What counts as a historical Jesus?

[davefoc]

Belz



Because we are examining whether the tradition of a foot washing incident is related to a tradition that Jesus was betrayed after a dispute with a disciple. The topic is "What counts as a historical Jesus?" We are embarked on hypothesis formation and refinement, rather than evaluation of the evidence for whatever hypotheses might emerge from our discussions.

...

I thought that this foot washing discussion was just a digression. Is your point that this incident in some ways relates to the issue of whether there was an HJ, or that it relates to the nature of an HJ if there was one?

Is there a kernel of truth to the foot washing incident? Did some piece of oral history about a real HJ make its way into the Gospels or did the author of Mark just make up the whole thing? Have you found something in your analysis of the incident which provides evidence one way or the other on this question? If one finds that the incident is implausible, does that count as evidence against the existence of an HJ or does it just count as evidence that the author of Mark was creating an historical novel with fictional events about a real HJ. And if one finds the incident plausible does this count as evidence of a real HJ or does it just count as evidence that the author of Mark added plausible events to his work of fiction?

ETA: What is it that you think can be learned as the result of studying about the foot washing incident?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, no event in the NT can be supported as having any kernel of truth. Jesus being lavished with expensive oils and shows of self-humiliation before him is no more or less supportable than, say, his teaching to turn the other cheek.

Well, in fact it's actually a little bit more supportable than turning the other cheek, because, as I was saying, the sermon on the mount only appears in Matthew, while this is one of the rare cases that's (in various variants) in all four gospels. (Albeit, as eight bits correctly noted, in Luke there is no connection between that and Judas's betrayal.) And lengthy impromptu speeches were generally made up when writing about them later, while a short "look over what silliness Judas went butthurt and betrayed us" kind of anecdote could actually make it through oral tradition. (IF there was one, that is.) But it still doesn't reach up to meeting the burden of proof anyway.

Now I'm not saying that the perfume incident happened. We'll never know, really. And the most Occam conform stance still is that it's probably just made up, same as everything else.

I'm just having a problem with some people just deciding that for example the sermon on the mount probably represents the actual views of the historical Jesus, while a Jesus that acts like an entitled superstar and a Judas who actually gets fed up with Jesus's hypocrisy and slipping out the humble holy guy persona when it suits him, nah, that didn't really happen. (And it's not the only place. Jesus is a major hypocrite all over the 4 gospels.) Why? As stories supported only by the bible go, the former is only in one gospel and is probably made up, while the latter is in all four.

It seems to me like if we're picking a set of deeds and views that define a historical Jesus, then the naughty Jesus sets are just as valid as the good guy Jesus sets.

Of course, there is no evidence that either set has any bit of historical truth in it, but both might help define exactly what kind of guy would we look for, that would count as a historical Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

davefoc

I thought that this foot washing discussion was just a digression. Is your point that this incident in some ways relates to the issue of whether there was an HJ, or that it relates to the nature of an HJ if there was one?

Neither. I believe that the subdiscussion's bearing on the topic is whether a historical Jesus-antecedent who wasn't betrayed would "count," to use the word that appears in the thread title.

"The footwashing" isn't a very good descriptive name for the four roughly parallel pericopes, one in each Gospel, but that's what we've been calling them here. Only Luke places any actual water on Jesus' feet, probably figuratively, since the water is the woman's tears.

Our texts have been Matthew 26: 6-13, Mark 14: 3-9, Luke 7: 36-50 and John 12: 1-8. Three of them (not Luke) feature the allusion to Deuteronomy 15: 11, and some suggestion that Jesus' speech contributed to Judas' subsequent action. That's really all I'm directly interested in, but context is crucial, and Jesus having some oily interaction with a woman is the context.

Is there a kernel of truth to the foot washing incident?

I think all you could ever get from an analysis of this kind is some confidence about the existence of an early tradition among the preachers of Jesus that Jesus incited Judas by questionably quoting scripture. I think Luke was telling Theophilus that this tradition is wrong, a possible misreport of a superficially similar incident that had nothing to do with Judas or Deuteronomy. John gets the last word, and he sides with Mark.

Obviously, I have no idea how much of this, in any version, happened. The only part I'd care about in a "counting" sense is whether or not Jesus provoked his betrayal. I note that John has exerted extra effort to integrate the provocation into the betrayal story he tells. I am unsure whether that's a good sign or a bad sign from a literal truth perspective, but tying the betrayal in with other candidates for counting-essentialness (for example, scripture spouting and a reputation for working miracles) does make the matter relevant to the announced topic.

pakeha

Was the spikenard poured poured over Jesus' feet or head?

Without claiming any expertise, I score it 50-50: two head shots, Mark and Matthew, and two foot shots, Luke and John. Only the foot shots are unambiguously presented as intentional acts by the women.

 

[pakeha]

Thanks.
So rather than calling it a foot-washing episode, we could even call it an anointing episode.
That makes the entire scenario even less credible, somehow.

However, as my Google-fu uncovered, it does serve as excellent sermon material.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

TBH I even suspect that it's one of those elements that may actually be subversive in Mark, when you remember that "Christos" means "the anointed". Incidentally so does "mashiach", i.e., "messiah", which is used all over the OT for kings and priests too, because they were anointed.

But it's strange that the only instance that Jesus gets anointed is by a random woman that had no authority to do so. Symbolic, maybe, that the poor and not the ones with actual authority anoint him, but nevertheless, it creates a bit of a wth for his title then.

Luke and John actually have the presence of spirit to change it so it doesn't end up that way, when they put the oil on his feet instead.

In Luke 7:46 though, it just makes the request from the Pharisee host even more wth. "You did not put oil on my head" is imputing to the Pharisee no less than that he didn't anoint him, something as I was saying, reserved for priests, kings, oracles, that kinda thing. I can see how that fits as basically a rehashing of imputing to the Pharisees that they didn't accept Jesus as the anointed one, i.e., messiah. I.e., it's there to serve as ammo for the early Christians outside Judaea against the Jews, for whom the Pharisees were quickly becoming the dominant sect at the time.

But if the incident actually happened, then it's an even more unreasonable demand. It's not like, say, asking the host where the toilet is. It's like, dunno, imagine me coming to your home and complaining that you didn't put a crown on my head.

 

[pakeha]

Thanks for sharing your reflections.
The incident almost reads like an Easter Egg or in-joke.

Just to know what we're talking about here, I tried a dab of some spikenard oil yesterday on my way to work. My colleagues asked me to remove it directly. Yes, we have an 'offensive smell' clause in our contracts, so of course I complied.

A pound of spikenard ointment?
No way.

 

[Craig B]

... A pound of spikenard ointment?
No way.

Well, then, if that's a bit much, what about this version of the embalming in the tomb, from John 19?

38 ... He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. 39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

 

[eight bits]

And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

They'd better watch out. That much stuff must be worth something. It might attract tomb robbers.

 

[Craig B]

They'd better watch out. That much stuff must be worth something. It might attract tomb robbers.

Or even make the occupant waken up and walk out!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Just for completeness sake, though, modern estimates of the Roman pound (libra) range from 322 to 329 grams, with 5076 grains or 328.9 grams (11.60 oz) an accepted figure. I.e., it's actually only about two thirds of the Imperial pound.

(This is for example causing no end of problems with people estimating how much gear a Roman soldier was marching with... along with a similar misunderstanding for how long an hour was, or what hour X meant at all (hint: they were counting from dawn, not midnight.) You wouldn't believe the kind of misunderstanding this kinda thing cause not only about basic equipment, but also about ancient battles, among the non-historians.But I digress.)

So Nicodemus is "only" bringing about 32-33 kilos of that oil. I could translate it into modern pounds, but let's just say that a standard amphora was about a cubic foot. So Nicodemus was bringing about two standard amphoras worth of oil.

Add the weight of the amphora itself, and yeah, Nicodemus is probably huffing and puffing all the way.

But yeah, I can see how THAT much oil... in a closed tomb... yeah, that would probably even get me to wake up even from death and leg it to open air

 

[maximara]

Well, I'm not taking any of them as gospel or even remotely historical, as you probably figured out by now. That includes John too, obviously.

Nevertheless, people seem to cherrypick some facts about Jesus as historical and proclaim that set as the historical Jesus. And at that, without any evidence that their set is better supported than any other cherrypicking, never mind supportable as actually having happened. And cherrypicking a different set is IMHO a great way to show why their set isn't the only way to do it.(snip for space)

The cherrypicking is such a problem that even Schweitzer noted it:

"The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.

This image has not been destroyed from without, it has fallen to pieces, cleft and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came to the surface one after another, and in spite of all the artifice, art, artificiality, and violence which was applied to them, refused to be planed down to fit the design on which the Jesus of the theology of the last hundred and thirty years had been constructed, and were no sooner covered over than they appeared again in a new form."

Robert M Price echoed this sentiment: "the "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him".

As I have said before Jesus has become a tabula rasa...a blank slate on to which the researcher can impose their view of what Jesus was "really" like. The reason is simple--there is too huge a gap between when the events happened and the Gospels were written and then there are the issues with the Gospels themselves.

As John Armstrong (Deistpaladin) points out:

Mark--anonymous hearsay on top of anonymous hearsay
Matthew--discredited liar
Luke--admits to not being an eyewitness (Luke1:1-3)
John--inconstant with other canon accounts and indicates later theology

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Yep. That's a very accurate summation of it all.

 

[eight bits]

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence.

The Schweitzer quote sums up the problem of this thread nicely. It is a fine recitation of the beliefs that explain why Jesus is important to people. But, as regards a distinctive historical person to be the original subject of those beliefs, we find ourselves reworking an old joke.

There is much in Schweitzer's Jesus that is historical, and much that is distinctive. Unfortunately, what's historical about him isn't distinctive (like pretending to be the Messiah), and what's distinctive isn't historical (like instituting the Kingdom of God).

That's a nastier problem than the Rashomon quality of the Gosepl-Acts-Paul testimony. If something actually happened, then our sources are hopelessly bound to their own perspective concerning what that was, and in this case, none of them were there anyway. Even taking the reverently received Jesus story collection at face value, and boiling it down (or cherry picking it, if you prefer) to a "highlights reel," Jesus didn't actually do much that was both specific to him and also situated in time and space.

And then we still have the Rashomon business on top of that.

(An old, but readable, English translation of Schweitzer's The Quest for the Historical Jesus is a freebie at Early Christian Writings,

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/schweitzer/

The quotation discussed in this post is from the brief "Results" chapter, the last, number 20.)

 

[pakeha]

...As I have said before Jesus has become a tabula rasa...a blank slate on to which the researcher can impose their view of what Jesus was "really" like. ...

But a really, really well-perfumed tabula rasa.

 

[Craig B]

Just for completeness sake, though, modern estimates of the Roman pound (libra) range from 322 to 329 grams, with 5076 grains or 328.9 grams (11.60 oz) an accepted figure. I.e., it's actually only about two thirds of the Imperial pound ... So Nicodemus is "only" bringing about 32-33 kilos of that oil. I could translate it into modern pounds, but let's just say that a standard amphora was about a cubic foot. So Nicodemus was bringing about two standard amphoras worth of oil.

Yes, NIV takes this into account, and gives us:

39 He 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. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.

This updating of measures is typical of NIV. (Acts 2)

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!

Here's the AV/KJV.

14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: 15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.

 

[pakeha]

Now that IS an odd thing for a fisherman to say.

I've spent enough time in Costa do Morte fishing villages to know just what shape fishermen are in after bringing in the catch. At nine in the morning the bars in the port are doing a roaring trade in orujo.

It almost reads as though someone were putting words in Peter's mouth.

 

[maximara]

The Schweitzer quote sums up the problem of this thread nicely. It is a fine recitation of the beliefs that explain why Jesus is important to people. But, as regards a distinctive historical person to be the original subject of those beliefs, we find ourselves reworking an old joke.

There is much in Schweitzer's Jesus that is historical, and much that is distinctive. Unfortunately, what's historical about him isn't distinctive (like pretending to be the Messiah), and what's distinctive isn't historical (like instituting the Kingdom of God).

That's a nastier problem than the Rashomon quality of the Gosepl-Acts-Paul testimony. If something actually happened, then our sources are hopelessly bound to their own perspective concerning what that was, and in this case, none of them were there anyway. Even taking the reverently received Jesus story collection at face value, and boiling it down (or cherry picking it, if you prefer) to a "highlights reel," Jesus didn't actually do much that was both specific to him and also situated in time and space.

And then we still have the Rashomon business on top of that.

(An old, but readable, English translation of Schweitzer's The Quest for the Historical Jesus is a freebie at Early Christian Writings,

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/schweitzer/

The quotation discussed in this post is from the brief "Results" chapter, the last, number 20.)

The problem is even more messed up then Rashomon as there is nothing to indicate the Gospels are direct testimony (Luke admits his account isn't) and Paul's Jesus is only somebody he met in visions.

As for Paul meeting the "brother" of Jesus that person could have been a delusional nutter in the vein of Hong Xiuquan or a conman.

The fact Paul relates so little about Jesus shows more concern for the message rather then the messenger.

Acts has several social-political hiccups to make taking it as history difficult at best. More over the dating of Acts depends on what part you look with a range of 50 CE to 95 CE indicating that some editing into the form we know has had to have happened and who knows what was removed or added.

The Gospels are a social-political-chronological train wreck

Then you have the issue of why Eusebius in his The History of the Church claimed "It is also recorded that under Claudius, Philo came to Rome to have conversations with Peter, then preaching to the people there ... It is plain enough that he not only knew but welcomed with whole-hearted approval the apostolic men of his day, who it seems were of Hebrew stock and therefore, in the Jewish manner, still retained most of their ancient customs."

If that is not bad enough, according to Shirley Jackson Case's 1912 The History of Jesus "Epiphanius makes two further statements which are sometimes thought to point to a pre-Christian Jesus. He says that there were Nazarees (or Nasarees) before Christ, and that Philo once wrote a treatise describing the early Christian community in Egypt."

So we are asked to believe that Philo not only met Peter himself but "wrote a treatise describing the early Christian community in Egypt" and yet wrote no word on Jesus himself.

Modern pro-HJ people like to say there was no reason Philo would have been in the area because he called Alexandria home...so WHY in the name of sanity were 4th century Church Father's trying their best to put Philo where he WOULD have known about Jesus?

 

[pgwenthold]

The Schweitzer quote sums up the problem of this thread nicely. It is a fine recitation of the beliefs that explain why Jesus is important to people. But, as regards a distinctive historical person to be the original subject of those beliefs, we find ourselves reworking an old joke.

There is much in Schweitzer's Jesus that is historical, and much that is distinctive. Unfortunately, what's historical about him isn't distinctive (like pretending to be the Messiah), and what's distinctive isn't historical (like instituting the Kingdom of God).

Well, the title of the thread is "What Counts as a Historical Jesus." Notice that the question is NOT "is there a historical Jesus or not" but "what do you need to have a historical Jesus"

Personally, I've found this thread a little frustrating, because it moved very quickly away from the original question.

I've brought this up before in this thread - if you make your requirements so minor, then yeah, you can come up with a "historical Jesus" that fits them, but by the same (low) standards, you'd also be able to identify a "historical Dorothy" from the Wizard of Oz.

I mean, we aren't even talking about comparing to legends here, like Paul Bunyan, Robin Hood, or King Arthur, we are talking about a simple fictional character (at the risk of having my Int Wizard of Oz Club membership revoked). If the huffing and puffing about the Historical Jesus(TM) is all about a place that results in an equally Historical Dorothy, then this is absolutely much-ado-about-nothing.

 

[davefoc]

...
Personally, I've found this thread a little frustrating, because it moved very quickly away from the original question.

....

I did also and I made a futile effort to keep the thread on topic. Eventually I found accepting what I couldn't change as the course to frustration reduction plus this thread has been on average been more civil than some of the other historical Jesus threads which I appreciated.

I have simplified my thoughts about what constitutes an historical Jesus as a result of some of the comments in this thread. For me there are only two criteria that an HJ needs to meet:

1. The HJ was the individual that inspired the creation of the NT stories about Jesus.
2. The HJ would be recognizable as the Jesus character in the NT based on the facts of his life if they were known.

 

[davefoc]

...
If the huffing and puffing about the Historical Jesus(TM) is all about a place that results in an equally Historical Dorothy, then this is absolutely much-ado-about-nothing.

Yes, even if the HJ existed his historical importance is limited. He wasn't the founder of Christianity in any normal meaning of the term founder of Christianity might have. We can only guess at whatever philosophy or religious belief he might have had, but it probably was significantly different than what Christianity became. It is likely that the most important characteristic of his hypothetical life was that he existed at the time when the apocalyptic oriented group from which Christianity arose was under pressure to to transition from a belief in a Messiah that was coming to a belief in a Messiah that had come. (HM provided some interesting details about this much earlier in this thread).

So in the end this thread has been mostly about a topic that has no practical value. Even if the goal is to arrive at an accurate history of the formation of early Christianity the existence of non-existence of an HJ is only a small detail that isn't particularly important to the early history of Christianity.