The Historical Jesus

[The Grand Nudger]

Okay, so secular history class is your measuring stick? 

"They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and them then reassemble to partake of food - but food of an ordinary and innocent kind" - Pliny the Younger Roman author and administrator. in a letter to the Emperor Trajan in about 112 A.D.

A wonderful example of historic or literary anachronism.  The year is 112ad.  60 some years have passed, christianity is everywhere, a parade of miracles has been ongoing for decades, against the backdrop of a vast pagan pogrom...according to christian tradition.

Pliny doesn't know shit about the guys, he describes a christianity quite unlike anything later roman writers (and contemporary readers) would recognize, the emperor doesn't care.  Says fuck it, leave em be and don't take shit from weird locals flinging random accusations at them.

Something is amiss. The experiment can be repeated from any number of angles and sources. The clear pattern that emerges is that history did not match with christian tradition until some time after the capture of the roman administrative state by christians. Christians who, in most cases, would not be recognized as such now. They still had internal work to do. A person can dispense of any burden in arguing for or over the historicity of christ..in fact we can simply assume that christ was absolutely real if we like and just leave it at that - but this is still what happened to the literary tradition of christ, and christian history, even in that case.

The question then is not whether christ was historic, but why christians fucked christs historicty so badly. How it came to be that they had the real deal, and a real history - but decided to write about other things. I guess the brief answer there was that christians engaged in fantasy and revisionism because to objects to which they were applied were religiously or politically important to them, then. It's not yet clear why or even if they're important to contemporary christians like yourself, today.