What's the difference whether jesus existed or not? If he did, it doesn't prove the theology. I don't think anyone is making any headway in this discussion. But we all seem to agree that a lot of his character is myth. And I think thats all that matters, if he lived, it's not the way it was portrayed. And if it's not the way it was portrayed, can we trust any of the writings surrounding him?
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Is Jesus a Mythical Character?
- Thread starter roli
- Start date
What's the difference whether jesus existed or not? If he did, it doesn't prove the theology. I don't think anyone is making any headway in this discussion. But we all seem to agree that a lot of his character is myth. And I think thats all that matters, if he lived, it's not the way it was portrayed. And if it's not the way it was portrayed, can we trust any of the writings surrounding him?
Again demonstrating a lack of relevent knowledge of this time period. There WERE calendars. Philo's writings ARE religious texts, at least as much as the gospels are (you simply aren't as biased against them, because they don't represent a current religion you are biased against).
It matters in much the same way that all of history matters. Jesus was perhaps the most influential figure in history. It is extremely relevent and important to understand his mission and work. There will probably never be agreement on this, certainly not while there are still christians. As for trusting the writings, again I suggest you acquaint yourself with the type of ancient historical literature available to us. None of it is entirely "trustworthy," but that doesn't mean we should disregard any of it completely
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dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Philo was not writing a religious text when he wrote of Pilate.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doing honor to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city; which had no form nor any other forbidden thing represented on them except some necessary inscription, which mentioned these two facts, the name of the person who had placed them there, and the person in whose honor they were so placed there. (300) But when the multitude heard what had been done, and when the circumstance became notorious, then the people, putting forward the four sons of the king, who were in no respect inferior to the kings themselves, in fortune or in rank, and his other descendants, and those magistrates who were among them at the time, entreated him to alter and to rectify the innovation which he had committed in respect of the shields; and not to make any alteration in their national customs, which had hitherto been preserved without any interruption, without being in the least degree changed by any king of emperor. (301) But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honor of the emperor is not identical with dishonor to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. And if you yourself say that he is, show us either some command from him, or some letter, or something of the kind, that we, who have been sent to you as ambassadors, may cease to trouble you, and may address our supplications to your master.' (302) But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303) Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter to Tiberius. (304) And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves; (305) for immediately, without putting any thing off till the next day, he wrote a letter, reproaching and reviling him in the most bitter manner for his act of unprecedented audacity and wickedness, and commanding him immediately to take down the shields and to convey them away from the metropolis of Judaea to Caesarea, on the sea which had been named Caesarea Augusta, after his grandfather, in order that they might be set up in the temple of Augustus. And accordingly, they were set up in that edifice. And in this way he provided for two matters: both for the honor due to the emperor, and for the preservation of the ancient customs of the city.
- On the Embassy to Gaius; Philo
Is the difference not more clear than this between allegorical fiction such as the gospels and the historical writings above? The above is not presented as a story with a plot, it's simply a matter of fact outline of people and events.
- On the Embassy to Gaius; Philo
Is the difference not more clear than this between allegorical fiction such as the gospels and the historical writings above? The above is not presented as a story with a plot, it's simply a matter of fact outline of people and events.
He was still writing within the mindset with which he wrote more theological tracts. In short, if you can seperate his work into "historical" and "non-historical" you should be capable of doing the same with the NT. Only your bias prevents you from doing so.
From the same book of Philo:
XII. (86) All these beings, O Gaius! were admired on account of the benefits which they had conferred on mankind, and they are admired for them even up to the present time, and they were deservedly thought worthy of veneration and of the very highest honours. But come now, and tell us yourself in what achievement of yours do you pride yourself and boast yourself as being in the least similar to their actions? (87) Have you imitated the twin sons of Jupiter in their brotherly affection, that I may begin with that point? Did you not rather, O hard-hearted and most pitiless of men! inhumanly slaughter your brother, the joint inheritor of the kingdom with you, even before he had arrived at the full vigour of manhood, when he was still in early youth. Did you not afterwards banish your sisters, lest they also should cause you any reasonable apprehension of the deprivation and loss of your imperial power? (88) Have you imitated Bacchus in any respect? Have you been an inventor of any new blessings to mankind? Have you filled the whole of the habitable world with joy as he did? Are all Asia and Europe inadequate to contain the gifts which have been showered upon mankind by you? (89) No doubt you have invented new arts and sciences, like a common pest and murderer of your kind, by which you have changed all pleasant and acceptable things into vexation and sorrow, and have made life miserable and intolerable to all men everywhere, appropriating to yourself in your intolerable and insatiable greediness all the good and beautiful things which belonged to every one else, whether from the east or from any other country of the universe, carrying off everything from the south, everything from the north, and in requital giving to and pouring down upon those whom you had plundered every sort of mischievous and injurious things from your own bitter spirit, everything which is ever engendered in cruel, and destructive, and envenomed dispositions; these are the reasons why you appeared to us as a new Bacchus. (90) But I suppose you imitated Hercules in your unwearied labours and your incessant displays of valour and virtue; you, O most wretched of men! having filled every continent and every island with good laws, and principles of justice, and wealth, and comfort, and prosperity, and abundance of other blessings, you, wretched man, full of all cowardice and iniquity, who have emptied every city of all the things which can conduce to stability and prosperity, and have made them full of everything which leads to trouble and confusion, and the most utter misery and desolation. (91) Tell me then, O Gaius! do you, after having made all these contributions to universal destruction, do you, I say, seek to acquire immortality in order to make the calamities which you have heaped upon mankind, not of brief duration and short-lived, but imperishable and everlasting? But I think, on the contrary, that even if you had previously appeared to be a god, you would beyond all question have been changed on account of your evil practices into an ordinary nature, resembling that of common perishable mortals; for if virtues can make their possessors immortal, then beyond all doubt vices can make them mortal. (92) Do not, therefore, inscribe your name by the side of that of the twin sons of Jupiter, those most affectionate of deities, you who have been the murderer and destruction of your brethren, nor claim a share in the honours of Hercules or Bacchus, who have benefited human life. You have been the undoer and destroyer of those good effects which they produced. XIII. (93) But the madness and frenzy to which he gave way were so preposterous, and so utterly insane, that he went even beyond the demigods, and mounted up to and invaded the veneration and worship paid to those who are looked upon as greater than they, as the supreme deities of the world, Mercury, and Apollo, and Mars. (94) And first of all he dressed himself up with the caduceus, and sandals, and mantle of Mercury, exhibiting a regularity in his disorder, a consistency in his confusion, and a ratiocination in his insanity. (95) Afterwards, when he thought fit to do so, he laid aside these ornaments, and metamorphosed and transformed himself into Apollo, crowning his head with garlands, in the form of rays, and holding a bow and arrows in his left hand, and holding forth graces in his right, as if it became him to proffer blessings to all men from his ready store, and to display the best arrangement possible on his right hand, but to contract the punishments which he had it in his power to inflict, and to allot to them a more confined space on his left. (96) And immediately there were established choruses, who had been carefully trained, singing paeans to him, the same who had, a little while before, called him Bacchus, and Evius, and Lyaeus, and sang Bacchic hymns in his honour when he assumed the disguise of Bacchus. (97) Very often, also, he would clothe himself with a breastplate, and march forth sword in hand, with a helmet on his head and a shield on his left arm, calling himself Mars, and on each side of him there marched with him the attendants of this new and unknown Mars, a troop of murderers and executioners who had already performed him all kinds of wicked services when he was raging and thirsting for human blood; (98) and then when men saw this they were amazed and terrified at the marvellous sight, and they wondered how a man who did exactly the contrary to what was done by those beings to whom he claimed to be equal in honour, did not choose to imitate their virtues, but assumed the outward character of each with the most abominable conduct. And yet all those ornaments and decorations which belonged to them were attached to his statues and images, which indicated by symbols the benefits which the beings who are thus honoured confer upon the race of mankind. (99) Mercury, for instance, requires wings attached to his ankles. Why so? Is it not because it behoves him to be the interpreter and declarer of the will of the gods (from which employment, in fact, he derives his Greek name of Hermes{6}{i.e. from hermeµneuoµ, "to interpret."}), announcing good news to mankind (for not only no god but no sensible man ever will become the messenger of evil), and therefore it is necessary for him to be exceedingly swift-footed, and all but winged, from the unhesitating rapidity with which he requires the proceed. Since it is right that beneficial news should be announced with great promptness, just as bad news ought to be brought slowly, unless indeed any one should prefer saying that such ought to be entirely suppressed in silence. (100) Again, he takes with him his caduceus or herald's wand, as a token of reconciliation and peace, for wars receive their respites and terminations by means of heralds, who restore peace; and wars which have no heralds to terminate them cause endless calamities to both parties, both to those who invade their neighbours and to those who are endeavouring to repel the invasion. (101) But for what purpose did Gaius assume the winged sandals of Mercury? Was it because he wished to spread with power, and rapidity, and loudness that miserable and ill-omened intelligence which ought rather to be buried in silence altogether, conveying his voice everywhere with unceasing celerity? And yet what need had he of such rapid motion? for even while standing still he poured forth unspeakable evils upon evils as if from an unceasing fountain, showering them down upon every portion of the habitable world. (102) And of what use was the herald's wand to him, who never either said or did anything bearing upon peace, but who rather filled every house and every city within Greece and in the countries of the barbarians with civil wars? Let him, therefore, imposter that he is, lay aside the name of Mercury, since by assuming it he is only profaning an appellation which does not belong to him.
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dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Good point. The gospel of Mark portrays Peter, James and John as disciples and dim witted, wherein Paul's letters they are apostles and appear head strong and authoritative.
logician
Well-Known Member
For us, nothing, for Christian believers, it is essential, because they believe he is divine, i.e. the son of god. If he didn't exist, Christianity is a fraud.
Yes, but if he did exist, and everything surrounding his life is legend, christianity is still a fraud. Christianity relies on christ' divinity. If he's nothing more than an ordinary man, like the jews believe, christianity falls flat on it's face.
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Do cheap parlor tricks count as divine, such as turning water into wine at weddings, or does that just make him popular?
For most types of Christianity you would be correct. However, there are those who call themselves Christians who don't believe that Jesus ever existed (look at the theology of Paul Tillich)
well, I speaking for the most common view of Christianity.
Smoke
Done here.
If you don't care about history or trying to understand the past, then it doesn't matter at all. However, for people who care about history there is a legitimate interest that has nothing to do with truth or falsehood of Christianity. If your only interest in history is to prove or disprove Christianity, that's not really an interest in history at all.
"More theological" is the operative phrase. The Embassy to Gaius is indisputably a religious work.
oh I love history, but history filled with myth, becomes hard to differentiate between the myth and the truth.
Papias on the oral Jesus tradition passed on to him:
ouk okneso de soi kai hosa pote para ton presbuteron kalos emathon kai kalos emnemoneusa, sugkatataxai tai ermneneiais, diabebaioumenos hyper auton aletheian. ou gar tois ta polla legousin echairon hosper hoi polloi, alla tois talethe didaskousin, oudi tois tas allotrias, entolas mnemoneuousin, alla tois tas para tou kyriou te pistei didomenas kai ap' aoutes paraginomenas tes aletheias; ei de pou kai parakolouthekos tis tois presbuterious elthoi, tous ton presbuteron anekrinon logous, ti Andreas e ti Petros eipen e ti Philoppos e ti Thomas e Iakobos e ti Ioannes e Matthaios e tis heteros ton tou kyriou matheton a te Aristion kai ho prebuteros Ioannes, tou kyriou mathetai, legousin. ou gar ta ek ton biblion tosouton me ophelein hypelambanon hoson ta para zases phones kai menouses.
I will not hesitate to set down for you, along with my interpretations, everything I carefully learned from the elders and carefully rememberd, guarenteeing their truth. For unlike most people I did not enjoy those who have a great dea to say, but those who teach the truth. Nor did I enjoy those who recall someone els'es commandments, but those who remember the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the truth itself. And if by chance someone who had been a follower of the elders should com my was, I inquired about the words of the elders, [that is] what Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord's disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
As Papias tells us, the oral tradition of Jesus' teachings, along with stories from his mission (and of course, elements added to the tradition) were passed on by those who were closest to him.
True enough. But unfortunately for us, in the primarily oral culture in which Jesus lived, much was not written down, much that was is lost, and that which was written down, even if it was "history," was not history as we would call it today. So modern historians are forced to analyze all works of history, including the gospels, and try to determine what most likely took place.
ouk okneso de soi kai hosa pote para ton presbuteron kalos emathon kai kalos emnemoneusa, sugkatataxai tai ermneneiais, diabebaioumenos hyper auton aletheian. ou gar tois ta polla legousin echairon hosper hoi polloi, alla tois talethe didaskousin, oudi tois tas allotrias, entolas mnemoneuousin, alla tois tas para tou kyriou te pistei didomenas kai ap' aoutes paraginomenas tes aletheias; ei de pou kai parakolouthekos tis tois presbuterious elthoi, tous ton presbuteron anekrinon logous, ti Andreas e ti Petros eipen e ti Philoppos e ti Thomas e Iakobos e ti Ioannes e Matthaios e tis heteros ton tou kyriou matheton a te Aristion kai ho prebuteros Ioannes, tou kyriou mathetai, legousin. ou gar ta ek ton biblion tosouton me ophelein hypelambanon hoson ta para zases phones kai menouses.
I will not hesitate to set down for you, along with my interpretations, everything I carefully learned from the elders and carefully rememberd, guarenteeing their truth. For unlike most people I did not enjoy those who have a great dea to say, but those who teach the truth. Nor did I enjoy those who recall someone els'es commandments, but those who remember the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the truth itself. And if by chance someone who had been a follower of the elders should com my was, I inquired about the words of the elders, [that is] what Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord's disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
As Papias tells us, the oral tradition of Jesus' teachings, along with stories from his mission (and of course, elements added to the tradition) were passed on by those who were closest to him.
True enough. But unfortunately for us, in the primarily oral culture in which Jesus lived, much was not written down, much that was is lost, and that which was written down, even if it was "history," was not history as we would call it today. So modern historians are forced to analyze all works of history, including the gospels, and try to determine what most likely took place.
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Smoke
Done here.
Nobody said it was easy.
Im an Atheist
Biologist
I believe there was a man called, "Jesus", back 4000 years ago, or what ever the age was. I believe he went around and preeched about God and documented this in the book. Hence, "The Bible".
However, i believe that somewhere along the line something got carried away and stories started being over dramatic and miracles started happening,
For example, a virgin giving birth, curing some-one of blindess ETC
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Of what religion?
dogsgod
Well-Known Member
Yes by his own admission, Papias preferred hearsay to anything written.
"Eusebius calls Papias "a man of small mental capacity"[2] who mistook the figurative language of apostolic traditions.
There is question whether the documents which Papias knew as the Gospels of Matthew and Mark are the same ones that we have today: Matthew is a narrative, rather than a sayings gospel with commentary, and some scholars reject the thesis that it was originally written in Hebrew. If the issue for Papias about the Gospel of Mark involved it being presented as a chronology, that is a problem, as it is most certainly offered as chronological." wiki
So much for the efficacy of oral tradition as far as concerns Papias who lived during the second century.
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Once again you demonstrate a lack of relevent knowledge. Papias' statements on preferring living witnesses was common historical maxim and theory for his day.
And despite Eusebius' polemic, Papias was both well educated and in an excellent position to discuss transmission of the Jesus tradition.
However, he demonstrates that the tradition of Jesus was passed to him by no more than 2nd hand (i.e. disciples of the eyewitnesses). And he was writing in the 2nd century. The gospels are far earlier.
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