Chunk

After reading a similar thread that made the typical claims about "We know the tomb was found empty", "We know the apostles were willing
to die for thier beliefs" etc, therefore we can make the conclusion that Jesus must be the risen son of God, I have been inspired to do
something similar.

From an unbiased (if that is possible) point of view, and assuming an HJ, what can we say we "know" about Jesus and early Christianity?

I appreciate that there will be variation from person to person. The point of this thread isnt to result in another discussion on HJ vs MJ,
more to come to some sort of conclusion about what we can (within reason) say we "know".

The points I have come up with, I think are about the best case any Christian can reasonably use to justify their faith. Im not suggesting
that my list is complete by any means. I am also aware that a Christian would argue personal experience etc in favour of their beliefs, that
type of thing isnt for this thread.

If people could suggest threads relevant to each point, perhaps it would be a good idea for me to list them next to that point.

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1) Early creeds can be found in Pauls epistles that detail a belief in a dead, buried, raised Jesus who (through faith) is the way to God and
a place in Heaven.

2) Paul describes a man named Jesus who was crucified, buried and then raised in order that the world can have salvation.

3) Paul references a group of Apostles, which tells us that at least some others were spreading the same (or very similar) message as he was.

4) Something happend to Paul that changed him from being a persecutor of Christianity, to a follower and teacher of Christianity.

5) Paul wrote his Epistles roughly 50ad to 80ad.

6) The idea of a crucified Messiah went against the expectations of the Jews.

7) The gospels teach a crucified and risen Jesus as Messiah, in much the same was as Pauls epistles.

8) The 4 cannonical gospels arent 4 seperate accounts of historical events. Matthew and Luke borrow heavily from Mark. John is different to Markk,
Matthew and Luke.

9) It is very unlikely that the cannonical gospels were written by eye witnesses to the events that they detail.

10) No non-Christian source within the 1st centuary makes CLEAR RELIABLE reference to Jesus or Christianity.

11) The gospels were written roughly between 70ad and 110ad.

12) Matthew and Luke appear to borrow from a source (known as Q) which predates the first gospel.

13) Q makes no reference to a crucifiction or Jesus as Messiah. However, it is also incomplete, there is no way of knowing what was contained
in the original. It doesnt present a version of events in contrast with the gospels, rather it doesnt give any biographical account at all.

14) The gospels are shot with exaggeration, myth, legend and human interpretation.

15) A passion narrative pre dating the gospels is likely to have existed. This could have been in the form of oral tradition.

16) It is likely that early oral tradition about the life, passion and death of Jesus was heavily influenced by the importance of Old Testament
scripture. (This appears to have resulted in "History scriptualized").

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So, any other suggestions? Feel free to point out where I have gone wrong, but can we try not to turn the thread into a full discusion of one specific
point (and hence forget the main purpose of the thread). If certain things have been discussed elsewhere, it might be better to provide a link.

mit

Usually a lurker but I have one question that occured to me through the whole HJ/MJ debate. The gospels (for good reason) seem to have a lot of doubt thrown at them, similarly Acts. Why, then do we seem to accept Paul's epistles as being what Paul wrote and not something that a monk put together at some stage. Nobody ever seems to question their validity at all.

MIT

Skeptical

I have a few "nits" with your list, assuming what we can with some level of reasonableness say:

We have to be careful here, we can say that Paul _said_ others had messages similar to his, but we're taking his word, and Paul may have had reasons not be entirely forthcoming or to exaggerate his role.

Again, according to Paul. Paul probably had some experience, what exactly it was and what he was doing before it I am not so sure we can say. There wasn't exactly factcheck.org looking over his shoulder.

A little more context is needed I think. There were some themes "in the air" so to speak of suffering servants of the Lord Yahweh. That is what Mat picked up on. As to whether this suffering servant was also the Messiah, I think it is safe to say that was definitely not the predominant meme regarding the Messiah.

It should also be pointed out that the concept of the Messiah was inextricably linked to the idea of Israel and the Jew's place in the world as the chosen people of Yahweh. If the Messiah was not there to deliver them from the evildoers and show the power of Yahweh manifested in Israel's return to glory, then the concept doesn't really make a lot of sense. Not to mention that the nation of Israel was either fundamentally wrong on a major tenet of their belief system or Yahweh fundamentally misled them if Jesus was "the Messiah".

Paul is pretty light on the details, he speaks more in "creedal" formulaic terms. But basically right.

Josephus is clear, it's just that it may not be realiable. Small nit. I don't think we need any other references to Christianity in the 1st as I don't think anyone doubts that there was some sort of Jesus movement occuring, whatever its origins or beliefs. I'm not all the interested in whether Josephus is legit or not either, since it would only matter if one is arguing about a MJ or HJ. Whether there was an HJ or not, there was certainly a Jesus movement in the 1st.

I may be wrong, but I believe some scholars do still doubt that Q existed and instead hypothesize that Luke used Mat.

Same for the gospel of Thomas, another sayings gospel. One could also point out that Mark has no interest in the birth of Jesus and not much interest in the resurrection, so we can start to see the crystalization of mythmaking as it continues from Paul to Mark to Mat.

Probably true, I would add that what we have are the manuscripts that survived, the portions of the Jesus movement that "won". The discoveries of other manuscripts of a more gnostic nature, the stratified themes found in Pauls letters and the gospels all point to the fact that there were a variety of beliefs and systems springing up during the early days of the Jesus movement. What we can say about them I am not so sure.

I have seen a lot of analysis done that all seems reasonable, but it also seems too speculative to say its "real".

One thing I think that always needs to be kept in mind is the documents we have are the documents that where chosen. They were chosen for particular purposes by people with particular agendas. The other Jesus movement docs we have found are tantalizing, but we cannot know what affects they had on the mainstream movement, how many followers they had, what their exact beleifs were, etc.

We should be wary of saying what we can "know" given that we likely have only a small subset of the documents that existed in the 1st and 2nd centuries. We can say that someone said x, but we have no independent verification of x. There were no concerted efforts by outsiders to examine the movement until the late 3rd to 4th century, and by then the origins were shrouded in the mysts of time.

yalla

Gidday Chunk,
I would argue about several of your "facts" but basically reckon that your list is a pretty good starting point and reasonably free from bias [on the assumption that total lack of bias is virtually impossible for anyone].
If I tried to write a list like yours I reckon you would argue even more strongly than I with yours.
You have managed to avoid the assumption of an HJ intruding ostentatiously.

But a few disagreements to start, using your numbers.
[2] I wouldn't use the words "describe'' or ''man'' here perhaps "presents" a "concept".
[6]I recently read somewhere a quote that stated the opposite, I'll try to find it. Good discussion point though.
[7] If one ignores all the alleged historical data only. The general concept may be comparable but the wealth of background detail, events, words, characters renders the gospels' version dramatically different.
[11] I'd start the 4 canonical gospels dating decades later and further into the 2C.
[12] I would word this differently, because I am not a fan of "Q", thusly: "the material common to "Matthew'' and ''Luke", but not derived from "Mark", can be explained by one copying the other or both using a hypothetical, otherwise unknown, document."
[13] Therefore I would omit this until [12] is settled or at least discussed in detail.
[15] I would like to see lots of evidence before I used this as a start point.
[16] Omit '' It is likely that early oral tradition about the ". Leave the rest. Perhaps add "prophecy fulfilled''?
Nice list.
cheers
yalla

Peter Kirby

I feel that such a list should start around 325 CE and work backwards, with increasing tentativity. Something like,

(1) In the early 300s, Eusebius wrote his Church History...

Because so much actually starts there, deductively speaking.

regards,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Quite a few do question their validity, either in whole or in part. Search this forum for Detering or Dutch Radicals or Interpolations in the Pauline Epistles.

Chris Weimer

Although the Gospels and Acts are untrustworthy, they were not just "put together" by some "monk" at "some stage". More to the point, Paul was quoted very early so that he had to be composed in the first century, and then supposing a monk did it would suppose that Christian monks were even thriving at such a time so close to the purpoted time of the crucifiction.

Any historical hypothesis has to have an accompanying theory to encapsulate it else it's worthless for the purposes of historical reconstruction.

As Toto mentioned, though, that does not eliminate the possibility that there are interpolations in Paul, or that all of it was actually written by Paul. It merely puts bounds on our assumptions.

ahappyheretic

Isn't Q just a theory? How can we know whether it had a reference to Jesus as crucified messiah? Is there a physical Q document?

Chris Weimer

"Isn't Q just a theory?"

Makes me cringe when I hear this, just like when someone says "Isn't evolution just a theory?"

No, Q is not a theory. Q is an hypothesis, which was formulated to fit the Two-Source Theory of the Synoptic Problem. Where Luke and Matthew overlap but Mark (sometimes) doesn't is usually what Q is said to be.

(Note, this is not comparing Q to a fact like evolution. They are two entirely different things. Evolution is a fact, while Q is an hypothesis and neither are theories.)

yalla

I would contend that a more objective definition of ''Q" is that it is the hypothetical, otherwise unknown, document that is one of two possible explanations for the material common to "Matthew" and "Luke" that is not based on "Mark". The other possible explanation for that material is that one of the 2 allegedly later gospellers copied the other.
Stating that "Q" is the material itself is not accurate.
It is but one of the explanations for that material.
A not unimportant nit-pick I suggest.
cheers
yalla