4 ms·

By the end of the 1st century we encounter a small group of devoted followers passing along a relatively consistent body of teachings that they assign to a conc

By the end of the 1st century we encounter a small group of devoted followers passing along a relatively consistent body of teachings that they assign to a concrete individual who would have died within living memory. Leaving all supernatural claims aside, assuming that such an individual really existed does seem a more plausible explanation than the idea that it was all fictional. It also helps explain many other elements in the gospels. For example, a purely mythical narrative would have him come straight from Bethlehem as prophesied. Instead, the gospels report that he comes from the unimportant village of Nazaret (likely true) and then feel the need to add the (fictional but lovely) Christmas narrative to have him fulfil the prophecies. Incidentally, these questions are not uncommon at all in ancient history, see also for example the Socratic problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_problem

mbfg 4y ago
it's also possible that the stories are a conglomeration of multiple itinerant rabbis of the time. There were obviously dozens of "gospels", but only 4 were officially selected several hundred years later.
- bnralt 4y ago
  That theory doesn't fit any of the evidence, though. What we see in the first few decades of the movement is group that's come from a common source and is starting to split off as they argue over in what light their leader should be seen and how people should follow his teaching. It seems bizarre that the followers of multiple different preachers would somehow come together, unanimously decide to forget their leaders and create a fake composite leader who supposedly existed and was publicly executed a few years prior, as well as composite teachings. Somehow they get everyone on board for it (we don't see any evidence of other sects that didn't follow), but just as soon as this disparate groups all agree to create a fake founder they suddenly split apart again. But none of them ditch the idea of the fake founder. It's really bizarre when you think about it. There are figures that historians think might have been composite figures developed over centuries, but nothing like disparate groups suddenly creating a fake founding figure from a generation back (the Pauline letters are written a couple of decades after Jesus is supposed to have died). And the theory doesn't solve any problems. Instead of one preacher we have some evidence for, we now have multiple preachers we have no evidence for, multiple proto-Christian movements we have no evidence for, councils to unify the movements by falsify their origin we have no evidence for, etc.
  - coliveira 4y ago
    > followers of multiple different preachers would somehow come together, unanimously decide to forget their leaders and create a fake composite You're assuming that there were leaders. Not really, the earlier christianity was the combination of several loose teachings taken from different sources, including jewish and pagan. They were then combined by Paul, who preached a celestial being, not a human, as their ultimate source. His writings were later harmonized with the tale of a human Jesus, who appeared on a somewhat remote past and in a remote country that had been destroyed by the Romans (Judea). So, no wonder that nobody disagreed about this tale, nobody had really seen it happening other than by "revelation".
    - bnralt 4y ago
      That theory doesn't match with the evidence we have at all. The Pauline letters (the ones considered authentic) show us that there were many early leaders, some of whom clashed with Paul, as well as many different factions of Christian, some of whom Paul disagreed with. 1 Corinthians, for instance, he's talking about different Christians (or rather, proto-Christians) saying they're the followers of different leaders. You also see Paul as a late comer to the movement really try to defend himself as being considered an apostle. And one really has to twist Paul's words to say he's treating Christ as a merely celestial being (Paul even talks about Christ's human brother). You're also claiming that the proto-Christians weren't working within a messianic Jewish framework (which the academic view of early Christianity fits nicely), but a completely different framework that we neither have evidence of before and that completely disappears afterwards. Speaking of completely disappearing afterwards - Paul's letters are from ~50 AD, Mark is ~70 AD. So you have still have to posit a massive and seemingly unified (even though the early Christians were hardly unified) agreement to adopt the human narrative, since soon after we get a lot of information about heresies, and lots of criticisms about Christianity, but no one is aware that it (supposedly) was as a completely separate religion within living memory. It's just a very strange theory, one that posits a completely different religion suddenly appearing and disappearing, and seems to be based solely on ignoring most of the content of the Pauline letters, twist the words of some of the others, and just making up the rest whole clothe. It's about as historical as Dan Brown's version of Christianity, and has as much scholarly support.
- felipeerias 4y ago
  Some stories and other elements in the canonical gospels clearly come from the general cultural landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean at that time, and specifically from the interplay between the Jewish and Greek traditions. Besides the Christmas narrative that I mentioned earlier, another clear example is how John identifies Jesus with the Logos, a Greek philosophical concept. Along the same line, many later practices in traditional Christianity came about as people from a Classical Roman or Greek background adapted the new religion to their pre-existing culture and expectations. Ultimately, I’ve found that a person’s opinion on this tends to follow their preconceived ideas. Someone intending to dismiss Christianity altogether might conclude that since its supernatural claims are probably untrue then the whole thing should be thrown away. On the other hand, someone intending to take Christianity seriously might find that the combination of its founder’s teaching plus three thousand years of cultural development is something of extraordinary value in itself, regardless of any faith in the supernatural.
  - simplify 4y ago
    > another clear example is how John identifies Jesus with the Logos, a Greek philosophical concept. I don't think this example is so clear. First, "logos" is a common word that appears hundreds of times in the NT. Second, "the word of God / the LORD" is a common and important occurrence in the OT. John's argument is that Jesus was the one delivering these messages, as he existed beforehand to do so (see John 8:52-58). Third, just because it was a Greek concept, doesn't mean John is intending to apply it here. An easy example is how the Septuagint always translates the Hebrew word "sheol" to the Greek word "hades". Even though hades is a Greek philosophical concept, the intention is not to apply that concept; it's just the word that the translators decided is closest to the meaning of the original. With that said, there's no question that the early church beyond the twelve wrestled with and eventually incorporated many Greek philosophical concepts into their belief systems. We just don't see clear evidence of that in the gospels, I don't think.
- labster 4y ago
  There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great than there are for Jesus of Nazareth. So perhaps Alexander didn’t really conquer all of that land, and he’s an amalgamation of Macedonian and Greek rulers who invented him to glorify and justify their gradual conquest of Egypt, Asia, and Persia. And everyone in these countries like Seleucids and Antagonids got together to agree on a founding myth. Or, you know, the theory that doesn’t rely on a historical conspiracy.
  - coliveira 4y ago
    > There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great Totally untrue, there is archeological evidence for Alexander from day 1 of his conquests. Jesus has zero contemporaneous sources, everyone who wrote about him was living after his supposed death, and said what his followers were claiming at the time (hearsay).
  - groffee 4y ago
    > There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great than there are for Jesus of Nazareth. Tell me you're completely uneducated about a subject without telling me you're completely uneducated.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

mbfg 4y ago

it's also possible that the stories are a conglomeration of multiple itinerant rabbis of the time. There were obviously dozens of "gospels", but only 4 were officially selected several hundred years later.

bnralt 4y ago
That theory doesn't fit any of the evidence, though. What we see in the first few decades of the movement is group that's come from a common source and is starting to split off as they argue over in what light their leader should be seen and how people should follow his teaching. It seems bizarre that the followers of multiple different preachers would somehow come together, unanimously decide to forget their leaders and create a fake composite leader who supposedly existed and was publicly executed a few years prior, as well as composite teachings. Somehow they get everyone on board for it (we don't see any evidence of other sects that didn't follow), but just as soon as this disparate groups all agree to create a fake founder they suddenly split apart again. But none of them ditch the idea of the fake founder. It's really bizarre when you think about it. There are figures that historians think might have been composite figures developed over centuries, but nothing like disparate groups suddenly creating a fake founding figure from a generation back (the Pauline letters are written a couple of decades after Jesus is supposed to have died). And the theory doesn't solve any problems. Instead of one preacher we have some evidence for, we now have multiple preachers we have no evidence for, multiple proto-Christian movements we have no evidence for, councils to unify the movements by falsify their origin we have no evidence for, etc.
- coliveira 4y ago
  > followers of multiple different preachers would somehow come together, unanimously decide to forget their leaders and create a fake composite You're assuming that there were leaders. Not really, the earlier christianity was the combination of several loose teachings taken from different sources, including jewish and pagan. They were then combined by Paul, who preached a celestial being, not a human, as their ultimate source. His writings were later harmonized with the tale of a human Jesus, who appeared on a somewhat remote past and in a remote country that had been destroyed by the Romans (Judea). So, no wonder that nobody disagreed about this tale, nobody had really seen it happening other than by "revelation".
  - bnralt 4y ago
    That theory doesn't match with the evidence we have at all. The Pauline letters (the ones considered authentic) show us that there were many early leaders, some of whom clashed with Paul, as well as many different factions of Christian, some of whom Paul disagreed with. 1 Corinthians, for instance, he's talking about different Christians (or rather, proto-Christians) saying they're the followers of different leaders. You also see Paul as a late comer to the movement really try to defend himself as being considered an apostle. And one really has to twist Paul's words to say he's treating Christ as a merely celestial being (Paul even talks about Christ's human brother). You're also claiming that the proto-Christians weren't working within a messianic Jewish framework (which the academic view of early Christianity fits nicely), but a completely different framework that we neither have evidence of before and that completely disappears afterwards. Speaking of completely disappearing afterwards - Paul's letters are from ~50 AD, Mark is ~70 AD. So you have still have to posit a massive and seemingly unified (even though the early Christians were hardly unified) agreement to adopt the human narrative, since soon after we get a lot of information about heresies, and lots of criticisms about Christianity, but no one is aware that it (supposedly) was as a completely separate religion within living memory. It's just a very strange theory, one that posits a completely different religion suddenly appearing and disappearing, and seems to be based solely on ignoring most of the content of the Pauline letters, twist the words of some of the others, and just making up the rest whole clothe. It's about as historical as Dan Brown's version of Christianity, and has as much scholarly support.
felipeerias 4y ago
Some stories and other elements in the canonical gospels clearly come from the general cultural landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean at that time, and specifically from the interplay between the Jewish and Greek traditions. Besides the Christmas narrative that I mentioned earlier, another clear example is how John identifies Jesus with the Logos, a Greek philosophical concept. Along the same line, many later practices in traditional Christianity came about as people from a Classical Roman or Greek background adapted the new religion to their pre-existing culture and expectations. Ultimately, I’ve found that a person’s opinion on this tends to follow their preconceived ideas. Someone intending to dismiss Christianity altogether might conclude that since its supernatural claims are probably untrue then the whole thing should be thrown away. On the other hand, someone intending to take Christianity seriously might find that the combination of its founder’s teaching plus three thousand years of cultural development is something of extraordinary value in itself, regardless of any faith in the supernatural.
- simplify 4y ago
  > another clear example is how John identifies Jesus with the Logos, a Greek philosophical concept. I don't think this example is so clear. First, "logos" is a common word that appears hundreds of times in the NT. Second, "the word of God / the LORD" is a common and important occurrence in the OT. John's argument is that Jesus was the one delivering these messages, as he existed beforehand to do so (see John 8:52-58). Third, just because it was a Greek concept, doesn't mean John is intending to apply it here. An easy example is how the Septuagint always translates the Hebrew word "sheol" to the Greek word "hades". Even though hades is a Greek philosophical concept, the intention is not to apply that concept; it's just the word that the translators decided is closest to the meaning of the original. With that said, there's no question that the early church beyond the twelve wrestled with and eventually incorporated many Greek philosophical concepts into their belief systems. We just don't see clear evidence of that in the gospels, I don't think.
labster 4y ago
There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great than there are for Jesus of Nazareth. So perhaps Alexander didn’t really conquer all of that land, and he’s an amalgamation of Macedonian and Greek rulers who invented him to glorify and justify their gradual conquest of Egypt, Asia, and Persia. And everyone in these countries like Seleucids and Antagonids got together to agree on a founding myth. Or, you know, the theory that doesn’t rely on a historical conspiracy.
- coliveira 4y ago
  > There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great Totally untrue, there is archeological evidence for Alexander from day 1 of his conquests. Jesus has zero contemporaneous sources, everyone who wrote about him was living after his supposed death, and said what his followers were claiming at the time (hearsay).
- groffee 4y ago
  > There are far less contemporaneous sources for Alexander the Great than there are for Jesus of Nazareth. Tell me you're completely uneducated about a subject without telling me you're completely uneducated.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]