gurugeorge

We have nothing that can without reasonable cavil be called "the teachings of Jesus" (i.e. not even anything that Christian academics can wholeheartedly agree on). The closer you look at the roots of the gospels philologically, the less of the traditional "Jesus" (the man-God who came to redeem us from Original Sin) you find.

Further, it's not at all clear that the early Christians were motivated by any teachings from their "Jesus". What they seem to have been motivated by was contemplation of his nature as an intermediary between messy old us and the utter perfection of God. Search the earliest Christian writings and see if you can come up with any teachings of "Jesus" that aren't either general, or common wisdom (or sometimes Cynic wisdom) of the time, or simply midrash, stuff cobbled together and rehashed from Scripture.

What we do have is a bunch of ancient, obviously partisan texts with people saying lots of stuff about a character called "Jesus" who, initially, sounds very much like a myth, and not like somebody who ever lived, and then later takes on a faux-precise historical setting. Somebody called "Jesus" might have lived, but there's precious little in the way of evidence that could tell you unequivocally that he did, and any "Jesus" that can plausibly be reconstructed is a far cry from the full-on gospel Jesus.

As to the rest of your post, many of these are arguments that have been addressed by mythicists - it's an ongoing debate here at IIDB BC&H, and several other places on the web. I don't have the time to get into a long, detailed discussion atm.

Toto

If (3) is true, you have assumed what you are trying to prove.

The thesis that Jesus never existed is a minority position, but not necessarily "absurd." There are many characters in ancient writings who did not exist.

There are so many errors here it's hard to know where to start. Josephus' work is not considered to be an "especially reliable" record of history. Josephus himself wrote for political, polemical purposes and had his biases, and later scribes made additions to his work for their own purposes. The passage that connects Jesus to what became the later Christian movement is embedded in the passage that is almost universally admitted to have been tampered with, so we can't know what it originally claimed.

The discussion here will be more productive if you avoid attibuting bad motives to your opponents. "Historical ideological bias" and "willful historical ignorance" are accusations that could be made of Christian apologists. Why not admit that the historical record is uncertain, and reasonable people can differ on how to interpret it?

TrueMyth

gurugeorge--

I actually came from a "liberal arts" (the latter word you left out) Christian college, which might be either liberal (politically) or conservative. I also find it quasi-humorously sad that you find Lewis and "liberal" absolutely incompatible. Lewis is often derided by fundamentalists for being too liberal. For example, he was an advocate of salvific inclusivism; he believed in the evolution of species, including man; he rejected Scriptural inerrancy; he did not believe in either the doctrine of total depravity or of substitutionary atonement; etc. etc. This, of course, does not make Lewis a "liberal". The point is that such pejorative terms are relative to one's own position, and notoriously difficult (if not impossible) to define in the abstract.

Actually, these are the points which I am making regarding Jesus, Josephus, and the Biblical record.

1. I am not operating under any particular assumption of Jesus; nor am I compelled to at this juncture. For the purposes of argument, and the promotion of understanding, I am arguing the following: Jesus-- as a participant in the species homo sapien-- existed. I am not operating under a predicate-subject Leibnizian theory of truth, where the subject "Jesus" contains all relevant facts about the person, whether they be wisdom, miracles, or mental illness. I am simply stating that Jesus-- for the time being, until further evidence, as a homo sapien, existed.

2. What evidence do I have for this? Well, for one, the consensus of the vast majority of historians. For another, we see Josephus, and from him, we learn two significant facts about Jesus: a) Jesus the man existed, b) he was significant enough in some fashion for him to be known as "Christ", or the Jewish Messiah. From these two things, we can deduce that he was the most influential figure to the early Christians, or else why adopt his name in titling their sect? If a group of people call themselves Marxists, it is reasonable to assume that they follow (at least in part) the teachings of Karl Marx. Thus, any study of the "historical Jesus"-- his teachings, his actions, and his person-- must adequately take into account these three facts: Jesus existed, he was different enough from other teachers to be called the Messiah, and he was the progenitor, in some fashion, for the movement called Christianity. Which of the "historical Jesuses" fit these three facts the best is a live issue.

3. It is unquestioned that the Bible is partisan. It is not intended as an objective historical record; the Synoptics in particular were written to describe the life and person of Jesus to those who had not heard of him, and were intended to persuade them of a point. However, while their partisanship makes them less reliable than a more objective assessment, it does not rule them out entirely as a reliable record. To state that partisanship rules a thing out as being correct is to assume that there exist no reasons for partisanship, which is begging the question. Also, to rule out of hand all the things which might have been partisan is to commit the same error. This is a major criticism with the Jesus Seminar, among other hermeneutical approaches. There are, however, some universally accepted historical methods which are a part of the Synoptics: their information was gathered using eyewitness testimony, and the author rarely to never imposes his/her opinion on the events or persons, for example. The essential portrait of Jesus in the Bible is that he was a teacher who proposed revolutionary ideas about the nature of God and our duties to others. There is also a very strong thread that explores proof of Jesus' divine origins (be they co-equal to YHWH or simply sent from him), through miracles, omniscience at points, and his Resurrection. For these teachings, and this person, he was executed. All other "historical Jesuses" do not account for Josephus' facts adequately, to my mind. For all these reasons, I believe that while the Biblical record is probably not accurate at all points, it is accurate in its essential points

Clivedurdle

Oi! I brought up CS Lewis, and yup actually I think anyone who believes in the death and resurrection of JC , satan and all the other stuff in various hues dependent on the mood - definitely original sin if you read his sci fi stuff - is by definition a fundamentalist, and part of the fun of these lunatics is that they always call each other not quite a true xian (tm) in their eyes - laodicia dontchaknow.

By the way was that stuff earlier original or from somewhere else - and wots a liberal arts xian college when its at home?

Clivedurdle

Let's cut to the chase then.

So JC is the son of god, did rise from the dead, etc.

What was that about cocks crowing?

Alf

The problem is that there is no other alternative.

You can either fully endorese the gospels and assume that the gospels tell the whole truth about Jesus who was divine, virgin borne etc etc - which is absurd, or you can apply some skepticism to them and say that even though there might have been a historical figure at the bottom he is hopelessly lost and forgotten through the myth.

Most historians put forth this "minimal Jesus" and say that he was very likely a historical person. The problem is then that religious people all around do not hear the "minimal" part, they just hear "Jesus was historical" and then they try to tell everyone and their dog that the Jesus as described in the gospels was historical and "all historians agree" on that point. This is why I think professional historians should NOT just say that Jesus was very likely historical but should rather distance themselves from this religious propaganda.

The point is that yes, we can spin around and say that most likely he was some form of rabbi who got crucified and his name was Yeshu or some such. No miracles and all very naturalistic and possible. The problem is that whatever we say and even if we say no more than what I just said, it is STILL spinning and speculation. We have ZIP knowledge and evidence about what actually happened. I would expect professional historians to be honest enough to admit that and stop lending themselves to christian propaganda.

It is actually worse than this. Yes, many historians do say that "Jesus most likelly was a historical person" and then christians gather together and make seminars about what this "historical Jesus" and his teaching and what he can tell us today. SInce it is all "historical" and "scientific" it is not "religious preaching" and is therefore allowed in places where preaching would not be allowed. The problem is that we know zip about what Jesus taught if he was a rabbi at all and most likely what he taught was rather mediocre. If the story of the new testament where Jesus meet the caananite woman has any basis in true history he was a bigot and racist and have most likely very little to contribute of ethics to modern man. Christians will of course differ because to them he is God - a part of the trinity - but that is exactly why the christian's usage of this "historical Jesus" is anything but historical and why historians should keep a big distance between themselves and such groups. This is why historians should be very careful when they talk about Jesus and his potential historicity and not just make such simplistic statements as they do.

Yes, I agree that it is possible that there was a guy we can call Jesus running around palestine and teaching some ethics and have a small group of followers and then got crucified in Jerusalem. I still define myself as MJer because the gospel Jesus has virtually nothing in common with such a historical individual and we know zip about him. In particular, christians don't know and don't want to know anything about him. They only want to use him as a means to "prove" that their gospel Jesus was historical.

Alf

gurugeorge

There's no such consensus - the vast majority of historians haven't looked into the matter at all.

Even amongst NT scholars, there's no real consensus as to which of the many possible historical Jesi might be the one who existed, if at all. It seems that everyone looks at the story and finds a Jesus pretty much like them - a liberal Jesus, a revolutionary Jesus, a Jewish Jesus, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Nonsense, when anthropologists look at religion closely, they tend to find that what often happens is a bunch of teachings and ways of looking at things evolve amongst the leaders of a community, and then to give them gravitas when arguing with outsiders those teachings are retro-fitted to a "founder" - sometimes someone who existed, but sometimes someone mythological. As I posted elsewhere, one notable example is the Chinese Daoism (which was sometimes called Laoism), which was supposed in later times to have been founded by one Laozi, but actually gradually coalesced and was later thought to have had a single founder.

That there was a single historical founder can be doubted even in the cases of Islam and Buddhism too, although it's less dubious there than with Christianity. Some of the famous supposedly foundationally Jewish historical characters in the Old Testament are dubious too, even "David".

This is just question-begging.

Alf

Err.. the calendar we use today was first introduced by Julius Caesar - before Jesus was allegedly born.

The numbering of years we use today is from his supposed birth but wasn't introduced until the 6th century. Before this people - even the church - used other forms of numbering the years.

The calendar is not affected by his supposed death at all. It happened around year 33 or so if you are to believe the year numbering scheme that he was born exactly 1 BC (which we know is most likely wrong even if a historical Jesus actually existed). The festival of Easter is originally a spring festival celebrating the coming of spring. The Jews turned it into a festival to celebrate the Exodus (which never happened) and then the christians turned it into a celebration of the risen christ (which also never happened).

If you believe Jesus was born on december 25th let us know, we will get a good laugh. That day was also a winter festival (the turning and rebirth of fhe sun) and the Mithras religion turned it into a celebration of the birth of their sun-god and the christians turned it into a festival to celebrate the birth of christ. Their reasoning was that since we have no idea when Christ was born and Mithras religion celebrated birth of the sun on that day then we (the christians) can celebrate the birth of God - the creator of the sun - on that day. Christ was already at that time considered part of the trinity and divine.

There is absolutely nothing to our calendar that is actually related to Christ or Jesus other than the mistaken numbering of years.

The 7 day week is also something we have from the romans and was most likely shared with most of the ancient cultures at the time. Its origin has to do with the fact that there was 7 known objects in the sky other than the stars. The sun, the moon and 5 known planets (mercury, venus, mars, jupiter and saturn - uranus and neptune and pluto was not known in the ancient time).

The calendar with 31 days in January etc and even the names of the months is from the romans. Every march you celebrate the roman god of war and every January you celebrate Janus - the god of beginning and end. February has its name from a roman skin that was used for roman religious rituals before the coming of spring. Need I go on?

July is named after Julius Caesar and August is named after Augustus. Jesus was supposedly contemporary with Augustus but unlike Augustus there is no month or day in the calendar named after Jesus. Also, Augustus was obviuosly historical while Jesus is dubious and even if historical we know absolutely zip about him.

Alf

Alf

Agree.

Agree

Correction: Christianity was highly influenced by the alleged teaching of Jesus. Which of them actually originate from Jesus and which just put words in his mouth we don't know except that there are some instances where we can be reasonably sure that they are not genuinely from Jesus.

Also, those that do seem genuine indicate that Jesus was a racist, a bigot and taught an ethics that is far removed from what people today would think of as "reasonable" or "good". He was mediochre and taught some ethics that to an illiterate jewish farmer may have seemed very "wise" but which was rather sub-standard compared to what most other people would think of as good.

However, on top of that medioche Jesus they have put many words of wisdom in his mouth so that he appear as a good, wise and kind person who christians today look up to and they tell their children that Jesus is a nice guy who will look after them and they should make friends with Jesus etc etc.

Why is it important to peceive his impact as "great"?

Well, pick any "good" teaching from Jesus and it can be gnerally shown that it does not originate form him. Where he was good he was not original and where he was original he wasn't good. Also, too many things has been placed into his mouth. We can identify sections of sayings that is obviously from a time around 90 AD or later and could not possibly come from Jesus' mouth.

Which Jesus? The gospel Jesus most certainly never existed. This is NOT a minority position. If you find any non-christian historian who claim that gospel Jesus existed, HE will be in minority.

Depends on what you mean by "authentic". The "other" as you call it is not a statement about Jesus but about a person named "James". It is then added to it "The brother of Jesus" - whatever that is supposed to mean and then added to that "the one called Christ". The latest addition is very likely a forgery and the first addition also seem out of place. Josephus often added some description to identify which James etc he was talking about but why would he say "The brother of Jesus" if he hasn't spoken of Jesus earlier? Is it possible Josephus DID write something about Jesus but it was not to the liking of christians so they removed it? Another altenrative is that the "The brother of Jesus" is also an addendum. Yet one more alternative is that the early christian movement used the phrase "Brother of the lord" as a title and then some christian later changed it to "Brother of Jesus" in Josephus to make it clear which lord we are talking about - as in which James - it is the biblical James. As such it is also possible that "James the just" as Josephus referred to is NOT the same as the biblical James but that this was added later - I don't know.

However, as Josephus has already said "James the just" to identify this James it seems like an artificial add on to add in "the brother of Jesus" and so it can reasonably be regarded a later forgery.

So no, it is not only the TF that is under dispute and while the "other" quote is not as disputed and most likely have a core of original Josephus' writing it is hard to figure out exactly what that original writing was.

Are you sure you are not thinking of TF here. It is TF which has the "the tribe of christians" etc..

Also, as I said, that "other" quote is not about Jesus at all, it is about "James the just" and the added-on info about Jesus in the quote appear artificial.

That is odd. GIven that Josephus discussed various would-be Messiah and basically gave them less that good descriptions. He was known to be critical to such claims. If he really did what you say he did here, we would expect he would elaborate more on it and discuss why this guy - unlike the other candidates - really did deserve such a description.

It is far more likely that it was later copyists who added in those descriptions.

Again, this is very odd. How many christians do you find in Jewish societies around Jerusalem around 2nd century? Some perhaps but outside their own community they were never influential. The by far most influence of the christianity was Paul who did NOT work in the jewish communities. If what you are saying was true we would expect a large and influential jewish christian church. Where is it?

Since your premises are all dubious this conclusion does not at all follow.

Alf

lpetrich

I've found a couple of collections of historical-Jesus theories:

Peter Kirby's Historical Jesus Theories
Theories of the Historical Jesus

Peter Kirby has categories

Jesus the Myth: Heavenly Christ
Jesus the Myth: Man of the Indefinite Past
Jesus the Hellenistic Hero
Jesus the Revolutionary
Jesus the Wisdom Sage
Jesus the Man of the Spirit
Jesus the Prophet of Social Change
Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet
Jesus the Savior

I think that they can be (somewhat) simplified to:

* JC the god/man hybrid and savior; the Gospels are literally true.

* JC the wisdom sage, the Jewish Cynic (the ancient Cynics would need some explanation, however).

* JC the apocalyptic prophet, proclaiming the imminent end of this age in John the Baptizer fashion.

* JC the anti-Roman revolutionary leader.

* JC the Jewish holy man.

* JC being a purely heavenly god-figure.

* JC a myth.

I'd make the poll multiple-choice, because a historical JC could have been more than one of these.

And would it be reasonable to post a poll on the JC-historicity question in General Religious Discussions as well as here?