I realize that there is a similar thread here, but Monday night, ABC ran a special called “In Search of Jesus.” I’m not a Christian, per se, but the topic was fascinating. Basically, Peter interviewed the top theologians, and came to some interesting conclusions. [ul]
[li]Jesus was more of a political figure than a religious one. His parables were most likely veiled threats to the Romans, not the great religious stories we make of them.[/li][li]When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and the crowds were waving palm branches, it was more likely he walked into Passover celebrations, not a parade in his honor. Passover was a tense time in Jerusalem. You had Jews pouring into the city to celebrate a holiday centering around God freeing the Jews from the oppressive powers of the Egyptian government. This celebration, and the large numbers of potentially pissed-off Jews in one place, caused the Romans to get nervous. They would have heighten security, and leaned on the leaders of the temple to keep order. The leaders would have seen this kid who had, at most, 20 or 30 followers, who was talking about peace in the Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God didn’t mean heaven to the Jews, it meant Judea. Jesus was, in essence, talking about a revolution in Judea. So rather than risk having this kid from Nazareth stage a riot with a couple thousand Jews who were ready for a scuffle with the Romans, who were also ready for a scuffle, the leaders opted to turn Jesus in. If a riot had occurred, thousands of people would have died. This way, only one guy died, the Jewish leaders could rest a bit easier, and other potential revolutionaries would be less apt to stir things up after watching Jesus die one of the most painful deaths ever devised.[/li][li]As far as his miracles go, the scholars tended to think only the healing ones were legitimate. Why? Because the others followed Roman mythology too closely. Caesar Augustus’s mother supposedly conceived him when she fell asleep in the temple of Apollo and a vision appeared to her. The vision was Apollo, telling her not to be afraid. Apollo then impregnated her, as Roman gods were wont to do. Dionysis’s schtick was turning water into wine. Poseidon’s was that he walked on the water.[/li][li]One theory was that Judas never exhisted. The name means “Jew.” The theory is that Judas was representative of the leaders of the temple.[/li] [/ul]
It was a two hour show, so there’s lots of good stuff I left out. The link for the site to the show is here. It was a terribly interesting look at the politics of the day. But then again, I am not a deeply Christian person. Did anyone who IS deeply Christian see it? Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?
Eh, I’m not sure I agree with that fellow, John. While some parts of the special were just dumb (debating whether or not the resurrection occured. Come on. It’s pretty much the bedrock of Christianity, if you don’t believe it, you aren’t a Christian. If you do, you are. Plain and simple.) most of it WAS interesting. I would have liked to see a bit more about the Virgin Mary, and her quest into the desert after the crucifixion, but as an objective piece on a historical figure it was interesting. And I think it’s useful for even the most devout Christian should learn the historical context in which Jesus was preaching. And even athiests have to admit that(aside from Mohommed) Jesus effected the outcome of world history more than any other historical figure.
I saw it. I’ve heard many of those interpretations before, and I was dismayed by the viewpoint.
Someone thinks Jesus was illegitimate. Okay, but the Bible does clearly mention Joseph. He was created for the purposes of the story?
Judas didn’t exist but was made up? What about the other apostles?
I do not believe that the Bible is literal history, but neither do I believe that it is simply a collection of folklore wrapped around a historical non-entity.
Given that there is very little non-Biblical evidence that Jesus existed (or didn’t exist), these scholars seemed pretty confident in discrediting the Biblical evidence. I mean, in 2,000 years, if someone looks at a book about your friend, and then decides you were made up for purposes of the story, does that make it fact?
Here is a very interesting site…www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion
It is a website to accompany a Frontline special “From Jesus to Chirst: The Early Christians”. I missed the program but the site is extensive and very interesting.
Anyone have any insight into the philosophical breadth represented by what the OP refers to as “the top theologians”? I thought it was a little misleading to list Crossan as from DePaul, and the other guy as from the Jesus Seminar.
I found it moderately interesting, but so did my 10 year old son, which probably says something about the level of discussion. It also moved pretty slowly at times.
Actually, Swiddles, the interviewees who presented the views you list were not theologians, but secular historians. Jennings interviewed a mix of people - secular historians and archeologists, Bible scholars, theologians, a Penticostal preacher, the “man on the street”, etc. About half believed Jesus was Diety and half did not. Not surprisingly, each presented their view with their own slant. It was less a “search for Jesus” than a presentation of “here’s what the Bible says about Jesus and here’s why some people believe it happened that way and some don’t”.
On the whole the show was interesting, though (IMHO) weighted in favor of the secular view.
I didn’t see the special, but a couple of things to keep in mind are: 1) we have copies of the New Testament manuscripts from as early as 25-30 years after the events in question took place, so if changes were made, they were made when people who saw or wrote or were mentioned in the originals were still living. 2) The disciples preached openly things which anyone there could have disproven if they weren’t true. For instance, Peter stood in front of a crowd at Pentacost of at least 3,000 people (that’s how many were baptised; surely many were there who weren’t) and said, among other things, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” If the resurrection didn’t happen, it would have been pretty easy for anyone to disprove it by dragging out Jesus’ body. And plenty of people had reasons, both political and religious, to show that it didn’t happen. I think you’ll find that Jesus’ resurrection is one of the most mysterious things recorded in history, because you think to yourself, “well THAT can’t be true,” yet all the evidence says it is.
As for the fact that some of the things Jesus supposedly did are also seen in earlier myths, I don’t see that that proves anything. The question is still “are our records of Jesus historically valid?” Becuase if so, it’s irrelevant what imaginary figures did it first. Just because Zeus rode across the sky before Orville Wright did doesn’t mean Wright was made up. Heck, maybe Wright even got the idea from Zeus, or Jesus from Dionysis. But did it happen? If so, that’s all that matters.
And, of course, it’s absolutely inconceivable that writings purported to recount actual events in someone’s life could contain innaccuracies or outright untruths. It certainly couldn’t happen in our modern world, with its rapid information sharing, especially to someone famous, such as if a writer put together a biography of former President Ronald Reagan and included both fictitious characters and fictitious events. How much less likely, then, that it could have happened 2,000 years ago in a time when information was much more difficult to disseminate to mass audiences and when the subject was, in his own time, a relative nobody? :rolleyes:
Fundamentalist Christian: “The Bible says so, therefore it’s true. God wouldn’t allow His word to be corrupted!”
Moderate Christian: “It probably happened something like the Bible says, with some indeterminate, and currently unquanitifiable embellishment and/or editing.”
>>And, of course, it’s absolutely inconceivable that writings purported to recount actual events in someone’s life could contain innaccuracies or outright untruths. <<
No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that when you distribute an account of someone’s life and say “thousands of people in X location saw Y miraculous event happen,” if it isn’t true, people are going to know it isn’t. It’s quite different with the events that happened in private. In other words, Jesus’ temptation in the desert could have been a total fabrication (I don’t think it was, I’m just saying for practical purposes it would have been possible), because according to the story, he was alone. Same for walking on water, because it was just him and the disciples. But his ressurection, miraculous feeding of the five thousand (5,000 includes only the men, by the way; there must have been at least twice that many folks there), healing of various people, etc. would have been easy to disprove it they weren’t true. And if those happened, this guy is unique in all of history and the rest of his story deserves a second chance.
I’ll have you know that an alien landed in my backyard, and 5,000 men and their families witnessed it. Now, with that many witnesses, this should be easy to disprove, right? So, go ahead, disprove it. After about a second’s thought, you should realize that unless I actually name some of my alleged witnesses, you’ll have to interview every man in the world in order to do so.
Well, the same goes for all of the alleged Biblical miracles. It’s true that if they did indeed happen, they should be very easy to prove by interviewing the purported witnesses. But if they didn’t happen, who are you going to ask to disprove them? The 5,000 men who didn’t witness an event which didn’t happen?
Also, keep in mind that there are literally hundreds of people in history who were alleged to have performed miracles. Surely, they should have all been easy to disprove had they not happened. So, by this same logic, we should believe that Appolonius of Tyana, Krishna, Mithras, and those two 12 year old twin boys in Burma who are leading the Army of God are all legitimate miracle workers as well, right?
Does anyone have a source for 25 years after the events happened we have manuscripts?
Also the statement that “Aside from Mohammed,” Jesus influenced mankind (paraphrased here) seems to imply Mohammed somehow had more influence. I think he was much less influental that Jesus.