What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[watchamadoodle]

One point I forgot to make on why the historical Jesus matters:
Most Christians might accept that the miracles are myths.
Many Christians might accept that the resurrection of Jesus was not physical but only spiritual
Almost no Christians could accept that Jesus was entirely mythical. That would kill Christianity.

I wish the mythical Jesus could be proven, because it would explain so much - all those weird gospels, the Gnostics, the confusion about the nature of Jesus, etc. Also I would like to see Christianity completely discredited. But it seems like a historical Jesus probably existed.

[Mudhammam]

The historicity of Jesus or anyone else may be a trivial matter to the non-historian, but for someone whose interest lies in dissecting ancient texts to illuminate past events, in this case the birth of Christianity and arguably the most influential figure in human history (which I should think makes it a topic of some interest to both the non-historian and the non-religious as simply a matter of understanding the development of Western culture), it's a frustrating puzzle that is persistently relevant.

While I've only read two of Ehrman's books, I don't see any inconsistency in his refutation of the Gospels as understood by the average evangelical, on the one hand, and the mythicist on the other. After all, even the consensus among secular historians who have devoted much of their lives to studying the ancient past seems to be that after cutting through the mythological bullshit, a strong case for a historical core to the Jesus story remains, these facts in particular:

Born a Jew in Galilee.
Baptized by John the Baptist.
Crucified under Pilate.

The idea that within a few decades, a group of people thought this man had been the Messiah and rose from the dead, while not extraordinarily strange in consideration of the other things ancient people believed, is still strange, and difficult to account for given the scarcity of reliable details.

[Anomalocaris]

......

And even if we can be sure that this Historical Jesus existed, is he even the Gospel character Jesus anymore?

......

The miracles and the divinity ARE the story of Jesus. Take them away and you tell a different story about a different person.

If jesus is ultimately, albeit distantly, derived from one, or a composit of several, historic characters, it would offer a great deal of insight into human behavior and sociology to fill in the pieces in the evolution from jesus the nobody, to jesus the dead, to jesus the fantasy that is the master of 2 billion wishthinkers.

It is quite true what we have at hand appears to fall far short of what is needed to fill in the pieves to high degree of certainty. But that does not mean trying to do so is therefore worthless and to be scorned.

[Drich]

You should also know that at the bottom of every wiki page their is a list of reference material, in which the on page material is sourced. If you cared anything about the topic at hand you could easily trace back what was said to it's core source.

You could shorten that debate by sharing your fundamental knowledge about Roman trial procedures. Then you could enlighten us about the role and the powers of the jewish priesthood at the time of Pilate. And then let's see how facts meet fiction.

How about that?

Or I could just do a google search and provide a link.
Roman Trial procedures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_litigation

The preist's role:
http://www.thorncrownjournal.com/timeofc...aders.html

See that is the difference between you and I. While most of the time I would read and then comment on what I read, (which is how ALL my posts like this are constructed./Off of verfifiable source material) You guys all tend to shoot from the hip and heavily rely on what you paid some school to tell you about how smart you are for spending your money with them.

When in fact you words and efforts in of themselves mean nothing.

Just so you understand how I formally construct my arguements/why I start with tertiary/Commentary based sources like wiki.

A tertiary source material like wiki provides authoritivative commentary based on what people think in relation to the secondary source material the cite at the bottom of the page.

Now when one of you cite a tertiary source I do not agree with I fall back and seek a secondary or even primary source materials..

But again this is not how you 'educated' people discuss a given topic. It's like talking to evolved monkies. 90% of the time You emotionally rant and rave, and base everything on what you think is right. Or better yet you defend on what you heard/want to believe, without vetting the source. Like your dismissal of everything you don't want to believe about pilate. No reason stated, no authorative source material referenced. just your 'feelings' based on some meaningless degree you claim to have.

But hey, don't get down on yourself for you emotionally driven, Simeon based thought processes. Why? because you can always say your spelling and grammer is better than mine. That seems to count alot with the monkey folk.

[watchamadoodle]

Drich, how come some of your posts have so many typos, but some others are nearly perfect (like the above post)? Do you get your wife to proofread sometimes? I keep wondering if you have split personalities like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[abaris]

It's like talking to evolved monkies. 90% of the time.

Yeah, the difference being we are evolved whereas your smiley use points to a different conclusion.

So what have you learned doing your google search? Care to elaborate on your critical use of the source? How does it compare to all the details of the story we find in the bible?

See, that's the real difference between wanting to believe and actually studying a certain field. Comparing your source, which in your case would be the Jesus tale in the bible, with the proven facts of how people at a given time handled things. In the case of Jesus, they don't add up.

Curious, if you find out why or if you're even interested to find out why.

[Silver]

90% of the time You emotionally rant and rave, and base everything on what you think is right. Or better yet you defend on what you heard/want to believe, without vetting the source. Like your dismissal of everything you don't want to believe about pilate. No reason stated, no authorative source material referenced. just your 'feelings' based on some meaningless degree you claim to have.

A perfect description of theism.

[Crossless2.0]

Drich, how come some of your posts have so many typos, but some others are nearly perfect (like the above post)? Do you get your wife to proofread sometimes? I keep wondering if you have split personalities like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

His typos/misspellings seldom get in the way of understanding what he is saying, and I'm always willing to cut a dyslexic person some slack. Besides, occasionally we get something like the following from his last post:

"But hey, don't get down on yourself for you emotionally driven, Simeon based thought processes. Why? because you can always say your spelling and grammer is better than mine. That seems to count alot with the monkey folk.

If I didn't know better I'd say that Drich is an inspired chain-yanker; as it is, that mistake is fucking funny. I wish it was intentional.

[robvalue]

Having never been religious, it is really hard for me to try and get into the mindset of what it must be like to be a (religious) theist. To think that there's all this magic stuff going on everywhere, all these weird characters having cosmic battles, and that there is a god actually interacting with us. To me it sounds kind of like living in a cartoon that has been superimposed on reality. But for some reason I just can't see any of this stuff at all which is meant to be so obvious. And worst of all, that there's a pair of eyes following me around, judging every tiny action I make and keeping some sort of "sin" score up on a chalkboard somewhere. It kind of reduces life to a silly game, and the things that matter to people playing the game are of no relevance to people not playing the game.

Just some fevered ramblings. Maybe an ex-theist could comment on if I'm anywhere close?

[watchamadoodle]

His typos/misspellings seldom get in the way of understanding what he is saying, and I'm always willing to cut a dyslexic person some slack. Besides, occasionally we get something like the following from his last post:

"But hey, don't get down on yourself for you emotionally driven, Simeon based thought processes. Why? because you can always say your spelling and grammer is better than mine. That seems to count alot with the monkey folk.

If I didn't know better I'd say that Drich is an inspired chain-yanker; as it is, that mistake is fucking funny. I wish it was intentional.

I agree. Sometimes the typos are the best part (like this debate about the motives of "Piloet"). I would never fault somebody for spelling or grammar mistakes, because I struggle myself.

I'm just curious why some posts have such excellent spelling and grammar. Is he using voice recognition software? Is he just in a hurry sometimes and more patient other times?