Doug Shaver

I added "if there was one" for a reason. I doubt that there was. My point was that if a man such as I described did provably exist, then it would be reasonable to say that he was the historical Jesus, regardless of how little other congruence there was between the facts of his life and the gospel accounts of his life.

Doug Shaver

I agree, but the statement has zero relevance to what I said.

I'm not trying to, but you can't just babble him out of existence, either.

Clivedurdle

Is the consensus actually that if there were an historical Jesus he had very little to do with the birth of xianity?

Doug Shaver

I'm not sure I'd call it a consensus, but I get the impression that it is a pretty popular view among liberal scholars. Most of the ones I've read (or, in most cases, read about) seem to think Christianity as we know it owes a lot more to Paul than to Jesus of Nazareth.

mens_sana

[Boldface added]
* So noted.
** Son of God, yes, but it looks as if not all of the early "Christians" believed in the resurrection, e.g., the Epistle of James doesn't even mention it, although "our Lord Jesus Christ" is there. Of course, in this particular case, I've offered an argument from silence. Pretty ringing silence though.

Clivedurdle

Does anyone else read the gospels as just so stories to make sense of and tie together the rituals they were evolving - baptism, eucharist etc?

SLD

But we do have a lot of evidence for an historical figure. There are dozens of first century writings that attest to the existence of such a figure. Not just the four canonical gospels (all at least late first century) but other gospels that never made it into the canon, Phillip, Thomas, Ebionite, Hebrew Gospel, Egerton Gospel, and others.

Now I realize that these are not altogether reliable. I certainly don't believe in the mythological aspects of their stories. I'm as much a freethinker as the next guy on these boards. But it seems to me a quite logical conclusion that there is something behind all of these historical writings. I suspect that there was a Jesus who was simply another in a long line of failed anti-Roman messiahs who was brutally crucified by the Romans.

I think the complete MJer's should wonder why we have this connection to Judaism? Why is there this whole debate in early Christianity about whether you need to be Jewish first in order to be Christian? It is obvious that there was a Jewish Christian movement that was later destroyed by the proto-orthodox movement (from Paul). But how could there be a purely mythical Jesus within Judaism since they would never have accepted (and didn't accept) the concept of a pagan dying and rising savior god? The idea that a bunch of Judean living Jews would create this creature out of whole cloth seems way too far fetched to believe. The logical conclusion is a historical figure whom Paul coopts into his mythological christ and from perhaps real accounts of his ministry we get proto gospels and ultimately the canon and other gospels.

SLD

Tharmas

Check out Burton Mack, author of Who Wrote the New Testament?, and many others. He sees the New Testament (including each of the gospels) as a disjointed union of many different "traditions" including a teaching tradition, an apocalyptic tradition, etc.

Each of these traditions may have had a single historical figure at its root, or may not have; we will probably never know.

aa5874

Of course Jesus could be babbled out of existence, because he didn't exist.

Just like Achilles could be babbled out of existence.

But, one thing for sure, he cannot be babbled into existence, because he never did exist.

And you babble the same thing that Jesus never existed.

PhilosopherJay

Hi PatCleaver,

Good points.

The look of George Lucas' Darth Vader was based on the costume of Date Masamune (September 5, 1567 – June 27, 1636), a Samurai warrior. Although Jesus the Christ may have been based on one or more historical figures, we have no idea who he or they were. It is therefore correct to say that, at the moment, we have more evidence of an historical Darth Vader than we do for an historical Jesus.

Sincerely,

Jay Raskin