"Gospel Quest" (or The Jesus Timeline)

[Jenny A]

Have you read Isaiah 7? If not take a minute and read the whole chapter--it's not long. It is a prediction of what will happen before a child is grown. The prediction is made to King Ahaz about the kings coming to war against him currently. Things were rather immediate and dire for Ahaz at the time. The things Isaiah predicted happened long before Jesus was born.

Try taking two minutes and reading it more carefully. Ahaz refuses to ask for a sign, and so the sign is given to the house of David.

I've read it many times. Ahaz is King of Judea because he is David's descendent. To the extent that there was a House of David, Ahaz and his sons were it. Earlier in the chapter he and his people are called the House of David for just that reason. Isaiah 7:2.

This whole chapter of Isaiah is beautifully human. Someone should write play. On the one hand there is Ahaz who is the third-rate descendant of the great King David, slayer of thousands, poet, and beloved of god. Ahaz is not only far from a great warrior, he has fooled around with foreign gods and even scarified a son. He's a bit of a coward too. On the other there is wise and brave Isaiah the prophet come as a messenger from God to set Ahaz straight.

So as the chapter opens King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel have formed an alliance to take Jerusalem. When Ahaz and his people heard of this they "were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind." Isaiah 7:1-2 Rather poetic that---whole forest of shaking House of David.

Then god says to Isaiah, don't worry about those two old kings who have come to get Jerusalem. Take your son and meet Ahaz out on the road to Washerman's Field. Isaiah 7:3 Tell him that I say that those two old kings won't be able to dislodge him if he stands unafraid and firm in him faith. (Don't be a wuss). Isaiah 7:4-9 And the lord said to Ahaz, presumably through Isaiah "Ask the Lord your God for a sign." Isaiah 7:10 And Isaiah, like Jesus with the Devil says, "I will not put the Lord to the test." (Though apparently when Isaiah says it it's a bad thing to say and when Jesus says it it's a good thing to say. Who knew?)

Then Isaiah loses his patience and says, "Hear now you House of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of man [meaning his venerable self]. Must you try the patience of my God also?" It's like a parent calling his delinquent son by all three names. "You, you, little snotty king boy. You are the descendant of David, stand up straight, fly right and remember who the hell you are. To think a descendant of David would be such a sniveling coward. You won't ask for a sign, I'll give you a sign anyway."

"Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. ” Isaiah 7:14-17 NRSV

You see, if you read it, t's a prophecy about those two kings who were invading Jerusalem right then. And the prophesy was if you stand up and behave like a man Ahaz, within a few years Jerusalem will be safe from those nasty guys. And considering that Ahaz needs god and will not ask for him, and yet God is going to help anyway, Immanuel is a very appropriate name for the child don't you think? God is with Ahaz whether he wants god or not.

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Where is your proof that no one wrote anything down? Guess what, most paper documents don't survive. The original gospels and Pauline letters have not survived and they would have been particularly prized. Jerusalem was sacked and burned--reducing further the likelihood of written Jewish records surviving. The Romans were not interested in Jesus until there was a large following to take note of decades if not a century later.

Generally speaking people don't write anything down. It's the default position. Proof of earlier notes is required not proof nothing was recorded.

Paul wrote letters and his churches circulated them almost immediately. The writers of the Gospels didn't write until 60 years or so after the events they describe.

You also cannot make the claim that the writers of the Gospels were not working off of notes and written accounts of others. Clearly the goal was to tell a complete history so posterity could read and understand the context and content and not a court transcript with footnotes. There is no way for you to know the method by which this information was conveyed. [emphasis added]

Precisely, we can't know how the information was transmitted, but the Gospels read in turns, like oral tradition and legend with occasional and brief attempts at using real places and people for verisimilitude.

What they do not read like is eyewitness accounts. The third person is used through-out and no witness could have seen everything described. Who witnessed Joseph's dreams? Who witnessed Mary's virginity? How could they witness Mary's virginity? Who saw the devil tempt Jesus? Who heard Jesus with god after the disciples all fell asleep? --- Puzzling ain't it?

We know that Jesus existed and was almost certainly crucified. We know that a new religion sprang up around these events. We know that the very first adherents believed these events happened. These events were written down and distributed only 30-60 years from the death of Jesus--still plenty of time for the older group to object to inaccuracies. Add to this the content of this new religious was not something that was likely made up--in both the complexity of the theology, the strong break from Judaism, and the circumstance surrounding Jesus. This all adds up to the only two logical conclusion available: that some or all of the things written in the Gospels happened. Of course it seems you have chosen the illogical conclusion and decided to stick you head in the sand. I have chose the other end of the spectrum and believe what is claims to be.

Well actually we don't know for sure. I've just finished On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt by Richard Carrier and he makes a fair case for Jesus being entirely myth and not a historical person at all. I'm not sure really whether there was a real man behind the Jesus stories myself. But the thing is that there is absolutely no contemporary evidence of Jesus--none zip, nil. Nothing until Paul and Paul has a vision of Jesus, not Jesus.