Historical Jesus

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Maidservant said:

Paul fascinates me to no end.  Totally have a crush.

And in my current understanding, Paul's letters are much earlier than the so called 4 gospels.  For me, that means Paul is more credible.  So I would read Paul and almost negate the gospels. But should I take it that way?

Mark is dated post-70 AD almost entirely by the prophesy of the destruction of the temple. It's worth noting though even independent of buying into the claims of Christianity that people could easily forecast apocalyptic destruction by the Romans opposite what the Shammai style of Pharisee saw. (They tended to predict an overthrow of the Romans) So I'm a bit agnostic to it's actual date.

Edited July 20, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Maidservant]

6 hours ago, snowflake said:

Start with 1 Corinthians 15. Their testimony is throughout the NT. 

Thank you for reminding me of that passage.  My first thought is to say that none of their testimonies are in the New Testament, but I daresay I need to read between the lines.

[Maidservant]

6 hours ago, snowflake said:

There are no NT letters that comment on, or document the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which happened around 70AD. Some scholars claim that because there is no mention of this disaster all the gospels and letters must have been penned pre 70 AD.

 

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Mark is dated post-70 AD almost entirely by the prophesy of the destruction of the temple. It's worth noting though even independent of buying into the claims of Christianity that people could easily forecast apocalyptic destruction by the Romans opposite what the Shammai style of Pharisee saw. (They tended to predict an overthrow of the Romans) So I'm a bit agnostic to it's actual date.

I guess I'll have to read more deeply and ponder (and pray) and come to my own conclusion.

 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. The relationship with John in particular is odd and outside what we'd expect from a Pharisee. There are also parallels with the Essenes who oddly aren't even mentioned in the NT.

Yet the Essenes (Therapeutae) are there between the lines throughout the Gospels (esp the Gospel of John), their beliefs, words, and actions.  Even the main claims made by John the Baptist come right out of Qumran.  More than one scholar has suggested that John must have been an Essene at some point in his early life.

[Gray]

18 hours ago, Maidservant said:

Right.  I mean, if there wasn't a Jesus, then there had to have been some pretty dedicated people to make it all up, and then one would be moved to ask--who was that?  Because even at the level of basic life wisdom, the New Testament is pretty spectacular.  Even wondering if Jesus said what when--well if he didn't, someone did (and who), because we have a document even today, transmission sketchiness notwithstanding.

Paul fascinates me to no end.  Totally have a crush.

And in my current understanding, Paul's letters are much earlier than the so called 4 gospels.  For me, that means Paul is more credible.  So I would read Paul and almost negate the gospels. But should I take it that way?

And on the surface level, Paul's Jesus seems to be one that HE (Paul) made or shaped according to Paul being his amazing self.  But divergent from the gospels--which are, as I understand them, about 100 years after.  Anyway.  I don't really know enough scholarship to talk more intelligently, this is just my own reading of Paul's letters myself, beginning with the earliest one.

The gospels are later than Paul, and are not themselves historical records, but history can be teased out of them.

There have been attempts to try to separate out the teachings most likely to be given by Jesus from the ones that he likely did not say. There was a project by the Jesus Seminar on that topic.

Remember, even according to Paul, he was often at odds with the disciples who knew the historical Jesus.

[Gray]

11 hours ago, Maidservant said:

 

I guess I'll have to read more deeply and ponder (and pray) and come to my own conclusion.

 

 

The dating for Mark isn't just about it mentioning the destruction of the temple. There is also some white washing going on - pro-Roman and anti-Jewish. Part of Mark's message seems to be that God had given Jerusalem to the Romans because the Jewish people rejected Jesus. You wouldn't expect that kind of rhetoric from an earlier writer, when the movement was much more explicitly Jewish, and when Christians were still meeting in the synagogues

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

The dating for Mark isn't just about it mentioning the destruction of the temple. There is also some white washing going on - pro-Roman and anti-Jewish. Part of Mark's message seems to be that God had given Jerusalem to the Romans because the Jewish people rejected Jesus. You wouldn't expect that kind of rhetoric from an earlier writer, when the movement was much more explicitly Jewish, and when Christians were still meeting in the synagogues

Again I'm not sure that's different. It depends upon whether there were early Jewish persecutions of Christians (which we know there were -- Paul being apparently one of them). If there was then it would be trivial to expect predicted destruction prophecies much like we saw with Jeremiah against the Egyptian faction in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian conquest. So to assume that would only happen after 70 AD always struck me as a bit dubious. The entire argument depends upon there being no history of apocalyptic or prophesy of destruction literature until after the destruction which is nonsense.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't at all be surprised it is actually post 70 dated. I'm just saying the reasoning isn't that strong.

Edited July 21, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Gray]

On 7/21/2017 at 11:19 AM, clarkgoble said:

Again I'm not sure that's different. It depends upon whether there were early Jewish persecutions of Christians (which we know there were -- Paul being apparently one of them). If there was then it would be trivial to expect predicted destruction prophecies much like we saw with Jeremiah against the Egyptian faction in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian conquest. So to assume that would only happen after 70 AD always struck me as a bit dubious. The entire argument depends upon there being no history of apocalyptic or prophesy of destruction literature until after the destruction which is nonsense.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't at all be surprised it is actually post 70 dated. I'm just saying the reasoning isn't that strong.

The first Christians were Jewish. Persecutions would have been a part of intrareligious infighting, but the big split between mainstream Jews and the Jesus movement didn't happen until later in the century. In Mark, the gentiles have faith but the Jews don't understand who Jesus is.

Paul's perspective does seem radically different from the other apostles, whom he says were still practicing the law of Moses and I think must have considered themselves to be good Jews. Strange then for Mark (and John) to write about Jews as if they were outsiders, unless it's were written later in the first century. 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

The first Christians were Jewish. Persecutions would have been a part of intrareligious infighting, but the big split between mainstream Jews and the Jesus movement didn't happen until later in the century. In Mark, the gentiles have faith but the Jews don't understand who Jesus is.

Paul's perspective does seem radically different from the other apostles, whom he says were still practicing the law of Moses and I think must have considered themselves to be good Jews. Strange then for Mark (and John) to write about Jews as if they were outsiders, unless it's were written later in the first century. 

This argument more or less demands that Mark's audience be not Jewish Christians but gentiles. My point though is that we don't know (beyond what's revealed in the Paunline letters) who was accepting Christianity. It's very possible Mark was written to the other Churches where it was gentiles rather than Jews primarily accepting the message. Yet that could be (and likely was) true prior to 70 AD. That is the recognition that it's primarily addressed to gentiles (due to explaining customs and Aramaic terms) means that splits in Judaism would be emphasized regardless of it happening before or after the big split. I also think the real big split is after the  Bar Kokhba revolt when the full diaspora is made. But if you push for a date before then (as most do) then you're really acknowledging that you have to deal with the more modest, if passionate, split. So what does the 70 AD date give you then?

Again to be clear, I am not really arguing for a pre-70 AD date. I'm just noting that the dating arguments aren't as strong as some portray them.

[Gray]

13 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

This argument more or less demands that Mark's audience be not Jewish Christians but gentiles. My point though is that we don't know (beyond what's revealed in the Paunline letters) who was accepting Christianity. It's very possible Mark was written to the other Churches where it was gentiles rather than Jews primarily accepting the message. Yet that could be (and likely was) true prior to 70 AD. That is the recognition that it's primarily addressed to gentiles (due to explaining customs and Aramaic terms) means that splits in Judaism would be emphasized regardless of it happening before or after the big split. I also think the real big split is after the  Bar Kokhba revolt when the full diaspora is made. But if you push for a date before then (as most do) then you're really acknowledging that you have to deal with the more modest, if passionate, split. So what does the 70 AD date give you then?

Again to be clear, I am not really arguing for a pre-70 AD date. I'm just noting that the dating arguments aren't as strong as some portray them.

I think it's not just that Mark is pro-gentile, but specifically pro-Roman. That's a politically safe stance to take just after Great Revolt. Why would Mark need to whitewash Pilate, for instance? Gentile converts wouldn't have needed him to do that, but perhaps given the political climate after 70 CE, it was safest for Christians to start aligning themselves against the Jews and with the Romans.

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

I think it's not just that Mark is pro-gentile, but specifically pro-Roman. That's a politically safe stance to take just after Great Revolt. Why would Mark need to whitewash Pilate, for instance? Gentile converts wouldn't have needed him to do that, but perhaps given the political climate after 70 CE, it was safest for Christians to start aligning themselves against the Jews and with the Romans.

But of course things were rather tense before the standoff in 70 AD. The more zealot groups had been making terrorist attacks on Romans for quite some time. There's a view among many scholars (including those who accept the later Mark date) that Christians had already been differentiating themselves from the zealots by not getting so engaged against the Romans. There's some thought that prior to the 70 AD blockade by the Romans that fewer Christians were in Jerusalem due to the signs. (Obviously there's also those who think those accounts were made up after the seige happened and the first destruction commenced) In either case, we have good reasons to think the zealots and the Christians were already at odds well prior to 70 AD. It's quite conceivable given Jesus' "render unto Caesar" view that much of the tension was political as much as religious.

More key though is to ask why if any pro-Roman position dates things to after 70 AD we don't use the same logic with regards to Jeremiah and the pro-Babylon vs. pro-Egypt factions. I think most assume the factions there were real but assume factions in the 1st century are evidence for a post-70 AD date. It seems inconsistent.

[Gray]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

But of course things were rather tense before the standoff in 70 AD. The more zealot groups had been making terrorist attacks on Romans for quite some time. There's a view among many scholars (including those who accept the later Mark date) that Christians had already been differentiating themselves from the zealots by not getting so engaged against the Romans. There's some thought that prior to the 70 AD blockade by the Romans that fewer Christians were in Jerusalem due to the signs. (Obviously there's also those who think those accounts were made up after the seige happened and the first destruction commenced) In either case, we have good reasons to think the zealots and the Christians were already at odds well prior to 70 AD. It's quite conceivable given Jesus' "render unto Caesar" view that much of the tension was political as much as religious.

Not just differentiating themselves from the zealots, but differentiating themselves from the Jews as a whole? Christianity was for a long time, after all, pretty much identical to second temple Judaism, except that they accepted Yeshua as the messiah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscus_Judaicus#Schism_between_Judaism_and_Christianity

Quote

The fiscus Iudaicus was originally imposed on Jews. At the time neither the Romans nor, probably, the Early Christians considered Christianity to be a separate religion from Judaism. If anything they would have considered themselves as a sect within Judaism, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity.[12] However, whether that was the intention or not, it did not take long for Christians to petition the Emperor to distinguish the Christians for the purpose of the payment of the fiscus Iudaicus.[citation needed] As the tax only applied to practising Jews, if they could be recognised as a separate religion, they would escape the impost.

It seems that Christianity emerged as a distinct religion from Judaism at about 70 CE, at least according to some scholars. So Mark's framing seems perfectly consistent with a post-second temple timeframe, beyond just assuming (as historians must) that ancient writers couldn't supernaturally foresee the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_of_early_Christianity_and_Judaism#Emergence_of_Rabbinic_Judaism_and_Christianity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(AD_70)#Perceptions_and_historical_legacy

 

 

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

More key though is to ask why if any pro-Roman position dates things to after 70 AD we don't use the same logic with regards to Jeremiah and the pro-Babylon vs. pro-Egypt factions. I think most assume the factions there were real but assume factions in the 1st century are evidence for a post-70 AD date. It seems inconsistent.

Can you expand on that? I'm less familiar with this history.

[Maidservant]

Reading . . . .

[clarkgoble]

19 hours ago, Gray said:

Not just differentiating themselves from the zealots, but differentiating themselves from the Jews as a whole? Christianity was for a long time, after all, pretty much identical to second temple Judaism, except that they accepted Yeshua as the messiah.

That type of hyperbole is pretty common. Look at the Essenes and their writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls and is typical of apocalyptic groups especially those with strong dualistic tendencies. (See the Damascus Scroll) With the Dead Sea Scrolls everything is broken up into the "Sons of Light" (the DSS community) and the "Sons of Darkness" combined with wicked priest (likely the High Priest in Jerusalem who they saw as corrupt - although that's debated). 

Quote

Can you expand on that? I'm less familiar with this history.

http://bible.ucg.org/bible-commentary/Jeremiah/Prophecies-against-Egypt-and-Philistia;-Babylon-quashes-Jehoiakim's-rebellion;-Jehoiakim's-death/

Basically Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon is his weapon to punish Judah. Jeremiah warns the king not to ally with Egypt in the conflict. He does and is conquered by the Babylonians. The analogy is that the early Christians are warning Israel of false prophets (the zealot faction of the Pharisees) and that Rome will destroy them. Structurally it's nearly identical to Jeremiah's situation. It's just that no one particularly doubts Jeremiah was saying these things while oddly people think it unlikely Jesus was.

My problem is that it wasn't hard to figure out how Rome would respond to rebellion. The Zealots were just being idiots thinking they could overthrow the full weight of the Roman empire. The actions of the Zealots also were pretty clear well before AD 70. So it's not exactly brain science to predict a Roman crackdown that would be brutal. Nor would it be surprising that those of an apocalyptic mindset would look at the past with Babylon or Alexander in making that prophesy. 

Edited July 25, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Maidservant]

On 7/20/2017 at 1:20 PM, hagoth7 said:

Isaiah 53 . . .  If you've written  something on your view of that chapter, I'd love to consider it.

He is not beautiful or attractive
He is despised and rejected
He is a man of sorrows and familiar with pain

We hide our faces from him
He is insignificant to us

He has borne our griefs
He carried our sorrows
Yet we thought that he was punished by God
We thought that his troubles came from his own actions
But his wounds were from our transgressions
He was bruised for our iniquities

He was oppressed
Without voice
Brought to slaughter
Taken away to unjust trial

He is cut off from the land of the living

But did anyone protest?

He suffers because of our transgression
(Isaiah, Old Testament)

Who does this profound poetry describe?

Who doesn't it describe?  These are our news headlines! For some of us, this is our daily lives! This is a description of those who have borne our sins; and the sins of others that we have borne.  The wounded innocent--the Christ.  These words hold up a mirror of responsibility toward each of us.  Are we the governors? the priests? the centurions?  We are the ones who have made the judgment and carried out the sentence on our brothers and sisters.  We are the ones with nails in our hands and feet.

Simply being in connection with other human beings leaves open the possibility of being hurt by their sins and hurting them by ours.  The only way the connection can continue is if we rise from that cross, that tomb.

Forgive them.

For they know not what they do.

 

[I wrote this in March 2015; the "translation", more like rephrasing, of the passage is my own]