Professor of Early Christian History here, ask me anything!

[Aquinas11]

Is there historical evidence that Jesus rose fr the dead?

No. Miracles exist outside the know constraints of the physical universe, and thus can neither be proven or disproven by historical methods. The best we can say, is that people believed the resurrection happened.

Not sure what you mean by “miracle”? An event that contradicts “known physical laws” at the time of said event? An event that contradicts “known physical laws” in 2020? Good luck defining that term.

What is your definition of “historical evidence”? Seems to exclude testimonial evidence or documentary evidence or is the contention that there is zero testimonial evidence of resurrection? Per this definition it doesn’t seem as though there is much “historical evidence” of anything.

 

[ArchStanton]

Even Peter, the Apostle about which we know the most, has enormous blanks in his history. As a number of historians have pointed out, there is no actual historical evidence that he made it to Rome, or of how he died. Please note: that doesn’t mean he didn’t make it there, just that historians haven’t found evidence to prove it.

Would the following not count as ‘historical evidence’? … Thank you in advance!

Dionysius of Corinth

You have also, by your very admonition, brought together the planting that was made by Peter and Paul at Rome and at Corinth ; for both of them alike planted in our Corinth and taught us; and both alike, teaching similarly in Italy, suffered martyrdom at the same time ( Letter to Soter of Rome [inter A.D. 166 -174 ] as recorded by Eusebius).

 

[Aquinas11]

you have also fallen into the trap of confusing history and theology. They are different. Far different.

it seems many have fallen into that trap

my work as a historian does inform my faith in a variety of ways.

 

[billsherman]

Professor, do you think the question of interpolations in Josephus will ever be settled?

Probably not without a new manuscript discovery.

Do you think the main disputed passage is all interpolation, partial or none?

I go with the partial camp on this one. I think he wrote something along the lines of: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

Something like that seems reasonable to expect from Josephus, with the other parts being added by later Christian scribes.

Also, do you accept that every copy now in existence all trace back to (I think) Eusebius…even the odd one that was thought to be independent but latter challenged?

I haven’t waded too deep into that discussion, but I think the Eusebius origin theory remains pretty strong.

 

[jack63]

Thanks for the responses. It seems odd to me that Christianity which originated from Judaism would start embracing celibacy or the superiority of celibacy. I think it is not really a Jewish tradition today or even an ancient Jewish tradition (…maybe the Essenes). There is no call to celibacy in the old testament. Jesus’ words on Celibacy are vague at best (Matthew 19). Even St. Paul said his views on Celibacy where his personal views and not from God (1 Corinthians 7:25).

Where did these ideas on celibacy come from?

 

[billsherman]

Varying Attempts to debunk Sacred Scriptures are Legion.

Trying to figure out whether or not Q was a written source is an “Attempts to debunk Sacred Scriptures?”

You are aware that Luke himself is explicit that his gospel was based on other existing sources, right?

 

[billsherman]

This method has been stomped upon by popes (plural)

Things change: Divino Afflante Spiritu (September 30, 1943) | PIUS XII

Some historians hold that Q’s speculative hypothetical nature can never be dismissed…

Most don’t.

 

[billsherman]

Would the following not count as ‘historical evidence’?

It’s written a hundred or so years after Peter would have killed, so most historians see it as repeating tradition. Dionysius did not have first hand, or likely even second or third hand, knowledge of Peter being in Rome. There are no sources that had first hand knowledge of Peter being in Rome, that’s why some historians are skeptical.

Most, like me, think the tradition is likely based on reality, we just can’t prove it.

 

[billsherman]

Where did these ideas on celibacy come from?

From the attempt to imitate Jesus, from the writings of Paul which can be read to argue the superiority of celibacy, and from the general belief (certainly echoed by Paul) that the world would end shortly and marriage was not necessary.

But you’re right, it did kind of come out of left field. I wonder what some of the Apostles would have thought about it. Peter, at least, was married.

 

[EndTimes]

You are aware that Luke himself is explicit that his gospel was based on other existing sources, right?

So What…

All Written Sources are based upon Oral Sources - know ye not?

IN Catholicism - Luke and all Scriptures are Solid as a Rock -

If you don’t accept that - Prove it…

 

[Mintaka]

Re: Augustus’ death: An English translation of Possidius’ Life of Augustine is online at archive.org, Tertullian.org, and other places. St. Possidius was a friend of St. Augustine.

Re: Ehrman, he is the kind of “scholar” who says everything that St. Epiphanius wrote about the Borborygmians was a lie, including his claim to have been groomed for sexual abuse as a minor as they were trying to recruit him into their cult. (This was the big explanation of why Epiph got involved in documenting and refuting heretical groups, and was even overzealous against some normal Church customs.)

And then, after saying Epiphanius was this giant untrustworthy faker of cult crime, Ehrman quotes Epiphanius’ theological information about the Borborygmians, without crediting Epiphanius. There isn’t any other source Ehrman could be confusing with this.

Btw, there is no reason one would not believe Epiphanius. His story rings very true to accounts of cult grooming from throughout the ages, much less in modern life. Heck, in campus life, you hear these lines from shady occult groups. Ehrman comes across as a little naive about the stuff people get up to with kids, as people claiming to be “skeptics” often do.

But being naive is no crime. Ehrman’s pattern of bad arguments, twisting of quotes, and silent quoting of the same sources he just said were lies, is something no honest academic would do. You can open his popular books to almost any chapter and almost any page, and find academic sins of dishonest scholarship. And he has the gall to paint the early Christians as a bunch of liars and forgers? Seriously, what can you call it but projection?

So yeah, I have no time for Ehrman. Trying to use him as a source even for further research requires so much factchecking and backtracking that you might as well just skip him. There are clinically insane people posting on the Internet who still manage to get their quotes and bibliographies right, and who are thus more useful as research starters. (Draw whatever crazy conclusion you like, but don’t lie to me.)

 

[billsherman]

So What…

I don’t know what you are asking. Whether or not Q was a written a source is a legitimate line of historical inquiry. Luke is explicit that he used written sources to compile his gospel, so I have no idea why this would be problematic.

 

[Mintaka]

If you look around the Internet, you can still find professors and other researchers going through Ehrman chapters and patiently demonstrating their crapfulness. It was a blog sport a few years back*, and some of it may have disappeared as blogs became less popular. But as an academic, surely you saw tons of this stuff when it came out. Heck, I did.

But fine. Check for yourself. Look at part of one of his books. Read it carefully. Where is he drawing conclusions when he hasn’t proven the underlying assertions? What is his evidence as such? Maybe he doesn’t see it himself; but it doesn’t work as an argument for anything if you don’t get caught up in the rhetoric. And I don’t see how misuse of quotes, or silent quoting of previously disparaged sources, or any of the other games that can’t be uncovered without more backchecking, could be anything but deliberate.

*(Well, okay, that would have been anywhere from five to twenty years back, depending on what popular book we are talking about. Possibly I am getting older than I think I am.)

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

I will link the documentary when I get some time to find it.

 

[adf417]

Hi Bill, thanks for the thread-

Is there any historical proof or solid refutation that the canon of christian scripture, more spacifically the NT, was not determined by the church at the early 4th-5th century councils? Other than council documents is there other historical records showing what the christian scriptures were?

Peace!!!

 

[TMC]

Bill - great thread, thanks for doing this.

As a historian, what do you think of the common claim that the behavior of the very early Church is evidence of the Resurrection (or at least evidence of something extraordinary having occurred)? The argument is generally along the lines that the fact that the Apostles all kept up the faith, and all (or mostly) died for the faith is an indication that they must have believed in the Resurrection, which would be some evidence of its occurrence.

Taking one step back, given the paucity of historical evidence of the fates of the Apostles, would a historian ever take the behavior of third parties as evidence of the happening of some otherwise unsubstantiated event?

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Wow, things went off the rail while I was away. For what its worth, I am very thankful that Bill is letting us ask him questions and even entertaining debates about his conclusions. People need to chill out and be respectful.

Maybe, or maybe not. The evidence we have seems to indicate that it wasn’t important to them. All of the canonical gospels are anonymous, so it clearly wasn’t important to the writers (yes, I know John is attributed at the end, but I don’t know any historians who believe that was original to the gospel).

If the gospels were truly anonymous when they were penned, I would expect a contest of claims as to their authorship by various early church fathers. We don’t see that as far as I recall. I don’t think Matthew was ever attributed to anyone else. I don’t think Marks gospel was ever attributed to another (other than saying he was peters pen). Johns gospel was never attributed to another by an early writer. Luke’s gospel wasn’t attributed to another. If they made up the associations, why didn’t they take advantage of that freedom and just say the gospels were penned by the greatest of the apostles to add to its authority? Instead we get middle management figures like Luke and Mark.

It is the opinion of most historians that those fathers are either following Papias (the first one to mention Mark), or are reporting the same tradition that he was.

Ok, lets say I agree with you, that they were just faithfully passing down the knowledge they received from Papias (see what i did there ). I think Irenaeus called out Papias as his source explicitly. Papias was born roughly A.D. ~60 to ~70. and was a hearer of St John (same region, same time, same interests ). If anyone might have known the authorship of each gospel, it was people like him.

Consider that my mother has a pen and ink drawing from my great grandfather from just before WWI. Its not signed at all as far as I can tell. But the authorship information has been passed on down to me (and it will be to my sons as well). The distance in time is much greater for me and my great grandad than it was for Papias and the apostles. Its not like we accomplished something spectacular by repeating this information to successive generations. Its normal, people want to preserve information they care about. I think the reason people object to this historical methodology you are employing is because it would say something as innocent as my claim about my great grandads art is not reliable. But in reality, my oral sources are reliable, this inherently suspicious methodology would actually distort my own family history by saying the author of the artwork is anonymous.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

continued…

More significantly, historians have looked at the textual traditions within Mark and come to a variety of conclusions that make it unlikely to have been written by a known writer. The current consensus is that it was redacted from a number of now non-existent sources by an anonymous scribe who was relatively weak in Greek, and Mark was assigned as its author in order to further establish authority. That theory certainly fits the textual evidence better than the theory that it composed by a single author, based on a single source (Peter).

As the saying goes: “Copy from one; its plagiarism. Copy from two; its research.”

It makes sense that there were bits copied and changed by cross checking info with other sources. But if you think Mark was first, I can understand why you come to that conclusion about non-existent sources. There was no other gospel to cross check against, so it must have been an amalgam of different now missing sources. However, I don’t believe Mark came first. I think Mark had access to Hebrew Matthew and possibly Greek Matthew. I suspect the lost Hebrew Matthew Gospel is the missing link that would straighten out a lot of the existing confusion if it was ever to be found.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

I agree with you 100%!

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that there are excerpts of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Aramaic.

Good night for now!