TomboyMom

What I'm saying is this, Johann. Ancient history is one of the many subjects that I am not an expert in. I make it a general practice to defer to the majority opinion of the experts in a field in which I lack expertise. Rather than trying to reach a Ph.D. level of knowledge about something that I'm not that interested in, and analyse all these documents myself and all that, I accept what the current majority opinion is, which is that there was a preacher named Yeshua who was executed. (I don't think this conclusion is based so much on the non-biblical documents as on the facts of the origin and spread of the Christian religion itself.)

If I expect Christians to defer to the biologists about evolution, then I need to defer to the historians on this one.

What bugs me is when apologists take this fact and extrapolate it to "The resurrection has been historically documented," which is just a lie.

btw my understanding of this current historical understanding is that it is a majority, not a consensus view. That is, they mythicist view constitutes a respectable minority opinion. Unlike creationism, which almost no biologists accept.

anevilpetingzoo

I know I am a little late on this one but I would like to give my 2 cents.

With a little bit of insight into humans I can tell you this; people will die for pride (Silly I know)

Imagine these supposed 12 disciples. They all had a vested interest in being right, and even if they had their own doubts (which they did) they would be reticent to admit them. It is easier to die looking like you were set in a conviction, then it is to admit you were wrong (for some anyway.)

I know in my life, I have been wrong about many things, and even knowing that, I still professed my correctness. Luckily for me I live here and now, otherwise some dope might use my death as proof of a preposterous claim.

Sarpedon

Oh, that reminds me of Umberto Eco's excellent book "Foucault's Pendulum." Fictitious I know, but convincing.

Lets pretend for a moment that it is true and the apostles got martyred. Lets say one of them, Stephen I suppose, at his trial came out and said, "Its true! Its true! Matt, Pete, Simon and I made up the whole thing! We hung Judas when he threatened to squeal!" Would that have saved his life? No, it wouldn't have. If someone is getting ready to saw you in half (that was stephen, right?) he's not going to spare you if you confess at the last minute. So the thing to do is say "fuck you, and burn in hell!" and look good for the record. Because people do care what others think of them after they die.

Koyaanisqatsi

I'm still waiting to find out how Jews "professing their belief in Jesus" constitutes "blasphemy" to a Roman soldier allegedly hunting down and killing the disciples, or has the whole point of this thread been split off somewhere too?

Let me reiterate: no one died for a lie. Beyond the fact that no Roman soldier would give a shit about any Jew "professing his belief in Jesus" (aka, another Jew), the lies didn't even start until some thirty to forty years after any alleged facts.

If any "disciple" was killed by a Roman, the Roman would have done so because he thought the disciple was a seditionist (aka, terrorist). Period. There is absolutely no chance that a Roman soldier would have hunted down and killed a "disciple" of Jesus because said disciple "professed" his belief that Jesus was either a Jewish god or the son of a Jewish god.

Neither Jesus, nor Jews in general mattered that much to the Romans. That's why they finally decided to just kill them all in 70 C.E.

:huh:

RPS

I agree.

I don't think it's a lie because it is documented but disputed. You're of course correct that it isn't conclusively established by any stretch.

I think it's more than just a consensus, actually. As I noted above, the MJ idea was a hot fad for a while a long time ago but went out of favor to such an extent that I saw it regularly asserted (and uncontradicted) that there was no remotely current peer-reviwed literature making the MJ case. I don't know for certain that that was true or if it's still true, but it is clear that the chief proponents of the MJ idea aren't professionals in the area (e.g., Wells and Dougherty). It also appears that the MJ case is trying to make a comeback (think Robert Price, for example).

RPS

I'm no expert but the traditional (and entirely reasonable) explanation is that acceptance of the national religion in antiquity was an obligation incumbent on all citizens. Thus failure to worship the official gods was treason. Christians denied the existence of and therefore refused to worship this official pantheon. As a consequence, they were (ironically) regarded as atheists and executed.

spamandham

The original version of this said Jesus was a wandering cynic, and the revised version says he was a charismatic Galilean.

This one claims Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

This one is not even about a historical Jesus per se, but rather, about the Christian movement. Even on that point the author has since changed her position significantly. http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/...ustoChrist.htm

This is why the claim is often put forth that "there is no credible evidence of a historical Jesus", because even those who make a living studying the matter can not agree on any salient point regarding who he was.

from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...eallyknow.html

Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University has this to say about the search for a historical Jesus:


If you directly ask mainstream historians studying the era what we actually know about the life of the historical Jesus, they admit we know nothing and it's all speculation.

How many other figures can you think of for which nothing is really known, but are assumed nonetheless to have been historical?

Biff the unclean

That sounds fair because you expect ethical historians attached to eminent universities to have high standards.
The problem is that as soon as religion comes into the picture ordinary standards go out the window. It sounds like a majority agree on an historic Jesus but, as spamandham pointed out, when you check they each have a different one.
From what I’ve read of the Jesus seminar and other HJ experts the process seems to be to take the Jesus myth and compare it to what is factually known about the area and the culture of the place and time and then to amend the myth until it reflects these actual facts. This always leaves me stunned. I cannot think of any enterprise where such behavior is acceptable. In my line of work anyone who did this would lose their reputation. In business and finance this could lead to an actual prison sentence. And we all know what happened when the WMD myth became “historic” by this method.

RPS

That's what historians do and how they make a name for themselves. How many Nixons do the various works on him purport to show? How many Hitlers or Shakespeares or Neros?

We know virtually nothing of antiquity period.

Off the top of my head, Shakespeare, Socrates, Theudas, Alexander the Great, Judas the Galilean, Hannibal and John the Baptist.

spamandham

There is considerable concensus regarding all these figures regarding details of their lives. That is not the case with Jesus. There is no concensus regarding even the most trivial details of his life.

I disagree. We have hard physical evidence regarding many historical facts. For example, we have ancient coins. They may not prove that the person depicted was a real person, but they do conclusively prove:

- that the ancients made coins
- that they had an interest in the figure depicted

But I do agree that much of what passes for ancient history amounts to little more than speculation.

If you want to argue that we just don't know anything, you can't then turn right around and and claim "therefor do know that there was a historical Jesus." I have no problem with "we don't know", and it seems to me to be the correct response.