Solo

Would the meaning of Toto's statement been any clearer to you had he said "religious propaganda" instead of "theologically driven stories" ? But then again, you are already operating with something you claim is unclear to you, so never mind that one....

But tell me this: apart from acknowledging the NT texts as useful in studying them as a historical genre, greco roman bioi if you wish, though I am not sure who else was saving the poor in spirit at the end of the world...i.e. that it was a genre, so apart from that also,

.....would you not agree that the gospels, Acts and the epistles (other than the genuine Paulines) are next to worthless for the purposes of establishing and/or verifying the historicity of events and utterances of the characters they proclaim ?

Much obliged.

Jiri

spamandham

...no obvious difference?

What fraction of the gospels contain absurd implausibilities (a lot)? Compare that to Josephus (a small fraction).

What fraction of the gospels appear to be constructed from Jewish scriptures (a lot)? Compare that to Josephus (none?).

IMHO, there is hardly any similarity between period history and the gospels

andrewcriddle

Thinking about it I'm not sure what this really means.

Are we imagining a situation where Christianity exists or (is known from historical records to have existed) but where there are no surviving Christian sacred texts or accounts of Christian beliefs? Or a situation where Christianity left no records other than some ambiguous texts in Josephus etc ?

I find the first position intrinsically implausible. In the second case one might well believe that the James killed by the high priest c 62 CE had a brother called Jesus about whom some sort of messianic claim was made by somebody. Whether this amounts to believing in a historical Jesus in any meaningful sense is another matter.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella

(Wasn't Elvis from Memphis?)

aa5874

The OP deals with the existence of Jesus, not Christianity. According to Justin Martyr, there were Christians who had no affiliation to Jesus whatsoever. And it would appear Christians predated the fabricated Jesus of the NT.

lpetrich

It would be hard to imagine Xianity without the New Testament, but I will try.

Let's say that instead of being written down, Jesus Christ and Paul and their teachings were preserved purely orally and transmitted by initiates who swore themselves to secrecy in the fashion of Greek mystery religions. Only some centuries later were they officially written down.

There would be various references to JC, but nothing really substantial for 2 or 3 centuries.

And I think that many people studying him would think that he is probably real, but surrounded with so much mythology that it is difficult to tell fact from fiction. Consider Pythagoras and Socrates; trying to tell fact from fiction about them has been awfully difficult.

jules?

surely the very fact that by 170 c.e. that there was both a body of gnostic gospels and the 4 orthodox ones and ass well as a power struggle between those who believed in an historical and spiritual saviour would indicate no one actual knew the truth.

I would also point to the fact that all 'historical' gospels were not written in the language of the apostles and rather than being a collection of sayings the original 'mark' understood the art of drama and writting in a classical style.

The only non-gospel referances only speak of the messiah and not of Yeshoo ben Joseph.

Of course none of this would be an issue if we were talking about King Arthur or Homer.

Roland

I'm not the one who brought up Josephus or Tacitus as examples against which the gospels are to be measured. Those are obviously written as "historical accounts." It says so right on the label. The gospels are clearly narratives, filled with scenes - such as Herod's consulting with the magi "in secret" or Jesus' praying alone in Gethsemane - that only an omniscient author could know anything about. The gospels are too consciously crafted as narratives to be taken seriously as histories.

Which seems more likely: that a man happened to get himself crucified on the very day in which he could become a symbolic "sacrificial lamb," or that some ingenious author wrote it that way to make a point? The gospels are too-cutesy-by-half to be credible as history.

Minimalist

I like that line!

lpetrich

That's what's in our universe -- the point of this thread is to imagine an alternate timeline in which the Gospels and Epistles were not written down but transmitted orally in the fashion of the teachings of contemporary "mystery religions" like Mithraism and Orphism.

As I'd posted earlier, we'd have various comments from outside, but nothing definite. JC would be like Socrates and Pythagoras and Homer and Orpheus.

And even worse, Jesus Christ fits Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile suspiciously well. He typically scores 19 out of 22, placing him up there with Oedipus, Romulus, Perseus, Hercules, Zeus, Moses, Krishna, and the Buddha.

The highest that well-documented people get is typically around 10; that's where Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar are at. Modern people, like JFK, score at most around 7, and usually less. And I've scored Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, and Adolf Hitler.

By comparison, I've found that Harry Potter and Anakin, Luke, and Leia Skywalker are all high-scorers.

A summary:

* Divine or otherwise miraculous origin, like being the son of a god and a virgin. Why don't well-documented people have such parentage?

* Someone tries to kill the baby hero, out of anticipation of who that tyke will grow up to become. Has that EVER happened to anyone well-documented?

* Being rescued and raised by foster parents. Not true for JC, but true of some others, like Romulus and Oedipus and Zeus.

* Defeating the former ruler or some monster. JC refuses to give in to the Devil's temptations, and the Devil slinks off in defeat. Some well-documented people do come into power in that fashion; JFK defeated Eisenhower's VP, Richard Nixon, in 1960.

* An uneventful life as a lawgiver. Romulus founds Rome and its Senate and army, Krishna instructs Arjuna, and JC delivers lots of teachings.

* Rejection by either the gods or his people, followed by dethronement. God lets Moses look at the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo, but does not let him enter. JC gets rejected by the people of Jerusalem and by his disciples, but that doesn't happen that often for well-documented heroes. Abe Lincoln and JFK were not rejected by Congress, Charles Darwin was not rejected as a crackpot by his colleagues, and Napoleon's and Hitler's followers wavered and deserted them only as they saw themselves getting defeated. In fact, JC's disciples fleeing is atypical; the usual thing for such followers to stick to the side of their doomed leader until they either get defeated or see their defeat soon approaching.

* Unusual or mysterious death. Dying from crucifixion is not in itself notable, but a young, healthy, physically fit man dying in a few hours from crucifixion is. Likewise, Moses had been in good health until he came in sight of the Promised land; he got mysteriously sick and he died there. Romulus mysteriously disappeared in a storm at a swamp.

* Atop a hill. It sometimes happens; JC on Golgotha, Moses on Mt. Nebo, Hercules on Mt. Oeta. Some real-life heroes do die in elevated or prominent places, like Lincoln in a theater or JFK in a car during a parade. But some real-life heroes die where no legendary hero ever dies, in some depressed or hidden place, notably Hitler in his Berlin bunker.

There are some features that Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile could have included, like:

* Child-prodigy stories. JC has one.

* Prophecy fulfillment. Xian apologists enjoy making a big issue out of that, but JC is far from alone in fulfilling prophecies, often despite efforts to thwart that fulfillment. Zeus, Romulus, Oedipus, Perseus, Krishna, the Buddha, ...