Why didn't Jesus write anything down?

[sleepy_lioness]

There are references to the Name traditions in the New Testament. Perhaps the most famous is Philippians 2: 9:

'Therefore God also highly exalted him [Jesus] and gave him the name that is above every name ...' To a Jew such as Paul, this was clearly Yahweh. There is a strong argument that this passage of Philippians is a pre-existing hymn or song of praise which Paul is quoting, but in any case, it shows that both Paul and early Christians knew of the Jewish traditions of the Name and also, more shockingly for Jews, applied it to Jesus.

There are some very long and boring arguments in the scholarship about the titles applied to Jesus in the New Testament. He is frequently called 'Kurios', which translates the Hebrew 'Adonai'. Kurios is the word generally used to render the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint, and Adonai is how it was pronouced in Hebrew when the Bible was read out (most people think) and I think most people consider that the early Christians knew what they were doing when they applied it to Jesus: they were assigning him a divine title. Some argue that, as with the English words 'Lord' or 'Sir', their use is simply a mark of respect. But I think that this is a weak argument, since many of the references are steeped in an Old Testament background, notably from the Psalms. Psalm 110:1 ('The Lord [Yahweh, translated as kurios] said to my Lord [Adonai, translated as kurios], sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool') is, I think I'm right in saying, the most frequently quoted OT passage in the New Testament. Cf Matthew 22: 43-45 for one instance. In all of these, it's clear that Jesus is being referred to with one of the names of God. And these are names that were at least sometimes euphemisms for the Tetragrammaton. I don't think any Biblical scholar would agree that the New Testament writers didn't know the traditions about the Tetragrammaton; I've certainly never heard that argument.

I also don't think it's really possible to argue that the New Testament isn't deeply Jewish. See the recent Jewish Annotated New Testament for details of just how Jewish beliefs and culture run through the whole thing. I think I've already mentioned just how 'Semitic' a lot of the Greek is (particularly Mark); it's less fashionable these days than it used to be to posit an Aramaic original underlying the Gospels, but it certainly seems that their writers were used to Hebrew and Aramaic texts (such as the Septuagint) and used those languages themselves. Paul says he is a Jew, a Pharisee, and he really must have been to know all the stuff he knows and think the way he thinks (for instance, on purity and pollution, a deeply Jewish way of thinking). As I also said upthread, that the New Testament is deeply Jewish doesn't mean it isn't also Greek, since Hellenism was so pervasive, even in Palestine, at this period. There's no neat boundary between the two.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

You know, there is also the very simple fact that there is no record of his existence outside the Christian texts. No one mentions this particular miracle worker, although, as you say, several others do seem to have existed and are mentioned.

And most of them have far fewer sources attesting them than does Jesus of Nazareth. Why are they so believeable and he not? And, doesn't their existence lend credibility to the idea that a similar man called Jesus did similar things? The sources argument can go several ways. Very few people wouldn't date Paul's earliest letters to the 50s AD, for instance, and they certainly mention Jesus. That they're a Christian source doesn't automatically rule them out; non-Christian sources mention Jesus a bit later. But he was an insignificant peasant in a backwater of the Empire, it's hardly surprising that no official records mentioning him have survived, and that nobody not already invested in his cult who was rich enough to have a scribe bothered to mention him.

The argument that someone had to start it just doesn't hold up. Lots of ancient movements have untraceable starts, and, as I mentioned earlier, once you get past thinking of the Gospels as history, one does not have to assign the traditional dates to the beginning of Christianity, but can imagine things like it percolating for centuries.

And that makes a far bigger problem of the sources than does accepting something like the traditional date. You rule out Jesus having a ministry in the 20s/30s AD because of lack of sources, but then argue that there was a religious movement 'percolating for centuries' which left no sources at all until the first century? Why? And why did its followers in the first century bother to situate its imaginary leader within such recent history (the Gospels pin his life down to rulers, after all) rather than in the deep lost past?

As I was trying to get at above, the absence of sources in ancient history means that we can indulge in all sorts of speculation without fear of absolute contradiction. But I don't see how your story is any more plausible than the accepted version, that a charismatic rabbi who lived in Palestine was crucified by the Romans and his followers started a new sect.

 

[Frank Merton]

They have far more than Jesus does. The NT is all Jesus has, and it dates from at least 50 years after the fact. (The earliest Mss date from much later).

 

[Craig B]

@sleepy lioness

I agree entirely with your

And that makes a far bigger problem of the sources than does accepting something like the traditional date. You rule out Jesus having a ministry in the 20s/30s AD because of lack of sources, but then argue that there was a religious movement 'percolating for centuries' which left no sources at all until the first century? Why? And why did its followers in the first century bother to situate its imaginary leader within such recent history (the Gospels pin his life down to rulers, after all) rather than in the deep lost past?

and it is why I'm not a mythicist, though I realise how sparse the evidence for Jesus is.

 

[eir_de_scania]

We know, however, that there were several doomsday preachers with small followings in Israel at the time "our" Jesus is supposed to have lived. None of them wrote anything down, either, nor their followers. So we shouldn't expect an eventual True Jesus to write anything down.

 

[bruto]

Sleepy Lioness, I agree that Jesus, if there was one, was Jewish. He certainly claims to have been, and there were plenty of people around the region at the time plying his trade or a similar one. Why wouldn't he have been? One of the influences on my early religious education was a huge and fairly scholarly (for its time) annotated Bible from the 19th century, called, as I recall, Scott's Bible. Mr. Scott took great pains to point out how much of such things as the Sermon on the Mount borrowed from standard Jewish texts, rhetorical style, and so forth, and how cleverly the parables take old Jewish parables and stand them just slightly on their ear, making for recognition before the punch line. The Lord's Prayer, he points out, is also a pastiche of parts of standard Jewish prayers, instantly recognizable and comfortable to a contemporary Jew. Mr. Scott was quite proud of his scholarship, providing Hebrew examples and parallels, and much of it I've seen amplified by later scholars. I may be mistaken, but I think the later Interpreter's Bible may even have used some of his material. Of course it doesn't really tell us much about whether Jesus was the single figure now presumed, but it does tell us a little about what he was supposed to have been.

 

[Blue Mountain]

As to whether or not Jesus was literate, the gospel of Luke records he could read. In chapter 4, Jesus goes into the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath day "as was his custom,"

¹⁶And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written

¹The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor ... (passage continues for a few more lines)

²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

I have no idea how common literacy was among Jews of the day, so I don't know if the story is plausible or far-fetched.

 

[fuelair]

Why didn't Jesus write anything down?



Well, right bleedin' lazy werent he!!!*








*just out from the Page 3 thread........

 

[HansMustermann]

Literacy in Palestine IIRC was something like 2-3%, and even those were mostly in the cities. In the larger rural area, virtually everyone would be illiterate.

Still exceptions would exist, and you'd think the incarnation of an omniscient God would know the letters too

 

[HansMustermann]

@lioness:
Actually, how would they come up with a Jesus -- actually a Joshua, a second instance of the Joshua who conquered the promised land for them -- and why exactly then is not all that mysterious.

They had prophecies running amok with when God will finally get off his ass and put them on top, like he promised. And deadlines came and went and nothing happened, and had to be re-explained as really meaning next year. They had the forgery that was Daniel, just to re-date an earlier failed prophecy, and increasingly bizarre reinterpretations of that too, like actually meaning "weeks of years", just so it ain't failed yet.

Sorta like the nutcases awaiting the end of the world nowadays, really.

However, it was getting to a point where it was hard to post-date it any more. There were promises made by God, like that he'd only put descendants of David on the throne, which technically had even failed when Herod took the throne, but you could kinda rationalize it still somehow as still being the throne of David, but had utterly failed when a Roman governor took command.

The idea that someone would reinterpret their pet woowoo as having already happened, not only is not far fetched, but it happens even nowadays. E.g., the woowooists that first insisted that 12/21 will mean the destruction of Earth, now are already backpedalling into it just meaning some spiritual awakening. Mark my words, next week you'll see a lot of people insisting that it did happen.

The Jewish doomsday was a lot easier to fudge in that aspect than our rapture and apocalypse, since it just had to start with the coming of a messiah. So, you know, it's not possible for Camping to insist that God destroyed the world already at the date he gave, but for a 1st century nutcase the idea that the messiah came would be a lot more manageable.

Paul isn't even the only one who comes up with some lateral thinking solution to it. Josephus for example manages to find his messiah in a Roman general and future Emperor. (Which is really the only reason we now read his history books instead of his being crucified on the spot as a rebel.)

Of course, something had to give. You couldn't have a messiah that came and conquered everyone for the Jews, because clearly that hadn't happened. But some creative thinking could still get you one that marked the start of the messianic age anyway.

Which also answers your objection for why not a more ancient one. Because it had to mark the beginning of the end. It's no coincidence that Paul and the early Christians were awaiting an imminent apocalypse. That's what that messiah was marking: the beginning of that. Soon the dead would be awakened and all sorts of other woowoo would follow. You can fudge an apocalypse which started falling into place a decade or two ago, but it kinda loses that 'imminent' edge when it's an apocalypse that started a millenium ago

 

[HansMustermann]

I mean, heck, we know from Epiphanius of Salamis that there was even a sect that worshipped Herod as the messiah. Presumably precisely to get around the problem with God's failed promise. The only time when God could break his word about that was when the messiah had come, so if Herod was the messiah, see, no problem.

But really, even Epiphanius mentions several sects around that time who tried to figure out a way for the messiah to have come already. And Josephus mentions at least three guys who were obviously trying to symbolically enact stuff that the first Joshua had done. Plus, again, he himself manages to find such a rationalization that the messiah had come.

Whatever you want to believe as a background for that, it's clearly a time when people ARE making up weird rationalizations about the messiah having already come. Why would Jesus be any different?

 

[Craig B]

I mean, heck, we know from Epiphanius of Salamis that there was even a sect that worshipped Herod as the messiah. Presumably precisely to get around the problem with God's failed promise. The only time when God could break his word about that was when the messiah had come, so if Herod was the messiah, see, no problem.

No problem, because Herod existed, and was their contemporary.

But really, even Epiphanius mentions several sects around that time who tried to figure out a way for the messiah to have come already. And Josephus mentions at least three guys who were obviously trying to symbolically enact stuff that the first Joshua had done. Plus, again, he himself manages to find such a rationalization that the messiah had come.

If you mean Judas of Galilee, "the Egyptian" and Theudas, it may be accepted that these individuals existed. Josephus' favourite messiah candidate most assuredly existed. He was Vespasian, Emperor of Rome.

Whatever you want to believe as a background for that, it's clearly a time when people ARE making up weird rationalizations about the messiah having already come. Why would Jesus be any different?

He wouldn't be any different - on condition that, like these others, he physically existed in recent times.

 

[HansMustermann]

I don't see how it follows that if those existed, so did Paul's. More importantly for the question of HJ, I don't see how it follows that even if _A_ guy existed that Paul based his stuff on, you'd know if any details of him can be found in the gospels, and which those are. The gospel writers are on the other side of the information black hole that is Paul.

I mean was he a teacher? A bandit who attacked the temple? Some slave that ran away and played messiah? (And who would be most certainly crucified, regardless of what he preached.) Or what?

What did he preach? Was he a progressive rabbi (i.e., pharisee) even though all his conflicts are with pharisees? An ultra-conservative old school Sadducee? An Essene? Or what? The gospels make such a hash of what he says at different times, that he could be any of those and then some.

Do you even know that his given name was actually Jesus, or was he given the name for being expected to be the second Joshua? After all, in our time Ras Tafari was believed to be the second Jesus without actually having the name Jesus from his parents. I fail to see why couldn't it work the same with the second Joshua.

I mean the amount of stuff about him that may well be symbolic about him is staggering.

It's kinda like watching a Daffy Duck cartoon from the 40's these days. You hear him going, "Was this trip necessary?", but might not get what that actually references. Except with Jesus we have 2000 years in between, not 60 years.

To give you an example of how deep this might or might not run for Jesus, consider this: when Herod came to power, he was pretty thorough in replacing the Maccabees, i.e., the Hasmonean dynasty, but still took a wife from their ranks, presumably as a way to solidify his claim to power. Except this wife was not very faithful and eventually not only got herself executed for adultery, but Herod actually also eventually executed his two sons with her. (Though in their case, also because they were ridiculously more popular with the populace than he was, partly also because they were seen by many as true successors of the old dynasty, which Herod himself wasn't. In fact, apparently a lot of people were longing for the day when they'd finally have one of those two on the throne.) The name of that wife? Mary. (Miriam in Hebrew.) The name of her lover? Joseph.

Hmm... So we have someone of the true line of David, conceived by a Mary, his father was Joseph, and Herod tried to kill them. Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

Incidentally, when they are killed, it is... with the complicity of the Romans. Except it wasn't a Pilate who washed his hands of it, but Augustus who sent the matter back to Herod, somewhat paralleling the weird episode in Luke. Ultimately there was a court of both Roman officials (Herod was still bent on being the Romans' faithful toadie) and Herod's favourites which demanded nothing short of their death, although everyone else thought them innocent.

Of course, I can't prove that there was some rumour of one of the kids still being alive in Egypt, or that that's what mutated into a part of the Jesus myth. But it's that kind of coincidence that makes me just wonder. Did it really come from Jesus, or from those who expected Alexander son of Herod to be their rightful king? We'll never know.

 

[Cainkane1]

If there is any truth in scriptures Jesus was literate because once while in a synagog the Rabbis were amazed at how intelligent he was. He became a rabbi himself later in life and if he existed I imagine he did write things down.

Its my guess Jesus did exist but only as a human being. His writings may have been destroyed when he was arrested or they may exist in some jar hidden somewhere.

 

[Craig B]

I don't see how it follows that if those existed, so did Paul's.

That's true. But I was addressing your

Whatever you want to believe as a background for that, it's clearly a time when people ARE making up weird rationalizations about the messiah having already come. Why would Jesus be any different?

My point is that Jesus would be different, in answer to your question. The others were real people imagined to be the Messiah by their followers, just as Akiba acknowledged Bar Kochba as messiah in later years. What is attributed to Paul by some mythicists is different. That is, that Paul did not believe that Jesus had ever existed on earth, but purely within some spiritual dimension, that he was not put to death by human beings, but by malign spiritual forces or entities, and so on. These beliefs attributed to Paul (which I do not believe he held, as it happens) would make Paul's messianic ideas vastly different from these entertained by whoever might have thought Theudas or Bar Kochba, let alone Herod or Vespasian, was the Messiah.

 

[Brown]

As we discussed in a previous thread, many of the writings of Jesus have survived. Subjects discussed in those writings include: turning water into wine, the raising of Lazarus, walking on water and the Sermon on the Mount.

But those writings are apocryphal.

 

[BStrong]

He had people for that.

 

[tsig]

None of his disciples thought it worth writing anything down either. It was only when it became painfully obvious that Jesus' prediction of the end of the world in their lifetime wasn't going to happen that his followers finally realised that it might be a good idea to write his teachings down before all those who'd heard them were dead.

Jesus wrote his name in Love on the human heart.

 

[HansMustermann]

That's true. But I was addressing your My point is that Jesus would be different, in answer to your question. The others were real people imagined to be the Messiah by their followers, just as Akiba acknowledged Bar Kochba as messiah in later years. What is attributed to Paul by some mythicists is different. That is, that Paul did not believe that Jesus had ever existed on earth, but purely within some spiritual dimension, that he was not put to death by human beings, but by malign spiritual forces or entities, and so on. These beliefs attributed to Paul (which I do not believe he held, as it happens) would make Paul's messianic ideas vastly different from these entertained by whoever might have thought Theudas or Bar Kochba, let alone Herod or Vespasian, was the Messiah.

It depends on what flavour of mythicism you're addressing, actually. Currently, yes, the most aggressive and vocal variant is that Jesus was for Paul an entirely celestial beings that never existed on Earth, etc. Now I cannot dismiss that, mind you, but I'm more in the camp of the original meaning of MJ, which probably nowadays would be more recognizably called the Legendary Jesus: a guy may (or may not) have existed at the origin of it all, but we don't have much information about that guy, if any, and the image painted about him in the gospels is (likely) made up BS that, by sheer chance alone, doesn't bear much resemblance to what the original may (or may not) have been like.

I'm willing to allow for the possibility that Paul's psychosis may have been triggered by _A_ guy, but that's it, we don't know who. I have no problem with that. If someone wants to take that position, be my guest.

What I'm not allowing for is that you know what that guy was like. The moment someone proceeds from bare existence of some guy, to somehow knowing that he was a rabbi, he had disciples, he had views like those in the gospels, etc, then I want to know how the fork do you know that.

No, seriously, it not being impossible or even unknown is not a reason. It's in fact, the argument from ignorance, by any other name. Taking a specific flavour of Jesus as real just because it can't be disproven, is a textbook case of that.

Or to further illustrate the point, I submit:

1. Was Lovecraft's mom the historical Mad Arab Abdul Al Hazred? We know she was insane and we know the name is based on her maiden name. But she didn't live in the the 8'th century, didn't write a book about Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu, didn't die in mysterious circumstances in Damascus, etc. Does she count as the historical Abdul Al Hazred?

If you can say "yes" with a straight face, then, yes, you can have a Historical Jesus which is only supportably about that historical.

If you can only say "no", then no. A Jesus which bears no resemblance to the NT demi-god and is connected just by being the likely different guy that triggered Paul's psychotic episodes is for me most definitely not qualifying as a HJ.

2. As my favourite Radio Yerevan joke... err... parable of Ivan's car goes:

Q: Is it true that comrade Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov from Kiew won a car in the state lottery?
A: It's perfectly true, except for two minor details. First, it wasn't a car, it was a bicycle. Second, he didn't win it in the state lottery, it was stolen from him.​

Would you say the two are the same event?

If yes, then yes, you can have a Historical Jesus about which supportably the NT may bear about as much resemblance. If no, then no, a Jesus whose every detail was made up later, is not the same Jesus as whatever guy was possibly nailed in the 1st century.

The whole joke there, and why it's (at least for some of us) funny is that it asserts an identity where clearly they're not even remotely the same thing. Every single element that would identify it as event X, is actually not even remotely the same as what X is all about. If you can say that the two are the same by being connected by just "it happened", then you can have your HJ, but don't be surprised if I'll put my finger at the side of my head and make the sign of turning a screw

3. Jack has been known to use a bunch of red lighters. In fact, he has a drawer full of them. Jill is seen using a red lighter at the smoking place to light her cigarette. Would you form any degree of certitude that Jill stole it from Jack?

If yes, well, there's probably not much reason to discuss this any further. If no, then, well, that's about the same fallacy as assuming that just because a bunch of Messiah pretenders existed in Judaea, then Paul got his from one of those. No, literally, it's an identical kind of assumption. It's kind of like a "by association" fallacy, except more fundamentally broken, since instead of an "all X are/have/do Y" it only relies on a "SOME X are/have/do Y".

 

[Delvo]

I have no idea how common literacy was among Jews of the day, so I don't know if the story is plausible or far-fetched.

He's supposed to have been a rabbi, so the relevant question is not the literacy rate among Jews, but the literacy rate among rabbis. And that must have been 100% because it's a job requirement.

These beliefs attributed to Paul (which I do not believe he held, as it happens) would make Paul's messianic ideas vastly different from these entertained by whoever might have thought Theudas or Bar Kochba, let alone Herod or Vespasian, was the Messiah.

Calling Jesus a Messiah at all is already different from the standard idea of a Messiah back then. That was supposed to be more of a warrior-king who would kick out the Romans and rule Israel independently. Are these others you're talking about messiahs, or sacrificial saviors? Or did they also merge the two concepts like what happened in Jesus's case, getting the "Messiah" label attached to a story that's really sacrificial savior story?

And Paul's not writing for future generations, either. He's writing for living people he has recruited, but can't visit in person right at that moment.

That's an important thing to keep in mind. If writing was to communicate across distance rather than time (because travel was more troublesome then than it is now), then that affects what reasons someone like Jesus would or wouldn't have had to write messages. A growing thing like the Christian church/movement of that time starts off smaller at first than it ends up later, so the original leader wouldn't have had satellite offices to write to like a successor or successor's successor would.

If you want to fake something, then why not fake the most impressive thing possible? Well, what was faked was disciples' testimony. This suggests that this was what the market expected of a teacher, a work by his students, not a work by the principal.

I think that is correct psychology, too. A king without a court is a pathetic figure. A hobo with a court is one impressive hobo. A teacher without students isn't a teacher at all.

Common acceptance or expectation of getting writings from the teacher's original students, instead of directly from the teacher, would make it sensible for an inventor of a new cult to invent a predecessor to claim to be a follower of.