Please Stop Claiming Jesus Accepts LGBT People

[MamaJunebug]

THIS! Preach it sister!

Indeed. Also Foxy Moxie!

[formergothardite]

Some articles about the evidence of Jesus compared to the evidence of Alexander the Great.

//vridar.org/2007/04/22/comparing-the-sources-for-alexander-and-jesus/

vridar.org/2010/05/01/comparing-the-evidence-for-jesus-with-other-ancient-historical-persons/

debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2013/04/alexander-great-jesus-and-david.html

This one discusses the problems with the writings about Alexander the Great. But it says this:

Despite these problems with the sources, the existence of Alexander is a reasonable belief because he has wide and independent attestation from all types of sources, and not just those of his own followers.

Some of these sources date from his own time, and are attested archaeologically, not just from later accounts. So, we don’t just have to depend on later historians such as Plutarch and Arrian.

For example, reliefs at the Shrine of the Bark at Luxor in Egypt mention Alexander by name, and depict him artistically during his lifetime (ca. 330-325 BCE). That would confirm his presence in Egypt mentioned by all major ancient sources.

When Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources, which are not otherwise dependent on each other, say the equivalent of “Alexander was here†during his lifetime, then it is reasonable to believe that there existed a man named Alexander who was present at those places.

That is why it is unfair to compare Jesus to Alexander in terms of historical evidence for their existence. There is nothing outside of later Christian sources saying Jesus was anywhere in his lifetime. Nothing in the New Testament is fully contemporary with Jesus.

There also are no Roman or Greek sources saying that there was even a group who believed that Jesus lived or did anything the Gospels allege about him. There is no archaeological evidence of his activities or of the activities of his group from Jesus’ supposed lifetime.

That absence of evidence is curious because, when speaking of Christianity, Acts 28:22 (RSV) says “everywhere it is spoken against.†More traces should remain in the first century of a group that everyone was speaking against.

In the case of Alexander, his fame was present in a wide range of sources as is expected of someone who was said to have conquered the known world. Alexander was closer to someone “everywhere spoken about†and there is independent corroborating evidence to confirm that.

tomverenna.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/alexander-the-great-and-jesus-an-irresponsible-comment/

Those who attempt to pretend there is any similarity in evidence between that for Jesus and that for Alexander the Great only show their naivety (and in some cases, like E.P. Sanders who actually argues that there is more evidence for Jesus than Alexander, their ignorance

In addition to Arrian’s work, there are still perhaps hundreds of extant contemporary attestations of Alexander the Great from manuscripts, (3) artwork (busts of him; we have copies of originals done from his life), coins, and inscriptions (many contemporaneous). (4) There are also other lesser evidences (but hardly anywhere near the sort of dubious or questionable evidence we might have for Jesus) like letters of Alexander and Aristotle and Philip and Speusippus, and the hundreds of quotations of contemporaries and eyewitnesses that survive in later works, most of which are hard to dispute. If we had this sort of evidence for Jesus’ life and ministry, there would be no need to question his historical significance (or, perhaps, his historicity at all).

I don't believe Jesus was created out of thin air. I personally feel that the Jesus we read about in the Bible was probably a combination of several men.

[doggie]

I don't believe Jesus was created out of thin air. I personally feel that the Jesus we read about in the Bible was probably a combination of several men.

there were two other Jesus's in history so it is not a original story.

[VelociRapture]

Don't kill me, but... I'm a liberal Christian who loves Paul.

He was a product of his time, that's for sure, as are many thinkers that we read and respect today.

Homosexuality as an orientation didn't exist back then in the same culturally-recognized way that it does now. (See: Foucault [adding the reference so I don't look like a bigot-- instead I look like an academic which may be worse!]). Paul didn't understand or know what "homosexuality" was because that kind of understanding was not a part of their cultural zeitgeist. Because of that, I don't think that anything he wrote about it can be understood in direct correlation with our understanding of homosexuality. He was absolutely not saying the orientation as understood today was wrong. He was saying that pagan idol worship was wrong. I would say that he wasn't saying homosexuality was wrong because pagans did it and they are bad. Rather, he was saying that Christians should not worship other gods like pagans and homosexual relations (I hate using that term, but I feel I should to set it apart from the orientation) was an act of worshiping other gods so they shouldn't do that. I think Paul would have a very different understanding of this issue if he were writing today.

And it's interesting that, despite being used to oppress women, his original take on the household codes (which are used to oppress women and justify slaves) were actually subversive and empowering within the time that they were written. The structures already existed-- Paul added the responsibility of decency to the party in power (father, husband, slave owner) instead of placing the onus on the weaker party. This post does a good job describing is, though I can't stand Rachel Held Evans for unrelated reasons: rachelheldevans.com/blog/four-interpretive-pitfalls-around-the-new-testament-household-codes That's not to say that the codes as Paul writes them are not sexist. They are. But compared to the common understanding at the time, they humanize women and slaves far more than they typically would have been in that cultural context.

As I said above, I think if Paul were writing today, he would be pushing the boundaries of social justice and acceptance, just like he was bad in the day.

Lol! No problem whatsoever! I dislike Paul more for the fact that he pretty much usurped Jesus' message and identity to fit his own means - it was Paul, not Jesus or his followers (like his brother James and Peter) that shaped our perception of who Jesus was. I doubt he was a completely bad guy, but I just don't like him. :lol:

[formergothardite]

For his day Paul was probably pretty radical, but his writings have caused a heck of a lot of problems because people don't look at them in the context in which they were written. That isn't really his fault and he most likely had no clue that in 2015 people would be using his words in the way that they are being used now.

[Firiel]

Lol! No problem whatsoever! I dislike Paul more for the fact that he pretty much usurped Jesus' message and identity to fit his own means - it was Paul, not Jesus or his followers (like his brother James and Peter) that shaped our perception of who Jesus was. I doubt he was a completely bad guy, but I just don't like him. :lol:

It's true that Paul shaped Christianity about as much as Jesus did. I think about it this way-- Jesus (assuming the basic crucifixion story is true but the other stuff doesn't have to be for this to apply) was a prime example of 'incorrect' resistance. He resisted the status quo without working from inside the system and without resorting to the go-to patriarchal tool of aggression (think self-immolation for other examples of this... it's quite rare, I would say). Paul took that 'incorrect resistance' and turned it into 'correct' resistance-- like the guy who makes a movie about the self-immolating monk. He turned that resistance into something palatable by the public at large and made us feel like we could take a part in it too, without giving up too much. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, now Christianity is the status quo and isn't a form of resistance at all.

And, formergothardite, I agree. Paul's writings have been used for some shitty things, that's for sure!

[2xx1xy1JD]

Firiel - I've come to have a similar view of Paul, I think.

He suggested playing nice, following the rules and making a good impression, even though it meant going along with an unfair status quo, in order to avoid coming into opposition with authorities. Resistance wasn't good for the long-term prospects of the Church. Ultimately, history shows that his method was more successful. I've taking trips to Masada and seen resistance to the Romans shown as brave - but ultimately, if I'm honest, I'd have to say that it was pretty stupid, because they all died. 3 wars against Rome by the Jews ended up in disaster, while Christians ultimately gained control of the Roman empire. That came at a price - not opposing patriarchy, slavery or tyranny.

[eri]

I have to disagree with you. I have mad respect for Dr. Bart Ehrman on this topic:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/01/149462376 ... s-his-case

The strong vs tortured messiah thing sounds suspicious. He is assuming that Christian mythology would be constructed like a hero epic of some type. News flash: Martyr 'saints' have been a common theme in folklore before the story of Christ.

Someone downthread pointed out that the evidence for Jesus' existence is not related to the Bible "as [we] know it." So what does that mean? An unspectacular but subversive Jewish man lived two thousand years ago? How could that ever be disproven?

[Firiel]

The strong vs tortured messiah thing sounds suspicious. He is assuming that Christian mythology would be constructed like a hero epic of some type. News flash: Martyr 'saints' have been a common theme in folklore before the story of Christ.

Someone downthread pointed out that the evidence for Jesus' existence is not related to the Bible "as [we] know it." So what does that mean? An unspectacular but subversive Jewish man lived two thousand years ago? How could that ever be disproven?

Note: This post is written based on the stuff I was taught from a Christian standpoint. 2xx1xyJD, please correct me if I was ill-informed or understood things incorrectly.

eri, my understanding has always been that it was a pretty standard Jewish understanding/belief at the time that the Messiah would be more of a political/warrior savior-- that he would free them from the rule of the Romans. So the reason Ehrman brings that up as evidence of Jesus's existence is because of that understanding. The Messiah was expected to be a strong, heroic figure, so purposefully creating a fake Messiah figure that is exactly the opposite (a tortured servant) of what people expected him to be would not have been a smart move if people were trying to create a false figure to gain followers for a new religion.

For the second part of your post, it's actually literally impossible to prove a negative. So no one can prove that Jesus didn't exist which, of course, doesn't mean that he did and doesn't mean it's not useful to examine evidence to determine whether or not it's plausible that a historical Jesus existed and how he differed from the version of him described in the Gospels.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Yeah, the Jewish understanding of the Messiah at that time would have been of a leader who would save them from the Romans. There was never any expectation that the Messiah would be the son of God, or that he would die before doing what he needed to do. Expectations of a Messiah were running high at the time, which is part of the reason that Yeshua (Jesus) was such a common name. There's some evidence that more than one person was considered a potential Messiah - for example, the Essenes talked about a Teacher of Righteousness (about 100 BC), and Rabbi Akiva had declared that Bar Kochba (who died in 136 AD) could be the Messiah.

A Messiah dying too soon goes off script, unless someone is influenced by other pagan myths. It seems quite plausible to me that, like some others, Jesus of Nazareth could have been believed to be a potential Messiah by those around him, and that some of those others would have refused to accept his death and desperately wanted to believe that there was still a way for him to be alive/be the Messiah. We actually have a modern example of that same phenomenon - those who refuse to believe that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe is either dead or is not the Messiah. I remember having surreal conversations on imamother.com with some women who objected when I referred to the Rebbe as dead - even though he clearly died on June 10, 1994 and is buried in Queens.

[Firiel]

Yeah, the Jewish understanding of the Messiah at that time would have been of a leader who would save them from the Romans. There was never any expectation that the Messiah would be the son of God, or that he would die before doing what he needed to do. Expectations of a Messiah were running high at the time, which is part of the reason that Yeshua (Jesus) was such a common name. There's some evidence that more than one person was considered a potential Messiah - for example, the Essenes talked about a Teacher of Righteousness (about 100 BC), and Rabbi Akiva had declared that Bar Kochba (who died in 136 AD) could be the Messiah.

A Messiah dying too soon goes off script, unless someone is influenced by other pagan myths. It seems quite plausible to me that, like some others, Jesus of Nazareth could have been believed to be a potential Messiah by those around him, and that some of those others would have refused to accept his death and desperately wanted to believe that there was still a way for him to be alive/be the Messiah. We actually have a modern example of that same phenomenon - those who refuse to believe that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe is either dead or is not the Messiah. I remember having surreal conversations on imamother.com with some women who objected when I referred to the Rebbe as dead - even though he clearly died on June 10, 1994 and is buried in Queens.

Thanks for the info! That makes a lot of sense-- the Lubavitcher Rebbe thing has caught my interest. I need to remember to look it up in more detail later.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Here's a good summary, from a Jewish studies prof that I know and respect: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article ... essianism/ The only error is that the date of the death was 1994, not 1993.

I found some original sources for the crazy stuff, but much of it uses Hebrew or Yiddish terms, even for articles in English, so they make absolutely no sense if you don't already have some background. That said, here's an example: beismoshiachmagazine.org/articles/no-more-than-a-test.html They are saying sure, he's physically alive, but you have to really really have faith that he's physical alive if you want to connect with him.

So....Second Coming, Resurrection, assuming a human has divine traits, the absolutely necessity of faith in order to have salvation - sound familiar? It's like a living lab experiment, showing us how beliefs develop. Keep in mind that this strain of belief is growing among a sect that has very little exposure to Christianity, and is particularly strong in Israel, where casual exposure to Christianity is even lower.

[eri]

Note: This post is written based on the stuff I was taught from a Christian standpoint. 2xx1xyJD, please correct me if I was ill-informed or understood things incorrectly.

eri, my understanding has always been that it was a pretty standard Jewish understanding/belief at the time that the Messiah would be more of a political/warrior savior-- that he would free them from the rule of the Romans. So the reason Ehrman brings that up as evidence of Jesus's existence is because of that understanding. The Messiah was expected to be a strong, heroic figure, so purposefully creating a fake Messiah figure that is exactly the opposite (a tortured servant) of what people expected him to be would not have been a smart move if people were trying to create a false figure to gain followers for a new religion.

For the second part of your post, it's actually literally impossible to prove a negative. So no one can prove that Jesus didn't exist which, of course, doesn't mean that he did and doesn't mean it's not useful to examine evidence to determine whether or not it's plausible that a historical Jesus existed and how he differed from the version of him described in the Gospels.

OK, your first paragraph gives me a bit more understanding.

Second paragraph: As a non-believer, I am aware that you can't disprove a negative, which is the very reason I find unsubstantiated faith to be dangerous: how do you disprove it? You can't, because it is in the lockbox of "Can't be disproven lol." For example, questions like "Does God disapprove of homosexuality?" have this undisputable immunity on the basis that they can't be disproven.

If a Jewish man names Jesus existed (certainly very likely) but performed 'magical' tricks and orchestrated local magistrate upheavals yet somehow didn't end up on any records, that is significant. If his legacy was purposefully stifled/erased by the governments of the time, we have no concrete way of knowing that, so believing that takes faith. As for my perspective on faith, see paragraph 2.

[2xx1xy1JD]

To me, lack of contemporaneous historical record could mean lack of reason for anything to be recorded.

At the time, you didn't have people blogging and instagraming every second of their lives. Records tended to be produced by officials of some sort, scribes, some religious groups and some builders. For example, there is a ton of stuff connected to various kings at the time, but almost nothing connected to the pre-monarchy stage of the Israelites. So, lack of record likely means that if Jesus existed, he didn't attract much official attention during his lifetime. His group of followers was fairly small. It's only after the group gets larger, years after his death, that they get mentioned in sources like Josephus.

[Firiel]

OK, your first paragraph gives me a bit more understanding.

Second paragraph: As a non-believer, I am aware that you can't disprove a negative, which is the very reason I find unsubstantiated faith to be dangerous: how do you disprove it? You can't, because it is in the lockbox of "Can't be disproven lol." For example, questions like "Does God disapprove of homosexuality?" have this undisputable immunity on the basis that they can't be disproven.

If a Jewish man names Jesus existed (certainly very likely) but performed 'magical' tricks and orchestrated local magistrate upheavals yet somehow didn't end up on any records, that is significant. If his legacy was purposefully stifled/erased by the governments of the time, we have no concrete way of knowing that, so believing that takes faith. As for my perspective on faith, see paragraph 2.

Added before posted to clarify: Keep in mind that this post is about scholarship and a potential historical Jesus, not about Christianity.

I don't think it's quite fair to term academic disagreement about the existence of a certain historical figure as something based on "faith." There are hundreds of historical issues that scholars disagree on. And in many cases, there is not proof one way or the other. It's looking at the historical context, manuscript evidence (and manuscript evidence is evidence-- there is a way to examine Biblical texts without "using the Bible to prove the Bible" as so often happens), archeological evidence, etc. and coming to a rational conclusion. I wouldn't say, for instance, that I have "faith" that William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays attributed to him. I would say that I find one of the bedrock arguments offered by folks who suggest his plays were ghost-written (that Shakespeare couldn't have possibly written such great shit with the limited education and cultural exposure he had) to be ill-founded.

Here's another analogy that works better, I think.

King Arthur never existed in any way, shape, or form. Historical point of view.

King Arthur is based on a conglomeration of several early British figures. Historical point of view.

King Arthur was a genuine historical figure who inspired a bunch of myths. Wrong (<-- IMO!) historical point of view.

King Arthur existed in much the same form as he does in literature and will return from Avalon one day because he is the once and future king. Faith.

Jesus never existed in any way, shape, or form. Historical point of view.

Jesus was based on a conglomeration of several Jewish apocalyptic preachers. Historical point of view.

Jesus was a genuine historical figure who inspired a bunch of myths. Historical point of view.

Jesus existed in much the same form as he does in the New Testament, was raised from the dead, and will return one day. Faith.

EDIT: I'm realizing that my example of William Shakespeare is pretty poor because relatively few scholars believe that Shakespeare did not author his plays. So I'll turn it around. If someone believes that Shakespeare didn't the plays attributed to him, it's not that they have "faith" that someone else wrote them-- it's that they find the evidence saying otherwise compelling. I mean, they're wrong, but now is not the time or place for that. :wink-kitty:

[2xx1xy1JD]

Here's a good summary, from a Jewish studies prof that I know and respect: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article ... essianism/ The only error is that the date of the death was 1994, not 1993.

I found some original sources for the crazy stuff, but much of it uses Hebrew or Yiddish terms, even for articles in English, so they make absolutely no sense if you don't already have some background. That said, here's an example: beismoshiachmagazine.org/articles/no-more-than-a-test.html They are saying sure, he's physically alive, but you have to really really have faith that he's physical alive if you want to connect with him.

So....Second Coming, Resurrection, assuming a human has divine traits, the absolutely necessity of faith in order to have salvation - sound familiar? It's like a living lab experiment, showing us how beliefs develop. Keep in mind that this strain of belief is growing among a sect that has very little exposure to Christianity, and is particularly strong in Israel, where casual exposure to Christianity is even lower.

ETA:

I realized that "crazy stuff" is a relative term.

For a board with more Christians and ex-Christians than Jews, belief in a dead/zombie Messiah is probably the least weird thing about a group of Hasidic Jews. Every so often, I actually read through some of the more theological stuff I find on here and related blogs, and realize that stuff that is totally weird and out-there to me is perfectly normal to others, while things that are totally normal in my life are totally weird to others.

So, to clarify, from a Jewish POV, the beliefs of the "King Messiah Rebbe is alive and well among us!" faction of Chabad are a departure from mainstream Judaism and awfully close to Christian beliefs, and rejection of Christian theology may be the one thing that most Jews agree on (even if they disagree on stuff like "does God exist" or "did God write the Torah").

[Firiel]

Here's a good summary, from a Jewish studies prof that I know and respect: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article ... essianism/ The only error is that the date of the death was 1994, not 1993.

I found some original sources for the crazy stuff, but much of it uses Hebrew or Yiddish terms, even for articles in English, so they make absolutely no sense if you don't already have some background. That said, here's an example: beismoshiachmagazine.org/articles/no-more-than-a-test.html They are saying sure, he's physically alive, but you have to really really have faith that he's physical alive if you want to connect with him.

So....Second Coming, Resurrection, assuming a human has divine traits, the absolutely necessity of faith in order to have salvation - sound familiar? It's like a living lab experiment, showing us how beliefs develop. Keep in mind that this strain of belief is growing among a sect that has very little exposure to Christianity, and is particularly strong in Israel, where casual exposure to Christianity is even lower.

Thanks for the link-- it was really interesting. I found the divine in the human aspect especially interesting as that seems like such a particular belief to Christianity. Seeing that it developed in a more recent sect of Judaism was surprising. Very cool-- I learned a lot! :)

[VelociRapture]

This thread is so interesting. I definitely need to pop back in later to read through everything more carefully when I have time.

One book that I loved reading on the subject was, "Zealot," by Reza Aslan - conservatives got their panties in a twist because he's a Muslim scholar who wrote about who Jesus of Nazareth may have been in a historical context instead of religious. He treats Christianity and Jesus with respect and never really tries to undermine anyone's beliefs, so I thought he did an excellent job given the limitations of historical evidence.

One point in the book I found really interested was the fact that historical records suggest that there were many people in that time period who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah - it was almost like a job in some ways. And there were a lot of people who traveled around performing illusions (or "miracles") as well. So Jesus performing alleged miracles or claiming to be the Messiah wouldn't have been that odd to the people of the time strictly because it wasn't all that original.

[onlyme]

Bullshit. Just because the author of the piece is too ignorant to know that Paul is talking about pederasty and temple prostitution and that the translators of the KJV deliberately translated it badly because they wanted to stick it to King James, who they hated, doesn't mean that Paul was homophobic.

People need to stop letting the fundamentalists control the narrative for how the Bible is supposed to be interpreted.

This. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I am a meta-physical Christian, I don't believe that it matters if Jesus is a historical person. I believe the Bible is a metaphor for spiritual truth. (combined with some anthropomorphic projection, and also written with the limitations of the cultural settings of the time.)

Therefore I'm not going to read through all the discussion about history, and I'm sorry if someone has mentioned this before, but even if you take a literal view of the Bible, I thought "God and the Gay Christian" to be very helpful. He writes about the cultural context of Rome at that time, and the way the words we translate for "homosexual" have been translated through history. It might be helpful, I read it in a couple days and got it at the library. It's not the slam dunk that we are led to believe.

[FoxyMoxie]

Hi, I didn't mean to comment and run - I have really intermittent laptop access at the moment and my phone dislikes sites like FJ.

FG, there are definitely Roman sources that talk about Jesus so I'm a little surprised by those posts - it's definitely not the case that only Jesus' followers wrote about him, there are many sources by opposing writers.

I think what confuses me is how eager some people are to prove that a historical Jesus (of any type, whether like the Biblical Jesus or not) didn't exist. I don't understand why Jesus existing in some form is such a problem? This isn't meant in an accusatory way, I just don't get why the existence of a Jewish man called Jesus who amassed a small band of followers in Roman-occupied Palestine is so beyond the realm of possibility. As I said, I'm not talking about the Jesus of the Bible necessarily - totally accept that it would be impossible to prove. Maybe it's because my tradition is more a Tradition-based one and so it doesn't really matter to me either way? Like what my church tradition has passed on about Jesus is more important to me than the Bible's Jesus - I fully own that and feel no shame about admitting it. Also I totally hold my hands up and say I may be wrong, wrt your comments and generally. I hope I haven't fallen in your estimation too much!

Speaking more generally, Paul's Greek is of a rougher, less polished quality and he also uses revolutionary language (sharing this with Mark). He also swears! I can see how churches may have found this more difficult to handle than say, Luke's very 'professional' Greek.

[Mama Mia]

I don't have anything to add, except that I LOVE these type of discussions on FJ, I learn so much.

[2xx1xy1JD]

FoxyMoxie - I know nothing about ancient Greek, but that would be yet another reason that the KJV-only crowd makes no sense to me. Translations are always going to lack the full flavor of the original, and really good, scholarly translations (I'm thinking Anchor Bible series, NOT KJV) need to also have a ton of footnotes.

It's so much harder to read tone in translation, esp. if the translation is done in an older form of English. You also tend to miss some of the distinction between poetry and prose, puns and plays on words are totally missed, and there are situations where the same English word is used to translate 2 distinct words resulting in an altered meaning (see adam/ish and bethula/alma, translated as "man" and "virgin").

[Firiel]

FoxyMoxie - I know nothing about ancient Greek, but that would be yet another reason that the KJV-only crowd makes no sense to me. Translations are always going to lack the full flavor of the original, and really good, scholarly translations (I'm thinking Anchor Bible series, NOT KJV) need to also have a ton of footnotes.

It's so much harder to read tone in translation, esp. if the translation is done in an older form of English. You also tend to miss some of the distinction between poetry and prose, puns and plays on words are totally missed, and there are situations where the same English word is used to translate 2 distinct words resulting in an altered meaning (see adam/ish and bethula/alma, translated as "man" and "virgin").

The really bizarre thing about the KJV crowd is that they are actually using a literally LESS accurate translation. Even throwing out the possibility that the KJV Bible was more politically motivated than current translations (no translation can escape politics, of course, but a good argument can be made that the KJV Bible was very intentionally political), it was translated from manuscripts that were more recent (i.e. further away from the original manuscripts). That wasn't the fault of anyone who translated the KJV Bible, but historians have just discovered older manuscripts/fragments since the early 1600s.

On the topic of manuscripts, I think it's easy for us in the 21st century to misunderstand what manuscript evidence actually means. (I know just enough about the topic to have descended from Mount Stupid*, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.) Even Rome, which had a very literate society compared to a lot of what came before and after did not depend on writing the way we do. It was a much more oral society, so something not being written down until forty years after it happened (most scholars, secular as well as religious, I think, believe Mark was written about 70 AD) isn't necessarily a mark against the way it would be now, or even would have been in the 1700s. The best example I can come up with that I actually know something about is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Chronicle). Obviously, this is a different time and a different culture, but I think a lot of the same points apply-- far less literate, no printing press, etc. Despite the fact that our earliest copy of this manuscript is from the 800s, it's a very important historical source for the previous few hundred years that it chronicles. It's not taken as gospel (no pun intended!) truth by historians-- hell, it mentions a year when the dragons came. But a real understanding of history is taken from it. It wasn't composed in a vacuum, and they can tell when it probably used other sources. Some of those other sources are accounted for, others are not. It's heavily biased at times and it's unreliable at times. But it's one of the most important sources of Anglo-Saxon history that we have. This is the kind of scholastic process that allows for the New Testament to be evidence of a historical Jesus. It doesn't mean that anyone who finds that evidence compelling only does so because that's what they want to believe. When approached like this, it's not "using the Bible to prove the Bible." Of course, that also doesn't mean that someone who has done the research and doesn't buy into a historical Jesus is being irresponsible either. Like I said, that is not my area of expertise, so all I can do is defer to historians who HAVE studied it intensely, and it seems like there are some on both sides of the divide.

*

EDIT: Gah! I hope I don't sound like an asshat who thinks I know everything and is desperately wrong about it all. Sorry if I do. :(

[nelliebelle1197]

I'm a bit troubled by an author who writes ". And there isn't a shred of evidence that Jesus was a fan either, assuming he existed."

We have good historical evidence that Jesus was a real person. This has nothing to do with his divinity or lack thereof.

Anyone who says otherwise is intellectually lazy.

I have never heard of valid contemporary evidence that Jesus existed. Joseph and Tacitus are the only scholars who come close to contemporary and they lived a century after Jesus. There is no more historical evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for Kali or Zeus or Thor or any other random god who mythology is only preserved in the writing of its believers. The Shroud of Turin is fake, the burial box of James is a fraud, there is nothing written or preserved about Jesus within his lifetime that proves his existence within the context of valid historiocity and outside the context of writings of various Christians.

There is zero evidence Jesus was real. There is a bit of contemporary evidence that several Jewish sects that claimed to have the true Judaic Messiah but Jesus' followers are the only ones whose message made it into modern times.

[nelliebelle1197]

Hi, I didn't mean to comment and run - I have really intermittent laptop access at the moment and my phone dislikes sites like FJ.

FG, there are definitely Roman sources that talk about Jesus so I'm a little surprised by those posts - it's definitely not the case that only Jesus' followers wrote about him, there are many sources by opposing writers.

I think what confuses me is how eager some people are to prove that a historical Jesus (of any type, whether like the Biblical Jesus or not) didn't exist. I don't understand why Jesus existing in some form is such a problem? This isn't meant in an accusatory way, I just don't get why the existence of a Jewish man called Jesus who amassed a small band of followers in Roman-occupied Palestine is so beyond the realm of possibility. As I said, I'm not talking about the Jesus of the Bible necessarily - totally accept that it would be impossible to prove. Maybe it's because my tradition is more a Tradition-based one and so it doesn't really matter to me either way? Like what my church tradition has passed on about Jesus is more important to me than the Bible's Jesus - I fully own that and feel no shame about admitting it. Also I totally hold my hands up and say I may be wrong, wrt your comments and generally. I hope I haven't fallen in your estimation too much!

Speaking more generally, Paul's Greek is of a rougher, less polished quality and he also uses revolutionary language (sharing this with Mark). He also swears! I can see how churches may have found this more difficult to handle than say, Luke's very 'professional' Greek.

No, you are confusing what was written a hundred years after Jesus' life with true historical evidence. Roman writers who heard about him heard about him from his followers. There is absolutely no evidence Jesus existed outside the words of his followers. The King Arthur example used earlier is absolutely perfect.