James Madison

That is interesting because I did not obtain this information from any apologetic source and I am dubious this is an apologetic device to create a link between a historical Jesus and the Gospels, primarily because no such link is created. Just as the oral stories, which later became the Torah and the OT, are construed as referring to some people who did not exist, then the same can be said here. The mere existence of those "oral stories" hardly creates any link between the Gospels and a historical Jesus but rather, as some have postulated, they are oral stories of a non-existent man (Jesus) just as the oral stories which later became the Torah/OT, referred to some
non-existent individual.

Furthermore, to suggest we have no evidence of these oral stories is not true, the Gospels are evidence of these oral stories, just as the Torah and the Old Testament is evidence of the fact they were first oral stories. (I will have to do some of the old research which indicates the Gospels first began as oral stories).

Second, I am not quite sure what kind of evidence you want in demonstrating the existence of the "oral stories." Doesn't the fact they are described as "oral stories" mean we can expect not to find much evidence of them until they are recorded? Hence, the phrase "oral stories." Yet, if I recall correctly, there is some evidence. I will do the research.

dog-on

You mean like how the vast majority of Americans believed that Saddam was connected to 9/11?

Like those masses of early Mormons who called Smith out on the whole polygamy revelation, after he was caught banging another woman?

You mean like these "simply made up" piles of crap?

People tend to believe all kind of things, we see evidence of this very thing each and every day...
These experiences may well exist, but someone "simply making-it-up", would seem much simpler and more likely.

dog-on

Good stuff, Jay. Thanks, but I never said that any of this, in it's end-form, needed to be invented whole-cloth...

Some dung heaps can grow for generations... just keep shoveling it on!

Clivedurdle

Let us look at Mark.

Very strong elements of a drama.

Jesus is continually portrayed as an anti - Augustus - who was also the son of a God.

Why assume anything historical about something with obvious polemic and dramatic intent?

Clivedurdle

PJ, brilliant juxtoposition of Hebrews and Revelation! Thar be gold in them thar hills!

Clivedurdle

And excellent OP!

gurugeorge

I'd say that the gospels postdate the 70 CE watershed, and I think that whatever Christianity was before that was probably different from what it became after that. 70 years is a long time for something to mutate quite drastically through "chinese whispers", especially given the "break" and tragedy in Jewish culture at 70 CE and roundabouts.

I look at 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 and I don't see anything even faintly resembling the idea that the Messiah Paul is speaking about was known to any of the Jerusalem people he speaks about as a human being. Historical, yes, someone from the past, yes, but known to Cephas, the 12, the 500, as a human being prior to their revelation about him? No. Nor is there anything like this sort of necessary (for an HJ as rationalists understand it) connection anywhere in any of Paul's letters, Hebrews, etc. Taken together with the absence of any preaching or teaching by Joshua Messiah that's not already in the OT, this suggests to me very strongly that Joshua Messiah was not a human being known to any of the earliest Christians - he was an idea, a revision of the traditional Messiah idea, an entity "seen" in scripture and visionary experience.

gurugeorge

This I'm rather dubious about, whenever I've seen this theory espoused by NT scholars it's looked like special pleading (but of course I'm not an expert in the literature, just glanced at things here and there).

Also, if it's conceivable that oral stories about a human Joshua Messiah (who must have been known to the Jerusalem crowd as a human being) were floating around, why isn't it just as conceivable that oral stories attempting to "fill in the gaps" of an initially sketchy Joshua Messiah concept (a revision of the traditional Messiah concept) were floating around, and gradually coalesced into a folk-tale?

Given that there's no non-Christian evidence for a historical Joshua Messiah (as "historical" would be understood by rationalists), given that there's not the faintest shred of evidence of a connection between a human Joshua Messiah and the Jerusalem crowd, why isn't this just as likely an explanation?

Take the evidence as it stands, in its timeline - the first thing you can pin down as unambiguously talking about a HJ as rationalists would accept the term (i.e. not merely a mythological entity with "historical" aspects) is (IIRC) roundabout Ignatius. Prior to that, the evidence is (at best) ambiguous between a revisionist Messiah idea (or vision) with historical aspects and a genuine historical human being.

But given my OP, doesn't that collapse the ambiguity somewhat? Doesn't it tend to make the "revisionist Messiah concept/vision of a Joshua Messiah" more likely, as it's more like how other religions develop?

You might say: "big", singular prophets or preachers starting new religions are also common. But in that type of religious start-up, aren't the words, the doings, the very footsteps of the teacher, treasured by the disciples, hallowed? The degree of treasuring of the words and doings of the Master that would induce one to put Joshua Messiah in the "big prophet/preacher" category is missing from the Christian startup. What we have to do with here in the earliest records is a somewhat distant, vague, largely spiritual entity with some "historical" aspects, who has nothing original to say. Therefore, it's more likely that it was that kind of start-up (i.e. "seeing" of a revised Messiah in scripture, combined with visionary experience, in a small religious community).

James Madison

Well, allow me to introduce some articles. Of course, the articles are not "evidence" themselves but the opinion of some religious professor's on the subject matter. I do not know WHAT evidence they rely upon to make the claims they do and I am still looking for this "evidence," if it even exists.

Importance of the Oral Tradition: It's rather clear from the way that the stories develop in the gospels that the Christians who are writing the gospels a generation after the death of Jesus are doing so from a stock of oral memory, that is, stories that had been passed down to probably by followers.

Story telling was at the center of the beginnings of the Jesus movement. And I think we're right to call it the Jesus movement here because if we think of it as Christianity, that is, from the perspective of the kind of movement and institutional religion that it would become a few hundred years later, we will miss the flavor of those earliest years of the kind of crude and rough beginnings, the small enclaves trying to keep the memory alive, and more than that, trying to understand what this Jesus meant for them. That's really the function of the story telling...it's a way for them to articulate their understanding of Jesus. And in the process of story telling, when we recognize it as a living part of the development of the tradition, we're watching them define Jesus for themselves.

We have to remember that Jesus died around 30. For 40 years, there's no written gospel of his life, until after the revolt. During that time, we have very little in the way of written records within Christianity. Our first writer in the New Testament is Paul, and his first letter is dated around 50 to 52, still a good 20 years after Jesus, himself. But it appears that in between the death of Jesus and the writing of the first gospel, Mark, that they clearly are telling stories. They're passing on the tradition of what happened to Jesus, what he stood for and what he did, orally, by telling it and retelling it....

We see this even in Paul's letters. Paul himself, remember, doesn't write a gospel. He actually doesn't tell us much about the life of Jesus at all. He never once mentions a miracle story. He tells us nothing about the birth. He never tells us anything about teaching in parables or any of those other typical features of the gospel tradition of Jesus. What Paul does tell us about is the death, and he does so in a form that indicates that he's actually reciting a well-known body of material. So when he tells us, "I received and I handed on to you," he's referring to his preaching, but he's also telling us that what he preaches, that is the material that he delivers, is actually developed through the oral tradition itself.

On two separate occasions in First Corinthians, he actually gives us snippets of early pieces of oral material which he repeats in a way, so as to remind his audience of what they've already heard. In other words, it presupposes that they will recognize this material. And because we can isolate it out of his letters, the way he describes, we then are able to reconstruct...what that early body of material would have looked like at a time before it's ever written down.Now one of these is First Corinthians 11 where Paul describes Jesus instituting the last supper. And that's one of the early pieces of oral material. The other one is First Corinthians 15 where Paul describes the story of the death, burial and resurrection. In First Corinthians 15, Paul's description of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is the earliest account that we have in any written form. And it's clearly what Paul himself had heard and learned over a period of several years. So it's one of those little blocks of material in Paul's letters that pushes us that much farther back toward the historical time of Jesus.

Now here's what he tells us, he says that Jesus died, was buried, was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, he relates it to prophecy. Then he says, "Jesus appeared". He doesn't tell us about the empty tomb. There's no reference to that part of the story at all. Instead he tells us Jesus appeared, first to Peter and then the twelve, next to 500 people, some of whom had already died by the time Paul heard the story.

Now in each of these two cases it's interesting that we have information that we don't get anywhere else in the gospels tradition. So it's a unit of oral material that is very important to the development of the tradition....

L. Michael White: Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin. His specialty is the Religions of the Roman Empire, focusing heavily on the social context of Jews and Christians in the Graeco-Roman period by blending historical, literary, and sociological research, with traditional biblical studies and archaological field work.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...tory/oral.html

In another segment, Mr. White says the following. Surely behind the written text there were oral traditions, we know that. There were oral traditions that went on after the written text, and we have evidence of those being written down later.....We discovered that there are several different portraits of Jesus enshrined in the shape of the traditions about him, and that these seem to go back to very early times......http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...eallyknow.html

Mr. White refers to Corinthians as being composed by Paul before any Gospel is written. Let's examine the content of the Corinthian verses referred to by Mr. White. 1 Corinthians 23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

15. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Here, Paul is referring to events which would subsequently be presented in the Gospels BEFORE the Gospels are written. This is evidence the Gospel accounts were oral stories later transformed into a written text.

Clivedurdle

But that one Paul says was in a vision, so what evidence have you that they were not all visions, especially as Paul links himself directly to the list by saying lastly?