why it's a bad idea to apply Bayesian inference in Carrier's way. Even when you've got a ton of quantitative data your conclusions can still be somewhat subjective. When you only have one sample of data, and so all your probabilities are just things you make up, then I just see no hope.

[dastardly stem]

Just to be clear that's not what I'm driving at there. I'm saying the story is what we have on Jesus...we don't have other pieces of evidence. For the Josh story we're saying the story told in Paul's letters, is what we're trying to verify with corroborating evidence. That'd be the best way for us to go. For Jesus all we have is the story to use as evidence. I agree. I'm not saying anything about proof, at this point. I don't know how that got mixed up in here.

Based on that standard, we would be forced to dismiss many historical figures as fictional constructs. This is not a reasonable standard of evidence for antiquity.

This is clearly the point of disagreement if you ask me. I don't know why people are off on this confusing evidence vs proof stuff as that isn't even in the discussion up until someone brought it up. But this right here is where we're stuck. And oddly I agree with you ultimately, while also acknowledging Carrier and others who fall on the other side in saying Jesus likely did not live have some pretty good points to discuss.

While I'm a bit stuck on the notion that there is very little or weak evidence for Jesus living from a modern, perhaps legal, perspective (I recognize this standard is an impossible one to achieve for that era) I think there has been good reason to look a bit deeper into the question of whether Jesus actually lived. And you're right if someone was to take the same view of other people in history from older eras then we'd be eliminating most figures we talk about in history. But, that's the question. Is there reason to dig a bit deeper wondering if all the assumptions we use to allow for the historicity of Jesus get in the way a bit in understanding what was happening in the early years as Christianity was getting started? It's a complicated question and no doubt poorly posed here, but I don't think it's a question to discard simply because we are beholden to the fear of eliminating historic figures left and right, if we applied the same type of standards.

To me, its safe and fair to say, we're talking along enough ago, we're talking an era with a paucity of confirming evidence and records, compared to say our modern era, so we're left with lower probability that named people from that era really lived in contrast to named people from the past 3 or 4 hundred years. So we'd have to say there's a lower probability that Alexander really lived, to use a previous mentioned example, than Napoleon. There's nothing problematic in that type of thinking, I don't think.

In any case, for Jesus we have:

Authentic letters of Paul, who mentions meeting Jesus' associates, dating as early as the 50s CE.

Independently authored biographies of Jesus dating 20 (Mark) to 40 years later (John) than the earliest authentic Pauline epistles.

Josephus who writes roughly 20 years after the Gospel of Mark.

We have no evidence suggesting that Mark knew Paul or the other Gospel writers.

We have no evidence suggesting that Josephus knew Paul or the other Gospel writers.

The Gospel of John does not have a clear relationship with the other Gospels. It is roughly contemporary with Josephus' Antiquities (ca. 90s CE).

Tacitus mentions Christus who was executed by Pilate in his Annals (15.44; written in the first quarter of the second century CE).

There is also the Mara Bar Serapion letter, which mentions the Jews having executed their "wise king" who gave them a "new law" before the Romans destroyed their city (Jerusalem). Mara Bar Serapion was a Syrian Stoic philosopher. The letter dates between 73-200 CE.

Noteworthy to me is the fact that the undisputedly authentic Pauline epistles do not mention Pilate. Pilate first appears in Mark. Pilate also appears independently in the Roman author Tacitus.

Mythicists love to argue that Paul's priority in the chronology proves his influence over the entirely of the sources. I dispute that. We don't want to commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy by assuming that because Paul came first he, or his story, caused the other accounts, which arguably appear independent of his influence.

A fine list of pieces particularly as we compare it to others of that era. But, I'd suggest, we'd still have to conclude something along the lines of its still less likely that Jesus lived than Joseph Smith. I mean Joseph Smith is a near 99% level while Jesus would be somewhere less. If less, then there is plenty of questions to explore, I'd think.