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Is the third quest for the historical Jesus dead?

lukethethird

unknown member
If so, will there be a fourth attempt to resurrect the historical Jesus?

I ask because I read Bart Ehrman's book, Did Jesus Exist, as well as the reviews.
 
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danieldemol

Veteran Member
Premium Member
No need for any quests. He is in the Bible.
When people refer to the ‘historical Jesus’ I think most people would understand that to mean the Jesus that is verifiable/aspects of Jesus life that are verifiable. Not the dogmatic Jesus as presented by the gospels.

So I think it would not be correct to say the historical Jesus is in the Bible since most of what is presented in the gospels is not verifiable.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
If so, will there be a fourth attempt to resurrect the historical Jesus?

I ask because I read Bart Ehrman's book, Did Jesus Exist, as well as the reviews.

The search for the 'historical Jesus' based archaeological, ancient texts, and any other direct evidence is running into the wall of diminishing returns, since the Middle East has been scoured many times in this search. They are left looking for scrapes.

I like Bart Ehrman and have most of his books.I live near UNC and have listened to him speak. I do not agree with everything he proposes concerning the historical Jesus, because like many historians there is a bit of conjecture in his view, but considering the evidence we have we do agree.

I believe the historical Jesus is a real person who lived at the time the NT describes. He was the son of a working class family,equivalent to the middle class today. and his father was a carpenter. He was apparently literate in Hebrew, Aramaic, maybe some Greek, possibly a Rabbi (?). He was first a part of a Messianic movement, maybe a follower of John the Baptist, claimed to be the promised Messiah, and the King of the Jews. He was arrested, tried, convicted of treason against Rome, and as a result he was executed by crucifixion.
 
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Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
An interesting collection is The Historical Jesus in Context. In her introduction, Amy-Jill Levine notes :

Understanding Jesus and the Gospels requires appreciation of Judaism and the Pagan world: their history, literature, ethics, and practices. For the first time, this volume presents these variegated sources, almost all in original translation. Some of the contents will prompt readers to a new view of the historical Jesus; perhaps what previously had been seen as authentic will come to be seen as derivative of a Pagan or Jewish model.Other readers will appreciate the cultural embeddedness of the Christian tradition, how it told its stories and conveyed its teachings in the idiom of the people. And still other readers will come to see how the teachings of and about Jesus would have sounded to those who first heard them, and perhaps, through that echo, come to a new understanding for themselves.​

Still, as far as I know, there is not even a hint of a breakthrough in HJ studies. and I seriously doubt that such a thing is even possible. We're destined to revisit to this topic again and again only to be met with one fringe quoting the KJV while the other babbles about Mithraism.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
Anyone would have to ask self, for what reason is Jesus being researched, when most of the detail is referenced to the sciences?

For humans do own living their owned life on planet Earth as humans and the only condition that is against life survival is the practices of occult/nuclear sciences itself.

Today humans in multi groups have formed their own teaching communities about phenomena causes in the witness of the UFO and what it did to their bodies.

How is that not common sense reasoned by humanity today as being the reason that documents of 2 histories of using occult/UFO nuclear science and what it does in the attack and sacrifice of human life, in reality?

If science is researching for Jesus, then all it is for humans in public life is a confession that they are considering doing it to us again in scientific techniques modelled and inferred to the Temple and pyramid sciences of the past as if it is new technologies.

When in fact life already attacked and sacrificed owning early age death is harmed by the new Temple science, the nuclear power plant, if you cared to reason human logic.

As a logical human, if a human lived in the past, then they did....and all humans who lived about 100 years ago, today are deceased. Does that make any human especial to any other human? The real truth is no.....but the information and reason for its documentation was a reality of why the studies, data inferred and causes were reasoned by males for males as humans involved in phenomena.

Why it is difficult to understand as phenomena in reality is EXTRA to natural life.

Why it is stated to be "para" or caused next to life existing in its owned reality.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
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How do we know the year?
In the Western world, the year – be it 1066 or 2018 – predominantly refers to the number of years it has been since the birth of Jesus Christ. This is either referred to using the centuries-old “anno domini”, or AD (a shortened form of “year of our Lord's incarnation”), or by the more recent “common era”, or CE.Mar 28, 2018
https://theconversation.com/is-it-really-2018-the-evidence-suggests-otherwise-93876
Is it really 2018? The evidence suggests otherwise - The Conversation

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Without a year, how would you know when is that in history?

We are dating events based on a non historical [fictional] man?
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
In the Western world, the year – be it 1066 or 2018 – predominantly refers to the number of years it has been since the birth of Jesus Christ.
No, it refers to the number of years since what Dionysius Exiguus presumed to be the birth of Christ 500-odd years after the purported event.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
No, it refers to the number of years since what Dionysius Exiguus presumed to be the birth of Christ 500-odd years after the purported event.

It was a presumption of the purported birth of a fictional character.

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Where all the important historical events are based on that presumption of the purported birth of a fictional character - including our birth dates and that of our love ones?

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Brian2

Veteran Member
When people refer to the ‘historical Jesus’ I think most people would understand that to mean the Jesus that is verifiable/aspects of Jesus life that are verifiable. Not the dogmatic Jesus as presented by the gospels.

So I think it would not be correct to say the historical Jesus is in the Bible since most of what is presented in the gospels is not verifiable.

Even much of accepted history is a matter of opinion and not verifiable.
The gospels are document evidence by people whom internal evidence places in a time to have known Jesus and which the early church accepted as being written by people who knew and/or knew of Jesus through witnesses but which historians, especially these days, want to ignore and relegate to a date as late as possible and written by authors who know nothing of Jesus.
The Epistles also seem to be attacked in that way as much as possible.
Nothing of the supernatural is seen as history even if the Jews say Jesus was a miracle worker and sorcerer in their writings.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
The gospels are document evidence by people whom internal evidence places in a time to have known Jesus ...

Internal evidence? Seriously? :D Isn't that a bit like claiming Dorothy and friends as "internal evidence" for the historicity of the Munchkins?
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
The idea of counting years has been around for as long as we have written records, but the idea of syncing up where everyone starts counting is relatively new. Today the international standard is to designate years based on a traditional reckoning of the year Jesus was born — the “A.D.” and "B.C." system.

"A.D." stands for anno domini, Latin for “in the year of the lord,” and refers specifically to the birth of Jesus Christ. "B.C." stands for "before Christ." In English, it is common for "A.D." to precede the year, so that the translation of "A.D. 2014" would read "in the year of our lord 2014." In recent years, an alternative form of B.C./A.D. has gained traction. Many publications use "C.E.," or "common era," and "B.C.E.," or "before common era." Before we talk about how and why the system was invented, let's get some historical context.

Keeping Time: The Origin of B.C. & A.D. | Live Science

If Jesus was a hoax, then our numbered years are based on a hoax. All numbered calendars are hoaxes. The date on the newspapers are hoaxes. Your birthdays are hoaxes!

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Brian2

Veteran Member
Internal evidence? Seriously? :D Isn't that a bit like claiming Dorothy and friends as "internal evidence" for the historicity of the Munchkins?

You denigrate your own scriptures with comments like that about the New Testament writings.
But no it is nothing like "claiming Dorothy and friends as "internal evidence" for the historicity of the Munchkins".
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
If Jesus was a hoax, then our numbered years are based on a hoax. All numbered calendars are hoaxes. The date on the newspapers are hoaxes. Your birthdays are hoaxes!

I notice that you wrote this nonsense on Friday, a day that pays homage to the Germanic goddess Frigg.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
I notice that you wrote this nonsense on Friday, a day that pays homage to the Germanic goddess Frigg.

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The name Friday comes from the Old English Frīġedæġ, meaning the "day of Frige", a result of an old convention associating the Germanic goddess Frigg with the Roman goddess Venus, with whom the day is associated in many different cultures.

Sure and its 2020 right?
Two thousand twenty years from what?
Can't be Frigg - this one has a numerical reference from something.
People counted from what?

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Brian2

Veteran Member
Rubbish. I deal honestly with my own scripture.

I also try to deal honestly with the whole Bible, but we do have our biases of course and I'm sure they get in the way for us all.

Give me a cogent example of "internal evidence."

Acts was written by Luke and so was his Gospel according to internal evidence from them.
Luke was a travel companion of Paul according to internal evidence from Acts and Pauline letters.
Paul was killed in Rome according to tradition and interpretation of the story of Acts, and Luke also may have been killed there at the same time, the Nero persecution of Christians in 64 AD.
Acts goes to the time of Paul going to Rome and being there for a while, then the story stops.
Luke is a thorough and accurate historian according to the information found in Acts,,,,,,,,,things that were once thought to be inaccurate about the history Luke gives of the times have been shown to be accurate and things that would not have been known by someone who lived in the late 1st or in the 2nd century.
Because of when the Acts story ends (around 64 AD.) it appears that Acts was written before that time.
Internal evidence of the Gospel of Luke shows that the Gospel was written before Acts,,,,,,,,,,,,and in the introduction Luke tells us that many had undertaken to write an account of Jesus from information they got from those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus and those who were there from the first.
This puts the gospel account of Luke probably in the 50s and shows the existence earlier accounts written about Jesus.
Modern scholars want to ignore such evidence and claim that prophecy does not happen and so Jesus prophecy of the Temple destruction must have been written after the destruction in 70 AD.
Similar assumptions are used with OT prophecies to put the writing of them after the events.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Acts was written by Luke and so was his Gospel according to internal evidence from them.
Luke was a travel companion of Paul according to internal evidence from Acts and Pauline letters.
Paul was killed in Rome according to tradition and interpretation of the story of Acts, and Luke also may have been killed there at the same time, the Nero persecution of Christians in 64 AD.
Acts goes to the time of Paul going to Rome and being there for a while, then the story stops.
I agree.

Luke is a thorough and accurate historian according to the information found in Acts,,,,,.

Even if one were to assume that to be substantially true, it does not preclude him accepting claims as facts because they align (and helped form) his perspective. Josephus was far more the historian and no one would be so foolish as to think him to be unbiased or inerrant.

,,,,,,things that were once thought to be inaccurate about the history Luke gives of the times have been shown to be accurate and things that would not have been known by someone who lived in the late 1st or in the 2nd century.
Could you give me an example of something that would have been known in the 60's but could not have been known in the late 1st century?

Just to be clear, I think Acts and Josephus serve as compelling evidence for the historicity of Jesus: historicity but not divinity.
 
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