breathilizer

Funny thing... We know a lot about the character 'Jesus' much like we know a lot about the character 'Superman'.

We know the place and approximate timeframe of his birth.
The planet Krypton some time during the 1900's or early 2000's. (depending on which comic scripture you read)

We know his family.
Father, Jor-El. Adopted parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent.

We know his friends.
Lana Lang. Lois Lane. Jimmy.

We know his enemies.
Lex Luther. Ultra-Humanite.

So what does this mean? Does this mean Superman is real? You're probably thinking to yourself 'No, of course not, he's a character from a book. Besides, no one with powers like that could ever exist.'

Well, I hope we all see the irony in such a statement.

Chili

Nazara is the city of God where Mary was from. She was retained there by the integrity of Joseph and was asked to go to Bethlehem in Galilee where she was to give birth to the son of man. She did this in conjunction with her kinswoman who lived in the netherworld of Judah where John was from.

It's a beautiful story of light flowing into darkness where it illuminates the New Jerusalem. I'd be very proud of it.

Toto

I would dispute your contention that we "know" more about Jesus than about Shakespeare, except that we don't seem to know every much about either one of them. We have stories about Jesus but no way of knowing that they are factual or were meant to be taken as fact. We also have stories about Shakespeare, and there is still contention over whether he actually wrote the plays that bear his name. (There is a fascinating article on that question in the latest issue of Skeptic Magazine.

Chris Weimer

Why is there contention over what Shakespeare wrote?

Toto

People like to argue?

Google shakespeare authorship to get some idea of the problem - there are competing theories at www.shakespeareauthorship.com and www.shakespeare-authorship.com (the last site is by the author of the Skeptic article). Also www.shakespeare-oxford.com

The question is debated with the fervor of the debate over the historical Jesus, even though there is no religious aspect to it. I think there is a moral there somewhere.

John A. Broussard

We have very, very few stories about Shakespeare, but we have a great many about Jesus. The stories about both of these figures may be entirely fictitious, but my question still remains--why is there so much material written about Jesus within a few generations of his death--including elaborate descriptions of his actions and supposedly verbatim records of what he said, yet nothing similar about the great Bard?

Wallener

Because Constantine moved East.

Toto

That's an entirely different question from the OP. Why did people write a lot about Jesus? Because humans are story-tellers. Jesus was a mythic character, a suitable subject for story telling. Shakespeare was not a mythic character in his day.

The proper comparison to Shakespeare would not be Jesus, but some Roman or Greek playwright noted for plays, but not for his deeds or his life or his mission. Did people write stories about Seneca? Did people write stories about Homer?

spin

This whole thread seems to be much ado about nothing and, as you all know, nothing comes of nothing, but then why not get up on the stage...

There is a qualitative difference: we have evidence of Shakespeare interacting with the historical world.

Or was it descriptions of the house where he was paid homage to by the three magi?

Why do we have two accounts of a birth that don't coincide? -- except for daddy bear, mommy bear and baby bear? Then Matty transports us from the kid wot's a year old to when he's big. Lukey gives us the good Jewish boy stuff about circumcision, presentation in the temple and teaching there, just to make sure you get the idea he's a good Jewish boy.

In short we have a fantasticated birth followed by nothing until the fellow hits the scene, like, man, between Act 1 Scene 1 and the next scene there's 30 years and depending on whose edition you're using that first scene is either totally different or just plain not there.

Which were what, "eli, eli lama sabachthani" or "into your hands I commend my spirit" or "It is finished"?

We certainly have fertile imaginations active in this life of Jesus.

If you looked into the field, no-one in academia (well, at least, no-one that I've heard of) takes these "raging arguments" seriously. Granted, most are interested more in the literature (as the life beside the literature is relatively inconsequential) and leave it to the historians, who have no doubt about Shakespeare (or however he spelt the name on the day). The evidence for his connections with the literature are difficult to seriously overcome given the contemporary acknowledgement of his authorship in the records of the theatre management and the printers of illicit copies of the plays.

And I truly don't care about the life.

The key difference for the historian is that the life of Shakespeare is anchored in a time by direct epigraphic record, down to the signature, marriage certificate, and other physical items that connect him to the real world. Sadly there is nothing of this nature for Jesus.

You don't know very much about the figure at all. You have conflicting stories of his birth, which each have literary antecedents, then you have a gap of thirty years. Then we have the collection of sayings and miracles interwoven before we get the passion play. Then we have clear evidence of embellishment with the use of Mk as the basis for both Mt and Lk, and of course the birth narratives are in the embellishment, just as the resurrection material is.

Shakespeare appears in theatre less than thirty years of age. The production of Shakespeare's plays are direct evidence from the person himself. There is no equivalent in the Jesus story. You don't get contemporary jibes about Jesus. But if you get enjoyment from asking inconsequential questions, then all's well that ends well.


spin

advancedatheist

Some surviving apocryphal gospels from antiquity about Jesus' childhood portray him as a supernatural Dennis the Menace, just as we have comic books and a TV series about the super-powered adventures of Superman during his childhood and youth. It's hard not to think that the Jesus franchise resembles modern fictional stories that grow in the telling, as long as the extensions to the tale keep raking in the money.