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5 years ago  ::  Sep 06, 2008 - 3:10AM #51
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Timai

The point which needs repeating is that nowhere in the gospels, Paul, Acts or the other parts of the NT regarded as probably authentic is there anything resembling a purported eyewitness account of Jesus,

You recall, of course, that an eyewitness account is one given by the witness in his own words of what he himself saw - so for NT purposes it can only be written by an author.  Everything else is hearsay.

So not one person ever tells us, "I saw Jesus".  (The Jesus that Paul thinks he saw or heard was, self-evidently, not an historical Jesus, and Paul speaks of him as a sky-god rather than as a fellow-human.)
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5 years ago  ::  Sep 06, 2008 - 9:35PM #52
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MrC

Another thing we can be fairly well certain of is that there is no "saying" of Jesus one can say originates with the Jesus of the gospels.

Yes, and this is a specific problem that Crossan addresses in his The Historical Jesus (1991), which you may have read.  One of his observations relevant to this thread is this -

[p. xxvii] Daniel J. Harrington's presidential address [...] version (1987b) [...] gives "a short description of seven different images of Jesus that have been proposed by scholars in recent years, the differences relating to the different Jewish backgrounds against which they have chosen to locate their image of the historical Jesus" (36). There is Jesus as a political revolutionary by S. G. E Brandon (1967), as a magician by Morton Smith (1978), as a Galilean charismatic by Geza Vermes (1981, 1984), as a Galilean rabbi by Bruce Chilton (1984), as a Hillelite or proto-Pharisee by Harvey Falk (1985), as an Essene by Harvey Falk (1985), and as an eschatological prophet by E. P. Sanders (1985).


Crossan therefore sets out to find (amongst other things) which of the statements that the gospels attribute to Jesus are arguably most likely to have been said by Jesus, and his methods center on the number of independent biblical attestations for each saying.  He reasons that the more attestations, the more likely it is that the saying was there at the very beginning.  (However, he doesn’t consider the situation, which - if any - of the statements ...)

Yet at the end of over 420 pages of discussion and analysis, and another 100 or more of notes and appendices, he reaches a pertinent and revealing conclusion (that coming from one who I understand is a sincere Christian, reads rather sadly to me) -

[p. 426] This book, then, is a scholarly reconstruction of the historical Jesus. And if one were to accept its formal methods and even their material investments, one could surely offer divergent interpretative conclusions about the reconstructable historical Jesus. But one cannot dismiss it or the search for the historical Jesus as mere reconstruction, as if reconstruction invalidated somehow the entire project. Because there is only reconstruction. For a believing Christian both the life of the Word of God and the text of the Word of God are alike a graded process of historical reconstruction, be it red, pink, gray, black or A, B, C, D. If you cannot believe in something produced by reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in.
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5 years ago  ::  Sep 06, 2008 - 10:56PM #53
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Timai

This is the Historical Jesus board, so the primary question here isn't what you or I believe or don't believe.

Instead, it's this : What evidence is there which would lead an impartial onlooker to conclude that it's more likely than not that an historical Jesus existed?

That means for a start that something written in the gospels &c isn't assumed automatically to be correct.  Instead, like any other ancient document, it needs to be identified, authenticated, placed in its time as best we can, evaluated and if possible corroborated.  In history, independent confirmation of accounts is of major importance, and the picture built up from reports independently corroborated is the most reliable picture we can get.

That further means that Christian miracle tales and fulfillment of prophecy tales have no greater credibility than their Egyptian, Greek, Persian and Roman counterparts.  They may inform us of the attitude of people of that time, but they don't count as reports of authentic miracles. (It's not just that miracles are innately incredible, but further than neither Christianity's miracle tales, nor anyone else's, have eye-witness accounts,)

So the search for an historical Jesus hasn't got far.  Apart from the reasons mentioned so far, in my post just above, I've also mentioned Crossan, a Christian academic, who after scrupulous historical examination of the gospels can't even identify a coherent central character in them.

In these circumstances, with what evidence would you set out to convince the impartial onlooker that an historical Jesus existed?
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5 years ago  ::  Sep 08, 2008 - 12:34AM #54
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Timai

That the religion of Christianity has not only survived, but has been taught in virtually every corner of the world, seems a testament of popular opinion that Jesus did in fact exist.

The history of Christian salesmanship goes back to Paul, of course.  And the gospels are sales manuals vigorously advocating salesmanship.  Religions have always had an indispensable economic aspect, and careers are more available in Christianity than in any other religion.

The sales department, however, never asks itself whether the product is the real deal.  That's restricted a few academics out the back, whose opinions, where they depart from the perceived sales formulae, are almost never heard from the pulpit or circulated in church publications.

My own view about religion is the same as my own view about nearly everything else - what's true in reality?  If there's evidence to show there was probably an historical Jesus, I'm interested to know.  If, as presently appears, there's not, I'm interested to know that too.


That modern day Christianity continues with proselytizing by anyone anywhere is the reason for so many caviots various areas for discussion place on participation.

On this board I'm arguing for relevance.  There are other Bnet boards for sharing views about Christianity &c, where the assumptions you make are shared by others.
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5 years ago  ::  Sep 22, 2008 - 3:01AM #55
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pilahawaiian

Untell they you are just Talking out your anus, or somebody Else’s.

To repeat: In the Historical Jesus forum the purpose is to present such evidence as will persuade an objective onlooker that it's more likely an historical Jesus existed than that he didn't.

We can use this standard here to judge which words are more likely to have been emitted by an anus and which less likely; but let's not do that lest some conclusion unflattering to you be found.

Instead, let's observe that an objective onlooker won't be persuaded by mere assertion.  You, after all, won't be converted to the worship of Huitzilipochtli simply because someone as enthusiastic as yourself insists it's a great idea and is rude to those who disagree.
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