I have looked everywhere to find the historicity of Jesus. He only appears in the bible. The gospels were all written some 40yrs. after his death .
Was Jesus a historical person?
by sentry35 16 Replies latest jw friends
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Narkissos
Welcome sentry.
I think this issue can be approached from a number of angles.
(1) It would take more than one historical character to match the different stories of Jesus (even if we stick to the four canonical Gospels) if we are to accept all of them as historical.
(2) Much of the Gospel stories are easily traceable to literary construction (from the OT or other mythical/legendary stories).
One provisional conclusion is that the Jesus of Christian faith is more than a historical person.
This being said, it is probably impossible to rule out that one or several historical characters may lie behind some of the Gospel stories. But he is / they are not exactly Jesus Christ.
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greendawn
Welcome to the forum Sentry, I was reading once that various non christian authors of the first or second century mention Jesus: Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny are among them, so he can not be just a mythical creation of the apostles.
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Narkissos
Josephus' passages about Jesus are widely acknowledged as later Christian interpolations into his text. The 2nd-century Roman authors actually do nothing more than echoing contemporary Christian beliefs and legends -- they are secondary to the Christian Jesus stories (if not to the written Gospels).
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hooberus
Josephus' passages about Jesus are widely acknowledged as later Christian interpolations into his text.
Actually one of them (the James passage) is widely acknowledged as genuine. The other is disputed however, many historians accept at least parts of it as genuine.
The 2nd-century Roman authors actually do nothing more than echoing contemporary Christian beliefs and legends -- they are secondary to the Christian Jesus stories (if not to the written Gospels).
This is a liberal claim. However, there is nothing in the text of the Roman historian Tacitus (Ad 115 Annals 15.44. ) to indicate anything other than an actual historical Roman related (Pilate) event being recorded. "But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind." -
Narkissos
On Josephus see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus (and the different links from there).
What might remain is "James the brother of Jesus (who is called 'Christ/Messiah')" -- which at most echoes Christian tradition in the late 1st century.
What is clear about Tacitus is that (1) he is aware of the Christian movement and (2) he says nothing else about its founder than what is borne by Christian tradition.
For another moderately "liberal" take, see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html
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skyman
Did you know that before Jesus there was a roman god that was born on Dec 25, born in a manger, received gifts, turned water into wine at a wedding feast, preformed miracles and died for on a cross for mankind. Sounds like Jesus does it not. Well it isn't Jesus. It was Osiris/Dionysis
There have been many Christs in many cultures: Osiris Dionysis, Attis, Adonis, Bacchus, Mithras.... The central theme to all their stories was a son of God coming to earth, to learn, teach, and grow before being crucified on a cross, and returning to the place from whence he came. This was also the central mystery in all cases: Several of these GODs mimic almost to a tee the gospel of Jesus.
Good reading. The Secret in the Bible by by Tony Bushby, also The Jesus Mysteries by Peter Gandy, Timothy Freke , Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman after you have read these then read The Bible Fraud by Tony Bushby.
DO NOT READ THESE IF YOU WANT TO REMAIN IN THE DARK BECAUSE THE BOOKS WILL HAUNT YOU. I have been trying to prove to myself the book are worng but I can't.
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gaiagirl
There may possibly have been a historical Jesus who was something like Ghandi, an advocate of peace who attempted to reform a corrupt system and who gained many followers. However, for a certainty, many of the miraculous events said to surround him were later fabrications. Perhaps in a couple of centuries people will begin to attribute miracles to Ghandi as well? One could make the case that there is more evidence supporting the existence of the detective Sherlock Holmes, of whom we have more documents surviving from the 19th century, actually written at the time the events were said to occur than we have ever had from Jesus time. Additionally, the events attributed to Sherlock Holmes are much more believable.
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Narkissos
There may possibly have been a historical Jesus who was something like Ghandi, an advocate of peace who attempted to reform a corrupt system and who gained many followers.
It's a possibility indeed, although a more disturbing hypothesis might be that the "peaceful Jesus" is a later fabrication designed to make the Christian movement more acceptable to the Romans, presenting it as politically harmless (as it appears in the NT as a matter of fact). What if the historical Jesus (if any) was, for instance, a radical Galilean nationalist as some hold?
Did you know that before Jesus there was a roman god that was born on Dec 25, born in a manger, received gifts, turned water into wine at a wedding feast, preformed miracles and died for on a cross for mankind. Sounds like Jesus does it not. Well it isn't Jesus. It was Osiris/Dionysis
There have been many Christs in many cultures: Osiris Dionysis, Attis, Adonis, Bacchus, Mithras.... The central theme to all their stories was a son of God coming to earth, to learn, teach, and grow before being crucified on a cross, and returning to the place from whence he came. This was also the central mystery in all cases: Several of these GODs mimic almost to a tee the gospel of Jesus.
The problem with such (too) striking parallels is that they are made of heterogeneous material, mostly from the late antiquity (4th-5th century), when Christianity had started influencing rival cults. So they don't prove that much.
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greendawn
The opinion that what Josephus wrote about Jesus is not original is not a conclusive one, some scholars believe that it (or something similar to it) is genuine.
It is also strange that Christianity would grow so much in the midst of such fierce opposition from Jews and Romans had Jesus been just a mythical figure invented by the apostles.