He wasn’t the only one, just the only one that stuck, is my guess.
Here’s a fairly similar story from later on:
I think you need to consider not only what Jesus did, but also, what his followers did after his death, to answer that question. I kinda suspect that Paul was incredibly effective.
Even today, there is Hasidic Judaism in Israel and the United States.
I don’t think any of the others were remembered for 325 years, or anywhere near that. ETA: Sabbatai Zevi was a lot later.
The first question seems to me to be why the word changed meaning, from a human political leader backed by God to some divine being considered to be God or to be part of God in a different sense than the universe and all humans might be considered to be part of God.
The other “messiahs” may have been miracle workers, but they were would-be messiahs in the Jewish sense of the term; which does not include being divine.
Yeah. It’s quite possible that what we have is Paulism; not anything based on Jesus.
I might be wrong; but I don’t think any of the Hasidic rabbis have claimed to be God.
Not God, but,
Whenever you say “incredibly unlikely” regarding the life of the historical Jesus, I’m inclined to argue for the other side. Not out of obstinacy, but because Christianity before Paul is very difficult to determine.
Paul was Jewish, and preached to gentiles. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s no record of any dispute at the time that Jesus was divine. And Paul disputed a lot. (Counter argument: well, part of his audience may have figured that we all are divine, and brushed the argument under the carpet.)
Beyond that, the gospel of Mark is full of miracles, performed by Jesus. So the foundation is pretty divine-adjacent. (Counterpoint: Jesus seemed to indicate at times that the miracles sprung from faith.) Then there is the puzzle/miracle of moving boulders following Jesus’ crucifixion.
Separately, if you accept John then it follows that Jesus believed himself to be divine and Mark, Luke, and Matthew didn’t get the full memo. The I Am series is unique to John. My take is that the 4 gospels claim that they are delivering the good news, not eyewitness news.
Still not divine. Even the people who think he’ll be physically resurrected aren’t saying that he’s God, but that God can resurrect dead humans.
But maybe relevant to the question of why Jesus drew followers after his death when other failed messiahs of his time didn’t: because Schneerson continued to have and still has some claiming that he’s the messiah (in the human sense) while other Rabbis, including other Hasidic Rabbis, don’t. Some unusually high level of charisma in the individual, maybe?
Yes, it’s standard Jewish doctrine that we are all created in the image of God, and all have a divine spark. This would not have been controversial. And there’s a lot of evidence that there were disputes about Jesus being the same as the One God. Witness the council of Nicaea, which specifically ruled on the point because it was in dispute.
As mentioned several times, many Jewish prophets are associated with miracles. Moses performed more miracles than Jesus. Heck, his big sister carried around a magic staff that created potable water at her command, all through the desert. But no one claims that any of the other prophets are themselves divine. Just touched by God.
(And there are lots of faith healers today, who aren’t generally taken to be divine. )
I find it weird that people take the miracles as proof that Jesus was, himself, God.
I think that Judaism has grown apart from Christianity in some ways, as the two groups tried to distinguish themselves from each other. But the stories of Jewish miracle-workers (none of whom anyone claims to be divine) are really old, and Jesus would have been familiar with them and grown up in a culture where everyone knew about them.
puzzlegal: I find your take plausible. Paul proselytizes to pagans and in the process the understanding of Jesus’ relationship with the Father shifted. But I find lots of takes plausible.
Evidence on the other side is a lack of evidence of disagreement during Paul’s lifetime. The book of Acts outlines a lot of controversies between Paul and Peter but not this one (AFAIK). Agree that this became a big issue some 300 years later and I furthermore assert that the concept of the Trinity was a political compromise. But there’s a big jump from c 20-66 CE to 325 CE.
Counterpoint: Diogenes the Cynic, a former poster here, was unimpressed by my lack of contemporary evidence arguments - the fall of the Temple was so disruptive to the Jewish community that to Diogenes you couldn’t even definitely confirm the existence of Jesus. I used to think the idea that Jesus never existed to be ludicrous, but now I’m in the probably-not-but-can’t-rule-it-out camp. The writings of Paul are the only lighthouse in the storm: I’m not sure about the historical Jesus but I can attempt to impute a little about what Paul believed Jesus to be. And further scholarship could uncover more.
It might be weird for a Jew to think he’s related to the Father in 25 CE, but if so this phased neither Peter nor Paul, nor apparently anyone else at the time. As far as the (highly limited and highly redacted) record shows. Knotty.
The Gospels are, but to many so-called “Christians” ignore the love of Jesus and focus on the hate and intolerance of paul.
He used to cite himself Apparently the site he was constantly linking to as a Cite was primarily written by him.
I am sure about the Historical Jesus. Historical records of that area and time are sorely lacking- take Pontius Pilate -
Although Pilate is the best-attested governor of Judaea, few sources regarding his rule have survived. Nothing is known about his life before he became governor of Judaea, and nothing is known about the circumstances that led to his appointment to the governorship.[9] Coins that he minted have survived from Pilate’s governorship, as well as a single inscription, the so-called Pilate stone.… In effect, the inscription constitutes the earliest surviving, and only contemporary, record of Pilate, who is otherwise known from the New Testament and apocryphal texts, the Jewish historian Josephus and writer Philo, and brief references by Roman historians such as Tacitus.
Note of course that The NT, Josephus and Tacitus are also sources for the Historical Jesus.
It wasnt until 1961 and the finding of the Pilate Stone, that historians were sure he was real.
Why?
Doesn’t the Bible feature Not-Some-Mere-Mortal feats performed by people who are neither God nor a special agent of God — such that Deuteronomy specifically warns against hearkening unto such prophets and wonder workers, and such that Revelation involves such magic playing out in front of the folks of the future — just like the magicians of Egypt repeatedly ‘did so with their enchantments’ in front of the folks of the past?
And — if we take the story of Jesus at face value — isn’t Jesus said to have made a blind man see, at which point contemporary onlookers said, meh, couldn’t that just be Beelzebub at work?
Yes, when setting out all the laws it starts by saying “Here are all the laws; mever add to or remove from this - this is it. Prophets will give you guidance on applying it but this will not change”. It even specifically warns, they will make predictions that come true, they will perform miracles - but if they tell you that you no longer have to follow the word of God, they are false prophets.
Also, in Jeremiah, the titular Jeremiah calls out a false prophet who claimed that God would free Israel from their current overlords, and God tells him:
“All the old prophets gave bad news, they warned you about death and destruction if you did not obey me. If you get a prophet who gives good news, like that Israel will be freed, should be doubted unless and until the good news he promised actually happens”.
To clarify, I didn’t necessarily assume all the Jesus quotes are accurate. I’m pretty interested in which ones were more likely to be accurate. My understanding is that John is pretty far out there.
John was one of Jesus’s disciples. OTOH, it was written when he was very old, and almost certainly dictated to a secretary* and likely edited by John’s followers. John likely had Q or one of the other Gospels to work from.
- this one of the stupid things that piss me off “John couldnt have written that Gospel as he was a semi-literate worker”. Yep, John was- when he was 20 or so at the time of the Crucifiction- likely no more than semi-literate. But that Gospel came out around AD 90 , when John was an old man. Is it that impossible for a man to learn to read after decades of being a holy leader of men? besides- almost no-one actually wrote their own stuff- not even Caesar(although he could have)- they dictated to secretaries.
Why would John, being one of Jesus’s disciples and therefore an actual witness, need Q or one of the other Gospels to work from?
This is a really bad question, since you clearly didnt read-it was written when he was very old,
or are you just being snarky?
There’s a book devoted to that topic entitled, The Five Gospels (1993) by the Jesus Seminar which I recommend. It’s easy to flip through and I often pull it out when discussing Christianity in GD.
This is a contentious issue, but that’s not my understanding. Here’s a diagram from The Five Gospels:
The thinking is that John comes out of a different evangelical tradition than Mark-Matthew-Luke/Acts. It’s almost certainly the latest and possibly the best written of the four. There are other diagrams in the book with variant views, those trapezoids present some intentional ambiguity, and -yes- there are plenty of passages where John and the other gospels overlap, but a comparison between the texts shows John to be somewhere off on the side I think.
Apologies for not reading the whole thread, but wasn’t there some heresy about Jesus being both human & divine?
You’re gonna need to be more specific. I think there were various heresies claiming Jesus was everything from fully mortal to dully divine, with various flavors for any combination you can think of (and some you, or at least I, can’t even comprehend).
I’m over 70. If I were to produce a historical record of something that happened when I was in my 20’s, I would most certainly want to consult other sources as well as my own memory.
Admittedly, these days, I’d also cite them. But I don’t think that was common at the time.
I’m dubious about the accuracy, let alone the word-for-word accuracy, of the quotes in the Gospels. But I’m not dubious about why an eyewitness, writing (or dictating) some 60 years later, might want to consult other sources.