What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Jenny A]

Hell, forget history. If the Gospels conflict with each other or with other books of the Bible, which one takes precedence?

Example: After his baptism, did Jesus go off into the wilderness for 40 days (Mark) or did he hang around for a few days gathering disciples and then attend a wedding (John)?

Your deception might fool the foolish ones here, but not the Christians. Matthew, Mark, Luke all say Jesus went into the desert after His baptism. Johns Gospel never mentions the 40 days in the desert. John's gospel gives no time line for the baptism, it does say John gave a testimony of Jesus and how he knew who Jesus was, but as I said there is no time line on when he baptized Jesus. Since the 40 days were not mentioned in John's gospel and the baptism has no true time line, speculation is all you have and nothing more.

GC

I see, foolish me. I always thought "immediately," meant immediately, and "the next day" meant the next day.

[Mister Agenda]

It seems likely that 'the historical Jesus' was a former follower of JtB, which had to be played down when he became a 'messiah' in his own right.

[Mudhammam]

It seems likely that 'the historical Jesus' was a former follower of JtB, which had to be played down when he became a 'messiah' in his own right.

Right, now he's Jesus cousin who has been sent to prepare the way for Jesus! Lol! Assuming Jesus was actually a follower, who knows if JtB even knew who "his cousin" was.

[robvalue]

I'm wondering, since we know Josephus' accounts have a whopping great forgery in them, doesn't that throw some doubt onto other mentions of "jesus" too in his work? Is there some way to be sure that part wasn't also tampered with?

I'm coming to think that the mooters and mythicists should get together. You can moot him onto a guy who had a brother, got crucified and got baptised or whatever, and admit the rest of his whole life is mythical. A mythical moot. Kind of a win for both sides. I'm trying to look at the HJ evidence, there's maybe a speck more than I thought, but it shows so little (at best) about one particular person as to barely give a starting point. I need to look at the evidence some more, though.

[Crossless2.0]

Up setting the jews in that he was on thin ice with Rome. 'Upset jews' meant revolt, and revolt meant a heavy handed response from ceasar directed at him. I wasn't looking to do a history lesson. 'Up set jews' was more than explaination enough for anyone who knows of piloets situation.

Pilate's situation wasn't enviable. But before you presume to dispense history lessons, you might want to look into Pilate's tenure as we know it from other sources (Min has provided some of that) rather than the white wash the Gospels give it. His repeated provocations and heavy-handedness is what led to his recall by Rome. Pilate was unusually venal and brutal, even by the standards of provincial representatives of Rome.

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It seems likely that 'the historical Jesus' was a former follower of JtB, which had to be played down when he became a 'messiah' in his own right.

Right, now he's Jesus cousin who has been sent to prepare the way for Jesus! Lol! Assuming Jesus was actually a follower, who knows if JtB even knew who "his cousin" was.

Well, of course he know "his cousin"! He leapt for joy in the womb, after all.

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Your deception might fool the foolish ones here, but not the Christians. Matthew, Mark, Luke all say Jesus went into the desert after His baptism. Johns Gospel never mentions the 40 days in the desert. John's gospel gives no time line for the baptism, it does say John gave a testimony of Jesus and how he knew who Jesus was, but as I said there is no time line on when he baptized Jesus. Since the 40 days were not mentioned in John's gospel and the baptism has no true time line, speculation is all you have and nothing more.

GC

I see, foolish me. I always thought "immediately," meant immediately, and "the next day" meant the next day.

That's because you lack GC's 'special' relationship to langu-- . . . I mean the Holy Spirit.

No, on second thought, I actually do mean language.

[DeistPaladin]

Your deception might fool the foolish ones here, but not the Christians. Matthew, Mark, Luke all say Jesus went into the desert after His baptism. Johns Gospel never mentions the 40 days in the desert. John's gospel gives no time line for the baptism, it does say John gave a testimony of Jesus and how he knew who Jesus was, but as I said there is no time line on when he baptized Jesus. Since the 40 days were not mentioned in John's gospel and the baptism has no true time line, speculation is all you have and nothing more.

Sorry I missed this reply earlier.

So what are you saying? There were two baptisms? One with John's timeline and the other with the Synoptic timeline?

John is pretty abundantly clear on the order of events:

John 1:22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
1:23 He said,I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias
...
1:27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
1:28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.
1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
1:31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
1:32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
1:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
1:34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

Ok, so what have we learned so far? John the Baptist made it clear he was a forerunner of someone coming after him, who he hadn't yet met (1:31). He tells everyone he's coming and he won't be worthy to put his shoes on (1:27). The next day (1:29) Jesus shows up, John says, "here he is, the man we've all been waiting for whom I hadn't yet met". And then the whole deal with the dove from Heaven.

Where have we heard about the dove from Heaven before?

Mark 1:10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:

Oh, that's right. The dove from Heaven is the point where Heaven announced "this is my son" and all that at the end of the baptism.

Although John glosses over the whole baptism, he does mention the dove. The Synoptics make it clear that the dove thing punctuates the baptism. So yes, we have a contradiction.

Now I'm sure you're going to say there were two dove-spirit-infusions just like there's the "two temple cleansings" apology to explain why Jesus starts his ministry with the temple cleansing in John but he ends his ministry with the temple cleansing according to the Synoptics. Ask, "what do you base that on?" and the apologist shrugs and says "it coulda happened".

This is called the ad hoc hypothesis fallacy. Keep dismissing all the pieces of contrary evidence with "maybe... maybe... maybe..." until you've dismissed them all. I can "prove" invisible faeries exist in your garden or anything else if you let me use that tool.

I have Occam's Razor. It's exactly what it looks like: different authors writing a different story.

[Mudhammam]

I'm still uncertain if the claims of Paul, Mark's Gospel, and other early epistles such as Hebrews, aren't sufficient for establishing that the earliest record of Christian belief contains a historical figure named Jesus, regardless if he lived 10 years or 100 years earlier, or if he in fact represents a conglomeration of actual Jewish teachers who took themselves as Yahweh incarnate when speaking their brand of divine wisdom, or if he is a celestial being or idea composed of older myths and philosophies and accidently misunderstood by first century Christian readers as a historical man, either by intention of the authors or by vulgar misinterpretation of an illiterate audience.

And finally, what actual difference does either possibility make in peeling off the layers of Christian origins?

[DeistPaladin]

I'm still uncertain if the claims of Paul, Mark's Gospel, and other early epistles such as Hebrews, aren't sufficient for establishing that the earliest record of Christian belief contains a historical figure named Jesus, regardless if he lived 10 years or 100 years earlier, or if he in fact represents a conglomeration of actual Jewish teachers who took themselves as Yahweh incarnate when speaking their brand of divine wisdom, or if he is a celestial being or idea composed of older myths and philosophies and accidently misunderstood by first century Christian readers as a historical man, either by intention of the authors or by vulgar misinterpretation of an illiterate audience.

Sure. For that matter, there could have been a real Hercules, just not the super-strength son of Zeus. The mythmakers might have done a similar job at cribbing from reality and embellishing it beyond recognition.

I say that seriously. We do know there was a "Davy Crockett". I find it unlikely that he, as the song goes, "killed him a bear when he was only 3." There was a George Washington. The man was barely in the grave before the mythmakers were busy concocting stories about a cherry tree and him throwing a silver dollar across a body of water. Elvis existed and how long did it take after his passing before adoring fans began to see him everywhere, hatching conspiracy theories that he faked his own death?

And those are just secular figures. Religious figures, prone to deification among superstitious followers, will be even more subject to mythmaking. Perhaps in another world, Jim Jones or David Koresh are said to have "died for our sins"? Would they have died for a lie? Could such people have been crazy cult leaders if they managed to attract such a following? Oh, the possibilities, given the versatile application of the Trilemma argument.

As a Jesus Mooter, I say, "OK, it could have been so. And? What, if anything, can we know about The True Story?" If the answer is "nothing" or only vague concepts like "some sort of religious teacher or something" then there's really not much point in such musings.

And what similarity, if any, would The True Story have to the Gospel account, which is so drenched in the supernatural that most of the anecdotes make no sense with the miracles removed. Let's say there really was a Clark Kent. No costume, no powers, no Krypton; just a foundling adopted by childless farmers who later moved to a big city to be a muckraking reporter for a newspaper, fighting corruption (crime) in his capacity as a reporter. What similarity would the real life story of this ordinary Clark Kent bear to the classic DC narrative? You'd be writing a different story about a different person.

[Minimalist]

What do you guys make of Hebrews? Dating? Content? As far as I know, it's the earliest text after the seven Pauline letters universally accepted as authentic, it relates a lot to Second Temple Judaism and excludes any mention of the Jewish revolt or Jerusalem's destruction... and it clearly emphasizes a Jesus who was a man and now reigns as the Jewish God in heaven.

From the web site, Early Christian Writings.

Hebrews was clearly known to the author of 1 Clement (17:1, 36:2-5). This sets the terminus ad quem for the book of Hebrews. However, dating 1 Clement is difficult, with commentators ranging from 95 CE to 120 CE or even as late as 140 CE.

The traditional dating for 1 Clement is based on a persecution by Domitian which seems to be another xtian invention to shore up their death cult. That pushes all this shit back to the mid second century....where it belongs.

And finally, what actual difference does either possibility make in peeling off the layers of Christian origins?

It's an intellectual exercise and a chance to piss off the fundies who believe everything they are fucking told.

[Cyberman]

Let's say there really was a Clark Kent. No costume, no powers, no Krypton; just a foundling adopted by childless farmers who later moved to a big city to be a muckraking reporter for a newspaper, fighting corruption (crime) in his capacity as a reporter. What similarity would the real life story of this ordinary Clark Kent bear to the classic DC narrative? You'd be writing a different story about a different person.

Don't forget the amazing Visible Man.