It is not a matter of fact or fiction but fact and legend. Jesus was a historical figure, and much that he said and some that he did we can reconstruct with as much probability as anything from ancient history. But some of it is clearly legendary. However, the same is true for Augustus Caesar, who was said to be a son of God, or any number of other ancient figures.
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Flavius Josephus About Jesus?
- Thread starter Ben Masada
- Start date
It is not a matter of fact or fiction but fact and legend. Jesus was a historical figure, and much that he said and some that he did we can reconstruct with as much probability as anything from ancient history. But some of it is clearly legendary. However, the same is true for Augustus Caesar, who was said to be a son of God, or any number of other ancient figures.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
See, for me I'm not if any of that matters. Christians paint a different picture of their christ. They appear to hype him up WAY more than what historians do. Let's say, for the sake of argument, Yeshua of the bible is historical....SO WHAT?.....He is so small and isgnificant that he really didn't turn the heads of his contemporaries. IF, he was a real person, then he was no more than a person, who now, is the one respospnsble for a small cult that sprang forth out of Judaism and paganism. Take away all the esoteric god/man claims of the gospels and he's not that big of a person. He's depicted as drawing crowds of people and speaking openly in various places and yet.....philosophers and other story tellers of his day knew nothing of him.
logician
Well-Known Member
I agere in principle, that it really doesn't make that much difference if a real "Jesus" existed or not, however, most Christians do NOT share this sentiment.
Again indicative of a lack of knowledge for our textual record. Jesus, a nobody from the "hick" town of nazareth, has more written about him within a few years than many emperors, let alone most of the elite of greece and rome.
logician
Well-Known Member
Which leads to one of 2 conclusions, he was insignificant in history, or NONEXISTANT in history. Either way, the Xian cult could have been created.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
So Mark's story had to be true because everyone was a (cough) skeptic and certainly would have bothered to take the time and risked the travel to check the facts before converting to Christianity. Unfortunately we don't have a record of anyone checking the facts and converting to Christianity in the first century, so we don't have a case for that. According to 1Corinthian 2, skeptics can't see the truth because their methods blind them, so where does that leave us? Perhaps skepticism was not a requirement, but rather a hindrance for the acceptance of these gospels. Those that believed in myth and magic were most likely the ones that converted to Christianity. It sounds like people haven't changed much at all in two thousand years regardless of how superior our methods are today for researching the facts.
logician
Well-Known Member
Let's face it, nobody likes to think they've been scammed. That's one way religions keep believers, people would prefer to believe in a myth they've been taught since childhood, than believe they've been flimflammed. I know, it happened to me.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Me too. We have to admit, people rarely check the facts which is why urban myths permeate societies all around the world.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
What "textual record".......Paul's.....
What Nazareth are you talking about...?
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dogsgod
Well-Known Member
You're joking. You cannot be seriously comparing the known history of Augustus to that of Jesus Christ. Wait a minute, you no doubt are serious.
What "textual record".......Paul's.....
You missed the point. You stated Jesus just have been insifignificant because there is so little written about him by non christians. What you fail to understand it that few people have as much written about them and as early as Jesus. I have already given numerous examples of people who, like Jesus, were quite influential, but are hardly mentioned anyway. We know both from the gospels and Josephus that John the Baptist attracted a large following, but no one else mentions him. Our primary source for the emperor Augustus (who, by the way, also was said to be a son of a god, despite being a real person. Many of the people we know from ancient texts we know from a reference here or there or from a section in a single work of history.
So, given that more was written about Jesus within a lifetime or so of his mission, that means he was incredibly influential.
The nazareth of Jesus, currently being excavated.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
Don't put too much stock in the excavation. So far there isn't much there....
1. We know both from the NT and from early christian writings that the early christian communities DID travel and communicate. In fact, this is how the gospels survived. Not only did missionaries travel to various communities, but texts as well. If the early christians did believe their "godman" to be a historical person, no one would have botherd with Mark, or any of the other gospels.
2. In the earliest layers of the community while Mark and Luke were both around, Jerusalem was the center of christianity. Jesus could hardly have gone unnoticed if he really taught, attracted followers, and was crucified. If no one knew him, than Mark would be rejected as bad literature, especially by early chrisitians who, in your view, never believed in a historical Jesus.
3. We know from various sources (Paul, Luke, Polycarp, Papias, etc) that christians did indeed "bother to travel and check facts."
4. There were plenty of skeptics. Paul, a contemporary of Jesus, was one of them, and they were still around when the gospels were being transmitted. And these skeptics (initially Jews but very soon roman authorities as well) could easily have said "this guy was never around." People did travel between communities, and the head church was (orginally) in the very place Jesus died. It's not like we are talking about large place where I guy like Jesus could be missed by competing Jews. The fact that only one wrote about him only means that he wasn't considered important enough to unbelievers to write about.
Actually, we do. Luke explicitly discussess learning from eyewitnesses, the author of John from a disciple of Jesus, Papias from various disciples, and so forth.
As for "checking the facts" ancient histrians from Herodotus to Josephus did this either by writing about personal experience or by interviewing people who were there at the time.
With you misinterpreting 1 Cor. 2. Paul doesn't say anything like what you state above.
Plenty of the most superstition cultic followers of gods did not convert. And again you miss the fact that, even if everyone was superstitious, the reason they joined cults was because the existence of dionysus or whoever could not be verified. If a bunch of people in Jerusalem and galilee and places nearby are proclaiming what their founder taught and did, and his miracles and resurrection, too many people were around who could have said it never happened. Many rejected him as the messiah, rejected the story of his resurrection, but never his existance.
True enough. Because people like you don't actually utilize our superior methods of research.
Yes, I know you read the Jesus mysteries. I also read through your thread where you trolled around the internet looking for lists of comparisons of other myths to Jesus. Only as it turned out, virtually everything you wrote was inaccurate.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
logician, it's little gems like that that make us go
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dogsgod
Well-Known Member
People did not travel much, that's why itinerant preachers went from town to town. These days a preacher will go to a big city and the people from around the countryside will flock to that center in order to be fleeced.
Perhaps Mark was initially rejected by most people.
Paul saw God in a vision and that was that, that's what convinced him, he had no facts to check. Followers had to take Paul's word for the fact that he communicated through revelations, visions, and ancient scripture, otherwise no facts necessary.
We have no record of a skeptic converting to Christianity in the 1st century, and none since for that matter. Skeptics have never been the target audience, only believers in myth and magic need apply.
Perhaps Mark was initially rejected by most people.
Paul saw God in a vision and that was that, that's what convinced him, he had no facts to check. Followers had to take Paul's word for the fact that he communicated through revelations, visions, and ancient scripture, otherwise no facts necessary.
We have no record of a skeptic converting to Christianity in the 1st century, and none since for that matter. Skeptics have never been the target audience, only believers in myth and magic need apply.
logician
Well-Known Member
YOu can tell just from the wording that the "research" by most "scholars" into the historicity of the supposed Jesus is unsicentific, because going in the assumption is that 'he existed", and they go from there, not "we don't know" and then proceed. This puts bias inthe whole effort, making it a pointless facade.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
Well, after wading through the steep piles of dung that we know as the four gospels Yeshua comes across as a nobody. Just another one of the many Jesus' voicing their opinion back in the day.
1. You haven't read any of the research, so you have no idea what you are talking about.
2. History isn't science, and therefore can't be either scientific or unscientific.
3. They do not go in with that assumption at all, as you would know if you were even a little acquainted with scholarship on this topic. The question of whether Jesus even existed was asked over 200 years ago, and even recent works of scholarship (as in Dunn's 1st volume of Christianity in the Making released in 2003) begin with answering whether we have enough data to answer this question.