 |
|
|
|
 |
Renegade
____________/
Registered: May 2001
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
|
|
|
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
He mysteriously appears in historical records beginning over a century after his supposed death, yet apparently made no impression on anyone within a lifetime of his supposed life. There will always be some metaphysical doubt, but his non-existence is the obvious conclusion. |
I think this is good evidence against some of the more extraordinary claims made about Jesus of Nazereth, but I don't think it can be used as positive evidence against his ever existing. If Jesus was an itinerant preacher from the backwaters of Galilee (as opposed to some messianic demi-god) then there is no reason to expect that his actions would have ever been recorded in the surviving historical documents from his day (which are primarily Roman in origin: there is no reason to believe that his fame should have ever have extended to the halls of Rome). This is hardly a strong argument for the historicity of Jesus in itself, but I think the alternative explanation - that Jesus, as a historical figure, never existed - is founded on arguments that become increasingly strained and unlikely upon closer inspection.
In the first place, if Jesus never existed then he must have been invented at some point. This is hardly an implausible scenario, but I think there are indications in the Bible (yeah, yeah, I know... bear with me) that this is the least likely of the competing possibilities. The Gospels, for instance, are in quite firm agreement on fairly incidental biographical details, but differ wildly on some of the more theological and metaphysical claims. For instance, all the gospels make mention of:
- Jesus being from Nazareth.
- Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.
- The comparitive brevity of his ministry.
- His rampage in the temple.
- His audience before Pilate.
- His crucifixion.
And so on. Note that some of these biographical details are somewhat theologically inconvenient and they show in the way they are addressed by the gospel authors. Matthew and Luke believed (mistakenly) that Isaiah contains a prophetic passage indicating the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. The authors had to invent convoluted (and completely contradictory) accounts as to how it was that Jesus could have been born in Bethlehem while growing up in Nazareth. If there was not a common belief that Jesus was from Nazareth then this would have been completely unnecessary.
Jesus' baptism is another example. In the earliest gospel (Mark) we see Jesus depicted as receiving the spirit (becoming "God's son") when he is baptised by John (Mark 1:10-11). Mark doesn't seem to have any problem with this, but later Christian thinkers apparently did: if John is capable of commanding the spirit of God, who is the real messiah here? By the time we get to the gospel of John (the last, and most theologically contrived of the canonical gospels) we still have John the Baptist baptising Jesus, but it is followed up with a quite gratuitous testimony from JTB assuring the reader that he was "not the Christ" and that is actually Jesus who was "sent by God" (John 1:29-34, 3:27-36). If Jesus was not actually baptised, I see no reason for such a detail to be invented, as it merely creates a theological ambiguity which necessitates the kind of ludicrous rationalistions that we see here given in the gospel of John.
On the other hand, the metaphysical / theological claims that became central to Christianity are extremely muddled and inconsistent between the gospels. They disagree on the matters of:
- The virgin birth: (Only mentioned by Matthew and Luke, who present contradictory nativity accounts. John (1:45) and Paul (Rom 1:3) claim that Jesus had a very human father: the existence of Joseph seems to be another inconvenient biographical detail that would not have been invented by anyone attempting to create the mythology of a divine saviour.)
- The resurrection: (Not mentioned by Mark (in the earliest manuscripts, the gospel ends amiguously at 16:9) and the other gospels offer contradictory accounts. The substance of the resurrection appears to be in doubt too. For John, for instance, the resurrection is a physical one (John 20:27) but for Paul it is a spiritual resurrection (1 Cor 15:35-44).)
- Salvation: (Mark, as far as I'm aware, makes no discernable reference to salvation. For Matthew and Luke salvation is earthly (when the Kingdom of God arrives) and requires the fulfillment of specific (though ambiguous and perhaps contradictory) works. For John, salvation is heavenly and requires only belief in Jesus. For Paul, the nature of salvation is spiritual and requires only faith in Jesus.)
- The Divinity of Jesus: (Only John conflates Jesus with God. Mark, Matthew, Luke and Paul are somewhat ambiguous about Jesus' relationship to the divine, though it is notable that none have him claiming divinity. The relationship between the nature of Jesus and the nature of god was only resolved (if you can really call it that) with the clumsy invention of the the trinity at the Nicene Council about 200 years after the final book in the NT was penned.)
Again, if Jesus was a mythical invention then surely these basic theological details would be the first articles created, would form the central, unambiguous foundation of the faith and would not have lent themselves quite so easily to such a divergent set of interpretations. The fact that it is biographical - as opposed to theological - details that are consistent across the earliest Christian literature, seems to indicate to me that Jesus was a historical figure who was later conflated with a whole lot of metaphysical, soteriological nonsense, rather than the other way round.
| quote: | Originally posted by Alex
His exploits reached Rome, according to the historians I've mentioned, otherwise they wouldn't be writing about them. They also would have made mention to them most likely being made up if that's what they believed.
I don't understand how logically you can believe that with the spread of Christianity like wildfire over 2000 years that there somehow must be some conspiracy surrounding the original writings and records concerning Jesus. That they were all made up and altered to trick people. Even really smart and well educated people of the time who considered him a "threat to Roman stability in Israel" as Josephus wrote. |
To go back a bit on what I've just written, you're kidding yourself if you don't think that Jesus' absense from the historical record is problematic given the sort of miraculous claims you (presumably) believe about him. It's even more problematic when you consider that the salvation he was offering was supposed to be universal (i.e. surely he had the power to spread his fame a bit wider if he wanted his message to reach the greatest audience possible).
As for your appeal to the references in Josephus, that won't really cut it. Firstly he wasn't even born when Jesus was (most likely to have been) crucified, so his account is scarcely authoritative. Secondly, he mentions Jesus in just two small passages, the first of which is almost certainly a later interpolation (or, at least, an original passage that his since been heavily redacted) and the second of which is nothing more than a passing mention. To put this in perspective, Josephus spends several paragraphs in "The Wars of the Jews" describing the life of a later prophet / rabble-rouser named Jesus (link - it's a rather humourous read actually) who surely would pale in historical importance to man capable of raising the dead. If Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of anything more than marginal, provincial importance, surely Josephus' account of his life wouldn't look quite so fleeting by comparison?
Again, it all points to view that Jesus was a fairly inconsequential, poorly-known, dime-a-dozen preacher who - in Paul - just happened to have the greatest PR manager of all time.
Last edited by Renegade on Feb-18-2009 at 15:22
|
|
 Feb-18-2009 15:04 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 00:16.
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
Contact Us - return to tranceaddict
Powered by: Trance Music & vBulletin Forums
Copyright ©2000-2026, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Privacy Statement / DMCA
|
