Historical reliability of Jesus

[Gottle_of_Geer]

But that’s precisely the problem. In the view of the apostles Jesus didn’t fail as a Messiah. They proclaimed Him as the Christ all the louder.

According to the prevalent view of messiahship current at the time, he did fail, and according to what the disciples themselves thought while Jesus was teaching them, He did fail, seemingly. Remember Jesus rebuking Peter for telling Him not to suffer? It is constantly Jesus’ reminder to them that He must suffer and die.

Something in His death made them radically reinterpret messiahship from what they had thought it was. They were following Jesus because He was the Messiah. That’s a concept Jews of the time could latch onto. If He failed as a Messiah, then they no longer had that reason to follow Him.

Which is particularly important - because the Messianic understanding of the Suffering Servant in Judaism did not like the sugestion of a suffering Messiah in that context. Jesus - or the Apostolic Church, or circles in it - joined the two: instead of​

• softening down the text - or else -
• having two Messiahs: one suffering, one not
  This still does not bridge the gap between historical data,& theological conclusions. ISTM that what bridges that, is the power of the Easter event itself.

Listen to how wistfully the disciples on the road to Emmaus explain themselves to the unrecognized Jesus (Luke 24).

He was crucified… but we were hoping He would redeem Israel. This statement puts a seeming tension between being crucified and redeeming Israel-- something later Christians would not have done, but which the disciples just after Jesus’ death did do. Quite clearly this made no sense to them and their view of messiahship. It is the resurrection experience which transforms their view.

This is where I have to disagree strongly with your assessement, crucifixion was also a failure for a teacher and prophet who claimed to be the Messiah. Indeed, all the failed Messiahs, and there were many, failed precisely because they died.

You’re right… the law of love was not being focused on. That’s exactly why God in the flesh had to come. THE ENFORCER. I pity the foo’ who doesn’t love.

The extension was new in a sense, but again, Jesus preached to have been honoring the spirit of the law, which, imo, undeniably it was.
Indeed, but this gets us into the traditional Christ arguments, which I’m not sure we want to rehash here. The important question here is on what claim, and whether the person claiming it has legitimate reason to think so.

But then we also have the problem which I was alluding to earlier-- either Jesus taught He was God (not in such a crude way, but you understand what I mean) or not. If He did not, we must ascertain where this teaching came from-- and that means we must ascertain what caused a bunch of first century Jews to do what was apparently idolatrous and blasphemous to the highest degree. And I would like a better explanation for that one, really. If the Jews who followed Jesus made that up, then well, they’d know they made it up, and it would grate against their conscience, esp. as you suggest that Jesus possibly didn’t hint at His divinity at all and they added that part of the myth themselves-- in which case they did make it up out of whole cloth, and that is completely implausible in the Jewish context given.

It is far more likely that Jesus Himself taught this-- the formula of the Sermon (it was written… but I say unto you), the Temple episode, the filial relationship to the Father, the claims to be greater than all the past great Jews, these are all very well attested to in Christian literature, and by method of historical critical method, thus, very likely to have had their source in Jesus Himself. It’s too complicated to claim that He didn’t think these, especially becaue they correspond perfectly to the much earlier Pauline theology which has a much more explicit and higher Christology.

-Rob