[ExI] The existence of Jesus (Was: Political Origins of Life)

[Kryonica]

One author on the subject that I like to read (or listen to in Audiobooks) is Bart Ehrmann.  He tackles this question in two books I have read, Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet,  and Misquoting Jesus.  There most probably was a rabbi Jesus at the time who preached the imminent arrival of a Jewish Messiah.  This in Judea and Palestine around 20-30 CE.  But he was not unique: there were many rabbis preaching this message in some form or other; he did not preach that he himself was the Messiah, only that the Jews should repent, that is conform to the Jewish law, the Torah, in preparation for the arrival of this Messiah, which was some kind of heavenly being sent by God to Israel that would alter the history of that land. Jesus seems to have annoyed the authorities, both Jewish and Roman, because he excited the crowds and the Roman occupants were keen that order be maintained in the rather explosive Palestine.  What seems likely to have happened is that he created trouble in the Temple during the Passover and that the Romans did away with a few trouble makers at that particularly explosive time of the year - a bit like the First of May today.  Jesus was one of the "bad guys", was tried (a trial typically took a couple of minutes in this case, he was not a Roman citizen), crucified and dumped in a mass grave after a few days hanging on the cross among others who for some reason or other ( mostly political, that is rising up against Roman authority) had met a similar fate.  Again, there was nothing unusual about this, crucifixions were pretty common in the Roman provinces as a means to discourage uprisings.  
  And then, after his death, the surviving disciples followed by the fathers of the Church went to work and the result became a growing body of interpretations and elaborations that grew more and more fanciful with time until he had a virgin mother, was the son of god, died to save the whole world, was himself the Messiah he announced and even rose from the dead and ascended to heaven etc.  It took about 200 years to formulate the Christian belief and a further 200 to ban all the heresies.
So there likely was a guy called Jesus but he was nothing like he is presented in the Christian religion.  That is why historians of the bible are not much liked by believers: they demolish the illusion!
On 6 Feb 2012, at 15:09, Amon Zero wrote:

> On 6 February 2012 13:39, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> BillK <pharos at gmail.com> jested:
> 
> > But, of course, Jesus may not actually have said that ...
> 
> Presumably this was said in jest, and it did make me laugh, but I'm now wondering how many people, on this list and elsewhere, that are not religious, actually believe there was a Jesus.
> 
> I don't mean believe in Jesus as in 'this guy who totally existed, was the son of some god or other', but in the sense of believing there was a single person that these stories are based on.  I'd have thought it patently obvious that Jesus is a kind of King Arthur or Robin Hood figure, a composite myth from many stories over a long period of time.  There is absolutely no historical evidence for such a figure (afaik, please correct me if I'm wrong on that.  With references, obviously!).
> 
> "Jesus may not have actually said that" sounds very like "King Arthur may not have actually lived at Camelot" to me.  Am I in a minority?
> 
> Ben Zaiboc
> 
> 
> It's a fine point, and one I agree with. However, as I've noted here before, implying some person is fictional tends to make believers and unbelievers alike sense that the person must in some way be less valuable than if they'd been "real". What this means is that some believers may understand it to be true that the historical Jesus is a composite character at best, but would feel uneasy about acknowledge the fact, lest it imply that Jesus is thereby devalued.
> 
> Me, I have no problem with the greatest teachers being partially or wholly fictitious. It works for Pythagoras, so why not Jesus?
> 
> Hell, fictional & composite characters could be the chosen people of Greg Egan's "God Who Makes No Difference". Although I suppose He is their antithesis. He's a god that exists but might as well not, whereas the likes of Jesus or Robin Hood have tangible effects in our world regardless of whether they ever actually existed at all...
> 
> - A
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