Amaleq13

Aren't they rejected because they are claims of magical powers that rational people know aren't real?

It is a totally different claim so why should the same reason apply? There is nothing magical or inherently incredible about him being Jesus and it is integral to the story and to the associated theology.

No reason except the background and basis of the entire story!

steve_bnk

The Indian yogic traditions make claims in ancient writings of healing, levitation, and more. Why believe a few words written in the gosples?

steve_bnk

Some of the evagleicals are turning to nthe fact the JC was Jewish and the idenity of being a Chsitian as opposed to a Jew came in later centuries.

And along with it some have glomed onto Israel and the rebuilding of the temple as as a signal of the second comming.

Petergdi

Whether or not one believes the stories one should get them right.

If someone says that the NT says that Jesus didn't really die, or that he somehow raised himself from the dead - they are wrong.

Peter.

maryhelena

Sure, my point is that the story is a package deal - once one cherry-picks one or another element as being OK - but other elements as not ok - then one has changed the package into something else....
Its all from the same package - which is - a mythological man - so picking out one element as being 'real' while another element is 'not real' is a bit arbitrary....
Indeed, a great storyline - particularly if any real life 'messiah' figure was not Jewish at all........you know, something like Cyrus being god's anointed one...

steve_bnk

Christians I have known ivariably will say something like the bible is true because it is written..

If I probe a little deeper and ask why believe the NT and not something from an Asian/Eastern tradition a typical response is that there were witnesses cited in the NT who saw the events therfore it must have happened.

Petergdi

How is this remotely relevant to the getting what the NT texts say right?

In any case, I have never as far as I can remember made any statements of disbelief in any miracles from any Asian/Eastern tradition with the single exception of stating my belief that Muhammad had some measure of human responsibility in the composition of the Quran. I have expressed the belief that some miracles appear ro be symbolic stories, the historicity of which is less important than the lesson taught by them.

Fatpie42 first suggested that there was a claim that Jesus "did not really die."
This is in fact contrary to both any form of Christian orthodoxy and great many statements in the NT that Jesus did really die.

Fatpie42 then said that he should have said "conquered death." This is misleading in that context because Jesus being raised from the dead is always attributed to God.

Peter.

steve_bnk

It is far from a new idea that the whole idea of the resurrection was added by later writers. The gospels have been described more as promotional literature to bring in converts than a journalistic account. There was likely a collection of writings upon which all the gospels were based.

It is not hard to picture an historical Jesus; we only have to look at the mid-east today. Illiteracy and poverty at the bottom, and a wealthy Muslim aristocracy at the top essentially in bed with the USA, not that big of a stretch. JC was a literalist, he was calling Jews back to Moses, for example he was very critical of the laxity in divorce, and of course his statement about lusting in the heart being tantamount to adultery.

Ignoring the supernatural and looking at what JC was saying and to whom, he was very much directly in the face of the wealthy Jewish religious establishment who were essentially in bed with the Romans. He was clearly provoking a response and appeared to clearly understand the likely result of his actions.

The ‘12’ apostles were likely chosen to represent the 12 tribes, which he then had in tow, the symbolism that would be crystal clear to the Jews of the day. I think it is open as to whether or not he was militant, in one account when he is taken into custody by the Romans his party appears armed, and he appears to be always on the move on the outskirts of populated areas.

In an historical context considering he was a Jew, he wasn’t predicting the end of the world meaning the Earth, he was correctly predicting the downfall and destruction of the Jewish state.
I’d say there was an historical JC and he was somewhere between an MLK/Gandhi and an a Bin Laden as perceived by the Jewish establishment of his day.

The Romans had a vey simple policy, work to increase wealth in the empire and you are good guy, run counter to this and you get crucified. He would have been one of nameless many who got crucified; crucifixion was a routine event in that time.

Petergdi

Not too much later on any remotely conventional view, since it certainly seems to be part of the pre-pauline package. In any case there must be an eschatological reason why Jesus was called "messiah" or "christ" by his followers after the crucifixion. It is an eschatological title, and could only be applied to someone who had died if they were believed to have done something pretty big towards bringing about the messianic age. The idea that all "realised eschatology" is late is absurd in view of the obvious fact that Jesus was called Christ rather early in the history of the movement.

The idea that they are a "journalistic account" seems to be largely a strawman. They might fit tolerably well the genre of "ancient biography." Matthew seems to be written for believers even if it works as a proselytizing document. John seems to me to be written for greek-speaking followers of John the Baptist as apologetic literature.


I don't doubt it. Mark is probably the first of the gospels we have, but it seems to have signs of using older sources.

"Literalist" is a funny word. Did Jesus take more of the events depicted in the Bible as straight history than I would ? - certainly. Was he unusual in that respect for a first-century Jew? - certainly not. Was it a symptom of a lack of education? - not as far as I can see.

Lusting in the heart as being tantamount to adultery, and anger being an offence of the same kind as murder, seem to me to be original ideas, or rather the consequences of one original idea - that God judges the heart and not just your ability to restrain yourself from acting on your baser desires.

While I think that is true as far as it goes, I think he would have annoyed some people who weren't in bed with the Romans. People are rarely kind to people who tell them in a credible way that they are living their lives wrong unless they are deeply unsatisfied with how they are living their lives.

I still think that "supernatural" involves a category foreign to the thought of the NT authors.

Whatever Jewish Eschatology of the first century was - it wasn't Hal Lindsay.
If the Olivet discourse is historical, and I see no good reason why it can't be, then it is a prediction of that downfall in a somewhat different way than what happened. Jesus seems to have had in view a trigger event in which the Romans decided to put an idol in the Temple, which would inevitably lead to a horrible war. This is the most straightforward and obvious interpretation of "the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not" and it very nearly happened under Caligula.

Peter.

spamandham

In ancient times, it was common place to puff men up after they died...attributing miracles to them or god status.

This seems to be the approach HJers take...to assume the Jesus stories are basically true but with some hyperbolic fluff thrown in. In the case of Jesus though, the magic is central to his character and not just decoration. I don't think stripping it away and declaring the rest history is a valid approach.

This may explain why there are so many Jesus 'theories' out there.