A Stable Flux

The particular work by Bart D. Ehrman Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet and the work The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate are on my reading list.
Although as I said in the very first post in the OPThis thread was intended for discussion. My ideas about Yeshua meet your ideas about Yeshua and then we may through a dialectic discussion reach a higher point of understanding.

From alone trying to think of the most obscure Jesus to a contemporaneous viewpoint is not an overpowering argument or at all a refutation of "Crossan et al. Or by conservatives".

Antipope Innocent II

Maybe. I'm sorry - but I'm about to spend several weeks travelling in Scandinavia on business. This means I will probably not have regular internet access and definitely won't have access to my books. Perhaps if you'd take that next few weeks to read Erhman and Allison's works you'll be in a better position to discuss this further.

Trying to think of the "most obscure Jesus" per se is not a convincing argument. If a Jesus fits too closely to what someone with a modern agenda would love the believe, on the other hand, that rings loud warning bells. Especially if evidence needs to be explained away or fiddled with to achieve this "fit".

On the other hand, when a picture of Jesus fits the evidence without any fiddling, does away with traditional special pleading and fits happily with a view that is comfortably Jewish but uncomfortable for any form of orthodoxy, then we're likely to be close to something useful and historical.

And away from stuff with axes to grind - Christian, New Age or atheist.

So please read the current substantiation for the venerable idea that Jesus was a chiliastic prophet. Then feel free to discuss it here.

Cheers.

mg01

All this shows is the gospel tradition cannonized by the early church leaders preserved the point of view that suited them. There is now doubt that these individuals and the tradition they adhered to believed the sayings of Jesus contained an apocholyptic message. The fact is there were a range of traditions derived from very same sayings with completely different interpretations, all of which were condemend, supressed, excommunicated, etc... during the first 4 centuries of early Christianity. A record which is clearly preserved in the writings of the Polycarp, Origen, Ignatius, Athanasius, Marcion, and Justin.

Amaleq13

Paul is also arguably apocalyptic though some scholars have pointed out what they considered indications that this position had "softened" somewhat by the end of his apostolic career. What is most interesting and, IMO, most problematic for the notion of Jesus as a primarily apocalyptic preacher is that Paul doesn't connect his apparent apocalyptic position to anything taught by Jesus.

Presumably, under the assumption of an apocalyptic Jesus, that is ultimately where Paul would have obtained his own position and what Jesus was most known for by the general public. Yet we don't even find a mention by Paul that the Temple was predicted to fall. :huh:

Gawen

I couldn't tell you. There are others that post here and better versed in this than I.

Gawen

{Bold mine} It doesn't really make a difference, or it shouldn't, so to speak, to either MJ's or HJ's as the Jesus mission is apocryphal in nature. The end of the world as they knew it was about to end. Jesus, the Apsotles and JtB all proclaimed this. Their ways to salvation in the "new world" revolved around end world times.

aa5874

It is the authors who determined the message of the character called Jesus and they decided to make him an apocalyptic. It would appear that the authors of the NT told "Jesus" what to say.