Source: John Dickson (2006) The Christ Files: How historians know what they know about Jesus.
Page 2-3
Christianity claims to be based on history / Christianity is based on claims that can be examined historically.
- The new testament revolves around a series of events said to have occurred in Palestine between 5 BC and AD 30. If you claim something spectacular took place in history, intelligent people are going to ask you historical questions.
Page 3
How historians know what they know about?
- How historians arrive at their conclusions: What sources do they use? What methods do they employ? What levels of reliability do they assign to the various data?
Page 9
In the field of academia, and especially in New Testament studies it seems, scholarship tends to fall into three broad camps, or three points along a continuum:
1) Sceptical scholarship – Experts here ply the scholarly craft of nay-saying and hyper-scepticism
2) Mainstream / Middle scholarship – Experts who just get on with the business of analysing the related materials in the way historians treat any other comparable historical sources.
3) Apologetic (defence) scholarship – Experts here are already convinced about the truths of Christianity and spend their time defending traditional belief from those who attack it.
Page 17-24
Greco-Roman references
- Examples: Thallos, Mara bar Serapion, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Lucian of Samosata, Celsus.
- The troublemaker: Overall with the exception of Mara bar Serapion, who paints Jesus as philosophical martyr, Greeks and Romans saw Jesus as a dissident and religious pretender.
Page 25-32
Jewish writings (did not believe he was the promised Messiah-Christ)
- Examples: Josephus, Talmud
- Deceiver and magician
Page 31-32
Putting some details about Jesus together: The Greco-Roman writings +The Jewish writings
• The name ‘Jesus’
• The place and time-frame of his public ministry
• The name of his mother (Mary)
• The ambiguous nature of his birth
• The name of one of his bothers (James)
• His fame as a teacher
• His fame as a miracle-worker/sorcerer
• The attribution to him of the title ‘Messiah/Christ’
• The ‘kingly’ status in the eyes of some
• The time and manner of his execution (crucifixion around the Passover festival)
• The involvement of both the Roman and Jewish leadership in his death
• The coincidence of an eclipse at the time of his crucifixion
• The report of Jesus’ appearances to his followers after his death
• The flourishing of a movement that worshipped Jesus after his death
Page 33-36
You cannot use Christian sources because they were all written by religious leaders.
1) The New Testament as a historical text
- The so-called ‘religious’ nature of Christian writings in no way diminishes their value as historical sources. Historians take the Christian agenda into account when they analyse the New Testament, just as they take the imperial bias into account when studying Tacitus or the Jewish bias when reading Josephus, but historians do not place the New Testament in special category. It is simplistic and unhistorical to say that Christian bias undermines the historical worth of the New Testament texts. In fact it is no exaggeration to say that historians universally regard the New Testament writings as the earliest, most plentiful and most reliable sources of information about Jesus of history.
2) The New Testament is a compilation of sources
- In historical research, the New Testament is analysed as a compilation of independent traditions with common convictions about the Jesus of Nazareth. Christians need to remember that, although our sacred documents were composed and circulated in the first century, they were not brought together into a single volume (the New Testament) until the forth century. The New Testament is a compilation of texts that were composed and circulated independently of each other in the first century. This is a historical significant.
Page 49-50
Multiple sources and Christian faith
- Luke 1:1-4 is an affirmation of Luke’s knowledge and use of earlier sources about Jesus. The sources are of two types:
1) Other written accounts
2) Traditions coming from ‘eyewitnesses’ and ‘servants of the world’. This source is what modern scholars call ‘oral tradition’, memorised reports.
The point is: modern scholars’ identification and analysis of Gospel sources (Mark, Q, L, M and SQ) are entirely consistent with what Luke himself affirms.
Page 52-56
Historians’ criteria
1) Criterion of multiple attestation
- when numerous ancient sources independently offer roughly the same portrait of an event or person that portrait takes on greater plausibility.
2) Criterion of coherence
- when an episode or teaching in the Gospels fits well with what we already confidently know about Jesus’ life, it is generally deemed high plausible.
3) Criterion of dissimilarity
-When a deed or saying of Jesus recorded in the Gospels cannot be said to have derived from the beliefs and practices of either Judaism or the early church, it is often deemed highly reliable. The logic is that such a saying or deed is unlikely to have been invented.
4) Criterion of archaic style
- Episodes or teachings in the Gospels, which display a strongly Aramaic style (even though written in Greek), are generally regarded as older, that is, they were composed closer to in time to Jesus himself.
5) Criterion of embarrassment
-Episodes in the Gospels that would probably have caused some embarrassment to the Christians who recorded the event are generally given great weight.
6) Criterion of memorability
- Sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels which are inherently memorable are more likely to have been passed in accurately by his disciples.
7) Criterion of date
- Sayings and episodes contained in earlier sources are frequently considered more reliable that those contained in the later sources.
Page 57-68
Why were the Gospels written so late?
- Actually it did not take long at all. In ancient terms, a gap of 40 years between an event and the first full written account is not considered lengthy, so long as the account is discernibly based on earlier sources.
- Before the invention of the printing press (15th century) and the explosion of literacy it ignited, human societies were principally aural societies. This means they learnt important material not by reading it but by hearing it. Keep in mind that only about 10-15 percent of people in the first century Mediterranean world could read.
- In the first century, written documents were accessible to only a tiny portion of the Greco-Roman world. If you wanted to communicate with the masses, you did not publish books but you broad oral tradition (verbal transmission and memorisation). As strange as it sounds to modern ears, oral tradition was the preferred means of preserving and passing on important information in the ancient world.
Page 68-70
Why were the Gospels written so soon?
- Written documents had one clear advantage over oral tradition: they could easily transmit information over long distances. The Gospels were written down so soon because Christianity spread so rapidly.
Page 71-90
Background sources for the study of Jesus / Indirect Sources
1) The Tanakh or Old Testament
- The Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings)—hence TaNaKh.
2) Dead Sea Scrolls
- Discovered in 1947
- Were written in Hebrew and Aramaic (and a few in Greek) sometime between 200 BC – AD 70.
3) Mishnah
- is a collection of sayings of over 150 Jewish rabbis from the period of 50 BC – AD 200.
4) Josephus
- The multi-volume history of the Jews written by Josephus toward the end of the first century (Jewish Antiquities).
5) Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
- Pseudepigrapha is a modern term referring to a range of Jewish writings not include in the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).
6) Greco-Roman writers
7) Archaeology
Page 2-3
Christianity claims to be based on history / Christianity is based on claims that can be examined historically.
- The new testament revolves around a series of events said to have occurred in Palestine between 5 BC and AD 30. If you claim something spectacular took place in history, intelligent people are going to ask you historical questions.
Page 3
How historians know what they know about?
- How historians arrive at their conclusions: What sources do they use? What methods do they employ? What levels of reliability do they assign to the various data?
Page 9
In the field of academia, and especially in New Testament studies it seems, scholarship tends to fall into three broad camps, or three points along a continuum:
1) Sceptical scholarship – Experts here ply the scholarly craft of nay-saying and hyper-scepticism
2) Mainstream / Middle scholarship – Experts who just get on with the business of analysing the related materials in the way historians treat any other comparable historical sources.
3) Apologetic (defence) scholarship – Experts here are already convinced about the truths of Christianity and spend their time defending traditional belief from those who attack it.
Page 17-24
Greco-Roman references
- Examples: Thallos, Mara bar Serapion, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Lucian of Samosata, Celsus.
- The troublemaker: Overall with the exception of Mara bar Serapion, who paints Jesus as philosophical martyr, Greeks and Romans saw Jesus as a dissident and religious pretender.
Page 25-32
Jewish writings (did not believe he was the promised Messiah-Christ)
- Examples: Josephus, Talmud
- Deceiver and magician
Page 31-32
Putting some details about Jesus together: The Greco-Roman writings +The Jewish writings
• The name ‘Jesus’
• The place and time-frame of his public ministry
• The name of his mother (Mary)
• The ambiguous nature of his birth
• The name of one of his bothers (James)
• His fame as a teacher
• His fame as a miracle-worker/sorcerer
• The attribution to him of the title ‘Messiah/Christ’
• The ‘kingly’ status in the eyes of some
• The time and manner of his execution (crucifixion around the Passover festival)
• The involvement of both the Roman and Jewish leadership in his death
• The coincidence of an eclipse at the time of his crucifixion
• The report of Jesus’ appearances to his followers after his death
• The flourishing of a movement that worshipped Jesus after his death
Page 33-36
You cannot use Christian sources because they were all written by religious leaders.
1) The New Testament as a historical text
- The so-called ‘religious’ nature of Christian writings in no way diminishes their value as historical sources. Historians take the Christian agenda into account when they analyse the New Testament, just as they take the imperial bias into account when studying Tacitus or the Jewish bias when reading Josephus, but historians do not place the New Testament in special category. It is simplistic and unhistorical to say that Christian bias undermines the historical worth of the New Testament texts. In fact it is no exaggeration to say that historians universally regard the New Testament writings as the earliest, most plentiful and most reliable sources of information about Jesus of history.
2) The New Testament is a compilation of sources
- In historical research, the New Testament is analysed as a compilation of independent traditions with common convictions about the Jesus of Nazareth. Christians need to remember that, although our sacred documents were composed and circulated in the first century, they were not brought together into a single volume (the New Testament) until the forth century. The New Testament is a compilation of texts that were composed and circulated independently of each other in the first century. This is a historical significant.
Page 49-50
Multiple sources and Christian faith
- Luke 1:1-4 is an affirmation of Luke’s knowledge and use of earlier sources about Jesus. The sources are of two types:
1) Other written accounts
2) Traditions coming from ‘eyewitnesses’ and ‘servants of the world’. This source is what modern scholars call ‘oral tradition’, memorised reports.
The point is: modern scholars’ identification and analysis of Gospel sources (Mark, Q, L, M and SQ) are entirely consistent with what Luke himself affirms.
Page 52-56
Historians’ criteria
1) Criterion of multiple attestation
- when numerous ancient sources independently offer roughly the same portrait of an event or person that portrait takes on greater plausibility.
2) Criterion of coherence
- when an episode or teaching in the Gospels fits well with what we already confidently know about Jesus’ life, it is generally deemed high plausible.
3) Criterion of dissimilarity
-When a deed or saying of Jesus recorded in the Gospels cannot be said to have derived from the beliefs and practices of either Judaism or the early church, it is often deemed highly reliable. The logic is that such a saying or deed is unlikely to have been invented.
4) Criterion of archaic style
- Episodes or teachings in the Gospels, which display a strongly Aramaic style (even though written in Greek), are generally regarded as older, that is, they were composed closer to in time to Jesus himself.
5) Criterion of embarrassment
-Episodes in the Gospels that would probably have caused some embarrassment to the Christians who recorded the event are generally given great weight.
6) Criterion of memorability
- Sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels which are inherently memorable are more likely to have been passed in accurately by his disciples.
7) Criterion of date
- Sayings and episodes contained in earlier sources are frequently considered more reliable that those contained in the later sources.
Page 57-68
Why were the Gospels written so late?
- Actually it did not take long at all. In ancient terms, a gap of 40 years between an event and the first full written account is not considered lengthy, so long as the account is discernibly based on earlier sources.
- Before the invention of the printing press (15th century) and the explosion of literacy it ignited, human societies were principally aural societies. This means they learnt important material not by reading it but by hearing it. Keep in mind that only about 10-15 percent of people in the first century Mediterranean world could read.
- In the first century, written documents were accessible to only a tiny portion of the Greco-Roman world. If you wanted to communicate with the masses, you did not publish books but you broad oral tradition (verbal transmission and memorisation). As strange as it sounds to modern ears, oral tradition was the preferred means of preserving and passing on important information in the ancient world.
Page 68-70
Why were the Gospels written so soon?
- Written documents had one clear advantage over oral tradition: they could easily transmit information over long distances. The Gospels were written down so soon because Christianity spread so rapidly.
Page 71-90
Background sources for the study of Jesus / Indirect Sources
1) The Tanakh or Old Testament
- The Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings)—hence TaNaKh.
2) Dead Sea Scrolls
- Discovered in 1947
- Were written in Hebrew and Aramaic (and a few in Greek) sometime between 200 BC – AD 70.
3) Mishnah
- is a collection of sayings of over 150 Jewish rabbis from the period of 50 BC – AD 200.
4) Josephus
- The multi-volume history of the Jews written by Josephus toward the end of the first century (Jewish Antiquities).
5) Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
- Pseudepigrapha is a modern term referring to a range of Jewish writings not include in the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).
6) Greco-Roman writers
7) Archaeology
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