No Robots

Here is the quotation in context:

You only need to peep into the Gospels to see that Christ's destiny is quite different from the Messianic expectations which are linked to him in these same Gospels, and by his own disciples! The entire Gospel of Matthew has the one and only purpose of showing how Christ's life conforms to the prophecies of Scripture; how different, therefore, how magnificent and wondrous is the life of Christ as presented to us by Matthew's Gospel! The evangelists believe in Christ the Messiah; no more than the critics do they notice that their Messiah Christ speaks about his Messiaship and his divine Sonship in a way totally unlike their Jewish national Messiah - which he never became.

Let's try close reading.

No Robots

Excellent. Thank you. That is more consideration than I have been shown in 18 months on this board. I would be happy to participate in a thread on the subject.

reddish

Browsed it, cannot find it (and I am dutch). Where, specifically, in that awfully written manuscript does Bolland reject the historical Jesus?

kais

People have read and responded to that document in the past. You can find some of these responses here starting with post #140.

Biff the unclean

I can’t go with an HJ because if there were anyone on the ground at the time that could be remotely taken as HJ the Christians would be all over him. They would shove him in our collective face on a daily schedule.
Likewise I can’t go for a MJ either. Because the stories are already there in a handful of other religions.
And because the stories were already known I must cast my vote for FJ…fictional Jesus. Since the bits and pieces that the life of Jesus was cobbled together out of pre-existing myths and legends I must assume that the people doing the cobbling knew what they were doing. FJ would have been the creation of some author(s) seems the most likely to me.

Chris Weimer

What's the evidence that this happened, and what is preventing the previous mythologies from embelleshing an human Jesus?

Biff the unclean

The lack of any original story-lines in the life of Jesus
What human Jesus? To attach myths to a living person like King Arthur or Robin Hood you first need a living person.
You keep making the assumption that there was one. But the Christians have had 2000years to dig one up and they couldn't do it.
You don't really need one to get to the Jesus we all know and love. It's just as easy to hang the retold stories on a fictional Jesus as it is an historic one. With a fictional Jesus no one will say "hey, I knew that guy. He didn't come back from the dead. He still owes me for the thousand pigs of mine that he drowned."
HJ would have to actually be there. MJ would need time to develope. But FJ could be there as quick as guill could be put to paper.
Fictional Jesus is, admittedly, less honest than a MJ or a HJ, by today's standards. But that lot didn't seem to care much about standards.

Chris Weimer

Actually, they only had about 40 or so years until Mark was written.

Who is that Jesus? What do you really know about him?

But Paul says he knows people who knew Jesus. Why?

Why did the earliest Christians not realize that Jesus never existed? Why did Paul, writing at around 50s CE, mention that Jesus did live?

Toto

Chris, you've been around here longer than that. Paul never says that he knows someone who knew Jesus. He said that he met the Pillars of the Jerusalem Church, men who may be the same as men who are reported in the gospels (that were written much later) to have met Jesus. He doesn't say that he asked them anything about Jesus or learned anything from them.

Chris Weimer

You're right. Au contraire, he says he ignored what he they taught about Jesus and received his information straight from Jesus. Yet he reports that Cephas, John, and James met the risen Christ. As this is rather a ridiculous notion, we must have to suspect something else. Then he says that Jesus visited 500 people. Well, I would think that meeting these pillars could be an act of mystery, as such is not too far-stretched from the Roman world. But why would randomly Jesus go to 500, especially if he were in heaven? Ah, why else would he exaggerate such a claim if he were not trying to convince his readers that Jesus indeed was risen. Would a god need to show himself to 500 if he died? No - that idea is unheard of in ancient literature. But that a dead man who now walks - such a thing is miraculous no matter which culture you read.