exile

It's useful to compare with other legendary characters - such as Arthur.

The evidence we have for Arthur's existence is

- reference in the writings of Nennius, 300 years after his alleged existence. One of Arthur's battles, Mons Badonicus, is mentioned by a contemporary (6th C) writer, Gildas, but Arthur is not mentioned by Gildas.

- mention in Welsh poems, notably by Taliesin (6th C), who also mentions
the battle of Mons Badonicus and that Arthur was the victor of that battle.
Scholars however suspect these references may have been inserted at a later
date.

What are we to make of this?

1. Was there ever a person called Arthur?

Probably

3. Did he fight and win at Badonicus?

Possibly, but the jury is out - but we have no reason to think it's impossible.

4. Was he given a magic sword by a mysterious hand emerging from
a lake? Is he sleeping under a mountain somewhere to re-emerge in the hour of Britain's need?

Errr.... no.


Apply the same standards to the evidence of Jesus, I think we have to conclude that there probably is a real person behind the stories of Jesus.

I certainly don't feel obliged to take the stories of miracles and the resurrection at face value. These claims are extraordinary, and the evidence
isn't.

Vorkosigan

I disagree, Clutch. The debate you've described is the one between mainstream ("liberal") scholarship and its conservative opponents. The MJ/HJ debate is about how the texts should be read -- what axioms to bring to the text (literature or history?) and how they refer to each other (can we back-read the Gospels into Paul?), as well as what the origin of the Savior figure is (overlay of historical figure vs historicized mythic figure).

The latter comes out of the comparative religions scholarship of the prewar era, most of which is pretty poor, but the central realization, that Jesus owes a lot to Hellenistic myth and mystery religions, is probably accurate. To struggle against that, modern scholars have emphasized the "Jewishness of Jesus" (see the edited volume by Charlesworth Jesus' Jewishness for one example) which has a twofold "historical apologetics" function. First, it fights back against the comparative religions arguments by making Jesus so Jewish he can't be yanked out of that background to become another interchangeable Hellenistic god-man; and second, it creates a historical social milieu for Jesus which then can be used as a support for Jesus' historicity.

In other words, the HJ crowd will ask, looking at a specific pericope, what here goes back to Jesus? -- which is your description -- while an MJer will say to herself how was this passage created?

Vorkosigan

Clutch

For theistic HJers you are no doubt correct. But the latter view seems pretty close to what someone like Vinnie thinks. I suspect that many outright atheists have little attachment to mythicism because at some level they believe the bar is set almost trivially low for the mere truth of "Jesus existed". Sure -- they think -- but, heck, he could have just been a local sage who memorized and recited some of the sayings he encountered, did some carpentry on the side, and died in an accident. Whereas for some mythicist-inclined folks, that's just a way of saying there was no Jesus.

The point is, people could generally agree on the relevant historical claims while falling on different sides of the H/M divide, simply by failing to share intuitions about how names refer -- via some appropriate causal chain in their use, or via the preponderance of descriptions and connotations associated with them.

Killer Mike

There is no doubt the stories in the Gospels are largely myth, having derived from Hellenistic and mysteries religions. The believers of Mithras for example would celebrate his birth on Dec 25, and they had done this for decades before Jesus. But that does not mean there is nothing historical in these accounts. The Gospels speak of a census at the time of Jesus birth, and we know from historical records a census was ordered in Syria and Judea between 5-6BC. In Luke, there is a reference to Quirinius being the governor at the time of the census, something that is also historically correct. Such biographical information would be consistent with an historical Jesus. Scholars use a variety of ways, such as dissimularity, and historical context to distinguish myth from history. From this analysis of the Gospels and Jewish sources we know Jesus was born 5-6BC and preached for 1-3 years. He was baptised by John the Baptist and then had his own ministry. He was crucified for treason during Passover about 33AD, under Pontius Pilot. The bulk of the rest is myth.

Diogenes the Cynic

Quirinius' census was in 6 CE, not BCE.

There was no Roman census in Judea under Herod the Great. It wasn't a Roman province yet.

Chili

. . . and the censes was to find out who was born where because of what? They forgot to register these births?

Amaleq13

I think the primary source for the original Gospel story is the Hebrew Bible while the above are more relevant to Paul's gospel.

Except that the author of Luke has changed the historical nature of the census (ie establishing the proper tax base for a territory newly under direct control) into a "worldwide" census involving an absurd requirement. The reason the author has changed the historical reality in his story is to conform to his theological beliefs. In other words, he has created a myth with the appearance of a historical context. There is no reason to conclude from such a myth that anything historical can be understood about the central figure.

I assume you meant 5-6CE but that conclusion seems to arbitrarily favor the birthdate established by the mythical census rather than the birthdate established in Matthew (ie <4BCE).

Likewise, choosing to "harmonize" the descrepant durations seems to be based on the assumption that there must be something historical in the Gospel stories. That obviously assumes the conclusion you're trying to argue.

Why conclude that the depiction of the Baptist is historical? Josephus makes no connection between them and, IIRC, he dates the death of John well after this date for the crucifixion which is contrary to the Gospel story. It seems to me that connecting Jesus to this apparently well known figure could very well be just as much historical fiction as Luke's census. The whole baptism story appears to have been created to conform to the author's belief that the Messiah only became the Son of God upon his annointing by an Elias figure. Given that Jesus is unapologetically depicted as going to John for a baptism of repentance, it would appear that the author also believed that the Messiah didn't even know his own identity until that point. We find this same belief placed in the mouth of Trypho by Justin.

Questionable history + theological agenda = myth just as with the census in Luke.

Killer Mike

Im just wondering if some could provide sources for these claims. That Luke "changed" the nature of the census to create a myth to look like history seems very unlikely. There were actually two census' one in 5-6BCE and the other about 4CE.

There are other lines of evidence. For example, Josephus in Antiquities makes two references to Jesus. He wrote in association with James "he brother of Jesus, who was called christ". He also wrote "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus..."

Diogenes the Cynic

Wrong. There was a census in 6-7 CE and that's it. There was never a census under Herod the Great. Judea was not subject to census before 6 CE because it was not a Roman province yet.

Luke was also wrong about the Romans requiring people to register at their places of birth (such a request would not only being absurdly chaotic and unenforceable, it would have served no purpose whatever for the Roman).

Also, if Joseph was a resident of Galilee, he would not have been under the jurisdiction of Quirinius or the census.

Luke also hyperbolized Quirinius' census from a local one to a global one. Augustus never made a "census of the world" as Luke would have you believe.
If you do a board search on "Josephus," you'll see that these passages can be aggresively challenged as forgeries, especially the Testimonium Flavium.

Diogenes the Cynic

One more thing- Quirinius did not even become governor until 6 CE.