The consensus among historical scholars is that some itinerant preacher who we can reasonably call the historical Jesus existed. That is the state of the field. There was lots of religious fervor at the time, it was already probably clear to everyone that something bad was going to happen to the Temple, there were lots of similar guys running around.
Arguing that the man probably existed is not arguing that he advocated for the things he was saying in the Bible, that he was in any way divine, or that one should believe in Christianity. It’s not arguing for leftist hippie Jesus either. Just that at this point in history, some sort of Jewish rabble rouser claimed to be a messiah and started a small group of followers. This is not a crazy claim - rabble rousers exist, Jewish people exist and have a complex religious/political figure called a messiah, and the group of followers was causing problems in less than a hundred years.
Remember that historical argumentation and proof looks fundamentally different than argumentation and proof in physics or math. You can’t do “Josephus minus The Testimonium Flavianum plus Pliny’s letters equals Christ.” No one is going to be able to trot out a photo of Jesus. Although here’s something fun: here’s one of the first depictions of Jesus.
There’s a set of atheists who don’t stop at saying the Bible is full of contradictions. They feel the Bible must be wrong in every single aspect. This is a position just as fragile as fundamentalists–after all, some events like the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians definitely did happen–and you don’t need to make that claim in order to disregard the bible as divinely inspired.
The consensus is also that Mark at least somewhat more accurately represents the historical figure than the other gospels, which are all either fairly culturally Greek or Greek to the core (John).
What part of Mark? Give me the passage that references something that Jesus said or did that you are confident that he did say or do that thing.
I ask because I have no idea. Every time I try to do this I find out it happened in the OT or in Greek literature or in the letters or it served a selfish purpose for Paul.
Jesus almost certainly claimed that he and his twelve disciples were going to rule over the new kingdom of God (more or less a new era of the world in which suffering didn’t exist). We can be pretty sure because Judas then goes and betrays him, which we’re also very certain actually happened. No one has any idea why Judas flipped on Jesus, but we’re pretty dang certain he did. In any case, if Jesus really were everything people claimed about him later on, he wouldn’t have said all 12 of his disciples were going to be glorified in the next world.
Furthermore, we can be pretty certain John the Baptist really did baptize Jesus. My understanding of why is a bit more limited but basically that action put John in a higher position of authority than Jesus which would have been a big issue. Scholars think Jesus was originally a disciple of John.
Finally, Jesus probably actually was from Nazareth, because that town was basically like being from nowhere in those days. It would be strange to invent a story about a god and have them come from a podunk place, especially in those days where class mobility didn’t exist.
I’ll be honest though, if you’re going to come at me expecting a deep discussion, we’ve pretty much reached the limit of everything I know. I’m a very casual learner in this area.
Jesus almost certainly claimed that he and his twelve disciples were going to rule over the new kingdom of God
Prove it.
We can be pretty sure because Judas then goes and betrays him, which we’re also very certain actually happened.
Prove it. Also explain why Paul doesn’t seem to know about it.
Finally, Jesus probably actually was from Nazareth, because that town was basically like being from nowhere in those days. It would be strange to invent a story about a god and have them come from a podunk place, especially in those days where class mobility didn’t exist.
Not if you held to a doctrine that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”. A very popular theme in Jewish mysticism. Plus it would explain why there is no Jesus family around to claim the throne, except for James.
Furthermore, we can be pretty certain John the Baptist really did baptize Jesus. My understanding of why is a bit more limited but basically that action put John in a higher position of authority than Jesus which would have been a big issue. Scholars think Jesus was originally a disciple of John.
Criteria of embarrassment is the term you are looking for. That thing almost never used outside of biblical studies since it is a weak argument. It doesn’t work here. John the Baptist was more well known than Jesus was at the time of Mark. By attaching Jesus to him it was just another form of name dropping. Additionally Mark has John still humbled in the role. So even less embarrassing for Christianity.
It’s not that there is one part of Mark where we can say, “Oh yes, Jesus really said that specific thing.” It’s Mark presents what is called a “low Christology”. That is, Jesus was a guy, who was especially wise and holy, and therefore rose up and become somehow more than a man and imbued with the supernatural. This is what his followers almost certainly believed about him during his life and shortly thereafter.
Later gospels, especially John, present a “high Christology”: Jesus was with God on high and descended to earth and enlighten humanity, then went back to God.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read the Gospels but I believe that there are some things Jesus says in Mark, like, “Don’t preach to the Greeks”, or “Avoid the Sumerians” that are right on the money, so to speak, about what a Jew form Judea at the time would have said. These statements are generally ignored by the modern Church because they contradict Christianity’s catholic/universal current state.
It’s not that there is one part of Mark where we can say, “Oh yes, Jesus really said that specific thing.” It’s Mark presents what is called a “low Christology”. That is, Jesus was a guy, who was especially wise and holy, and therefore rose up and become somehow more than a man and imbued with the supernatural. This is what his followers almost certainly believed about him during his life and shortly thereafter.
It is possible the James community thought that way but Paul certainly didn’t. Also worth mentioning that Mark borrows the Latin fiction trope of the empty tomb meaning ascending to godhead. So even if Mark downplays Jesus while he was alive he makes him a god on his death.
Later gospels, especially John, present a “high Christology”: Jesus was with God on high and descended to earth and enlighten humanity, then went back to God.
Paul said nearly the same thing about a century earlier. What John added was the whole bit about the word. Paul does not talk about a normal person he talks about a celestial being who came to earth, did stuff, and unlike other humans (Paul didn’t believe in an afterlife) came back to life in heavenly body form. Which meant he was the new Adam.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read the Gospels but I believe that there are some things Jesus says in Mark, like, “Don’t preach to the Greeks”, or “Avoid the Sumerians” that are right on the money, so to speak, about what a Jew form Judea at the time would have said. These statements are generally ignored by the modern Church because they contradict Christianity’s catholic/universal current state.
I am being honest and not snarky at all here but I have no idea what you are talking about. I did double check this morning and saw nothing like this in Mark. Could you quote the passage?
My impression is that Mark and to some extent Matthew were probably written by Helenized Jews who may have even spoken Greek as a second language. They were not part of Paul’s proto-church.
But I really am not an expert. I will defer to you because I have the impression you are a bit more well read than me in this area.
Mark I can’t really see it. He doesn’t speak Aramaic and makes some mistakes about Judaism. Matthew it is possible but he doesn’t seem to know Hebrew and speaks greek fluently. Plus Matthew is a bit antisemitic.
Really it is just easier to accept that they were outsiders looking in vs insiders who kept making mistakes.
If I may make a suggestion. Take a copy of Mark and put it on the word processing software of your choice. Go through it line by line and search to find what the lines echos, where it comes from. When you find a match highlight it. Then do the same for every line that the author is making fun of the apostles.
Nearly the whole book will be highlighted. Mark built Jesus out of Elijah and Paul. The so called oral tradition is like 20 lines or so.
Argument from authority, logical fallacy. Also you don’t apply it consistently. The consensus among humanity (95%) is that the supernatural does exist. The consensus among Bible scholars is the resurrection is a real historical event and that Luke wrote the 3rd gospel.
it was already probably clear to everyone that something bad was going to happen to the Temple, there were lots of similar guys running around.
80 football fields in area and one of the most prominent locations of the Empire. By a lot you mean the 2 we know about I assume.
Arguing that the man probably existed is not arguing that he advocated for the things he was saying in the Bible,
We follow the evidence and build claims off of it. What you are doing here is taking a claim, and weakening it so you can sneak it in. It is no different than what the diests do. They continue to hide their God in smaller and smaller amounts of time and space and scope on the very edge of what we know. It also isn’t different than what astrology does. Used to be astrology predicted the paths of empires now it is predicts that parts of your personality. All pseudoscience and fake history follows the route of ever decreasing effects.
Remember that historical argumentation and proof looks fundamentally different than argumentation and proof in physics or math. You can’t do “Josephus minus The Testimonium Flavianum plus Pliny’s letters equals Christ.”
When we don’t have enough evidence we make no claims. We don’t weaken our standards of evidence.
Yeah kind of agree. Argument from authority isn’t even a fallacy, really; we do this shit every single time we go to a doctor’s office or hospital.Ad Verecundiam really has more to do with blindly trusted singular experts (without looking at consensus) or false experts.
We also utilize expert consensus in something called science and peer-reviewed journals.
Argument from authority is a fallacy. You are confusing what we do vs what we know.
We follow experts on things we do not have time to research ourselves as a practical means to live life. We don’t blindly accept something is true because an expert said it. I work with chemists all the time who knows more than me about their field. I follow them that doesn’t mean that literally every single thing they say I trust as wholly true.
We also utilize expert consensus in something called science and peer-reviewed journals.
Already explained this to you.
Now, the majority of experts on the Bible believe the resurrection is a true historical event. Do you believe this yes or no? If yes then why are you in an atheist area if no why don’t you blindly have faith in authority?
The consensus among Bible scholars is the resurrection is a real historical event and that Luke wrote the 3rd gospel.
Lolwut, that never came up in my graduate religious historiography class.
Dude, I’m not going to get into endless arguments with you. You don’t have the reading comprehension. I’m pretty sure you’re not even 18 yet. It takes you about two comments to start accusing anyone who calls you a Christian.
I used to laugh at folks who suggested that atheists could be as fundamentalist and dogmatic as Christian’s are, but you’ve given me cause for pause.
The consensus among historical scholars is that some itinerant preacher who we can reasonably call the historical Jesus existed. That is the state of the field. There was lots of religious fervor at the time, it was already probably clear to everyone that something bad was going to happen to the Temple, there were lots of similar guys running around.
Arguing that the man probably existed is not arguing that he advocated for the things he was saying in the Bible, that he was in any way divine, or that one should believe in Christianity. It’s not arguing for leftist hippie Jesus either. Just that at this point in history, some sort of Jewish rabble rouser claimed to be a messiah and started a small group of followers. This is not a crazy claim - rabble rousers exist, Jewish people exist and have a complex religious/political figure called a messiah, and the group of followers was causing problems in less than a hundred years.
Remember that historical argumentation and proof looks fundamentally different than argumentation and proof in physics or math. You can’t do “Josephus minus The Testimonium Flavianum plus Pliny’s letters equals Christ.” No one is going to be able to trot out a photo of Jesus. Although here’s something fun: here’s one of the first depictions of Jesus.
That’s dope that Jesus had one of those horse-heads masks all the way back then. Truly ahead of his time.
Dude was shitposting all the way to the end. Truly a man worth worshipping.
My Lord and Savior of Memedom
There’s a set of atheists who don’t stop at saying the Bible is full of contradictions. They feel the Bible must be wrong in every single aspect. This is a position just as fragile as fundamentalists–after all, some events like the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians definitely did happen–and you don’t need to make that claim in order to disregard the bible as divinely inspired.
Edit: clarified wording
The consensus is also that Mark at least somewhat more accurately represents the historical figure than the other gospels, which are all either fairly culturally Greek or Greek to the core (John).
What part of Mark? Give me the passage that references something that Jesus said or did that you are confident that he did say or do that thing.
I ask because I have no idea. Every time I try to do this I find out it happened in the OT or in Greek literature or in the letters or it served a selfish purpose for Paul.
Jesus almost certainly claimed that he and his twelve disciples were going to rule over the new kingdom of God (more or less a new era of the world in which suffering didn’t exist). We can be pretty sure because Judas then goes and betrays him, which we’re also very certain actually happened. No one has any idea why Judas flipped on Jesus, but we’re pretty dang certain he did. In any case, if Jesus really were everything people claimed about him later on, he wouldn’t have said all 12 of his disciples were going to be glorified in the next world.
Furthermore, we can be pretty certain John the Baptist really did baptize Jesus. My understanding of why is a bit more limited but basically that action put John in a higher position of authority than Jesus which would have been a big issue. Scholars think Jesus was originally a disciple of John.
Finally, Jesus probably actually was from Nazareth, because that town was basically like being from nowhere in those days. It would be strange to invent a story about a god and have them come from a podunk place, especially in those days where class mobility didn’t exist.
I’ll be honest though, if you’re going to come at me expecting a deep discussion, we’ve pretty much reached the limit of everything I know. I’m a very casual learner in this area.
Prove it.
Prove it. Also explain why Paul doesn’t seem to know about it.
Not if you held to a doctrine that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”. A very popular theme in Jewish mysticism. Plus it would explain why there is no Jesus family around to claim the throne, except for James.
Criteria of embarrassment is the term you are looking for. That thing almost never used outside of biblical studies since it is a weak argument. It doesn’t work here. John the Baptist was more well known than Jesus was at the time of Mark. By attaching Jesus to him it was just another form of name dropping. Additionally Mark has John still humbled in the role. So even less embarrassing for Christianity.
It’s not that there is one part of Mark where we can say, “Oh yes, Jesus really said that specific thing.” It’s Mark presents what is called a “low Christology”. That is, Jesus was a guy, who was especially wise and holy, and therefore rose up and become somehow more than a man and imbued with the supernatural. This is what his followers almost certainly believed about him during his life and shortly thereafter.
Later gospels, especially John, present a “high Christology”: Jesus was with God on high and descended to earth and enlighten humanity, then went back to God.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read the Gospels but I believe that there are some things Jesus says in Mark, like, “Don’t preach to the Greeks”, or “Avoid the Sumerians” that are right on the money, so to speak, about what a Jew form Judea at the time would have said. These statements are generally ignored by the modern Church because they contradict Christianity’s catholic/universal current state.
It is possible the James community thought that way but Paul certainly didn’t. Also worth mentioning that Mark borrows the Latin fiction trope of the empty tomb meaning ascending to godhead. So even if Mark downplays Jesus while he was alive he makes him a god on his death.
Paul said nearly the same thing about a century earlier. What John added was the whole bit about the word. Paul does not talk about a normal person he talks about a celestial being who came to earth, did stuff, and unlike other humans (Paul didn’t believe in an afterlife) came back to life in heavenly body form. Which meant he was the new Adam.
I am being honest and not snarky at all here but I have no idea what you are talking about. I did double check this morning and saw nothing like this in Mark. Could you quote the passage?
No worries, I know you’re not being snarky!
My impression is that Mark and to some extent Matthew were probably written by Helenized Jews who may have even spoken Greek as a second language. They were not part of Paul’s proto-church.
But I really am not an expert. I will defer to you because I have the impression you are a bit more well read than me in this area.
It’s fine.
Mark I can’t really see it. He doesn’t speak Aramaic and makes some mistakes about Judaism. Matthew it is possible but he doesn’t seem to know Hebrew and speaks greek fluently. Plus Matthew is a bit antisemitic.
Really it is just easier to accept that they were outsiders looking in vs insiders who kept making mistakes.
Interesting. You make me want to find some time to read about all that stuff again.
If I may make a suggestion. Take a copy of Mark and put it on the word processing software of your choice. Go through it line by line and search to find what the lines echos, where it comes from. When you find a match highlight it. Then do the same for every line that the author is making fun of the apostles.
Nearly the whole book will be highlighted. Mark built Jesus out of Elijah and Paul. The so called oral tradition is like 20 lines or so.
I like leftist hippie Jesus tho
Removed by mod
Argument from authority, logical fallacy. Also you don’t apply it consistently. The consensus among humanity (95%) is that the supernatural does exist. The consensus among Bible scholars is the resurrection is a real historical event and that Luke wrote the 3rd gospel.
80 football fields in area and one of the most prominent locations of the Empire. By a lot you mean the 2 we know about I assume.
We follow the evidence and build claims off of it. What you are doing here is taking a claim, and weakening it so you can sneak it in. It is no different than what the diests do. They continue to hide their God in smaller and smaller amounts of time and space and scope on the very edge of what we know. It also isn’t different than what astrology does. Used to be astrology predicted the paths of empires now it is predicts that parts of your personality. All pseudoscience and fake history follows the route of ever decreasing effects.
When we don’t have enough evidence we make no claims. We don’t weaken our standards of evidence.
Actually not worth reading anything past this, literally just jerking off on your keyboard while sounding like an idiot.
Yeah kind of agree. Argument from authority isn’t even a fallacy, really; we do this shit every single time we go to a doctor’s office or hospital. Ad Verecundiam really has more to do with blindly trusted singular experts (without looking at consensus) or false experts.
We also utilize expert consensus in something called science and peer-reviewed journals.
Argument from authority is a fallacy. You are confusing what we do vs what we know.
We follow experts on things we do not have time to research ourselves as a practical means to live life. We don’t blindly accept something is true because an expert said it. I work with chemists all the time who knows more than me about their field. I follow them that doesn’t mean that literally every single thing they say I trust as wholly true.
Already explained this to you.
Now, the majority of experts on the Bible believe the resurrection is a true historical event. Do you believe this yes or no? If yes then why are you in an atheist area if no why don’t you blindly have faith in authority?
Brilliant rebuttal. I am very much convinced in your Messiah now. Man you Christian apologists are so clever.
Lolwut, that never came up in my graduate religious historiography class.
Dude, I’m not going to get into endless arguments with you. You don’t have the reading comprehension. I’m pretty sure you’re not even 18 yet. It takes you about two comments to start accusing anyone who calls you a Christian.
I used to laugh at folks who suggested that atheists could be as fundamentalist and dogmatic as Christian’s are, but you’ve given me cause for pause.
Yes clearly if you never saw something in class it isn’t true.
Personal attack no evidence.
Okay, prove to me that the mainstream academic historical view is that Jesus was resurrected and that Luke wrote the third gospel.
And if you’d like to prove your reading comprehension skills, see how many comments you can make it before accusing me of being a Christian lol.