Littlejohn

Hi Toto!

"..and there is no known way to recover this Jesus..."

I don't think it.

I think that the way exists and that goes simply sought. To succeed in this research is absolutely necessary to "throw in nettles" (cast aside) the image that we have of Jesus and of the facts which saw him involved, because everything is a reflection of a hallucinating deception: that perpetrated by the "saints" founding fathers to the detriment of others like them, for the exclusive benefit of political and social class dominant, namely that imperial and patrician-senatorial.

Every century of history Catholic us return the image of a clergy "flatten" to the wishes and interests of the ruling class.

This happens still our days, although not in "blatantly" way, as in the past, when the absolutism of despotic antidemocratic rulers, guaranteed coverage necessary for the clergy who continued to propose it to "credulous devotees" as a "holy" institution, without fear of denial by any (the pyres, forks, chambers of torture, indiscriminate massacres, speak for themselves!)

This should make it clear to those who still believe that the deviation of the clergy, his well remunerated "prostitution" at the secular power, has been an incident of "path", when it was part of the DNA of the Catholic cult of the origins.

When one will neglect or, better still, one wll set aside temporarily researches to this time not very useful for the purpose, such as the one to decide whether a particular letter Greek or Aramaic over an ancient papyrus can be interpreted in one way or another, then the researches for the historical Jesus can be directed towards more producing perspectives.

This gender of research, namely those just mentioned, can be compared to "wire straw." Without doubt they have their own importance and are certainly to be thanking all those scholars who engage in such work. However, it is my opinion that before interest us with "wire straw", we must first determine what kind of "straw-stack" we have to do! I, with this, want to say it is absolutely necessary to identify the "path" through which to conduct our researches.

What used by scholars who have gone before us and, unfortunately, even those modern, is a wrong path and it is demonstrates by the fact that even today, about 19 centuries after the founding of Catholic-Christian cult, yet no one is managed to reveal the mysteries that lie-low behind its birth. All this because the scholars had done nothing more than follow in slavish way, for their researches and their studies, the path prepared by the astute clergy about 19 centuries ago! And it is unnecessary stress that this is a false and misleading path...


Littlejohn
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Minimalist

And the evidence for this belief is what? Wishful thinking? A hangover from his days as a fundie? Ehrman is a fine scholar when it comes to pouring over the texts. Somehow he doesn't quite seem to grasp the disconnect between the errors and deliberate distortions he has detected and the fact that those same flawed texts provide the only 'proof' that this character ever existed at all.

Toto

Read his book. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I think he assumes that there was a prophet type at the beginning of Christianity who inspired the religion (call him Jesus), and given this assumption, various texts in the gospels indicate that this person was preaching the end times and the coming of a new kingdom of god.

And if you assume that religion is a human product and the human psychology has not advanced very much in 2000 years, you can look around you and see people preaching the end times. So it is not totally unreasonable to think that Christianity might have been started by someone similar.

But notice that nothing here requires that this founder was crucified or has any characteristics of the gosple Jesus. It is more a product of the idea that great men drive history forward than a fundamentalist upbringing.

aa5874

And, since Bart believes that Jesus was an apocalyptic nutcase, let us place this nutcase in the first century during the time of Pilate and then ask him, " What did this nutcase do to be called the Son of the God of the Jews, the Messiah, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ while the Jewish Temple was still standing?

David Koresh went up in smoke, so too will Bart's nutcase.

thedistillers

What makes you think he doesn't "grasp" that?

Littlejohn

In this case my opinion is different from that of Ehrman (in which I have never acknowledged myself) and from your, since for me Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical character. Affirming that does not mean that one accept as true everything that the clergy has spread all around in nearly 16 centuries of power virtually undisputed. What that the priests have told about Jesus and continue to tell, is the fruit of pure and hallucinating lie, that little or nothing can help to rebuild the real profile of historical Jesus.

Littlejohn
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aa5874

Jesus of WHERE? Did you write Nazareth? Now, which book or source are you using to support your claim that there was a person called Jesus who was in a city called Nazareth during the time of Tiberius?

I hope you realise that nothing in the NT with respect to Jesus that can be verified to be true, not even his NAME.

figuer

There seem to have been many "Jesus like" figures in Judaea and vicinity during that period. That one or several were crucified is reasonable given Roman custom. A schizophrenic carpenter/rabbi who believed himself to be the son of god and descendant of the royal line... blasphemy and political sedition combined... prime target for capital punishment.

aa5874

The NT is claiming that while the Jewish Temple was still standing and Jews were still performing Jewish traditional religious rites including circumcision, that there were people who were claiming that a crucified blasphemer was the the Son of God of the Jews, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who could save the Jews from their sins, circumcision and sacrifice of animals is obsolete, and that further he ROSE from the dead.

Philo and Josephus did not record such a figure.

Nothing can be recovered from the unknown.

figuer

That is questionable, but it is to be noticed that a crucified lunatic could have passed as something unimportant, considering in particular how crucifixions were quite common. There being a sort of historical Jesus doesn't mean that it was of any relevance except to a few followers.