The Historical Jesus

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I guess before talking about the historical Jesus we should first ask which parts of the Gospels are supposedly historical, but it seems that h311inac311 thinks that everything in the Gospels is historical.

None of it is historical because it didn't happen. Jesus' miracles were staged events (at best) and people don't just come back to life and ascend into Heaven, that's stupid.

Some of the things in the Gospels are historical - two Caesars, several Herods, the 'Sea' of Galilee, Capernaum, Rome, the Jordan River, Pilate, Quirinius, the Mount of Olives, and so on.

Boru

[HappySkeptic]

I guess before talking about the historical Jesus we should first ask which parts of the Gospels are supposedly historical, but it seems that h311inac311 thinks that everything in the Gospels is historical.

None of it is historical because it didn't happen. Jesus' miracles were staged events (at best) and people don't just come back to life and ascend into Heaven, that's stupid.

Some miracles could've been staged magic.  Most never occurred.

Some of the miracles are "stock" miracles that have been attributed to gods or holy people from the past.  These miracle examples would've been known to the people of the time.  It wouldn't do for Jesus to not have similar powers.

[The Grand Nudger]

I guess before talking about the historical Jesus we should first ask which parts of the Gospels are supposedly historical, but it seems that h311inac311 thinks that everything in the Gospels is historical.

The scholarly consensus is very trim.  It posits a galilean jew in a messianic culture with apocalyptic expectations who was baptized by john and crucified by pilate.  That's it.  

The rest is christ.  A story meant to tell us how the world should be, not how it was.  Words that christ would have said or should have said according to disparate narrators with their own individual concerns...not words any "jesus" did.  I think the mythicists hit on an excellent point about this, even if we decide that there was some guy.  Had christianity as we now have it been different..and it could have been, the proto-christian melee is very well established in history, we'd be sitting here wondering about the "historical jesus" of that religion and that text with utterly different contents and convictions.  Jesus, whoever he was, if he was, had little if anything to do with the creation, development, or maintenance of the body of work and culture that bears his honorific and purports to inform us today about his real life.  

As far as apologetics go, it's all a farce.  No one is interested in the historic jesus, only the mythical christ.  There are similar historical theories for the mythologies of zues and hercules and odin and thor and lugh lamfada and cu chulainn.  There was "some guy" - and myths are traditional ways of relating historical events that have utility far greater than a list of facts from the past-front ever could.  We can retroactively alter our mythological history to suite our real present to the advantage of our imagined future.

[Fake Messiah]

The scholarly consensus is very trim.  It posits a galilean jew in a messianic culture with apocalyptic expectations who was baptized by john and crucified by pilate.  That's it.  

I don't think there is a consensus on what or who Jesus was. For example, ancient historian, Morton Smith, is known for his book "Jesus the Magician", in which he claims that Jesus was a magician. Which is a charlatan who cast spells, curses, "heals" people - thus comparing his miracles to those that the magicians had performed.

[brewer]

The scholarly consensus is very trim.  It posits a galilean jew in a messianic culture with apocalyptic expectations who was baptized by john and crucified by pilate.  That's it.  

I don't think there is a consensus on what or who Jesus was. For example, ancient historian, Morton Smith, is known for his book "Jesus the Magician", in which he claims that Jesus was a magician. Which is a charlatan who cast spells, curses, "heals" people - thus comparing his miracles to those that the magicians had performed.

Should have sawed a woman in half.

[Silver]

I don't think there is a consensus on what or who Jesus was. For example, ancient historian, Morton Smith, is known for his book "Jesus the Magician", in which he claims that Jesus was a magician. Which is a charlatan who cast spells, curses, "heals" people - thus comparing his miracles to those that the magicians had performed.

Should have sawed a woman in half.

Or made the statue of Zeus to disappear.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think there is a consensus on what or who Jesus was. For example, ancient historian, Morton Smith, is known for his book "Jesus the Magician", in which he claims that Jesus was a magician. Which is a charlatan who cast spells, curses, "heals" people - thus comparing his miracles to those that the magicians had performed.

People have all sorts of ideas, and the consensus would be bigger (as in contain more elements of a historical persons life) if there were a shred of evidence for any of it.  Even the idea that he was a galilean jew crucified by pilate is pure generosity. I don't think he was a performer. I don't think the explanation for those narratives was that he arranged a shitload of elaborate tricks. Often enough, it's because other gods could do x - which is mythology, not biography. Most of the miracles are literal and literary pretext for theological claims..also not biography. It's clear that early christians believed that jesus was a healer and a miracle worker, but not that the historical jesus claimed or believed it about himself.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Should have sawed a woman in half.

Or made the statue of Zeus to disappear.

Or pulled a rabbi out of a hat.

Boru

[Modern Atheism]

 I don't think he was a performer.  I don't think the explanation for those narratives was that he arranged a shitload of elaborate tricks. 

I agree, its probably more like legend that develops over years. There is a first century miracle worker called Apollonius if Tyana. He is also claimed to have worked miracles and even supposedly ascended to heaven. It is all writen in a very detailed way, similar to how the gospels are.

[The Grand Nudger]

Early christian apologists give us insight into this, in the roundabout way they often do. By mentioning their detractors in order to mount an argument against whatever was important to them at the time - things which are certainly not important to christians anymore. The idea of diabolical mimicry, for example. It was noticed immediately in the then various christianities' own formational time by christians and pagans alike that people had heard all these stories before. That the themes content and tropes were common to other mythologies of the time. No one denied this. Instead, they insisted that the devil had engaged in plagiarism by anticipation. By the 4th century, this had become -the- intellectual response, as christians encountered even more pagan christs in their march across the map after capturing the roman state.

Today, people will tell you that the similarities are coincidental, or nonexistent. Today, they'll tell you that no one objected in the time, that no one called their christ a myth. They did, immediately, and waiving those coincidences away wasn't compelling to early christians....and we know this..thanks to christian apologists. So, you know, don't say they never produced anything of value, lol.