John A. Broussard

Where did the gospel writers get the ideas of resurrection and ascension as a characteristic of the messiah? Is there anything in the OT that indicates that the messiah would come back from the dead and then rise up into heaven?

And does the OT say that the Messiah would be god?

Aren't these core beliefs of Christianity? It does seem as though there must be some basis for them in the OT or some earlier Jewish tradition.

Thanks.

Agemegos

Indeed. But suppose we had reliable extra-biblical testimony of a person who had some but not all of the characteristics attributed to Jesus in the Bible. What would it take for you to accept that this person was the historical Jesus?

Suppose, for example, that there was a Galileean teacher in the first century BC not called Yeshua, executed by Herod rather than the Romans, and who had said many of the things later attributed to Jesus. Would you accept that this might be the historical Jesus?

Or suppose we found reliable extra-Biblical evidence of one Yeshua ben Pantera, carpenter, crucified for killing a man in a riot in the Temple forecourt in the week before Passover, in AD 39. Would you accept that this was the historical Jesus?

If not, what is the minimum resemblance of an historical figure to the character in the Gospels that you would accept as establishing an identity?

Clarice O'C

Well, since we're talking about a man who has historically been elevated to god almighty himself, I'd say the minimum would have to be along the lines of the evidence we have for Caesar Augustus.

Agemegos

I'm sorry, I have not made myself clear.

The question is not about the amount or quality of the evidence. The question is about the extent and nature of the agreement on detail between the Bible and the imagined extra-Biblical evidence.

Suppose we come across extra-Biblical evidence of Person X, who has some similarities with one or other of the Jesuses described in the different Gospels. What is the minimum core of such similarities that would get you to agree with the proposition that 'X is the historical person on whom the story of Jesus is based'?

What it the minimum set of characteristics that an historical person would have to have for you to accept that he or she was the 'historical Jesus'.

Consider the historical Robin Hood. Suppose I produced documents attesting the existence of Sir John Deiville, a landed knight from Nottinghamshire who took part in the Baron's War, was summoned as a lord to the Mad Parliament, refused a pardon after the Battle of Evesham, held out against Henry III in the Fens of Ely until 1267, captured London in 1267, held it against the King for three months with the support of the Londoners, was betrayed, captured, forced to accept a pardon, led his household troops under the king against the Welsh in 1272 and 1283, and died peacefully in bed in Egmanton in 1292. Would you accept that Deiville was Robin Hood? Or is the resemblance not close enough? Does Robin Hood's name have to be Robin of Locksley? Or at least Robin something? Does he have to hail from the time of of Richard I? Does he have to have been a notable archer? Doesn't he have to have sheltered with his rebel allies in Sherwood Forest? Or are those legendary accumulations onto a more fundamental identity that is not changed by them?

Now don't worry about that question. Suppose that extra-biblical evidence appeared of person X. What would by the minimum set of documented characteristics of X that would let you accept that X was the historical Jesus?

RalphyS

What facts could be at least found in historic accounts, if the Jesus-figure was indeed as important as the gospels make him out to be?

There should be some sort of account of a preacher with a relatively huge following, whose name would be in the like of Jesus or Yeshua, who at least made a very noteworthy impression,even an impact, be it through some sort of miracles or by his preaching or by whatever, and who was somehow a threat to the establishment and was therefore crucified. Let's leave the myth of his birth out of the picture, this has nothing to do with his historicity (is this a word?). His importance lies in his preaching period and the way he was killed, because the crucifixion is the central part on which Christianity is based. These are events that there could have been historic accounts of.

Vorkosigan

I don't mind conjecture, but caricature I object to. I have no complete scenario ready yet....I've decided to avoid the common mythicist mistake of trying to explain everything all at once. In any case much will always be opaque as that is simply the nature of the dataset.

But this sniping between us is simply another example of the problems you face trying to defend a particular interpretation of a text that has become a social identity for you, rather than founding your identity on belief (or better yet, delinking your identity from a topic that you feel strongly about). Ironically, the fact that you have simply decided what is right instead of discovering it means that you have nothing meaningful to say about what other people think. Having privileged an interpretation external to anything in the text itself, you are thus forever cut off from that most rewarding of human endeavors, conversation with another point of view that has the same fundamental interests as yours. Had you developed your position through interaction with the data in the texts, you would have a thoughtful critique that you could use to reply to my comments about the Gospel of Mark. You'd have a methodology at hand, and you and I could have a fruitful exchange. But we can't prax, because your end of the conversation consists only of repeated sniping and disdainful dismissals of everyone else who doesn't agree with you. Lacking any thought-out position, what else can you do? And the sad part is that it doesn't have to be that way: thousands and thousands of Christians can meaningfully interact with a wide variety of textual positions as a scholars and humans, and yet retain their Christianity.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

That's a damn good question. Really you're asking: but what is the methodology by which we connect person X from the record with the HJ?

And any such methodology will be ad hoc. It is like those books that claim that X must have been Jack the Ripper, or that speculate on who the Piltdown Hoaxer really was. In the latter case hard evidence finally settled the problem.

Given that any proposed HJ will have to be settled by ad hoc criteria, there's no way to answer the question until the person is found. Would you accept that Jesus ben Ananias was the HJ? He preached the Jerusalem would be destroyed, was named Jesus....lots of parallels. Yet no scholar I know has proposed him for the HJ, although several have proposed him as a possible source for the story of Pilate's trial.

On the other hand, this isn't really a problem for mythicists. We don't believe what you are proposing is possible, inherently -- it is like asking what we'd believe if you presented us hard evidence of a man who had a night just like Holden Caulfield's. Maybe you should be asking it of the historicist crowd.

Vorkosigan

*I'm going to experiment with adding Technorati tags to some posts. Might bring in more people. Will it work, technically?
Christianity Historical Jesus

Works fine....

Steven Avery

That would only make sense if I shared some of your underlying views about, and animus towards, the NT text. That it is fiction, late, authorship claims are false, etc. Beyond that you work with the same psycho-mental-babble type of analysis this post that you have made many times before, in attempting to project your view of textual considerations over my consistent approach to scripture.

The disagreements between the liberal scholarship scribal mishegas approach to the text and the mythicist apporach are essentially only form, not function. It doesn't really matter. Either way the Bible text has no authority, and is not from the Creator. Your long analysis attempt boils down to being an acknowledgment that the only real challenge to mythicism is belief in the Messiah and His Word. And that the difference can't be fudged and split.

As for your concerns that I don't understand your mythicist viewpoint, definitely thats the case, and why I find it a bit on the humorous side as it develops and unravels. I re-arrived recently and found some of the stuff a bit on the astounding side.

So, you acknowledge that you really don't have a scenario. Ok. And with that in mind I will move away from caricaturing and conjecturing your mythicist viewpoint, since it really is working with tree-jelly. Your point is taken, in that sense.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

mikem

Let me get this straight. My middle aged brain doesn't function as well as it used to. Are you saying that the liberal view of scripture is in all essential respects no different from the mythicist view? Can you perhaps elaborate what you mean by this paragraph, because if you are right, then I'm wasting my time trying to argue on another thread for the reliability of the New Testament as a pointer to the historical Jesus, based solely on historical and textual considerations?

If that's the case I might as well go and play some cricket - actually it's too cold for that, I'll just have another cup of tea.

doubtingt

The OP asks a great question.

It prompts the further quesion, do the "Jesus Seminar" and other historicists even have any specific and explicitly articulated criterion for what qualifies as an HJ, along with a detailed justification for why their criterion are reasonable?

Lack of a specified and justified criterion for the thing they assert exists would be damning evidence of the the unscholarly state of the field and anyone who asserts an HJ without having such criterion could not possibly have reached that conclusion on a rational basis.

It would be the equivalent of me claiming my wife is not human but an space-alien, while not having any specified criterion that differentiates a space-alien from a human.