TimBowe

So many different scholars have attempted to answer the question of what, if anything, can be known about the life Jesus. Can we (by historical reconstruction) find out with any certainty who Jesus really was?

TimBowe

ercatli

I was wandering by so I thought I'd give my answers (and save you being lonely on this thread at the same time! ).

No. (Few scholars other than JD Crossan believe that.) Yes. (Sort of.) I guess (If you want to define it that way.)

Almost all say we can indeed know quite a lot. A few examples (all mainstream scholars) .....

Marcus Borg, Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University:
"some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed, and he really was crucified, just as Julius Caesar really existed and was assassinated. ..... We can in fact know as much about Jesus as we can about any figure in the ancient world."

M A Powell, Professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus Ohio:
"Jesus did more than just exist. He said and did a great many things that most historians are reasonably certain we can know about today."

James H. Charlesworth, Professor of New Testament Language and Literature. Princeton University:
"Jesus did exist; and we know more about him than about almost any Palestinian Jew before 70 C.E."

Tom Wright, formerly University Lecturer in New Testament, Oxford:
"The historical evidence for Jesus himself is extraordinarily good. .... the evidence dovetails together with remarkable consistency, as I and many others have shown in works of very detailed historical scholarship. From time to time people try to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, but virtually all historians of whatever background now agree that he did, and most agree that he did and said a significant amount at least of what the four gospels say he did and said."

Craig Evans, Professor of New Testament at Acadia University, Nova Scotia:
"Research in the historical Jesus has taken several positive steps in recent years. Archaeology, remarkable literary discoveries, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and progress in reassessing the social, economic, and political setting of first-century Palestine have been major factors. .... the persistent trend in recent years is to see the Gospels as essentially reliable, especially when properly understood, and to view the historical Jesus in terms much closer to Christianity’s traditional understanding"

Pretty much, as shown above. That isn't really any longer the question.

Best wishes.

dog-on

Case in point:



This has to be one of the most ridiculous statements regarding HJ I have seen in a long time.

Someone should tell Evans to lay off the pipe, imo...

motorhead

I say the weight of the evidence in the NT overall points to apocalyptic preacher.

show_no_mercy

Jesus is basically anything anyone wants him to be, since he's just a character in a story.

squiz

I don't know about the others, but Tom Wright (Aka. N. T. Wright) also believes that, applying this same historical method, he can historically prove that Jesus was literally resurrected from the dead. This all makes me rather skeptical.

ApostateAbe

Sure. I recommend the book, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, by Bart Ehrman. As you can guess, his theory is that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. I would say he was a cult leader, but Ehrman doesn't use that word.

The evidence? The quotes of Jesus in the synoptic gospels that predict the imminent end of the world ("...there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God..." and "...this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."). That and the late attempts to explain those words when the prophecies apparently failed (John 21:20-23 and 2 Peter 3:3-8). None of those passages can be easily explained had Jesus not been an apocalyptic cult leader.

spamandham

Is there a reason we should limit ourselves to just the NT?

lpetrich

What other sources would you wish to include?

I don't know much about the noncanonical Gospels, but the non-Xian sources are all secondhand -- there isn't any account of someone who had known him in person and was independent of the NT or the noncanonical Gospels.

Nothing like Lucian of Samosata's account of Alexander of Abonutichus.