What counts as a historical Jesus?

[SpuriusMaximus]

IIRC Carrier makes a similar argument. Basically if Jesus didn't turn water into wine, then was he at that wedding? And I'd add, do we even get any useful details from there if all that remains is that A jew once was at A wedding, where nothing noteworthy happened?

So I'll agree very quickly there.

However my point there was a different one. Even if we discard only the the 10% miracles, the other 90% still can't all be true at the same time, since it's possible to cherrypick more than one Jesus from that text. And (as IIRC Price makes the argument), while he could very well have been a proto-hippie peachenic rabbi, or a conservative Sadducee, or possibly an Essene, or a rabid zealot who actually leads an attack on the temple, or a Hellenized Stoic philosopher, or a Neoplatonic, or a proto-feminist, or a dozen other things, he can't have been all of those at the same time.

 

[TimCallahan]

If we assume Jesus to be at least to some degree historical and his teachings to be not entirely words placed in his mouth by others, then he would be a messianic pretender with a strongly apocalyptic worldview who embraced a cynic philosopher's view. This, in no way would detract from his apocalyptic views, since giving up possessions, severing familial ties and practicing non-retaliation would all be part of preparation for the world ending in his generation.

 

[davefoc]

IIRC Carrier makes a similar argument. Basically if Jesus didn't turn water into wine, then was he at that wedding? And I'd add, do we even get any useful details from there if all that remains is that A jew once was at A wedding, where nothing noteworthy happened?

So I'll agree very quickly there.

However my point there was a different one. Even if we discard only the the 10% miracles, the other 90% still can't all be true at the same time, since it's possible to cherrypick more than one Jesus from that text. And (as IIRC Price makes the argument), while he could very well have been a proto-hippie peachenic rabbi, or a conservative Sadducee, or possibly an Essene, or a rabid zealot who actually leads an attack on the temple, or a Hellenized Stoic philosopher, or a Neoplatonic, or a proto-feminist, or a dozen other things, he can't have been all of those at the same time.

I think it is more likely than not that an HJ existed but the above is almost exactly my view. The Gospels are fiction. I think they were written by members of the God Fearer group that was the group that Christianity arose out of and they were based to a degree on the God Fearer group belief that a Messiah was predicted in the Old Testament. If there is valid historical content in them about the hypothetical HJ, it is not possible to reliably determine what that is. The Gospels suggest the possibility that before they were written there were stories circulating about the life and death of an individual that was the HJ, but it is plausible that the Gospels were created based only on a general belief held by the God Fearer group that a Messiah was coming and a rumor that got started by some individual long lost to history that the Messiah had already come.

 

[Brainache]

I think it is more likely than not that an HJ existed but the above is almost exactly my view. The Gospels are fiction. I think they were written by members of the God Fearer group that was the group that Christianity arose out of and they were based to a degree on the God Fearer group belief that a Messiah was predicted in the Old Testament. If there is valid historical content in them about the hypothetical HJ, it is not possible to reliably determine what that is. The Gospels suggest the possibility that before they were written there were stories circulating about the life and death of an individual that was the HJ, but it is plausible that the Gospels were created based only on a general belief held by the God Fearer group that a Messiah was coming and a rumor that got started by some individual long lost to history that the Messiah had already come.

Re the bold: Wouldn't that be Paul?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

If we assume Jesus to be at least to some degree historical and his teachings to be not entirely words placed in his mouth by others, then he would be a messianic pretender with a strongly apocalyptic worldview who embraced a cynic philosopher's view. This, in no way would detract from his apocalyptic views, since giving up possessions, severing familial ties and practicing non-retaliation would all be part of preparation for the world ending in his generation.

The problem is that he isn't exactly consistent even about non-retaliation.

In fact, that part is only in the sermon on the mount, which not only doesn't appear in Mark (although some of the ideas or close enough appear in whole other places in Mark), but would be the part they'd make up anyway. As I was saying before, public speeches in ancient texts are as a rule of thumb made up, because nobody carried scrolls, ink and a desk to take notes in case some nobody gives a speech on a soap box. It's not just about Jesus, but smart speeches of anyone in history can be assumed to be just made up.

The Gospel Jesus is at times actually very hostile and throws invectives, e.g., towards the Pharisees.

The Gospel Jesus makes a scourge and whips people out of the temple. That's not very non-retaliatory.

The Gospel Jesus is at times very full of himself and his own importance. E.g., he would rather take an expensive gift for himself than help the poor, because "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me." (Mark 14:7, but it's actually one of the things that appear both in the synoptics and in John too, at John 12:8.) In fact, it's slips like that that look to me more like like a sociopath dropping the act now and then, than a genuine nice guy.

The Gospel Jesus, I kid you not, says in Mark 9:42, "And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe in me to stumble, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." (IMHO closest to the greek literal meaning.) Also appears in Matthew and Luke.

Basically this reminds me of something Sam Harris said. Namely that if you really believe there is a God and he'll dish eternal torture if you fail to believe in him, then the burning of heretics in the middle ages actually makes perfect sense. Then the heretic next door is actually a bigger danger than the pedophile next door. The pedophile might only hurt your kid for a finite amount of time, while the heretic can put some ideas in your kid's head that will cause your kid to burn in Hell for eternity.

Well, it turns out it's not even some spurious connection that Sam Harris said, but comes from Jesus himself. It HAS been interpreted as that corrupting the faith of youth in Jesus is a crime deserving the maximum penalty available in the land. E.g., you can see that interpretation in Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

And that's not very non-retaliatory.

Etc.

 

[davefoc]

Re the bold: Wouldn't that be Paul?

Caveat: I'm not sure about anything here and my personal view of what went on might be completely wrong.

Caveat 2: I don't completely reject the various alternative Paul theories including the possibility that he didn't exist, the possibility that what is credited to him today is not representative of what he wrote and the possibility that he lied or was just delusional. I don't think much of the theory that he wasn't talking about a real human being but I don't completely reject that theory either.

My personal guess: Paul was a real person who wrote about a real historical Jesus. However, I suspect that the common secular view that Paul is the originator of Christianity over states his role. A big question, for me, is "Who was Paul preaching to?" It seems that when he shows up some kind of Christian church structure already exists. My, unsubstantiated guess is that the God Fearer group had begun to morph into early Christianity by the time Paul gets going. My guess is that Paul exploited a growing market for Jesus stories and survived by obtaining funds from the churches where he works as the featured visiting speaker.

It is interesting that the author of Acts works Paul into his story, but my view there is that Acts is almost a complete fabrication by somebody who was familiar with the writings of Paul and worked Paul into his narrative as a way of filling in the blanks about the origin of Christianity. As an aside, for me, Acts is the most readable section of the entire Bible. It tells an interesting story and when I got to the end of it, my first reaction was real disappointment that it had ended before the story was over.

 

[IanS]

Caveat: I'm not sure about anything here and my personal view of what went on might be completely wrong.

Caveat 2: I don't completely reject the various alternative Paul theories including the possibility that he didn't exist, the possibility that what is credited to him today is not representative of what he wrote and the possibility that he lied or was just delusional. I don't think much of the theory that he wasn't talking about a real human being but I don't completely reject that theory either.

My personal guess: Paul was a real person who wrote about a real historical Jesus. However, I suspect that the common secular view that Paul is the originator of Christianity over states his role. A big question, for me, is "Who was Paul preaching to?" It seems that when he shows up some kind of Christian church structure already exists. My, unsubstantiated guess is that the God Fearer group had begun to morph into early Christianity by the time Paul gets going. My guess is that Paul exploited a growing market for Jesus stories and survived by obtaining funds from the churches where he works as the featured visiting speaker.

It is interesting that the author of Acts works Paul into his story, but my view there is that Acts is almost a complete fabrication by somebody who was familiar with the writings of Paul and worked Paul into his narrative as a way of filling in the blanks about the origin of Christianity. As an aside, for me, Acts is the most readable section of the entire Bible. It tells an interesting story and when I got to the end of it, my first reaction was real disappointment that it had ended before the story was over.

I think the Letters ascribed to someone called "Paul" are describing a dream vision of Jesus, right? Not any real earthly encounter that Paul ever had with Jesus.

Iirc, Paul also says that his knowledge of the visionary Jesus, comes to him directly from God. That is, Paul thinks God has spoken to him telling him that Jesus was once the true prophesised messiah.

Paul believes that Jesus was once the messiah on earth. But apart from his spiritual vision and hearing the word of God, Paul himself knows nothing about Jesus.

As I pointed out before, Paul’s account has certain parallels with what was by that date already written a century before in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

About Paul... well, at a basic level you can say that he was making his money as a superstar speaker, though his letters kinda hint at a more dishonest version of it.

He actually insists that he hasn't asked them to support him (e.g., in 2 Corinthians), which would indicate that he wasn't asking for an up-front fee for his speeches. It's hard to tell people that with a straight face if you do have an upfront fee.

But a constant theme is that he is asking for donation money for charity, while at the same time he's discouraging them from feeding the poor in their own town. That doesn't sound like someone who's actually truthful about wanting to help the poor, in which case he'd encourage them to do their own part independently (see James for an example a guy who actually tells people to treat the poor nicely, as opposed to Paul's saying they just shouldn't eat if they can't afford their own bread), but like someone who wants to get that money. And judging by 2 Corinthians, the congregation there did put two and two together and suspected he's just taking the money for himself. And strangely enough, when countering this, Paul never offers to bring a receipt or bring someone from one of the churches he helped the next time he drops buy, but can only offer a lot of handwaving and hare-brained fallacies.

And strangely enough for a guy who isn't asking them to support him, and doesn't have a trade other than preaching any more, he can not just afford to travel all over the place, but has a personal scribe (something that even the rich didn't generally do), has people put at his disposal by some church or another, etc. Heck, according to church tradition (though unsupporrted by the actual Bible text) he even has his own personal physician travelling with him, but let's ignore that. Unless he can conjure money out of thin air, well, where is that money coming from? Doesn't it sound like he's skimming those donations?

And rounding off the package, he claims he can do miracles.

That doesn't really sound to me like a scholar making a living off charging a fee for lectures, but like a religious con artist making a lot more money off "donations". Paul sounds to me like a 1st century superstar teleevangelist, in as much as possible without television.

 

[davefoc]

....

That doesn't really sound to me like a scholar making a living off charging a fee for lectures, but like a religious con artist making a lot more money off "donations". Paul sounds to me like a 1st century superstar teleevangelist, in as much as possible without television.

If this comment was directed at my characterization of Paul as the featured visiting speaker, I didn't mean to imply that Paul was some sort of secular scholar with a set speaking fee. I think he was proselytizing, perhaps as a true believer, perhaps as a con man. Perhaps as a combination of both. There seem to be many modern celebrity preachers that might fit into this category.

 

[davefoc]

I think the Letters ascribed to someone called "Paul" are describing a dream vision of Jesus, right? Not any real earthly encounter that Paul ever had with Jesus.

Iirc, Paul also says that his knowledge of the visionary Jesus, comes to him directly from God. That is, Paul thinks God has spoken to him telling him that Jesus was once the true prophesised messiah.

Paul believes that Jesus was once the messiah on earth. But apart from his spiritual vision and hearing the word of God, Paul himself knows nothing about Jesus.

As I pointed out before, Paul’s account has certain parallels with what was by that date already written a century before in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I don't reject any of this. I think, we are talking about something for which the knowable truth is solidly and completely lost to time. My guess about this is just a bit different than yours and I can easily imagine that you are right.

When I read Paul's letters it sounds to me like they are being written by a person attempting to tell some truth. And as such, I think he interacted with real people that had been associated with an HJ. My cut at the conversion story is that he created it as a back story for why he is the man. My guess is he strays from the truth as he knows it there, but maybe he really had a vision or maybe he is a con man creating a bit of mythology for the true believers.

 

[tsig]

About Paul... well, at a basic level you can say that he was making his money as a superstar speaker, though his letters kinda hint at a more dishonest version of it.

He actually insists that he hasn't asked them to support him (e.g., in 2 Corinthians), which would indicate that he wasn't asking for an up-front fee for his speeches. It's hard to tell people that with a straight face if you do have an upfront fee.

But a constant theme is that he is asking for donation money for charity, while at the same time he's discouraging them from feeding the poor in their own town. That doesn't sound like someone who's actually truthful about wanting to help the poor, in which case he'd encourage them to do their own part independently (see James for an example a guy who actually tells people to treat the poor nicely, as opposed to Paul's saying they just shouldn't eat if they can't afford their own bread), but like someone who wants to get that money. And judging by 2 Corinthians, the congregation there did put two and two together and suspected he's just taking the money for himself. And strangely enough, when countering this, Paul never offers to bring a receipt or bring someone from one of the churches he helped the next time he drops buy, but can only offer a lot of handwaving and hare-brained fallacies.

And strangely enough for a guy who isn't asking them to support him, and doesn't have a trade other than preaching any more, he can not just afford to travel all over the place, but has a personal scribe (something that even the rich didn't generally do), has people put at his disposal by some church or another, etc. Heck, according to church tradition (though unsupporrted by the actual Bible text) he even has his own personal physician travelling with him, but let's ignore that. Unless he can conjure money out of thin air, well, where is that money coming from? Doesn't it sound like he's skimming those donations?

And rounding off the package, he claims he can do miracles.

That doesn't really sound to me like a scholar making a living off charging a fee for lectures, but like a religious con artist making a lot more money off "donations". Paul sounds to me like a 1st century superstar teleevangelist, in as much as possible without television.

Preachers hold up Jesus as the model for the average churchgoer but take Paul as theirs.

 

[IanS]

I don't reject any of this. I think, we are talking about something for which the knowable truth is solidly and completely lost to time. My guess about this is just a bit different than yours and I can easily imagine that you are right.

When I read Paul's letters it sounds to me like they are being written by a person attempting to tell some truth. And as such, I think he interacted with real people that had been associated with an HJ. My cut at the conversion story is that he created it as a back story for why he is the man. My guess is he strays from the truth as he knows it there, but maybe he really had a vision or maybe he is a con man creating a bit of mythology for the true believers.

Yep, sure. It depends what any of us regard as the most likely or reasonable explanation.

I think wandering preachers like Paul could easily have experienced what they thought were visions etc. I expect they were in a fairly constant state of rapturous belief most of the time. And as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, people at that time actually believed their religious dreams were the revelation of real events.

 

[pakeha]

...The Gospel Jesus is at times very full of himself and his own importance. E.g., he would rather take an expensive gift for himself than help the poor, because "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me." (Mark 14:7, but it's actually one of the things that appear both in the synoptics and in John too, at John 12:8.) In fact, it's slips like that that look to me more like like a sociopath dropping the act now and then, than a genuine nice guy. ...

Oddly enough, that particular quotation was one that tipped the balance for me.

respectfully snipped

You'll find this model of preaching amongst Nigerian preachers.

 

[Ethnikos]

The Gospel Jesus is at times very full of himself and his own importance. E.g., he would rather take an expensive gift for himself than help the poor, because "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me." (Mark 14:7, but it's actually one of the things that appear both in the synoptics and in John too, at John 12:8.) In fact, it's slips like that that look to me more like like a sociopath dropping the act now and then, than a genuine nice guy.

What you are calling a gift was scented oil that was poured on Jesus' head, by a woman who may have not even been invited to the party.
The container was broken, which means it was too late, when she first started pouring, to just stop and sell it as-is.
By the time anyone voiced their objection, it may have been all gone anyway.
Jesus was at that point trying to stop the disciples from giving the woman a hard time. He commended her and said wherever the gospel is preached the story of what she did for Jesus would be told.
She was not able to prevent jesus from being killed but she was able to give him a proper embalming for the grave he was shortly to enter.

 

[The Norseman]

What you are calling a gift was scented oil that was poured on Jesus' head, by a woman who may have not even been invited to the party.
The container was broken, which means it was too late, when she first started pouring, to just stop and sell it as-is.
By the time anyone voiced their objection, it may have been all gone anyway.
Jesus was at that point trying to stop the disciples from giving the woman a hard time. He commended her and said wherever the gospel is preached the story of what she did for Jesus would be told.
She was not able to prevent jesus from being killed but she was able to give him a proper embalming for the grave he was shortly to enter.

This sounds like pure speculation to me. However, I will admit I've not done a huge amount of reading about this; perhaps you can point to some evidence? I'd appreciate it.

 

[Ethnikos]

This sounds like pure speculation to me. However, I will admit I've not done a huge amount of reading about this; perhaps you can point to some evidence? I'd appreciate it.

You can just read it in the Bible, Mark 14: 3-9
There is a bit of speculation because it does not name the woman, and it says this happened in the home of Simon the Leper, with no other reference to that person in the Bible.

 

[Slowvehicle]

This sounds like pure speculation to me. However, I will admit I've not done a huge amount of reading about this; perhaps you can point to some evidence? I'd appreciate it.

You can just read it in the Bible, Mark 14: 3-9
There is a bit of speculation because it does not name the woman, and it says this happened in the home of Simon the Leper, with no other reference to that person in the Bible.

And LOTR is "evidence" that Narya exists, because Gandalf bore it...

 

[Craig B]

What you are calling a gift was scented oil that was poured on Jesus' head, by a woman who may have not even been invited to the party ... She was not able to prevent jesus from being killed but she was able to give him a proper embalming for the grave he was shortly to enter.

"Proper" embalming is usually postponed until after a person is dead, and the two gospels you mention refer to the practice, in a confused and inconsistent manner. Here's John.

19:39 [Joseph of Arimathea] was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen.

So it was two men who embalmed him - with more spices that could possibly have been in the woman's jar if she poured from it over Jesus' head. And here's a very different story, from Mark.

16:16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body ... 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

In this story he was never embalmed, because he rose first. Reconcile these conflicting tales as best you can.

 

[eight bits]

Three of the Gospels agree that there was an incident of this kind. Luke has the presence of mind to lose it. The most specific report is the last, John 12: 1-11.

The woman in question is Mary of Bethany, and the location is her family home. She is grateful that Jesus fetched her prematurely buried brother out of his tomb. God only knows what would have happened to poor Lazarus if Jesus hadn't come along.

The critic is Judas. His outrage at the incident and the unsatisfactory answer Jesus improvises form the rational basis of his cooperation with the authorities soon afterwards. Judas' interest in the poor is portrayed as insincere; he would have stolen the proceeds from selling the oil, according to John.

Jesus baits his disciples, and anybody else who'll listen to him, throughout the Fourth Gospel. He whines about how he's going to die quite a bit. It's no surprise, then, that he would reach here for a speech based on the dual use of oil, not only for sex but also for death. It's all very French.

In the bigger picture, a great deal of Jesus' "teaching" consists of him talking his way of tight spots. Judas has him by the short curlies here, since Jesus has gone "off message" big time. The self-serving BS about the poor is quoted from Deuteronomy 15: 11. The Devil isn't the only one who can cite scripture to his own ends.

Ironically, the meaning in context of the original passage is not to flip off the poor, but to be mindful of them always. It is more than possible that Judas knows that. In the story, he doesn't get mad, he gets even.

I don't want to be overly critical of Jesus. I have to admit that if a hot young woman who thought she owed me one approached with a bottle of body oil, then I would be heedless of the poor for a few minutes, too.

It is interesting to speculate how much world history might be different if, instead of playing the wounded rabbi, Jesus had just said, "Sorry, Jude, I was thinking with the little head there for a while. I'm only human, you know."

 

[Ethnikos]

"Proper" embalming is usually postponed until after a person is dead, and the two gospels you mention refer to the practice, in a confused and inconsistent manner. Here's John. So it was two men who embalmed him - with more spices that could possibly have been in the woman's jar if she poured from it over Jesus' head. And here's a very different story, from Mark. In this story he was never embalmed, because he rose first. Reconcile these conflicting tales as best you can.

You are illustrating the point that Mark has Jesus making, which is that according to the version in that book, Jesus was never embalmed, other than the incident at Simon's house.
The fact that John changes the story to where Jesus was embalmed, shows how culturally important it was and why Mark would have added that bit to make Jesus as having been properly taken care of to not be as if he had really deserved the death that he was given.

The reason that I brought all this up is that the poster who I was originally responding to was telling the story in a deliberate way to make Jesus seem greedy or something. I don't see it like that and that the "gift" was theologically important and not jesus with his hand out for pay-offs.