Clivedurdle

I wonder if there is a group of people who are either agnostic about the hj or leaning towards mj (or fj!). Spong and Pagels come immediately to mind, but there may be quite a large group.

ChuckE99

I'm certainly no biblical scholar, but I lean toward a historical "teacher/prophet" responsible for a core of collected sayings and a mythical construct for the biographical stuff and passion.

mg01

The portion of this I still cannot compute, is how to you equate this historical figure with the theological concept of deriving "Christ" from scripture. If you link them directly, you have the big bang Jesus. If the Christ theology came first, then the HJ is just another apostle, maybe a maryter. If it came later, then what connection did the HJ have with Christianity as we understand it?

Christianity sits on the principle that the Hebrew Bible, when interpreted "correctly", holds a hidden message of a Son of God/Savior who replaces the Law of Moses (the "good news"). Christianity "began" when this idea was conceived.

ChuckE99

I don't equate an historical figure with Christ. I'm just saying that those constructing the "story" of Jesus of Nazareth who became Christ grabbed up a bunch of cool sayings and parables from some other guy and dropped them into their narrative. I'm not saying that prophet (let's call him Bob) is the real Jesus. Bob was just an innocent bystander.

I think the major error the Historical Jesus movement makes is to first identify Bob as the real Jesus, and then to assume that the wandering miracle-worker stories in GMark constitute historical acts of Bob, when they may be either fictional or the historical acts of some other person (let's call him Jack).

Finally, "Christianity as we understand it" doesn't grow from the fruits of Bob or Jack, but from the Savior/Redemption message of Paul and the mythical origins of Christ/Son-of-God cults that preceded him. Bob and Jack were grafted onto this mythological core.

patcleaver

Jesus is a myth unless he magically resurrected from the dead.

When I say Jesus is a myth, I mean that the Jesus of the NT is not real because he did not do all the magical things in the gospels.

I think that Jesus as fiction is more likely than Jesus as recorded oral mythology, but either way - he is just a myth.

What is the claim of the so-called Jesus-myth-ers.
If they are simply claiming that there was no one who fit the description of Jesus in the gospels, then my question is as follows.

Do you really think there was someone who fit the description of Jesus in the gospels?

The jesus in the gospels was a great magician attracting crowds by working great feats of magic. What Jesus said was not particularly remarkable, and would never have attracted anyone's attention.

I reject the premis that to be a Jesus-myther, you have to agree with Earl Doherty's hypotheses, that its likely that Christ started out as a purely spiritual concept that mutated into an historical Jesus.

I claim that the best definition of a Jesus-myther is one who agrees with the proposition that its likely that Jesus is a myth.

What is the claim of the historical-Jesus-ers?
Is it that someone who fit the description of the Jesus in the gospels existed except for the magical parts and other unlikely parts?

Everything about Jesus is unlikely. The Jesus seminar started with the presumption that there was an historical jesus who did and said everything except the unlikely parts, and after they subtracted all the unlikely parts, the only thing that was left was their presupposition.

The Jesus seminar found that 85% of what Jesus said were things previously said by others, or things a merely historic jesus would never say, or anachronisms that addressed theological issues that developed later that an historical Jesus would never have addressed. The 15% of the sayings of Jesus that remained were not important. Anybody could have invented them.

Why would you think that the gospels are not accurate about remarkable things, like great feats of magic, but are accurate about forgettable details like where Jesus went or what jesus said?

It is easy to rewrite sayings and parables of dead philosophers and put them in Jesus mouth, and have him travel from town to town around Judea, and have him perform the miracles that all the pagan magicians were performing.

If there were a rabbi Yeshua, then he did not say what is written in the gospels. At that time, historians usually just made up what historical characters said. Nobody is going to really remember what Jesus said even a few hours after he said it. The sayings of Jesus are just not that remarkable. If you recited the sermon on the mount to a group of adults who had never heard it before, then the next day none of them would be able to recite even one line of it.

The most likely thing in the gospels to be true are facts that would have been well known or easily verifiable such as Jesus miracles, the geography around Judea, descriptions of towns, the existence of famous people such as Pilot and Hared, and things that would generate public records such as his name in the censes records and his trial records.

The least likely things in the gospels to be true are things that were not well known or easily verifiable such as what Jesus said and where Jesus went.

The historical Jesus consists of the parts of the gospels that are the least likely to have been accurately reported if they were actually true.

Even if there was such an historical Jesus, then Jesus would still be a myth.

Jesus is a myth unless he magically resurrected from the dead.

spamandham

I imagine all the Dutch radicals fit the bill. I've read enough of RM Price to conclude he's also in that category, and I'd wager Ehrman as well.


...heh, and myself of course

Doug Shaver

What makes sense to me is that the historical Jesus, if there was one, was an itinerant charismatic Galilean preacher who attracted a group of followers who, after he was executed by Pontius Pilate, started a religion based on the assertion that he had risen from the dead and was the son of God, to which religion the missionary known as Paul was an early convert.

Anybody who believes such a man lived, no matter what else they think about him, is affirming the existence of a historical Jesus.

aa5874

Belief without evidence does not confirm or validate the existence an historical Jesus.

You cannot just believe Jesus into existence. You need credible sources that have information about Jesus of Nazareth to make the case for an HJ.

patcleaver

I can imagine some little kid named Luke who used to pretend science fiction sword fighting in George Lucas' neighborhood and the imaginative stories that Luke invented was the inspiration for George to write star wars. However, I really know that I am just writing fiction here. When you speculate about who Jesus might have been, and write about it, then your just fictionalizing about it yourself. The fact that you can imagine it, indicates that it is possible, but most of what is possible is almost certainly not true. Why don't you write a book like Mark did, and your family and friends will think its really a nice book.

It’s a little bit dangerous because Mark’s story led to millions of people being tortured to death in the most horrible ways or murdered, but that happens sometimes when you write fictional books like Mark or Muhammad did. It was not their fault that religious fanatics got carried away.

everettf

I stand with the mj crowd. Weren't there any artists in those days? I would think that if Jesus existed someone would have drawn or etched a picture of him. The only pictures I find are drawn after he was supposedly alive.