So did Jesus live or what?

[Huntster]

...Even the meticulous record keeping of public officials attributed to the early Romans might not have included the local leaders of every town, hamlet, and watering hole throughout the Roman occupancy. For example, do we know who was in charge of public works in the month that Nero allowed Rome to be burned to the ground, or who was in charge of the legion occupying, say, Saldea, in the tenth year of its occupancy? Not bloody likely.....

This fact makes the survival of the Gospels that much more incredible.

A 30 - 33 year old carpenter from Nazareth, on a 3 year religious mission, turns the world upside down.

Records kept by a gang of nobodys amongst a colonized society in turmoil, which was virtually destroyed some 30 years after his passing.

The Jewish nation was dispersed, not to reassemble under a flag again until just recently, 1900 years later.

 

[davefoc]

One thing I've been wondering about is how many more times Josephus refers to John the Baptist. One site said the number was 19 and another site said it was 20.

Why did JtB get so much more coverage than Jesus?

 

[Huntster]

...Why did JtB get so much more coverage than Jesus?

Perhaps because the followers of Jesus were more underground, less numerous, and less regarded than the followers of the Baptist.

 

[davefoc]

Perhaps because the followers of Jesus were more underground, less numerous, and less regarded than the followers of the Baptist.

That sounds exactly right to me.


While I was doing some reading inspired by this thread I came across this article in Wikepedia on Barabbas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas

One of the ideas discussed in the article is that Barabbas and Jesus were one and the same and that Jesus was the leader of a non-violent protest against Pilate (described by Josepus but with an unnamed leader) and that is what got him in trouble. It seems that Barabbas was known as Jesus Barabbas in some of the earliest editions of the Gospels. Barabbas could be interpreted to mean son of the father in Aramaic and might therefore refer to Jesus himself.

The idea has the ring of plausibility to me. The story about the custom of releasing a prisoner every year and the crowd cheering for the release of Barrabas is questionable since the no place outside the bible is any such custom mentioned. The idea that Pilate, who was the Roman governor, would order the execution of Jesus for civil disobedience also strikes me as more reasonable than that Pilate ordered the execution of Jesus because his activities had angered the Jewish establishment.

This story also fits with the idea of a Jesus that might have had a small but intensely loyal folllowing whose death may have led to the kind of emotional bond that a powerful cult could have been built on.

 

[Belz...]

IIRC, the only clear evidence for Pilate that is independent of the Gospels, Josephus and Tacitus is a single brief inscription that was discovered in the early 1960s. And of course, one might expect that owing to his position Pilate would figure more frequently and prominently than Jesus in contemporary Roman records and in later works by Roman historians. Yet the great majority (and until very recently, all) of the little we know about Pilate comes from the same sources that tell us of Jesus' existence.

My point is, there is at least SOME corroboration.

 

[jjramsey]

Apparently Paul doesn't mention all this torture of Christians that Tacitus seems to know about. Theorectically Paul was there. Did he mention it and what he wrote on this got lost or is the whole Christian torture thing made up? It seems like there might be a general consensus amongst scholars that it was. But I'm not sure about this.

IIRC, Paul does make occasional reference to persecution in the epistles. Why, though, should he make detailed references what Nero was doing to Christians? What occasion would spur him to write about it?

The two issues above together with the unlikely existence of a significantly large group differentiated as Christians at the time of Nero

Depends on what you mean by "large". All one needs is a minority big enough to be persecuted.

even if Tacitus wrote this he was writing down information he received from Christians

Yes, this is likely the case, or more to the point, he is repeating claims made by Christians that have been heard amongst the common populace.

If what I have written above is roughly correct it seems like it is reasonable to give very little credence to the Tacitus quote as evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus.

The quote is, however, evidence that

• Christians existed well by the end of the first century.
• "Christus" or "Christos" was a term that the pagan world would understand as referring to the central figure of this new-fangled religion called Christianity.

 

[jjramsey]

I thought the Romans were some of the people who's heads we were trying to get into! *flail*

I give up. I don't think the question you were originally asking is the one I was trying to answer, or possibly vice versa, and I suspect we're discussing at cross-purposes, since I've completely lost any sense of what you were trying to prove in the first place

My point was that the "dying and rising god" category was not a category that the pagans naturally thought in. One giveaway that this is the case is that the "dying and rising god" pattern fits very few of the myths that it is said to fit, and of those that do fit, the differences in the myths are so substantial as to show that the myths aren't related. Another giveaway is that when we do see pagans fit Christianity into their categories, we see them pick categories other than that of a dying and rising god, such as that of a "divine man" or a magician. Even then, they have trouble fitting Christianity into their categories. As the graffiti I mentioned earlier shows, the idea of a crucified being being worthy of worship was absurd to them. That implies that when we describe Meditteranean myths in terms of dying and rising gods, we are reflecting our biases, not those of the Romans or other pagans.

This means that it is unlikely for them to think "Jesus is like Osiris," because they don't normally think of Osiris as a Dying and Rising God(TM). That's not to say that they have never heard of the myth of Osiris temporarily rising (though given the alternate version of Horus' birth, they may not have), but rather that when they think of Osiris, a whole host of other associations are far more at the forefront of their minds. For them to associate Jesus with Osiris would be to associate a central element of Jesus with a peripheral and often absent element of Osiris.

and none of it seems to bear on whether there was a real Jesus or not.

Often the argument runs that story of Jesus was derived altogether from the idea of dying and rising gods.

 

[LW]

IIRC, Paul does make occasional reference to persecution in the epistles. Why, though, should he make detailed references what Nero was doing to Christians? What occasion would spur him to write about it?

And there is the thing that tradition claims that Paul died in Nero's persecution. If this part of the tradition is true, then it would rather nicely explain the lack of references to it in his writing.

The quote is, however, evidence that

• Christians existed well by the end of the first century.
• "Christus" or "Christos" was a term that the pagan world would understand as referring to the central figure of this new-fangled religion called Christianity.

And a third one: The quote is evidence that there were Christians during Tacitus's time who believed that Jesus was a real historical figure.

 

[davefoc]

LW wrote:

And a third one: The quote is evidence that there were Christians during Tacitus's time who believed that Jesus was a real historical figure.

That is one thing I think we can be sure of with or without the Tacitus quote. By then it seems that there is widespread agreement that most or all of the Gospels had been written.

 

[davefoc]

jjramsey, LW et al motivated me to look a little bit more about the issue of whether Christians were around at the time of Nero in significant enough numbers to be used as scapegoats for the burning of Rome.

One of the things that I didn't understand was that most of what we know of Nero either came from Tacitus or Suetonius. So if one is going to dispute the idea that Christians weren't used as scapegoats by Nero it has to based on some theorizing that may not have much of a foundation. At any rate most of the sites I looked at on the internet don't question the idea that Nero used the Christians as scapegoats.

It also seems the fact that Paul was probably in a Roman jail at the time of the fire is proof positive that there were some Christians in Rome then. It is also not clear when Paul died perhaps in 64 right after the fire or perhaps in 67. I am not sure of the evidence behind the dates of his death but whatever it was he doesn't seem to have any writing definitely credited to him after the time of the fire so there isn't any Paul writing that covered a time when the Christians were made scapegoats.

Of course, there are still many questions left:

Tacitus was nine at the time of the fires. It seems that he might have had a personal knowledge of the use of Christians as scapegoats. But his passage seems more like an inclusion based on what a Christian has told him. Might not have he expanded on that if he had a personal relevant memory?

What is the nature of what those early Christians believed? The Gospels probably didn't exist in 64 and even if an early version did had it made its way to Rome by then?

And once again, proof of Christians is not proof of Jesus, but if there were really Christians in 64 that believed that Jesus had been a real person that seems like a piece of evidence that there was a real Jesus. Maybe something like the Jesus I talked about above who had a small following and led one or more non-violent protests and was executed by the Romans for his actions.

 

[HeyLeroy]

JESUS' BLACK
ANCESTORS

Several years ago I worked with a Jehovah's Nitwit. He was constantly prosyletizing.

One day he started talking about how his daughter had a baby fathered out of wedlock by a Phillipino man. He then started on about the 'mud races'. I asked him how he could say things like this, as Jesus was a black man. Boy, did that wind him up! After a few minutes of arguing to me how this was impossible, he walked away. The next day I showed him this, and he never talked to me again.

SCORE!

 

[Huntster]

JESUS' BLACK
ANCESTORS ...Jesus was a black man....

If it mattered, there is no credible evidence of this. Jesus was clearly described as coming from the line of David.

...SCORE!...

What did you score?

 

[kmortis]

If it mattered, there is no credible evidence of this. Jesus was clearly described as coming from the line of David.



What did you score?

And DAvid was a white man???

 

[Huntster]

And DAvid was a white man???

Who said David was "white"?

Are Hebrews white, black, or somewhere in between?

I would say that one from the Hutu tribes in Central African were black, one from a Scandinavian background are white, and many folks fit somewhere in between.

Don't make me whip out the dictionary again, I don't have time for that right now.

 

[LW]

Tacitus was nine at the time of the fires. It seems that he might have had a personal knowledge of the use of Christians as scapegoats. But his passage seems more like an inclusion based on what a Christian has told him. Might not have he expanded on that if he had a personal relevant memory?

Tacitus was probably not born in Rome itself but in some province. The most likely candidate for his home region is Gallia Narbonensis around the modern Marseille but this is not certain. Pretty much all sources that I've read say that if Nero's persecutions happened, they were limited to the Rome proper, meaning that Tacitus would not have first-hand knowledge about the fire or the hunt for space goats.

What is the nature of what those early Christians believed?

Very difficult question, that one.

E.P. Sanders argues in The Historical Jesus that there are at least three teachings in NT that probably come from Jesus himself. His argument is basicly that the teachings in question were so incovenient for the early church (and Paul in particular) that had they originated by some less authoritive source, they would have been rejected. I don't remember what the third was (it's been several years since I read it), but two were:

• the statement that John the Apostle would not die before the establishment of the Kingdom of God. (John 21:22-23 has some damage control on this)
• the order to preach only to Jews. (Matt 10:5-7)

 

[UrsulaV]

My point was that the "dying and rising god" category was not a category that the pagans naturally thought in.

I'm still not entirely convinced of this, but I suspect it's one of those things that's gonna be hard to prove either way, absent a time machine earmarked for anthropological research.

Then again, it's really neither here nor there, 'cos this gets us to another point which is maybe more important--according to you, there weren't dying and rising gods motifs, and even if there were, Jesus didn't get any. Pagans were just not terribly impressed with his whole hypothetical resurrection, because they appeared not to believe it. (I don't blame them, I don't believe it either.)

But Christians at the time DID believe it. For some teeny weeny minority, they bought it hook line and big rock. So where did they get a dying and rising god motif to believe? Given that it's no more likely Jesus rose from the dead than Osiris or anybody else, did somebody just come up with an idea out the blue? Did one person make the connection to dying and rising gods--which, if you claim they didn't exist, they'd have to invent from whole cloth?

It's well and good to say that there was never any connection between the motifs of dying and rising gods and Jesus, but obviously SOMEBODY came up with a myth where Jesus rose from the dead at some point, even if most of the world found it laughable and scrawled graffiti everywhere making fun of it. If we take the skeptical view that we're not buyin' a revenant messiah without a helluva lot of evidence,* then what's likely to have inspired our mythmakers?

Who, in other words, is most likely to have cooked the ending?


*Let's establish right now that no amount of written evidence will ever convince me that a guy rose from the dead--all it can prove is that people BELIEVED a guy rose from the dead, which is something else entirely.

 

[HeyLeroy]

If it mattered, there is no credible evidence of this. Jesus was clearly described as coming from the line of David.

Revelation 22:16 says that Jesus is the "offspring of David." Mary was not descended from David, but Joseph was. Doesn't this mean that Jesus wasn't the son of your god at all, but the (mortal and not divine) son of Joseph?

What did you score?

I 'scored' not having to deal with the frothy-mouthed rantings of a superstitious loonie who was preventing me from doing my job.

Just wondering, Matthew 1:23 says that Jesus would be called Immanuel, which means "God with us." Why does no one (not even his parents) call him Immanuel at any point in the New Testament?

 

[jjramsey]

So where did they get a dying and rising god motif to believe? Given that it's no more likely Jesus rose from the dead than Osiris or anybody else, did somebody just come up with an idea out the blue?

Ideas of resurrection would easily come out of second-temple Judaism. That's not so out of the blue at all.

 

[Huntster]

Revelation 22:16 says that Jesus is the "offspring of David." Mary was not descended from David, but Joseph was. Doesn't this mean that Jesus wasn't the son of your god at all, but the (mortal and not divine) son of Joseph?...

Joseph's lineage is outlined in Matthew, Chapter 1. Mary's is not outlined anywere, so we do not know if she is descended from David or not.

It should be no wonder why Joseph's lineage was the one outlined. We all know the role of women in the Middle East even today (outside of Israel, of course).

...I 'scored' not having to deal with the frothy-mouthed rantings of a superstitious loonie who was preventing me from doing my job....

Yeah, sometimes a juicy lie is very effective under such circumstances.

...Just wondering, Matthew 1:23 says that Jesus would be called Immanuel, which means "God with us." Why does no one (not even his parents) call him Immanuel at any point in the New Testament?...

I don't know. Perhaps they did. Little of the household in Nazareth is outlined. And the New Testament is not comprehensive:

...There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written....

John 21:24-25


He is certainly called Immanuel today.

 

[ceo_esq]

My point is, there is at least SOME corroboration.

The inscription corroborates, say, the New Testament, Josephus and Tacitus about the existence of Pontius Pilate; yet it is equally true that the New Testament, Josephus and Tacitus corroborate the inscription on this point, as well as one another.

If one compares the number of probably authentic and separately composed 1st and early 2nd century texts suggesting the existence of Pilate (of which the inscription is just one) to the number of them suggesting the existence of Jesus (in some cases, the very same texts as for Pilate), the historical Jesus doesn't fare badly at all.

Indeed, can you see how, in a probabilistic sense, the existence of the Pilate inscription actually slightly increases the odds that the New Testament refers to a historical Jesus?