J-D

OK, I accept that it is a conceivable hypothesis. But there isn't enough detail to evaluate its merit or to judge what the grounds for putting it forward might be.

mens_sana

Strange, I find a fair amount of the reported life of Jesus plausible. (I refuse to accept the term "Jesus the Christ" because that is a theological attribute, not a historical one.)
1) Jesus grew up in Galilee, preached in the general area of Bethsaida and drew disciples principally from that area.
2) Jesus gained a reputation as a healer and exorcist.
3) Jesus joined John the Baptist's apocalyptic movement and acknowledged John as his leader (a matter of endless embarrassment to the church).
4) Jesus "consorted" with the lower rungs on the social ladder (tax collectors, prostitutes & wine-bibbers) and found an audience among the rural poor (farming and fishing vocabulary).
5) Jesus was accused of working magic.
6) Jesus probably caused some kind of ruckus in the temple during Passover.
7) With the Roman forces on hand and ready to head off any possible disturbance during Jerusalem's overcrowded Passover period, he was dead meat upon arrest.
8) He may have been betrayed to the authorities by a disciple, an embarrassment resolved in different ways by later writers.
9) He was crucified by Roman authority and all his disciples fled the city, probably for their homes in Galilee.
10) His disciples, who believed him to be God's adopted son, continued their lives as practicising Jews.
11) Some of these practicising Jews bedevilled the Pauline churches, insisting that kashrut and circumcision were mandatory for all believers (unwelcome notions in a gentile world).
12) After the destruction of Jerusalem and disappearance of the Jerusalem church, there were fewer and fewer Jewish believers around to put the brake on the gentile churches.

Umm, guess I went a bit beyond Jesus' life, didn't I?

Zeichman

Then I would seriously question how much research you have done into critical NT scholarship.

You might want to know which gospel you're talking about before you start getting all preachy on the topic: the raising of Lazarus is only in John. I think the Beelzelbub controversy is generally identified as a good candidate for authenticity. And even if no single event records an actual historical exorcism of Jesus, a good case can still be made for him having been an exorcist nonetheless. And were the rest of your questions merely rhetorical or serious?

Steve Weiss

Not only is there a paucity of reliable data about a personality name Jesus (a common name for the time), the miraculous stories related discredit the authenticity of the entire NT as it does for the OT as well. Any book that relates such fictions and passes them off a holy truth is unworthy of serious consideration outside of a study of cultural mythology. Only the fear of eternal damnation could have maintained the hold of the bible on the masses, as it continues to do to this day. The pages call out: fake, fake , lies upon lies, deception upon deception. The bible is not fit for human consumption, not rational ones, anyway.

aa5874

Every single thing you have written about Jesus is speculation, uncorroborared information. The very same material that is being investigated, you have labelled as historical facts, without any reason. And we are investigating the non-historicity of Jesus called 'the Christ' or Jesus whose alias is 'the Christ', the Jesus as described in the NT, not just any Jesus.

Your have not named a single extra-biblical source, credible or not, to support your claim. Also, you have agreed, possibly inadvertently, that Jesus the Christ, as described in the NT, is theological, not historical.

In order for you to establish historicity, I think you should , at least, address the genealogies of Jesus the Christ, the place where he lived as a child, the significant problems regarding thousands of witnesses of fictitious miraculous events, the problem regarding the disappearance of his body from a sealed tomb under guard.

I think you should also address the fact that as early as the 2nd century, according to Irenaeus, Jesus the Christ, or should I say some of his followers, believed that he was not real, or some 'unbegotten' entity.

I must remind you that if every 'superhuman' act of 'Superman' is not taken into account or his fictitious birth dismissed, then 'Superman' will be plausible and may be regarded as historical. Superman is a package of 'human' and 'superhuman' these two attributes are inherently linked.

Jesus the Christ is a 'package' of 'human' and 'supernatural', and these two attributes are inherently linked. And if by chance Jesus the Christ was only human, then the NT is filled with fictious events, and it would still be necessary to explain what happened to his dead body, if he really was buried or crucified.

mens_sana

While there is extra-biblical attestation to the existence of a Xn movement, there is none to the life of Jesus that is not problematic. However, the demand for such in order to "prove" the existence of a HJ is little more than a ploy to disqualifiy the contemporaneous documents that do speak of a HJ. Mainstream NT scholarship seems to characterize the gospels (and some extracanonical bits) as combinations of bioi/encomiums with religious messages. We know that bioi and encomiums testified to speeches and events to which the authors were not witness. Ca. 400 BCE, Thucydides explains that he has "put into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments appropriate for the occasion, expressed as I thought he would be likely to express them, while at the same time I endeavored, as nearly as I could, to give the general purport of what was actually said" (History, 1.20.1). Hence, we read all ancient documents "critically." When possible we compare sources, e.g. the Mesha stele and II Kings 3. In the case of the NT documents, we have to read them against each other, but the paucity of the documentation does not mean that it is all fiction any more than Suetonius' "lives" were all fact.

The genealogies were literary efforts at establishing a davidic link and messianic authority for Jesus. They don't have to agree in order to fulfill the function their authors had in mind. Jesus is referred to as Jesus of Nazareth in the Synoptics and in John, one of the few things all of them have in common. In all probability he grew up in Nazareth, an embarrassment to those trying for a davidic link. "Thousands of witnesses" is an exaggeration of the exaggeration that is Acts. There were no thousands. If there had been, they would have shown up in Roman records far earlier than Pliny. We don't know that he was buried in a tomb. Victims of crucifixion usually stayed on their crosses until their bodies rotted off. Jesus of Nazareth was no superman and he wasn't a "package" of human and divine attributes. His Jewish followers testify to his humanity and his status as adopted son of God (G.Ebionites: Epiphanius, Against Heresies, XXX.13:7-8).

J-D

In other words, you are asserting that if a book contains some statements which are not true, it is reasonable to deduce that none of the statements in it are true. This is not good logic. As it happens, the Jewish Scriptures do contain some references to individuals whose existence is historically corroborated, but even if this were not so your argument would still be logically invalid.

J-D

And so is every single thing you have written uncorroborated speculation.Please try to argue with actual posters, not with your own confabulations. Nowhere in the post you are responding to did mens sana label anything as 'historical fact'. mens sana referred to a number of listed statements as 'plausible' not as 'historical fact'. If you are intellectually incapable of grasping the distinction, that is not our fault.If that is the only assertion you are making, then the account given by mens sana is totally consistent with it, and you have no grounds for objecting to it.Why? Why should anybody have to 'address' (whatever you mean by that) those things in order to judge the plausibility of the statements listed by mens sana? There is no necessary connection.Again, why? How does this affect the plausibility of the statements listed by mens sana?There are detailed records of how the Superman stories were created and evolved. You have repeatedly failed to offer a comparably detailed account of how you think the Jesus stories were created and evolved, resorting instead to vague hand-waving.

Furthermore, the Superman stories have changed repeatedly over the history of the comics, and also has varied as Superman has appeared in other media. Given the propensity for retconning in comics, it is likely that this will continue to happen. There is no one aspect of the story you could point to and say with absolute certainty: this is an inherent feature of Superman. It is always possible that the story will be recreated, for the comics or some other medium, with that particular aspect being dropped, and yet still be considered to be part of the story of Superman.Once again you obscure the logic.

These two statements are logically consistent:
(1) There never was a person with the supernatural characteristics attributed to 'Jesus Christ'.
(2) Some of the statements about Jesus in the Christian Scriptures are historically accurate.

I'm not saying anything at this point about the truth or falsehood of either of those statements, I'm just saying that they are logically consistent. If somebody did believe both of these statements it would not be a logical contradiction.

You seem to think that purely and solely by virtue of having disproved (1) you have also automatically disproved (2). Wrong. That's not good logic.

I don't know whether Jesus was crucified or not. But it's historically possible. There is nothing about that hypothesis that makes it historically impossible.

And if he was crucified, I don't know what happened to his body. I know that he didn't come back to life after having been dead. That's not possible. But a number of other things are.

However, I see no point in discussing the historical possibilities in detail until you accept that your basic position is logically flawed and does not, as you wrongly think, foreclose discussion of the possibilities in advance.

aa5874

There is the mis-conception that any extra-biblical mention of Christians refers to followers of the characters called Jesus in the NT. It should be remembered that there were followers of the non-historical Christ, the 'phantom or the 'unbegotten', in the 2nd century.

To categorise a demand for evidence of Jesus the Christ as a ploy is beyond any level of reason. It is illogical to claim that proof of an HJ disqualifies contemporeaneous documents that speak of an HJ.



All you have done is to disregard obvious fiction and substituted, unilaterally, you own version of what you speculate may have happened. You deny the credibilty of the NT, yet re-construct events.

All I can gather from your statements is that Jesus the Christ probably or probably not existed.

Steven Avery

Hi J-D,

Maybe you could explain what you find uncredible ?
Here are the scripture sections that seem to be most germane.

Mark 3:6
And the Pharisees went forth,
and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him,
how they might destroy him.

Mark 12:13-17
And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians,
to catch him in his words.
And when they were come, they say unto him,
Master, we know that thou art true,
and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men,
but teachest the way of God in truth:
Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
Shall we give, or shall we not give?
But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them,
Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it.
And they brought it.
And he saith unto them,
Whose is this image and superscription?
And they said unto him, Caesar's.
And Jesus answering said unto them,
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's.
And they marvelled at him.

Matthew 22:15-22
Then went the Pharisees,
and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.
And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians,
saying, Master, we know that thou art true,
and teachest the way of God in truth,
neither carest thou for any man:
for thou regardest not the person of men.
Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said,
Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
Shew me the tribute money.
And they brought unto him a penny.
And he saith unto them,
Whose is this image and superscription ?
They say unto him, Caesar's.
Then saith he unto them,
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's;
and unto God the things that are God's.
When they had heard these words,
they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

Shalom,
Steven Avery