Grog

Who passed on the story about Jesus? If it wasn't widely known, then why would anyone believe such a story? Where is the story of Jesus the man, the sage/preacher/rabble rouser crucified by Pilate? How do you get from the 30's with an unknown itinerant teacher of some sort killed, to Paul in the 50's preaching a celestial story of Jesus? Or to gMark in 66 writing of the miracle-working Jesus who conquers death? If no one knew about Jesus, how did the author of gMark know what to write about?

I would submit you have no plausible scenario to explain the emergence of the Jesus-figure out of this unknown "Jesus" executed by Pilate.

I submit that the belief in a celestial Jesus came first (and we have evidence of the emergence of that belief in the earliest Christian writings as well as contemporary Jewish writings). Belief in this unknown messiah was built on that prior belief. That he is depicted as unknown is to explain why no one had heard of him up to Mark' time. Why Paul declares the gospel to be a secret only revealed to a few apostles (in revelation).

outhouse

excellent question really. it bothered me for while.


but I have something very plausible that follows reality of the time period. AND mirrors the scripture we have to a T



jesus defiance in the temple on passover, towards the corrupt jewish government due to the roman infection in gods house, was witnessed by possibly 400,000 people.

Jesus stood up for the common hard working jew that lived a life of slavery to the roman occupation and taxation, and the jewish governemnt that shook hands with the romans to line their pockets with gold and silver.



this led to huge amounts of oral tradition, and as ancient legends usually do, it grew into deification.



the grew into deification deserves its own chapter though, since how he was deified was through cross cultural oral tradition

James The Least

Because there were multiple layers of pseudepigraphy operating within Christian sects, over several generations. Hagiography continued to be SOP within the church for the next thousand+ years.

"Paul" did not make up the stories about in-fighting within a "Jerusalem Church." People writing as "Paul" later invented this drama, the same way they invented dramas surrounding the Christ. As the church grew, so grew the demand for stories (legends) about "founders" and foundational events. The letters ostensibly written by Paul are pattered on Greek/Cynic rhetoric and are based on characters and events in the Septuagint, not actual recent events.

James The Least

Yeah, that's a great theory, main problem is that NONE of this supposedly vast amount of oral tradition survived in Hebrew or Aramaic sources.

The evangelists do not record a Jesus who opposes the Roman occupation. The evangelists' Jesus loves the Romans.

outhouse

not really true bud.


you should realize that we only have the roman version of jesus left.


As well with a 90% illiteracy rate, there would not be as much writing as the roman sources.

you also need to take into account how much was destroyed in the roman jewish wars.

AND how much literature was deemed bad and burned by the romans when the roman canon was forming.



Now, even the roman version we have still shows jesus to be more of a zealot then any other jewish sect.


you have to ask yourself, would a poor peasant teacher, preaching and healing for dinner scraps, living on the edge of starvation, traveling into towns yelling at crowds to listen! to him

would have loved roman oppression?


after being raised in a community where as a child, he witnessed a tax war in which he probably had relatives murdered by romans and or sent to slavery, he would have loved romans?


the same romans who kept his family and friends starving, living in filth and disease, while they lived in oppulance, a mere 3 miles away??

stephan huller

The tradition of judas the twin at edessa was a jesus tradition independent of paul (or anyone else)

stephan huller

The catholic paul's theology may have required a human jesus but not the original marcionite. So who cares?

Will Wiley

Everybody starts with assumptions abot Jesus?

Why not tell me what assumptions you start with about Jesus then?


I just think it's better not to assume anything about Jesus. If you disagree thats fine, but what kind of things do you assume?

We don't have that much to work with, but if you get more specific I can probably give you an answer.
Im not overly concerned about the theoretical construct of modern bible scholars regarding the so-called historical Jesus.

James The Least

No, of course not. That's my point. The evangelists' "Jesus" is completely disconnected from reality. He's a mythical character invented to serve polemical theological strategies.

aa5874

That is the PRECISE problem. People here are arguing about ASSUMPTIONS using imaginary evidence.

Neither History nor Scientific theories are based on ASSUMPTIONS based on imaginary data.

It is most remarkable that although NO New Testament manuscript has ever been found and Dated to before the 1st century and c 70 CE and NO non-apologetic source mentioned any characters called Jesus, the disciples and Paul that people here COMPLETELY ignore the actual COLLECTED DATA and continue to PRESUME their OWN uncorroborated "history".

No-one imagines that Pilate was Not a Governor or procurator but was instead a fisherman and the Emperor of Rome because there is NO source with such a claim.

Why do people REFUSE to accept that Jesus who supposedly lived in Nazareth was a Child of a Ghost, and God the Creator, a fiction character???

It was PUBLICLY known and Circulated in the Roman Enmpire by UNKNOWN authors that Jesus was INDEED FATHERED by a Ghost and people of Antiquity did BELIEVE the PUBLIC writings called Gospels.

It was NOT a secret. It was WELL-KNOWN . Jesus was A sON OF a Ghost.

That is NOT an ASSUMTION. It is DOCUMENTED in EXISTING CODICES.