gstafleu

If one asks the question "Who is the Mythical Jesus?" the answer is fairly straightforward: it is the Jesus of faith, seen as myth. Who the Jesus of faith is is also fairly straightforward, we can for example find his attributes, sayings and deeds in the Gospels. Not every Christian will agree with each other Christian as to the exact "definition" of the Jesus of faith, but we have at least something to talk about.

This is not the case with the Historical Jesus, who, as opposed to the Jesus of Faith, is supposed to have walked the earth even according to those who don't believe in the Jesus of faith, or at most believe in the historicity of a relatively small subset of his attributes. If there is one thing that has been constant in the HJ camp, it is the steadfast and unswerving refusal of its members to describe who, what and when the Historical Jesus was.

When we consult Webster's for a definition of "Myth," we find the following:

1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

When we are talking about the mythical Jesus, we are using the definitions of myth as given in 1. and 2. above, the ones, that is, which belong in the scholarly realm of comparative mythology. Definitions 3-5 are more colloquial, they indicate things that are not true, or for which there is no evidence, but which people believe nevertheless.

It occurs to me that the Historical Jesus could be mythical in the sense of definitions 3-5, simply because there can be no evidence for something that has never been described. The Historical Jesus is certainly more evanescent than the Mythical one, as we have a fairly good description of the latter but none of the former. The Mythical Jesus, in other words, is something we can get our hands on, the Historical Jesus is not. In a sense that to me makes the Historical Jesus more mythical than the Mythical one.

Gerard Stafleu

Masorah613

That's interesting Gerard,

thanks for sharing that. But, your claim really goes against only the more 'secular' of the HJ movement.

Have you tried to look into the few Orthodox Jewish opinions of the HJ?
They, in fact, hold that Jesus was actually one of their own and that all of what we can know about him is expressed in the very same book of the JoF.
The only difference is that we, the Jewish side of the argument, but him back into historical context where it is claimed that he had lived.

Even more, is the reputation of the family members (desposyni) and disciples of Jesus outside of the NT.
We know that the desposyni were wiped out of open existence by the Church by the 300's of the common era, yet before then the Church(es?) revered them.
Also, is the respect that Judaism has for James, the brother of Jesus, and for the Apostle Peter; both of which we consider one of our own respected teachers of the past.
So the HJ is not without good argument in the Jewish movement of things.

aa5874

I agree with your statement. The HJ camp cannot get their story straight.

gstafleu

True, but the amount of people who say Historical Jesus=Jesus of Faith is rather small these days, at least on these forums. Furthermore, their position is dogmatic rather than scholarly/scientific, and hence interesting only from a psychological point of view.

Is this position based on solid historical science or on faith? My impression is, but I could be wrong, that that position is based on faith.

Know?
Sure, but based on science or on faith? How does it hold up to the arguments of Doherty and Price e.g.? Doherty has a developmental argument that shows (or claims to do so) how the concept of Jesus developed from a purely spiritual one to a historic one. Price has derivational arguments that, in essence, show that everything the bible says (in the gospels and acts) about Jesus can easily be derived from then-current and antecedent thought. I would suspect these arguments impact a Jewish position as much as a Christian one.

Gerard Stafleu

Masorah613

That is agreeable in all cases.

The way the Jewish people look at our books, and even the world, is indeed of faith; however, not without substance. In fact, in all cases, it is forbidden for us to have faith without knowing why we believe it. Some of the reasons are more philosophical than others; however, most of the reasons are based on science. What is even more, our 'faith' is based on laws and science. We are commanded to know the sciences in order to enhance our laws. So if this is our faith, and we are applying our faith upon Jesus who himself was also a Jew and constantly had dealings with us who have this 'faith' then I am applying a Historical context to him. On the basis of historical research on literature or a people, one cannot rule out the historical context of which one is claimed to have been in- the historical context of Jesus' day was of the faith of the Jewish people, and thus, it cannot be ruled out.

If so, then indeed, applying only historical science to Jesus will make another myth. We have to take all things, within the historical context, and put it in play.

Well, once a person does a little research on the desponyni they will see how revered they are in church history. This would make it that there were a Jewish group that practiced no differently than the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple, who said that they were family members of Jesus.

I believe that it would have to go with what I explained to you above. It was the faith of the Jewish people in the first century that would have necessity in playing a role into the HJ. Jesus didnt just live in some vacuum cut off from the faiths that co-existed with his existence.

(taken from wikipedia: )
In this case, it would seem to me that Doherty and Price take very little consideration for understanding Jewish beliefs and seeing how it fits into the historical context of the time. This isn't a bad thing, for some of the things they bring up makes good point and helps flush out some of the troubles in understanding the HJ. However, it is in this view that Orthodox Jewish scholarship has taken consideration to step in and fill, the idea of:

"If Jesus was supposedly a Jew, who lived in Palestine some rough 2,000 years ago, and the NT is supposedly a compilation of all that he taught and endorsed; we Jews who know our history and historical context of those times, let us see who this Jesus really was."

This approach makes sense to me as a good historical basis. and a more reasonable one.

wordy

Gerard, I'm an ordinary guy and not into study of old text or history but I see much merit in your reasoning.

The problem seems to be that very few care.

To both the believer in the Historical Jesus as Spiritual? Christ incarnating into him and becoming Son of God or similar. Paul taking over and the others deleting or burning up all the rest so there is very little to go on.

Maybe there existed such persons as James but they most likely has very little relation to the Jesus of scripture.

I'm curious on such figures as "The Teacher" that the texts in Qumran talks about. Or what about Bar Abbas the leader of revolutionaries from Galile? Could not Jesus be based on those allegedly historical real persons. A way to survive, They tried to fight the Romans but failed, to survive they hide within a pacifistic sect? Only me speculating .

Masorah613

Hi wordy,

Bar Abbas was not the leader of the zealots from the Galil. In fact, Jewish history says that it was a man called Judas the Galilean. He was endorsed by a Rabbi, a Pharisee of the Shammai school of thought, known as Rabbi Zadok.

The Zealots were first organized in 20 BCE, then these zealots settled down a tad from killing many students from the pharisees of the school of thought of Hillel in 10BCE. This event was known as the "killing of the prophets" in both Jewish writing and in the NT.

However, it was in 6CE that they were refashioned to begin planning their conquer of the Roman Empire.
And those of Qumran were known to be militant in nature aswell. There are other groups called "essenes" that were pascifists, the "essenes" however are a blurred group and cannot be defined as one group.
In describing the "essenes" there are some essenes that had sadducaic leanings, there were some essenes that were pious and just 'of the people', there were some 'essenes' that were pharisaic (rabbinical) in nature, and there were some 'essenes' that were only priestly in their leanings.
So unless you know the faith backgrounds of the portions you're reading of the texts of Qumran, you'll be left aloof as to who they really were.

Toto

In 2002, I asked this question: Jesus' Jewish relativesThere was some interesting discussion there, but no clear answer.

There was more discussion of Jesus' family here: What happened to Mary and her relatives

All this was before the recent hoopla about the Tomb of Jesus and Tabor's Jesus Dynasty, which does not seem to have added any clarity to the discussion.

gstafleu

Yes, Jesus could be based on such figures. One can never totally disprove that an HJ existed, in some sort of form. In fact, much of the strategy of the HJ camp seems to be to keep the hypothesized HJ sufficiently undefined, so that he cannot be contradicted by available, and possible future, evidence.

However, in spite of the fact that one can never 100% rule out an HJ, there are two streams of MJ endeavour that make an HJ very unlikely. There is the Doherty stream which produces a developmental model that shows that Jesus started as a mythical concept. Then there is the Price stream that shows that everything we know about Jesus can be derived from known sources. It is the combination of these two that is as good as fatal to the HJ hypothesis. The only possible counter to it I can see is a proposal of what and when the HJ was. And that, faith-based initiatives aside, does not seem to be forthcoming.

Gerard Stafleu

wordy

Masorah613, thanks indeed, so there are real evidence for some historical persons then. Doesn't that show how utterly unlikely a historical Jesus is?