The "Historical Jesus"?

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thephilosopher6

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In current scholarship, there is going on the so called “quest for the historical Jesus.” Currently, two major portraits of Jesus have emerged. The first is that he was an eschatological prophet who believed in the imminent end of the world and ushering in of the new age through the restoration of Israel. The other side sees him as a Jewish wisdom sage who preached about the Kingdom of God as a present reality that could be spread throughout the world. In addition to this, there is also the quest for his historical deeds and sayings and a more accurate overview of his life. The “Jesus Seminar” has even made a list on what they believe to be authentic sayings of Jesus that date to “Q” and before, and are not muffled up in later Christian tradition or redaction:

http://www.fchj.com/sayings.asp

Anyway, what does CAF think of the scholarly study of Jesus as a historical person as opposed to the theological portrait of him?

(Please, I want honest discussion and not just blowing this off as “anti-faith”, the people who are doing this research are genuine reputable scholars who greatly understand their subject well and have spent years upon years in study. )
 
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Honestly, I think a lot of people dismiss historical evidence of Jesus out of hand. Because there was this guy named Jesus, that worked miracles, obviously he couldn’t have existed or if he did exist he was blown out of proportion, and then people deny that he was a miracle worker. It’s really bizarre, but that’s the way it is.
 
I think they presuppose their conclusion and therefore are bad scholars.
 
Well no historian denies Jesus existed at all, there is no question about him existing. The question among scholars is over who he really was, what he really did and said and thought of himself and the world. As far as I know, the two indisputable facts about his life among scholars are his baptism by John the Baptist and his crucifixion, but most other events described are debated among scholars. Scholars want to attempt to “get behind the Gospel traditions” and discover the “historical Jesus”.
 
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Well, nobody is without bias. You have conservative scholars making conservative conclusions and likewise you have liberal scholars making liberal conclusions. Scholars do realize this among themselves, it’s actually seen as a kind of running joke within the scholarly community that whatever portrait of Jesus that is come up with is also a reflection of the scholar(s) who put it forth. John Dominic Crossan, notable member of the Jesus Seminar, even joked about it saying that scholars “do autobiography and call it biography.”

There are many conclusions about Jesus though that run along both conservative and liberal lines. This is genuine academic scholarship and ought to be taken seriously. These people aren’t stupid. They’ve studied this for years.
 
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The fact that there’s a collected body of writings and thought doesn’t necessarily mean that it is actually descriptive of reality. The ancient world had plenty of “genuine reputable scholars” who were well versed in the details of astrology.
 
Historians’ interests can be perfectly valid, but the New Testament itself is remarkably unconcerned about making a historical case for Jesus. The writers just aren’t interested in offering historical objects or proofs, and instead offer a typological form of reasoning. That is, they present Jesus as the antitype of Old Testament teaching concerning the Messiah, as the complete fulfillment of what the Old Testament types gesture toward.

They compliment this typological reasoning with encouragement to reflect, take action, and be open to the Holy Spirit stirring the reader’s soul. Historians will never prove the worth of such.
 
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I think it’s fine to pursue such studies. I don’t necessarily believe every single theory or conclusion that some “historical Jesus” scholar comes up with, but the mere fact that they confirmed that He existed, was baptized, and was crucified under Pilate is good because a whole lot of people think he is a complete fiction and never even existed.
 
Sure, the same can be said of the Church Fathers. All of history is a reconstruction, it’s not a science that can put forward a hypothesis and either prove or disprove it. Historians have to work with the best materials available to them to try to reconstruct the most accurate portrait.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
Sure, the same can be said of the Church Fathers.
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Sure. My point is just “they’re scholars who’ve invested a lot of time in this” doesn’t mean they’ve produced anything of value. That must be analyzed directly.
All of history is a reconstruction, it’s not a science that can put forward a hypothesis and either prove or disprove it. Historians have to work with the best materials available to them to try to reconstruct the most accurate portrait.
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History isn’t a hard science, but that doesn’t mean there are no objective standards. The problem with “Jesus Seminar” types is that they haven’t constructed a portrait based on the available evidence. They’ve literally made up an entire method of systematizing what “the historical Jesus” said and didn’t say. The only sources that can be cited by such scholars are other historical revisionists (that most historians accept revisionist theories about the life of Jesus doesn’t make the theories not-revisionist). It’s self-referential nonsense.
 
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Arkansan said:
Sure. My point is just “they’re scholars who’ve invested a lot of time in this” doesn’t mean they’ve produced anything of value. That must be analyzed directly.
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Yes, of course. I have many agreements and disagreement with the Jesus Seminar, but make no mistake, I’m not just speaking about the Jesus Seminar but scholarship as a whole. There’s been a general tendency for scholars outside the Jesus Seminar to see Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet, but the Jesus Seminar believes Jesus wasn’t apocalyptic at all, rather they contend that he saw the Kingdom of God as a present reality that could be spread out into the earth. On the other hand, the Jesus Seminar tends to diminish the historicity of the resurrection whereas many scholars outside of the Jesus Seminar have put a great deal of emphasis on it.
Arkansan said:
History isn’t a hard science, but that doesn’t mean there are no objective standards. The problem with “Jesus Seminar” types is that they haven’t constructed a portrait based on the available evidence. They’ve literally made up an entire method of systematizing what “the historical Jesus” said and didn’t say. The only sources that can be cited by such scholars are other historical revisionists (that most historians accept revisionist theories about the life of Jesus doesn’t make the theories not-revisionist). It’s self-referential nonsense.
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What do you count as “available evidence”? It seems they harness all the evidence they can as they put a lot of emphasis on using both canonical and non-canonical material. How are they revisionist? To my knowledge none of them believe Jesus is just a myth, all their major members acknowledge Jesus as historical to my knowledge, and in fact they try to uncover exactly who he was and what he did by doing things like attempting to make lists of his “authentic sayings.”
 
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thephilosopher6 said:
What do you count as “available evidence”?
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Contemporaneous sources recounting the events of his life. The bulk of such source material is found in the Gospels, though there are also secular sources as well.
How are they revisionist?
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They’re revisionist because they don’t accept the facts of history as recorded by those who were there.
they try to uncover exactly who he was and what he did by doing things like attempting to make lists of his “authentic sayings.”
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Making up arbitrary lists of what they decide he said and didn’t say doesn’t yield actual knowledge about Him. Much like the horoscopes drawn up by astrologers don’t correspond to the way things actually are in the real world.
 
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has a great book on the historical Jesus subject called “Jesus of Nazareth”…

The long and short of it is that the modern “quest” for a historical Jesus is a fools errand, and that the Jesus of the Gospels IS the historical Jesus, and they are totally reliable witnesses to His Incarnation, Ministry, Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension.

And Pope Benedict is a scholar amongst scholars. His scholarly rigor and intellect put the vast majority of biblical scholars to shame. He is a literal genius, a polyglot, and a spiritual giant. He has been a world renowned scholar since the days of Vatican II. His opinions and teachings carry enormous weight.
 
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Arkansan said:
Contemporaneous sources recounting the events of his life. The bulk of such source material is found in the Gospels, though there are also secular sources as well.
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There are no strict “contemporaneous” sources, the Gospels were written around 35-65 years after the resurrection. Matthew and Luke seem to have used a common source designated as the “Q source” by historians, which was probably constructed about 10-35 years after the resurrection. And of course we have Paul, who wrote his letters 20-35 years after the resurrection. We also have the non-canonical material, like Thomas, which scholars widely date anywhere from 50 A.D. to 145 A.D. so nothing of it can be said for certain, though it has been recognized that perhaps some independent material is contained within it that may date back to the early 1st century, most of this was probably in Q.
They’re revisionist because they don’t accept the facts of history as recorded by those who were there.
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There certainly are facts about Jesus’s life that they accept without any question. Scholars have long known that none of the Gospels were written by eye witnesses though.
Arkansan said:
Making up arbitrary lists of what they decide he said and didn’t say doesn’t yield actual knowledge about Him. Much like the horoscopes drawn up by astrologers don’t correspond to the way things actually are in the real world.
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You’re completely missing the point of what I am saying. I have already told you that these are reconstructions, of course they don’t “yield actual knowledge.” Rather, these have been put together because the scholars had felt based on all the available evidence they had that these saying best reflected Jesus. They’re not making any definite claims though. History is history, it’s in the past, it cannot be scientifically demonstrated. Are you now going to move the goal post again as you keep doing?
 
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thephilosopher6 said:
There are no strict “contemporaneous” sources, the Gospels were written around 35 - 65 years after the resurrection. Matthew and Luke seem to have used a common source designated as the “Q source” by historians, which was probably constructed about 10-35 years after the resurrection. And of course we have Paul, who wrote his letters 20-35 years after the resurrection. We also have the non-canonical material, like Thomas, which scholars widely date anywhere from 50 A.D. to 145 A.D. so nothing of it can be said for certain, though it has been recognized that perhaps some independent material is contained within it that may date back to the early 1st century, most of this was probably in Q.
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“Q” was no more a source for Matthew and Luke than a jolly old fat man was the source of the presents I got as a child. The much better explanation is that Luke used Matthew as a source. If it was clear that some other source was used, the Church Fathers would’ve noticed.
Scholars have long known that none of the Gospels were written by eye witnesses though.
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Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses. Mark was Peter’s assistant. Luke expressly states at the beginning of his Gospel that he wrote it after a thorough investigation of the facts.
these have been put together because the scholars had felt based on all the available evidence
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That’s the point. They weren’t based on any historical evidence. They were based on the Jesus Seminar’s pre-existing beliefs about what sort of things Jesus would have said.
 
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Arkansan said:
“Q” was no more a source of Matthew and Luke than a jolly old fat man was the source of the presents I got as a child. The much better explanation is that Luke used Matthew as a source. If it was clear that some other source was used, the Church Fathers would’ve noticed.
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That’s your opinion, and that’s fine. Just know that your opinion is not widely supported. Even Pope Benedict XVI noted that the two source theory is “accepted today by almost everyone.”

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...ith_doc_20030510_ratzinger-comm-bible_en.html
Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses. Mark was Peter’s assistant. Luke expressly states at the beginning of his Gospel that he wrote it after a thorough investigation of the facts.
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The Gospel of Matthew and John are anonymous. Mark is anonymous, and was likely written 68-70 A.D., possibly for a community in Rome but other locations have been suggested. Luke is also anonymous, it sources seem to lay in Mark and Q, and indeed, I’m sure the author of Luke did take great pains to present the facts.
That’s the point. They weren’t based on any historical evidence. They were based on the Jesus Seminar’s pre-existing beliefs about what sort of things Jesus would have said.
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Again, you are moving the goal post and playing on a genetic fallacy. They certainly were based on historical evidence, the Jesus Seminar used the Gospels and extra-canonical material heavily. They studied the material best they could, and presented what they have assessed to be the most plausible.
 
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thephilosopher6 said:
That’s your opinion, and that’s fine. Just know that your opinion is not widely supported. Even Pope Benedict XVI noted that the two source theory is “accepted today by almost everyone.”
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And it was denied by almost everyone yesterday.
The Gospel of Matthew and John are anonymous. Mark is anonymous, and was likely written 68-70 A.D., possibly for a community in Rome but other locations have been suggested. Luke is also anonymous, it sources seem to lay in Mark and Q, and indeed, I’m sure the author of Luke did take great pains to present the facts.
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The people who lived closest in time to their writing certainly didn’t think they were anonymous.
Again, you are moving the goal post and playing on a genetic fallacy. They certainly were based on historical evidence, the Jesus Seminar used the Gospels and extra-canonical material heavily. They studied the material best they could, and presented what they have assessed to be the most plausible.
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Claiming that their conclusions have greater validity than any other form of revisionism simply because they were “scholars” is the genetic fallacy.

Nothing in any of the source material says that certain passages were added later. When someone asks for evidence, they generally mean evidence that supports the controverted assertion, not appeals to documents which don’t support it.
 
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Arkansan said:
The people who lived closest in time to their writing certainly didn’t think they were anonymous.
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The names of the authors of the four Gospels don’t appear in tradition until about 90-100 years after they are thought to have been written (even later if you accept the traditional view). This is what you’d expect out of anonymously written documents circulating throughout the Church.
Arkansan said:
Claiming that their conclusions have greater validity than any other form of revisionism simply because they were “scholars” is the genetic fallacy.

Nothing in any of the source material says that certain passages were added later. When someone asks for evidence, they generally mean evidence that supports the controverted assertion, not appeals to documents which don’t support it.
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Why shouldn’t they have any validity? Why should I only trust the most conservative of sources? The views of the Jesus Seminar are not held simply because they’re “scholarly”, they’re held because of evidence they have gathered, weighed, examined, and have come to the conclusion with. Based on the evidence that the Jesus Seminar has found, it’s very likely Jesus said something along the lines of “Love your enemies.” Based on the same evidence, the Jesus Seminar believes it’s unlikely Jesus ever said some of the things that attributed to him in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21, but were a product of later Christian apocalyptic expectations, which were very common at the time. But again, this is historical reconstruction. We can’t know for certain what Jesus said or didn’t say, just like we can’t know for certain that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Everything is a reconstruction. Though what we can do is weight the evidence and see what is most plausible.

Your simple rejection of the Jesus Seminar, based on clear partiality and unfair prejudice, is nothing short of a genetic fallacy.
 
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