Historical Jesus

[Atheos]

I ask again, why do we have to answer this question? Who gains from writing viruses that cripple computers? Who gains by inventing the thousands upon thousands of hoaxes that populate snopes.com? Who gained from creating the Hindu myths? Do we really have to know what the motivation was behind someone inventing a fantastic tale to recognize a fantastic tale when we hear one?

Is it not obvious that someone gained due to the propagation of these myths? The historical record as well as the present is filled with those who have invented religious beliefs to suit whatever agenda they had. From Joseph Smith and Mohammad to L Ron Hubbard, Marshal Applewhite and J.Z. Knight. Is a religion invented by unnamed people somehow more credible than one invented by known people? How many characters did Joseph Smith invent in his fantastic tales?

 

[Horatio Parker]

I ask again, Who gained? What brilliant figure invented all these people, and for what gain? If you have no critical training, ask someone who has: every one of these people has an individual style, and unless there were four novelists-before-the-novel available for bribing (by what camel caught in the needle's eye?) where did the camel get them, and how train them up? Plato was a great literary artist, and Socrates is his invention (though undoubtedly there was an historical person of that name). What brilliant writer invented Paul? The beliefs of the past don't belong to now, but showing that is not helped by denying obvious history.

No one had to have gained in the sense of deliberate deception. They could've attempted to fill in gaps with speculation or revelation. Or used a tradition belonging to another, similar, figure. Or decided the writings of one person better reflected the beliefs of another.

So the author of gMark needn't have had a desire to invent or deceive or his intent all along may have been to write fiction. There's plenty of debate on whether gMark was an Aristotelian tragedy or a biography. Later sources could've decided it was literally true, perhaps because it spoke a spiritual truth to them. I don't think such distinctions were as important to them.

The point is we just don't know, and pretty much all Christian tradition is based on using the NT as history, and we know it's an unreliable source. IIRC the first clear reference to the four gospels dates from a time over a century after the events. Who knows how many revisions and redactions they went through. We do know, from the many surviving ancient bibles and their differences, that editing and reacting was part and parcel of the whole operation.

 

[Keith&Co.]

No one had to have gained in the sense of deliberate deception. They could've attempted to fill in gaps with speculation or revelation.

I see this every day at work. People pontificate about all sorts of things they either only half-way paid attention to when it happened or listened to someone's half-assed report of what happened.
They don't PROFIT from spreading distruths about, say, whether or not the American Psychological Association has stated that there's no such thing as a transsexual. But it matches the way they want to think about the world, so they're willing to spread and even augment such stories.

 

[Atheos]

Getting back to "incentive" though, my theory (and I understand it's just a theory, but it fits the evidence quite well) is that Paul was very much like J.Z. Knight. It started with a fabricated mystical relationship he claimed to have with this "Jesus" figure, who spoke to him in visions. It is possible that the character was borrowed from someone who had lived in recent history, but it's also possible that the character was made up from whole cloth or inspired by several different figures Paul had known during his life. Doesn't really matter, because all Paul ever talked about was the sacrifice this character had made for the benefit of all people and that you have to believe in him and listen to what he tells you through Paul if you want to be saved. And of course you have to give money. That's pretty much a given.

Paul never mentions anything about any earthly life for this character. None of the places he lived, none of the things he said, nothing about Mary or Joseph, not even any of the parables or sermons he preached. Not one of the fantastic miracles that evidenced he was something special, such as raising people from the dead, walking on water, healing blind people, feeding thousands with morsels. Nothing but the sacrifice.

Like J.Z. Knight, Paul was good at convincing people about this delusion. Didn't have to convince everyone, just needed to convince enough to make it profitable. He went from town to town convincing people, setting up franchises and getting his "cut" when he showed back up. In I Cor 16 1-2 this is a very evident component of the formula, as he tells them to do the same thing he had ordered all the churches throughout Galatia to do, give a little to the collection plate every Sunday so that "there be no gatherings when I come."

As time went by people wanted to know more about this character Paul was channeling, so stories were fabricated to fill this void. Many of these stories were clearly adaptations of earlier myths. Others were fabricated for their symbolic significance (e.g., the transfiguration). Eventually the "sacrifice" part coalesced into a symbolic Passover story that coincided well with the Jewish holiday.

This theory works well because it accounts for the dearth of information about Jesus contained in Paul's earlier writings and the progression of this character from a nebulous voice talking only to Paul to an actual person who had lived a fantastic event filled life in recent history. Paul popularized the character; others began filling in the vacuum with anecdotes. The good ones were keepers, the not-so-good didn't make the cut. The editors of GMark put together the first version that we still have available for perusal today, but it's likely that there may have been other earlier ones that were trumped by GMark.

 

[James Brown]

It really is remarkable to me how easily Paul could have pointed to the earthly life of Jesus in order to prove a theological point. Should we preach to non-Jews? Look what Jesus said to the Centurion. Should Christians keep kosher? Look what Jesus said about the cleanliness rules. What's all this about resurrection? Recall what Jesus did for Lazarus.

And yet he never did. His arguments were authoritative, but they would have been even more so had they been buttressed by the words and deeds of God Incarnate. Why would he hamstring himself like that? Why deliberately weaken his arguments?

 

[ronburgundy]

I ask again, Who gained? What brilliant figure invented all these people, and for what gain? If you have no critical training, ask someone who has: every one of these people has an individual style, and unless there were four novelists-before-the-novel available for bribing (by what camel caught in the needle's eye?) where did the camel get them, and how train them up? Plato was a great literary artist, and Socrates is his invention (though undoubtedly there was an historical person of that name). What brilliant writer invented Paul? The beliefs of the past don't belong to now, but showing that is not helped by denying obvious history.

You speakas though the Bible is some great, well written and highly original story. It isn't. All the central themes and characters are derivative of myths that preceded it. The Old testament laid the backstory and context of an expected "savior" in which to bring those elements together. Its a hodgepodge of poorly written short stories inspired by others and by the context of the prevailing Jewish beliefs. As for motive, it is just a set of stories, so no motive greater than that people create stories really need be assumed.

 

[iolo]

I ask again, why do we have to answer this question? Who gains from writing viruses that cripple computers? Who gains by inventing the thousands upon thousands of hoaxes that populate snopes.com? Who gained from creating the Hindu myths? Do we really have to know what the motivation was behind someone inventing a fantastic tale to recognize a fantastic tale when we hear one?

Is it not obvious that someone gained due to the propagation of these myths? The historical record as well as the present is filled with those who have invented religious beliefs to suit whatever agenda they had. From Joseph Smith and Mohammad to L Ron Hubbard, Marshal Applewhite and J.Z. Knight. Is a religion invented by unnamed people somehow more credible than one invented by known people? How many characters did Joseph Smith invent in his fantastic tales?

That is just noise. If you deny Napoleon on the grounds that Thor is mythical, feel free, but don't expect sensible person to agree.

 

[iolo]

I ask again, Who gained? What brilliant figure invented all these people, and for what gain? If you have no critical training, ask someone who has: every one of these people has an individual style, and unless there were four novelists-before-the-novel available for bribing (by what camel caught in the needle's eye?) where did the camel get them, and how train them up? Plato was a great literary artist, and Socrates is his invention (though undoubtedly there was an historical person of that name). What brilliant writer invented Paul? The beliefs of the past don't belong to now, but showing that is not helped by denying obvious history.

You speakas though the Bible is some great, well written and highly original story. It isn't. All the central themes and characters are derivative of myths that preceded it. The Old testament laid the backstory and context of an expected "savior" in which to bring those elements together. Its a hodgepodge of poorly written short stories inspired by others and by the context of the prevailing Jewish beliefs. As for motive, it is just a set of stories, so no motive greater than that people create stories really need be assumed.

I have never said anything about the anthology called 'the Bible' - its various components seem to have little to do with one another, and its unity is an obsession of fundamentalists and their fundamentalist-type opponents. We were talking about the historical factuality of several persons, who were either giving fairly accurate accounts with a few obviously mythical bits added, or were brilliant forgers you'd think we'd have heard of in other contexts.

 

[Juma]

or were brilliant forgers you'd think we'd have heard of in other contexts.

Brilliant? There is definitely no need to bring up that epitet. They are just stories and letters.

 

[iolo]

or were brilliant forgers you'd think we'd have heard of in other contexts.

Brilliant? There is definitely no need to bring up that epitet. They are just stories and letters.

The question was whether the stories were written by historical individuals, and the letters by a well-known particular historical Roman citizen whose position led him to make hugely important changes to Jewish attitudes to 'God'.

 

[Atheos]

I ask again, why do we have to answer this question? Who gains from writing viruses that cripple computers? Who gains by inventing the thousands upon thousands of hoaxes that populate snopes.com? Who gained from creating the Hindu myths? Do we really have to know what the motivation was behind someone inventing a fantastic tale to recognize a fantastic tale when we hear one?

Is it not obvious that someone gained due to the propagation of these myths? The historical record as well as the present is filled with those who have invented religious beliefs to suit whatever agenda they had. From Joseph Smith and Mohammad to L Ron Hubbard, Marshal Applewhite and J.Z. Knight. Is a religion invented by unnamed people somehow more credible than one invented by known people? How many characters did Joseph Smith invent in his fantastic tales?

That is just noise. If you deny Napoleon on the grounds that Thor is mythical, feel free, but don't expect sensible person to agree.

I don't deny Jesus is historical, I am skeptical because ... well ... the evidence for the existence of this individual isn't much better than the evidence for the existence of Thor. I believe my skepticism is justified because if someone did the sorts of things this character allegedly did in front of crowds of thousands of people as the stories describe it is a reasonable thing to expect that some contemporary historian would have made some note. We have (for example) the writings of Philo of Alexandria, who lived right during the sweet spot when all these things were supposedly happening. He wrote about Jewish offshoot sects and lived in or near Jerusalem when all this stuff was going on. He would have been about 10-15 years old at the time. The perfect external witness. Yet somehow all these incredible events escaped his notice and instead he was captivated by such relatively mundane sects as the Essenes and the Therapeutae. The first time any non-apologetic historian mentions this character is maybe Josephus, writing some 60 years after the time in question. We know much of that was the result of pious fraud and what (if anything) remains could be the result of him simply taking for granted that this man so many were talking about actually did exist.

No, it's not a slam-dunk, but it is perfectly reasonable to suspect that these stories were fabricated and did not happen as described. After all, people don't walk on water, turn water into wine, heal blindness, leprosy, paralysis and erectile dysfunction with a touch. Well, the last one ... maybe. People don't routinely have conversations with the demons responsible for epilepsy or insanity before casting them out. People don't turn morsels of food into feasts for thousands, raise dead people to life or levitate off into the sky to disappear into the clouds never to be seen again.

By contrast, the external corroboration for the existence of Napoleon Bonaparte is exhaustive. Letters written by him and to him. Bills of sale. Legal documents, diaries of people who met him, documents written by contemporaries who disliked him. Items of clothing he wore. Weapons he used and myriads of other artifacts. Portraits of him painted by contemporary artists. Napoleon did some significant things, but he did not cure blindness nor could he levitate off the ground or walk on water. The sorts of things he did are the sorts of things many others have done before and since. He was a brilliant military strategist, he orchestrated some successful battles, he eventually got beaten, he spent his last days in exile and he is now buried in a war memorial cemetery (Les Invalides) in Paris.

In short, Napoleon is a well-evidenced person who rose to greatness (as certain people are have done many times). Jesus is a non-evidenced story about someone who did things nobody has ever done before or since. My skepticism is warranted.

 

[iolo]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

 

[none]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

How is this^ a relevant question?

I'm guessing the intent was to upset the status quo, namely Roman and Jewish folk.
Not sure it is relevant to point to an individual or individuals as the beneficiaries
Not sure intent matters

Plus we don't even know who wrote most of it or even if they were real people,that authorship is questionable

 

[Horatio Parker]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

There may have been trickery later, but for the first century, which is what this thread is focused on, I'm not assuming any trickery.

 

[iolo]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

How is this^ a relevant question?

I'm guessing the intent was to upset the status quo, namely Roman and Jewish folk.
Not sure it is relevant to point to an individual or individuals as the beneficiaries
Not sure intent matters

Plus we don't even know who wrote most of it or even if they were real people,that authorship is questionable

If they weren't real people, who were they and who made them up, why? A revolutionary movement is seldom invented by anyone with any power, as you know, and we know what the imperial bosses thought of this one. They didn't want the mighty put down from their seats, see.

 

[iolo]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

There may have been trickery later, but for the first century, which is what this thread is focused on, I'm not assuming any trickery.

Well, neither am I, obviously. The question of what the 'religious' presentation meant in real terms, terms that make sense to us.

 

[Atheos]

As always, who benefited from any trickery, and who had the power to pull it off?

Perhaps you didn't read my recent post in this thread, where I presented what I believe is a rational theory answering that very question.

 

[Horatio Parker]

There may have been trickery later, but for the first century, which is what this thread is focused on, I'm not assuming any trickery.

Well, neither am I, obviously. The question of what the 'religious' presentation meant in real terms, terms that make sense to us.

That's the point. It seems more likely that there were multiple streams of thought that were later "harmonized".

The Jesus character could've been a single man, or a composite of Jewish holy men or Cynic sages.

 

[Atheos]

It really is remarkable to me how easily Paul could have pointed to the earthly life of Jesus in order to prove a theological point. Should we preach to non-Jews? Look what Jesus said to the Centurion. Should Christians keep kosher? Look what Jesus said about the cleanliness rules. What's all this about resurrection? Recall what Jesus did for Lazarus.

And yet he never did. His arguments were authoritative, but they would have been even more so had they been buttressed by the words and deeds of God Incarnate. Why would he hamstring himself like that? Why deliberately weaken his arguments?

Great point! And I might add that the injunction Paul gave about "giving" (I Cor 16:1-2) could have been bolstered mightily by appealing to what Jesus said about the widow who gave her last two mites. Would have been the perfect opportunity to bring up that anecdote.

 

[none]

How is this^ a relevant question?

I'm guessing the intent was to upset the status quo, namely Roman and Jewish folk.
Not sure it is relevant to point to an individual or individuals as the beneficiaries
Not sure intent matters

Plus we don't even know who wrote most of it or even if they were real people,that authorship is questionable

If they weren't real people, who were they and who made them up, why? A revolutionary movement is seldom invented by anyone with any power, as you know, and we know what the imperial bosses thought of this one. They didn't want the mighty put down from their seats, see.

I thought I mentioned why I thought they were made up.
I say they were made up to challenge the status quo
And by that I mean the first mention of Jesus which the later authors built upon