Was there a historical Jesus?

[Liberty]

What mistaken impression?

Fundamentalists and evangelicals like to say "it's not religion, it's a relationship," etc, and basically argue that all that matters is Jesus and knowing him. However, it seems that that may have not been all that important to early Christians at all.

You make it sound as if the life of Jesus and his teachings were not the cornerstone of christian religion.

I was responding to what Bilbo and several others said in this thread:

While I am certainly no expert on the subject this one is fairly easy to answer. First off no onw really wrote down what his normal life was like and the founders of the Church were making Jesus out to be the Son of God. So talking about his normal life and talking about it in the way you would talk about the life of anyone else would kind of take away from that whole divine thing they had going.

Look at it this way. The founders of Christianity had nothing to gain from writing about or recording the actual life of the jewish radical who became Jesus.

Is Bilbo not correct here? If not, I am mistaken.

[Thanas]

You misunderstand his words. Bilbo argues that because his life was so important, the epistles would not mention so much of it. His argument is an interesting one because when spreading christianity, the teachings of Jesus and his life were the defining characteristics.

[Bilbo]

You misunderstand his words. Bilbo argues that because his life was so important, the epistles would not mention so much of it. His argument is an interesting one because when spreading christianity, the teachings of Jesus and his life were the defining characteristics.

Not sure how to explain what I meant since this is not my area of expertise. The life of Jesus was important, but when you read the Bible it is obviously not the life of a human being but the "Son of God" so when the old fundamentalists as you call them focused on the stories of the Bible and the life of Jesus that it told them they were not studying the actual life of an actual person. They were studying idealized stories with probably little resemblence to the actual life of whoever Jesus.

Now since the bible has changed many times before the version we read was written I dont know if what they read in it was more accurately the life of a real person or just different stories.

The bible and the teaching of Christianity were not really about teaching the life and values of some guy named Jesus. They were about organizing and spreading a relgion, Paul (Saul whatever) probably did not give a shit what Jesus's life was really life. He wanted to organize a church.

So from a point the life of Jesus was important for spreading the church, not his real life, but the life created for him by people like Paul who had hitched their horses to his ideals and were using them for their own bnefit. So in the end the Bible and Christianity is not about the study of the life of Jesus, at least not the real life. I mean he only lives to be 33, yet we know nothing about life after his birth until he is much older. Wouldnt a true study of such an important person want to include as much of his life as possible. I mean he is the "Son of God"

[hongi]

Um. I was raised a fundamentalist. So yes. I've, um, actually read the New Testament, front to back, at least three times. When you're told the Bible is the most important thing we have in the entire world, you tend to do that.

I didn't know that. My apologies.

And yes, I know there are different types of literature and that just because something is important today doesn't mean it was then. And that's my point. Fundamentalists and evangelicals like to say "it's not religion, it's a relationship," etc, and basically argue that all that matters is Jesus and knowing him. However, it seems that that may have not been all that important to early Christians at all. Which is in itself interesting.

I think Jesus really was important to the early Christians. I just don't think writing a biography of Jesus was high on their agenda. Why would they need to write it down when they could just as easily talk about it?

[Thanas]

You misunderstand his words. Bilbo argues that because his life was so important, the epistles would not mention so much of it. His argument is an interesting one because when spreading christianity, the teachings of Jesus and his life were the defining characteristics.

Not sure how to explain what I meant since this is not my area of expertise. The life of Jesus was important, but when you read the Bible it is obviously not the life of a human being but the "Son of God" so when the old fundamentalists as you call them focused on the stories of the Bible and the life of Jesus that it told them they were not studying the actual life of an actual person. They were studying idealized stories with probably little resemblence to the actual life of whoever Jesus.

Now since the bible has changed many times before the version we read was written I dont know if what they read in it was more accurately the life of a real person or just different stories.

That is arguable.

The bible and the teaching of Christianity were not really about teaching the life and values of some guy named Jesus. They were about organizing and spreading a relgion, Paul (Saul whatever) probably did not give a shit what Jesus's life was really life. He wanted to organize a church.

Evidence for this?`You are making a lot of grand statements and judgements.

So from a point the life of Jesus was important for spreading the church, not his real life, but the life created for him by people like Paul who had hitched their horses to his ideals and were using them for their own bnefit. So in the end the Bible and Christianity is not about the study of the life of Jesus, at least not the real life.
I mean he only lives to be 33, yet we know nothing about life after his birth until he is much older. Wouldnt a true study of such an important person want to include as much of his life as possible. I mean he is the "Son of God"

Covered in this thread.

[Bilbo]

Evidence for this?`You are making a lot of grand statements and judgements.

Well ther are the huge swaths of time missing from the life of Jesus. All periods of his life should be important if he is really the son of god.

There is also the rather strong contradiction between Jesus's view on women and the view of women that Paul. He certainly had a rather dislike or at least negative opinion of women, which strongly contrasts with Jesus and his willingness to hang around with prostitutes. Assuming that is even true. I seem to remember reading that the impression that Mary was a prostitute was a fabrication by Paul or others in the church to further downgrade the importance of women in the church.

[Thanas]

Evidence for this?`You are making a lot of grand statements and judgements.

Well ther are the huge swaths of time missing from the life of Jesus. All periods of his life should be important if he is really the son of god.

Why?

There is also the rather strong contradiction between Jesus's view on women and the view of women that Paul. He certainly had a rather dislike or at least negative opinion of women, which strongly contrasts with Jesus and his willingness to hang around with prostitutes. Assuming that is even true. I seem to remember reading that the impression that Mary was a prostitute was a fabrication by Paul or others in the church to further downgrade the importance of women in the church.

Sources?

And how does this prove your point?

[Bilbo]

Evidence for this?`You are making a lot of grand statements and judgements.

Well ther are the huge swaths of time missing from the life of Jesus. All periods of his life should be important if he is really the son of god.

Why?

There is also the rather strong contradiction between Jesus's view on women and the view of women that Paul. He certainly had a rather dislike or at least negative opinion of women, which strongly contrasts with Jesus and his willingness to hang around with prostitutes. Assuming that is even true. I seem to remember reading that the impression that Mary was a prostitute was a fabrication by Paul or others in the church to further downgrade the importance of women in the church.

Sources?

And how does this prove your point?

According to Christians he is the "Son of God!!!" how can an entire decade or longer of his life be so completely irrelevant that there is no mention if it anywhere?

It supports my point in that a Church founded and organized by a man who had views quite different from Jesus obviously cannot follow his life too closely. How do you reconcile Jesus with the prostitutes and his relationship with Mary while at the same time accepting the woman-hating attitude of Paul? You dont unless you downplay the relationships and friendships Jesus had with Mary and other women.

[TC Pilot]

According to Christians he is the "Son of God!!!" how can an entire decade or longer of his life be so completely irrelevant that there is no mention if it anywhere?

Why should they care what he was doing when he was a child, before he was doing any preaching or miracle-work? You're doing nothing but concocting a false dilemma.

woman-hating attitude of Paul?

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." - Gal. 3:28

[hongi]

Well ther are the huge swaths of time missing from the life of Jesus. All periods of his life should be important if he is really the son of god.

We could speculate until the cows come home.

1) They did write it down, it hasn't survived.
2) No one was literate enough to write it down.
3) They didn't see the importance of writing it down when they could talk about it.
4) Not all parts of Jesus' life were considered important. Jesus shitting into a hole in the desert as a four year old probably didn't rank too high among his follower's interests.
5) Equally likely, they didn't know about Jesus' entire life. They didn't have cameras or followed him around with notebooks. It may have been that they simply had no idea what Jesus did for the majority of his life, until he started preaching and gaining followers.

There are a million more reasons I could invent on the spot.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I mean he only lives to be 33, yet we know nothing about life after his birth until he is much older. Wouldnt a true study of such an important person want to include as much of his life as possible. I mean he is the "Son of God"

There were other Gospels that never made it into the canon. For example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

[Channel72]

The most convincing argument for the existence of an historical Jesus are the Synoptic Gospels themselves. The mainstream conclusion of textual analysis is that a lot of the non-Markan material was derived from a collection of unrelated sayings (or pericopes), which derived from an earlier source. Since multiple Gospel authors used the same material in different ways (cf. the various ways the "salt of the Earth" sayings are used in Matt 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke 14:34) it becomes apparent that these sayings were circulating around the early Christian community, and the so-called Gospel "authors" were more like compilers, who tried to integrate these sayings (often clumsily) throughout their larger narratives.

Additionally, a large portion of the content of the Synoptic Gospels revolves around issues relevant mainly to Pharisaic Judaism; a lot of passages in the Synoptics read more like a local reformative movement against the Pharisees than an attempt to initiate a world-wide religion which includes Gentiles. If Jesus was a purely mythical creation of the various Hellenistic communities, it's hard to account for this material.

The problem with the case for a mythical Jesus is that although it nicely accounts for the lack of earthly details in Paul's epistles, it doesn't account for the content of the Synoptic Gospels themselves. It's not good enough to say the Synoptics were just fabricated entirely out of thin air; their anti-Pharisaic message suggests entirely different concerns than Paul's community, and textual analysis strongly suggests that Matthew and Luke at least are not entirely composed of original content, but rather draw from multiple earlier sources. While it's possible that these earlier sources themselves derive from something other than an historical Jesus, the argument for a mythic Jesus doesn't even try to account for this.

[Liberty]

Is it possible that Paul intentionally not mentioning details of Jesus' life? I mean, if Jesus was an actual person who was primarily involved in a movement to reform the pharisees and didn't sound like he was trying to form a new religion (and this is what a straightforward reading of the gospels indicates), perhaps Paul felt that mentioning these details, etc, weren't helpful to his message regarding the cosmic sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the people.

This assumes, though, that Paul was a bit of a schemer, perpetrating a sort of scam by suppressing information. It also assumes that there wasn't necessarily an established oral tradition about the personal life of Jesus. And if there wasn't a lively tradition about Jesus' life, where did the gospels come from when they were written later? Maybe some groups in Judea kept the details of Jesus' personal life alive because it made more sense to them, being Jews, then it did to Gentiles?

Or maybe I'm totally off here. It's interesting to think about, though.

[Thanas]

We can speculate about a lot of things. This thread is going round and round in circles. Further speculation serves no purpose and does a disservice to this forum, which has always maintained a tradition of argument being supposed to be supported with fact. Unless any further argument is supported by any scholarly-accepted fact, I shall treat it with the disdain it deserves.

[Channel72]

We can speculate about a lot of things. This thread is going round and round in circles. Further speculation serves no purpose and does a disservice to this forum, which has always maintained a tradition of argument being supposed to be supported with fact. Unless any further argument is supported by any scholarly-accepted fact, I shall treat it with the disdain it deserves.

There is little in the way of "scholarly-accepted fact" when it comes to the origins of Christianity beyond a broad historical outline, however the case for an historical Jesus I laid out above is based on the mainstream scholarly consensus that a significant portion of the material found in the Synoptic Gospels (mostly the 'Q' material) is based on earlier traditions which are entirely separate from Paul's community. So either there were two strands of historical tradition, both independently attributed to a mythic figure called Jesus, or Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who had a community of followers which produced the material behind the Synoptic Gospel tradition. I think a decent case can be made that the latter option is more likely.

[Thanas]

I was not addressing you with my post, my apologies if it seemed I did.

[Surlethe]

A suggestion which I am not qualified to carry out: It might be good to end this thread with a simple list of all of the scholarly-accepted facts available regarding the historical Jesus.

[Channel72]

A suggestion which I am not qualified to carry out: It might be good to end this thread with a simple list of all of the scholarly-accepted facts available regarding the historical Jesus.

A good source is the Jesus Seminar. This is an international group of scholars (both secular and religious) that have tried to develop a methodology to distinguish authentic traditions from the confusing mythological mess that is first-century Christianity. The Wikipedia article gives a good overview, but to summarize: the seminar came up with a few guidelines for establishing the authenticity of any particular Gospel passage or pericope, such as multiple attestation from different authors, or indications of an oral origin. For example, if a passage has all the textual hallmarks of an oral origin, e.g. a parable, an aphorism, or a catchy sound-bite, etc., it has a greater claim to authenticity. Another way to establish an authentic oral origin is if multiple Gospel authors clumsily tried to work the saying into their narratives in different ways, (such as the "salt of the Earth" saying referenced in my post above.)

In brief, their most important conclusions are:

1) Jesus was an historical person from Nazareth
2) The Gospels of Matthew, Luke (and possibly Thomas) contain some authentic sayings of Jesus of Nazareth
3) Of all the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, only about 18% of them are authentic
4) Jesus was actually crucified by the Romans, but not necessarily for claiming to be the Son of God

The Seminar also assumes the standard conclusions of modern scholarship, e.g. Mark was the first Gospel, and Matthew and Luke drew both from Mark and a secondary "sayings Gospel" known as the Q document.

With that in mind, the Jesus seminar never directly attempts to refute the case for a mythic Jesus. However, they do more or less represent the conclusions of mainstream scholarship regarding the historical Jesus.

I'd like to point out that the case for a mythic Jesus and the case for an historical Jesus almost co-exist in different spheres. The case for a mythic Jesus, most notably expounded by Earl Doherty, focuses mostly on Paul's epistles and early first century writings, but fails to account for the Synoptic tradition. Whereas the Jesus seminar, and most of mainstream scholarship, is able to derive an historical Jesus from the Synoptic tradition, but cannot explain the silence towards Jesus's ministry or sayings in Paul's epistles.

However, there may be at least some awareness of the Synoptic Jesus in Paul's epistles. For example:

But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night

Also, 1 Timothy 5:18 seems to reference a saying from Luke 10:7. "The laborer is worthy of his wages."

So it may be that the case for a mythic Jesus is not as strong as it seems from reading Paul's letters. The conservative types may have a point that Paul had no cause to mention specific instances in Jesus's life, because his epistles are directed at an already-converted audience. Still, I find it bizarre that Paul constantly quotes from the Old Testament, but never directly attributes any saying to Jesus himself. Regardless, according to modern scholarship, the 'Q' sayings of Jesus found in the Synoptic tradition almost certainly existed (at least in oral form) at the time Paul was writing, so his failure to mention them cannot be attributed to their non-existence. I think the question is not "did Jesus of Nazareth exist", but rather, to what extent was Paul's community aware of the Gospel tradition, and how did the two seemingly disparate traditions merge into what we now call Christianity?

[Thanas]

^I think you are forgetting an important point raised here - the letters of Paul are not really preserved in full. There are only two letters who are preserved in full.

That said, a few points that are also generally accepted as fact and which are very important:
- Jesus was of comparatively low origin, a carpenter
- he also recruited predominantly from the lower class.

These things are very important, especially considering the roman and greek mindset.

[TC Pilot]

These things are very important, especially considering the roman and greek mindset.

Those factors also started coming up in pagan attacks on Christianity in the second century or so. Basically, the accusation was that Christians targetted lower class people because their doctrine was too flimsy to stand up to any rigorous intellectual analysis.

[Thanas]

Not only that. Considering the division between Art and mere craftsmanship (I do not have greek on this computer or I would write the correct term), this means that it was unfit for anyone of noble birth to worship it, for it would not be philosophically correct.

[TC Pilot]

Not only that. Considering the division between Art and mere craftsmanship (I do not have greek on this computer or I would write the correct term), this means that it was unfit for anyone of noble birth to worship it, for it would not be philosophically correct.

Ah. That would explain quite a lot of the second-century apologists' attempts to use Platonic thought in Christian doctrine.

Also, I recall hearing that one of Commodus' mistresses was a Christian, or at least a sympathizer. Would that have contributed substantially in any way to a negative outlook on Christians? Granted, this is straying off-target a few years....

[Thanas]

Not only that. Considering the division between Art and mere craftsmanship (I do not have greek on this computer or I would write the correct term), this means that it was unfit for anyone of noble birth to worship it, for it would not be philosophically correct.

Ah. That would explain quite a lot of the second-century apologists' attempts to use Platonic thought in Christian doctrine.

Well, not only that, but most of those were educated men, and education meant philosophy, especially Plato.

Also, I recall hearing that one of Commodus' mistresses was a Christian, or at least a sympathizer. Would that have contributed substantially in any way to a negative outlook on Christians? Granted, this is straying off-target a few years....

I cannot remember this episode off hand, do you know the sources?

[TC Pilot]

I cannot remember this episode off hand, do you know the sources?

Not the primary source, sadly. Her name was Marcia, if that helps at all.

[Liberty]

It was my understanding that a good number of wealthy widows became Christians in the early days of Christianity, and that they helped finance it. Am I wrong? I seem to remember a pagan apologist writing something about how only the poor and women converted, but I can't find the quote.