Sparrow

Who knows what they might have considered themselves? Who knows what convinced them? We have no evidence of what they considered or believed until Paul starts writing. For all I can see they might have been as delusional as the Heaven’s Gate cult. I can’t see any way to know unless you have some new evidence.

Well it would seem that if the Jesus story is half baked and partially false, then serious skepticism should be the order. And if modern Christians get the story so incredibly wrong, then how are we to trust the oral stories alleged from 2000 years ago? Modern Christians can generally all read, if they choose to do so. Clearly they have chosen not to read certain parts of their bible. Perhaps you can straighten them out on the true story of Jesus – the one where there is no star in the east, no manger, no wise men, etc. I’ll be happy to wait while you do this, really, I will.

Or perhaps they told it in terms of the OT because that’s really all they had to work from. Old prophecies and Paul’s hallucinations.

Of course we don’t know what, if anything, Paul told them orally. He certainly didn’t write any of the biography down, if he knew it. It seems possible that they did not know any biography because it wasn’t important to them, just like it doesn’t seem to be important to Paul. It’s rather strange to assume they knew the biography without any evidence. It’s sort of like claiming that I didn’t include in this post the true nature of gravity because you already knew it. You don’t and I don’t either.

I’m not sure that your claim here is true. You may need more evidence; I certainly do. But there appears to be many individuals who even today are extremely gullible.

I disagree. We’re trying to establish some basis for whether or not there was an actual person or persons at the core of the Jesus story. So far it seems the best we can do is say that some people who lived in the middle of the first century believed there was such a person.

Clivedurdle

AN Wilson also wrote God's Funeral, a very powerful description of the end of faith in nineteenth century Britain.

Clivedurdle

Lord is used in the KJV as the translation of Jehovah and of Rabbi in Matthew 10 5. Other examples: "The Lord's Supper". "The Lord's Brother".

What was radical about that?

Vorkosigan

Yes, Brunner knows next to nothing about the New Testament, proffers opinions that are the stereotyped conventional wisdom of his day, his little insight into the text or its meanings, and has nothing to teach you. Why don't you start with someone who knows something? There are a multitude of good books by real scholars on Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Zeichman

Is "Lord's supper" in the Bible? Nonetheless, I don't see either "Rabbi" or "Kurios" in Matthew 10:5, so I have no idea what you're talking about. And how a word was translated 1600 years later has no bearing on its original understanding.

And you've yet to verify the claim which I'm most concerned: that Jesus' name would have been understood as you proposed in gentilic and Hellenistic communities. Mythicists seem to consistently make this argument without EVER backing it up. I do hope you'll break the mold.

mephie00

For me, it's not really a simple open and shut case of historical or mythical. There are certainly enough arguments and lines of evidence that the historical Jesus or at least the accounts of the historical Jesus come into question. However, there is always the argument that maybe there really was some influential prophet/ philosopher from Nazareth and overtime certain myths and legends were attributed to him. There certainly was no shortage of prophets and philosophers from that time period.

I think the one thing that makes me lean more towards the mythic hypothesis is that when you start to compare Jesus to other historic figures that have myths attributed to them it starts to look less like Jesus was an actual person. George Washington really existed, but that thing with the cherry tree is fiction. Martin Luther really existed but nailing a thesis to the church door is pure legend. If we take away those myths, we have one guy who was the first US president, the other started Lutheranism... but what did Jesus do? You could say that like Luther he founded a new faith... but we don't have numerous accounts of Luther having some sort of miraculous birth, and death and a whole series of miracles and fantastic events attributed to him where ever he went.

Likewise, when you compare Jesus to other historical figures with myths you run into a problem. Jesus has myths attributed to him that developed from previous myths and legends. Born on December 25th, just like Buddha. He was a God that was born as a human and later on became God and defeated death just like Hercules. We don't have barrowed legends attributed to other historical figures. We don't hear that Abe Lincoln also chopped down a cherry tree and couldn't tell a lie. We also don't hear that Luther was born of a virgin. The closest thing we have is a very small fringe group of people that believe Elvis and Maralyn Monroe are still alive (but none of them claim any bodily ressurection). If Jesus is a historical figure with myths attributed to him, he certainly is a special case.

No Robots

It's more like I nothing to learn from you about Brunner or the NT. The last time you said anything about Brunner, it was that, "the adulterous woman in John is a well-known interpolation from a later period. That was known in Brunner's time, but apparently he was too lazy to look up that little fact." This is a complete misrepresentation of the pericope which you have never acknowledged. In fact, this is your pattern when caught in an error: silence. As Brunner writes:

Nor have all the historical gaffes made by the learned and expert critics, which they themselves are obliged to gaze upon and relate, succeeded in giving them a horror of being learned and expert critics. They recount how they were made to shut their mouths as if it had nothing to do with them, and as if they hadn't got into a tight spot.

Stereotyped conventional wisdom? That Christ represents the perfection of Judaism? That Christianity is Judaism for Gentiles? That Christ is an atheist and that Judaism is pure atheism? That the Jews of Europe would be massacred as result of race theory? I think not. To call this convention wisdom of the times is just your typical, casual, lazy smear.

Clivedurdle

I cor 11 v 20

When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.

Please note v 23

"For I have received of the Lord that which I also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread"

Who is the Lord here? Who is this Lord Jesus? Why the different terms? What if you read it "I have received of the Lord that the Lord the same night..."

I do not understand these xians who do not read the Bible!

badger3k

Quick note to agree and to subscribe to this thread - after hearing Ehrmans teaching company lecture on this, I think he makes a compelling case for this same idea (even if I think he accepts some evidence too easily), but am still open, so I'll be reading this thread later to see what people bring to it.

badger3k

Alexander the Great was supposed to be the son of a god, ditto Julius Caesar (I think) - I'm sure there were more (Nero, I believe). If we were living in a similar intellectual time as they were, with gods and miracles seemingly commoinplace, we might have tales of Abe Lincoln curing the sick. Who knows. There's a tale I did post somewhere here long ago about a man who started a religious group within the last 500 (? maybe, really uncertain) years, and within 50 years of his death there were tales of the miracles he performed. A lot depends on the mindset of the people involved - just look at how scientology has grown, or how the tales of miracles associated with John Paul II that seem to put him on a fast track.

I also think that our legends about more recent people have changed in style. Since we live in a (basically) monotheistic-influenced society here in the west, we tend not to attribute such divine attributes to ordinary people, but we do develop other myths (like George Washington and the cherry tree, or the King Arthur mythos).

To me it's entirely plausible that a group of dedicated followers, devastated by the killing of their teacher/guru/leader, could (for example, not saying this is how it happened) take a "vision" (perhaps dream) of one of their members and turn it into a new understanding. Sometimes people will grasp at straws to support their beliefs (even changing them slightly) rather than face a bitter truth. It happens today, it could happen then.

Of course, I haven't spent a lot of time looking deeper into the arguments and evidence for the arguments, so my opinion may change as I learn more. Just a few thoughts since I saw your post after my last one went up. Still have the rest of the thread to read.