Posted on 04/09/2005 3:59:58 PM PDT by churchillbuff
As it happens, I agree on this point.
The problem with believing that Jesus existed but was not the Messiah is that, if he was real, he obviously had followers who believed he was the Messiah. The question then is why did they believe that?
Josephus mentions several men from that era who were thought by some to have been the Messiah. All of them led rebellions of some sort against the Romans. When their rebellions failed and they were killed, they were judged in retrospect not to have been the Messiah.
As far as I know, there is no historical record of a rebellion led by a Jesus of Nazareth. What could a 30-something man like Jesus have done to make people believe he was the Messiah? His sermons as recorded in the Gospels are eloquent but not earthshakingly profound. Do you think he really performed the miracles (mostly exorcisms) he is credited with in the Gospels? Do you think he walked on water?
The funny thing about it is that I wasn't even talking about money. I meant spiritually and academically. I was talking about as such a tiny group, we have managed to hang in there and keep our faith alive in the face of so many that wish to see it destroyed. But maybe that's because we value academics in our spirituality. No decent Jew would ever be caught nodding their head in a slavish manner without having read and studied for themselves.
Yeah, trying to love us and our faith out of existence.
Aren't you glad that Christians are truly friends of Israel?
Can't do it without conditions and strings attatched, can you?
And we won't cease to protect ourselves.
He may have performed healings, as did other itinerant charismatic preachers of the time. The other miracle stories were late attributions.
What could a 30-something man like Jesus have done to make people believe he was the Messiah?
In addition to his more customary public preaching, he taught an apocalyptic message which was reserved for his small inner coterie of followers. This apocalyptic appears to be related to Essene teachings. In Jesus's messianic vision, an army of men would not be needed ("my kingdom is not of this world"), because the battle would be fought by an army of angels.
So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous,
and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. (Matthew 13:49-50)
For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:27-28)
For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;
then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;
and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.(Matthew 24:27-31)
This was a mystical vision of messianic triumph, with the Messianic Age coinciding with the End of Days. Jesus seemed to have arranged his last days to fulfil his interpretation of prophecy (his arrival in Jerusalem, for example). It is possible that he even arranged his own betrayal, entrusting Judas with the duty to report his whereabouts to the Romans.
Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it." So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly." (John 13:26-27)
I think that their expectation was that, at the moment of tribulation, when he was crucified, an army of angels would appear, and bring about the end of the age. Given the actions of the apostles, it appears their expectation was that this army of angels would rescue Jesus before or immediately upon his death. When he actually died,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
his apostles scattered.
It is equally possible to make a case that his death was anticipated, and that he would be resurrected "very soon" to lead the angelic army.
I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom...
Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, `I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'
But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." (Matthew 26:29,31-32)
I think the prior is more likely, and that his actual death led to a reappraisal of their expectation. In any event, given the mystical nature of their expectations, it is not surprising that his core of followers had visions of him alive ('resurrected')
But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God." (Acts 7:55-56)
Whether they thought it would happen at the moment of his death, or three days later, when the expected messianic moment didn't come, they undoubtedly were discouraged and questioned what went wrong. My guess is that at some point, one of the apostles had either a vision of Jesus resurrected, or came in some other way to the belief that Jesus was in fact alive and would return soon to finish what he had begun. And the rest is history.
I don't read any of your quotes as supporting Christian belief. I suppose you might find what you expect to find when you read them. However, it is problematic to pull out a few scattered verses from a work as voluminous as the Talmud as somehow providing support for Christian belief. Do you generally consider the Talmud to be an authoritative source for the interpretation of scripture?
The only person who would suggest that the views of the sages were unanimous would be someone completely unfamiliar with the Talmud. Indeed, the Talmud largely consists of the record of disputes among the sages regarding matters of interpretation and halakhah.
"It is possible that he even arranged his own betrayal..."
This view is consistent with Christian theology. Jesus was a willing participant in a plan devised and executed by His Father; therefore, everything that happened was part of that plan. Jesus facilitated the plan while He was here.
If one holds this view, then one cannot say that somehow the plan was frustrated by what occurred afterward. The Christian teaching is that Jesus returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father until the time appointed for Him to return to assume the throne of His earthly father David.
You have presented a very plausible picture of a possible Jesus. However, couldn't all this have been a fictional story? We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Essenes were producing writings that might be called fictional, symbolic, theoretical or speculative. Couldn't the Jesus story have originated that way?
As I have said, my reasons for believing it is fictional are many. There is never any year mentioned for the crucifixion - they mention the month and day, but not the year. The thousands of people who meet Jesus in the Gospels are missing from the subsequent books of the NT.
There is no definite connection between any writings in the New Testament and the people who actually knew Jesus. Most scholars believe that Mark is the oldest gospel. It was not written in Judea and not written by someone who witnessed Jesus. It cannot be proven that "Matthew" was written by an apostle and, in fact, it seems to have been largely copied from Mark. "John" was probably written too late to have possibly been written by an apostle. The epistles of Peter and James do not seem to reflect any personal experience with Jesus. These were probably not even written by Peter and James.
Paul spends 15 days with Peter and learns everything there is to know about Jesus. How is that possible?
No writings by the original Jerusalem Nazarenes were preserved. No sayings of Jesus were preserved in Aramaic. Supposedly, there was once a Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew, but this was not preserved. Paul can verify the existence of only two of the supposed twelve apostles.
There is no undisputed reference to Jesus outside the New Testament until the Second Century.
If you believe Jesus was an actual person, where is the evidence?
Another reason to disbelieve the Gospels. In the Gospels, the rabbis are portrayed as monolithic.
I agree that it is possible. I do, however, think it is more likely that there was a real (albeit obscure) person around whom the later stories cohered. I think the best objective evidence of an historical Jesus are the brief mentions of him and of his brother by Josephus (Antiquities Book 18, Ch. 3 and Book 20, Ch. 9). While these passages were certainly 'enhanced' by later interpolations, there is a scholarly consensus that there is an original core mention of them there. Josephus also elsewhere mentions a 'Saulus' who is likely the 'Paul' of the Christian scriptures. Antiquities was completed in the early 90s C.E. (On a side note, there are a number of interesting parallels between the writings of Josephus, and the work of Luke-Acts in the Christian bible).
I further agree that the writers of the Christian scriptures were relying upon second and third-hand accounts and hagiographical material rather than original, first-hand information. Additionally, the selection of these particular accounts as 'canonical' took place hundreds of years later, and the works chosen were selected out of the hundreds of possibilities because they advanced certain theological viewpoints.
Josephus' writings might have been a good source if they were not at least partly forgeries.
While these passages were certainly 'enhanced' by later interpolations, there is a scholarly consensus that there is an original core mention of them there.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But once an original source is altered, it has little value as evidence.
And even the "enhanced" Josephus does not tell us the year the crucifixion occurred. How is it that NO ONE remembered that? (My belief is that there is no year given for the resurrection because it was merely a symbolic event that was supposed to occur every spring, like the resurrections of the various pagan fertility gods around Easter time.)
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