What can we know about the historical Jesus? How probable is it that he existed? Do the New Testament writings accurately reflect his teachings? How should we view the virgin birth, miracles and the resurrection?
Obviously I don’t expect consensus on this topic. Nevertheless, I would hope to be able to learn from the discussion. Personally, I think Jesus was probably a real historical person. I think that the kernal of his teaching is there in the NT. I don’t think we can take everything written about Jesus in the New Testament literally. But I still think that his life and teachings can be relevant today.
What do you mean what do we know? We have historical texts that half the people in the world seem to doubt are even true. Seems like a coin toss doesn’t it?
Club means the bible, but even the bible isn’t credible. Let’s take the birth of Jesus for example… The Year Is 2759 AUC(I would have hoped that thread got more attention for what I wrote in it). After reading that, think what you like, but know that there are clear contradictions in the bible and that the word of ‘history’ is not something that should be quickly placed upon it. Of course, there are parts in the bible that appear credible enough to be a ‘historical document’, but those parts are devoid of any supernatural activity whatsoever.
As for sources outside of the bible, well… Doc S. couldn’t have put it any more beautifully. Lee Strobel, a journalist with the Chicago Tribune who was unbelievably educated at Yale Law School (believe it or not), went about “searching” for evidence of a historical Jesus with his award-winning book The Case For Christ (a book that has been cited in 90 other books). Unfortunately for Strobel, he makes one of the biggest foul-ups any REAL journalist could ever make… he doesn’t check his sources. If he did, he would come to a conclusion that there really is no evidence of Jesus outside of the bible. I myself happen to have a copy of his “student edition”, which is even worse. In it, he states the historical evidence for ‘Christ’.
What, that’s it? No citations of the named evidence from these sources? No explanations? No nothing?
For a journalist, this is indeed a big foul-up. No editor would back this, unless they too thought as simple-minded as Strobel.
Evidence Strobel obviously didn’t consider… Josephus on Jesus Tacitus on Jesus Historicity of Jesus
Read them for yourself, go even further than Strobel, a Yale educated journalist (LOL), and find out that it was all just a big misunderstanding.
Admittedly the evidence is not as solid as say what we’ve got for Abraham Lincoln. But as in the cases of Buddha and Mohammed, I think it more likely that Jesus was an historical person tnan a fictional one.
I think the coin toss requires more scrutiny when a majority of the planet believe they should base their entire lives under the assumption he did exist…
In addition, I don’t think it’s likely at all that Jesus was a historical person. At least, not the one in the Bible. Jesus was a very popular name at the time. There were many Jesus’s that were hanged or crucified at that time. So yes, there probably were people named Jesus, and some of them were probably crucified, but is that what you consider a “historical person?”
There are plenty of historical and archeological sources of evidence that suggest that Jesus lived and was probably born in the September of the year 2 BC. He referred to himself as the Son of Man, a Messianic term which Jews of that era were already familiar with and which actually derived from Persian and Greek mythology. Jesus was nothing more than a failed radical Jewish revolutionary who was convinced that the world would turn on it’s head during his sacrifice and that the Jews would then be free from the political and religious oppression of their time. Jesus’ vision of himself as the Son of Man threatened the oppressive establishment and seen as the terrorist that he basically was he was crucified. He himself acknowledges that his radical vision had failed on the cross: “Abba, Abba, why have you forsaken me”, and his label as the Son of Man was only used before the execution; there’s no post-resurrection appearances of this title, this means that at death he wasn’t seen as the Son of Man or Messiah anymore. There are several Aramaic verses throughout Mark’s gospels that, when translated correctly, show the Christian interpretation of such theology to be wrong. Christianity only exists because Constantine exploited the fable to strengthen the Roman Empire.
These sort of empty assertions piss me off, as if we are supposed to just take your word for it.
What are these ‘plenty of historical and archeological sources’ we are supposed to not be asking about?
Wow… That’s exactly what I would have said (not word for word though). Of all the evidence that exists on record, there is absolutely no mention of such an absurd notion that Jesus was born in September of 2 BCE.
Hogwash! Constantine didn’t need Christianity to strengthen the Roman Empire. If anything, Christianity weakened the empire. Constantine was clearly a superstitious man…
Jewish historian Josephus reported that, at the end of the first century, “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”
Roman historian Tacitus reported that, at the start of the second century, “Christus, the founder of the name [of Christian], had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.”
While there is no such evidence, it is possible (as in to amuse one’s speculative curiosity) that the gods and goddesses of the Old Norse belief, now revamped in Asatru, were perhaps once leaders or heroic figures that made such an impact on society that they were deified in legend, which later became the basis for a religious belief. This could not be the case for Christianity though…
What is your source for that translation? William Whiston translates it as:
[size=92]3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.[/size]
Regardless of where you picked up that translation, that passage (referred to by Christians as the Testimonium Flavianum) is not a credible source for the ‘historical Jesus’ as the evidence to doubt its authenticity is immensely greater than the probability of it being written by Josephus.
This too is not a credible source of evidence. While Tacitus is a renowned historian, he was not obligated to check the facts or reveal his sources as a modern historian is supposed to do. While some have argued this to be an interpolation by Christian scribes, it is much more likely that he had Christian sources of information. Not to mention that Pilate was a Prefect, not a Procurator, although while having both titles is common in that day, there is no evidence to support him as a Procurator.
Of course, both Josephus and Tacitus were never alive when this supposed “Jesus” was around… there are absolutely no eyewitness accounts in recorded history of this “Jesus” figure being a real person. That’s just too unfortunate for Christians. They must envy the Buddhists… at least the Buddhists have a real historical figure to go back on… Christians have mythology.
Who cares if the story of Jesus is historically accurate?
Serious reflection on the story as ‘myth’ points to profound truth.
Any person who openly opposes the ‘establishment’ … the rich and powerful … and attracts a sufficient following to pose a serious threat (real or perceived) will be eliminated.
In the case of the story of Jesus … seems the ‘following’ would not die.
After a few hundred years and many ‘killings’ … the only logical solution was to assimilate the ‘following’ into the establishment of the day … which Constantine did very effectively.
Perhaps the same ‘truth’ persists today … the underlying reason for the attempt to spread western style democracy in the Middle East.
Seems to me the notion of separating church and state is a farce. If you cut a loaf of bread in half … you still have a loaf of bread
Well, I guess the answer to the question “what we can know about the ‘historical’ Jesus?” is: whatever there is reliable evidence of, and whatever could be inferred from that evidence.
There’s a difficulty in using names like Jesus, Plato or Alexander like they would refer to the man next door. Our ideas of these personages are essentially combinations of historical accounts, so if we ask “did the real Plato really write the Republic” the question is misleading since our primary evidence of “Plato” are his philosophical works. The question gives the impression that we are comparing a “real person” to an historical account of this person, but such a comparison is logically impossible.
Historical personages are constructed from historical evidence, they are nothing more to us than what the evidence indicates. The evidence can of course be discussed and reinterpreted as new information becomes available, but a “real person” can not be discovered beneath the layers of history. So the discussion is an assessment of different pieces of evidence. In my opinion on terminology, to counterpose “historical Jesus” and “mythological Jesus” is to contrast historical evidence from secular sources with historical evidence from religious sources. However, I am not sure if the sources can really be separated that neatly. But in any case, it should be clear that we can not interpret the term “historical Jesus” as “the real person Jesus” because this would simply become a circular definition “the real person who, by historical account A, did this and this and this…”
My source for the quotations is the John Dominic Crossan website. He appears to have redacted portions of the Josephus text that were probably inserted later by Christians. I checked the birth dates of Josephus and Tacitus. According to Wikepedia the dates are 37 and 56 AD respectively, so they were not contemporaries of Jesus (29–36 AD).
Who cares about historical proof for his existence, all man made proof is flawed and will always be questioned by those with an agenda.
Either his teachings are True or not and this can be proven by testing these parables and teachings with cause and affect. If they pass that test, then they are True regardless of who said them and that means they had a source and that source spoke a known language and was intelligent, so he was human like us all. What other proof is there then the reality of logic and cause and affect.
Did his cause have an affect, yes! Therefore he is real.
If anyone can explain reality with another set of laws then go for it.
BTW, have any of you actually read the content of those links that provide evidence that there was no proof of the historical Jesus, I’m guessing no because I have read them all and I can not see where such a conclusion can be reached.