Brooke

My first post, so bear with me. Let me provide some context. I am a secular humanist. I place God and leprechauns in more or less the same category (although, at least leprechauns--even though they are ontologically challenged--managed to get their own brand-name cereal. Good for them). I am also (perhaps ironically) a graduate student in Religious Studies, who specialises in the New Testament--precisely because this literature is so darn important in human history.

Here's the thing. As a student of the New Testament, I am quite convinced that the canonical Gospels are fairly reliable sources for the general outline of Jesus' life. I am quite convinced that Jesus was born somewhere in Israel (probably Nazareth) sometime around 4 B.C.E., adopted an itinerant religious lifestyle with overt political overtones about 30 years later, and was executed sometime around 30 C.E. I am equally certainly that some of his followers had some sort of experiences in the days, weeks and months following his death, which convinced them that he was still alive (I lean towards the old hallucination theory to account for their experiences).

I want to leave to one side whether or not that assessment is valid, and make what I consider a more pressing observation. These historical assessments of the Gospel accounts do not require me to accept that Jesus was the Son of God. I do not believe that God rose him from the dead, but merely that the earliest Christians believed (erronously) that this had occurred. Put simply, a relatively high view of the historicity of the Gospel accounts does not necessitate a high view of the theology of said narratives. In point of fact, I reject their theology entirely, as I do not believe in any theos whatsoever. Thus, I have a relatively high view of the historicity, but the lowest possible view of the theology. Likewise, it is possible to have a a relatively low view of the historicity but a relatively high view of their theology (Rudolf Bultmann comes to mind immediately as a scholar who thought that the Gospels were of little use historically but of tremendous use theologically). In short, atheists, secular humanists, and non-Christians in general need not rely upon historical arguments against the Gospel accounts, nor must they wholly reject the historicity of these accounts in order to reject the theology contained therein.

Toto

Welcome to the forums. I look forward to your contributions.

:wave:

LoungeHead

Brooke;
What has convinced you that Jesus even existed?
What has convinced you Nazareth existed at the time of Jesus' life?

Welcome to the fray.

TonyN

I bet Dr Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, would have loved to have gotten ahold of whatever it was they were taking!

1Co 15:3-8 For I give over to you among the first what also I accepted, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, (4) and that He was entombed, and that He has been roused the third day according to the scriptures, (5) and that He was seen by Cephas, thereupon by the twelve." (6) Thereupon He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the majority are remaining hitherto, yet some were put to repose also." (7) Thereupon He was seen by James, thereafter by all the apostles." (8) Yet, last of all, even as if a premature birth, He was seen by me also."

Man, I gotta tell ya, that's a lot of people to be on drugs and all seeing the same thing at the same time.

Anyway, welcome to the boards. I'm not an official welcomer by the way. I'm just a horses ass. Yea, really. Everyone that tells me that I figure must be on LSD. They never see the legs or the head, just the ass part :huh:

Gregg

Hi Brooke, welcome to the forum.

No offense intended, but I think you may be making an assumption about ahistoricist and mythicist arguments that is preventing you from taking those arguments at face value. That assumption being that the sole or main motivation ahistoricists and Jesus mythicists have is to disprove or discredit Christianity and Christian theology.

And/or, you may not have been exposed yet to a whole dimension (or several dimensions) of the ahistoricist case, dimensions that I was certainly unaware of back when I was dismissing out of hand the idea of Jesus being entirely non-historical.

I was initially highly skeptical when I first encountered the ahistoricist/mythicist case. At the time I was an inquiring agnostic who accepted that there was a historical reality behind the gospel accounts and had no reason to want to think otherwise. I certainly didn't feel it was necessary to reject Jesus' historicity in order to reject Christian theology. However, the arguments and evidence proved so compelling, and perfectly explained so many things that had always bothered and perplexed me about the historicist case, that I had no choice but to put the weight of probability on the side of mythicism.

So, allow me to suggest that you put aside any preconceptions or assumptions about the motives of the ahistoricists and mythicists and engage their arguments with an open mind.

spin

TonyN, who exactly are the twelve?? Why does the text say "twelve"? Who are the apostles, if they are not among the twelve or even the 500 brothers? (And did Jesus have 500 brothers? Were they brothers of the lord?)

Brooke, the texts we are dealing with are not interested in reality, but what reality should be. This allows writers in all conviction to freely modify their sources. Matthew happily changes Mark. Luke happily changes Mark. Someone has happily modified Paul. And someone has concocted Acts out of various sources, the result of which has difficulty being reconciled with Paul's texts. If you are convinced that the "gospels are fairly reliable for the general outline of Jesus' life", then your conviction doesn't reflect what I know about these texts. Do you favour John for Jesus going to Jerusalem three times over the synoptics having him go there once? (Did he go there at all?) Do you favour Matthew's holy family living in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth or Luke's holy family living in Nazareth? Mark knows nothing about the birth of Jesus, so was the birth stories developed after that text was written? John's Jesus gives us three chapters of discourses on the night before his death, before going off to the garden to get arrested; he knows nothing of the sleepy disciples who kept failing their master in his time of difficulty. The other gospels know nothing about the discourses. Are these generally reliable?

On what grounds could anyone claim that the gospels provide a reliable reflection of anything about this world?

Woe to the gullible who take tradition as reality, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


spin

neilgodfrey

True. I cast off christianity and became an atheist for reasons that had nothing to do with the "historical" accuracy of the bible. But many believers do find it important to verify their theology in history. Bauckham has even attempted to unite history and theology in is Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, but in my blog review I am currently doing on this book I conclude he is merely smashing to bits both history and theology. Maybe I got the idea from T.L.Thompon who wrote that attempting to make historical sense out of theological texts destroys the texts we have before we get anywhere.


I like the passages that teach faith can remove mountains of evidence, and the one that says the Christian walks by faith and not what he sees before his own eyes. (I Cor.5.7)


Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

gdeering

Hi Brooke,

I’m a long time haunter, and neophyte, I’ll give you my picture from up in the observation deck.


If there was an actual person/preacher inside the narrative he is made irrelevant by the religious fabrication of the gospels and assorted mushrooming non-cannon worthy texts. None of these were created as history, which kind of seem to me in my 20th – 21st century viewpoint as forgeries in a sense, since the canonical gospels all claim to be the words of the apostles (possible exception of Luke). So not history, they seem created purely to sell a story to spiritually needy people – Jew and gentile a like.

There is no concept of authenticity, given the random differences in the Gospels, and by the need to fabricate miracles and assorted other impossibilities: shoehorned-in fulfillment of OT prophesy, for instance. All created to give the story "convincing realism."

I also think that the “real” Jesus is completely obliterated by the necessity of taking the story to the gentiles, a less demanding audience, and one also expecting the fabulous. The rejection of the story by the Jews is the only thread that makes me think there was a Jesus, and he was a pacifist/millennialism of a sort that, I am lead to believe, was not uncommon in Palestine at the time.

I admit that this idea is not very convincing to those who think he did not exist, and it's a thin thread, but I am too comforted by the idea that he does not exist, and that gives me pause as well.


Gregg

Amaleq13

No question about it. A drug that replicates the brain's amazing ability to fool itself (ie convince a person they interacted with a dead man)? You wouldn't be able to keep the shelves stocked!

I don't know the basis for the above claims but it certainly isn't the passage you quoted (other info from the Gospels suggests the risen Jesus wasn't easily recognized). No details are given to support or even suggest they all saw the "same thing" and the details that are provided clearly deny that they saw anything "at the same time". Different people at different times claimed to have seen what they believed to be Jesus risen from the dead.


PS Welcome to IIDB, Brooke. As a former member used to say "Mind the hounds!"

Gregg

It seems to me the Jews would have been just as likely to reject Christianity without a historical Jesus, seeing as it owed as much, if not more, to Greek Platonism and the pagan mysteries. It's likely the general Christian concept emerged apart from Judaism and Paul and the Jerusalem church later adapted it to mystical Judaism, seeing the activities of the heavenly Christ revealed in the Jewish scriptures. This would have been a highly unorthodox interpretation, unlikely to make much headway with any but the fringe, mystical Jewish sects.