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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Toto: But there is a clear motivation. The gentiles who became early Christians were in a power struggle with early Jewish Christians. They invented the betrayal by Judas (Judas = Jew) and the role the Sanhedrin, in order to blacken the name of the Jews. Rather than being embarassing, it was quite convenient.

In addition to Layman's excellent point, you simply seem to be unaware of the fact that all four gospels depict the other 11 disciples as being Jews. If the motivation of the gospel writers was to slander Jews, then why would they also claim their heroes Peter, James, John, Andrew, etc. were also Jews ? Why would Paul claim to be a Jew? Heck, why would they brag about Jesus being a Jew?

Why would all of the testimony of the early church unanimously agree that all of these men were Jews? Why would one of the canonical letters be named after a person with the same name (Jude)? Why would the person who wrote Jude use the same name if it was so indicative of the very group the Christians were trying to slander? Please don't cite biblical books because you obviously don't believe them to be reliable. Or maybe you only do when you can totally reverse the meaning of the authors without providing any supporting evidence beyond your wishful thinking.

I doubt if you've given any of these issues much thought, but I'd love to hear your feedback on them if you have. If they invented Judas, then why did they also invent all of the other details I just listed above?

I just re-read your post and realized it is even more unbelievable than I first thought. I thought you were saying that Christians invented Judas because they were opposing non-Christian Jews. After re-reading your post, I see that you're actually claiming Gentile Christians were in dispute with Jewish Christians. This simply doesn't make sense. What evidence do you have to support your claim?

Josephus names no fewer than nine men named "Judas". It was a popular name. Some of the men named "Judas" in the works of Josephus are not painted in a positive light. I doubt you'd argue that any of them are fictitious. Hmmmm... Nothing like that free-thinking logic at work.

The issue of Judas was far from convenient for early Christians. It makes Jesus look like a moron. As far back as Celsus (2nd century), skeptics have used it as ammo to prove that Jesus didn't know what he was doing when he chose his disciples. If Jesus was the Son of God as Christians claimed, then why would he have purposely chosen a betrayer. This is not the type of thing Christians would have fabricated.

Peace,

Polycarp

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bookman: One quick question that will help me a bit with the previous post: We have described the historical Jesus as "a teacher". Is saying that he had disciples redundant with that? Is disciples just another word for students in this context? I seem to recall that latin discipulus (and I may have butchered the spelling) simply means student.

When I use the term disciple I use it in the sense of someone who followed Jesus around while he taught - sort of an inner circle of followers who admired the guy for whatever reason. Kinda like modern-day rock n' roll groupies (sans the sex).

Peace,

Polycarp

Still something bothering me about the historiocity of the disciples as depicted in Mark et alia; I just can't put my finger on it. Is there any external document that corroborates the bible on that?

Bookman

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bookman: Still something bothering me about the historiocity of the disciples as depicted in Mark et alia; I just can't put my finger on it. Is there any external document that corroborates the bible on that?

The Talmud says Jesus had 5 disciples, but it gets their names wrong. Does that count? I'm not really sure why it needs to be outside the bible.

Paul refers to "the Twelve", and he also knew Peter and John personally. Certainly this must count for something.

Peace,

Polycarp

Sorry to be so long in replying, Polycarp. I took some time today to read Thomas and a reconstruction of Q to follow up with Layman's post and this one.

I can see no reason to object to his having a small consistent group of students/ disciples - several of the Thomas quotes refer to these disciples.

So, where does that leave us:
This is a compilation of what's been generally agreed to so far (at least that I have kept up with). Feel free to offer amendments to it. It seems that we have some sort of consensus on what he was - do we know anything about what he did?

What events in Jesus life do you think are well-established historically?

[This message has been edited by Bookman (edited May 01, 2001).]

- Jesus was a Jew from Nazereth;
- He was a teacher who used parables;
- He had disciples;
- He taught the coming Kingdom of God on earth in the near future;
- Like many others of his time, he was believed to be a miracle worker;
- He spoke out against the priestly establishment and the established law;
- He was crucifed;
- He was buried;
- After his death, his disciples believed he was, in some sense, still with them.


I could stipulate to all these points - to a degree. Would I stake my life on it? Not a chance. Would I bet a million dollars on it? Not likely. A thousand dollars? Maybe. Would I wager doing all the household cleaning for a month? Probably.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bookman: Sorry to be so long in replying, Polycarp. I took some time today to read Thomas and a reconstruction of Q to follow up with Layman's post and this one. I can see no reason to object to his having a small consistent group of students/ disciples - several of the Thomas quotes refer to these disciples.

No rush, Bookman. I'm very short on time, too. Before moving on, what do you think about the "betrayal" issue ?

It also seems as though you believe Thomas is earlier than the canonical gospels. I would definitely disagree with that presupposition. We'll have to do a thread on Thomas another time. Since we're working from different starting points, I'm sure we'll come up with lists that are substantially different.

Peace,

Polycarp

I'm not willing to say that his betrayal by a close confidant is an historical given, at least not yet.

Also, regarding Thomas. I read through it not because I thought it was earlier (foolishly, I suppose, I didn't give its dating much thought). but because I understood it to be an independent recording of some of the statements attributed to Jesus. I thought it would be a valuable resource to help me determine what I believed he empasized in his teachings.

If what you say is true, though, then Thomas may be drawing the existance of the disciples and some of their names from the synoptics (if I'm using that correctly), and may not be corroborative as I had supposed.

Nevertheless, the existance of a close group of followers still seems acceptable to me. I am not yet aware of anything that we can conclude about them: their names, their number, or anything that they might have done. I think that's my hesitation in dealing with the betrayal. How would we reliably know?

Bookman

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bookman: Nevertheless, the existance of a close group of followers still seems acceptable to me. I am not yet aware of anything that we can conclude about them: their names, their number, or anything that they might have done. I think that's my hesitation in dealing with the betrayal. How would we reliably know?

I’m a little perplexed with your question – “How would we reliably know?” I think we’d reliably know (to a reasonable probability) in the same way we would know the other items on which we agree:

- Jesus was a Jew from Nazareth;
- He was a teacher who used parables;
- He had disciples;
- He taught the coming Kingdom of God on earth in the near future;
- Like many others of his time, he was believed to be a miracle worker;
- He spoke out against the priestly establishment and the established law;
- He was crucified;
- He was buried;
- After his death, his disciples believed he was, in some sense, still with them.


They come from the same sources. They don’t involve miraculous claims. There’s no known motivation to lie. Paul claims to know some of the disciples, and that there was a core group of twelve. I don’t know of a much better way to “reliably know” something. What is different about the betrayal compared to the other items? I don’t mean to make a big deal out of this minor issue, but I’m just trying to figure out how you determine which events in the gospels are historical and which are fictitious. Why would the gospel writers (and Paul) fabricate the betrayal when it leads to so many of the problems I mentioned earlier?

Peace,

Polycarp

What it comes down to to me is the same as the problems I have with the various Caesar threads. The evidence is being considered at face value only, without any consideration to the probability of fabrication.

Did Julius Caesar exist? What would someone have had to pull off to create the first (or 0th, if you want to privelidge Augustus) Roman Emporer? The details of his life would have been immediately newsworthy throughout the ancient world. It strikes me that it would be much more difficult to have made up details about events such as the assassination because there were so many more eyewitnesses and so many more people cared about what the truth was at the time the events actually happened.

With regard to "betrayal by a member of his inner circle", it has a mythic quality to it. It answers a difficult question: "If he was the Son of God, then how did he fall to the Romans (or the Jews, if you prefer)?" Despite what you stated, I can see motivations for the invention of a betrayal. It answers the question above, and it is also a lesson: even the greatest of his students can be lead by temptation. You lead me to this passage (1 Corinthians 11:23):

I'm guessing that what is here translated (in Young's Literal Translation) as "delivered up" is translated in "betrayed" other versions. I certainly don't have the language skills to examine that any further, but I don't see why "delivered up" could not simply refer to any group of people who brought him to the Romans for punishment, not necessarily an insider.

Also, should we take "Jesus was a Jew from Nazereth" off the board? Obviously, if he existed he was from somewhere - how do we know where he was from? The gospels have conflicting accounts of when he was born; how do we know where he was born.

Thanks for all your time. I am really enjoying this and learning a lot.

Bookman