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Paul, for all his intercourse with the disciples, did not pick up any biographical information about Jesus which he elected to pass on to his readers. Paul writes about what Jesus wants us to do and what the rules are now supposed to be, but was mysteriously silent on the life of the person behind the message. In terms of proof of a historical Jesus, Paul isn't very much help.
Please do not take the above as indicative of me subscribing to a no historical Jesus theory. I of course am in no position to assert something I do not know. I've found informed speculation about what Jesus was really doing with his ministry to be a fun sport, and you need to assume a real dude for that.
Quite so. Now somehow or other Paul is going to have heard about Jesus, even before he converted, and likely afterwards, too. What does he say? That he was the messiah, that he resurrected, that he has a last Supper, was 'betrayed' and crucified by the "Lords of this World" (The Romans).
What he doesn't tell us and his lack of interest in the flesh -Jesus is perhaps significant. 'Betrayed' rather implies being given over to the dark Powers, rather than an actual betrayal by Judas (though in terms of a Plot, that works very well, and Judas was as essential to Jesus plan in the plot and it was to the God's plan of theology).
So, I'm saying again that I am convinced that Paul was a real person, he did know the diciples of Jesus, and Jesus had to be a real person that they followed.
I also think that the apostles were just working with Jews and converts and 'associate Jews' and they had little interest in converting all nations. That was Paul's idea and he worked it out himself, explaining it in Romans (his Thesis and i believe his first letter, though some make it late, before he went to Rome. I think myself that he knew of the Jewish and perhaps the Jewish Nazorene (Christian) community in Rome and wanted to go there from the first.
I'm saying that Jesus was a real person but a Jew, and probably a subversive Jew opposed to Roman Rule, which is why Paul, a loyal Roman, originally opposed them. While a lot of gospel stuff about the last supper and betrayal is derived from Paul, Paul is not necessarily talking about the events in the gospels.
There are two possible explanations in my mind. The more probable is that there was an original Christian story loosely based on the actual events, but the are evolved and fiddled more and more to make Jesus even more pro -Gentile and anti -Jewish and divine stuff like the Nativity and Resurrection were added later to plug theological gaps.
The less likely one (though I originally was quite persuaded by it is a mission as shown in the gospels, but a Jewish messianic one, with the healings, the raising of Lazarus, the donkey ride and temple business, all being staged - the donkey ride clearly is arranged beforehand. With the failure of the liberation (Luke knows about this - Luke 24.21) Jesus sent Judas to hand him over to force God, to put it bluntly, to save him and effect the coming of the Last days. But there was a scheme, based on the Lazarus show miracle, in place if things went wrong.
As I say I liked this and wrote a novel ("The Jesus Detectives" with a nubian ex -praetorian and a Sarmatian cavalrywoman in the Roman army doing the on the spot investigation. It was a terrible book ) but there were far too many problems and a study of the gospels showed just how they were constructed. But the latter hypothesis could be true, at least in part.
But Judas could be entirely invented as part of the agenda to put the blame for Jesus arrest, trial and death on the Jews, rather than the Romans.
Anyway, the upshot is that I think Paul and Jesus and the disciples were real, but not quite as they appear in the Christian -written gospels and Acts.
Paul, for all his intercourse with the disciples, did not pick up any biographical information about Jesus which he elected to pass on to his readers. Paul writes about what Jesus wants us to do and what the rules are now supposed to be, but was mysteriously silent on the life of the person behind the message. In terms of proof of a historical Jesus, Paul isn't very much help.
Please do not take the above as indicative of me subscribing to a no historical Jesus theory. I of course am in no position to assert something I do not know. I've found informed speculation about what Jesus was really doing with his ministry to be a fun sport, and you need to assume a real dude for that.
Well I am a mythicist, although I don't feel the argument for mythicism is airtight and it doesn't present a problem for me if Jesus was a real person.
I understand that Paul's letters didn't have, as their purpose, to relate the gospel narrative. But you would expect a follower of a flesh and blood Jesus, particularly a miracle-working god-man, to refer to and reminisce about specific events and sayings of Jesus far more than Paul does -- to maybe even have an anecdote or two that aren't in the gospels. You'd also expect him to appeal not to his personal subjective experiences but to actual living eyewitnesses to substantiate his doctrines and to demonstrate his conformity to the actual teachings of Jesus. Instead, he openly brags that he gets it directly from Heavenly Jesus and his father, as if this is superior. It's an odd gambit ... unless it was his only available choice.
My taking a position is not a statement that I know something with absolute certainty. It is just where I feel the preponderance of evidence leans. Not as dramatically and solidly as the preponderance of evidence that leads me to disbelieve in all deities -- but a bit more than, say, the leaning tower of Pisa.
Well I am a mythicist, although I don't feel the argument for mythicism is airtight and it doesn't present a problem for me if Jesus was a real person.
Me neither, but it would be a pretty sticky dilemma for the faithful if the answer turned out to be "no."
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I understand that Paul's letters didn't have, as their purpose, to relate the gospel narrative. But you would expect a follower of a flesh and blood Jesus, particularly a miracle-working god-man, to refer to and reminisce about specific events and sayings of Jesus far more than Paul does -- to maybe even have an anecdote or two that aren't in the gospels. You'd also expect him to appeal not to his personal subjective experiences but to actual living eyewitnesses to substantiate his doctrines and to demonstrate his conformity to the actual teachings of Jesus. Instead, he openly brags that he gets it directly from Heavenly Jesus and his father, as if this is superior. It's an odd gambit ... unless it was his only available choice.
I agree with all of the above, it strikes me as odd to an extreme degree that Paul didn't buff his sermons with tales of miracles, quotes of wisdom, examples of piety etc. It is almost as if Paul's writings were deliberately sanitized of any biography. On the other hand, we cannot take absence of supporting evidence as proof of there being none.
Ultimately this question is only relevant for believers. If your attitude is whether or not there was a Jesus, he wasn't any sort of a god, you don't have to concern yourself wit the material reality.
That is indeed the problem with a supposedly historical Jesus. And, yet I believe that Paul, the letters and the disciples are real. How to account for the lack of any details other than the one that Tacitus, which as i say, I consider may be a real historical mention of Jesus - that he was crucified by the Romans?
The explanation may be in the remark that he makes about knowing Jesus in the flesh no longer, but in the spirit.
Pail is no only not interested in the earthly Jesus and his doings, but there is an element of 'less said, the better'. It's a bit like the problem of - though I think there is evidence in the gospels (as well as Tacitus) that Jesus was a real person whose origins and doings were an embarrassment that needed to be explained away or covered up (e.g by inventing a Bethlehem birth to get over why there wasn't one) and though it may be hard to believe, the actual Jesus executed for rebellion, not Blasphemy, and the act of rebellion in Paul, had to be ignored, in the Gospels papered over, and from history, expunged.
I find it hard to believe, and I may be dead wrong about it, but the evidence suggests to me that the actual Jesus has been removed from History as effectively in fact as the geretical gospels were effectively entiirely removed and if it was not for the nag Hammadi find and a few quotes by Church fathers intent on debunking them, we would have little knowledge of some and none of the other.
I have a sort a Cheezy fantasy That if I get the General theory (the Gospels Christianize Jesus) and the Special Theory (Jesus was Bar-abbas, the insurgent) into the Public Domain, some papyrus code will be dud up confirming it. As I say, I might be dead wrong, but it does explain the problems.
Ultimately this question is only relevant for believers. If your attitude is whether or not there was a Jesus, he wasn't any sort of a god, you don't have to concern yourself wit the material reality.
True. For me as a former believer it's an interesting curio but not something that matters. I do think there's value, though, in believers being exposed to all the possibilities. It's not a slam dunk that Jesus was a historical being even if not the Amazing Miracle-Working God-Man. And there is less airtight support for the notion even in scriptures than one would be led to think.
I have a sort a Cheezy fantasy That if I get the General theory (the Gospels Christianize Jesus) and the Special Theory (Jesus was Bar-abbas, the insurgent) into the Public Domain, some papyrus code will be dud up confirming it. As I say, I might be dead wrong, but it does explain the problems.
That is the essential problem with Jesus speculation...it all must end with "I may be dead wrong."
After I stopped believing in Jesus as a god, my first interpretation of what he was actually about was reflective of the times. I decided, based on nothing really, that Jesus was the hippie dude from "Godspell" and more or less a pre Marx Marxist. He was about making life better on earth, and it was his misguided followers who turned him into a god.
It wasn't until the 1990's that I finally got interested in Biblical scholarship and realized that there were numerous viable interpretations out there, that I dropped the hippie dude assumptions. Now, if we assume that there was a Jesus, I think it most probable that he was primarily concerned with reforming Judaism which had fallen into a too comfortable relationship with the Romans. He was anti-Temple, which is what got him executed. I don't think he ever intended to launch a new religion with himself as its god.
We all may be. But I don't know...I have come to distrust those who say 'we can never come to a sound conclusion, based on the evidence" as I have seen us do just that about one subject after another. And I think it can be done about the Gospels, too. Just that nobody seems to have twigged (or rather, used - they are familiar with redaction criticism but seem to just Do It as Mechanical exercise but don't...Use it) the mechanism.
As I say I liked this and wrote a novel ("The Jesus Detectives" with a nubian ex -praetorian and a Sarmatian cavalrywoman in the Roman army doing the on the spot investigation. It was a terrible book ) but there were far too many problems and a study of the gospels showed just how they were constructed. But the latter hypothesis could be true, at least in part.
.
Did you get an agent and try to sell it to Hollywood?
Producer: "Loved the book, Transponder, loved it. But we're seeing this Jesus guy as a a bit younger..and let's get him a girlfriend. And oh.....lose the mother, Jewish moms, too much of a cliche, know what I mean?. We're in talks with Denzel about playing Pilate, so we need you to rewrite his lines to make him a hipper character. But we loved it, absolutely loved it. Can you have those changes for us by Thursday?"
40 different authors of the bible and none of the books contradict one another. In other words, this explanation isn't really plausible if that is your premise
The books of the OT contradict science and history, and the books of the NT do contradict one another. One way or another, yes, the "Explanations' (if you mean the apologetics for Bible reliability) aren't plausible.
40 different authors of the bible and none of the books contradict one another. In other words, this explanation isn't really plausible if that is your premise
Yeah right. In your dreams.
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is a mission as shown in the gospels, but a Jewish messianic one, with the healings, the raising of Lazarus, the donkey ride and temple business, all being staged - the donkey ride clearly is arranged beforehand. With the failure of the liberation (Luke knows about this - Luke 24.21) Jesus sent Judas to hand him over to force God, to put it bluntly, to save him and effect the coming of the Last days. But there was a scheme, based on the Lazarus show miracle, in place if things went wrong. 
) but there were far too many problems and a study of the gospels showed just how they were constructed. But the latter hypothesis could be true, at least in part.
That if I get the General theory (the Gospels Christianize Jesus) and the Special Theory (Jesus was Bar-abbas, the insurgent) into the Public Domain, some papyrus code will be dud up confirming it. As I say, I might be dead wrong, but it does explain the problems.
