Was Jesus of Nazareth a religious loon?

[Jehanne]

They have a website, but you'll notice from your link the last phase ended in 1998.  Individuals, groups and some approaches continue, but not the formal organisation as it did; and if it ever had any weight through collectivity, it's long gone.

The question put to me was whether I accepted their results about GJohn, and my (one-amongst-many) counter-argument that their significant work on things was over 20 years ago remains valid.

Was new evidence uncovered in the interim? Did jesus do anything in the interim? Nope. 

Fail.

Yes, new evidence has been discovered:

Gospel of Judas

The waters became a little more muddy with this one.

[The Grand Nudger]

What relevance do you think this...

The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel. The content of consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd century theology, it is thought to have been composed in the 2nd century by Gnostic Christians, rather than the historic Judas himself. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that has been carbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. It has been suggested that the text derives from an earlier manuscript in the Greek language. An English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society.

...has to the question you're answering by linking to it? I'd love to get this thing back out of the maze where we're being asked to consider the zombie horde as a historical event that must have happened, according to a scholarly consensus™...which Vicki purports to be expressing.

[Jehanne]

What relevance do you think this...

The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel. The content of consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd century theology, it is thought to have been composed in the 2nd century by Gnostic Christians, rather than the historic Judas himself. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that has been carbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. It has been suggested that the text derives from an earlier manuscript in the Greek language. An English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society.

...has to the question you're answering by linking to it?  I'd love to get this thing back out of the maze where we're being asked to consider the zombie horde as a historical event that must have happened, according to a scholarly consensus™...which Vicki purports to be expressing.

All the historical evidence is that there was no early Christian Church; rather, there was a diverse and conflicting set of belief systems, some of which had some tenuous connection to the historical Jesus of Nazareth, who was completely Jewish, but an apocalyptic prophet of his day, one of many.  Over time, the proto-Orthodox would emerge out of the chaos of the early Christian communities, but without having any connection to the earliest Christian belief systems, the earliest of which were fully Jewish, like Jesus.  Eventually, the institutional Catholic Church would begin to form, whose theology was formulated and laid down by Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose and their other contemporaries, and with the Edict of Toleration under the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Catholic Church would begin to gain prominence in the West, while the Eastern Roman Empire (after the gradual fall of its Western counterpart) would eventually evolve away from the Latin traditions of Rome and into the Greek traditions of Byzantium, all the while maintaining its link to its Roman past and identity.  In the West, Church & State would, gradually, begin to evolve into one system of varying fiefdoms and other quasi-fiefdom systems of rule with Church & State constantly battling for supremacy.  Eventually, the rise of the Italian Renaissance, followed by the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment would begin to whittle away the millennial influence of medieval Catholicism, leading to the mishmash of Christian communities and traditions of our day.

Jesus, if he were alive, would recognize none of this, the religions that bear his name being completely alien to him.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thank you.

[Pat Mustard]

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure who existed; I do not believe that the canonical Gospels fall into the category of being "ancient biographies" of his life.

I'm surprised that you think that, given it is the consensus of scholarship that they are. Indeed, so assumed is it that writers are using that as a basis for implications

To be fair, they are widely recognised as being far more than simple bioi. Luke subverts the thrust and context of pagan bioi by proclaiming his monotheistic theology. Matthew tells it as a conclusion to the Jewish story. Etc.

But they are all for sure within the category of bios.

As for Paul, who shows little interest in the historical Jesus,

Really? He is writing pastoral letters, so he could be forgiven for not saying much about Jesus' history. But that's absolutely not the case- his writing is grounded in who Jesus was and what He did. For example, start right at the beginning Romans 1:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—  the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

I believe that he was an apocalypticist who advanced his own theology about Jesus, as did Paul's competitors in the diverse set of religious traditions that scholars have come to refer to as ancient Christianities.

I agree there was immense friction between the various factions within the Early Church. The NT is very open about this.

Paul's problems were about the continued insistence by some on following Torah. There's nothing to debate about: Jesus' mission, death, resurrection, relationship to the Father etc.

(In the writings towards the end of C1 gnosticism becomes a problem, but Paul was long gone by then.)

This is what wikipedia says about the consensus:

The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of this ancient genre of bios, or biography

May I remind you that a) biographies have been written about fictional people and b) biographies have been wriien about ral people which turn out to be a tissue of lies.

[Jehanne]

May I remind you that a) biographies have been written about fictional people and b) biographies have been wriien about ral people which turn out to be a tissue of lies.

But, yet, "some doubted" (Matthe 28:17).  No doubt Vicki will try to spin things and say that some simply "hesitated", but, the tradition is clear -- even among Jesus' followers, not everyone believed that he had risen from the dead.  But, if Jesus had truly performed miracles and/or had truly, bodily, risen from the dead, how could anyone not believe??  And, yet, the tradition is clearly there, in Matthew and in John, that not everyone was convinced.  To the Roman, Jewish, Greek and other pagan intellectuals and officials of Jesus' day, no one took notice, because, such was not worth their time.  As with the proverbial earthquake, solar eclipse, and zombie invasion, life in Palestine went on without a hitch and no one outside of the Gospel traditions beginning with Mark's account thought such worthwhile to mention in a single letter or inscription on some rock or elsewhere.

[The Grand Nudger]

New magic book is an eschatological treatise on christian dogma, not a biography.

The notion of christianity as a historic event has been abandoned for a long time among people who attempt to understand or explain religions as cultural phenomena. Generously, this doesn't have to be due to the fact that it wasn't a historic event, only that the cultural phenomena is what we're presented with today. It would be impossible to understand those christianities in context of whatever alleged or real event happened 2k years ago - it's no longer relevant to christian belief...if it ever was.

It's only relevant to christians belief's about their beliefs.

There is no singular "historic jesus" to consider..not even to determine whether or not he was a loon. That jesus is not described by new magic book..and if he did exist, and was a loon, he just wasn't enough of a loon for anyone to notice. No one alive then or today is basing their beliefs on the ramblings of no one, that they've never heard about.