What can actually be historically confirmed/agreed upon compared with what is assumed to be just gospel/Christian tradition concerning the Passion?
(Not looking to debate the matter. Wondering what actual historians believed happened/did not happen.)
As you should be able to find on several hundred other threads in greater detail (especially in GD), there is no independent confirmation for any of the activities portrayed in the gospels. There were Jews and there were Romans, there were crucifixions, etc. The kind of thing that anyone writing from that time and place would obviously know. But history has nothing to say on any particulars of the subject.
That has not stopped people, even those who call themselves historians, from commenting at a length to fill libraries. But it’s all speculations, suppositions, extrapolations, and assumptions.
There are two semi-contemporary, extra-Biblical historians who mention Jesus- Josephus and Tactitus. Both writers basically only say that he was the originator of the Christian movement and that he was crucified under Pilate. Both writers probably got their info from Christians, though.
That’s it as far as any confirmation of the Passion or any of the details. In fact, the only thing about Jesus which has any extra-Biblical confirmation at all is that he was crucified under Pilate.
Much of the gospels are not only unconfirmed as historical but are demonstrably fictionalized.
None of this stops historians and other scholars from theorizing but really there is very little to go on for source material.
I’d go with most of the synoptic gospels account as historical, at least as regards the Passion. When they were comitted to paper, or parchment as it were, there were still contemporaries of Jesus alive. That’s a pretty decent historical context. With the Q document floating around in low-AD-cyberspace it seems like a decent historical connection.
John, of course, floats out into Logo-Land. Samos really needs to check its water quality.
Fun aside, the synoptic gospels are consistent, probably courtesy of our friend in the continuum. But I can believe that the history of the death of one of their own was decently recorded. I ain’t talking about the resurrection. Just the Passion.
The testimony got written down within forty or fifty years after the event. It was probably recorded earlier, hence the Q. All that aside. It’s decent history. You can’t look at documents recorded by folks in the area writing down what they know and not call it history.
For what it’s worth, I’m not a Christian. But I respect the historical value of their documents.
There’s no passion in Q. The passion comes from Mark, c. 70 CE. To the extent that the synoptics are conistent in their passion narratives it’s because they are dependent on Mark.
I just read the Bible a lot. Kind of like W. C. Fields: I’m lookin’ for loopholes.
You might be able to edumacate on this one. I thought Mark was close to the Q document. And for that matter, since the Q document isn’t apparent how do you tell there is no passion in it?
No gauntlets being hurled, honest questions all.
Ok, it goes like this. Mark is the first synoptic gospel written, then Matthew, then Luke. Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source but they also used another common source in Greek- that is, there are passages in Matthew and Luke which are word for word the same and did not come from Mark. The theory, then, is that Matthew and Luke used some other written source than Mark. This theoretical soirce is called the Quelle source (Quelle means “source” in German) or Q for short. It is a theoretical gospel only. There are no extant manuscripts, it is only inferred from the non-Markan commonalities in Matthew and Luke. Most of Q is just sayings by Jesus. There is no nativity, no passion and no resurrection. It is believed for that reason that Q was a sayings gospel, rather than a narrative one and it is also believed that these sayings might have been compiled relatively early.
Q is, by definition, all the stuff that is word for word the same in Matthew and Luke and does not come from Mark. The passion narratives come from Mark, not from Q.
In all honesty I just use these threads to look smarter at my family gatherings… 
DtC don’t the three synoptic gospels tell a passion tale? I don’t want to talk about John.
If the Q document doesn’t talk re a passion tale where the hell did that come from? I’m not talking about resurrection, and I think you know it. But all three very consistently describe a crucifixion…
Mark made up the passion. Matthew and Luke both copied Mark. Mark does not use Q as a source. There is no crucifixion story at all in Q.
Well, there is also history and a little Politcal science and it all matches up with what we know- that is- yes Pontius Pilate was Governor, Herod was “King”, etc etc. There were certainly a lot of religious things occuring then, in that region. So having a new “cult” religious Leader- with Teachings that aren’t far from some of the other sects around- is not a stretch at all.
In fact- only the “Miracles” would cause any mainstream Historian to have doubts. (well, there are a few contradictions and a few items that are likely mistakes) The story of “Jesus the Man and Religious Leader” fits well with what we know about the period. Having Him be crucified is not a historical stretch at all.
History does mention that James- the brother of Jesus- was stoned by the Temple leaders for Heresy. Since that seems to be solid, that seems to indicate that there was a “James” and that he was mostly known as “the Brother of Jesus”- thus there must needs be A fairly well known man called “Jesus”. Other than that- there is only the Gospels. Certainly they are biased, and they throw in a lot of miracles & such. But so do many of the other period documents that are accepted as “gospel” 
by ancient Historians. If you remove the bias, and ignore the miracles that are outside Science (healing the sick and lame by “faith” does not always require a lapse of known laws of Science)- then the rest is very likely an acceptable “history” of a “minor local sect leader”.
The OP specifically asked about the passion narratives and what could be confirmed as historical about them. The answer is virtually nothing except the cruciixion itself. Much of Mark’s passion is constructed from OT “prophesies” and his own imagination. There are aspects of the passions which are far out of step with what we know to be historically plausible (or in some cases, physically possible), including the trial before the sanhedrin, the ambivalence of Pilate, the releasing of Barabbas (there was no such tradition of releasing a prisoner at Passover), the eclipse, the earthquake, the dead climbing out of their graves, Joseph of Arimathea, the burial in a tomb and (obviously) the resurrection.
The question of whether there was a historical Jesus who was crucified by Pilate can probably be answered in the affirmative but that’s about all we can answer in the affirmative.
I would argue that the evidence and infrences for the existence of Q has enough going for it to postulate it as a real document. The Q theory got a big boost from the finding of the Gospel of Thomas (Gnostic considerations aside) because it showed that early Christians did make what amounts to lists of sayings with no narrative.
The passages in Q are marked according to how and where they show up in Luke, for some reason I can’t remember at the moment.
It’s generally believed that the narrative sequence of Q is better preserved in Luke and is more broken up in Matthew. So Luke is used as the template even though Matthew was written first.
Wirklich, Diogenes, du bist eine Quelle yourself.
A follow up question: Doesn’t the Passion refer to the events beginning with Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and ending with his entombment? Christians would then refer to the Passion and Resurrection of the Christ as the full sequence. Just curious about the common usage of the term.
With respect to your statement
I assume you’re referring to the ancillary details of the story. That a first century Jewish wapscallion was put to death for inciting to riot seems reasonable and fairly historical. I might be misinterpreting your remarks, hence the question.
The word “passion” originally come from a Latin word meaning “to suffer” or “to endure.” Thus the passion narratives are the descriptions of Jesus physical torments. Generally, the passion narratives are the parts from the arrest of Jesus (not the entry to Jerusalem) up to the death on the cross. You are correct that technically, the resurrection is not part of the passion, its a separate narrative construct.
Correct. The passion as a literary narrative was composed by Mark, not the fact of the crucifixion itself, but all those little details that make it into a coherent story rather just “a guy got crucified for stirring shit at the temple.”
This is the common fallacy of arguing backward. Instead of looking at what the known facts are, you take the conclusion you want to draw and see whether it is plausible. However, this argument gives you no way to separate out a plausible fiction from known history.
But that raises a far more interesting set of questions: what is a fact and what is a historical fact? Do we allow differences between the two? If so, how much legitimate specialist and expert knowledge must be required before a historical fact can be accepted? And finally, what are the facts and the historical facts in this particular situation?
The facts are surprisingly scanty. To be reductionistic, there is only one fact: We have an extant related series of ancient texts.
Expert opinion allows us to say a few more things about these texts. (To save space, I’m skipping the tedium of writing “virtually all” and the like about what comes next. You can always find a few outliers in any community.)
None of the texts we physically have today are contemporary with the period in question. None of them are contemporary with the period in which they were written. Although internal evidence appears to indicate that the events are being described by people who were alive to see them, the dates of composition are subject to furious debate and some scholars put some of the dates as in the next century, beyond the normal lifespan. The earliest extant texts are in Greek, but there is no firm agreement on whether the originals were. (See SDSAB’s Who wrote the Bible? (Part 4).
There are many texts from this several hundred year period following the events in question. (See part 5 of the report.) Some have been exalted over the others; some are now being re-evaluated. Which ones we accept will color our views of the milieu of the time and place.
It is, however, accepted that the writers of the texts for the most part knew of one another’s works and drew upon them. This internal literary evidence is one of the ways that the original composition dates are estimated. The evidence also indicates that an earlier lost document, Q, is a source for even the earliest of the synoptic gospels. There is no evidence whether this was the work of a single author or of a community, whether it was a transcription of sayings or a compilation of community beliefs.
Another point of agreement is that the gospels were aimed at particular and differing audiences, as the religious situation of the area changed over time. They were written to be convincing to their listeners, to be suasive. They drew upon earlier documents that would be known to these audiences, and also drew on history that would be both in the memory of the audience and influencing their current political situation. This means that the writers were part of that time and place and knew it and its history well. But there are discrepencies and contradictions in their accounts.
History is most trusted when there are independent sources that give identical or even similar information. No such contemporary sources exist. One later source, Josephus, is the subject of much controversy. It appears likely that he had access to the now canonical writers so he may not qualify as an independent source. And many historians argue that even the details he gives are later interpolations from those who understood the power of having independent confirmation of events. The Josephus controversies are a reminder of the historical problems introduced by not having any original source material, just later copies of copies.
So what does all this say of the events set down in these texts? Broadly speaking, the historical theories break down into four categories:
they are pure imaginative and instructive propaganda.
they are based on a number of events and people of the times, put together into a single composite, the better to influence listeners.
they are based - in entirety or for the most part - on the life of a single human preacher, whose preachings may or may not be accurately represented.
they are based on a divine event, in which miraculous intervention by god changed history.
Are there facts with which to choose one of these categories over the others? No.
Are there historical facts with which to choose one of these categories over the others. Both lay people and historians have been arguing particular categories for centuries, but I personally see these arguments as “arguments,” a never-ending GD without a good foundation in historical reality.
I’m not trying to debate the issue or argue a particular case. But this highly charged subject has been the cause of much flawed history, and I’d just like to remind those who delve into it where and how you need to be cautious about accepting anything that any side says.
I have a specific question that I don’t think is a hijack because it fits into the OP:
Most accounts say that the priests took Jesus before Pilate because they did not have the authority to put a man to death. Other accounts (such as the stonings of James & Stephen) indicate that they could put a man to death. What is the real story- could they or couldn’t they and under what circumstances.
They had the authority to put people to death, but they did it by stoning, not by crucifixion (remember the adulterous woman). Crucifixion could only be done by the Romans and was a violation of Jewish law. No temple authority could have condoned or participated in a crucifixion without violating their own laws.
The whole thing about the priests using Pilate to get rid of Jesus is an apologetic fiction designed to deemphasize Roman culpability for the death of Jesus. The authors of the gospels could not get around the fact that Jesus died by a specifically Roman method of execution so they needed a way to shift the blame away from Pilate and the Sanhedrin became the scapegoat. There are a number of other factual and procedural errors in the passion accounts of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin which support the argument that it is a fiction.
I disagree…The Gospels were written while the early Church was still trying to convert the Jews to the idea that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and during the times of the Roman persecution. If anything, they’d want to make the Romans look bad, not the Jews. It wasn’t until the Time of Constantine (way later) that the Christians wanted to make the Romans look good and the Jews look bad. But by that time, the Gospels had already had been widespread.
During that immediate period, Pilate had a very tight control and it seems like he wouldn’t let the Sanhedrin execute anyone- they had to go through him ( he was worried about riots, and with good cause). We know for sure the Sanhedrin tried James and executed him (later, after Pilate left) for basicly the same crimes Jesus was accused of. Thus, they had the motive to execute Jesus. In theory, even the trial of James doesn’t fit known Temple law- but nevertheless, they stoned him to death. The fact that the Sanhedrin killed James for “heresy” outwieghs all the 'theories". That’s about the only thing we know for sure from that period. Truth be told, that’s the only undisputed mention of Jesus from a more-or-less period source.
You don’t know much about what the almost universal scholarship is on this then. The gospels were written during and after a Jewish revolt against the Romans. Christians were trying to separate themselves from the Jews as well as to evangelize a gentile (not a Jewish) audience. They did not want to antagonize the Romans in any way, hence the sympathetic (and ahistorical) picture of Pilate caving in to Jewish authority. In reality, Pilate was utterly brutal and under no sway at all to the Sanhedrin.
The fact that James was stoned instead of crucified is proof enough that he was plainly not killed for the “basically same reasons” as Jesus. Crucifixion was for sedition only. The Romans didn’t care about Jewish religious squabbles and Jesus’ conviction for “blasphemy” by the Sanhedrin is historically impossible since he said nothing which was blasphemous under Jewish law. It was not blasphemous to claim to be the Messiah, or to be the “Son of God” under Jewish law.
The fact that Jesus was crucified ipso facto makes it a Roman execution for sedition and necessarily excludes any motivation or culpability by the Sanhedrin.