Then what exactly IS your issue here? And I do not understand where you are going with “But if He were mythic, all of that tenuous haze …” Do you mean the “haze” would only define Him as historic not as divine?
Yes. It’s a partisan issue. The same information works both ways. It can never change anyone’s mind.
I understand the desire to gain more knowledge about the historical Jesus, but gaining that wont lead you to knowing Him.
Knowing Him comes from reading His words and obeying Him. By seeing what He said and following Him you will truly know Him because you are walking in His footsteps. Allowing His words to fill your mind will cause your mind to experience Him. God’s words are spiritual and they are spiritually understood. If you call out to God for understanding from a repentant heart, He will hear you and He will give you understanding of Jesus. The Father and the Son will live in you and you will know them in a way that just finding out if other people in history spoke of Him wont reveal to you. His words are eternal life.
As you seek God about what Jesus did for us on His cross and through His resurrection, God will give you understanding of the power that was exerted in the resurrection of Jesus from death. He will show you your union with Jesus in death and resurrection and how that delivers you from the power of sin and the devil.
Fill your mind with the words and deeds of Jesus. Trust, love and obey Him and you will know Him intimately.
Greetings bluebird1,
Just a few comments. You seem to be more engaged in Christian apologetics than history on this issue. Are you claiming the letter Mara bar Serapion specifically mentioned Jesus “of Nazareth”? I find the addition of that detail a bit odd since the letter never even mentioned “Jesus” by name, let alone his putative hometown (“of Nazareth”). The letter only mentions Jews being punished for the way they treated their wise king --which is very vague. Your date of post 73 CE does not mean it dates in the first century. It means it could date ANY time after that time period up until we establish a terminus ad quem based upon external citations and/or internal arguments. Maybe it dates even after the Bar Kochba revolt (ca 130s) where Jews were officially banned from Jerusalem. The idea that it was “the Jews” and not “the Romans” who killed Jesus is also very Christian in nature. His views may very well be reliant on Gospels or later 2nd century Christian reports as opposed to being an independent historical witness to Jesus with a solid line of transmission in the first century. Granted Syrian authorship, it could be stories from the Gospel of Matthew even. That is assuming it is even referring to Jesus in the first place. I admit he fits the bill but as one who like to engage in cautious, critical history, I also admit the text is very vague and there could be others who also fit the bill.
I could offer similar comments on your reference to Thallus and Suetonius but if you are really interested in this subject there are far more critical sources out there than Blomberg and Wright who, when it comes to historical Jesus studies, are more apologists than critical scholars.
The non-Christian outside sources that matter for Jesus are Josephus and Tacitus. The rest are all highly problematic, questionable or uncertain. The only thing they really could show is that historicity was taken for granted by later individuals. Quality of your source(s) is better than quantity in historical studies. There is no need to look further when Paul, Josephus and Mark all mention Jesus with a brother named James. Paul is contemporaneous with James, knows him and had dealings with him. This is absolutely more than adequate to establish the historicity of Jesus. Tacitus is just a little icing on the cake.
Vinnie
Hello Vinnie…What is the difference between history and apologetics? There seems to be a fine line. If you want to convince me that the Battle of Thermopylae occurred, then you must cite your sources, put together a text with some level of readability, and tell me all about it. And then some other historian – or history buff – will come along with, perhaps, the same details and some tweaking of perspective (or maybe not). If you want to convince me that Alexander the Great believed himself to be son of a god, then you delve into historical sources for that as well. I believe you had a great-grandmother, but if you want me to know you are descended from the Royal House of Whoville — you will have to present documentation. And in doing so, are you presenting/writing history? or doing an apologetic to explain why you deserve to be called Prince Vinnie? All history is, in some sense, an apologetic.
“History is not ‘what happened in the past’ …” but the analysis of it, as someone else has said (long citation there). I suppose this is a whole field of debate in and of itself. “Apologetics” might be just another way of arranging evidence from the details of a particular history – or, in this case, from the mention of a particular individual within history — to defend one’s point of view.
As for Mara bar Serapion…I was unfortunately just rattling off a list that I had made some time ago, not (in particular) citing one source for it. As one writer has said, most apologists/historians are (as that writer put it) co-dependent upon one another when it comes to data re: the historicity of Jesus.
Licona, Van Voorst, and Evans all mention Mara bar Serapion’s remarks — probably others do also (being co-dependent in this area, as the one observed said). And you can also find a reproduction of the letter from Serapion with an analysis online (Google it!) quite easily. See textexcavation.com/marabarserapionhtml......The blogger there lists his/her reasons for linking the remarks to a discussion of Jesus…
No, bar Serapion did not name Jesus, but no one seems to think otherwise of his subject than that he referred to Jesus. The online site has an end-date of 200 A.D. for the time period in which the letter could have been written. They also have a list of reasons why Jesus was the one to whom bar Serapion refered. These other places also date the letter as being after 73 A.D./C.E. When he wrote to his son and said (in Syriac) “What advantage…did the Athenians gain by murdering Socrates…or the Jews [by killing] their wise king, because their kingdom was taken away at that very time?” — Van Voorst said this information “links” the crucifixion with the destruction of the Jewish nation, as only Christian tradition did. Van Voorst, like Licona (for that matter) did not think the quote from Mara very useful for identifying Jesus. But, on the other hand, most also say that no ancient scholars/ apologists/ historians/theoreticians (however you want to categorize them) bothered to attempt to refute the existence of Jesus either — and this was at a point in time when they could have done so and just put an end to the whole movement. , Instead some used negative aspects of the gospel accounts ( Jesus’ execution) as evidence against Christianity. (That is, see? your guy was executed!!)
As for Thallus — that reference is useful only in the detail about some sort of darkness which people obviously were trying to explain. The statement by Thallus was disputed by some later writer. I was citing that in the sense that “something” happened which people were debating, and this early writer (Thallus) gave an interpretation that was refuted. Suetonius – same thing as Thallus. He noted the rise of a particular movement.
All of these other sources are interesting, just as much so as Josephus and Tacitus. They may only “dance” around the issue of a real person — but they do not seem to hint that historicity of that individual was questioned. As Durant (and others before and since) once said, it is hard to believe that all “that” grew up in the era of the first century if it did not have a historical personage somewhere behind much of it.
OK…nuff for now. Happy Friday!
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With that approach though, you cannot believe in anything …even the existence (at one time) of Abraham Lincoln or Mao Tse Tung.
There is no comparison. At all. And I don’t have to believe in Lincoln or Mao. I know they lived. I shared a planet with one of them. And the ultimate reality changing claim isn’t made about them or anybody else.
With the approach you are taking, nothing that you just said you know—can be known
I don’t understand how.
Welcome. Good stuff. I said pretty much the same way up there in post #33 
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Going off memory here, but the main historical note that the Talmud adds is that Jesus was a magician who deceived the people. The negative reference surely is meant to counter a historical tradition that Jesus worked miracles.
John’s gospel is by nearly unanimous agreement the last written. The earliest fragment of John, Papyrus 52, is dated around AD 100-120. It was discovered in Alexandria, and since manuscripts were meticulously copied by hand and passed along from church to church, the traditional dating of John around AD 90 isn’t too far off. Since the gospel was written in Asia Minor, a span of 10-20 years to make its way to Alexandria isn’t outlandish. With a terminus for John somewhere around AD 90 and Paul’s letters in the mid-50s, assuming Mark, Matthew, Luke & Acts were set down in roughly that order between AD 60-80 is reasonable. Every major commentary includes a section on dating. If you’re that fired up about it, you could look it up in those resources for more info.
Never fear on your woman caught in adultery. While it’s certainly a later addition, that alone doesn’t rule out its authenticity. Paul referred to a saying of Jesus that wasn’t recorded in the gospels (“It is better to give than to receive”). The “Jesus tradition” preserved in oral testimony wasn’t limited to what was first written. I believe the story was authentic to Jesus and passed along among the earliest disciples. Since it was much beloved and often told, copyists eventually decided to “correct” the oversight of the evangelists. That makes more sense to me than arguing that some scribe invented a good story and wanted to add it to the gospels.
Hmmm. How many Christians do you think there were in the late 1st century? There was no priestly elite for a long time.
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One test historians use is a “thought experiment” – remove that personage from history, and can events still be explained? For example, remove Alexander the Great from history, and you cannot explain the Seleucid or Ptolemaic kingdoms, or the Greek influence on their cultures. The same holds true for Jesus. Remove him from history, and you cannot explain Paul’s letters, the “Jesus tradition” that birthed the gospels, or the existence of Christianity itself. It’s like trying to explain Islam without Mohammed or Mormonism without Joseph Smith.
True…although the “common wisdom” is that the Koran is to Islam what Jesus is to Christianity…so perhaps “explaining” Muhammed may not carry exactly the same weight with for explaining Islam as Jesus does with Christianity. A small detail, and I see your point.
how do you argue that we have to pay a price for sin and how does believing in Christ make you get away with sin? Jesus died or us so we can learn to accept the physical death and to make the point that - if we are one with God that we can live in God forever. To make it about the eternal selfish existence is to materialise sin into the afterlife. As Kurt Marti once asked:
„Ein Glaube, der auf das eigene Weiterleben nach dem Tod fokussiert ist, bleibt heillos egozentriert. Ist der Wunsch, ewig zu leben, nicht ohnehin der menschliche Urfrevel, so sein zu wollen wie Gott, der allein Ewige?“
which exactly states the problem, not wanting to be with God but wanting to be like God.
To live forever
is the art
to learn to live
in Jesus heart
Those who want to live in their own heart forever have died a long time ago
One has to think about why the historicity of Jesus is put into question, e.g. the agenda of those who want to put his existence onto question. It reminds me of my childhood shouting liar liar to “argue”. But then I grew up and it was time to put childish things away. Thus my earlier comment about the historicity being irrelevant to the lessons we draw from the stories that have reached us about him. After all, reality is what we make of it.
In the light of puberty I always find it funny when we blame our parents.
Guess it comes from not having decent parents according to the wisdom we gained from a fruit based diet 
I’m not blaming our parents. We didn’t have any. No not one. There is nothing to blame. However, according to historic Christianity we are to blame for our nature, whatever that is, despite having been created somehow by Someone paternity is ultimately attributed to. Now I know that nature including nurture is so complex that we cannot blame parents directly for much psychological development, and that abuse is better than neglect, so may be that does let God off the hook.
There certainly was a priestly elite by the C4th, when the PA was bodged on to John. It is without equal in jaw dropping, courageous, overt, moral power genius as an act of Jesus, which is why it is so surprising that it is not in the progressively late C1st Gospels. Especially the latest on to which it is bodged. Some oversight. The gospels themselves are an afterthought of course, ‘Oooh, maybe we better write this down before we die.’ The seven consensus letters of Paul are far more relevant, testifying to a successful, minority, mythic, humanist personality cult transcending cultures in SE Europe, W. Asia, NE Africa and beyond. In social evolutionary terms, the time was right for humanist strands of ethics to be brought together, even by an itinerant, provincial provincial, Jewish carpenter, so successfully that he threatened the social order and was killed for it. I don’t go with conspiracy theories at all, but human nature is such that it is easy to construct a novel in which His followers extrapolated from His death to His resurrection in all sincerity, affirming the consequent; it was foretold therefore it happened. They searched the scriptures and behold, it was true. Because they wanted it to be. So do I… I regard that as the gift of faith. Hopefully. But I cannot fully brainwash myself, although I am trying believe it or not (superpositioning the non-overlapping magisteria of belief and reason more than ever), but not as they do in the novel.
Aaahhh yes yes. Fiction!! Really comon to find a novel in Judea at that time. Sorry but with my limited knowledge of history this is the most “conspiracist” thing ive heard. No offense to that
None could be taken. The sincere, sane, utterly traumatized, decent, desperate, deluded disciples of the novel didn’t write anything for at least 30 years. The novel has yet to be written. Julian Baggini’s superb Godless Gospel would help.
Your fringe levels are over the roof im afraid. Sorry but this conversation goes already into a conspiracy one and i wont allow it. Whats next accepting Da Vincis code as a canon?
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Over yours Nick, not over the world’s. My discourse is not conspiratorial at all and Dan Brown does not compare with Michener or Rutherford or many other novelists.