Mike(ATL)

There are a few threads floating around discussing some of the extra-biblical sources and a few other misc. writings dealing with Jesus. Some seem to be saying (correct me where I'm wrong) that Jesus was made up or that if He existed the gospels are stories made up about Him. Could you educate me as to what the skeptic's position is about the motivation for making all of this up? And how much of the account of the gospels do you believe actually happened?

Doctor X

Girls . . . religious leaders always get the girls. . . .

On a more serious note, it depends upon "what" figure you discuss. With regards to, say, inventing a Moses or an Aaron--whom I misidentify as "Amos" someplace--they are traditional figures much like a King Arthur you can attach your political needs to. Solomon and David are probably the same thing . . . though there may have been a "historical Sol and Davey."

With regards to Junior . . . I tend to believe that "someone" existed, but "all you need for a founding figure is a name and a place," to requote a mentor. Subsequent followers will add in the details.

I gave the example of Scientology with an actual con-man founder. Not to turn this into a debate on Scientology, but I think it clear that many followers are sincere.

Now, more to your question: why?

If Mythical:

I am not a "mythicist" in that I think no one at all ever existed--though I am willing to be proven wrong--so I will leave that to someone else.

If Historical:

One thing clear is that no one knows what he said or did. Period. As mythicists will demonstrate, the "facts" we read about are similar if not actual mythic details found for other god men. Why create them?

I [Pontificated--Ed.] decribed in another thread Mk doing this with the "Feeding Lots of Peoples" miracles. He has a literary intent. This is how thing get invented. Now does that mean Mk was a "fraud" or "knew he was lying?" No, it just means Mk was willing to do this to tell his story which he believed in.

Such things accumulate very quickly in the development of religions.

Look to other modern examples--the Rev. Moon claims he is divine and many followers not only believe him but try to justify his claims.

--J.D.

Vinnie

I have no idea. I keep pointing out that Mark used a bunch of pre-existing material from different sources about Jesus. Vork keeps asserting its all fiction though.

How much of the Gospel of Mark happened on historical grounds? Possibly better than 50%. That is off the top of my head. I have no certainty right now. I mean I would argue that the baptism happened but not for an no actual audible voice from heaven declaring Jesus God's son.

The framework is largely Markan but actual HJ details were put into this framework. Thats why we can use various canons of historicity to affirm certain events.

Vinnie

Vinnie

That is not so clear since the majority of scholars would presumably beg to differ. I can list quite a few things about Jesus most scholars would agree with.

Jewish man, existed in 1st 3rd of first century, came from Galilee (More specifically and probable--Nazareth), was baptized by JBap, had a brother named James, parents named Mary and Joseph, was crucified, called disciples, had follower named Peter, John, had woman followers--Mary Magdalen, et al. He was a miracle worker of some type, he spoke in parables, he spoke on the kingdom of God, etc.

It is when we get down to the "specifics of Jesus' theology and events" that we run into scholarly disagreement. But there is widespread agreement on these general statements about Jesus. I would agree that you are correct if you simply mean "exact things he said and did" are more controversial.

But even here we can affirm a numer of pericopes.

Vinnie

Hazel-rah

The jury is still out, with me, on whether Jesus was a historical figure. As far as I can tell, he was probably a radical religious reformer who was enough of a pain in everyone's rear that it was expedient to get rid of him.

I tend to think that he's sort of a King Arthur--he really lived, but a lot of stuff that happened to other mythological heroes, or even to less illustrious contemporaries, probably got glommed onto his rep as the years passed and first-hand witnesses died off (or spent too much time alone in the desert).

Anyway, I think Jesus was useful because it gave the religion a human face. The preachers could say "I knew him, I walked with him, I heard him say so-and-so."

Sort of like celebrity endorsement for a religion that had probably grown a little abstract and rule-based.

Toto

Short answer: Man is a story-telling animal. We like stories, stories with morals, stories with supernatural events, stories in which the good guys win in the end. A lot of stories were told about Jesus, most of them fantastical and obviously fiction. The early church rejected most of them, but accepted four.

More involved answer: In the second century, there were competing factions for control of the nascent Christian Church. Various Gnostic factions claimed that the truth was within you, but if everyone goes off in his or her own direction, it's hard to build a solid organization. The orthodox faction (as Ehrmann calls it) decided to establish its legitimacy by inventing the story that it and it alone received a direct transmission of authority from a human Jesus, who designated his disciple Peter as the founder of the church; and that after Jesus' death and resurrection, he further instructed more of his disciples on the Truth. This allowed the orthodox Christians to maintain control of the church and shut the trouble makers up.

That's a brief and perhaps too flippant outline. You can read more in Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price.

I do not believe that any supernatural events described in the Bible happened, since I see no credible evidence that supernatural events have ever happened and lots of evidence that people make up stories like that.

I do not believe that the trial and crucifixion as described happened in the gospels happened. The stories differ too much between the gospels and contain too many historical improbabilities, such as the Sanhedrin meeting at night on a holy day, Pilate trying to please a Jewish mob, etc.

There may be some things described in the gospels that resemble some actual events (a wandering Galilean preacher spouting parables), but I do not think that there is a way to know that.

Doctor X

Vinnie:

I am afraid you are appealing to numbers rather than actual evidence. That a majority believe in the facts you state do not make them facts.

They may be "reasonable conclusions" or "assumptions" based on the what the texts suggests but the are not actual conclusions. Furthermore, I can also name "a number of scholars" who disagree with your scholars. This suggests to me that:

is not actually true.

Make no mistake, I am not suggesting you should not agree with any of those assumption or not use them as a basis of analysis--you just cannot imply they have certainty.

--J.D.

Vinnie

Doctor X, you said "it is clear" that no one knows what he said or did. My point is that is not clear to the majority of peoiple because the majority of them accept certain facts.

I did not dispute whether or not the statement was true or false. I disputed whether or not what you wrote "was clear". Its not.

Not necessarily but appeals to authority do have some merit--even in Jesus research. Byut likewise, asserting it is clear no one knows antyhign about Jesus or what he said or did does not make it "clear" to anyone.

You could do so but as long as you are aware that your "scholars" would represent a very extreme fringe position that does not have any impact on my point at all I would not disagree.

Vinnie

orac

It's really quite simple: just like most theists, skeptics consider it likely that many religions are not entirely correct, and that many deities that people have believed in are in fact made up. Skeptics tend to go one step further, and require someone present evidence for their claims before they'll be believed, which means they don't give one religion special consideration just because it's popular where they grew up. In other words, neither Jesus nor Thor get to be believed in without some evidence that they exist.

Anyone who wanted to argue that noone would ever make up stories about gods would have to argue not only that Jesus is real, but that Ra, Thor, Vishnu and many assorted other deities are also real. You can't say "but noone would invent Jesus!" and still claim that people would invent other deities.

Your profile says you're a christian, so presumably believe in Jesus as a literal person. Can you answer the simple question "why would anyone invent a false god to worship?" Your answer to that question may give a possible reason why people invented Jesus.

Reasons for making up deities and other traditional religious characters can include cynical manipulation of people too stupid to count without taking their shoes off, drug or stupidity induced delusions, honest and sincere but completely mistaken misinterpretation of things actually done by a real person, and so on.

It doesn't help that religions tend to grow over time, with new believers adding their own variations to the holy books - so you can get one lunatic who thinks that he's god saying that everyone should be nice to each other, and another nut saying that the first one really was god and that we should kill more homosexuals, a third who gets high and invents a new character and a fourth who mistakes intoxication for holiness and adds that character to the holy books. A thousand years later a bunch of people will then get together and argue over which set of books "feels" right to their preferred moral and social values and then it starts to get really confusing, particularly when they claim that "I feel this is right and that is wrong" is phrased as "god told me this is right and that is wrong" and you've got piles of people arguing over who was really inspired by god and who is just attributing their own feelings to god. At this point the only way to unite them is to point out that none of them can prove that their personal feelings are actually being inspired by god.

The important thing to note is that nowhere in that little story was any hint of deliberate conspiracy, and picking the cynical frauds from the honest but mistaken believers is quite difficult.

Why did people invent Jesus? (Assuming that they needed to, of course.) Beats me. Why would someone invent a religion, with a full cast of holy figures? There's all sorts of reasons and ways that happens.
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Godless Wonder

Why did L. Ron Hubbard invent Scientology? Why was Mormonism invented? Why were the Greek gods invented? The Egyptian gods? Why do people make up UFO stories? Ghost stories? Urban legends?