How large was Jesus following while alive?

[outhouse]

He didn't travel around has much as people like to think. He had a routine, he more like a circuit preacher than a wandering itinerant preacher

I dont think that statement has any historcity.

One thing historically he is known for is in fact being a traveling teacher.


he had a message that needed to get out, preaching to the same people does not accomplish that.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

where might this home base have been? it seems he may have worn out his welcome in his home town.

Capernaum.

 

[outhouse]

Capernaum.

If we follow biblical jesus he taught/preached there, and healed there, and it was home to his core followers.

guessing how often he stayed there, or returned there is another thing all together.



if you have more information on this, i'd love it

 

[angellous_evangellous]

we have a traveling healer/teacher of judaism who preached for 1 to 3 years.

We know he possibly ended up with 12 followers who relied on the kindness of others to survive.

he may have not visited to many places twice, he was not the only teacher let alone the only traveling teacher.

#1 How large could his following be as he headed to the temple on his last passover?


he left a legacy still followed strongly today from a movement he started. Yet while he was alive not one historian or scholar scribed a single word about him, which was normal for many historical charactors and combine that with a very high illiteracy rate.

Most everything we know is based on oral tradition, id like to think he didnt have a huge following while alive since he traveled with 12 and even his home town wanted to throw him off a cliff.

#2 Did he need a large following to start a movement that changed the world???

I'll address point #2 because it's a lot easier. Christianity did not change "the world" instantly. And there are very large parts of the world that have minimal or no Christian influence in their history. Your worldview is shaped by your understanding of Western history, in which the Roman Catholic church has had tremendous influence. But that sphere of influence does not spread much out of Europe (and its Empires) and the Americas - leaving much of the East, Middle East, and the Far East untouched. That's a whole lot of people and a whole lot of land that was not impacted by the Inquisitions, the Reformation, and the religious wars of Europe.

That being said, the Church only had impressive power for about 500+ years (from about 900 to 1500). Before that, there were churches all over the world, but the world was not changed.

I don't think that the early church (Paul's lifetime) ever topped 500 - and that's a very high figure. For some reason, it seems like there was an unusually high number of Christians in Rome in the Jewish Quarter.

 

[outhouse]

I'll address point #2 because it's a lot easier. Christianity did not change "the world" instantly. And there are very large parts of the world that have minimal or no Christian influence in their history. Your worldview is shaped by your understanding of Western history, in which the Roman Catholic church has had tremendous influence. But that sphere of influence does not spread much out of Europe (and its Empires) and the Americas - leaving much of the East, Middle East, and the Far East untouched. That's a whole lot of people and a whole lot of land that was not impacted by the Inquisitions, the Reformation, and the religious wars of Europe.

That being said, the Church only had impressive power for about 500+ years (from about 900 to 1500). Before that, there were churches all over the world, but the world was not changed.

.

this I understand whole hearted.


when I say he changed the world, I speak generally that he is responsible for the most popular religion in the world today.

I don't think that the early church (Paul's lifetime) ever topped 500 - and that's a very high figure. For some reason, it seems like there was an unusually high number of Christians in Rome in the Jewish Quarter

Wow! that is not many at all. I expected numbers quite a bit higher then that, but no where near biblical numbers.

 

[cablescavenger]

Maybe he existed but he wasn't the son of god but just another crazy cult leader like David Koresh

Possibly - who knows?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

I dont think that statement has any historcity.

One thing historically he is known for is in fact being a traveling teacher.


he had a message that needed to get out, preaching to the same people does not accomplish that.

Well that's what the sources we have tell us. His base was Capernaum and his circuit was the region of Galilee

 

[outhouse]

Well that's what the sources we have tell us. His base was Capernaum and his circuit was the region of Galilee

undrstood

and how much of that can be used historically is still debated heavily.


I was re-reading mark and trying to figure out how much historical jesus can be placed there. All im getting is a very vague view after the first 4 pages in which look to be biblical jesus and have very little to do with historical jesus.

its not as easy as stripping away possible mythical content and then stating the rest is historical.


best I can place is that "yes" he probably spent some time there. quanitity and quality so to speak is unknown

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

if you have more information on this, i'd love it

"Capernaum, rather than Nazareth, became the centre of Jesus' activity, owing to the hospitality and the following he enjoined there. Two pairs of brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John, stand out as leaders -- and leading supporters, from their family holdings in Capernaum -- of Jesus' movement at this stage, from around AD 24 (Matt 4.18-22; Mark 1.16-20). They commanded sufficient resourced to be able to support Jesus as well as their own families, and yet kept a sufficient distance from the economic system of the Roman estates so as to enable Jesus to persist in his criticism of unjust mammon, as he said in Aramaic (Luke 16.1=9)...Indeed, journeys outward from Capernaum were to some extent undertaken, the synoptic gospels indicate, to avoid the crush of sympathisers (Mark 1.35-38; Luke 4.42-43).

p. 78 in the essay by Bruce Chilton "Friends and Enemies" from the edited volume Companion to Jesus (Cambridge university press, 2001).

 

[CynthiaCypher]

undrstood

and how much of that can be used historically is still debated heavily.


I was re-reading mark and trying to figure out how much historical jesus can be placed there. All im getting is a very vague view after the first 4 pages in which look to be biblical jesus and have very little to do with historical jesus.

its not as easy as stripping away possible mythical content and then stating the rest is historical.


best I can place is that "yes" he probably spent some time there. quanitity and quality so to speak is unknown

I think Mark is the easiest gospel in which you can strip away the mythical content.That's why most scholar's give it primacy after Q

 

[CynthiaCypher]

"Capernaum, rather than Nazareth, became the centre of Jesus' activity, owing to the hospitality and the following he enjoined there. Two pairs of brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John, stand out as leaders -- and leading supporters, from their family holdings in Capernaum -- of Jesus' movement at this stage, from around AD 24 (Matt 4.18-22; Mark 1.16-20). They commanded sufficient resourced to be able to support Jesus as well as their own families, and yet kept a sufficient distance from the economic system of the Roman estates so as to enable Jesus to persist in his criticism of unjust mammon, as he said in Aramaic (Luke 16.1=9)...Indeed, journeys outward from Capernaum were to some extent undertaken, the synoptic gospels indicate, to avoid the crush of sympathisers (Mark 1.35-38; Luke 4.42-43).

p. 78 in the essay by Bruce Chilton "Friends and Enemies" from the edited volume Companion to Jesus (Cambridge university press, 2001).

And so his circuit was around Capernaum like I said

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I think Mark is the easiest gospel in which you can strip away the mythical content.That's why most scholar's give it primacy after Q

As Strauss showed all the way back in 1835 in Das Leben Jesu you can't strip away the "mythical content." An excursus in Meier's second volume Marginal Jew addresses the issue of miracles rather nicely. Morton Smith and J.D. Crossan were particularly adamant about stressing Jesus as a magician. There is a difference between a historical miracle and an actual miracle. In other words, it's perfectly plausible that people saw Jesus do things they interpreted as miraculous. He's hardly alone here.

Also, I spent a while as an undergrad on the oral-formulaic nature of Homer. Recently (within the past two years) I've become more and more disabused of my thoughts on how one ought to treat the gospels in terms of "stripping away" anything. I'm not sure where I stand now, but the literature seems to run the gamut from Kelber's application of the Homeric model to Gerhardsson's fixed, formal transmission (both of which I find unrealistic).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

And so his circuit was around Capernaum like I said

Yes, I agree with you. I was responding to Outhouse.

 

[outhouse]

I think Mark is the easiest gospel in which you can strip away the mythical content.That's why most scholar's give it primacy after Q

at the same time, it speaks of way to many details unknown to the author

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Morton Smith and J.D. Crossan were particularly adamant about stressing Jesus as a magician. There is a difference between a historical miracle and an actual miracle. In other words, it's perfectly plausible that people saw Jesus do things they interpreted as miraculous. He's hardly alone here.

I believe that Jesus was a master of the power of suggestion just as many other cult leaders were and are. He made his followers believe a miracle happened, he made them see it as a divine occurence

 

[outhouse]

I believe that Jesus was a master of the power of suggestion just as many other cult leaders were and are. He made his followers believe a miracle happened, he made them see it as a divine occurence

Not only that, every person he would have healed, having skills in this field, would have all been greatly exaggerated building a deity.


there is really no need for power of suggestion

 

[cablescavenger]

Theres no reason why a poor man, a traveling teacher of judaism who spoke in parables and metaphors who didnt like being financially oppressed by roman's

In a time when illiteracy was atrocious.


when we strip away biblical jesus from historical jesus, they are two different people.

maybe a question you should ask is did jesus make himself famous, or did the writers?

I grant you that literacy would have been an issue, 1/10 were literate. Jesus is supposed to have crossed the path of Priests, Sanhedrin, Romans, Centurions, Egyptians; many who would have been literate or had scribes, yet to date not one single first hand account has been found.

The historical Jesus is not first hand. The biblical Jesus is not first hand, and the corruptions make establishing a true Jesus virtually impossible.

In much the same way I do not believe in God, I find it very difficult to say that the evidence for Jesus is any more convincing.

 

[cablescavenger]

And what is your basis for comparison? How many important people (leaders, generals, wandering preachers, magicians/mystics (like Pythagoras), etc.) do we have as much information so close to the time the individual lived?

So near, yet so far......

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I believe that Jesus was a master of the power of suggestion just as many other cult leaders were and are. He made his followers believe a miracle happened, he made them see it as a divine occurence

That's one possibility. I'm inclined to believe that a lot of the casting out of spirits and healings were placebo effects that became exaggerated.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So near, yet so far......

Funny. I think the same thing when I hear "we have no good evidence that Jesus existed." Except the "so near" part. Someone in another thread posted an interesting clip where the agnostic scholar Ehrman responds to this view stating we have more evidence for Jesus than for almost any of his contemporaries and that he doesn't know of any serious historian who doubts the that Jesus was a historical person. Angellous may correct me here (early christian studies is his area of expertise), but I haven't come across any academic publication by any historian asserting Jesus didn't exist. Lot's of blogs and sensationalist books, but nothing published in the forums (not online, I mean, for example, journals) used by specialists.