Doug Shaver

There is nothing distinctively Christian about a belief that Jesus existed. Even most atheists accept his existence, usually (it seems to me) without question.

Toto

There was a time when Protestants in general believed in rationality, that it did not make sense to believe in the miracles of the bible if you were reading it by an electric light.

There has been some regression of late, and there are some Protestants and Catholics who claim to believe that miracles happen, or that at least one miracle happened. But these people still use electricity and go to a modern doctor when they are sick.

aa5874

I am actually very interested in the atheist's position on Jesus, Christians seem to be biased and operate in a conflict of interest situation, some even expect the gift of eternal life from Jesus.

In any event, I consider the HJ as completely flawed. No history book supports Jesus.

waltms

Since it was brought to my attention that interesting things are being claimed about me I thought I'd pipe up for a moment. Just to be clear, I am an atheist and I am not a Jesus mythicist. In many ways, the argument over a real-vs-mythical Jesus is too black and white since the "Jesus" we "know" is primarily a literary figure. How and to what extent the things said about the literary Jesus are based on or inspired by historical events and a real person (or persons) is a complex issue. It is clear that multiple streams of tradition flowed into the literary Jesus, some completely fictional, others probably not. As things stand, I consider a historical Jesus in some minimalist sense a likely proposition, or even more than one historical Jesus (after all, Josephus does clue us into a certain Jesus ben Hananiah, and "Jesus" was a very common name at any rate) that flowed into what later became the literary Jesus.

My A Vision in the Mexican Desert and Jesus blog post was primarily aimed at exploring how fictional elements can be passed off as history and what the implications of this are for the historical Jesus debate. A balanced perspective always requires an honest appraisal and investigation of both sides of a debate, especially when there are striking examples available of what you do not feel actually happened in a particular case. The Don Juan of Castaneda is such an example and so I felt it was worth exploration and comparison. Since the historical Jesus debate is not one of my primary interests, I did not mind leaving the blog post on a fairly agnostic note. As such, the post should be read as an intellectual investigation of issues in progress and not some sort of final evaluation.

Alf

I think your argument here is flawed.

The point is that even if Jesus really existed he was most likely a historical nobody. Nobody will claim that your neighbour's grandma lived X number of years ago and there are no historical records of her anywhere. Yet, I doubt you will accept that it is true that she never lived. This is the case for most people, they live and go through their lives and apart from family and friends who knew them nobody knew they ever existed. This does not mean they didn't exist.

Now, I happen to agree that Jesus is a mythical character and didn't really exist.

Perhaps I should clarify: There may well have been a person who's name is later transcribed into greek and then latin into "Jesus" living in judea around that time who was born of a father who likewise has a name transcribed into "Joseph" etc. He may have been a rabbi of some sort and had a bunch of followers. He may even have been the source of some of the tales in the gospels etc. None of these claims are fantastic and are in fact very reasonable and most likely true. One of these might well have been that he got arrested by the romans and convicted to crucifiction on a cross due to disturbing the peace - a rebel rouser of some sort. Many rabbis at the time was that and the gospels does indicate that he did stir some uproar for example in the temple.

However, this "historical" Jesus is still nothing like the gospel jesus who born of a virgin, walked on water, resurrected after a crucifiction and then rose to heaven and never died and is appearantly still alive right next to God in heaven. Further, there may have been OTHER people who were source of some of the other tales from the gospels - people not related to this historical Jesus other than that christians attributed the actions of these people to their hero who we might refer to as "gospel Jesus". I.e. The gospels most likely contain stories that never happened as described but happened where some other person was involved and then the christians took the story and replaced the original person with "gospel Jesus". I don't have any concrete example of this happening but I am just saying I won't be surprised if evidence of this popped up - it would be "as expected".

Further, the gospels also clearly contain invented stories which never happened at all but are told only to convey a certain theological point. That is, the author invented the situation and story to convey a theological point and not to report an actual event that actually took place and then simply placed "Jesus" as the master and rabbi into the situation so that the master can teach the reader the theological point. One example of this is the story of doubting thomas who had to stick his finger into the wounds of Jesus before he was convinced that it was the real Jesus who had been resurrected. The story does not imply to me that it really happened but it was a message from the gospel author to anyone who does not believe the story to be true that they should believe even if they were initially sceptical to the story and if they then believed and converted they would be blessed.

In short it isn't easy then to sort out from this spaghetti which stories and sentences was uttered by the real actual "historical Jesus", which were uttered by others and which was only uttered by the author of the gospel story and attributed to Jesus. This is essentially what biblical scholars are trying to do but it is my conviction that even if they were to succed in some part of this it simply wouldn't be enough to get a picture of the "real historical Jesus" to come through - the dominant picture is the mythical Jesus of the gospels who was born of virgin, walked on water and resurrected and rose to heaven and never died. Because this is the dominant picture and any histoical core is scant and vague I will say there is no historical Jesus or more precise: He is so well hidden beneath the myth that it is impossible to recognize the historical person behind.

As evidence of this - just look at various christians attempts to discuss the "historical Jesus" in modern times. Suddenly this Jesus is a conveyer of modern ideas and taught original ideas that gives meaning to a modern world. This is so far from historical and so thoroughly entrenched into the mythical Jesus as it is possible to get. Most likely if any modern day christian were to meet the real actual historical Rabbi as described first they would probably consider him slightly lunatic and obsessed with doomsday and the world's end and they would most likely not like him much.

It's not unlike the way a teenage girl might idolize a rockstar or some such and if she then get to meet the actual person she gets very disappointed. Christians generally tend to idolize Jesus in the same manner only much more. Most likely they would then be disappointed if they were to actually meet the guy in person and find that he is not as divine as they believed him to be. The christians can therefore be happy that they never get to meet the real actual Jesus but only have this idolized image of him so it can be left undisturbed.

In short, this is my view on the "historical Jesus" so I much agree with your original statement but I find the argument for it to be flimsy at best. Keep in mind though that I do not present any arguments in favor of my own position as I only described an opinion at this point rather than arguing in favor of why I have that position - that would be in a different post in another thread. I guess. I am therefore sort of criticizing you for having a bad argument and then express an opinion completely void of arguments myself. However, I only show that opinion to show where I come from - not as an argument in the debate itself.

Alf

JoeWallack

JW:
Closer. I've asked this question before and didn't get much of a response. Your statement above Implies that there is Minimum information about Jesus that is Likely Historical. What do you think this Minimum information is?



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Mythra

I agree with your assessment, Alf. Although it seems as though there needs to be a clearer term than HJ (or HJ needs to be more narrowly defined). To some it means a gospel literalist - someone who unquestioningly accepts everything in the gospel stories as history.

To others, it means that there was some man (probably named Jesus) who existed and is the historical kernal of truth behind the gospels.

There is a world of difference between these two opinions, yet both are referred to as HJ. (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken)

It seems to me it would clarify things somewhat if it were referred to as a HG (Historical Gospel) position and HJ (Historical Jesus).

Mythra

So then I suppose a question might arise - does a HG position require complete acceptance of every item in the gospel stories? If so, I'd have to say you'd be hard-pressed to find a scholar take this position.

I'm not aware of any scholars who think that the graves were opened, and the dead saints made themselves known in Jerusalem.

aa5874

I never made any arguments, just an assertion. And your position is similar to mine, now that I have read your 1100-word argument.

BTW, my neighbor's grandmother may have been a goddess or maybe my grandmother is my neighbor's and I think he has another, who did not really exist.

Ray Moscow

I would think that most NT scholars were "Christian" (by their own estimation) at some point, and many remain so.