That’s exactly what the bible is.
You JUST said that it’s completely believable that no historical documentation may exist because it’s permanently lost for some major, one-time event that occurred in the past. I can make up a major event and don’t have to prove it happened and nobody can refute that it happened since if it was recorded nothing would have survived.
Your second sentence does not proceed logically from your first.
I give up. You win. Whew, I thought I had you there…
I’ll bet that lots of American faith healers living today don’t even have a Wikipedia page.
Jesus had better PR, hands down. I’ll give him that.
There is a lot to be said for this, but I think that we know a bit more about Jesus than that.
It is implausible that almost all the quotations attributed to Jesus are incorrect, although lots likely are, and we don’t know which is which.
I wonder about Matthew 5:18. It strongly implies that Christians should, among other things, keep Kosher. So why is that in the Bible? Probably because the author knew Jesus said it and didn’t feel right about keeping it out, troublesome as it might be.
Not the same, but most of the quotations of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, I see on the web, are apocryphal. Still those guys lived.
Do most Christians keep Kosher? That’s news to me.
Once again, there was a very small number of attested witnesses who actually observed this – probably less than 30. Is that a realistic number for an unbiased historical account? My neighbor was carried up in an alien spaceship and given an impromptu colonoscopy, but no doctors can find any physical evidence of his experience, there is only the disturbing way he keeps looking up at the sky,
In fact, the ascension appears in only three of the four gospels, so even that is debatable.
FTR, Jesus’ name in Hebrew would be Yehoshua ben Yosef, but in Aramaic, it would be Yehoshua BAR Yosef. “Ben” is the Hebrew word for “son,” and “bar” is Aramaic. In both Hebrew and Aramaic, there’s no genitive suffix required for singular masculine words.
It does seem, though, that if the Latin name is “Jesus,” he probably wasn’t called “Yehoshua,” but rather “Yeshua,” the equivalent of calling someone named Joshua “Josh.” We don’t know what he was called at his bris, nor what he was called if he was ever present at some kind of service, and called up for some kind of honor. In other words, we don’t have any idea if his full name was Yehoshua, or Yeshua.
Assuming that he existed.
Since I’m Jewish, obviously, I don’t believe in a divine Jesus, and I have serious doubts that someone recognizable from the gospel stories existed. But I’m willing to accept that there were some real people behind some of the stories. The “composite character” makes a lot of sense.
I’m willing to make that concession, because I think that there are Aramaic sources behind some of the gospel stories.
I think this because there is at least one occasion where one of the gospel writers (or one of his sources) has tried to translate an Aramaic expression, and screwed it up.
Mark 6:3, and Matthew 13:55 refer to Jesus as a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, respectively. They both couch it as “Is this not the [son of the] carpenter?” then go on to say that everyone found his abilities doubtful and unexplainable.
The Aramaic expression is actually to comment on an unexplainable phenomenon, or difficult to elucidate passage in the Mishnah, by saying that only a carpenter son of a carpenter could explain it. The Aramaic word is “na-GAR,” and while it literally means a craftsman, it is often used to mean a very gifted scholar. Why it came to mean that, I don’t know.
Basically, it’s exclaimed at a situation that can be fathomed only by the very wisest scholar-- among a people who valued scholarship above everything.
Sometimes it is used in the Talmud in a back-handed way, to say that “Really, no one can explain it-- in other words, it’s wrong.”
So, I think that an Aramaic story existed involving Jesus arriving in his hometown, and someone commenting that “only a carpenter son of a carpenter could explain why Jesus, who we all know is just some ordinary guy, would start performing miracles (snerk)-- ain’t happening.”
But the gospel writer isn’t familiar with the expression, and maybe not really so great with Aramaic, and gets it wrong.
Most experts on ancient middle eastern languages are not also scholars of Christianity, which is why I don’t think this has come up before, but I’ve asked a couple of people people who are experts in either the Talmud or Aramaic it this idea is plausible, and they think it is, and one expert on the gospels also told me it could be as well.
Mark, FWIW, doesn’t even appear to know much about Hebrew. He clearly relies on the Septuagint for all his biblical quotes.
Once enough bricks crumble, the entire wall collapses. At least, that’s the hope.
Interesting post, thanks.
This gave me a chuckle:
I thought to myself: “Gospel or Mafia phone call?” 
It is from Toby Zeigler talking to a Congressperson near the reflecting pool when he ending the discussion with “now I have to go see the guy at the place about the thing,” which I believe meant he was intending to visit the euphemism.
If we can all agree that the Shroud is a fake, it all comes down to what is meant by the word “exist.” While there’s scant evidence that even a historical Jesus existed, it was long ago. Most of us are willing to concede that someone with that name may have preached in the Middle East at that time and may even have been crucified by the Romans as a troublemaker. Both, while not provable, are plausible.
The “leap of faith” comes when someone brings up the gospels as indirect proof Jesus not only existed but did supernatural things. Many different sects are based on those gospels, and to be a true follower, you must believe them. To non-believers, the gospels aren’t true since the stories told are not possible in the real world we know. This difference will never change. Believers have to believe, or their worldview is destroyed, while non-believers have to be faithful to their worldview based on evidence and proof.
My message to believers is that it’s okay if there is no heaven or hell. You don’t have to be religious to be a good or moral person. You were taught as a child that those stories were true, and you had no reason to question them. As an adult, you can think for yourself and decide what is real and what isn’t. Either way, you’ll be okay.
The Church has orthodox beliefs and dogma, but who says it confuses sacred texts and mythology with historical chronicles and scientific exegeseis?
re. Shroud of Turin: cf. Seamless Robe, Sudaria, other so-called relics.
My other reply was so long, I didn’t include this bit which I got from Joe Nickell’s book on the subject, but regarding the shroud: the Bishop of Troyes (previously mentioned by another poster, but I can’t find the post), Pierre d’Arcis, had been sent to check up on the shroud during its first public display. This was by its first known possessor, Geoffroy de Charny, in Lirey, France. This is where the provenance of the shroud begins.
The bishop’s report not only states that the shroud is a fake, but that he discussed that matter with the artist who created it.
True believers try to identify the shroud with other cloths the were purported to bear images of Jesus after coming into contact with him, such as the Mandylion of Edessa, a lost relic that is referred to in writing, and appears in paintings, where it is clearly an image of a face only. People still invent stories, such as “The Mandylion was displayed folded, so only the face showed.”
At any rate, the cloth no longer exists, has no clear provenance-- the first reference to it appears many centuries after the gospels, and disappeared. There are at least four well-circulated stories about how it disappeared, occurring anywhere from the 7th c. CE to the time of the Crusades.
It’s also possible that if this relic did exist as long ago as the 4th c. CE (the first time there is a written record), it could be the image on cloth, probably Byzantine, found in the 13th c. CE, and is now kept in Vatican Palace.
It’s also worth noting that Pope John Paul stated unequivocally that the Shroud of Turin is a work of art. He also said something I’m paraphrasing, that like any Christian work of art, looking at it can inspire faith, as people contemplate the ordeal of Jesus.
Also inspire them to donate money, ones imagines.
If I understand your question correctly, many churches confuse sacred texts and mythology with historical chronicles by simply stating Jesus existed AND performed miracles, was resurrected, etc. These churches don’t even separate a historical Jesus from a biblical Jesus from what I’ve read. Scientific exegesis doesn’t come into play because Science can’t prove or disprove what someone claims happened 2000 years ago. There is no evidence to examine other than the document itself, which proves nothing.
Also, every evangelist, preacher, pastor, priest or other Christian leader I have heard all said Jesus walked the earth, performed wonderous miracles, was crucified, and was resurrected. There is no distinction between a historical Jesus, assuming he ever lived, and the mythical Jesus in the gospels. It’s all the same guy. They have no reason to make a distinction.
IMO, if the early formers of the Church had just stuck with the story that someone named Jesus preached the good word and was crucified for it, they could have said Jesus was a wise philosopher who said many great things and that we should learn from what he preached. (Of course, most philosophies don’t turn into a religion.) Instead, they came up with the various gospels, which the audience at the time likely believed were true. Why wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t know any better.
Technically, Paul had already introduced supernatural elements to the story. I don’t think there’s any extra-canonical gospel that precedes Paul-- not even a reference to a lost one that anyone thinks could have preceded Paul.
Albeit, there’s some evidence that hallucinations on the road to Damascus notwithstanding, Paul received plenty of oral traditions that were already circulating.