What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think the ideals of islam has hewed close to the ethics of patriarchical tribal mob living strained and marginal existences in hostile land, and permanently engaged in vicious internecine conflicts. When stressed, it falls back to the principle that freedom of thought and experimentation that does not contribute to social control and to prevailing in internecine conflicts is an unaffordable luxury. This may be part of the reason why bulk of societies under its sway, when confronted with the superiority of modernity, has adopted so poorly, one might say uniquely poorly, to modernity in commerce, industry, politics, and technology.

I agree. I have no doubt that Muhammed likely tailored his religion in order to appeal to that set of values in order to further secure his own position at its head, not unlike how Rome placed Christian holidays on the same days as pagan holidays in order to ease the transition from the latter to the former.

[Crossless2.0]

Doesn't that kind of make the possibility of his freeing an actual criminal and putting to death a religious heretic, by toying with the mob and forcing them to vote---during Jerusalem's most holy festival---a bit more credible?

I see what you're getting at, but you have to remember that Jesus didn't appear before Pilate for heresy (which Pilate wouldn't have cared a damn about) but for sedition -- allegedly declaring himself the Messiah, which to the Romans (and of course most Jews) was tantamount to declaring oneself king. You could hardly swing a dead cat back then without hitting this or that Messianic pretender, and they all came to a bad end when they ran afoul of Rome. Jesus' alleged trial took place during high festival, a time of heightened tensions and security concerns. Pilate's role would have been uncomplicated and straightforward as his principle tasks were to ensure that the taxes/tributes flowed unabated to Rome and to keep the fragile peace by whatever means were considered lawful by the empire's brutal standards. He dispatched untold numbers of Jews to the cross in pursuit of that job description. Jesus would have struck him as just another troublemaker to serve as a gruesome reminder to the Jews what happens when you set yourself in opposition to the Emperor.

Despite the Gospels' transparent efforts to exculpate Pilate, and by extension Rome, from responsibility for Jesus' death and to lay responsibility for it at the feet of the Temple Priests (easy targets since the Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem burned to the ground by the time of the Gospels' writings), that dog won't hunt. Pilate probably dispatched Jesus to his death in the time it would take to make a sandwich. And I seriously doubt he lost any sleep over it.

[abaris]

I use to think he wasn't a bad guy, but then I saw 'the passion'.. (Which illustrates a biblical truth I did not fully grasp.) after finding Jesus innocent, he had him scourged.

Congrats for basing historical opinions on such reliable sources.

Pilate, the real Pilate, was a corrupt governor, a politician. And that's as much knowledge as we get from real historical sources. There's no record of any Jesus trial or punishment. And since there's no record, we don't know if and how that person was punished, since even his existence is up for debate.

[Mudhammam]

(easy targets since the Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem burned to the ground by the time of the Gospels' writings)

I take it you don't believe Mark's Gospel was composed in the mid-sixties. But isn't it odd the author would put these words about the temple into Jesus' mouth...

"Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

...when in fact this still stands?

[Crossless2.0]

I use to think he wasn't a bad guy, but then I saw 'the passion'.. (Which illustrates a biblical truth I did not fully grasp.) after finding Jesus innocent, he had him scourged.

Congrats for basing historical opinions on such reliable sources.

Yeah, it was all the fault of those damned dirty Jews. But don't just take my word for it or the word of the author of the fourth Gospel . . . Mel Gibson thinks so, too!

Seems legit.

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@Nestor: One wall doth not a temple make. The cultic center of Judaism was destroyed and the relatively few survivors of the siege of Jerusalem were rounded up and exiled, scattered throughout the Diaspora. For all practical purposes, not one stone was left standing. Jesus' 'prophecy' is just a piece of pious bullshit -- a bit of post-hoc poetic license meant to impress believers with their God-man's prescience.

[watchamadoodle]

So your question is how do we know the gospels and the books you mentioned are reliable, and not made up?

Even if I believed the NT to be mostly factual, the beliefs of early Christians and their history as described in the NT are incomplete and somewhat contradictory. The in NT is even less helpful if I accept that the canon was cherry-picked, edited, etc.

Mainly, I'm trying to imagine the beliefs and behaviors of Jesus and the early Christians. Would I admire these people if I could see them and listen to them in person, or would I think they were weird cult followers? There are a few sayings from Jesus that I like (the Beautitudes for example), but did Jesus actually say anything very useful or profound, or was it the childhood indoctrination?

Just on the surface, there are 25,000 different manuscripts of the bible dating back to the end of the second to the beginning of the third century.

I agree that the NT has more manuscripts than anything else from that period, but I think the number you quoted is wrong. Referring to the wikipedia article below, there are actually only 38 manuscripts from the 2nd and 3rd century by my count (see the table listing manuscripts for each century). It's a minor point though, and I agree with your larger point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

Why didn't you like Paul or what He taught?

Paul often sounded overbearing, arrogant, greedy, etc. He reminded me of most of the preachers I would see on Christian TV. Most of Paul's letters seem to be rants about problems that have been lost to history. Paul's more theological letters such as Romans were not interesting to me. The letters of James, 1 John, and 1 Peter seemed more inspiring and wise to me.

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From wikipedia: "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

Regardless of whether James was a sibling, cousin, or fraternal brother, this seems to suggest a real person named Jesus who was called Christ (Anointed/Messiah/...) by some. The stoning of James happened when Josephus was an adult, and he was an important Jew. The Christians were unpopular enough that James was stoned. This was only a few decades after the crucifixion. It seems to me that if there was some question about the existence of Jesus, then Josephus would have mentioned that in his quote.

Representing the contrary view, Richard Carrier argues that the words "the one called Christ" likely resulted from the accidental insertion of a marginal note added by some unknown reader.[31] He proposes that the original text referred to a brother James of the high priest Jesus ben Damneus mentioned in the same narrative, given the straight forward nature of the text without that insertion. James (the brother of Jesus) is executed by Ananus. The Jews get angry at this. Complaints and demands are made. The King removes Ananus from being High Priest. Jesus, the son of Damneus, is made high priest.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

As I recall, the counter argument is that Josephus would have said "James, the son of Damneus" instead of "James, the brother of Jesus". That argument is based on the writing style of Josephus I believe. (Sorry I don't remember where I read that argument.)

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@DeistPaladin, I'm sure you're familiar with the quote from Josephus about the stoning of James. How do you reconcile that quote with the idea that Jesus was not a historical figure?

Go back and that passage carefully. Josephus never actually says that the sentence was carried out. What he says is that leading citizens ran to the king:

but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified;

Jerusalem was a small place. How long do you think it would have taken them to get there?

@Minimalist, I'm guessing the Agrippa in the quote refers to Herod Agrippa II ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Agrippa_II ). He appears to have been the Jewish ruler at that time. He ruled several important cities according to wikipedia. Also rulers often lived away from the mobs that could lynch them. So I'm assuming Agrippa wasn't in Jerusalem?

[Mudhammam]

@Nestor: One wall doth not a temple make. The cultic center of Judaism was destroyed and the relatively few survivors of the siege of Jerusalem were rounded up and exiled, scattered throughout the Diaspora. For all practical purposes, not one stone was left standing. Jesus' 'prophecy' is just a piece of pious bullshit -- a bit of post-hoc poetic license meant to impress believers with their God-man's prescience.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think it's conclusive and nothing requires Mark's prediction to be unusual if everyone under the sun could see the Jews starting a war they couldn't win. We all know how Jewish prophets love to spell their own cities' utter and divine destruction when the people reject them. I think Josephus even includes an antidote about a different weeping Jesus who calls upon Jerusalem to repent or be destroyed before the sacking of the city, so these apocalyptic type moralists were probably not all that uncommon.

[abaris]

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think it's conclusive and nothing requires Mark's prediction to be unusual if everyone under the sun could see the Jews starting a war they couldn't win. We all know how Jewish prophets love to spell their own cities' utter and divine destruction when the people reject them. I think Josephus even includes an antidote about a different weeping Jesus who calls upon Jerusalem to repent or be destroyed before the sacking of the city, so these apocalyptic type moralists were probably not all that uncommon.

Why's that even up for debate? As far as I remember fro the top of my head without looking up the exact date, Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. Following the christian timeline, that's 40 years after Jesus' death. So it was already history, pretty recent history, when the first gospels were written. So the authors more than likely knew about it and have woven another touchy tale of prophecy around the real happenings.

[Crossless2.0]

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think it's conclusive and nothing requires Mark's prediction to be unusual if everyone under the sun could see the Jews starting a war they couldn't win. We all know how Jewish prophets love to spell their own cities' utter and divine destruction when the people reject them. I think Josephus even includes an antidote about a different weeping Jesus who calls upon Jerusalem to repent or be destroyed before the sacking of the city, so these apocalyptic type moralists were probably not all that uncommon.

You're right. It isn't conclusive; I overshot the mark on that one. If Jesus did actually prophesy the Temple's destruction, it wouldn't have taken the greatest degree of prescience to see where rebellion against the empire would lead and certainly less so on the part of the Gospel of Mark's writer if it was, in fact, written in the mid-60s. Thanks for the reality check.

[Mudhammam]

Why's that even up for debate? As far as I remember fro the top of my head without looking up the exact date, Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. Following the christian timeline, that's 40 years after Jesus' death. So it was already history, pretty recent history, when the first gospels were written. So the authors more than likely knew about it and have woven another touchy tale of prophecy around the real happenings.

I would hardly say a post-70 C.E. dating for all the Synoptics is a settled matter.