graymouser

Well, I was going for b, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

The thing that strikes me as most problematic for a late dating are the apocalyptic predictions in the Gospels. If Jesus was supposed to have lived around 30, and said that the apocalyptic events would be within the current generation, it makes sense to me that this was the invention of post-70 CE messianic sects. It doesn't make sense to me that this was done by post-140 CE messianic sects, when the prophecy would be already a century stale and quite disproven. That's the fact that I'm stuck on with the Gospels: it makes the most sense to me that it's sort of like the 1914 predictions of the Jehovah's Witnesses, where steps were taken to back off gradually from a missed date for the apocalypse. How does a late date get around that problem?

jgreen44

Citation please.Actually there is a compelling argument that he and all of the NT post dates 70CE.

1) Jerusalem was ruined or destroyed in 70CE. A few years later arises the concept of the New Jerusalem, a (new age) spiritual city currently existing in heaven but which will also appear on earth when "all is accomplished". Why would the NT writers promise a new Jerusalem if the current Jerusalem was still intact?

2) The Temple was ruined or destroyed in 70CE. The gospels have Jesus referring to himself as the Temple (John 2:19) and Paul refers to each individual human beng as embodying "God's temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). It is evident that following 70CE the temple of the self replaces the, no longer functioning, Temple of Jerusalem.

John 2:19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
In this verse, Jesus was referring to the temple of his own body.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple." In this verse the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem is rendered insignificant because the true temple is (now) the human body.

3) With the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jews were no longer able to follow the law as they once did. So some Biblical justification had to be found for this new reality. Enter Paul and all of his talk about the law being a curse. Now each believer had to work out his "own salvation in fear and trembling".

4) An authentic "proof text" was always kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other Torah scrolls would be checked. But after the destruction of the Temple this sort of proof-reading was no longer possible. Consequently, after 70CE the textual basis of Judaism was de-emphasized in favor of a spiritual emphasis.

2 Corinthians 3

2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

5) Without the written law (verifiably authentic Torah scrolls), God was now revealed through the creation, including the personal revelations of individual mortal human beings.

Romans 1:19-20

what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

6) It is likely that, along with the destruction of the temple in 70CE, Jewish religious authority and political influence was destroyed or severely weakened. It would, therefore, only be after 70CE that Paul could get away with proclaiming a mere man as God. If Paul had been proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth as God prior to the destruction of the Temple, Paul (like Jesus) would have been executed for blasphemy. Yet nowhere in the NT does any Jewish authority figure accuse Paul of such blasphemy or attempt to have him executed for proclaiming a mere man to be God.

Huon

A "new" myth embodies very often some pieces of ancient myths. The son of a god and a woman was something well accepted in the greco-roman mythology. Probably, the orthodox Jews would turn down this story. Probably also, this story was not part of the growing legend of a crucified Jew, Yeshuah the Messiah. And gJohn includes this part of the myth...

aa5874

These are fantastic points.

The Fall of the Temple with the death, suffering and starvation of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Jerusalem at around 70 CE was probably the most significant factor for the invention of a NEW Messiah and a New Jerusalem.

This is Revelation.

Revelation 21:1-8 - It would appear that the entire NT was inspired by supposed prophecy, the massive devastation, starvation, suffering and death of the Jews at around 70 CE when the Jewish Temple Fell.

And Josephus will appear to confirm in Wars of the Jews 6.2.1-2 See http://wesley.nnu.edu

Josephus was perhaps the first to reveal that it was God himself who used the Romans to destroy Jerusalem based on prophecy.

The writings of Josephus appears to have played some major role in the writing of the Jesus story and augments the argument that the entire Canon was triggered by events that happened as found in the Wars of the Jews where hundreds of thousands of Jews suffered greatly and the Jewish Temple fell.

jgreen44

Luke and Josephus (2000)
Richard Carrier

jgreen44

I was thinking of an argument for the mythical Christ when I wrote the above. So scratch #6

spamandham

Keep in mind that the end was supposed to *start* with the signs Jesus refers to. It makes perfect sense that the temple must have recently been razed when that 'prophecy' was penned. The things that were 'predicted' were the things people saw happening all around them - a false prophet claiming to be the messiah (Bar Kochba) had been proven false, the temple was razed, Jerusalem was overrun, a new temple to Jupiter was erected in the former location of the temple (let the reader understand), Christians were being persecuted by Jews, etc. Look! The prophecies are coming true, therefor the end is nigh!

Personally, I'm not bothered by Jesus being set in 30CE with the gospels being written ~140 CE and Jesus making statements to the effect of 'this generation shall not pass'. I really don't think the ancients thought critically about such things. To them, 'this generation' surely referred to the generation of the writer and his audience, not to the generation of Jesus, even though the words are put into the mouth of Jesus.

aa5874

You would have to re-write history for your scenario to make sense.

The works of Josephus alone give strong indications that the Jesus story was based on his writings. The very Jesus story in the Synoptics indicated that a conflagration would occur after the Fall of the Temple..

IF it is assumed Jesus made his predictions at around 30 CE, then he would have completely MISSSED a most disastrous event for the Jews in 70 CE and since he did not state exactly when the Temple would have fallen and hundreds of thousands of Jews would be killed or starved to death, it must be completely logical that ONCE Jesus did make a prediction, that the prophecy was about the events at 70 CE when he told the Sanhedrin that they will see him coming in the clouds and in "this generation".

All the Sanhedrin and the people who heard Jesus say he will be coming in the clouds would probably be dead by the time Of Simon bar Cocheba.

But, your story is self-debunked.

Ancients must have thought through the "failed prophecies". The author of John removed them from the mouth of his Jesus.

When gJohn's Jesus went before the Sanhedrin he did not tell the Sanhedrin that they would see him again. And gJohn's Jesus never once claimed anything would happen in "this generation".

In fact, the words "this generation" coming out of the mouth of Jesus is completely missing from all books of the NT Canon except the Synoptics.

Ancients did think about such things.

doubtingt

In general, the issue of the time and conditions required for mythical legends to emerge is not a historical question and historians are unqualified to address it. It is a psychological and sociological question, and psychological and sociological work would suggest it is extremely easy to create myths that either wholly invent or severely distort events and persons for which there is little if any verifiable evidence (which is certainly the case for Jesus)

Any arguments about actual, well-documented historical figures (like Alexander) are irrelevant and non-applicable to the far more easily mythologized poorly documented and merely potential persons like Jesus.
To claim otherwise is begging the question, using the assumption that Jesus was a well known historical person to argue that he was a historical person.

couch_sloth

Why would all of the eye-witnesses have to die off?


For example: A fisherman has a powerful personal/emotional commitment to preacher who was later murdered for his preaching. The fisherman wants others to know of the greatness of this man...
So if years later he heard a lot of exaggerated stories about this preacher would he go on a campaign to set everyone strait? Probably not, especially if new believers seemed very excited by these stories and it helped to spread the notoriety of his old preacher.

People do this sort of thing all the time:
Group X opposes group Z.
A new story about the nastiness of group Z spreads through group X even though a minority of X's members have strong reasons to believe this story isn't true.
Will this minority in X try to set the other members strait... I doubt it.

I agree with doubtingt. This seems like more of a question for psychologists and sociologists than historians