Thats how I see it too. What’s interesting to me from a purely personal view is that over the last few years of independent study and thought without any doctrinal affiliation , I’ve able able to let go of any need to believe the specific details of the NT. IMHO the value of the message of Christ is not dependent on whether those details are true or not. Knowing how people tend to operate there seems to be a very good chance many stories were created to enhance the legend. I find it frees me to focus on the principles of what he taught. In other words, for me at least, believing in Jesus doesn’t have to include believing all the stories of the NT.
The point is that IF the gospels were written within the lifetime of the people who were around then, it would be stupid to make up such a story. This wasn’t a little detail that you could claim everyone else doesn’t remember any more, it was a big deal locally.
cosmosdan, just asking:
What kinds of things do you disregard now? Do you have a non-miraculous Jesus? A never-really-dead Jesus? What do you do with Paul’s assertion that if He didn’t rise, then Christians are just fools?
What makes you think it was a big deal locally? If it was a routine execution of an obscure preacher, why would anyone remember it at all?
Plus, the gospels were written outside of Palestine to Gentiles and Hellenistic (not Palestinian) Jews after Jerusalem had been destroyed and 40-70 years after the crucifixion. Who are these “witnesses” who are going to rememember something about it? How are they even going to know about the existence of these Gospels? It wasn’t like they were being sold at Barnes & Noble, they were copied by hand over a period of decades and read aloud to the congregations who used them. What are the odds that a creeky old survivor of the first Jewish revolt is going to wander into a meeting of Christians somewhere in Asia Minor and actually know who this “Iesous” is that they’re banging on about. Jersualem was crawling with guys named Jesus. How would he know which one they were talking about and what would he say about it anyway? That they didn’t see a guy come back from the dead? so what? Even if they did say that, who would listen?
I see this argument put forth a lot by apologists and I think it’s ludicrous. How could somebody be expected to witness that a miracle didn’t happen?
That is a capital IF isn’t it? The thing to remember is WE DON"T KNOW. The gospels are NOT reliable historical documents. In that era people didn’t write to accurately report the details of events {if my understanding is correct} The other thing to remember is the gospels were selected by people with a specific agenda. It may be comforting to believe that agenda was to follow God’s will but the evidence doesn’t suggest that.
There’s a difference between disregard and “don’t need to accept as factual” I hope you see that difference. I don’t think the miracles mentioned in the NT couldn’t happen. I just understand that people do create myth and legend around figures and that means those things may not be true.
Some may think “then why bother with any of it?” Good question. It’s because certain things mean something to me. Certain passages having meaning for me and resonate with me. What I perceive to be the essence of what Jesus taught
Love God with all thy heart, mind and strength and love thy neighbor as thyself
and; those who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth.
If we are to worship God in truth we must see the Bible realistically. IMHO that means discerning the difference between truth and tradition and being aware of what we know and what we don;t really know.
So, concerning Paul’s passage, what* exactly* does that mean? {Thats assuming that those are really Paul’s words} Is it referring to a physical resurrection or a spiritual one. A physical body or a vision as on the road to Damascus? You may have a preference, but neither you nor I know.
Hey Diogenes. Since I’ve dropped into your thread, and you’ve responded so thoughtfully to my comments, it’s only fair that we discuss the OP. Here’s a question that has always puzzled me. Remember that I’m an atheist and am approaching this from a historical perspective. Just how did the early Christian community develop the tradition of a physical resurrection? I mean, at some point, someone had to say (in substance), "Well, what I heard was that … " How did the story get started? How did it gain such traction that, when the Gospels were set down, it was accepted? Obviously, we’re in the realm of speculation, but I’d be interested in your thoughts.
The point is that it WAS a big deal locally, and He wasn’t an obscure preacher. He drew many crowds and stirred up quite a bit of controversy.
I know what you mean about trying to prove a negative, and the point about finding a first-hand witness in Africa in AD60, but the idea is that it still would take real guts to write a story at that time that could so easily be checked. The argument is that if it were false, it would be too easy to find someone from Jerusalem who could say, “I was 12 at the time, living right near the temple, and I didn’t hear anything about this guy at all. What are they banging on about?”
On the other hand, if you wait 70 years or more before anything is written down, it is next to impossible to locate any witnesses who can contradict your stories.
As I understand it, writers back then, even historians, weren’t tied to any oath of accuracy and embellishing a story was common. Add to that the fact that the Gospel accounts weren’t written by historians. I really doubt that anyone would bother to try and verify any accounts.
There’s a phenomenon among humans that I’ve noticed in religion in particular. When we are told something by people we like and tend to trust, especially if we want to believe, we don’t question it much. People tend to just accept it as true.
It takes a focused effort to do the research to check things out and look at the evidence honestly. A mental and emotional discipline to put truth and emotional honesty before all else. A whole lot of people never bother. There was a time I didn’t because I liked where I was and didn’t want to muck it up. Eventually I started doing the research related to certain questions I had. One question led to another and as my knowledge and understanding grew I, little by little, and somewhat reluctantly, began to let go of a lot of the unnecessary details that I had once thought were so important. In the process what was truly relevant and meaningful began to take on more clarity.
IMHO Jesus teaches about the inner journey we take with the Holy Spirit. As we seek and listen to that inner voice of the spirit we are worshiping God in spirit and in truth. As we become more patient, forgiving, compassionate, even courageous, we are beginning to find the kingdom of God within that he spoke of.
Cite? How do you know that? From the Gospels?
It wouldn’t be easy at all to find someone from Jerusalem and it would be impossible to check anything. How was anybody going to research anything that happened in a destroyed city of a remote province a half-century before? Plus, even if they could find someone who had lived in Jerusalem at the relevant time (in an era where a 40 year old man was a codger), “I never heard of the guy” isn’t exactly a compelling rebuttal. The notion that Jesus would have been a household name in Jerusalem comes from the Gospels themselves, not verified history.
If someone said he was from Jerusalem and he never heard of Jesus, do you expect that all those early congregations would have said “well, thats it then,” and shut everything down?
What if someone had said (and I think this is plausible), “I remember some preacher that went on a rampage in the Temple courtyards one year during Passover…knocking shit over, scaring the animals, pissed off the priests. I heard they caught him and gave him to the Romans and that the Romans stuck him up on a cross. That’s the last I ever heard of him. I sure never heard of any of this resurrection stuff.”
I think either something like this or “I never heard of him” is about all the converts would be likely to hear, even in the unlikely event that they could find a survivor from Jerusalem and neither of these answers would actually be evidence against the story. I would even guess that any memory of the crucifixion at all would be seen as confirmation of their beliefs, even if that memory didn’t include a resurrection.
I’ve been trying to figure that out for years, and I just don’t think we have enough data to determine how it happened, but my best speculation would be that some of the apostles (probably starting with the one called “Simon the Rock”) had visionary experiences of Jesus after the crucifixion (it could have been months or years later, not really three days), and began to teach that Jesus was still alive and was going to return. Paul got hold of this and through a combination of his own visionary experiences plus a much more sophisticated education than what the original disciples would have had, refined the theology, made it more universal, and tied it eisogesically to the Tanakh. He had some tension with the headquarters in Jerusalem over his movement to the Gentiles and his desire to make Christianity more than an exclusively Jewish movement, but he didn’t let Jersualem stop him from teaching what he believed was the truth and the Pauline movement became the de facto form of Christianity in the Hellenized, western areas where he taught. Then, in the 60’s, the Jews tried to revolt against Rome, and after four years of fighting. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE, effectively leaving Pauline Christianity to represent de-facto “orthodox” Christianity (we still don’t know exactly what the original Jerusalem sect believed). The Paulines had one significant rival, though, the Gnostics. The Gnostics believed that Jesus was pure spirit and had never had a fleshly form at all. I think that the Gospel attempts to point out how physical the resurrection was (John, especially) were a response against Gnosticism. Jesus was flesh and blood, not just a ghost.
This is even purer speculation, but if the followers of Jesus were operating from the Messianic tradition and prophecies, they’d know that Jesus never came close to fulfilling them. They’d either have to abandon the contention that Jesus was the Messiah, or contend that he would return - physically - to finish fulfilling the prophecies, and to become King. Perhaps the resurrection after three days was to prove that this was possible, since it happened once before.
Regarding John, I have read that most scholars believe the story of “doubting Thomas” was included as a specific rebuttal to the Gnostics (based on the obvious gnostic content in the extant Gospel of Thomas). If even the gnostic Thomas can be brought to believe in the bodily resurrection, well then it must be true (and aren’t we even more blessed for believing without seeing?).
Cardinal: There’s an important wrinkle you’re overlooking. Suppose the physical resurrection is a relatively late elaboration (meaning post destruction of the Temple). Suppose further that there were voices who objected just as you describe. Why would you assume those objections would be preserved? Remember that texts only survive if they are copied. For many centuries, especially after Constantine’s conversion, only texts consistent with orthodoxy were copied. So, the absence of extant conflicting reports tells us little or nothing about whether they were written. Also, note that the Gospels’ post-resurrection appearances are few and only to the inner circle. A critic’s saying “but he didn’t appear to me” doesn’t really contradict the Gospel story.
Diogenes: That’s as good a speculation as any I’ve seen. To unpack one of your later points, it’s important to notice that the Gospels developed against the backdrop of a schism between proto-orthodoxy (what would become orthodox Christianity) and the Gnostics. To the former, it was terribly important that Christ be a flesh-and-blood man. Still, this doesn’t explain the process. Someone had to say, "Well, I heard … " Maybe vision-cum-history, but I confess I dont’ find that entirely satisfactory. FWIW, I don’t think Paul was an offshoot of Jerusalem Christianity (this is the nub of Doherty’s thesis, mentioned upthread). Rather, I think he developed his Gospel independently and it was later synchronized by the writer/committee now known at Luke.
Voyager: Actually, no. The theory of Christianity (as it ultimately developed) is that the Jews had not really understood what the Messiah would do. So, instead of an earthly David, we would have a heavenly intercessor giving us grace to achieve a place in the afterlife that we could not earn by our own deeds. It’s fair to say this has nothing to do with what the Old Testament (Jewish Bible) teaches. Whether the Christians are right is another question.
CJJ*: Indeed, the Doubting Thomas passage of John is, to me, one of the most suggestive in the Gospels. Bear in mind that John was probably the last written, likely 100 to 120 CE. IMHO, it’s our best evidence that Cardinal’s assumption is wrong. It says there were doubters, and this was proto-orthodoxy’s response. Maybe this was your point and, if so, I apologize for being obtuse. In any event, that’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it.
The light sarcasm of the final sentence in my post didn’t translate well (meant to refer to Christ’s words “Blessed are they who have not seen, but believe”). You weren’t being obtuse, I was unfortunately too obscure…
I understand that, post facto, but I’m interested in what they thought closer to the time of Jesus. Certainly some of the Gospel writers made great efforts to demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in some sense. How soon did they give up an almost immediate return to assume the traditional duties of Messiah?
You can see evidence of it in the later Epistles, where Christians are starting to be urged not to be impatient. There was evidently an early belief that Jesus would return before the last apostle had died “…this generation…” and GJohn addresses this belief:
Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; who also leaned back on his breast at the supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth thee? 21:21Peter therefore seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 21:22Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. 21:23This saying therefore went forth among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, that he should not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? (John 21:20-23)
The belief in an imminent return was probably crippled after the destruction of Jerusalem and had mostly faded by the middle of the 2nd Century. By that time Christianity had become pretty much an exclusively Gentile movement with its own reinvention of Messianic expectations and interpretatins of the Old Testament. I think that Christianity became essentially a non-Jewish movement in 70 CE, and the original beliefs of the first Jewish followers of Jesus are no longer known to us. My WAG is that they expected Jesus to return quickly and fulfill the Jewish expectations of the Messiah within their lifetimes. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, Gentile, proto-orthodox, Pauline Christianity became ascendent and Jewish expectations of the Messiah no longer mattered to that movement.