Toto

The historical Jesus (as opposed to the supernatural Jesus) was a product of non-believers - Enlightenment scholars who wanted to find a real person behind the myth.

Otherwise, there are a number of possible reasons for non-believers to want to believe in a historical Jesus. We like Great Men and other heros in history. The idea of someone sacrificing himself to save the world has a certain basic appeal to it; you can find it throughout ancient and modern myths and literature.

Jesus is a popular icon, and if you can tie your political philosophy to something Jesus said, it gains something in stature, and allows you to make common cause with at least some believers.

There's nothing to gain by claiming that Jesus is a myth. And there is so little real historical data, you could never prove that Jesus did not exist.

Hex

I merely bring those up because, if viewed anthropologically (which is where this has moved), all of those work to 'shift' the views and actions of the populaces involved, and then those of subsequent generations. The witch trials and purges of heretics served to eliminate 'outsiders' (read: those who disagreed with Catholic doctrine, such as pagans or freethinkers), spread control of the church, and increase the power of the church through military and economic power.

Did "Christ" espouse all of that? Where is the "Christ" in any of it other than in name, or as a 'poster-child' for those in power? What we're looking at is a bureaucracy which functions on power and control with religion as its legitimizing factor.

True. Nothing is black and white in this realm. But how many Christians today really beleive Paul in Galatians 2? He's saying Christ got rid of Mosaic law, right?

Thus, they're saved by faith. But wait, they also will point to how homosexuality is an abomination to God, right? So are men who wear women's clothes and vice versa. That's part of the law that Christ got rid of. Where's the inflance? Whose power is being wielded? Who does the picking and choosing of what people beleive from the religious texts

As the above example indicates, the Biblical stories, Old and New Testament blend in Christianity. Christ is not the 'foundation'. If you really want to look to a foundation, you have to look to the OT. The aspects of Christianity's roots as a mystery religion reveal how the OT was supposed to have foretold the coming of the Messiah. All the re-interpretation (which is clarified in many cases by Paul in his letters) of the OT is merely to give legitimacy to Jesus being the Messiah.

Or, look to snake handlers, who care much more about possession by the Holy Ghost than dealing with "Christ". Or the Branch Davidians. They use(d) the same book, but have an entirely different focus than, say, Catholics. Is "Christ" the influance, or rather those who interpret the texts and thus, influance how people

Again, another group of people looking to gain/maintain power via legitimacy. Need Jesus be the Messiah for a 'church' to arise and control the populace when the Roman Empire falls apart? I suspect not. The Hebrew of the Roman era were looking for a Messiah, I suspect they would have found one somewhere else if "Christ" had not been fixed upon. But even still, he's not the foundation, merely a stepping stone.

I agree. And 1300 years of RCC and 400 years of Christian 'splinter group' leaders have probably had more impact on the society as a whole than Jesus, mythical or not.

Soul Invictus

Well the only suggestion that I have for this is that if you are contemplating following the mode of thought with the most scholarly consensus, and it's important to you, then consider the amount of facts that support either side.


Not comparisons of what is possible. Not models. Facts.

Chris Weimer

Christ symbolized for them the power which made them legitimate. Churches didn't think that Paul or Augustine gave them power - they used God, and Jesus Christ who to them was God, to gain their authority. If Paul himself was used, it's because he was used first by Christ. Remember, �*αυλος δουλος Χριστου Ιησου [ην].

Well, sort of.

Are they picking and choosing or do you just not know your Bible? Mark 10.5-7 can clearly be taken as a prohibition against gay marriage - God says that men and women were made for each other, and they should become one flesh.

You really oughtn't put words in my mouth. I didn't say Christ was the foundation. I said without Christ, there would be no Christians. Without the Hebrew scriptures, there would be no Christ. I'm not stupid enough not to give credit where it's due, but you were arguing for a minimal impact on Christ, now you're arguing that the OT is more of a foundation. Can we stick to one subject without constantly going off on a derail?

Have either of those sects had a major influence on the world? As far as I knew, the Branch Davidians were a minor player in Waco, and their impact today is still only minimally felt, while the former I've never even had heard of.

Quick question - who do you think more people are familiar with - Christ, Paul, or Augustine? Choose one.

When did I say he needed to be? But he was there. You cannot deny that he was there.

You're again building a strawman, and while doing so you're effectively beating it down. But how about let's stick to what I actually said. :huh:

But there would be no RCC nor splinter groups had there not been Jesus, mythical or real.

PS - another tossup - what is more popular, "The Quest for the Historical Augustine", "The Quest for the Historical Branch Davidians", or "The Quest for the Historical Jesus"?

gurugeorge

Well in case you hadn't noticed Chris, there are quite a few seemingly committed Christians on this board fighting the HJ corner (and some of them are very clever). It puzzles me no end why they fight with such fine tooth combs for this little ort of a historical "Jesus."

It's all well and good for humanists and rationalists to argue to and fro whether this or that obscure reference to some obscure figure might, just possibly, show some glimmer of evidence that there was some historical personage at the origins of Christianity. But for Christians? For Christian scholars? What do they think they are doing?

I mean, if there's no historical proof of the God-man (and there does seem to be a consensus for that even amongst Christian scholars), what is gained by proving the downsized version? Is that supposed to support Christianity or something?

Dear Christian scholar: if there's no historical proof of the God-man, then surely either Christianity must be dead for you, or you are simply going on faith. Why are you still messing around with history?

Is such strenuous efffort supposed to convince people who aren't paying attention closely that the full blown Jesus of the religion, the Jesus people believed in for centuries, must somehow have have existed after all, if we can just prove that there was some obscure figure there? (Kind of a "bait and switch?") Because that's just nonsense.

No "big" "Jesus" (whether real or imaginary), then no real Christianity. A "small" Jesus is surely of interest only to secular historians of religion and queer cults, and how big cults arise from small cults in odd ways (as they occasionally do).

Chris Weimer

That remark strikes me so similar to the remark by Biden about Obama being "articulate". "Hey, look at that! Clever Christians! Huh, whodda thunk of such a thing?"

Are you so bigoted that you think that every Christian is dogmatic, that none actually do want to find the truth, just like the rest of us? If you're going to be engaged in that sort of bigotry, I want nothing to do with you or your conversation.

Toto

Chris - I think you're reading that implication into what gurugeorge said. It sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder, as if you're looking for insults to Christians.

This thread needs to cool down a bit.

gurugeorge

You've got the wrong end of the stick about the "clever" thing mate. But as to your truth-seeker point - well, if the truth is that there's no historical proof of the God-man, why are Christian scholars still Christians? It seems to me they can only retain belief in the full-blown God-man on faith, because there's no evidence for his existence.

In which case, their interest in an obscure preacher who was mistaken for a God-man - what's that all about? Certainly, it could be a scholarly thing, but how is it still a Christian thing?

Chris Weimer

I'm just calling bigotry when I see it. It's one thing to call the logic of Christianity into question, it's totally different to say that you don't understand how Christians can engage in an honest inquiry into truth.

They said the same thing about racists.

If you don't recognize your biases, if you don't recognize where you're prejudiced, how else can you engage in honest scholarship?

You can't. Anti-Christian polemic is just as bad as dogmatic Christianity in scholarship - neither deserve a place at the table.

gurugeorge

They can certainly engage into an honest in inquiry into truth about Christian origins with their scholars' hats on, so to speak. But if they do so, how can they still keep their Christian hats on?

If there's no historical evidence for a real, live God-man, if the origins of Christianity are that of some normal, historical development of a large cult out of an obscure cult, what is left of Christianity?

Once the God-man is lost, once the putative "historical proof" of the Gospels for this God-man is lost (as it certainly is), Christianity is lost. For Christians (who happen to be scholars) to still piddle about with a non-God-man "historical Jesus" would seem to me to be a complete waste of time.

What they should say, logically, is: "screw history, screw evidence, we believe in Him anyway - it only looks as though our religion developed from some weird obscure preacher in Palestine, really it was the God-man, only for some reason no evidence of him has come down to us. We thought the Gospels were such evidence, but we were wrong, nevertheless we still believe."

How can scholars (who happen to be Christians), how can evidently clever people (which was my point), handle the cognitive dissonance here? Do they even see it? Or are these things in two separate compartments in their minds?