# Using a time machine you go back to find the historical Jesus. What do you think you'll really find? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828 "2012-10-16T00:06:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/141 "2012-10-18T20:20:23Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Would come under lying, no? > > We can’t just dismiss inconvenient facts as metaphor, or else everything can be hand waved away as metaphor.. The metaphors may not have been presented as anything more than that originally, and later mistaken for factual accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/142 "2012-10-18T20:26:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The metaphors may not have been presented as anything more than that originally, and later mistaken for factual accounts. Sure, but it leads down a very slippery slope for people who want to claim at least some of the Bible is fact-based or actual fact. We cannot possibly know which bits were supposed to be metaphor and which bits weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/143 "2012-10-18T20:34:19Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Would come under lying, no? > > We can’t just dismiss inconvenient facts as metaphor, or else everything can be hand waved away as metaphor.. I wasn’t trying to dismiss inconvenient facts as metaphor, and I don’t think Paul was writing metaphorically. I just threw it out there for completeness. Another one, just for the sake of completeness: Jesus was not the risen son of God; he just never died. The soldiers crucified him, and a little while later they thought he was dead. They took him down (which was an exception to the rule, if it happened), his friends put him in a tomb, and he got better. Maybe he thought he was resurrected; maybe he realized they just misdiagnosed him. Anyway, he showed up to let close followers know he was ok, and took off because it was dangerous to be a supposedly dead guy in Jerusalem. Later Paul met him, after the story of the guy that survived crucifixion grew out of control. ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/144 "2012-10-18T20:36:43Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > There are storylines here that require some motivation on the part of Paul that hasn’t yet been supplied. > > If Paul invented Christianity out of whole cloth, or if there was a minor Jesus cult that had come to his notice but, despite not having had any sort of religious experience relating to it, Paul decided that he was going to take this little cult and run with it…well, _why?_ As best we know, Paul was a Roman citizen, which presumably meant he was, if not rich, at least doing pretty well. Did he do it for the glamour? The girls? The possibility of death by crucifixion or being fed to lions for the masses’ entertainment? What (either materially or psychologically) was in it for him? And why didn’t he take the cult’s evolution in a direction that didn’t involve conflict with the Roman authorities, and the resulting unpleasant means of death? Obviously, in these scenarios, Paul is a salesman _par excellence_, but given that fact, you’d think he could have sold a story that was at least slightly safer for him and for his marks. He certainly could have invented a religion that gave at least wiggle room to kneel to Caesar. Why did Joseph Smith do it? He was persecuted, and, in fact, got lynched for it. Why did David Koresh do it? There is no actual historical evidence that Paul was martyred. Robert M. Price, a New Testament scholar and a member of the Jesus Seminar, thinks that Paul never really existed at all and is a fictive character based on Simon Magus. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/145 "2012-10-18T20:41:38Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Sure, but it leads down a very slippery slope for people who want to claim at least some of the Bible is fact-based or actual fact. > > We cannot possibly know which bits were supposed to be metaphor and which bits weren’t. I agree. It’s been my point here. We have no credible evidence of the existence of biblical events yet people seem to justify their belief with the idea that ‘so many people believe it, so it must be true’. That is not evidence of something existing. And like so much history there’s no way to prove it one way or the other. I don’t have a problem with people who believe these things based on faith. My problem comes with people who insist they are true based on the facts. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/146 "2012-10-18T20:56:05Z")
> [@Nazarene](#): > > Robert M. Price, a New Testament scholar and a member of the Jesus Seminar, thinks that Paul never really existed at all and is a fictive character based on Simon Magus. Well, Price is just whack. I bet _he_ doesn’t even really believe that; he was just trying to impress some chick in a bar or something. > [@TriPolar](#): > > It’s been my point here. We have no credible evidence of the existence of biblical events yet people seem to justify their belief with the idea that ‘so many people believe it, so it must be true’. That is not evidence of something existing. I haven’t seen that line of reasoning presented _at all_ in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/147 "2012-10-18T20:58:09Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I haven’t seen that line of reasoning presented _at all_ in this thread. I don’t think he was referring to this thread…or at least I didn’t read it as such. It is a common meme though. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/148 "2012-10-18T20:58:20Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I haven’t seen that line of reasoning presented _at all_ in this thread. I didn’t intend that to refer to anyone in this thread. It was a general statement. I apologize if anyone who posted here felt it was directed at them. ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/149 "2012-10-18T21:05:42Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well, Price is just whack. I bet _he_ doesn’t even really believe that; he was just trying to impress some chick in a bar or something. Well, he’s got two Doctorates (New testament and Theology), so if he’s a whack, he’s an educated whack. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/150 "2012-10-18T21:15:54Z")
> [@Nazarene](#): > > Well, he’s got two Doctorates (New testament and Theology), so if he’s a whack, he’s an educated whack. They’re the most entertaining kind. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/151 "2012-10-18T21:49:37Z")
> [@Nazarene](#): > > Well, he’s got two Doctorates (New testament and Theology), so if he’s a whack, he’s an educated whack. He believes in Cthulhu. :eek: But not Jesus- until “someone discovers his diary or his skeleton”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/152 "2012-10-18T21:53:06Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > What about drugs? Could that be a possibility? Were mind altering drugs in circulation back then and in that place? > > Maybe Paul went on a “spiritual” journey of Hashis-assisted self discovery. Oh man, if only you are the first person to have thought of that. I give you [John Allegro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Allegro), the author of _The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross_. > [@](#): > > His book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross relates the development of language in Eurasia to the development of myths, religions and cultic practices in many cultures. Allegro believed he could prove through etymology that the roots of Christianity, as of many other religions, lay in fertility cults; **and that cultic practices, such as ingesting hallucinogenic drugs to perceive the Mind of God, persisted into Christian times.** > > The reaction to The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross ruined Allegro’s career.[3][4] His detractors considered his somewhat sensationalist approach deplorable and his arguments somewhere between unconvincing and ludicrous. Prof J. N. D. Anderson observed that the book was “dismissed by … experts…as not being based on any philological or other evidence that they can regard as scholarly.”[5] Sumerian expert Anna Partington summarized some of the problems, stating that The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross “uses a number of hypothetical Sumerian words not attested in texts. These are marked with an asterisk following philological convention. This is akin to proposing there is a word in the English language ‘bellbat’ because the individual words ‘bell’ and ‘bat’ are known to exist separately. Then again words of different languages are gathered together without the type of argument which would be expected in order to demonstrate possible relationship.”[6] ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/153 "2012-10-18T22:10:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > He believes in Cthulhu. :eek: Believes or writes stories? There’s a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/154 "2012-10-18T22:53:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > He believes in Cthulhu. :eek: No he doesn’t. He’s just a big Lovecraft fan. He’s also a Robert E Howard fan and comic book fan. If you saw him say anywhere he believed in Cthulhu, he was joking. ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/155 "2012-10-18T22:55:23Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Believes or writes stories? > > There’s a difference. He’s written Conan stories too. He’s just a fanboy. He’s very clear in his serious books that he does not hold to any supernatural beliefs, and he’s very active in atheist/skeptic groups. ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/156 "2012-10-18T23:06:07Z")
I see that Price’s wiki page says “he has written extensively about the Cthulhu Mythos,” which is true, but he writes about it as literature, not as any kind of real belief system. He writes a lot about the creation of myths and is fascinated by what he sees as modern mythmaking in pop culture. Typology, as it pertains to Christian mythology, is one of the things he writes the most about. He uses superheroes, in particular, as an analogy to the “dying and rising gods” motifs in ancient mythology. He says Christian defenders employ a lot of special pleading when these parallels are brought out and that they they point to this or that feature which they say is unique. Price basically says that’s the same as saying a given supehero isn’t really part of the “superhero genre,” because he has some trait or back story that no other superhero does. “None of those other superheroes have spider powers, therefore Spider-Man isn’t a superhero but a unique creation.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/157 "2012-10-19T01:14:00Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > There is a certain amount of tongue in cheekiness to my list, but I still hold that your argument for the existence of Jesus is not as sound as you make it out to be. The fact that you continue to offer the “it’s either true or a giant conspiracy, and a conspiracy is implausible” argument as your sole justification is no more ridiculous than Paul’s writing being that of a man who suffered a neurological accident on the road to Damascus having heard various stories about itinerant preachers in Palestine. > > So there’s at least a third possibility that is as plausible as yours. > > How else do you explain Paul’s Damascene conversion? He’s either lying, deluded (or afflicted) or something supernatural happened, no? It’s not just Paul. It’s Paul and Peter and Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and James and Thomas and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Thaddeus and the hundreds of other people who supposedly knew Jesus during his lifetime. Because when these guys were writing back and forth, nobody ever said, _“Whoa, who’s this Jesus you’re talking about? I don’t remember there being anybody named Jesus hanging out with us.”_ This people all seemed to accept that Jesus was somebody they had known. Is it really plausible that all of these hundreds of people suffered under the same delusion that they knew a person named Jesus? They were all just walking around as a crowd having conversations with somebody who wasn’t there? Or did they all get together and decide to pretend they had known a guy named Jesus? As a prank or a conspiracy or a con job. Or was Jesus just a real person that they actually had known? A normal human being who walked around in Judea, preached to some crowds, and then was arrested and executed by the Romans. Did a bunch of magical myths later get attached to the name of Jesus? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that Jesus himself was a myth. Compare Jesus to L. Ron Hubbard. There’s a bunch of people who think Hubbard had supernatural knowledge. Are those people deluded about the supernatural knowledge? Yes. Are they lying about the supernatural knowledge? Probably. But when you dismiss the supernatural knowledge do you also dismiss any claims that L. Ron Hubbard existed? That if Hubbard wasn’t divinely inspired, he couldn’t have existed at all? If Scientologists are wrong about Xenu and thetans being real, they must be wrong about Hubbard being real as well. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/158 "2012-10-19T01:28:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s not just Paul. It’s Paul and Peter and Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and James and Thomas and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Thaddeus and the hundreds of other people who supposedly knew Jesus during his lifetime. Because when these guys were writing back and forth, nobody ever said, _“Whoa, who’s this Jesus you’re talking about? I don’t remember there being anybody named Jesus hanging out with us.”_ This people all seemed to accept that Jesus was somebody they had known. Well, except these guys didn’t write. Hardly anybody did. Paper was a scarce commodity. That’s why I keep fixating on Paul. He didn’t meet Jesus himself, but he wrote a lot. And Mark Price be damned, his own writing is better evidence that he lived than all but maybe a dozen people from that time. And the guys that wrote the gospels…were not among the twelve. They wrote long after Jesus died - “Mark” first, then “Matthew” and “Luke,” and then John, who I suspect was visiting with Jesus through the aid of mushrooms. But “Luke” also wrote Acts, and switches to first-person narrative for sections where Paul is traveling by boat. Paul himself claims to be personally acquainted with Barnabas and Peter (Cephas, “the rock”) and James, brother of Jesus. Those guys \*did \*know Jesus. It wasn’t a ‘in the days of yore’ story. It was ‘yeah, he was my brother.’ ‘Yeah, he nicknamed me “the rock.”’ ‘Yeah, he…well, he didn’t make me one of the twelve, but I was real close to it. Like 14th, tops.’ ---
**Author:** ![Nazarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nazarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nazarene)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/159 "2012-10-19T01:43:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s not just Paul. It’s Paul and Peter and Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and James and Thomas and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Thaddeus and the hundreds of other people who supposedly knew Jesus during his lifetime. Because when these guys were writing back and forth, nobody ever said, _“Whoa, who’s this Jesus you’re talking about? I don’t remember there being anybody named Jesus hanging out with us.”_ This people all seemed to accept that Jesus was somebody they had known. We have no writings at all from any of these people, no idea what they believed about Jesus and no real evidence that most of them ever existed at all. Many of the Apostles are only names on a list. I can make a list of names and say they were witnesses to something. Plus, none of those guys were around wherever Paul was preaching. Paul himself says they didn’t believe the same things he did, and there is little likelihood of any written correspondence since Paul would have been the only one of them who was literate in Greek (or literate at all). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828/160 "2012-10-19T03:55:02Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well, except these guys didn’t write. Hardly anybody did. Paper was a scarce commodity. That’s why I keep fixating on Paul. He didn’t meet Jesus himself, but he wrote a lot. And Mark Price be damned, his own writing is better evidence that he lived than all but maybe a dozen people from that time. > > And the guys that wrote the gospels…were not among the twelve. They wrote long after Jesus died - “Mark” first, then “Matthew” and “Luke,” and then John, who I suspect was visiting with Jesus through the aid of mushrooms. > > But “Luke” also wrote Acts, and switches to first-person narrative for sections where Paul is traveling by boat. Paul himself claims to be personally acquainted with Barnabas and Peter (Cephas, “the rock”) and James, brother of Jesus. Those guys \*did \*know Jesus. It wasn’t a ‘in the days of yore’ story. It was ‘yeah, he was my brother.’ ‘Yeah, he nicknamed me “the rock.”’ ‘Yeah, he…well, he didn’t make me one of the twelve, but I was real close to it. Like 14th, tops.’ Most scholars say that the The Apostle John was the primary source for the Gospel of John. But yes, he didnt put stylus to parchment to write it himself. John was a very old man then, however. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-a-time-machine-you-go-back-to-find-the-historical-jesus-what-do-you-think-youll-really-find/637828.md?page=9)