Clivedurdle

Is the historical Jesus a recent invention - a reaction to the renaissance and enlightenment?

The creeds talk of wholly god wholly man, and there were clear disputes about the heirarchy - was Jesus equal to god, and about was he a spirit in flesh - docetism.

Until Da Vinci and other anatomists, not much was known about the human body. For example, at the University of Bologna, the Inquisition watched the dissections and would stop them if they thought the doctors were doing things that were heretical.

The common belief was that man was some kind of amalgam of flesh, soul and spirit, none of these parts was clearly understood, so saying Jesus was flesh was really a theological statement of belief. We are made of dust or clay into which life is breathed.

So until the last few hundred years, Jesus was understood as a special amalgam of flesh and spirit, the result of God's Holy Spirit visiting Mary. Historicity was not a problem in a world where demons lived and did things - as Martin Luther said - like stirring up the waters on a lake.

Only when questions started to be asked about what is flesh and what is real would historicity of Jesus become a problem, which was answered by of course he was in the modern sense. But an equally valid, and more likely scenario is the mythical heroic one, this is another hero figure.

And because of the huge connections with mystery religions, a god who is believed to take on human form is the more logical explanation.

Before the renaissance and the enlightenment, a historic jesus was not necessary!

Clivedurdle

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/bio.html

And comparisons with this bloke make a lot of sense! Imagine if worship of Zeus and Heracles had survived to the sixteenth century, would we not be having similar arguments about historicity?

mountainman

But what of Julian's invective against the NT?
How is this accounted for, in your exporation above?
Explicitly he "considered it to be a fiction".

You make a good case above [why] the general level of
education prior to the renaissance and enlightenment would
not have been sufficient or appropriate for it to formulate
or entertain notions of "probabilistic historicity".

However, I put it to you that Julian was not of your average
level of education, but in fact one of the most educated in the
empire at the time of his "elevation" to the purple.

Julian was so well educated one might make the claim that
his claims need to be analysed with corresponding care and
attention.

That in fact Julian's claims represent beacons of enlightment
amidst what would otherwise be the fast downhill-slide
into the pit of the Dark Ages.

FWIW, your thread perhaps should have been entitled
"The History of the Historicity of the Historical Jesus."
because that more of a specifically modern concept.

WHen did definitions of "historicity" arise? I dont know.
Was it after the formalisation of probability theory, upon
which as far as I know, the concept and definition of
"historicity" draws.





Best wishes,



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

ChandraRama

I dont think so. As soon as Mark became the official historian, then all the christians were vouching for the historicity of Jesus. For some strange reason. But that is the case.

Doug Shaver

It was one man's opinion. As an opinion, Julian's was worth about as much as anyone else's.

Clivedurdle

My point is that the definition of history has changed. We assume we can separate the supernatural and the natural - until very recently, with rare exceptions amongst highly educated pagans, this did not happen. Angels were believed to guide the planets through the heavens, the historical jesus did have the holy spirit as his dad, bread is turned into flesh, Thomas did put his hand in Jesus's side, water was turned into wine, Lazarus was raised.

Because we now think humans are the result of a sperm and an egg getting together, we assume we can dump the holy spirit side of Jesus and that leaves a human with real parents. But that is an assumption. We equally might be left with a classic mythological figure, like Heracles - who was also worshipped.


I probably am talking about the history of the historicity of an HJ!

Current orthodox church practice and beliefs - that Jesus' dad is the Holy Spirit, that he did walk around galilee, are a modern set of beliefs as a result of enlightenment and renaissance thinking, an accommodation to our brave new world.

When we discuss an HJ we must be clear where our assumptions are coming from - a huge amount does seem to be reactions to modern ideas - fundamentalism is definitely that. Defenders of an HJ need to be clear what model of history they are using, who and what has changed the thinking, and be careful they are not assuming xian reactions to modernism as being somehow central.

mountainman

One man can make a difference.
Sometimes, education can make a difference.
I think his opinion was worth a little more ...

What were the education stats for anyone else
in his empire at that time?


Specialist scholarly opinion is just an opinion, agreed.

But with respect to the environment of scholarly opinion
it is often acknowledged that there have been leaders
of thought, vision and opinion, well ahead of their times,
thus exemplifying the fact that the distribution of worth
in everyone's opinion is not always balanced and equal.

Finally, Julian's opinion was worth more than others
if we are to gauge it by the admiration indicated in
the account of Ammianus Marcellinus.


http://odur.let.rug.nl/~drijvers/amm...tributions.htm


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Blui

I too have had problems in believing in a historical Jesus, the main problem stems from the fact that Jesus as we think of him, is largely defined by the supernatural elements in the Bible.

To strip away these elements, as is necessary to believe in any realistic human, is really to strip away some of, if not the, most important aspects of Jesus.

In other words, Jesus is not divine, was not crucified, did not have a following known throughout 'all Syria' etc.

But of course the HJ's claim is that there was some person possibly 'Jesus' who sparked off the stories, but this becomes more troublesome considering that many parts of Jesus' life was influenced and set down in the OT, namely the prophecies, such as his vague crucifixion etc.

Also, a HJ is merely speculation, there would be equal chance that there was some unknown person who taught the story OF Jesus, and amassed a following, how then can this person be a historical Jesus? it would be very strange to talk of this person as a historical Jesus when he also preached a Jesus.

In recent readings of HJ's, there seems to be a strange blurring of what constitutes 'Jesus', many times their arguments really mean 'some unspecified person who sparked Christianity in a small group through teachings' but this then has no real connection to the Jesus of the Bible, and so to talk of it as a historical Jesus is misleading.

Clivedurdle

Is the concept of a historical jesus something from the last few hundred years? This does look like a reasonable hypothesis, any counter evidence?

Doug Shaver

In my readings over the years, the term historical Jesus in most contexts has referred to whatever is left of the gospels' central figure after the legendary accretions of Christian tradition and dogma have been removed, beginning with a fundamental assumption that the stories originated as accounts of the life and teachings of a real man. In those contexts, historical Jesus is contrasted not with a mythical Jesus but with the God-man of Christian orthodoxy.

In this sense, the concept of a historical Jesus is indeed historically recent. It goes back probably only to the Enlightenment. Even at that, I don't think any serious scholarly work was done on it until the late 19th century, and in that sense we could say it is barely a hundred years old.

What mythicists are arguing is that the search for a historical Jesus is futile because, contrary to its fundamental assumption, there never was such a man.