What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

Growing up as a Christian, I was taught that Jesus, the early Christians, and their early theology were the gold standard that modern Christians should follow.

Lately I've been wondering if they were all just a bunch of loony tunes, and anything positive in Christianity was added later after the religion became more respectable.

Any thoughts?

Your thoughts on the "true story" depends on which brand of Christianity you follow. The Catholics and Orthodox like to imagine that their church was established by the followers of Jesus, St. Peter in particular. The Protestants and Muslims (I think of Islam as "Christianity on steroids") prefer to envision a dreamscape of an "early church" that was pure and faithful to the teachings of Jesus before it was corrupted.

That's all predictable. Establishment faiths use an appeal to antiquity as the basis of their authority. Rebel faiths never see themselves as schismatics but rather as those getting back to the original model before it was "corrupted" by the establishment faith. Since no one knows the "true story" of how Christianity was founded and the reliable historical sources are, at best, sketchy, any church can claim anything.

What we do know is that there was no one "early church". There was a plethora of early Christianities which couldn't agree on even basic theological issues like how many gods there were and what Jesus was exactly. Modern apologists are aware of the problem but dismiss the "heterodox" Christian sects as minor splinter groups and schismatics. Indeed, the established church once it triumphed over the rivals at Nicaea in the 4th century went to great lengths to burn all heterodox scriptures and wipe out their existence from the historical record as best they could. What they couldn't destroy is what was preserved in the Bible.

Echoes of the early struggle among the original Christian sects are preserved in the vaunted NT of the Bible. In not one but two of the three letters of "John" canonized in the Bible, the supposed disciple of Christ that knew Jesus personally railed against the Docetic Christians (those who thought Jesus was an apparition rather than a physical being) using not references to recent history but rather appeals to faith:

1John 4:1-3 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

and

1John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

So obviously these alternate Christian groups were a problem. One wonders why "John" didn't write, "What's wrong with these people. Haven't they spoken with Jesus' neighbors? What about the nephews and nieces or other family members? Could they not attest to the fact that our lord was a flesh-and-blood person and not a ghost?" Instead, John admonishes the faithful to "believe" and "confess". Odd that.

But then again, "Paul", in his much hyped creed of 1Cor 15, does not speak of himself as having lived in the lifetime of Jesus nor did he received his information from recent historical events. Rather, he knew about the resurrection of Jesus "from the scriptures".

1Cor 15:3-4 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
...
15:8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Still, Bart Ehrman (and his groupies that occasionally buzz about in the comment sections of my videos) insists that there must have been some sort of "historical Jesus", a true core that lies beyond Christian mythology (although his ilk bristle if you use the word "mythology"; I frankly don't know what they want). To them, Jesus was a mortal cult leader of some splinter faction of Judaism, a man who ran afoul of Roman authorities, and was later deified by his followers. I'm not sure if you could still call this a "historical Jesus" since the miracles and divinity are 90% of the story but let that go.

This hypothesis sounds nice until you ask, "What, if anything, can we actually know about him?"

So we're tossing out the miracles and magic, which makes this a lot like musing about a "historical Clark Kent, sans costume, super powers and alien ancestry". Um, then his true story bears no resemblance at all to the legendary story. His true teachings are unknowable, since he wrote nothing down and his followers clearly couldn't agree on even basic theological questions. The history of his ministry is equally unknowable. Even if you allow the use of the Bible, the NT Gospels don't agree on when Jesus was born, never mind the order of events in his ministry. All we're left with is "some guy named Yeshua who was some kind of religious leader or something." His profile is so vague that he quickly fits into a "Jesus of the Gaps" concept, which makes him impossible to disprove.

What reliable historical documents do we have that discuss the ministry of Jesus? The short answer is "very few and they offer very little."

The best we have are the Annals of Tacitus which speak of a "Christos" (the anointed one) that "Christians" get their name from (Tacitus doesn't even mention this Jesus by name) who was crucified by Pilate. That's it. Since Pilate killed many Jewish leaders, this is hardly revealing. That assuming that Tacitus wasn't just passing on what the Christians told him.

But your idea of a cult leader Yeshua that was likely crazy seems quite plausible. Christians deny a crazy person could be so charismatic a religious leader, one who inspired followers willing to die for him, and then they look at you with a confused expression when you drop names like "David Koresh", "Jim Jones" and whoever that leader of the "Heaven's Gate" Cult was.

The resurrection story could have arisen from an Elvis like effect. Christians will say such a thing was impossible and yet Elvis was barely in the grave before devoted fans started seeing him everywhere. It's not hard to imagine such a delusion taking hold in a more superstitious time, in a country where people were chaffing under Roman rule and looking for any sign of deliverance from on high.

But all that is speculation. We have no evidence that any of this is anything more than a story. This is not to say that anyone "just made up Jesus one day", a straw man often thrown around by Christian apologists, but rather an urban legend that evolved over time. Reading the NT books in the order that they were written confirms this hypothesis. The story got better and longer with the telling.

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If Deist Paladin were posting here more regularly, he could chime in with some useful info.

Thanks so much. I hope I didn't disappoint.

Min's been my inspiration, giving credit where it's due.