rlogan

Time for the new "Jesus poll". What description, if any, do you tend to favor? There are seven categories in this poll, described briefly below. On another thread there was further discussion that led to these categories.



Literal

The canonical birth, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus are all true.
____________

Historical Jesus:

The preacher named Jesus from Galilee had a ministry following "largely" along the lines of the gospels, although not exactly so, and he was crucified in the reign of Pilate.
_____________

Composite:

There is not just one, but many candidate "Jesus" characters, as far back as the "Righteous Teacher". The historical theme of "rebel prophet murdered by authorities" just needs some Old Testament garb to make him satisfactory for use in the "Christ movement eschatology". Whether "Jesus candidates" inspire a Christ movement, or a Christ movement retrojects on to the composite of characters is not at issue.
_______________

Myth

There was no physical Jesus. Rather, a mythical "Christ" movement or movements arose that were subsequently congealed via the gospel accounts after the ministry took hold. This view accepts there was a physical Paul, Peter and others who took the early ministry to both Jews and Gentiles.
_______________

Accreted Legends Fabrication:

Although different legends were consolidated in this view, and there is no historical Jesus, there are no conspiratorial overtones. A "sincere" fabrication by well-intended "apostles".
_______________

Conspiratorial Fabrication:

Not only was there no Jesus, but there were no "first-order disciples" like Paul or Peter, and no bona-fide epistles or gospels. Basically it is the greatest multi-layered deception of all time.

Celsus

What's the point? Has anyone changed their minds since the last poll?

Anyway, my position is not to vote. I think epistemology in ancient history needs a heck of a lot more work before we can come to any realist conclusions about it. I don't think we have the sophistication at this point to determine historical versimilitude, any more than 19th century scholars could deal with Wellhausen's complicated, convincing, but completely flawed JEDP. Like Moses, we could say a man called Jesus was born and died (though I'm not sure I could go so far as scholars who say that we can be confident that Moses was buried east of the Jordan), perhaps crucified, and had a following.

Intuitively, I suppose that would be HJ or possibly a composite position. The fact that this poll is so weighted to giving Ellegardians and Wellsians (etc.) better representation (in terms of the divisions of the options) says much. I also don't find HJ research very interesting at all.

Joel

Bookman

I lurk BC&H with some frequency and have followed with some interest the HJ/JM threads (which unfortunately ceased teaching me anything new some while ago).

I voted HJ; it seems to me that this is an appropriate conclusion applying the ordinary standards of history to this extraordinary figure. It seems a reasonable conclusion that there is a man behind the mythology, though few if any details about his life may be reliably reported as fact.

The Jesus Myth position is an interesting conjecture but it does not appear to me (IANAH) that the argument carries sufficient weight to reject the ordinary conclusion.

Vorksogian threw out Robin Hood as a parallel figure from history. This caught my attention, for I had considered starting a thread to make that very comparison! There is some documentary evidence that an outlaw called Hode actually existed. An ordinary standard of history would be to accept this evidence, to allow that there is a man behind the mythology, and to accept the events of his life (the shooting match at Nottingham fair, the rescue of Will Stutely, the quarterstaff match on the bridge, et cetera) simply as stories that grew over time to fill a social need of the people of England. The growth of the mythology, transforming Hode to the legendary Robin Hood, does nothing to erase Hode from history.

Bookman

Artemus

Like Bookman, I lurk here much due to interest in the historical Jesus threads, but also hadn't learned anything new lately. That is, until I read the Brother of "kyrios" thread below. I previously did not know that "Brother of Yahweh" was used as a title in the old testament. Whether or not Jesus = Lord when Paul wrote it, it certainly refutes the argument that the title must mean the actual, biological (half) brother.

If I had to wager one way or the other, I would bet in the "myth" camp. As I have said here before, the fact that Citizen Kane was almost certainly based on William Randolf Hearst does not make Citizen Kane a historical figure.

BTW I do not see the difference between "Myth" and "Accreted Legends Fabrication" in the poll. Does the latter imply a non-historical James and Paul?

rlogan

Celsus - more categories, and there has been some minor shifting of positions. I don't know if you saw my earlier thread, but I posted questions for a couple of days so that people could suggest changes, and they did. I sincerely wanted to avoid creating any kind of "deck stacking" as you are suggesting. Your position is a category there - the last category.

Artemus - I can't speak further for the "accreted legends" as it was suggested by someone else and I can't send you to a literature base. I'll let them respond.

Bookman - I am in agreement not just on Robin Hood, but in general the idea of seeking parallel cases in history.

Merry Christmas, everyone...

Adora

I'm between Composite and Myth and Conspiracy honestly. But I'm weird like that. I think the J-man is a legend and a composite of many Messiah-teachers at the time, that the Myth movement was the powerful force in forming this legend into a "historical truth" and then consequent Christian political forces then proceeded to fabricate and simulate events and scriptures to back up more and more complex ideals of the legends.

spin

Yes, epistemology is at the core of the problems we are facing in much of our discussion here. I don't think shuffling words around from page to page is ever going to get us closer to history. It doesn't necessarily mean that the figures we are pontificating about are not real, but that our data is too incomplete to come to conclusions about them. With regard to substantive claims, the onus of course should fall on the makers to substantiate them.


spin

Thomas Ash

I can't pretend to have a great knowledge of NT/Jesus scholarship (philosophy is more my field), but I voted for this one... with one exception. I don't think Jesus was really crucified - the fit is too neat with previous myths of crucified Gods (can't remember quite which ones - was it Dionysus?) and with the general mythicized story of the resurrection and the promise of eternal life and a second coming held out to early Christians. Think about it: if you wanted to get around the death of your cherished leader, wouldn't a story of a noteworthy, drawn-out, very public death, individual burial then resurrection arise? Of course, this rests largely on educated guesswork about what sort of things would arise in a myth: I don't know if that's an acceptable method to use? Hey, go easy on me - I've only posted in BC&H a few times before!

Radcliffe Emerson

I personally believe Jesus was about as real as Hercules, Zeus or Thor.

Toto

Actually, there were no crucified gods. A certain Kersey Graves wrote a tract in the 19th century claiming there were 16 crucified saviors preceding Jesus, but his work does not stand up to modern critical scrutiny.

There were, however, gods or saviors who died, descended into the underworld, and were reborn or restored, so the second part of your sentence is correct. There were also Jewish heros or rebels who were crucified. There was certainly enough material involving crucifixion for an imaginative author to work with to produce the gospel Passion Narrative.