(February 26, 2014 at 10:13 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(February 26, 2014 at 7:09 pm)discipulus Wrote: Before I go any further do you agree with the above?

In a word: no.

Quote:Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C.

Not according to the Gospels.

• Luke has Mary pregnant during the administration of Qurinius, which began in 6 CE.
  
• According to Luke, Jesus was "about 30" when he began his ministry.
  
• According to Luke, John the Baptist started his ministry during the 15th year of Tiberius, 28/29 CE.
  
• Matt, Mark and Luke agree that JC began his ministry after JtB was put in prison. Details are sketchy here but I will argue this couldn't have been much before 34 CE.
  
• If JC had been born before 4 BCE, he would have been too old by the time of JtB's arrest.
  
• There was no census in 4 BCE. The closest BC census was in 8/9 BC.
  
• In 4 BC, under Herod the Great, Judea was a ally of Rome, not subject to direct taxation and census.
  
• Luke's timeline is the best fit for JC, since "about 30" allows for a 6 CE birth and a 34 CE beginning of his ministry (28 = about 30) and it allows three Passover festivals outlined in John before Pilate is recalled to Rome in 36 CE.
  

If I WERE to speculate on a birthdate, 6 CE seems more likely.

The one glaring problem with Luke's timeline is the 10 year pregnancy of Mary. Mary's pregnancy began under the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4 BCE). Then again, those sons of god may take longer to bake in the oven.

Quote:He grew up in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class.

Falsifiability is a pretty important part of making assertions and claiming them to be proven. How might I disprove this assertion, were I inclined to argue against it? There were no detailed records of what peasants were born and raised where and Yeshua was a common name.

It may be so and what then?

Continuing with that linked article:

Quote:Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his life. His intention was not to create a new religion. Rather, he saw himself as doing something within Judaism.

Certainly consistent with the "Synoptic Gospels" (Matt, Mark, Luke). Their Jesus was a holy man who was clearly separate from and subordinate to his father god. He had less knowledge than his father ("No man knows the day, not even the Son, but the Father alone"), he has a subordinate will ("Not my will by thine be done") and he speaks about his Father in third person and to him in second person.

Not so much with John.

• Jesus in John claims to be one with his father ("I and my Father are one"), wholly blasphemous to the Jewish faith.
  
• Jesus claims to be an intercessor to God ("no man commeth unto the Father but through me"), a role forbidden in strict Jewish monotheism (Isaiah 43:10-12, "I, even I am Lord. Beside me there is no savior. I have saved. I have Judged.")
  
• "The Jews", named as such, are a separate and hostile religious group in John.
  

In all Gospels, Jesus preaches a message about salvation and Hell, something unknown to the OT. However, by JC's day, Judaism had likely morphed and incorporated pagan concepts. Many Jews chaffing under Roman rule, wondering where the heck was Yahweh's promise to the seed of David, may have decided their kingdom was in a higher place.

Quote:He left Nazareth as an adult, met the prophet John and was baptized by John. During his baptism, Jesus likely experienced some sort of divine vision.

The Jesus of the Gospel of John never baptizes Jesus. In the others, the vision is shared by all present. JtB supposedly bore witness and the booming voice should have been heard by everyone there.

Quote:Shortly afterwards, Jesus began his public preaching with the message that the world could be transformed into a "Kingdom of God."

That's the story though the itinerary is fuzzy. The Synoptics say that Jesus was "immediately" taken into the wilderness for 40 days. When he came back, JtB was put in prison. The Gospel of John says that JC spent the next three days gathering disciples and attending a wedding. JtB was not arrested right away and Jesus opens a rival baptism franchise and beats JtB at his own game. What a guy!

Quote:He became a noted healer, teacher and prophet. More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition.

"Scholars" don't take these supernatural accounts seriously, do they?

Quote:He was executed by Roman imperial authority.

This part we can gleen from Tacitus. However, the entry is oblique and 2nd century. It doesn't even mention Jesus by name. Clearly, this religious leader wasn't well known outside his cult following and insignificant to the authorities. I'm not saying he wasn't crucified and fanciful stories weren't told of his resurrection afterwards. People claimed to see Elvis long after his death. I am saying that notables didn't seem to take much notice of him until later centuries.

Quote:His followers experienced him after his death. It is clear that they had visions of Jesus as they had known him during his historical life. Only after his death did they declare Jesus to be "Lord" or "the Son of God."

Such is the folklore of the supposed "early church". The only 1st century Christian persecution I'm aware of is the Neronian fire, and even this was more of a scapegoating of a small minority, who likely had neither warning nor opportunity to escape.

The letters of Pliny the Elder run contrary to the folklore established by Hollywood, with early Christians holding their heads high, refusing to renounce their savoir as they were horribly tortured and killed at the hands of pagan Romans as the background orchestra swells. In reality, Rome was apathetic to different religions and only turned on them when their proponents rebelled against Roman authority. More to the point, Pliny seems to have no idea who these Christians are or what to do with them. Putting them under the lash, these Christians renounce Jesus, contrary to the heroic folklore.

As if the picture weren't muddy enough, the very "early church" is a dubious organization. Actual history shows that there were a wild variety of early Christianities. They disagreed on how many gods there were, whether Jesus was a flesh-and-blood person, when Jesus lived, what Jesus was, what Jesus died for or even whether he died at all. The modern distinction between Christian and Muslim would look like petty hair-splitting in comparison.

Echoes of this early struggle within the Church can be read in the Bible itself. Read 1John 4:1-3 and 2John 1:7. These verses are supposedly written by "John the disciple" (in reality, pseudo-epigraphy and interpolation were serious problems and half the epistles of "Paul" are of dubious authorship). Yet this man who knew Jesus rails against the Docetic Christians as anti-Christs who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. Rather than appeal to recent history, this "John" appeals to faith, imploring the reader to "believe" and "confess" that Jesus had come in the flesh. The fact that not one but two canonical letters deal with the Docetics helps to underscore that these heterodox Christians were not simply minor schismatics. Clearly, Jesus wrote nothing down and made nothing clear to his followers.

To me, "based on a true story" should have three components.
1. The miracles.
2. The ministry.
3. The message.

The miracles? Seriously?

The ministry? Clearly the stories of it being such a politically and religiously earth moving force that spread like wildfire are gross exaggerations. Nobody seemed to give a scribble on a parchment, not even the Jews, until later centuries. John the Baptist had a much bigger following and historical accounts outside Gospel propaganda indicate he wasn't a modest forerunner but a candidate for messiah. To this day, he has followers that reject Jesus in favor of JtB. If JtB had seriously knelt before Jesus, you'd think his followers would have gotten the message and Jesus would have made a bigger splash.

The message? What was it again? Canon wasn't established until the 4th century under the weight of imperial authority. Until that time, there was no one Christianity.

What's left?

• Some guy
  
• named Yeshua
  
• who was some kind of religious leader
  
• or something.