I should probably wait on this, actually, until you’ve had a chance to read Fredriksen’s article–you’ll see what my response to many of your contentions (particularly regarding the Temple) are going to be when you read it.
Just as food for thought, in the meantime: Did anybody–Greek or Jew–want to get rid of temples as a place of worship and to make offerings?
How would such a message be received by either audience?
Regards.
Glad to see you’re still here, Iscariot, at least temporarily.
Part of your argument against Jesus as the common source for Q is that Q is not apocalyptic. This contention necessarily requires a proof that Jesus could not have been non-apocalyptic. I don’t think it’s been shown that a sapiential Jesus is impossible, just unlikely. But history is filled with unlikely events and idiosyncratic individuals- especially when it comes to religion.
Your points about unattributed Q sayings in James, Clement and the Didache are (I think) stronger than an a priori presumption of an apocalyptic Jesus and I’m as yet unprepared to offer a response, but I am pondering it. I think a restratification of Q may be in order (I know that sounds ad hoc and weasely but it’s the best I can do at the moment. I’m not entirely certain that such an approach will work but I’m at least going to shuffle some stuff around and see how it looks. I quite expect it will fail to be convincing but I just want to try it before I capitulate).
Not that I know of. It would have been unusual, that’s for sure.
With anger and shock. It might even cause a crowd to turn on a popular preacher. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, though.
No it isn’t. My argument is that it isn’t Jewish. Horsely and Silberman, to use the above example, paint a much more Jewish Jesus than the JSem, without apocalypticism, which is why I disagree with them for much diferent reasons in most respects.
Apocalypticism came up when you asked how I would restratify Q.
And my reasoning for an apocalyptic Jesus isn’t a priori, it’s a posteriori–an apocalyptic Jesus is concluded as the product of his context, his context is not concluded as a result of an apocalyptic Jesus.
Did the crowd turn on him? Or is that a necessity of the Markan Passion?
If Jesus died for his actions in the temple, why do his followers completely ignore the message that led to his death?
Surely Paul, with all his disputes about the Law, would have dropped the bombshell that the other apostles didn’t venerate the temple.
Why, if this was the reason their leader died, do they make his martyrdom meaningless?
Fredriksen expands on these points somewhat in her article; moreso in her book. I’d reccommend both.
Regards.
Deciding whether something is or is not “Jewish” is a little wishy-washy for my taste, but even if Q is unJewish in its rhetoric that doesn’t mean a Jew couldn’t have originated those sayings. Once again, I must point to the individualistic nature of the mystic experience and of religious psychopathology in general. It’s decidedly unChristian for a Christian pastor to say that he is Jesus, yet one Christian pastor in Texas did just that and he acquired a following who were loyal to the death.
It seemed like you were making an a priori assumption that whatever is non-apocalyptic in Q cannot come from Jesus.
I would also argue that you can’t extropolate an individual from his cultural context.
I think that neither scenario is impossible.
Embarrassment, bewilderment, revisionism, apologism. They thought he couldn’t have possibly meant what he seemed to have meant so they reinterpreted it or called it a lie. Sometimes these psychopathological cult leaders grow more erratic as time goes by or they say strange things in the grips of psychotic interludes. Mohammed’s “Satanic verses” come to mind. He praised some pagan gods while in an ecstatic state. His followers decided that he must have been possessed by Satan at the time.
I would offer a speculation that what started as an anti-legalist, anti-purity ideology for Jesus grew more and more antiestablishmentary as time went on and culminated in a flat out rejection of the temple. Who knows, he might have even said something about “rebulding” it with his sapiential, utopian “Kingdom.”
Yes, that would be completely radical within its context and even unJewish from the perspective of his contemporaries but things like that do happen to mystics. They get crazy ideas and they are often charasmatic enough to bring people with them. His rejection of the temple was not necessarily a part of his ministry in the beginning, or at least not verbalized by him as such. I think it could have been a culmination of his ideology- a logical consequence of committing to anti-legalism and yes, egalatarianism, at least as it pertained to access to God.
After the scene at the temple and the crucifixion, I think the apostles just didn’t understand- or couldn’t accept- what his message was and they found ways to either deny or explain away what had happened.
That’s because they didn’t stop venerating the temple. This was a case where they just couldn’t take Jesus’ words at face value.
To be fair, we don’t exactly know how the direct apostles interpreted Jesus’ death. I don’t think we can take Paul as a source for what Peter and James believed. My guess is that they saw Jesus death as the murder of an innocent, not as a voluntary or intentional statement by Jesus.
I’ve read the article once but I think I want to read it at least once more before I offer a comprehensive response. Maybe that would be better for the apocalypticism thread.
The Koresh analogy doesn’t hold up very well–it still exists very much within a Christian worldview. The Jewish Cynic doesn’t exist within a Jewish worldview.
A better example would be to find a Christian pastor who decided he was Mohammed, and managed to convince other Christians that his view was correct.
I said explicitly that Jesus probably said some of “Q1”–“No prophet is accepted in his hometown,” for example, is a saying I’d think authentic, without presenting a lengthy argument on the matter here (I’d take the Q version though, not the Thomasine, which adds “No physician cures those who know him”–addition being more likely than subtraction as a general rule).
I’d suggest there’s nothing more important, but it’s not just his cultural context, it’s also his more immediate contexts.
It’s not impossible that Josephus fabricated the entire Bellum Judaicum to boost morale in other Roman provinces too. That doesn’t mean it’s likely. This is a field of probabilities.
A sapiental kingdom isn’t the same thing as a utopian one, particularly in a Jewish worldview. The latter is the product of the Messianic age–it argues for me, not against.
Is he a mystic? Or a Cynic? These are decidedly different reconstructions, in most cases. How are you proposing the two be reconciled?
Who came with him in your suggested rejection of the temple?
Where would a first century Jew get the idea that access to God could be obtained without ritual worship?
That’s a rather drastic anachronism.
An historical Jesus is a man who is the historically necessary antecedent of all that is to follow. If he is not the root of his followers understanding of Christianity, then for all intents and purposes he didn’t exist.
The temple doesn’t even figure in later literature. It doesn’t seem to be a terribly necessary antecedent of anything.
Absolutely we know how his followers understood his death, and it’s a rare moment that we have absolutely no reason to question Paul’s characterization of it–Paul would not acquiesce to the other apostles unless there was genuine agreement.
Two important things to observe–the first is the undeniably Jewish context of this–Jesus died and rose according to scriptures.
The second is that this undeniably Jewish context is universal–“I or they, so do we preach.”
it’s tough to reconcile this death with the “temple tantrum.” With a “temple tantrum” that seems, at least to me, to be told with flagrant Midrash.
I’ll start another thread in the morning, it’s time for my ass to get itself to work.
Regards.
Oops! I’m mixing up my reconstructions–this doesn’t appear in Kloppenborg or Borg’s Q at all, much less Q1.
We’ll go with “Leave the dead bury the dead” instead. For an example of one I’d move back, I’d use Jesus’ praise of JBap.
Now I really need to get to work.
Regards.
How about a Hindu mystic, regarded as a saint during his lifetime and deified after his death, who in the middle of his career decides to completely abandon all Hindu practices and follow Islam, to forsake the worship of all gods but Allah and (here’s the kicker), starts eating beef in order to follow a Muslim diet. He attains a mystic vision of Mohammed, declares that Islam is true and that there is no God but Allah, then returns to his previous Hindu practices, including an aversion to beef and the veneration of his favorite goddess, Kali. Not only does he do all this but he does not lose the loyalty of his Hindu following, they accept his declaration that Islam is true, even though it’s monotheistic theology is in direct contradiction to their own. Later on, the beloved mystic also decides to accept Christ as his saviour, abandons Hinduism yet again for a sole devotion to Christ, has an ecsataic vision of Jesus which he claims is more intense than any he has ever had before (and in addition to his Muslim experience he has already allegedly had prior attainments of both samadhi and nirvana), declares the truth of Christianity, and then returns once more to his previous Hindu Kali worship. His followers accept this new declaration as truth, even though it logically contradicts at least two previous assertions of theological truth and they continue to venerate both Jesus and Allah along with their own preferred Hindu deities and the sainted mystic more than a century after his death.
Is all that crazy enough for you? His name was Ramakrishna.
Mystics are unpredictable.
See above. A revered Hindu Guru worshipped Allah and ate cows.
I think this is not a fair analogy. The implausiblity of Josephus fabricating the Jewish War is not in the same ball park as a Jewish mystic rejecting instutionalized worship.
I don’t agree that a utopian kingdom is necessarily messianic. I think that Jesus believed it could be activated by humans through compassion. I think that the sapiential aspect was derived from personal mysticism. but that he thought such wisdom was experiential and not accessible to the masses. His sapiential message was for the few but his “Kingdom of God” was for the many, was utopian and was not apocalyptic. I believe his utopian vision was informed by his mysticism.
He was a mystic, period. I’m pretty sure I haven’t asserted that was a Cynic, have I? Some of his attributed sayings have a Cynical flavor to them, but I would say those aspects could also be seen as merely ascetic, rather than specifically Hellenistic.
Of course, Hellenistic ideas were known about in Galilee and if Ramakrishna can eat a cow, then Jesus could listen to a Greek.
Nobody. In my scenario the disciples didn’t know he was going to do that. They went along with his subversion of legalism and ritual purity but I think they balked at the rejection of the temple. They abandoned him, they scattered and they later reassembled, possibly after a visionary experience by Peter. I think they dealt with the temple incident in whatever manner they could, either denying it completely or reinterpreting it symbolically.
He got it from mystic experiences. The mystic experience of direct access to God (however “God” is perceived by a given individual) is pretty much universal to the experience, just like being “one with the universe.” The above mentioned mystic, Ramakrishna, said that all ecstatic mysticism was really the same at its core but that it was informed by cultural context. A direct experience of the divine is pretty much the definition of religious mysticism and one of the most characteristic aspects of successful mystics is that they reject intermediary mechanisms in religion.
I think this is overstating the case. Some part of Jesus survives in the myth. Not much I grant you, and what there is is distorted but I think I would say that a historical person was at least the inspiration for the Jesus myth. I think Paul’s Christology swallowed him up but I think he existed and that some of what he said was remembered.
That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. He was crucified, and both John and the synoptics associate the cause with the temple. I think the crucifixion is the necessary antecedent for the Jesus myth, not the cause of the crucifixion. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t believe that the crucifixion was initially seen as a necessary part of Jesus’ mission but just an unfortunate consequence. I believe that Paul alone was responsible for the soteriological interpretation of the crucifixion and that Paul’s Christology became definitive.
Absolutely we know how his followers understood his death, and it’s a rare moment that we have absolutely no reason to question Paul’s characterization of it–Paul would not acquiesce to the other apostles unless there was genuine agreement.
Two important things to observe–the first is the undeniably Jewish context of this–Jesus died and rose according to scriptures.
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According to scripture (however misinterpreted) is not according to Peter. Paul says nothing in this passage about how the apostles interpreted Jesus’ death, he only says that Jesus appeared to them afterwards. I would also dispute whether an interpretation of a dying and resurrected Messiah- even with an appeal to scripture- is Jewish. The scriptures that Paul is referring to are not even Messianic in Jewish interpretation.
All he’s doing in this verse is trying to bolster his own apostolic credibility (“I saw him too”). This tells us nothing of how the apostles interpreted the execution of Jesus. The “universality” is only in agreeing that Jesus had “appeared” after the crucifixion.
A midrashic treatment should not be surprising for an embarrassing and baffling event, and I don’t think Paul cared about why Jesus was killed in a legal sense but only in a cosmic one.
It’s a rather unique tale, but not quite analogous (though much better than Koresh)–missionaries, for example, have generally had no trouble convincing Hindus of the essential truth of Christianity–they still identify as Hindus. It’s an odd religion. Judaism isn’t.
Apparently so are the goalposts. Am I arguing against Jesus the Cynic? Or Jesus the Mystic?
The two aren’t the same reconstruction.
Again, moving goalposts. We were discussing a Jewish Cynic initially. I think Jesus the “Wandering Jewish Cynic” is about as plausible as “Jesus the Jedi Knight.” Unless, of course, you call it the extra spiffy “Wandering Jewish Jedi Knight,” in which case they’re about even.
I didn’t say it was “necessarily,” I said it was “in a Jewish worldview.”
Jesus died for sins. I or they, so do we preach.
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According to scripture (however misinterpreted) is not according to Peter. Paul says nothing in this passage about how the apostles interpreted Jesus’ death, he only says that Jesus appeared to them afterwards.
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No, he says that he died for sin, and that he shares this attribution with the others.
The Essenes seem to have expected some sort of return of the ToR.
They were definitely Jewish.
What scriptures is he referring to? And are you sure that Jews contemporary with Paul did not interpret them Messianically?
What the passages were meant to say when they were written is not the same thing they said to first century Jews. You would be astounded at what was interpreted Messianically.
No, it’s agreeing to the whole passage–the death for sin, the resurrection, the order of appearances. The entire passage is required for Paul to make his point, not just the resurrection experiences.
Then why does Paul take such pains to emphasize the cross?
Paul’s “cosmic” sense of Jesus didn’t die at all–it’s still very much alive, and Paul seems to believe that he communicates with it regularly. The only death Paul is concerned with occurred on Golgotha.
As an aside: You noted above that John the Baptist’s followers heralded him the Messiah, yet there is no record of such an event occurring. Josephus, who hates Messiahs, loves JBap.
What leads you to suspect that they heralded him the Messiah?
Regards.
Grr, typing too quickly, and not paying attention–Where it says “died for sin. . .” I’d meant to add “according to scripture,” which was of course the most pertinent part of the post; there’s really no doubt that Paul means for this all to be included in his proclamation that “I or they, so do we preach.”
Regards.
An aside:
Here’s one to mull over regarding this passage–a question Earl Doherty raises:
Does Paul mean “Jesus died in accordance with what was written in scripture?”
Or is Paul reading Jewish scripture, and saying “According to this, Jesus died,” with no reference to a recent historical event being intended?
The Greek, kata tas graphe could be taken either way. I’m persuaded that he meant the former, largely because of other references to the crucifixion, but there is a case to be made.
Regards.
Just for my own edification, Iscariotp, so that that I can better understand, are you arguing that there is no historical Jesus or just that the Q shouldn’t be attributed to him?
I’m arguing that parts of Q shouldn’t be attributed to Jesus–at least that was my initial contention, the thread seems to have veered since then.
More specifically, I’m arguing that the parts of Q that are paralleled in Thomas–the “Common Sayings Tradition,” is attributed to Jesus for no reason other than a priori suppositions.
It is presumed that because Thomas and Q clearly have a common source, that common source must be Jesus. I do not think there are ample reasons to conclude that this is the case–or at least not the case uniformly (there are exceptions).
The Jesus-Myth tidbits are tossed out as a curiousity–the last one is particularly interesting, because it’s a trend Paul follows a lot: How we read kat a tas graphe and the like is integral to our understanding of the Pauline corpus.
Regards.
Regards.
Christian missionaries don’t convince Hindus to eat beef or to abandon other gods. More importanatly, Hindu gurus don’t begin to eat beef and abandon other gods.
I’m just calling him a mystic. I have not claimed that he was a Cynic.
You did not get “Jewish Cynic” from me. The most I’ve said is that he was a wisdom teacher.
But not necessarily in a mystic worldview. Mysticism tends to transcend tradition.
According to scripture (however misinterpreted) is not according to Peter. Paul says nothing in this passage about how the apostles interpreted Jesus’ death, he only says that Jesus appeared to them afterwards.
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No, he says that he died for sin, and that he shares this attribution with the others.
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Here’ the passage in its entirety:
The first two claims that “Christ died for our sins” and that he was “raised on the third day” are supported with appeals to scripture, not apostollic witnesses. The apostles are appealed to only as witnesses that Christ appeared after the crucifixion. Paul is contriving a personal Christology and is selectively using the witness of the apostles to imply a greater agreement than what really existed. The soteriological aspect of this passage- “he died for our sins”- is specifically supported with scripture, not Peter or James. There is nothing in this chapter which would give explicit Petrine support to Paul’s soteriology.
You with the Essenes. :rolleyes: 
OK, I’ll give you the Essenes but they were not exactly mainstream.
He was referring to Isaiah 53 with the “died for our sins” part and Hosea 6:2 with the “raised on the third day” part. I would be surprised if you could show me a pre-Christian interpretation of the suffering servant as the Messiah, even more surprised if you could show me a pre-Christian Jewish expectation that the Messiah would “die for our sins,” and utterly amazed if you could show me that the Hosea verse (“After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.”) was ever interpreted by pre-Christian Jews as being a predictive prophesy that the Messiah would be dead for three days.
I would really be astounded if it was expected that the Messiah would “die for our sins and be raised on the third day” before Christianity.
All I can say is that I disagree with this. If Paul could have appealed to directly to apostollic agreement for his soteriology, I think he would have. Instead he appeals to scripture. I don’t buy that 1 Cor. 15:11 is intended to imply a blanket agreement for all of Paul’s Christology but just for the resurrection.
He saw it as the ultimate Paschal sacrifice. A perfect innocent, “without blemish” who was sacrificed for the sins of all mankind.
Christ begins at Golgotha as far as Paul is concerned. It was the sacrifice that inspired him (well that and the resurrection). He saw the crucifixion as a divinely ordained event and the human mechanistics which brought it about were simply in the (unwitting) service of God. The legal cause of the crucifixion was completely incidental to its divine purpose.
I think I read it in Crossan. Not that he was heralded by all as the Messiah but that some thought he was. I was going from memeory with that and if I’m wrong I retract it.
John was at least seen as seditious, though.
It is rather odd. Except that the Hindu Guru didn’t exactly lead his followers anywhere. They accepted the essential truth of his message without converting to Islam–the same way a missionary can get a Hindu to accept Jesus without converting them to Christianity.
No, the first two claims aren’t supported with scripture, they’re supported with the claim that he has given exactly has he has received (from the other apostles)–Jesus died in accordance with scripture, and was raised in accordance with scripture, that he appeared to. . .
This is all one sentiment–what Paul has received from the other apostles, and “I or they” so do we preach it.
His appeal–that he has given what he received from the other apostles–both opens and closes his statement. It’s not three claims, it’s one–“This is what I was told, and what they also say.” He declares his source for this twice (15.3 and 15.11)
Are you aware of another group in the first century of whom we have a vast library?
And I trust you’re aware that all of our classical sources place Essenes in “every town,” and label them the third largest sect in Judaism. They weren’t exactly out of the mainstream.
Most Jews didn’t belong to any sect. That makes them a sizable number. They’re certainly the group that most parallels Christianity.
You guessed it, the Dead Sea Scrolls. I’ll have to look up the specific verse.
He’s also drawing on the Wisdom of Solomon, on Sirach, on The 12 Patriarchs, on the Psalms of Solomon–there are scores of potential sources. It’s the vindication of the suffering just one; THE Jewish hero.
There is also Talmudic literature that interprets none other than Isaiah Messianically.
The “third day” probably comes from Hosea, and it is indeed specious–but not overly so, Judaism has always been rife with odd interpretations of texts to support contemporary events. Something along the same lines as the “Peshar.” You’ve probably scored this one though.
But the resurrection could come from any of a number of sources–Jesus as the “firstfruits” of the promised resurrection of the dead. The same vein of thought that seems to have indicated the Essenes expected a return of the ToR.
Melchizedek has some sacrificial qualities in 11QMelch. Be astounded.
Raised on the third day has more in common with peshar than any other method, so specious reading is what we should expect. Kinda like how Habbukuk suddenly told the story of the ToR.
Paul’s statement begins and ends with an appeal to his source–what he has received from apostolic authority. Paul has received that “Jesus died. . .according to scripture. . .” and so on. He’s not appealing to scripture for the basis, he’s appealing to the reception of the tradition. Something he reiterates at the end.
Taking your reading, then his claim at the start to have “given exactly what he received” is meaningless–why did he say it in the first place?
John does, Paul not so much–he’s largley absent of Paschal symbolism, it seems to be a later development–Hebrews missed a lot of opportunity as well, and it really shouldn’t have.
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Christ begins at Golgotha as far as Paul is concerned. It was the sacrifice that inspired him (well that and the resurrection). He saw the crucifixion as a divinely ordained event and the human mechanistics which brought it about were simply in the (unwitting) service of God. The legal cause of the crucifixion was completely incidental to its divine purpose.
[QUOTE]
Ah, I see your point, and to that end, I agree.
But with all of Paul’s disputes on the Law, noting what I said above (he should have nailed the apostles for not venerating the temple if they didn’t), we run into the same problem–if Jesus said not to venerate the temple, why doesn’t Paul appeal to Jesus’ actions.
Pehaps the other apostles may have ignored it. Paul sure as hell wouldn’t miss the chance to twist the knife–to point out what hypocrites they were, who denied Jesus’ last act.
Such speculation would be characteristic Crossan. It’s not supported by any textual evidence.
Depends on who you trust. In Josephus he isn’t. In the gospels he is.
I think it’s a rare moment where we should probably combine the two–Josephus is essentially right about the reasons for execution, but the gospel account was the catalyst for that reason.
John was beheaded. Why was Jesus crucified?
Regards.
You seem to have missed a large section of my post–I mistakenly put it in double quotes.
Regards.
OK, Iscariot, since you are saying that some of the Q sayings might be authentic, I guess I am going the whole distance with you. But I have to ask, if you reject the idea of a “common sayings tradition”, on what basis can you ascribe any of the sayings to Jesus? If you reject the JSem criteria, what criteria do you replace them with?
I’m playing catch-up here, and I don’t think I’ve understood the argument about rejection of the Temple. Horsley and Draper make a strong case that Jesus rejected the Temple authorities, the chief priests. This makes a lot of sense to me in the historical context. You can see JtB as offering an alternative to the Jerusalem Temple - you don’t need to go there to be cleansed, come to me. The Essenes, too, had a beef with the Jerusalem leadership and withdrew into their closed communities. This was not the same as rejecting the Temple itself. The Essenes, I believe, continued to send their tithes to the Temple.
As far as Paul vs. the other apostles, it seems significant that Paul can write to the Romans, a church he didn’t found and had never visited, in much the same way he wrote to his own churches.
I don’t reject all their criteria, and I add to them Meier’s criteria. Eric Eve wrote an article some time ago condemning (more like crucifying) multiple attestation, so I generally drop that one, particularly as applies to miracles–the attestation needs to be pretty broad for me to accept it.
They’re argument is essentially correct–Thomas and Q must have a common source. Where they err is in presuming a priori that that source is Jesus himself, rather than some other sayings collection.
Regards.
I missed all this is the reply box:
I don’t think Jesus was Gnostic, but Gnosticism may have been an outgrowth of his original sapientialism. I also don’t think the message is all that late. Thomas and Q are at least contemporary with Mark and probably prior in oral form. I don’t believe the message was ever really adopted by anyone as Jesus originally intended it. I call the message sapiential based on the sayings alone, not on any early Christian practices or doctrines.
What definition are you using? Maybe I’ve been misunderstanding you.
No, actually, I didn’t say that. I’ve reviewed every thread we’ve participated in and I didn’t say it. I did say that I thought Jesus was a wisdom teacher in the vein of Funk and Crossan and I think you interpreted that as me claiming he was a Cynic.
They don’t explicitly say he was a mystic but they do say he subverted Jewish law. He healed on the sabbath, he broke purity laws, he dined with unclean people, etc. IMO, this behaviour makes perfect sense for a mystic but not for a strictly “Jewish” rabbi.
Religious psychopathology did not exist in the Hellenistic or Palestinian world? Cite?
Mystics transcend normal cultural constructs. It’s a natural consequence of the experience.
Because the message is too experiential and was too odd for its cultural context. To put it quite bluntly, the apostles just didn’t get it. They were attracted to him for reasons of personal charisma (common to successful mystics- in India it is often claimed that mere physical contact with such a person can cause ecstatic states in other people. I don’t believe that necessarily, but I do know that they can exert a strong personal magnetism. Ramakrishna attracted followers who abandoned their families and possessions after meeting him a single time. These followers include not only Indians but Victorian British soldiers who went to mock the “Sammy” and were impressed enough after meeting him to desert the British army and become his disciples. Even with all that, and in a culture much more disposed to mysticism, most people did not really “get” Ramakrishna or ever become enlightened. I think that people were attracted to Jesus in the same way, and they continued to venerate him after his death, but that they did not really grasp everything that he said. Some of the sayings remind of Zen koans. In order to get them you have to already be in an altered state of consciousness. Jesus’ personality and some of his teachings were strong enough to inspire his cult, but I think that most of his original message was simply misunderstood or altered.
Because it makes sense. It is entirely consistent with his ministry and the Q sayings and it’s consistent with the behavior and ideologies of other mystics across diverse cultures.
Not all mystics are equal, btw. They’re a dime a dozen in India, to be sure, but there was only one Ramakrishna. Your run of the mill sadhu does not attract a mesmerized following. Siddhartha Gautma was one ascetic mystic out of thousands but he somehow stood out like no other.
I don’t presume to understand this phenomenon or offer any explanation as to why some individuals stand out so starkly as charismatic figures but they do. There was just something uniquely attractive about Jesus’ personality. It happens.
I don’t know what you mean by “have him.” Personally, I’m just curious. I think that any historical Jesus would have to be fascinating just because he is historical Jesus…even if he isn’t.
Sedition, of course…or fear of sedition. The question is, how casual was their definition of sedition? I think that during Passover it was casual indeed.
The Essenes–by far the most anti-priesly group we’re aware of–could not fathom destroying the temple except by the hand of God himself, who would put a new temple in its place immediately.
If you’d like clarification on my general position on the temple (or rather, why I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t go quite as far as Fredriksen), I can send you the same article I sent Diogenes (Fredriksen granted me permission to distribute it via email, not to publish it online, so it has to be through an email address). Again, the book explains it better, but the article captures the general meaning.
At the same time, there are substantial differences–the introduction has, since Bultmann, been regarded as pre-Pauline: Paul is mimicking the address used by other apostles in their correspondences with Rome. The dichotomy presented in it (sphere of the flesh vs. sphere of the spirit) is used more times in Romans than in any other Epistle, and he doesn’t address specific concerns like he does in Corinth or Thessalonica.
But you’re correct in observing that the general idea is more or less the same.
Regards.
I think this is an excellent point. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.
What say you, Iscariot?