Historical Jesus

[HansMustermann]

But if you want probably the most LUDICRIOUS tourist trap ever, take the Basilica della Santa Casa, i.e., literally cathedral of the holy house. It houses not just any holy bone or pot, but a big ass HOUSE inside the cathedral, supposed to be the home of Joseph and Mary, flown air mail express by angels from Nazareth to Italy.

Well, I say "house", but OF COURSE it's a big ass marble villa with elaborate columns and bas reliefs all over, that would have made Pilate himself envious. Because, you know, when you think about a poor non-citizen carpenter in a tiny town in a poor backwater province, that's the kind of house you expect to see

So yeah, religion and tourist traps go pretty well together

 

[Dr. Keith]

What a pillock.

In this thread it is an interesting post.

In the Historical Jeeps thread it earned you a nomination for the "feel me up" awards, or something like that. Context matters!

 

[Oystein]

...the Basilica della Santa Casa, i.e., literally cathedral of the holy house ...

Well, I say "house", but OF COURSE it's a big ass marble villa with elaborate columns and bas reliefs all over, that would have made Pilate himself envious. ...

Urr... nope.


Read your own link:

The "house" itself is a plain stone building, 8.5 m by 3.8 m and 4.1 m high; it has a door on the north side and a window on the west; and a niche ... Around the house is a tall marble screen designed by Bramante ... in the baroque style.

 

[smartcooky]

You posted it in the Jeeps thread!

There's a "Jeeps" thread?

Who knew?

 

[Lithrael]

Urr... nope.

Hey it’s not his fault they hid the house in a bigger house.

 

[Tassman]

Dude. Like, dude. Dunno about Bethlehem, but Nazareth had an empress go on pilgrimage there in the early 4th century and decree that a big ass church be built there. How's that for both spending big on vacation and building a better tourist trap?

I think that was Helena, mother of the first big-time Christian Roman emperor Constantine. She went traipsing all over the Holy Land buying up bits of the "true cross" etc. She was a gullible 'mark' it seems - any half decent merchant could sell her anything as being related to Jesus, including the location of the tomb in which Jesus was allegedly buried.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yep, that's the old gal. I'm surprised someone didn't even sell her the donkeys that Jesus rode into Jerusalem

 

[Tassman]

Yep, that's the old gal. I'm surprised someone didn't even sell her the donkeys that Jesus rode into Jerusalem

Pity. They could have been stuffed and given pride of place in St. Peter's.

 

[maximara]

One problem with talking a "Historical Jesus" is its meaning. Does a guy named Jesus who preached to moderate sized groups who died, not by crucifixion, of old age having drifted off into obscurity.

Carrier himself admits the 'Jesus was a nobody' position is an out but then you get a Jesus who is no more "historical" then Robin Hood or King Arthur; you get a real life Swastika Night (1937) situation where the actual person had been so buried by mythology that next to nothing remains.
Another issue is Paul may have been coopting the remains of previous messiah cults and convincing them that Jesus rather then their founder was the real deal. That would go a long way to explain the wild diversity. Here is a collection of "historical" but nobody Jesuses to illustrate just what the problem with a minimal Jesus is:

1) In the time of Pontius Pilate some crazy man ran into the Temple trashing the place and screaming "I am Jesus, King of the Jews" before some guard runs him through with a sword. Right place right time...and that is it. No preaching, no followers, no crucifixion, nothing but some nut doing the 1st century equivalent of suicide by cop. All the other events in the Gospels were done by other would be messiah and a more palatable version of the "Temple Tantrum" (I love that term) created forming a composite Jesus ie a Jesus who in reality never really existed.

2) Paul's teachings ala John Frum inspired others to take up the name "Jesus" and preach their spin on Paul's visions with one of them getting crucified by the Romans by his troubles whose teachings are time shifted so he is before Paul. (John Robertson actually came up with a variant of this in 1900 with this Jesus being inspired by Paul's writings rather then teachings)

3) You could have a Jesus who was born c 12 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of Jewish wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50.

 

[gigmaster]

Most available actual evidence indicates that the Biblical Jesus was most likely a creation by Jewish turncoat and Roman historian Josephus, at the orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian. He and a few other scribes also seem to have written most of the New Testament, long after the fact.

 

[Darat]

One problem with talking a "Historical Jesus" is its meaning. Does a guy named Jesus who preached to moderate sized groups who died, not by crucifixion, of old age having drifted off into obscurity.

Carrier himself admits the 'Jesus was a nobody' position is an out but then you get a Jesus who is no more "historical" then Robin Hood or King Arthur; you get a real life Swastika Night (1937) situation where the actual person had been so buried by mythology that next to nothing remains.
Another issue is Paul may have been coopting the remains of previous messiah cults and convincing them that Jesus rather then their founder was the real deal. That would go a long way to explain the wild diversity. Here is a collection of "historical" but nobody Jesuses to illustrate just what the problem with a minimal Jesus is:

1) In the time of Pontius Pilate some crazy man ran into the Temple trashing the place and screaming "I am Jesus, King of the Jews" before some guard runs him through with a sword. Right place right time...and that is it. No preaching, no followers, no crucifixion, nothing but some nut doing the 1st century equivalent of suicide by cop. All the other events in the Gospels were done by other would be messiah and a more palatable version of the "Temple Tantrum" (I love that term) created forming a composite Jesus ie a Jesus who in reality never really existed.

2) Paul's teachings ala John Frum inspired others to take up the name "Jesus" and preach their spin on Paul's visions with one of them getting crucified by the Romans by his troubles whose teachings are time shifted so he is before Paul. (John Robertson actually came up with a variant of this in 1900 with this Jesus being inspired by Paul's writings rather then teachings)

3) You could have a Jesus who was born c 12 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of Jewish wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50.

At the heart of the issue is that even if there had been an historic Jesus it has no relationship with the Jesus of the religious.

 

[HansMustermann]

Most available actual evidence indicates that the Biblical Jesus was most likely a creation by Jewish turncoat and Roman historian Josephus, at the orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian. He and a few other scribes also seem to have written most of the New Testament, long after the fact.

DIOCLETIAN? REALLY? A guy born in 244 CE, ascended to the throne in 284 CE, commissioned ANYTHING from Josephus who lived between 37 CE and 100 CE? Did Diocletian have a time machine, or what the hell?

But even without that piece of dumbassery: not really, no. He's a creation all right, but poor ol' Josephus has nothing to do with it.

And it certainly wouldn't fit the motivation you ascribe to him there. Josephus was out to show that Vespasian was the real messiah foretold by the Jewish scriptures. He pretty much had a chip on his shoulder to write about other failed messiah claimants as just that. And that's in fact one of the many clues that the gushing "Testimonium Flavianum" is a forgery. It doesn't fit that picture at all.

But really, that the "Testimonium Flavianum" is a forgery was even mainstream biblical scholarship for more than a century. In fact we even have a good idea as to WHO forged it. Mostly because nobody really needed it to be an authentic testimomy. It's only recently that "so where's the evidence for HJ?" started to be asked more seriously that religiously-motivated stonking idiots start pretending that Josephus must have actually written that, just maybe not in those fanboy words.

 

[dejudge]

Most available actual evidence indicates that the Biblical Jesus was most likely a creation by Jewish turncoat and Roman historian Josephus, at the orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian. He and a few other scribes also seem to have written most of the New Testament, long after the fact.

There is no actual historical evidence for your claim.

In writings attributed to Josephus, he claimed Vespasian the Emperor of Rome was the prophesied Messianic ruler found in Hebrew Scripture.

If Josephus was captured and imprisoned by the Romans then, unless he was suicidal, it would make no sense for him to make up a story that a crucified criminal, a Jew was really the Messiah.

 

[dejudge]

The writings attributed to Josephus appear to be part of the evidence that the Jesus character in the NT, including all the Epistles, was fabricated no earlier than sometime after 94-96 CE or after the works of Josephus.

In effect, the authors of the Jesus stories called Gospels and the so-called Epistles of Paul appear to be using events only found in the books attributed to Josephus.

 

[Dr. Keith]

deleted

 

[maximara]

Most available actual evidence indicates that the Biblical Jesus was most likely a creation by Jewish turncoat and Roman historian Josephus, at the orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian. He and a few other scribes also seem to have written most of the New Testament, long after the fact.

Facepalms. It is nonsnese like this that keeps the Christ Myth theory (at least the rational parts of it) from being taken seriously and continues to regulate it to same land as flat earthers.

 

[maximara]

But not equal numbers. The Academic consensus is that there was a historical Jesus (HJ). That consensus is based on textual analysis and an understanding of the cultural context of 1st century Roman Palestine, amongst other things.

There are a few people who argue against the HJ, but they haven't come anywhere near convincing the majority of experts.

That Academic consensus, if you really look at it, has a Piltdown Man aspect to it ie a 'it fits our theory so well let's ignore any evidence that shows our theory is full of holes' mentality.

The evidence for a Jesus recognizable to the one in the Bible is effectively nil and that has always been the more level headed part of the Christ Myth theory. Odds are the Gospel Jesus is a composite person, which by its very nature cannot have existed as a single person.

 

[smartcooky]

There is absolutely zero proof that a person called Jesus, as described in the NT, actually existed. There are no contemporaneous writings that refer to him or any of the people around him, even though there are historical writings referring to other actors in the narrative, e.g. Herod & Pilate. Not only does everything written about Jesus come decades after his alleged death, most of those accounts conflict with each other anyway.

Also, it is worth noting that the "divinity" of the Jesus character wasn't even determined until long after his alleged death. The NT is written today in such a way as to infer his divinity was contemporaneously understood, but it was not. In fact, his divinity was decided some 300 years afterwards (at the First Council of Nicea) whereupon the biblical accounts were subjected to a bunch of historical revisionism. The Gnostic Gospels (among others) were removed because Gnosticism held and taught that the key to eternal life was through personal spirituality, not orthodoxy and the teachings of ecclesiastical authority - in other words, you didn't need the Church or the Bishops in order to reach everlasting bliss in the afterlife. From the Gnostic viewpoint, salvation came from direct knowledge of the supreme divinity, not through repentance of sin, but through enlightenment.

Of course the Church wasn't having any of this because if people could achieve salvation themselves, without the involvement of the Church, it would put serious dent in the Church's viability as a money-making exercise, and put a whole lot of clergymen out of a job. Any and all references showing that believers could attain salvation without the Church were excised from the bible, effectively giving the Church a monopoly on the afterlife and eternal salvation.

 

[dejudge]

The evidence for a Jesus recognizable to the one in the Bible is effectively nil and that has always been the more level headed part of the Christ Myth theory. Odds are the Gospel Jesus is a composite person, which by its very nature cannot have existed as a single person.

In effect, Jesus of Nazareth was not a figure of history. The character was manufactured from fables, fiction, false prophecies found in Hebrew Scripture, Greek/Roman mythology and events found in the works of well-known writers.

 

[HansMustermann]

That Academic consensus, if you really look at it, has a Piltdown Man aspect to it ie a 'it fits our theory so well let's ignore any evidence that shows our theory is full of holes' mentality.

TBH that's even more generous than I would describe it. Most of it is really an appeal to an appeal to an appeal to authority, really. "Jesus existed because all these other guys agree that he existed" is really the strongest argument it can make when cornered.

Thing is, just analysing a story can't really tell you that some character existed or didn't exist. Especially not if you're willing to lose any number or all of the identifying attributes and still call it as THAT specific guy existed. You can strip away stuff that probably didn't happen, but what you're left with (if anything) isn't saying "yep, that guy existed", but merely "yeah, THAT much reduced guy isn't impossible." You don't have something that SUPPORTS it being real, since that would still be circular logic (X is a real story, because X says so), you have something that's COMPATIBLE with it being real.

So really none of that can lead to a sound "yep, therefore Jesus was real." All you can have validly is basically, "well, IF he was real AND IF any of that is reflected in the story we got, THEN this is is a self-consistent Jesus that's COMPATIBLE with that."

The part where Jesus is totally for realz isn't conclusion there, it's a premise. The whole exercise is basically a different kind of presuppositionalism, only applied at a meta level.