What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Craig B]

If we look at that "popular unrest" described by Josephus I think, from memory, that we it is not until the latter half of the first century that we find "popular unrest" led by would-be "kings" -- or possible messianic pretenders. My recollection is that before then there were many bandit movements -- but that was true of many areas of the Roman Empire. Brigands do not necessarily equate with popular support for political resistance movements.

Something to check.

Neil Godfrey

Here's a check. The Pharisee leader Gamaliel made by Acts 5 to describe anti Roman rebels as possibly "from God" and comparing Jesus' companions with them.

33 When they [members of the Sanhedrin] heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them [Peter and others] to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

 

[Stone]

Has it been raised before? Only about 100 times so far.

Question - who do you think wrote those 5 words at the end of an otherwise completed sentence in Paul’s letter " ... other apostles saw I none ... save James ... the Lords brother." ?

That sentence does not come to us from anything Paul wrote. Because we don't have anything Paul ever wrote.

It first appears, afaik, in copies made by Christian writers from about 200AD onwards.

Do we know if Paul ever wrote those words? Ans, no.

By that logic, we don't have anything from Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, or Plato or ...... or ............ or ................ Nice going.

Stone

 

[IanS]

By that logic, we don't have anything from Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, or Plato or ...... or ............ or ................ Nice going.

Stone

Really. Oh dear. Too bad then.

 

[pakeha]

By that logic, we don't have anything from Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, or Plato or ...... or ............ or ................ Nice going.

Stone

Hi, Stone.
I'm interested in knowing more about how those 7 authentic epistles can be ascribed to Paul.
What's your take on that?

 

[Slowvehicle]

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but do most of those posting accept Paul as a historical person? If so, then his references in his epistle to the Galatians mentioning James and Peter would point to a historical Jesus, particularly since he refers to James as "the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19).

That said, Paul's own statements that his gospel came from a revelatory experience means that his Jesus is more made up than real. Also, just about everything in the gospels is taken from one or another of the following sources: the Jewish scriptures, contemporary politics seen through the lens Jewish apocalyptic thought, pagan myth and Greek literature.

So, while there's little that we can call history in the New Testament, I would take Paul's references to Peter and James as pointing to a real, if shadowy, Jesus.

Actually, the statements Paul is said to have said about James indicate that Paul is said to have believed, or assumed, that the Jesus he boasted of only meeting in his hallucination was a real person. Anything Paul is said to have said about the biography of "the Lord" comes to him at one remove, at the very least.

 

[maximara]

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but do most of those posting accept Paul as a historical person? If so, then his references in his epistle to the Galatians mentioning James and Peter would point to a historical Jesus, particularly since he refers to James as "the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19).

I have to ask. Does any one coming here actually use the search option for the forums?

I addressed this very point in post 4002 no more then 27 post before this question (post 4039)!

The whole issue of editing aside (which has been brought up more times than Dracula in a vampire picture it seems) even if the passage is Paul's he didn't get much detail out of James.

Sticking to the definitive Paul (Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon) answer the following questions about Jesus (the qualifies are so we don't get the little tap dance we saw with Stone again and they are what I meant with the questions in the first place):

Who is his father (name)?

Who is his mother (name)?

When was Jesus born (we are looking for a date or reference to a ruler here...an Age is NOT a date as we have Age of Nero, Age of Julio-Claudian dynasty, Age of the Roman Empire (opposed to the Age of the Roman Republic), Apostolic Age...which starts with the resurrected Jesus or even the Age of Pisces the more extreme Christ mythers throw out which is a A 2,150 year long age that nobody actually knows when it will start)?

Where was Jesus born (city name or at least province name)?

Who crucified Jesus (names)?

How long did Jesus preach?

What are the names of all of Jesus Apostle's who were with him?

THESE are the details we are looking for NOT the Robin Hood, King Arthur, and John Frum like stuff Paul gives us.

 

[Stone]

Really. Oh dear. Too bad then.

Yeah, too bad. Fine then. Let's just throw out all history any earlier than 1600. And one wise guy here thought it was funny -- funny! -- when I compared this know-nothing attitude to book-burning. "If I don't know it, it's not worth knowing" -- the cry of every red-neck cracker on every Texas school-board.

It is book-burning, that's exactly what it is.

Edited by Lisa Simpson: 

Edited to remove incivility.

Stone

 

[Craig B]

... Who is his father (name)?

Who is his mother (name)?

When was Jesus born (we are looking for a date or reference to a ruler here...an Age is NOT a date as we have Age of Nero, Age of Julio-Claudian dynasty, Age of the Roman Empire (opposed to the Age of the Roman Republic), Apostolic Age...which starts with the resurrected Jesus or even the Age of Pisces the more extreme Christ mythers throw out which is a A 2,150 year long age that nobody actually knows when it will start)?

Where was Jesus born (city name or at least province name)?

Who crucified Jesus (names)?

How long did Jesus preach?

What are the names of all of Jesus Apostle's who were with him?

THESE are the details we are looking for NOT the Robin Hood, King Arthur, and John Frum like stuff Paul gives us.

Great stuff, Maximara. Unless we have ALL this, then it is impossible even to propose that a subject is historical. If you do not know ALL this, then it's Robin Hood. I must say I think that's quite ridiculous.

 

[IanS]

Yeah, too bad. Fine then. Let's just throw out all history any earlier than 1600. And one wise guy here thought it was funny -- funny! -- when I compared this know-nothing attitude to book-burning. "If I don't know it, it's not worth knowing" -- the cry of every red-neck cracker on every Texas school-board.

It is book-burning, that's exactly what it is.

Edited by LashL: 

Removed quote of moderated content.

Stone

Ha. ha, most amusing .

 

[maximara]

Great stuff, Maximara. Unless we have ALL this, then it is impossible even to propose that a subject is historical. If you do not know ALL this, then it's Robin Hood. I must say I think that's quite ridiculous.

Not if by Paul's own account he met Jesus brother.

The supposed meeting raises the question of why does Paul know so little about Jesus the man?

 

[Craig B]

Not if by Paul's own account he met Jesus brother.

The supposed meeting raises the question of why does Paul know so little about Jesus the man?

That's a MUCH more rational approach than the list of info requirements in your previous post #4046.

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, too bad. Fine then. Let's just throw out all history any earlier than 1600.

No, let's not. But let's not kid ourselves and imagine that we're much more certain than we really are, ok ?

It is book-burning, that's exactly what it is.

Yes, being skeptical of historical claims is exactly like erasing all traces of them. No hyperbole here.

 

[eight bits]

The supposed meeting raises the question of why does Paul know so little about Jesus the man?

We don't know how much Paul knew about Jesus' biography. Paul doesn't say one way or the other in his survivng letters. Paul does, however, claim to have had ample opportunities to have learned the biographical lore by natural means. Even if he hadn't written specicifally about these opportunities, the letters describe him as being active in the movement for more than a decade, one of many vendors of Jesus stories. It is difficult to believe that there is anything on Sears' sales floor that Walmart doesn't know about, or vice versa.

The only biographical material about Jesus in Paul's letters is what happened to come up in those few particular discussions, like the institution incident, remarriage doctrine, and perhaps a comment or allusion by Paul to something that Jesus allegedly said. Both parties to the correspondence ostensibly had heard Jesus' story already. It would be odd if they recapped the story for each other before getting down to business.

 

[TimCallahan]

Has it been raised before? Only about 100 times so far.

Question - who do you think wrote those 5 words at the end of an otherwise completed sentence in Paul’s letter " ... other apostles saw I none ... save James ... the Lords brother." ?

That sentence does not come to us from anything Paul wrote. Because we don't have anything Paul ever wrote.

It first appears, afaik, in copies made by Christian writers from about 200AD onwards.

Do we know if Paul ever wrote those words? Ans, no.

That's apart from any other questions about who this "James" person was, or whether he was ever the blood/family brother of anyone.

Why single out "the Lord's brother" if you accept the rest of Galatians? After all, it's apparent from that epistle that Paul's Jesus was largely the creation of his own visionary conversion experience

Regarding James, we also have this from that particular epistle (Gal. 2:11, 12):

But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision.

So, it would appear that James, whoever he was, had some authority over Peter. Now, I suppose Paul could have made up all these people, but that seems unlikely. Accepting that Peter existed doesn't mean, of course, that ended up having empire wide authority and was crucified upside down on Rome. Also, accepting the existence of an apocalyptic, messianic pretender named Jesus doesn't mean he walked on water.

 

[Piggy]

Sorry to have been gone so long. Real life is keeping me on the hamster wheel all day.

I have a mostly-completed next installment on 1 Corinthians, which I hope to finish and post very soon. I will have more time after this month.

More soon....

 

[Belz...]

Sorry to have been gone so long. Real life is keeping me on the hamster wheel all day.

Yeah, real life sucks.

 

[Belz...]

So, it would appear that James, whoever he was, had some authority over Peter. Now, I suppose Paul could have made up all these people, but that seems unlikely.

I'm not sure that the strongest criticism here is that they were made up as much as we're not sure if "brother" means brother-brother, or spiritual/metaphorical brother. The fact that there's only one mention of this doesn't help either way.

 

[pakeha]

Yeah, too bad. Fine then. Let's just throw out all history any earlier than 1600. And one wise guy here thought it was funny -- funny! -- when I compared this know-nothing attitude to book-burning. "If I don't know it, it's not worth knowing" -- the cry of every red-neck cracker on every Texas school-board.

It is book-burning, that's exactly what it is.

Edited by Lisa Simpson: 

Edited to remove incivility.

...

I'm reading about Marcion at the moment, the reconstructions of his gospel and his introductions to Paul's epistles so I can appreciate your indignation about book-burning.

Sorry to have been gone so long. Real life is keeping me on the hamster wheel all day.

I have a mostly-completed next installment on 1 Corinthians, which I hope to finish and post very soon. I will have more time after this month.

More soon....

Glad to hear you're well and kicking, Piggy!
I'm looking forward to reading your next installment.

 

[The Norseman]

I'm looking forward to reading your next installment.

To be honest, unless Piggy makes a concerted effort to tie all of these infodumps into the "evidence that Yeshua existed" bucket, I'm going to report it all as being off-topic.

When, in many of the posts Piggy has already made, it says "and Jesus then said..." it assumes the existence of a Jesus; it does nothing to provide evidence of said Jesus' existence, nor does it answer the question of what counts as an historical Jesus.

 

[IanS]

Why single out "the Lord's brother" if you accept the rest of Galatians? After all, it's apparent from that epistle that Paul's Jesus was largely the creation of his own visionary conversion experience

Regarding James, we also have this from that particular epistle (Gal. 2:11, 12):

But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision.

So, it would appear that James, whoever he was, had some authority over Peter. Now, I suppose Paul could have made up all these people, but that seems unlikely. Accepting that Peter existed doesn't mean, of course, that ended up having empire wide authority and was crucified upside down on Rome. Also, accepting the existence of an apocalyptic, messianic pretender named Jesus doesn't mean he walked on water.

Well first, I did not say that I accept anything about Paul or letters written under his name.

But the reason for mentioning that James passage is, of course, that those who believe in a real HJ almost always cite that as one of two pieces of written evidence showing Jesus was a real person (he had a brother, James). So that's the reason I (and others here) have often concentrated on those five words in Paul’s letter.

If you throw out all the supernatural stuff in the gospels and Paul’s letters, then how much is left of the Jesus that 1st century Christians thought was the messiah?