What counts as a historical Jesus?

[HansMustermann]

If as Hans and others suggest, the whole story was just cobbled together from OT Scripture, a man crucified by Romans wouldn't have been called the Messiah by anyone. The Messiah was supposed to unite the tribes and defeat the enemies of Israel.

Actually, not really. Some people were building a completely different prophecy than you seem to imagine. One in which the messiah isn't in fact the one who'll conquer the world for them, but one who'll be executed although innocent, and that will make GOD finally get off his ass and do what he promised all along.

You have to understand that Judaism was the product of an accretion of BS propaganda stories, invariably showing the one-two punch of:

A) pretending to be from a couple hundred years earlier and make some amazing predictions that came true. Sorta like if I were to forge a prophecy from 1500 describing in reasonable detail the American Revolution. This gave it credence as a genuine prophecy.

B) using that credence to give some encouraging prophecies about what will happen in the near future. Like that God will totally kick everyone's ass and put the Jews on top, and burn everyone who doesn't come sacrifice (and thus pay tax) to the Jews' temple.

The thing is, B usually didn't quite go as prophecised. Combine that with some very concrete promises God made in the first 5 books about what he'll do if they obey Him, and that's basically even more broken promises.

So why doesn't God keep his word? Well, the answer they had, including in those forged prophecies was: because you're all a bunch of unworthy sinners, and God would rather punish you than help you.

Yeah, the tendency of Judaism to wield guilt like it's a military flail, was already in full swing.

So some people were already getting ideas that it's impossible to satisfy God, no matter what you do, and everything they do to please God, only gets them another kick in the balls for being sinners. Hence they must need someone to take that sin away somehow.

Basically, really, it's the kind of divergence you get when people start looking at past texts to figure out what the messiah would be like... and some go into dada land and start finding cryptic prophecies everywhere, like an early Bible Code. You can't assume that everyone would get the same.

I mean, even Christians today, knowing exactly who and what they must support with those phrases taken out of context as "prophecies", still can't agree about which they are and how many of them there are. Now picture some people trying to do that before Jesus, without knowing what they must arrive at.

Plus, really, I think even the "great military leader" faction is a bit mis-represented. I think it was perfectly clear to everyone that by themselves they're no match for Rome's might. It doesn't matter what leader you get, when you go against an empire which has more professional soldiers than you have total male population, and whose economic might can crush you several dozens of times over, you WILL lose.

Plus, if you expect to win by military action, you make allies and whatnot. Whereas these guys were the kind of fundamentalists that were more into antagonizing any possible ally for being heathens, and turning against the few allies they manage to get at the dumbest possible moment. It doesn't quite sound to me like what you'd do if you expect to win by having a great general, even if he is inspired by God or whatnot.

Or see the sicarii destroying the food supplies in Jerusalem, to force a disastrous open ground confrontation with the Roman army. It makes no sense if you expect that to work militarily, but it's the kind of stonking stupidity one would do if one believes that God just needs such a desperate final show of faith to do a spectacular miracle and win the war for them.

And that's really what it was about. What everyone actually expected was really that God will win the war for them. Whether with the messiah at the head of the army, or the messiah sacrificing in the temple, or with the messiah killed beforehand so God would be pissed off at the Romans, or whatever, still it wasn't the messiah per se that would win them the war. God was supposed to do that. The messiah was more or less just a marker or catalyst, sorta like in Isaiah.

And, really, if you look at even their pseudo-history in the OT, that's the pattern. They don't credit Moses or Joshua with being great generals. They just do what God commanded them, and God is the one who gives victory and/or performs whatever miracles are needed to secure that victory.

In that setup it's not very clear why one sort of messiah would be less believable than another sort. If what you're expecting the messiah to do is just to mark or trigger God's intervention, then why would you specifically need a great general messiah as opposed to any other imaginable messiah.

 

[HansMustermann]

Because it is the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions. We don't have to accept that it is based on a real person, only that it might be.

Just to address that too, that's not what Occam's Razor is about. Occam's Razor is about the theory with the least entities, not with whatever bogus stuff you can count as assumptions to pad one side vs the other.

I.e., if you end up arguing that Santa must be real because the opposite has the extra assumption that dad would lie to you... you're doing it wrong.

And in fact, being based on a real person has more entities than it being made up. Not only it has the extra entity called "historical Jesus", but all the people needed for a reliable chain of information in between. When you have person A writing about person Z who lived 50 years before, for it to not be pulled out of the ass, you also have to have person A learning it from person B, who learned it from person C, who learned it from person D and so on. All those persons B, C, D and so on, in that telephone game, are needed extra entities, because without them person A has no way to know anything about person Z and is back at making stuff up.

Or I guess he can learn it from census records, history books, newspapers in our day, etc, but those too are extra entities you need if it's not just made up. If person A was reading about person Z in history book H or in newspaper N, then those H and N are extra entities you have to assume, because without them you're back at "Person A was making it up."

Basically imagine I told you that know through some secret oral tradition that Washington was a pagan and gay. Which of them do you think has fewer entities, and thus is more Occam conform:

1. It's made up.

2. It must be based on something.

If you picked #2, congrats, you don't understand Occam at all.

In reality #2 needs all the people involved in transmitting that oral tradition, as extra entities. Whereas #1 doesn't need any.

 

[IanS]

Why do we have to accept " that the Jesus story might be based on a real individual figure"? Especially since the evidence is "almost non-existent"?

Oh, simply because it's obvious that there were numerous street preachers in that region at the time. And clearly any one of those individuals might have been the source of what appeared some centuries later in the gospel accounts.

So just on that basis alone, the story is not impossible.

There is also the added complication that, the word "Jesus" seems to be of middle-English 12th cent origin. So that whoever "Jesus" was, it seems he would not have been known by that name in biblical times.

He might have been known by a name such as Yehoshua or Iesous, but afaik, those are "theophoric" names anyway. Ie, names composed of two parts, the second part of which is actually intended as a direct reference to God or "YHWH".

So, I'm not sure how a name like "Yehoshua" would have been used in biblical times. And I wonder if perhaps it was often used simply as a way of describing an individual as being directly descended from God, eg as in the "Son of God"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_and_titles_of_Jesus_in_the_New_Testament

 

[pakeha]

Because it is the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions. We don't have to accept that it is based on a real person, only that it might be.

....

Oh, simply because it's obvious that there were numerous street preachers in that region at the time. And clearly any one of those individuals might have been the source of what appeared some centuries later in the gospel accounts.

So just on that basis alone, the story is not impossible. ...

Thanks for the answers!
I appreciate your thought and consideration in posting.
The subject is new to me and I'm still trying to sort out my own ideas.
To tell the truth, nothing I've seen thus far convinces me there was an historical 'jesus'.
That said, I read everything pro and contra that's posted up.
Somehow I find it rather sad to think the faith of my fathers is based on complete jive.
But I'm one of those people that prefer the truth.
So I'll keep reading and asking questions.

 

[HansMustermann]

Oh, simply because it's obvious that there were numerous street preachers in that region at the time. And clearly any one of those individuals might have been the source of what appeared some centuries later in the gospel accounts.

So just on that basis alone, the story is not impossible.

Actually there are several possibilities there, including it being a mashup of different wannabe messiahs.

But even inventing someone based on a job description isn't impossible, because we actually have a character that is just that, AND ended up believed by many to be a real historical character: Robin Hood. If you look at the earliest mentions of "robin hood", actually there are dozens of them spread across more than a century, and at least one is referred to as a "robin hood" even though he has a different name. In fact, it's painfully obvious that it was a generic term for a highwayman. Then around the time that that term stops getting used, it suddenly is used as a real name in a moralizing story, where a bandit called Robin Hood is still an evil guy, but he's so devout that he stays in church for Mass even while knowing the posse is coming for him, and God lets him escape the law as a reward. Then over time, the stories about him get more and more heroic, AND he's moved back in time to a different century too, so he can act as a honourable fighter for the rightful king instead of his original role as a highwayman.

So essentially what we have is a combo of:

- inventing a real person by treating a generic term as a name, by people unfamiliar with it. It's like, if you had a time machine and went to the year 2112 and saw murder stories written about a guy called John Doe or a victim called DOA, because those guys no longer have a clue what those used to mean.

- replacing all details with fiction anyway. Not only we can be pretty sure there was no Robin Hood that matches our story (as opposed to just that there were highwaymen in late medieval England), but the modern one doesn't even resemble the one from the first story that invented Robin Hood as a proper name for a person. The modern one isn't even in the same century as the original fiction character, nor has the same character, nor anything else.

But that brings me back to my point about what I'd call a historical Jesus or a historical Robin Hood.

Even if there are a bunch of preachers who may have served as inspiration for the Jesus story, or a bunch of highwaymen who collectively may have served as inspiration for the Robin Hood story, that's not what I call the historical Robin Hood. I might call them the inspiration for the story, but not the historical person. But to be the historical Robin Hood, I'd expect the person to, you know, match the guy in the story. Like actually be a minor noble disowned by an usurper king and resorting to guerilla tactics only to try to restore the rightful king and weaken the usurper's rule.

Incidentally, the Robin Hood story also shows how much details can mutate and drift when people write their own fan-fic about a given character. Robin Hood the evil but devout robber, turns into Robin Hood the honourable fighter for the rightful king and protector of the oppressed.

There is also the added complication that, the word "Jesus" seems to be of middle-English 12th cent origin. So that whoever "Jesus" was, it seems he would not have been known by that name in biblical times.

I'm not sure why that would be a problem though. We KNOW that in the Greek version he is called Ἰησοῦς, i.e., Iesuos. Which in turn is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Yehoshua, or "God saves".

In Latin, that becomes Iesus, a term which would be used all over Catholic Europe.

Then eventually the letter J goes from being a fancy way of writing an I, to being a new consonant. And Jesus as just a fancy way to write Iesus and read Iesus, becomes Jesus read as Jesus.

It's hardly a mystery, nor much of a problem if we were to look for a historical character. We already know what Paul called him in Greek, and what Aramaic names would be transliterated as that.

He might have been known by a name such as Yehoshua or Iesous, but afaik, those are "theophoric" names anyway. Ie, names composed of two parts, the second part of which is actually intended as a direct reference to God or "YHWH".

So, I'm not sure how a name like "Yehoshua" would have been used in biblical times. And I wonder if perhaps it was often used simply as a way of describing an individual as being directly descended from God, eg as in the "Son of God"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_and_titles_of_Jesus_in_the_New_Testament

It was an extremely common name at the time, actually. Just look at all the Jesuses in Josephus.

 

[Brainache]

Actually, not really. Some people were building a completely different prophecy than you seem to imagine. One in which the messiah isn't in fact the one who'll conquer the world for them, but one who'll be executed although innocent, and that will make GOD finally get off his ass and do what he promised all along.

OK, that makes sense. Were there any prophecies about a Messiah who wasn't a flesh and blood human?

Before 70AD, (I'm old fashioned like that, I still think in terms of BC and AD. Sorry if that offends anyone) various individuals were touted as a Messiah including a Roman General. After 70AD they were still proclaiming various individuals as Messiah ("this time for sure!!"). One thing all of these Messiahs had in common was that they were flesh and blood humans. Not one of them was a metaphor for the national psyche or whatever the Jesus myth is supposed to be about. They all had myths and prophecies applied to them. Why would Jesus be any different?

You have to understand that Judaism was the product of an accretion of BS propaganda stories, invariably showing the one-two punch of:

A) pretending to be from a couple hundred years earlier and make some amazing predictions that came true. Sorta like if I were to forge a prophecy from 1500 describing in reasonable detail the American Revolution. This gave it credence as a genuine prophecy.

B) using that credence to give some encouraging prophecies about what will happen in the near future. Like that God will totally kick everyone's ass and put the Jews on top, and burn everyone who doesn't come sacrifice (and thus pay tax) to the Jews' temple.

The thing is, B usually didn't quite go as prophecised. Combine that with some very concrete promises God made in the first 5 books about what he'll do if they obey Him, and that's basically even more broken promises.

So why doesn't God keep his word? Well, the answer they had, including in those forged prophecies was: because you're all a bunch of unworthy sinners, and God would rather punish you than help you.

Yeah, the tendency of Judaism to wield guilt like it's a military flail, was already in full swing.

So some people were already getting ideas that it's impossible to satisfy God, no matter what you do, and everything they do to please God, only gets them another kick in the balls for being sinners. Hence they must need someone to take that sin away somehow.

So you are saying that Jesus was someone who had all of that foisted on him? Sounds like an argument for an Historical Jesus...

Basically, really, it's the kind of divergence you get when people start looking at past texts to figure out what the messiah would be like... and some go into dada land and start finding cryptic prophecies everywhere, like an early Bible Code. You can't assume that everyone would get the same.

I know that. Just look at the DSS Habakuk Pesher for a great example of reading prophecies into contemporary events.

I mean, even Christians today, knowing exactly who and what they must support with those phrases taken out of context as "prophecies", still can't agree about which they are and how many of them there are. Now picture some people trying to do that before Jesus, without knowing what they must arrive at.

Before who? I thought you were saying he never existed...

Plus, really, I think even the "great military leader" faction is a bit mis-represented. I think it was perfectly clear to everyone that by themselves they're no match for Rome's might. It doesn't matter what leader you get, when you go against an empire which has more professional soldiers than you have total male population, and whose economic might can crush you several dozens of times over, you WILL lose.

Plus, if you expect to win by military action, you make allies and whatnot. Whereas these guys were the kind of fundamentalists that were more into antagonizing any possible ally for being heathens, and turning against the few allies they manage to get at the dumbest possible moment. It doesn't quite sound to me like what you'd do if you expect to win by having a great general, even if he is inspired by God or whatnot.

Or see the sicarii destroying the food supplies in Jerusalem, to force a disastrous open ground confrontation with the Roman army. It makes no sense if you expect that to work militarily, but it's the kind of stonking stupidity one would do if one believes that God just needs such a desperate final show of faith to do a spectacular miracle and win the war for them.

You and I think it is stupid, they thought it was being Zealous. Being Zealous was what they thought God would reward with victory. They were totally wrong of course, but that doesn't mean they weren't deluded enough to believe their own mythology.

And that's really what it was about. What everyone actually expected was really that God will win the war for them. Whether with the messiah at the head of the army, or the messiah sacrificing in the temple, or with the messiah killed beforehand so God would be pissed off at the Romans, or whatever, still it wasn't the messiah per se that would win them the war. God was supposed to do that. The messiah was more or less just a marker or catalyst, sorta like in Isaiah.

And to fulfill that role (whichever role you prefer) he had to actually exist as a flesh and blood human.

And, really, if you look at even their pseudo-history in the OT, that's the pattern. They don't credit Moses or Joshua with being great generals. They just do what God commanded them, and God is the one who gives victory and/or performs whatever miracles are needed to secure that victory.

In that setup it's not very clear why one sort of messiah would be less believable than another sort. If what you're expecting the messiah to do is just to mark or trigger God's intervention, then why would you specifically need a great general messiah as opposed to any other imaginable messiah.

OK. Whichever Messiah you pick, General or Suffering Servant there is still one basic requirement: He has to be a real person.

Paul couldn't sell the idea of Jesus as Messiah unless people already accepted that he had lived and died. He can't pin the Messiah tale on thin air. It looks to me like he pinned it on a guy that no one else was calling Messiah. It also looks to me like that guy (Jesus) was associated with a group of Zealots in Jerusalem who didn't particularly like what Paul was saying about him.

Again I reiterate that I'm not putting this out there as a 100% cast-iron fact, only that it seems more probable to me than the alternatives.

 

[HansMustermann]

OK, that makes sense. Were there any prophecies about a Messiah who wasn't a flesh and blood human?

There weren't any in which God chooses to save the gentiles instead of doing for the Jews what he had promised, yet Paul pulls exactly that stunt. And if you think of it, that's an even more incredible deviation than inventing an extra actor in heavens. (Philo invents a whole second God just fine, for example, without even being a Christian.)

You can't pick one detail and argue "they couldn't make THIS different from the normal expectations", when you have bigger changes that WERE done just fine in the same story.

Plus, there's just one flavour of mythicism. Other flavours that still get you no historical Jesus include, for example, a plain old lie. You can have a story about a character on Earth, who is simply made up.

Before 70AD, (I'm old fashioned like that, I still think in terms of BC and AD. Sorry if that offends anyone) various individuals were touted as a Messiah including a Roman General. After 70AD they were still proclaiming various individuals as Messiah ("this time for sure!!"). One thing all of these Messiahs had in common was that they were flesh and blood humans. Not one of them was a metaphor for the national psyche or whatever the Jesus myth is supposed to be about. They all had myths and prophecies applied to them. Why would Jesus be any different?

Because, if you apply even minimal serious thinking to it, you'll see a major difference: Jesus is presented as a messiah who has already come and won. Whereas those were messiahs who still have to do their stuff.

So, yes, it's just common sense that different rules would apply. You have to explain how he was a messiah without doing the Earthly stuff expected from the messiah, for a start. Don't you think it will necessarily be different from a messiah who is all about doing the actually promised stuff?

But on the bright side, it's a messiah you can make up, because it's unverifiable anyway. While people may want to meet a messiah who is still about to do his shtick, a messiah who's already in heavens is an untestable claim.

So you are saying that Jesus was someone who had all of that foisted on him? Sounds like an argument for an Historical Jesus...

It's a possibility, but my whole point is that I wouldn't call it a historical Jesus if he's nothing like the one in the gospels. If, for example, it's some sicarius called Jeremiah ben Nathaniel, who didn't preach any of that, and got nailed for knifing people who refuse to get circumcised, and just got all his details changed later to be our Jesus then how the fork would that count as the historical Jesus?

It's not even as far fetched as it sounds, because, as some people point out, what if Jesus Bar Abbas IS a character duplication, i.e., the bad Jesus? He was an insurrectionist and a confirmed murderer in the story. Would some crazy Zealot and murderer still count as the historical Jesus, even if he was nothing like the peacenik rabbi in the gospels?

I keep asking this in all earnest: how many details CAN you change before someone is not really the historical literary character? Is Lovecraft's mom the historical mad Arab?

But if your standards are such, that you're willing to accept that Lovecraft's mom IS the historical Abdul Al Hazred, then yes, there is a fair possibility to find a "historical Jesus" that is just about that much related to the one in the Bible

Before who? I thought you were saying he never existed...

From their point of view, they were before the coming of the messiah. In the same way as we're before the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. That it's not going to happen, doesn't change that the people believing that BS think they're before it, not after it.

You and I think it is stupid, they thought it was being Zealous. Being Zealous was what they thought God would reward with victory. They were totally wrong of course, but that doesn't mean they weren't deluded enough to believe their own mythology.

Maybe, but my point was merely that there was more than one way to look at that messiah.

And to fulfill that role (whichever role you prefer) he had to actually exist as a flesh and blood human.

I don't see how any of that even follows. There were plenty of heavenly actors in other prophecies and stories, so I fail to see why every interpretation of the messiah had to put him on Earth.

In fact, we can know it's an illogical expectation, because several 2nd century sects were perfectly ok with a purely heavenly messiah. So wth, even a minimal knowledge of history will falsify that rationalization.

But my point is merely that it's also possible to make up a past messiah. Even if you want to cling to the "flesh and bones" idea, it's possible to just make up a flesh and bones character.

OK. Whichever Messiah you pick, General or Suffering Servant there is still one basic requirement: He has to be a real person.

Paul couldn't sell the idea of Jesus as Messiah unless people already accepted that he had lived and died. He can't pin the Messiah tale on thin air. It looks to me like he pinned it on a guy that no one else was calling Messiah. It also looks to me like that guy (Jesus) was associated with a group of Zealots in Jerusalem who didn't particularly like what Paul was saying about him.

Again I reiterate that I'm not putting this out there as a 100% cast-iron fact, only that it seems more probable to me than the alternatives.

Again, I'm actually not very sold on the purely heavenly Jesus version. That's more Kapyong's domain. I just see that as a possible reading, but not much more.

My point is more like that Paul and/or the later gang could just make up stuff.

That said, arguments from what would be a more believable or palatable story, do miss a basic point: Paul's new religion actually was NOT a smashing hit. In fact, we even have his word that everyone wise and educated considered it retarded, but that thankfully his congregation weren't exactly wise. And in other places we get glimpses in an early Christianity where a whole congregation could fit in someone's living room.

And even later, Christianity was actually off to an awfully slow start, and it took several revisions AND things starting to go to Hell in the Roman Empire, before it started to really catch.

So, really, if you're trying to say that Paul wouldn't make a story that's hard to swallow, that's falsified by Paul himself. He did have a story which was hard to swallow, and caused all sorts of diverging opinions even in those small communities.

He really only managed to convert a tiny fringe minority, and probably a lot of those schizophrenics too. So that his story would be unbelievable to normal people, isn't a refutation. It's a fact.

 

[Brainache]

...
My point is more like that Paul and/or the later gang could just make up stuff.

That said, arguments from what would be a more believable or palatable story, do miss a basic point: Paul's new religion actually was NOT a smashing hit. In fact, we even have his word that everyone wise and educated considered it retarded, but that thankfully his congregation weren't exactly wise. And in other places we get glimpses in an early Christianity where a whole congregation could fit in someone's living room.

And even later, Christianity was actually off to an awfully slow start, and it took several revisions AND things starting to go to Hell in the Roman Empire, before it started to really catch.

So, really, if you're trying to say that Paul wouldn't make a story that's hard to swallow, that's falsified by Paul himself. He did have a story which was hard to swallow, and caused all sorts of diverging opinions even in those small communities.

He really only managed to convert a tiny fringe minority, and probably a lot of those schizophrenics too. So that his story would be unbelievable to normal people, isn't a refutation. It's a fact.

The problem I still have with this is that group in Jerusalem that had power over Paul. Those people who Peter was afraid of. If Paul just made it up, then who were they and why were they trying to tell him what he was supposed to preach about Jesus?

 

[HansMustermann]

Hmm? Where do you get the vibe that Paul is afraid of them? I must have missed that. Annoyed that they don't see some things the same as he does, ok, I can see that. But afraid? Have power over him? Where are you seeing that?

 

[fuelair]

Jesus Alou is reasonably historic! http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e8c21d8d

 

[Brainache]

Hmm? Where do you get the vibe that Paul is afraid of them? I must have missed that. Annoyed that they don't see some things the same as he does, ok, I can see that. But afraid? Have power over him? Where are you seeing that?

Here is one bit. I'll look up more as time permits
http://biblescripture.net/Romans.html

but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. 26 For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. 27 Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. 28 Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain. 29 I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. 30 Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, 31 that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints; 32 so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company.

 

[Finn McR]

Though this is only indirect evidence, we have the two conflicting Nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. Both of them go through rather embarrassing story-telling acrobatics to explain why Jesus really came from Bethlehem, even though he actually came from Galilee. If you invent someone out of whole cloth, and he's supposed to come from Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy in Micah 5:2, then you simply have him come from Bethlehem. If, however, you're stuck with a real guy who came from Galilee, you then have to go through all these contortions to make him born in Bethlehem, so he can "fulfill" Micah 5:2.

Thus, I tend to see a historical Jesus around whom were wrapped myths of Jewish messianism and apocalypticism, as well as pagan hero myth motifs. The latter include Jesus turning water into wine - borrowed from the myth of Dionysus - and Luke's nativity, based on that of Hatshepsut and Egyptian pharaohs in general.

Mr. Callahan,

I respect your work, enjoy your books, and I am glad that you continue to post on this forum. However, aren't Matthew and Luke both part of the synoptic gospel set? How independent are they? If the authors got stuck with a story of a Jesus out of Nazareth, then they would (either serially or individually) have to come up with a way to link that savior with the line of David as Messiah. There may have been a couple of Jesuses making wild claims at the time (e.g., Josephus, Wars of the Jews 6.5.3) or at least, the Nazarathean connection may have been some kind of early confabulation that was then subsumed into a Davidian, Messianic interpretation after Paul got his hand in, no?

This question of a historical Jesus seems to me to hinge on what subsequent values are subscribed to the putative historical Jesus.

Look, thousands of years in the future, all of quantum mechanics could be attributed to Richard Feynman, with maybe an acolyte role ascribed to Schroedinger and Heisenberg. That would not be correct, but would contain a nugget of truth. To then say that Richard Feynman existed and contributed to quantum mechanics would be a true but incomplete description of the story.

How can we say any more about a putative historical Jesus? Well sure, maybe/probably there is more to the "biblical" story than is made up out of whole cloth, but so what?? Can we pull out a signifiant philosophical message from the chaff? What did the "real" Jesus believe? Was it important? Or was it (if it existed to begin with) subsumed into and overwhelmed by the later precepts of Father Church?

 

[HansMustermann]

Here is one bit. I'll look up more as time permits
http://biblescripture.net/Romans.html

Hmm? I still don't see how he says he's under any obligation to that group, much less that they're some kind of bosses of him. He says he'll carry some donations there for the poor. Which is no different from what he claims to get donations for in other epistles, such as 2 Corinthians.

And 31 is also generally interpreted to mean that he hopes the recipients of those donations will accept that. You know, that the Jews would be willing to accept alms from the Gentiles. In fact in some manuscripts it even says "gifts" instead of "service". At any rate, there is no indication that he expects some kind of job performance review, nor that those guys are in command of him.

Plus, if you think of it, you can't really mean that the group in Jerusalem was both such a group which has some authority over Paul and gives him job performance reviews, AND the the supposed "Damascus" group which is bitterly hostile to Paul and considers him to lead people astray with lies. And probably doubly so if, as Eisenmann (quite baselessly) interpolates, Paul had even attacked James and broke his leg, and Peter is such a zealot about the Law and purity that he'd even antagonize a king over it, and so on.

Paul would obviously not be answering to a group who is wholly and bitterly opposed to his ministry or version of the story, or nor would they have him collect donations and report to them for a job review. I mean, if they could do that, they'd have told him to stop doing it in the first place.

Plus, really, it's supposed to be the same group of which the sicarii were the militant arm, in Eisenmann's identification. You know, those guys who caught some poor soul in some dark alley or on the road, and give him the choice of either getting circumcised or getting stabbed. I mean, they already had the knife for it either way Does that sound like a gang which would be OK with Paul's insistence that circumcision isn't necessary any more? I think they'd knife him on sight.

So, really, it seems to me like you have to decide for one or the other, not both. You can't have a group which both is bitterly whining about Paul leading people astray with lies, and considers him and apostate, AND at the same time is in charge of him as he does the same ministry

 

[IanS]

I'm not sure why that would be a problem though. We KNOW that in the Greek version he is called Ἰησοῦς, i.e., Iesuos. Which in turn is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Yehoshua, or "God saves".

In Latin, that becomes Iesus, a term which would be used all over Catholic Europe.

Then eventually the letter J goes from being a fancy way of writing an I, to being a new consonant. And Jesus as just a fancy way to write Iesus and read Iesus, becomes Jesus read as Jesus.

It's hardly a mystery, nor much of a problem if we were to look for a historical character. We already know what Paul called him in Greek, and what Aramaic names would be transliterated as that.

It was an extremely common name at the time, actually. Just look at all the Jesuses in Josephus.

Well Josephus was written a century after the time when Jesus was believed to have lived, right? But how common was the name, lets' say it was actually Yehoshua, in say the Dead Sea scrolls which actually do cover the entire time of Jesus from about 170BC through to 70AD? .. . and/or how common was the name Yehoshua in the old testament?

What I'm getting at is this - because Yehoshua is not a normal name like, David or Paul, Mathew, Mark Luke, John, etc., but instead a word which imbeds a theophoric reference to God, I'm wondering whether that name, and it's several variations, were actually used not only as a common name, but also as a generalised reference to God or to an assumed Son of God or a predicted Messiah or messenger of God ...

... that is - apart from any instances of ordinary children being named Yehoshua, was that same word/name also used as a way of referring to someone (living or not) who was thought to be a divine messenger of God?

If that was the case, then the fact that Jesus was actually referred to as Yehoshua, might be an indication that the whole idea of Yehoshua/"jesus" was simply a reference to ancient historic belief in the coming of a divine messenger from God ...

... that is - the name is not straightforward, and may have been used as a reference to God or an exaltation invoking the spirit of God, rather than being used as the name of any actual individual ... that's what I am suggesting, or more accurately that’s what I'm wondering about as a possibility.

 

[Aepervius]

According to Bart Ehrman, most biblical scholars accept a historical Jesus even if they disagree on the biblical portrayal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Oh1S8g1gaQ&feature=related



I personally find the monster, 80-page threads tough to jump into, so I would prefer a fresh thread every six months or so over one giant thread.

There is a difference between "accepting" int his case, and , say, physicist accepting gravity. Even Ehrman admit the best he can state is the existence of J was probable. Not exactely the same rock solid acceptance, as say, stating that Alexander existed or similar.
There is actually no solid evidence of J existence, but frankly even if there was : who care ? Even if he existed he would have been only a human. A simple, very mortal, and very flawed, non divine. non miraculous , human.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well Josephus was written a century after the time when Jesus was believed to have lived, right? But how common was the name, lets' say it was actually Yehoshua, in say the Dead Sea scrolls which actually do cover the entire time of Jesus from about 170BC through to 70AD? .. . and/or how common was the name Yehoshua in the old testament?

What I'm getting at is this - because Yehoshua is not a normal name like, David or Paul, Mathew, Mark Luke, John, etc., but instead a word which imbeds a theophoric reference to God, I'm wondering whether that name, and it's several variations, were actually used not only as a common name, but also as a generalised reference to God or to an assumed Son of God or a predicted Messiah or messenger of God ...

... that is - apart from any instances of ordinary children being named Yehoshua, was that same word/name also used as a way of referring to someone (living or not) who was thought to be a divine messenger of God?

If that was the case, then the fact that Jesus was actually referred to as Yehoshua, might be an indication that the whole idea of Yehoshua/"jesus" was simply a reference to ancient historic belief in the coming of a divine messenger from God ...

... that is - the name is not straightforward, and may have been used as a reference to God or an exaltation invoking the spirit of God, rather than being used as the name of any actual individual ... that's what I am suggesting, or more accurately that’s what I'm wondering about as a possibility.

Well, it IS a religious name. But, well, see all the names straight out of the Bible you see parents giving their kids anyway. James, Joseph, Jeremy, Judith, etc, and that's just the letter J. In Mexico, you have a ton of people called Jesus too. In fact, you could even have a replica of the holy family: Jesus, son of Maria and Jose

Just because a name was symbolic at some point, doesn't mean people wouldn't give it to their kids anyway. Regardless of what it meant, good or bad. (See Isabel, Isabela, Elisabeth, and other variations of queen Jezebel, a.k.a., queen Slut. Ok, ok, queen Unfaithful. Yeah, that name actually meant something)

On a more serious note, more generally Semitic populations did use such names lots. Not only the Hebrews, in fact. The Phoenicians around them had a LOT of names mentioning Ba'al, for example. Hannibaal meant "Ba'al has been gracious" or "Grace of Ba'al". Hasdrubal was actually Azruba'al, or literally "the help of Baal". Or Hannibal's cavalry commander Maharbal is, you guessed, another name mentioning Ba'al. Heck, even the aforementioned Jezebel, is probably an insulting corruption of a name mentioning Ba'al. (She was a Phoenician.)

The Hyksos dynasty in Egypt also has a metric buttload of names mentioning their god.

And of course among the Hebrews, names mentioning El or Yah were common too. Heck, Elijah actually has a name mentioning BOTH. It means "Yah(weh) is God".

So, yeah, they used theophoric names lots.

To be fair though, so did for example the Greeks. Theodora or Theodorus mean gift of god. Theophilus means one who loves god. Timotheus means one who fears god. Theodosia or Theodosius means god given. Etc.

And technically it's not entirely gone extinct to this day. Anyone called Christopher, well, that name means literally "Christ bearer." And that's in addition to English variants of the names in the previous paragraph, e.g., Timothy or Dorothy.

But anyway, to return to Jesus, well, the interesting part isn't just that it's theophoric. It's a combination of what it means (basically "God saves") and who they expected the messiah to be (the second Jesus, i.e., Joshua from the OT.) Basically it's not just that it's a theophoric name, but that it's specifically who they expected their messiah to be. A guy could be actually called, dunno, Immanuel, but "be" Jesus because that is what they expected their messiah to be. It's as much a name as a job description for the messiah.

Which really brings me to my point that at that point, one could just make a Jesus up. If you have already figured out what bits the messiah must fulfil, and what's the name that encapsulates who you expect it to be, you don't really need a real guy to build a gospel on. You already have a guy: that fleshed out concept of who you expect. It's no harder to build a story from a concept guy like Superman or Captain Kirk or Han Solo, than it is to build it from a real guy. Once you have enough of a concept of what that character would be like and what he'd be expected to do or say, you can just go ahead and write the novel.

 

[Brainache]

Hmm? I still don't see how he says he's under any obligation to that group, much less that they're some kind of bosses of him. He says he'll carry some donations there for the poor. Which is no different from what he claims to get donations for in other epistles, such as 2 Corinthians.

And 31 is also generally interpreted to mean that he hopes the recipients of those donations will accept that. You know, that the Jews would be willing to accept alms from the Gentiles. In fact in some manuscripts it even says "gifts" instead of "service". At any rate, there is no indication that he expects some kind of job performance review, nor that those guys are in command of him.

Well, he does refer to them as "Saints" and prays that they'll be happy with the donations he is bringing them... Saint isn't a term one uses for people lower on the pecking order, is it?

Plus, if you think of it, you can't really mean that the group in Jerusalem was both such a group which has some authority over Paul and gives him job performance reviews, AND the the supposed "Damascus" group which is bitterly hostile to Paul and considers him to lead people astray with lies. And probably doubly so if, as Eisenmann (quite baselessly) interpolates, Paul had even attacked James and broke his leg, and Peter is such a zealot about the Law and purity that he'd even antagonize a king over it, and so on.

Sounds like two factions both trying to claim that Peter was on their side...

Paul would obviously not be answering to a group who is wholly and bitterly opposed to his ministry or version of the story, or nor would they have him collect donations and report to them for a job review. I mean, if they could do that, they'd have told him to stop doing it in the first place.

They told him to stop doing it to Jews. Telling lies to Gentiles was perfectly acceptable. As was accepting cash donations from Gentiles:

http://www.essene.com/History&Essenes/md.htm

No one is to go into water in order to attain the purity of holy men. For men cannot be purified except they repent their evil. God regards as impure all that transgress His word. No one is to have any association with such a man either in work or in goods, lest he incur the penalty of prosecution. Rather is he to keep away from such a man in every respect, for the Scriptures says: 'Keep away from every false thing' [Exodus 23:7]. No member of the community is to abide by the decision of such men in any matter of doctrine or law. He is not to eat or drink of anything that belongs to them nor receive anything from them except for cash, even as sit is written: 'desist from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for as what is he reckoned:' [Isaiah 2:22]. All that are not reckoned in the Covenant must be put aside, and likewise all that they posses. A holy man must not rely on works of vanity, and vanity is what all of them are that have not recognized God's Covenant. All that spurn His word will God blast out of the world. All their actions are as filth before Him, and He regards all their possessions as unclean.

(my bold)
Just because they were Zealots, doesn't mean they weren't hypocrits.

Plus, really, it's supposed to be the same group of which the sicarii were the militant arm, in Eisenmann's identification. You know, those guys who caught some poor soul in some dark alley or on the road, and give him the choice of either getting circumcised or getting stabbed. I mean, they already had the knife for it either way Does that sound like a gang which would be OK with Paul's insistence that circumcision isn't necessary any more? I think they'd knife him on sight.

IIRC, when Paul took all of those donations back to Jerusalem he was set upon by an angry mob and had to get his buddies the Romans to rescue him.

So, really, it seems to me like you have to decide for one or the other, not both. You can't have a group which both is bitterly whining about Paul leading people astray with lies, and considers him and apostate, AND at the same time is in charge of him as he does the same ministry

Remember these guys were only worried about Jews. The Gentiles were all going to Hell anyway, so as Paul isn't preaching to Jews, he can say whatever he likes... as long as he keeps sending them cash. Organising a rebellion costs money you know...

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, he does refer to them as "Saints" and prays that they'll be happy with the donations he is bringing them... Saint isn't a term one uses for people lower on the pecking order, is it?

If you're a catholic, I can see how that would trip you, but see the Protestants for an interpretation more in line with Paul's usage: every bloody believer is a saint

Sounds like two factions both trying to claim that Peter was on their side...

That or Eisenmann being a bit too eager to connect two people based on just the first name Simon. Which really is like trying to make George Washington and George Of The Jungle be the same person because they're both called George, and both were in some forest area or another at some point

For bonus points, note how Paul never calls Peter anything but the Peter translation or the Cephas transliteration. He never says Peter was called Simon, and probably he wasn't. So really, it's trying to identify two people who don't even have the same first name.

They told him to stop doing it to Jews. Telling lies to Gentiles was perfectly acceptable. As was accepting cash donations from Gentiles:

http://www.essene.com/History&Essenes/md.htm

(my bold)
Just because they were Zealots, doesn't mean they weren't hypocrits.

Maybe, but if you look at who Eisenman identifies Paul with, they bitterly hated that guy. I doubt that they'd let HIM come and go just because he brings a handful of donation money.

IIRC, when Paul took all of those donations back to Jerusalem he was set upon by an angry mob and had to get his buddies the Romans to rescue him.

That's in Acts, but it's still debatable exactly how accurate Acts is. It makes a complete hash of just about everything we can check, and contradicts Paul all over the place too.

Remember these guys were only worried about Jews. The Gentiles were all going to Hell anyway, so as Paul isn't preaching to Jews, he can say whatever he likes... as long as he keeps sending them cash. Organising a rebellion costs money you know...

Not really. The Zealots are mentioned as ambushing people and giving them the choice to be circumcised or be stabbed to death. Unless you're willing to believe that you can somehow circumcise a guy repeatedly, the people they were ambushing were not already Jews.

Plus, really, these guys were as xenophobic as it gets.

Which, incidentally, also got in the way of their organizing a rebellion. They alienated every ally they ever had, to the extent that even Samaria initially preferred to join Rome against them. Assuming that extremist religious fanatics would think logically and know when to make a deal with the devil, and when to accept a useful idiot, is generally an unwarranted assumption

But as I was saying, the more important aspect if you want to go by Eisenmann's identification, is that then these guys frikken hated Paul's guts. So it's not just a matter of what they thought of gentiles, but of what they thought of Paul specifically.

So, you know, it's like Salman Rushdie or that guy who drew the Muhammad cartoons taking a trip to see the Al Qaeda. Regardless of how may concessions some Muslims do to foreign infidels, I wouldn't bet on specifically that cartoonist and Al Qaeda getting along particularly well

 

[Brainache]

If you're a catholic, I can see how that would trip you, but see the Protestants for an interpretation more in line with Paul's usage: every bloody believer is a saint

...

Maybe, but if you look at who Eisenman identifies Paul with, they bitterly hated that guy. I doubt that they'd let HIM come and go just because he brings a handful of donation money.

This was his first trip back home in a while and everyone warns him against it, but Paul thinks he is going to buy his way out of it...

It's just like one of those Scorsese Gangster movies. Paul comes in to see the Boss with a sackful of money. The Boss takes the money and says "I been hearing you do great things for our people out there... You got all those guys following our rules, right Pauley?..."
"Sure Boss... um those rules are flexible, for outsiders I mean..."
"Yeah Pauley, whatever. Thanks for the loot. See ya round... Hey while you're in town, if you need to get around, take my wife's ass... please!"
Paul leaves. The Boss turns to his buddies: "Whack that ****"...

...

But as I was saying, the more important aspect if you want to go by Eisenmann's identification, is that then these guys frikken hated Paul's guts. So it's not just a matter of what they thought of gentiles, but of what they thought of Paul specifically.

So, you know, it's like Salman Rushdie or that guy who drew the Muhammad cartoons taking a trip to see the Al Qaeda. Regardless of how may concessions some Muslims do to foreign infidels, I wouldn't bet on specifically that cartoonist and Al Qaeda getting along particularly well

He was called to account for the rumours they had heard about him preaching against the Law...

18 And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.
19 And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry.
20 And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law:...

Sounds more like he had bought one of the Piranha Brothers' fruit machines and was being treated to a bit of Doug's Sarcasm...

He goes on acting as if everything is OK until:

...
27 And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him,
.28 Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. ...

This could be the event that earned Paul the title "Spouter Of Lies" in Eisenman's theory. The reason they hated him was because he preached against the Law in the midst of the congregation.



Remember that Acts is pro-Pauline propaganda. The Author of Acts was keen to show Paul in a good light. Can't have been easy.

 

[HansMustermann]

This was his first trip back home in a while and everyone warns him against it, but Paul thinks he is going to buy his way out of it...

Maybe, but then essentially he's on his own all that time. The whole reason I brought that up was basically because I don't see them really having any authority over him. He can make up any BS, no matter how conflicting it is with their version.

He was called to account for the rumours they had heard about him preaching against the Law...

Hmm? I'm not getting the impression in either Paul's epistle, nor in Acts that anyone summoned him, or indeed that anyone could just summon him.

In fact, IF you believe Acts, and that's admittedly a huge IF, he does a whole tour of half the Mediterranean between when he last was in Corinth (the generally assumed place where he wrote the epistle to the Romans) and when he finally gets to Jerusalem.

In fact we see him going to Ephesus, in Turkey, where he dicks around long enough to cause a whole commotion (see pretty much the whole Acts 19) then he goes BACK to Macedonia (Acts 20), then to Greece, and then finally he can be arsed to go to Jerusalem. And really, even saying that doesn't to it justice. His way from Ephesus to Macedonia sees him going first to Philippi, waay to the west on the other side of the isthmus, then back to Troas on the Turkey side again, then for some weird reason NORTH-WEST to Assos, then instead of going south-east, he actually goes NORTH-EAST to Kios, before finally getting in a sane direction through Samos and Miletus.

If you look at a map for those cities, the guy is all over the frikken map. He seems to be in no real hurry to report to Jerusalem or anything.

In fact, he pulls such a... weirdly stupid stuff as bypassing Ephesus on the way to Miletus, supposedly because he's in a hurry to get to Jerusalem, but then he has time to send someone back to Ephesus to tell the church elders there to come to him in Miletus and wait for them.

I mean, if you think about it, compare these two possibilities, from the time he was passing by Ephesus:

A) stop in Ephesus for how long he needs to talk to those elders, then go X miles to Miletus, vs

B) go X miles to Miletus, send someone X miles back to Ephesus to call those church leaders, add some more delay as those probably didn't have a boat ready to leave within the hour, then those go X miles from Ephesus to Miletus to meet him.

B is three times the journey, fer fork's sake. Far from being something you'd do when you're in a hurry, it's a way to wast at least 3 times as much time.

Plus there are all those intervals in days he stops in each point. It's five days here, seven days there, and so on. This guy spent months dicking around the map, according to Acts.

Seriously doesn't sound to me like someone they can just summon to report. Ask to come, maybe. But he's definitely taking his time, and is coming when he wants to come. It doesn't sound like they actually have any authority over him.

Sounds more like he had bought one of the Piranha Brothers' fruit machines and was being treated to a bit of Doug's Sarcasm...

He goes on acting as if everything is OK until:



This could be the event that earned Paul the title "Spouter Of Lies" in Eisenman's theory. The reason they hated him was because he preached against the Law in the midst of the congregation.



Remember that Acts is pro-Pauline propaganda. The Author of Acts was keen to show Paul in a good light. Can't have been easy.

Well, Acts is basically a lie anyway. It's written as if it were first person by someone travelling with Paul and seeing this all first hand. But we know that whoever Luke was, he's not actually an eyewitness. He makes a hash of cities which supposedly was with Paul and saw first hand, and I don't mean like getting it wrong whether first street is north or south of second street, but he invents stuff that archaeologists are pretty sure wasn't there. And other events we're pretty sure he didn't really know even from Paul, because he's getting them from Josephus and getting them wrong, or is copying them from Mark who wasn't an eyewitness, and so on.

So, really, whoever wrote Acts was a forger and a liar, same as most early Christian proselytizers seem to have been. He's writing his own BS story, but pretends to be someone else, to give it more weight.

It's the same as if, dunno, instead of just inventing some BS quote where Jefferson endorses prayer in schools, someone were to write some memoirs of Alexander Hamilton in which he testifies hearing Jefferson say that.

And, really, the early Christians did that lots. When they weren't ascribing their fanfic directly to some apostle, they were inventing guys like Peter's personal secretary, or Paul's personal physician and companion, or whatever. Or promote some nobody who was a minor rabid zealot to some early church father to write rules in his name.

But anyway, ok, so Luke is lying about who he is and how he knows that, but the only question is how well did Luke research that stuff anyway. Turns out that not so good either. Well, to be fair, he's head and shoulders above Mark in that aspect, as he seems to have at least tried to figure out the geography, customs and history of the place, and he IS using Josephus extensively. Plus he seems to have had SOMETHING resembling court transcripts at some point, which, you know, is one more source he's using. So the guy at least tried.

Does that extend to the events too, though, or only the setting? I mean, Josephus certainly didn't write about Paul's roundabout trip from Corinth to Jerusalem, so does Luke have any reliable information about that? Probably not, I'd say, judging by how that stuff resembles pious fiction more than any historical stuff. (Actual historical stuff tends to be lighter on miracles and prophecies)

So, yeah, if you ask me, Acts is a novel, and Paul is either a liar or a schizophrenic or both, so that kinda leaves us with a big question mark as to WTH really happened there. At any rate, I have no problem with disbelieving them both.

The problem then though is that that's not an excuse to just fill in the gaps with one's own fairy tale, and pull identifications out of the ass. One can't just invent what really happened in one place, if there is no corroboration to be found in those documents. If source 1 says X, and source 2 says Y, that's not an excuse to postulate just knowing that it was actually Z. That's just pulling stuff out of the ass. If source 1 is probably a propaganda lie, and source 2 doesn't actually say anything matching anyway, one can't just invent a match.