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As a secular person I can understand Jesus as an important historical figure, but it seems to me his "historicity" is a pretty uninteresting question. I know th

As a secular person I can understand Jesus as an important historical figure, but it seems to me his "historicity" is a pretty uninteresting question. I know this can be hard for a person who was raised in Christianity to understand, but from an outside perspective, the guy is pretty boring. His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier (and they were better explained an examined by them). From this perspective, its hard to care about detailed historical questions about the guy except purely as history, which is full of a lot of other arguably more interesting questions.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
The more interesting way to approach I think is not so much through great man-style history like that about what he did or why, or even why him. But what was it about that time and place that produced so many of these movements, of which his was one (notably john the baptist who had a similar thing going first/with some overlap, and whose movement was almost certainly more popular than the jesus movement in their time)? What made rome react to these movements the way they did, were they able to identify the real risk they posed (it did end up becoming a massive source of unrest and radicalism in the empire), did they understand the risks inherent in martyring apocalyptic religious leaders? It's also a good entry point for understanding the process of history as a practice and discipline. For example we can be pretty sure jesus was from nazareth because it's mentioned in mark, the earliest gospel, and nazareth was a nothing place nowhere, there's no reason to fabricate an important figure being from there. Similarly his nativity story is probably a later attempt to link him to bethlehem, a city of deep significance to jews at the time. That's an interesting technique! There are lots of those, historians aren't just people who know facts about history, they are practitioners of this discipline. It's one of the most researched, most discussed subjects in history and the movement that started there is one of the most impactful regardless of your personal relationship to it. So it's a good place to get an understanding of the concepts and techniques of history and historicity.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Although "show us some citations" is getting to be a pretty boring response, I would like to see some elaboration on "His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier." I don't think so. The pagan "religions" were not very big on "everyone, even the poor, the sick, and the lame, is equal." Slavery was accepted almost everywhere. Women were very definitely second-class citizens. "Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe. I mention the last one especially because in the pre-Constantine era, the notion that other Christians were your brothers and would take care of you was pretty powerful. That was not a common thing back then.
- krapp 4y ago
  >Slavery was accepted almost everywhere. Jesus wasn't anti-slavery, because he was a Jew and slavery is directly supported by Jewish law and scripture, sometimes with quotes from God himself. Jesus even commands slaves to obey their masters. >Women were very definitely second-class citizens. Read the Pauline epistles, particularly 1st Timothy. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." >Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe. What linguistic root is the word "philanthropy" from? It isn't Hebrew[0]. [0]https://sofii.org/article/philanthropy-in-ancient-times-some-early-examples-from-the-mediterranean https://sofii.org/article/philanthropy-in-ancient-times-some...
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    So you haven't answered my question: what Greek philosopher said anything like what Jesus said (as you understand those sayings)? Your other points are disingenuous at best. The eventual abolition of slavery in England was driven directly by Christian beliefs, however much they'd evolved in the ensuing time. The bit about the Pauline epistles is also disingenuous. You picked one quote. Mary Magdalene was one of the disciples. Women were considered to be "in the image and likeness of God." They did not attend Mass in a separate section from the men (a separation which is still done at the Western Wall). Lastly, who cares what the linguistic root was? And your link ignores one of the primary drivers of very early Christianity: the Romans didn't care how much you suffered. It was the Roman Empire where Christianity took off first. "Philanthropy" seems to have been much like a lot of celebrities' "charitable foundations" nowadays: "Hey, everyone: Look at what a good person I am!" > But the tendency for many donors to use such legal instruments for self-glorification, personally advantageous politicking, and the conservation of family wealth did little to help larger numbers of the destitute in growing Roman imperial cities.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

The more interesting way to approach I think is not so much through great man-style history like that about what he did or why, or even why him. But what was it about that time and place that produced so many of these movements, of which his was one (notably john the baptist who had a similar thing going first/with some overlap, and whose movement was almost certainly more popular than the jesus movement in their time)? What made rome react to these movements the way they did, were they able to identify the real risk they posed (it did end up becoming a massive source of unrest and radicalism in the empire), did they understand the risks inherent in martyring apocalyptic religious leaders? It's also a good entry point for understanding the process of history as a practice and discipline. For example we can be pretty sure jesus was from nazareth because it's mentioned in mark, the earliest gospel, and nazareth was a nothing place nowhere, there's no reason to fabricate an important figure being from there. Similarly his nativity story is probably a later attempt to link him to bethlehem, a city of deep significance to jews at the time. That's an interesting technique! There are lots of those, historians aren't just people who know facts about history, they are practitioners of this discipline. It's one of the most researched, most discussed subjects in history and the movement that started there is one of the most impactful regardless of your personal relationship to it. So it's a good place to get an understanding of the concepts and techniques of history and historicity.

AlbertCory 4y ago

Although "show us some citations" is getting to be a pretty boring response, I would like to see some elaboration on "His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier." I don't think so. The pagan "religions" were not very big on "everyone, even the poor, the sick, and the lame, is equal." Slavery was accepted almost everywhere. Women were very definitely second-class citizens. "Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe. I mention the last one especially because in the pre-Constantine era, the notion that other Christians were your brothers and would take care of you was pretty powerful. That was not a common thing back then.

krapp 4y ago
>Slavery was accepted almost everywhere. Jesus wasn't anti-slavery, because he was a Jew and slavery is directly supported by Jewish law and scripture, sometimes with quotes from God himself. Jesus even commands slaves to obey their masters. >Women were very definitely second-class citizens. Read the Pauline epistles, particularly 1st Timothy. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." >Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe. What linguistic root is the word "philanthropy" from? It isn't Hebrew[0]. [0]https://sofii.org/article/philanthropy-in-ancient-times-some-early-examples-from-the-mediterranean https://sofii.org/article/philanthropy-in-ancient-times-some...
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  So you haven't answered my question: what Greek philosopher said anything like what Jesus said (as you understand those sayings)? Your other points are disingenuous at best. The eventual abolition of slavery in England was driven directly by Christian beliefs, however much they'd evolved in the ensuing time. The bit about the Pauline epistles is also disingenuous. You picked one quote. Mary Magdalene was one of the disciples. Women were considered to be "in the image and likeness of God." They did not attend Mass in a separate section from the men (a separation which is still done at the Western Wall). Lastly, who cares what the linguistic root was? And your link ignores one of the primary drivers of very early Christianity: the Romans didn't care how much you suffered. It was the Roman Empire where Christianity took off first. "Philanthropy" seems to have been much like a lot of celebrities' "charitable foundations" nowadays: "Hey, everyone: Look at what a good person I am!" > But the tendency for many donors to use such legal instruments for self-glorification, personally advantageous politicking, and the conservation of family wealth did little to help larger numbers of the destitute in growing Roman imperial cities.