Zhavric

While I know that we've had several threads about the personhood of Jesus, I see that there are many Christians who still feel that Jesus was a real person. Kudos to those who begun and participated in the other threads. I feel you did an admirable job. However, I also feel there are sides of the argument that have not been discussed.

Let's jump in, shall we? We'll begin outside the bible.

I. Josephus.

Apologists often like to point to Josephus as an "extra-biblical source" for the existence of Jesus. Setting aside the argument of how much of Josephus' testimony was his own and how much was entered in by the church aside, Josephus tells us of more than a half dozen Jews by the name of Jesus whose deeds and actions closely mirror the accounts of the gospel Jesus. He refers to them as Yeshua which was also a title amongst first century Jews. Many of them predate the alleged time of the gospel Jesus. This is significant because it sets the stage for the personhood of the gospel Jesus. All Christians and many non-Christians believe there was one person upon which the gospels are based, but that's simply not the case. This list of Jesuses (Jesi?) includes:

Jesus ben Sirach. This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka 'Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach'), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish 'wisdom' and Homeric-style heroes.
Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophesy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect.
Jesus ben Ananias. Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘Woe to the city’. He prophesied rather vaguely:

"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people."
– Josephus, Wars 6.3.

Arrested and flogged by the Romans, he was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult.
Jesus ben Saphat. In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias. When the city was about to fall to Vespasian’s legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus ben Gamala. During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.
Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew.
Jesus ben Thebuth. A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.*

These individuals provide the framework for the gospel Jesus. It is from their deeds that the early Christians picked, chose, and invented the stories that would eventually become the godman of the bible.

Also, not a single early church father mentions the writings of Josephus until the 3rd century. If he had written stellar evidence for Jesus, then why were so many Christians writers blithely unconcerned about it?

II. Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria was a philosopher who associated with the early Essenes. He was a hellenized Jew who was terribly interested in Jewish and Greek religion. He lived at the same time the gospel Jesus was allegedly alive and we know he visited Jerusalim at least once. That this writer, who is one of the chief evidences for the existence of Pontias Pilate, would miss an incarnate Jewish godman is inconceivable. It would be like a civil rights movement writer living in Memphis during the 60's yet failing to speak a word about Martin Luther King... neither mentioning him directly ("I saw MLK / Jesus") or indirectly ("People keep talking about MLK / Jesus")... or even negatively ("People won't shut up about this Jesus guy.")

Understand that Jesus showed up in the equivalent of the blogger community of the era. With a written & read religion (Judaism) and Pax Romana ensuring safe travel, there was no conspiracy or campaign of persecution that could have stopped writers from chronicling the godman.

Yet history is utterly silent. Where we expect to see volumes we hear crickets. We have the gospels which tell us about a rock-star-popular godman who routinely has to dodge mobs of people looking to hang out with him, yet history is utterly silent.

I bring up Philo because he's just one of many authors who lived during this era, but had no clue about Jesus. The list goes on.

III. The Gospels
The first gospel to be written was the gospel of Mark. We have no evidence of who actully wrote it or when, but the evidence we do have indicates it was written around 70 ce. Mark hsa nearly no miracles in it and depicts a nearly human Jesus. Mark, like Paul, when read alone is woefully ignorant of Key life events in Jesus alleged life... like the virgin birth.

Paul's letters are very similar. If read alone, Paul is completely ignorant of all of Jesus' life. There's even doubt that Paul thought of Jesus as a real person.

The other gospels were collections of myths borrowed from earlier religions and invented outright by early church fathers. Each new gospel adding slightly to the tale, they don't come into Christian consciousness in any meaningful way until 180 ce where they're mentioned by a third party. We have no copies or originals of gospels from before the second century nor any writings which specifically mention them.

The core issue here is that the gospels are claims. Not evidence. They are stories that provide no evidence which Christians are trained to believe evidence themselves. Very simply, they don't. They are simply a cobbled together group of myths. The fact that Christians see them as being otherwise speaks more to indoctrination than any sort of historical fact.

IV. The personhood of Jesus for Early Christians

Modern Christians falsely believe that there was only one brand of Christianity with a few heretics running about. This is not the case. The truth is that there were many different competing version of Christianity and the majority of them were blithely indifferent to the personhood of Jesus.

In the early second century Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, wrote an explanation of Christianity to the Alexandrian church and for the sitting Roman emperor. In his 37 chapter essay "A plea for the Christians" he makes no mention of Jesus as an actual person. None whatsoever. The closest he comes is to imply that god has a son, but in this same sentiment he also intertwines this son with the logos or word of god. His essay paints a picture of Christianity that modern Christians would refer to as "gnostic", but it establishes that the mainstream Christianity of today wasn't widely held at the time.
Athenagoras later writes another essay on how a resurrection should be possible, but this makes no mention of Jesus nor of any key life events of Jesus. Reading between the lines, it makes it sound as though he's speaking metaphorically and doing little more than musing.

It establishes that the gospels and notions that Jesus was an actual person was NOT in all Christian consciousness in the second century.

V. The Disciples and the Sales Pitch

At the core of Christian argumentation is a VERY strong appeal to emotion (guilt avoidance). We are told of Jesus who's everyhing to everyone: king and pauper, righteous and meek, etc. We are told that he died for our... specifically our sins. We are given a story that's very obviously impossible that demands additional evidence. After all, people don't just come back from the dead nor does water spontaneously become wine, etc.

Instead of evidence, we are given the emotionally charged claim of the disciples; those brave martyrs who believed so strongly in the Jesus story that they died for it. This is the REAL argument that apologists use. As human beings, we're naturally inclined to be motivated by guilt. We're SUPPOSED to feel guilty for questioning the bravery of people who sacrificed their lives for what they believed.

The problem is the disciples are as fictional as their mythical creator.

Nearly all of them are attributed multiple different deaths in multiple places in multiple manners.

Peter, for example is beheaded by Nero according to Anicetus, given a 25 year pontificate as bishop of Rome in the Clementines (making it impossible for him to be murdered by Nero) and was crucified upside down by the imaginings of Origen. Bartholemew (Nathaniel) travels to India, Persia, Armenia and somewhere in Africa before being beheaded in Armenia... AND Persia. The list goes on and on.

It's an ingeneous argument: Unsupported claims (Jesus) being evidenced by more unsupported claims (the disciples) with a powerful guilt trip and an exaltation of those who believe WITHOUT evidence. It's the perfect way to get people to believe in something they'd normally scoff at. Remember that guilt avoidance is the most powerful motivating human emotion.

VI. How it Started

Most Christians are unaware of how their tale began. It's important to understand the political climate of Judea during the seventh decade of the common era (70 ce).

It was not a good time to be a Jew.

The Romans had conquered them.
Their temple had been destroyed.
Their priesthood was gone or corrupt.
They were being taxed by the Romans.
They were being taxed a SECOND time by the Romans for the fire in Rome.
Roman troops were occupying Judea.

Throughout Jewish history and mythology, there is a re-occuring theme that all Jews of the time were familiar with: for whatever reason, the Jews run into trouble and god sends a hero / sage / special person to save them.

So, if you're a Jew living circa 70 ce, you're very much wondering where the hell god's savior is.

Into this soup of desperation and desire comes tall tales about the Yeshuas who had come before. People start trying to worship them. Indeed, we have evidence of Jesus cults that date back to Jeshua ben Pandira who died in the time of Alexander Jannaus back in 88 bce.

Anyway, if you're a Jew living at this time, you're willing to do what desperate people throughout history have always been willing to do: believe things they wouldn't normally believe so long as it gives them hope. So, when someone begins telling them, "Hey, the messiah was JUST here. You JUST missed him. He'll be back any minute to give the Romans their comuppance."

That's how Christianity began to catch on with Jews. It later becaome institutionalized, but that's a subject for another debate.

VII Historians

A lot of Christians are under the mistaken assumption that historians agree that Jesus existed. This is not the case. Taking into account that we're only a handful of centuries from a time when implying that Jesus didn't exist was grounds for MURDER, understand that modern historians are all too wary of the scorn modern Christians are only too happy to heap on anyone who challenges the validity of the godman. Add to that the fact that historians are becoming more specialized and the end result is that most of them are content to assume that Jesus existed and leave well enough alone.

It's easy to assume the gospels were based on an actual person... to take out all the supernatural claims and assume there was a person under there who said some nice things and ran afoul of the Jewish authorities and Romans. The truth is that individual never existed. He was based on the many Jesi that I listed above. Furthermore, Christians don't dare ask the very obvious and honest question: Is Jesus Christ of the bible like a Julius Caesar ( a real person who was attributed supernatural things) or like a Huckleberry Finn (a fictional character based loosely from several individuals)? It's the most natural question in the world, but it's not something Christians entertain for fear the answer. Because modern Christianity cannot survive a fictional Jesus.

Unfortunately, the Jesus of the gospels is fictional.

That's enough for now. Later, we can get into part II where we'll discuss how Nazareth didn't exist as a town and the gaping problems in the NT.

Wiploc

Welcome to FRDB!

I like your theory. It's a new one for me. I'm
curious, though, as to why you believe it.

crc

Zhavric

What's more likely? That an incarnate godman who history completely missed stormed through Judea or a cult that was looking to take advantage of desperate people became the 1st century's answer to Scientology?

bacht

The idea that Mark sat down with a copy of Josephus in one hand and the Septuagint in the other and cooked up a great story seems plausible to me, but I'm just another layman.

Toto

Hi Zhavric - welcome to FRDB. You seem to have posted this essay on about 10 other message boards. It covers a lot of old ground for this board, so it might be better to take a slightly different approach here.

Some nitpicks: Actually, Josephus wrote in Koine Greek, and referred to them all as IESOUS, which was also the name of the Biblical personage we refer to as Joshua. I don't think that Iesous, Yeshua, or Joshua were titles at any time.

There are other assertions in your essay that sound just a little too confident for what we can be sure of, so you might get some challenges, or you might not. These issues have been discussed fairly thoroughly.

GakuseiDon

Actually, Athenagoras is more late than early Second Century. Richard Carrier, in his article on the NT canon, writes (my bolding):

In 177 A.D. Athenagoras of Athens composed a lengthy philosophical Defense of the Christians addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in which the first articulation of a theory of the Trinity appears. He quotes the OT and NT several times, but does not name his sources from the NT. The quotes or paraphrases that he uses happen to come from a few Epistles of Paul, and from all the Gospels in a mishmash (M 125), suggesting a harmonic source like the Diatessaron. But the respect that this defense, and others like it, earned among orthodox Christians contributed to forming decisions on canonicity based on whether they accorded with works like it.

"No mention of Jesus". I think that this is interesting, and in another thread I called it "the elephant in the room". WHY would a Christian writing around 177 CE, and who knew about the Gospels and the letters of Paul, not mention anything about Jesus?

aa5874

It is becoming clearer to me that the gospels as presented do not represent the true history of the Jesus story or the true history of Jesus believers.

If it is assumed Jesus of the NT did not exist, then it will be realised that all the so-called words of Jesus may have been written by other writers not at all associated with the authors of the gospels as claimed by the church.

In reading the writings of Athenagoras, I came across passages that appear similar to words of Jesus as found in the gospels, but Athenagoras claimed those words were said by the Logos, the philosophical son of God.

Now, I was tempted to think that Athenagoras was simply copying passages from the gospels until he claimed the Logos made a statement not found in any of the gospels.

Athengoras called himself a Christian yet did not at any time use the words Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, the crucifixion or the resurrection of any character who died for the remission of sins.

Athenagoras did not mention any writer named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul or disciples of any character called Jesus Christ.


Excerpts from Athenagoras A plea for the Christians XXXII

The words of the Logos.

The first passage of the Logos is similar to the words of (the non-existent) Jesus as found in gMatthew. The second is missing.

Mt 5:28 - So, it would appear that the gospel writers of the NT may have used Josephus to place their character in Judaea, but did they also get the words of their non-existent Jesus from some other source?

sy2502

I have no problem with the idea that some itinerant preacher called Jesus got a few people to follow him. I get the impression that preachers were pretty common around that time, that they stole followers from each other by performing tricks and preaching whatever people wanted to hear. And because of the problems with the Romans you mentioned, Jews were very open to the idea of the coming Messiah, so their wishful thinking would convince them some charismatic preacher was the one. It is quite obvious that in time his story was embellished, he went from preacher to son of god, from being killed for stirring the pot to dying for our sins, from performing tricks to raising the dead, etc etc.
I don't see the actual existence of a real Jesus preacher a problem to atheism. It doesn't make a difference either way.

Zhavric

I've posted it on about 5. It's been posted by other people elsewhere without giving me credit. *grumbles*

It was a name, but it had more merit to it than a name as it was carried by several memorable rabbis around whom "Jesus cults" were raised.

Zhavric

Right. He was writing at a time before orthodoxy silenced the other forms of Christianity and branded them as "heresies". It's not so uncommon. We see Paul with several gnostic leanings, for example. What's important, though, is how specific Athenagoras is about how Jesus isn't a person.

Like I said, the idea that there was one story of Christianity which branched off into gnosticism later is BS. It's a fiction contrived by the church. The fact is that orthodoxy was simply the loudest, most violent, and most politically connected version of Christianity. However, before the council of Nicea, it's not uncommon to see this sort of mixed writing that expresses mostly gnostic, but some orthodox ideals. Remember, no one actually mentions the gospels as "the gospels" until near the end of the second century.