For scholars, a combustible question: Was Christ real?

[Pale Blue Dot]

Earlier this month, just before most Christians would mark the birth of their saviour, a group of scholars gathered in Amherst, N.Y. to begin pondering a simple yet combustible question: Did Jesus exist?

It's an issue heavy with theological baggage and poised to offend more than a few Christians: Polls by University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby in his latest book The Boomer Factor show two out of three Canadians believe Jesus is the divine son of God.

By now, the whole question might seem tired, almost banal. Former Toronto Star religion writer Tom Harpur certainly won recognition, and notoriety, for arguing in his explosive 2004 book The Pagan Christ, that Jesus was a legend rooted in Egyptian myths thousands of years before the Gospels were written (though that was not a new position).

But over the past 150 years of efforts to find the historical Jesus, the vast majority of scholars have settled on the baseline belief that a Jewish teacher from Galilee named Yeshua did indeed live some 2,000 years ago, and spoke about the Kingdom of God.

Even so, the Jesus Project is proceeding from point zero, billing itself as "the first methodologically agnostic approach" to the question of Jesus's historical existence. It promises "the most rigorous methods, data, and open debate."

An initiative of the Center for Inquiry, an Amherst-based secular think tank, and its Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), the project is an extension of the no-less controversial Jesus Seminar, which has been convening twice annually for 23 years.

There's one key difference: Whereas the Seminar has operated on the premise that Jesus was an actual person – it was what he said and did that is up for grabs – the scholars in this latest effort regard Jesus's existence as a "testable hypothesis."

http://www.thestar.com/article/557548

[unblock]

1. see "the god that wasn't there", and excellent dvd.

it seems clear that, at a minimum, if jesus did exist, many things attributed to him are shared by quite a remarkable number of mythical figures from older, dismissed religions and mythologies.

my own personal guess is that few enduring stories are made up of whole cloth, so there is likely to be an element of truth in them. in this case i suspect that an outspoken jew named jesus did exist, it's what he said and did that's debatable.


not to offend, i'm speaking as a matter of historically verifiable, scientific perspective, not from a perspective of faith.

[MineralMan]

2. I suspect that there was a Joshua around that time

who was the leader of a small group that was unpopular with the religious leaders of the day. Apparently, there were quite a few such groups. Messiahs were a dime a dozen in Roman-ruled Jerusalem in those days.

There may even have been a crucifixion of said Joshua (Jesus as a name didn't really exist at the time...that was a later renaming).

Perhaps the followers tried to continue the movement as they wandered into other places. It took root in Rome, where all of it, based on various writings and letters, was assembled into a new religion suited for Romans, then spread around widely, thanks to the Roman Empire.

Rome was good at usurping stuff and taking it for its own.

[PATRICK]

17. Historical roots are very

limited according to what we have to rely on mostly regarding history, documentation. The Church wrote the life for the mainly illiterate, far flung and persecution nervous masses. By that time the insular was a problem as was wild syncretistic mythologizing, losing the Jewish roots, garnering ever more slaves and illiterates in the Empire cultures.

One interesting help was that Mark write his Gospel against mythologizers, containing and redefining material pretty savagely considering. Matthew wrote against the Jewish conservatives that had written off the Christians. Luke as more the defender of the positive Christan approach for pagans and John retrenched in communal mysticism- albeit strongly rooted in Jewish themes of the times. Assumed in all of that small body of writing was that this was not a historical record but a Church document for purposes of liturgy, defense and special points of view while we look away from that for the "historical Jesus". Actual reducible sayings or somewhat edited versions of parables are in what context? The actual events read like AP digests to make theological points. it was also assumed, before the writing really began that it was not needed, that Second Coming might be pretty close. When eyewitnesses and preachers died the second generation took over and from much study by scholars it is plain that things could have been much much worse.

The thumbnail, revealing characteristics and reality or clarity could have been swamped. the Gnostic Gospels are, to put it mildly, much less helpful as documentation except for rare dicta not found or complementing the Church accepted Gospels. Josephus has nothing. The surviving Imperial documentation has nothing. There is little or no archaeological evidence. The chronicles of history have been dominated by governments and the flarings of cultural literacy and commerce. Populist religious figures and their zealous disciples breed myth and sermonizing. So what faith relies on in this information gifted age is mostly oral tradition and that small portion which was written down and affirmed by orthodoxy. So this religious inner reality goes with the thumbnail and is protected poorly- in the long run- by myths. By the time Christian men of letters came on the scene- much less historians- that was the foundation.

[Taverner]

18. Second plug for The God Who Wasn't There

It makes a much more reasoned case whether the existence of Jesus than ever made

[cosmik debris]

3. In the long run, it doesn't matter

Facts are never allowed to interfere with faith.

When they conflict, faith always finds a way to make the facts irrelevant.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. I see no reason to doubt a historical basis for Jesus

At issue is that the time and place was exceptionally volatile. There were a great many tiny groups that combined fundamentalist religion and political radicalism in every possible combination.

It is likely that there is a historical basis for Jesus, simply because there were hundreds of men in exactly that same role: leader of a small group that referred to God as Abba (Hebrew and Aramaic, "father"), spoke of the nearness of God in both time and space, preached a conceptual rather than literal interpretation of the Law and used religion to cloak a deep loathing of the Roman occupation.

For all intents and purposes, Christianity was invented by Paul. He either came to be associated with one of these movements or amalgamated stories about several movements. He then went and wrapped the leader in a decidedly pagan mythology and placed himself as its principle messenger and prophet (sound familiar, anyone?) When he died, these myths took on a life of their own: it is interesting to note that the earliest Gospel, Mark, was written down after Paul's death, and that latter Gospels became progressively less reality based and more mystical and miraculouss.

[kestrel91316]

5. I happen to believe there was a Jewish man in the area of

Jerusalem who taught much of what the bible says Jesus taught. I believe he was a most wise person, and he had a loyal following which has grown because he was so wise.

I also believe most of the bible is HOOEY.

YMMV

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

6. But the question remains

Who would Jesus torture?

[katandmoon]

7. The less proof there is for Jesus, the more "his" fanatical believers cling to their beliefs

Cognitive dissonance, thy name is Christianity.

[iamtechus]

8. Interesting program at pbs.org

I seldom read this forum but I just happen to have something you might be interested in. I ran across a program on
the pbs website that is relevant to this topic. It's really well done (good production values) and you can watch
it online.

This site is anchored by the testimony of New Testament theologians, archaeologists and historians who serve as both critics and storytellers. They address dozens of key issues, disagreements and critical problems relating to Jesus' life and the evolution of Christianity. Throughout the site, maps, charts (for example, the fortress of Masada), ancient texts (including Perpetua's diary), pictures of the archaeological discoveries, ancient imagery, and audio excerpts from the television program complement and illuminate the scholars'commentary.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/

[rrneck]

9. It doesn't

matter whether the mythology is actually attached to any particular individual or group of individuals at all. The whole ideology has been through so many permutations it surely bears no resemblance to what that person actually said or did. The movement left him the moment it was formed (about forty years after his death). And that is as it should be.

[Viva_Daddy]

10. I see plenty of reason to doubt Jesus existed

Google "The Jesus Puzzle" for lots of very information and discussion. For me, it is critical to note that there is no contemporary historical accounts for Jesus, his disciples, or any "Jesus movement" in Israel/Palestine during the first century CE. The so-called "Josephus Testimony" is a clear forgery. Clement of Alexandrea and Origen quote extensively from Josephus but never used this "testimony". The forgery didn't happen until around 325 CE.

There is not even any credible evidence that the "Gospels" now in the New Testament were circulating prior to the first quarter of the 2nd century CE (circa 125 CE). None of the Church Fathers quoted from them until well after 150 CE. That should be a dead giveaway right there.

[rug]

12. Who was Nero killing?

[sam sarrha]

14. he killed thousands of jews.. he was Roman, their blood lust was unquenchable

[sam sarrha]

15. the recent find of the Judas relic and the stone box with names on it were Hoax's, the guy is in

jail now and probably 1/4 of all the stuff in Museums from the middle east is already thrown in the dumpster.

[rug]

16. You're confusing Nero with Titus.

[rug]

11. Is there evidence a church existed in the first century?

Is it a work of fiction?

[DeSwiss]

13. And for that matter....

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVRpqm0Cl0">were any of them real???

[struggle4progress]

19. I will again call attention to Schweitzer's 1906 Quest of the Historical Jesus

from which I posted extensive excerpts (with links to the full text) in a prior R/T thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=163844

Schweitzer was a man of enormous energy and erudition -- beyond obtaining the equivalents of doctorates in philosophy, theology, and medicine, he became an internationally recognized Bach scholar and also served as a parish pastor before setting off for his final career as a doctor in Africa -- and he should be taken seriously as a modern Christian theologian:

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence ... The mistake was to suppose that Jesus could come to mean more to our time by entering into it as a man like ourselves. That is not possible. First because such a Jesus never existed. Secondly because, although historical knowledge can no doubt introduce greater clearness into an existing spiritual life, it cannot call spiritual life into existence .... <The> truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world ... He was an imperious ruler ... The names in which men expressed their recognition of Him as such, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, have become for us historical parables. We can find no designation which expresses what He is for us ... He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil for our time ...

[Deep13]

20. While it does not matter if Homer, Plato or Voltaire existed...

...since the value of their writings depend on what was written and not who wrote it; whether or not the JC of the Bible really existed is at the core of Christianity. The whole premise of Christianity is that JC is god and his pronouncements and personal "sacrifice" matter because he is god. Without divinity, the reader is free to ignore him. Needless to say, it would never habve amounted to much as a religion if adherents were free to do that.