But you still get to choose.
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Well, NickolaosâŚI have no idea who the Jesus in the Talmud is, unless you presume that they are refuting some data that might have been sarcastic or ??..You mentioned Josephus, and there are side references in Tacitus, an odd snippet from Thallus, Suetonius, various individuals from the period of time subsequent to when Jesus livedâŚand it is hard to not consider that Paul wrote one of his earliest letters not long after the date of the crucifixionâŚother names existâŚplus the assumption that some later âparodiesâ reflect existing beliefs about a person named Jesus of NazarethâŚsome theorize that the later Apollonius âlegendâ was a spoof on the already known tales of Jesus of the canonical gospelsâŚ
The 4 Lâs come to mind Liar Lunatic or Lord as in the Lewis trilemma or a Legend thus calling the new testament writes liars. However, whether you accept that he was for real and you accept the stories of his actions as teachings from himself, or accept the stories as legend and try to understand the teachings of the some philosophers making them up, the core issue is what you make out of the stories. After all, the bible says that we are the image / reflection of God, so we represent the God we see through our own âimaginationâ. We have to ask ourselves if - and why - we would admire miracles performed by God or in his name that are unnatural, so contrary to observed nature. If we do not admire and love him for the nature he has provided, admiring/loving him for the exceptions to nature does not make sense. So regarding Jesus:
Why would you want Jesus to desecrate the water of ritual cleansing by turning it into wine? Do you think it is better for washing away our sins, thus more valuable, if it contains alcohol - or is it a lesson in teaching us that the water that washes away our sins is the most valuable wine we could ever get?
And then there is the question what you make of his birth and death. Why would we think was he born free of sin? Was it because there was no act of sex involved between the father and the mother because sex is sinful? Then all the artificially conceived babies would also be free of sin, but they are not, quite the opposite actually, as they represent exactly what sin is about, e.g. not thy will be done but my will be done.
If someone tells a virgin in times of military conflict in Somalia, Ruanda or, closer to our home, former Yugoslavia, or anywhere where people do not live in cloud-cuckoo land that she will have a baby outside marriage, clearly they would all think of having a miracle baby and, when it was born, tell their fellows that it came there by an act of magic, no sex involved because of God - and everyone would believe it especially those primitive goat herders" as the late Hitch used to refer to the ancient Israelites, because without an iPad they were so primitive and did not understand the science of reproduction. We have to ask ourselves why do so many of us think that babies conceived in rape can be killed whilst we removed the death penalty for rape? So if we look for for a miracle in the birth of Jesus, should we admire God for saying abrakadabra for doing artificial insemination or would we see his word becoming flesh to be the act of loving thy neighbour like thy own by Mary and Joseph and raising a child they did not want in the love of God, thus turning an act of hate and oppression into a beacon of love and hope.
And finally, how do we look at his death and resurrection. What do we make out of that? Firstly we have to define to ourselves what we think life and death is about. Do we think something is alive because it has a physical body? Where does that leave God? Is he dead? He is, logically speaking, for those who claim he created life as only things that do not exist can be created. If however we look at life a the ability to move energy and matter at will, he is alive as long as his will is done, and so is Jesus if he lives inside us. Why would we want to interpret his resurrection to be a physical one? We could happily believe that he survived the crucifixion which would be a miracle in his own right as it very rarely happened. Jesus taught us that we should see him in other people several times. And if he was one with the father, could he actually die, even if his physical body was removed? And what does it mean that if you eat from that tree you will certainly die? Does it mean God is out to kill us as punishment for rejecting his authority over us by what is basically the process of puberty or does he tell us that by defining ourselves in our physical bodies and not as part of him makes us mortal. After all, if we live in him and he in us we canât die. So under this understanding of the bible the atonement was not achieved by pleasing God to atone him with us but by bringing us to atone with God and accept his authority over us, even to the point of physical death, as there is more to life than our physical existence. In fact if we were to insist on defining ourselves as a physical entity under its own authority in eternity we would stay in the permanent state of separation from God. So does the story of Jesus death and resurrection, whether historical or fictional make you believe in physical or a spiritual life after death and why would a spiritual one not be enough?
In reality there is unlikely to be much if any written or archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus, a first century wandering Jewish rabbi. But that is to be expected. But that doesnt mean he didnt exist. The so-called mythicists make much out of this, yet the vast majority of historians accept he existed. I would suggest you have a read of some of the articles on this site - Jesus Mythicism - History for Atheists .
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I mean the name has been written down in historical records several times. Thanks for the link
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Interesting thoughts, Marvin. I donât really know where you are coming from on this. Jesus turning water into wine has nothing to do with washing away our sins. It was an act of Jesusâ that is recounted in some gospels. âThe late Hitchâ may have called the ancient Israelites âprimitive goat herders,â but that has little to do with their ancient prophets and the belief â widely held in those times â that a Jewish man, who was both Messiah and God, would come. âFor behold a virgin shall conceiveâŚâ and so onâŚGodâs âword becoming fleshâ was necessary not for some âabracadabraâ purpose but because Someone needed to, ultimately, pay the price for our sin â so that we, if we believe in Jesus, do not have to. That necessitated Someone coming in the flesh. If it did not happen, then we are all lost. So, to make things short, the matter of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth is pretty important â along with the reality of His being sinless and of His death and subsequent physical resurrection. Hope this helps?
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If it didnât happen then thereâs no warrant for believing in God whatsoever. It has nothing to do with the projected evolved God of the Israelites. No proper God needs to murder His own Son or you.
âNO proper Godâ? By whose definition? Evidently the Real Thing does not color between the lines!!
(And, btw, if not you and me individually, then SOMEONE had to mop up after our mess!! âBut who would be that nice?â as the song said.)
: ) by any human, feeling, thinking definition.
Our mess is not our fault. Any decent parent wouldnât allow it in the first place.
Klaxââhuman feeling thinking definitionâ as a whole has gotten us some amazing concepts. Gods with multiple headsâŚgods who eat their sons so that the sons do not become rivals to their fathersâŚgods with jealous wivesâŚgods who give birth out of their legs, gods who endorse prostitution and all manner of thingsâŚYou are talking about human definitions. Judaism and Christianity are talking about a God who is eternal, who is not manmade and who has intervened and acted in human history â and Who has revealed Himself. But yes, human sin/error/failures do come with a price â that is why we have prisons, fines for repeat offenders in traffic court, and so on and so onâŚOur mess IS our fault, when legally or morally determined to be that way. And parents DO let their kids mess up, when that seems to be the only way they will learn. The Helicopter Parent on Steroids is not a healthy situationâŚWe got our sense of right and wrong (skewed though it may often be) and we cannot keep it up. That is why we â including YOU, Klax â need a Savior. âŚNow the issue in this blog, I believe, is âHistorical Jesus.â For the most part, that is a settled question. The historicity of Jesus of Nazarethâand his/His crucifixion-- is generally accepted, even by those who do not believe in him as deity.
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YOU need a saviour too @bluebird1, to save you from damnationist thinking. When did God become our parent? At what point in the past 2-400,000 years? And when did He leave us to it? And what mess?
Good thoughts, palmhqâŚI have not read or heard specifically of Pitre â though I have read Blombergâs work long ago. There are plenty of other scholars who make a similar point to the one you cite from Pitre. And there are other arguments as well.
The two references to Jesus in Josephus are vastly different from the potential references in the Talmud. Many scholars will tell you the Talmudâs references to Jesus, if really referencing him, are late and unreliable. Some also seem to be reactions to Christian stories of the Virgin Birth.
Unlike the putative Talmud references, Josephus, writing late in the first century, is not far removed from the events. Josephusâs depiction clearly refers to the same Jesus found in the Gospels. He mentions his brother James. We have contemporary-primary date (1st hand eyewitness) from Paul who had interactions with James and called him the brother of Jesus. The gospels describe James as the brother of Jesus and there are difficult or embarrassing indications within Mark, the earliest one written, that Jesus had a rough time with his family members early in his ministry.
Most people who question the historicity of Jesus would be more prone to deny that any aspect of Josephus referred to Jesus (it was all an interpolation) or to claim, without any real reason for doing so, that Josephusâs reports depend solely on Christians at the time.
I donât know if any scholars accepts a corrected âTestimonium Flavianumâ but doesnât think it refers to Jesus of Nazareth. The passage in Josephus puts him in the correct timeframe, mentions his crucifixion under Pilate and another passage from Josephus referenced James as his brother.
You can see commonalities in Josephus and Tacitus. Jesus started a movement, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the movement did not die with his death. Tacitus also grew up during the fire at Rome and this means he would have had knowledge of an exposure to Christian beliefs.What is shows is the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, the man behind Christianity was taken for granted by both of these very different historians around the turn of the century.
Its important to understand that to the outside Roman world, Jesus was a mere blip on the radar There were also millions of Jews alive at this time. He became far more important after his death than during his life. As E.P. Sanders wrote,
âJesus became such an important man in world history that it is sometimes hard to believe how unimportant he was during his lifetime, especially outside Palestine. Most of the first-century literature that survives was written by members of the very small elite class of the Roman empire. To them, Jesus (if they heard of him at all) was merely a troublesome rabble-rouser and magician in a small, backward part of the world. Roman sources that mention him are all dependent on Christian reports. Jesusâ trial did not make headlines in Rome, and the archives there had no record of it. If archives were kept in Jerusalem, they were destroyed when revolt broke out in 66 CE or during the subsequent war. That war also devistated Galilee. Whatever record there may have been did not survive. When he was executed, Jesus was no more important to the outside world than the two brigands or insurgents executed with him â whose names we do not know.â p 49, The Historical Figure of Jesus.
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Hi, Vinnie - and welcome to the forum! Thanks for the informative historian perspective!
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Welcome VinnieâŚYou have a lot of good information here!! Below are a few that I have picked up along the wayâŚmy sources are Wright, Blomberg, Tertullian, a book with the clip from Thallus, Van Voorst, Yamauchi (sp), Origen, CharlesworthâŚyou probably are familiar with most of them, but see belowâ
Thallus âwrote before any of the gospels were written, in fact. Thallus wrote a historical work, and â being a skeptic about the whole thing â said the darkness that was experienced during Christâs crucifixion was merely an eclipse. This detail tells us that people knew that Jesus was a real person, and that He was crucified. During the crucifixion, people evidently knew of some sort of darkness. It required explanation. The works of Thallus are lost, but another writer of that era quoted Thallus and argued that Thallus was wrong â and that the darkness was not merely an eclipse.
Tertullian â writing near the end of the second century A.D., he noted that the archives of Rome still, at that late date, had records of a great darkness around the Mediterranean world at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus we can say that the matter of Jesusâ crucifixion was taken for granted and the curious events around it still known but their meaning debated.
Celsus-- wrote the late second century A.D. work âOn the True Doctrineâ in which he puts a lot of anti-Christian ideas into the mouth of an imaginary character. He ridicules the idea of resurrection, eating a fish after rising from the deadâŚalso mentions âthe earthquake and the darkness that covered the earth at the time of his deathâ; attributes sorcery to Jesus and dismisses the resurrection as the imaginings of"deluded" and âhystericalâ women. This information was preserved by the early church theologian Origen.
an ancient stone sarcophagus â bearing the image of Jesus on one side and another image representing Pilate on the other side. Pilate is seen washing his hands. This is an illustration from ancient times of the event of Pilate washing his hands (absolving himself of any guilt) as Jewish authorities ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, as per the gospel accounts.
Suetonius, an historian, told of the persecution of Christians during Neroâs reign.
first-century graffiti â âAlexamenos Worships His Godâ â and it mocks the crucifixion of Jesus. But this testifies to knowledge that Jesus was crucified and believed to be God. It also testifies to the fact that He had followers.
the TalmudâŚespecially the Babylonian Talmud, written 400 to 500 A.D., this document is hardly contemporary to Jesus of Nazareth, but its references to Him and the details of His life are consistent with what others say of Jesus, even if unflattering and scornful. The Talmud portrays Jesus as born out of wedlock, as a teacher, as a sorcerer who performs miracles by using magic, was a deceiver, and on in 'the eve of Passover" was âhangedâ
Lucian of Samasota (mid second century A.D.) â wrote sarcastically of Jesus being ârevered as a godâŚlawgiverâŚprotectorâŚcrucified in Palestine.â
Pliny the Younger - a local Roman official who wrote to his superiors in 110 or 115 A.D. asking what to do about Christians â people who gathered in the morning on the first day of the week (Sunday) and sang hymns and worshipped someone named Christ âas to a god.â He wanted to know whether to beat them or how else to punish them.
Tacitus (115 A.D.) â considered to be one of the most careful of early historians. Van Voorst said Tacitus may have had âhigh-level Roman recordsâ for his assertions, although he seems unsure of this. Tacitus noted that Christ was crucified by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.
Tertullian and Justin Martyr of the mid-second century A.D. â both mentioned that Pilate sent reports of his arrest, trial, crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth to Rome.
Josephus â considered by some to be âthe most important witness to Jesusâ outside the New Testament. His references to John the Baptist are not questioned by scholars. He made two references to Jesus, which are considered to be most important. His writings as a whole show that âYeshua of Nazareth was indeed a significant religious figure,â per one writer. The first reference to Jesus is made within the discussion of the execution of James, the brother of Jesus. The second reference is more controversial since nearly all scholars believe some Christian copyist doctored it along the way. But several decades ago, an Arab version of that same passage was discovered; this Arabic translation had the same basic account, but without all the details long considered to be embellishments. This document shows that âa non-Christian before 100 CE referred to the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth,â per Charlesworth.
"post 73 A.D. letter of Mara bar Serapionâ says the loss of Jerusalem was punishment for the Jewsâ âtreatment of Jesus of Nazarethâ
Various apocryphal gospels also wrote of Jesusâ life and ministry to varying extents. A belief in Jesusâ divinity was common even among heretical texts of that era.
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Thereâs a little difference between Josephus and the Talmud. The former is simply referring to an individual who was thought to be the Messiah, whereas the latter was simply engaging in polemical mythmaking to attack Christianity. That, right there, is how you can tell which is history and which isnât. Josephus is also much closer to the events at hand.
There is more than enough data on the historical Jesus. When discussing history and theology, momentarily give up the notion of the âNew Testamentâ, because that broad term masks the fact that the NT is actually a collection of a bunch of 1st century texts written from different early Christian writers in different areas and communities. Thus, we have in the NT a large corpus of sources to look at that. The most important are Paulâs letters and the Gospels, and there, we can look closer and reconstruct a social world of Christians and their beliefs going back to the 50s, 40s, and even 30s originally organized around a single individual. That individual is, of course, and must be, Jesus. We know far more about the historical Jesus then we do essentially all other similar status figures from antiquity.
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See my recent remarks to VinnieâŚ
To what end?
just read themâŚthey relate to the topic at hand
I donât question the historicity of Jesus. I certainly want to believe more than that. But if He were mythic, all of that tenuous haze wouldnât substantiate Him, beyond the mere historic.