Josphus: Jesus and John the Baptist

[AmbiguousGuy]

....he was accused in 1906 of teaching masturbation to the sons of some American Theosophists under the guise of occult training

You realize that's a classic ad hominem argument, yes?

If Einstein had taught his students to masturbate, would you therefore discount the Theory of Relativity?

Picasso was a serious jerk from everything I've read about him. Still, I don't reject his art based on that.

 

[outhouse]

You realize that's a classic ad hominem argument, yes?

If Einstein had taught his students to masturbate, would you therefore discount the Theory of Relativity?

Picasso was a serious jerk from everything I've read about him. Still, I don't reject his art based on that.

Understood.

But you add the date of said scholarship and its obscure view, it holds no credibility within any recent scholarship.

There is no tie to date, to the Mandaean communities other then what they read from the early NT scripture.

Fingy was trying to use Mead as evidence for a direct gnostic tradition beyond what they read in scripture, that just isnt there, even if we follow what Mead states.

 

[outhouse]

Hi.....
Questions.....

How did 400,000 ish people take note of a person just because he caused a breach of peace in the temple? What was so outstanding about this?

How many of these 400,000 people bothered to watch a trio of convicts getting hung on crosses?

Why take home stories about a blokle who caused a rumpus? Why not take home stories about the bandits either side of him?

This does not sound right, yet.

Different passovers had different events, the crucifiction of a martyred man who was sticking up for the common opressed peasant under the Roman oppression and corrupt Jewish governement teaching you didnt need to be monetaraly raped to be one with god, would have been the talk of the event.

Romans also crucified people in entrance's and exit's so that they would become examples of what not to do.

The gospels in general, just deal with the last week of his life and passover and death. Its my opinion, because thats all they knew. And its obviously vague how much they really knew about that.

 

[Fingy]

False.

Gjohn was written by multiple unknown author/s over quite a period of time by a Johannine community, location unknown.




False.

Paul had founded many houses early on, but much of the message had already spread into the roman Empire before Paul even got to these cities.

Early on their were many different views in the movement, Paul was trying to correct what he thought were corrupt views.

While Jesus legend was Hellenized, so was Judaismm and had been Hellenized for hundreds of years. Jesus legend found a home in Hellenized communities but he was never a Greek deity. He was a Jewish man deified by a Hellenistic culture who wanted to worship the Abrahamic deity as the "one all powerful deity" under monotheism.

Crosss cultural oral tradition, Jewish to Hellenistic Jewish Proselytes who worshipped Judaism are the people who started the movement due to the oral traditions generated after passover when the 400,000 ish attendants went back to their homes all through the roman Empire taking with them many different versions of Jesus.

Outhouse, you have misinterpreted much of what I have said. I was talking about the historical John the Baptist, not the gospel of John that was supposedly written by the apostle John the son of Zebedee. The gospel of John is so Hellenized and anti semetic I would acknowledge that it was not written by the real Galilean fisherman and disciple John. Yes Paulinism had spread ahead of Paul, because he dispatched missionaries from his churches in the eastern Mediterranean. No, Paul's was not attempting to correct false views, he was fighting a spiritual war with the true successor to Yeshua, James (Jacob) the Just, first bishop of Jerusalem. James followed the mosaic law exactly and taught that Yeshua was the messiah that would return and rule as King of Israel and crush the Romans. Paul position was antimodian, accommodating and collaborating with the Romans and rejecting the Jewishness of the original Jesus movement. The entire new testament except for James, Judas and perhaps revelation is derived from Pauline Christianity, which is the only form of Christianity that survived.
Judea was not totally Hellenized in the first century, Philo and Josephus and Paul were totally Hellenized, yes. But the Essene, Sicarri, Galilean, Zealot movement were nationalistic, Jewish, torah practicing people that resisted the hellenizing, Roman influence. Yeshua and his associates represented the anti-Hellenizing movement par excellance! So did the Essenes of Qumran that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, authentic Jewish 2nd century BC- 1st century AD literature that gives the real picture of what the Jesus movement was very likely akin to. "Jesus" was no legend. He was a real man that died for his faith and for his country, fighting against foreign occupiers. This truth has been white washed by the Pauline church in order to accommodate with Roman rule and survive!

 

[Hitchey]

Fingy, I am in 100% agreement.

 

[outhouse]

Outhouse, you have misinterpreted much of what I have said. I was talking about the historical John the Baptist, not the gospel of John that was supposedly written by the apostle John the son of Zebedee. The gospel of John is so Hellenized and anti semetic I would acknowledge that it was not written by the real Galilean fisherman and disciple John. Yes Paulinism had spread ahead of Paul, because he dispatched missionaries from his churches in the eastern Mediterranean. No, Paul's was not attempting to correct false views, he was fighting a spiritual war with the true successor to Yeshua, James (Jacob) the Just, first bishop of Jerusalem. James followed the mosaic law exactly and taught that Yeshua was the messiah that would return and rule as King of Israel and crush the Romans. Paul position was antimodian, accommodating and collaborating with the Romans and rejecting the Jewishness of the original Jesus movement. The entire new testament except for James, Judas and perhaps revelation is derived from Pauline Christianity, which is the only form of Christianity that survived.
Judea was not totally Hellenized in the first century, Philo and Josephus and Paul were totally Hellenized, yes. But the Essene, Sicarri, Galilean, Zealot movement were nationalistic, Jewish, torah practicing people that resisted the hellenizing, Roman influence. Yeshua and his associates represented the anti-Hellenizing movement par excellance! So did the Essenes of Qumran that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, authentic Jewish 2nd century BC- 1st century AD literature that gives the real picture of what the Jesus movement was very likely akin to. "Jesus" was no legend. He was a real man that died for his faith and for his country, fighting against foreign occupiers. This truth has been white washed by the Pauline church in order to accommodate with Roman rule and survive!

I agree with this post almost whole hearted.

But Pauls movement did not spread ahead of him. Oral tradition did, but that didnt all originate from Paul.

Also Paul really didnt have churches. these were houses where people worshipped around a dinner table.

We also dont know anything about the real James and how much Paul fought him. It is however my personal opinion, Jesus real Jewish movement went back to Galilee after Jesus death.

 

[oldbadger]

Different passovers had different events, the crucifiction of a martyred man who was sticking up for the common opressed peasant under the Roman oppression and corrupt Jewish governement teaching you didnt need to be monetaraly raped to be one with god, would have been the talk of the event.

Romans also crucified people in entrance's and exit's so that they would become examples of what not to do.

The gospels in general, just deal with the last week of his life and passover and death. Its my opinion, because thats all they knew. And its obviously vague how much they really knew about that.

It's time to shake this tree and see if it can stand.

1. How did thousands know so much about an unknown?
2. How come that they gave a damn?
3. How come that thousands will take note of a bloke who caused some sort of commotion (they could have no clue as to why) which only a few hundred could have witnessed, suddenly decide that they will leave and remember him for ever? Start groups up in his remembrance?
4. Romans crucified in entances.......And? So what? So why take such notice of this guy, who they know absolutely nothing about?
5. How do thousands suddenly know all about Jesus, his rumpus, his trial? (You say there was no trial.... even less publicity!!), his execution? Who gave a toss about three criminals strung up?
6. Again....why him? Why not the bandits either side?


You then move to your 'all in a week' proposal, whereas, previously, when I have mentioned this 'all in a week', business, you've pointed out that the gospels report a 'much longer period'. You are attempting to refute the fact that over a year or more Jesus became well known amongst his own, some who followed him to the city, to the rumpus, the arrest, the trial, the death.

Of the thousands of visitors, only a few saw the rumpus, none saw the arrest, none saw the trial (which you deny anyway), and although a lot saw the execution, they just saw three criminals strung up....... would have remembered the three together..... seen it before, mostly.

This doesn't work. IMO opinion this needs reviewing.

 

[outhouse]

This doesn't work. IMO opinion this needs reviewing.

Because you dont understand the historical context of pasover events.

We have examples like the Roman guard who whipped out his junk, this was remembered by all in attendance, and remembered to this day.

Let alone mocking Pilate by riding in on a female donkey, and then a later public disturbance and execution.

The fact we have gospels describing trying to describe these events is proof enough, plus it also explains the rapid spread of "A Jewish Movement" throughout the Roman Empire .


I have never stated the gospels report a longer time period, other then generally the synoptics historically deal with the last week of a Jews life. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that JtB probably baptized him in the Jordan, and that the man came from Nazareth.

You are attempting to refute the fact that over a year or more Jesus became well known amongst his own

Thats not a fact. Most modern scholars all claim Jesus was unknown as there were many teachers doing exactly what he did.

At passover there were probably thousands of teacher/healers.



If he was so popular why didnt a single of many historians write about him while he was alive?

He only found fame after his death as oral tradition grew.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This is just another case of a sect hijacking a historical figure and remodeling him in their own image, as we see Paul and his Antioch church remake the Galilean messiah claimant Yeshua into the Greek God Christ Jesus.

We don't see this. It was largely assumed, and thanks to the influence of Bauer and others, that Paul more or less founded Christianity. That, however, is simply to read back into the first century the surviving texts of the NT and the import they had in later centuries. Unlike the Gospels, Paul refers to "Peter" by his name, rather than the nickname of the gospels. He uses Aramaic (transliterated) rather than the Greek. His letters reflect that not only was he not alone among missionaries, but that his influence and position were somewhat shaky. The author of Luke, who is our only other source for Paul in the 1st century, doesn't seem to be aware of his letters (although this is still debated). Certainly the author indicates that Paul was a central figure but not uncontested nor the ony central figure. Nor do the gospels seem to reflect some "pauline" interpretation that eradicated the influence of others. And finally, Paul never equates Jesus with God.

James followed the mosaic law exactly and taught that Yeshua was the messiah that would return and rule as King of Israel and crush the Romans.

Were that the case, then he'd believe Jesus would rise from the dead or he wouldn't have been involved in the early years of what became Christianity. At no point was any conception of a messiah one of a crucified leader who came back to life, nor does that view represent any continuity between whatever messianic expectations were around in the first century and the view that James would then have. To believe that his brother was still the messiah after he had been crucified indicates a clear seperation from what survives of every bit of evidence we have for every Jewish understanding of both messiah and the nature of death.

Also, apart from the priestly elite, "mosiac law" was hardly clear-cut. Quite apart from the Jesus movement, there was considerable disagreement as to what this involved.

Judea was not totally Hellenized in the first century, Philo and Josephus and Paul were totally Hellenized, yes. But the Essene, Sicarri, Galilean, Zealot movement were nationalistic, Jewish, torah practicing people that resisted the hellenizing, Roman influence.

Some time before Jesus was born, there were enough Jewish people who didn't understand Hebrew that the entirety of Jewish scripture had to be translated into Greek. Moreover, about the only descriptions we have of Jewish "sects" at this time is from Josephus, who modelled his description on Greco-Roman conceptions and may not have accurately represented the situation at all. In fact, it is almost certain that the Josephus' presentation of "schools" within Judaism is deliberately crafted to reflect a broader and far more clearly distinguishable structure within Jewish thinking than existed. In particular, the idea of "sicarri" and "zealot" as designations for actual groups distinguished in the way described is simply constructing a socio-political situation grafted on to religious sectarianism from a modern perspective rather than a historically accurate depiction. There is no good reason to suspect that Jews who spoke Greek (or even only Greek) were somehow unlikely to resist Roman rule. Nor is there any good reason for supposing that Paul's influence is reflected in the gospels such that they are representative of his theology. This is quite clearly not the case.

 

[oldbadger]

I have never stated the gospels report a longer time period, other then generally the synoptics historically deal with the last week of a Jews life. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that JtB probably baptized him in the Jordan, and that the man came from Nazareth.

Hello again........... I can only answer you on the above for now. I got E.P.Sanders' book The Historical Figure of Jesus, and must go away and read it. 7 pages in, I like the way he guides and explains.......

About your answer above..... 'I never stated..... etc'
Yes....... you did.
In the Star-of-Bethlehem Thread, post 247, you highlighted part of what I reported about your viewpoint that his main ministry was a only week (or so),and you answered thus:-

I never stated a week

We dont know. 1 to 3 years is what is typically thought.

Im sure his movement evolved.

Now the above I agree with. The 'week' part I cannot agree with.
I must finish this book......
All the best.

 

[outhouse]

Hello again........... I can only answer you on the above for now. I got E.P.Sanders' book The Historical Figure of Jesus, and must go away and read it. 7 pages in, I like the way he guides and explains.......

About your answer above..... 'I never stated..... etc'
Yes....... you did.
In the Star-of-Bethlehem Thread, post 247, you highlighted part of what I reported about your viewpoint that his main ministry was a only week (or so),and you answered thus:-



Now the above I agree with. The 'week' part I cannot agree with.
I must finish this book......
All the best.

Your having a comprehensive issue here friend.

I am stating the gospels deal with the last week of his life and death in general, I have never stated that he only taught or preached a week.

The gospels are almost silent on his life a week before his death. We have contradicting birth legends most scholars claim as sort of fiction, other then that, he visits some fishermen who jump to his side and they make a few trips across the lake.

 

[oldbadger]

Your having a comprehensive issue here friend.

Probably....

I am stating the gospels deal with the last week of his life and death in general, I have never stated that he only taught or preached a week.

Yes, I know that you are......... and have always focused upon that week, imo to the detriment of the previous reports. But that's me and my focus.

The gospels are almost silent on his life a week before his death. We have contradicting birth legends most scholars claim as sort of fiction, other then that, he visits some fishermen who jump to his side and they make a few trips across the lake.

But you did also write:- Im sure his movement evolved.

I do not want to overlook any of his Galilean ministry, or any of GMark, GMatthew, GLuke.

By the way, that book seems to me to very good.
All the best.......

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Thats not a fact. Most modern scholars all claim Jesus was unknown as there were many teachers doing exactly what he did.

"As an honorable teacher and master of riposte in the social quest for honor, he seems to have been as good as the best of his day (see Malina 1993:28–62)...
Jesus’ accession to local and regional acclaim was rather abrupt. Within the course of a year (in John three years) and on the basis of successful healings, proclamation, teaching and challenge-ripostes of honor, he gained the adulation of Galilean, Perean and Judean crowds. His fame spread even before he did anything for people; they gathered to him on the basis of his growing prestige, either to be healed or to witness unsuccessful challenges to his honor"

from Malina, B. J. (1996). The social world of Jesus and the Gospels. Routledge.

"Jesus emerged more saliently as a prophet-like figure in his own right. He clearly and quickly became a controversial and polarizing figure for many...By all indications, during his own historic lifetime Jesus became known in at least parts of Roman Judea through proclaiming the imminent arrival of God's "kingdom."...In addition to proclaiming and teaching about God's kingdom, Jesus also seems to have engaged in other activities that had the effect of drawing further attention to him..."

Hurtado, L. W. (2005). How on earth did Jesus become a god?: historical questions about earliest devotion to Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

If he was so popular why didnt a single of many historians write about him while he was alive?

"As every good student of history knows, it is wrong to suppose that what is unmentioned or undetailed did not exist. Arguments from silence about ancient times, here about the supposed lack of biblical or extrabiblical references to Jesus, are especially perilous"
Van Voorst, R. E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: an introduction to the ancient evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
It would be almost unimaginable that a historian would write about Jesus during his life. This almost never happened in all of antiquity for anybody.

 

[outhouse]

"As an honorable teacher and master of riposte in the social quest for honor, he seems to have been as good as the best of his day (see Malina 1993:28–62)...
Jesus’ accession to local and regional acclaim was rather abrupt. Within the course of a year (in John three years) and on the basis of successful healings, proclamation, teaching and challenge-ripostes of honor, he gained the adulation of Galilean, Perean and Judean crowds. His fame spread even before he did anything for people; they gathered to him on the basis of his growing prestige, either to be healed or to witness unsuccessful challenges to his honor"

from Malina, B. J. (1996). The social world of Jesus and the Gospels. Routledge.

"Jesus emerged more saliently as a prophet-like figure in his own right. He clearly and quickly became a controversial and polarizing figure for many...By all indications, during his own historic lifetime Jesus became known in at least parts of Roman Judea through proclaiming the imminent arrival of God's "kingdom."...In addition to proclaiming and teaching about God's kingdom, Jesus also seems to have engaged in other activities that had the effect of drawing further attention to him..."

Hurtado, L. W. (2005). How on earth did Jesus become a god?: historical questions about earliest devotion to Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.



"As every good student of history knows, it is wrong to suppose that what is unmentioned or undetailed did not exist. Arguments from silence about ancient times, here about the supposed lack of biblical or extrabiblical references to Jesus, are especially perilous"
Van Voorst, R. E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: an introduction to the ancient evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
It would be almost unimaginable that a historian would write about Jesus during his life. This almost never happened in all of antiquity for anybody.

I know you understand this, but this is for others.

Scholars are not in agreement with this issue. There are many views on how famous Jesus was. I personally follow that he was not famous because that is what got Jews killed then, even in Galilee. Example, JtB, and I think Jesus learned from John mistakes about a large following.

I think a few people may have seen him preach and teach and heal as he went to one small village after another looking for dinner scraps to keep his small band of brothers alive.

Large groups of apostles would have starved living off the poor oppressed peasant Jewish population's dinner scraps.

We also do not know exactly how political his movement was or was not on top of the Roman version of events were left with that claim he was popular as the Emporer, since they were competing his divinity with that of the living Emporers divinity.


No matter how you slice it, the lack of credible information on HJ is not plentiful and has led to quite teh debate in a search for who he really is. With our limited resources on this topic, its not going to change anytime soon. One can create many Jesus characters from the material we have.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Scholars are not in agreement with this issue. There are many views on how famous Jesus was.

Thats not a fact. Most modern scholars all claim Jesus was unknown as there were many teachers doing exactly what he did.

I do not know of any single scholar who argues that there were any other teachers doing exactly what Jesus did. There were several individuals who, like Jesus, had a following. Jesus, however, was well-known for a number of things. From Morton Smith and J. D. Crossan to the McMaster's Jesus, a Jewish Galilean exorcist: A socio-political and anthropological investigation, Jesus' acclaim as a healer and an exorcist distinguishes him from what most teachers were doing. From Jesus als Lehrer: eine Untersuchung zum Ursprung der Evangelien-Überlieferung to The Leadership Approach of Jesus in Matthew 4 and 5, the work on Jesus' didactic leadership style has certainly involved parallels with both teachers and leaders, but Jesus' charisma as a teacher such that his method of instruction was part of his leadership role and a key component of the Jesus faction finds few parallels anywhere. John's use of the Jordan likewise has no true parallels.
But the point isn't how similar various leaders, teachers, revolutionaries, etc., were. It is how common it was for someone to have a following like Jesus did. We have evidence that others (like John the Baptist) had such followings. We have no evidence suggesting that there were so many of these Jesus was just lost among so many others like him. The scholar who is perhaps most responsible for cementing the idea that the Jesus movement was marginal is not a historian or biblical scholar but a sociologist. Rodney Stark first popularized the idea with The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries back in 1996. He states "It seems wise to be conservative here, and thus I assume that there were 1,000 Christians in the year 40". How did he get this number? Mostly, he just made it up. In his recent follow up book, The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion, he writes that at the time of Jesus' death, he had "perhaps as many as several hundred followers". He gives a single citation for this estimate, which is Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Only
1) Nowhere in Hurtado's book is this figure given
&
2) what Hurtado does say about Jesus is that at the least we can say "it is clear that he quickly became a figure of some notoriety".

The other key player in an almost unknown Jesus is Crossan, whose portrait of Jesus is one of a 1960s egalitarian spiritual leader. His Jesus needs to be insignificant, because his Jesus needs to see himself as insignificant or the whole egalitarian "we're all fellows at the table" depiction of Jesus is ruined. Which is why (as Hurtado notes) "curiously for such a lengthy book on the historical Jesus, he makes only the briefest suggestion about why Jesus was executed, what it was that made the authorities take such a venomous measure against him."

It's rather difficult to portray a Jesus nobody knows who was brought before the leaders of the Jewish community and then before the leader of the entire region (Pilate) and executed.

I personally follow that he was not famous because that is what got Jews killed then, even in Galilee.

And Jesus was killed. So if your reasoning is that Jesus was not famous because famous Jewish people were killed, then either Jesus wasn't killed, or there is no reason to believe he wasn't famous. And as Jesus was killed, and had more literature devoted to him or concerning him within a short period of time than perhaps any single individual in the ancient world, it's rather hard to see him as a nobody.

Example, JtB, and I think Jesus learned from John mistakes about a large following.

Were Jesus anxious to avoid John's fate, the way to do it would be to stop his activities. It's not as if Jesus had a educational center and could limit the number of people he interacted with. Moreover, John stayed in one place making everyone come to him, limiting the number of interactions he'd have. Jesus, on the other hand, went from place to place in order to interact with more people, not less.

I think a few people may have seen him preach and teach and heal as he went to one small village after another looking for dinner scraps to keep his small band of brothers alive.

And somehow, despite being virtually unknown, was singled out to be executed. And after he was dead, his small band of unkown followers became so notorious and well-known so quickly that the Emperor Nero was familiar enough with them to blame them for the fires.

Large groups of apostles would have starved living off the poor oppressed peasant Jewish population's dinner scraps.

"Were the economic conditions driving the peasants of Lower Galilee toward poverty, even starvation? No, there is no evidence that the economy in Lower Galilee was causing great social upheaval...There was a vital economy. The goods were flowing as the model shows. The agricultural society was also developing vibrant markets for locally handcrafted goods such as pottery and stoneware. Yet marketization, as it develops over time, can turn on the individual worker and place stress on both subsistence and traditional institutions. It may well have been better for the average farmer in Lower Galilee than in the rest of Palestine during the time of Jesus and Antipas."

from David A. Fiensy, "Ancient Economy and the New Testament," in Understanding the Social World of the New Testament, ed. Dietmar Neufeld and Richard E. De Maris. London: Routledge, 2010: pp. 194-206

In fact, in Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus, Horsley & Hanson state that "the Jewish peasants not only supported bandits and viewed them as heroic victims of injustice, but also protected them and were willing to suffer the consequences". Are we to suppose that Jesus' status was so low even bandits could receive more support from the peasants?

Moreoever, as has been pointed out numerous times in studies on the socio-cultural context of the Jesus movement, not all followers were of the same type. A "core" who travelled with Jesus would be far more limited by the need for sustinence. But as Jesus seems to have had at least one "home base", and several places where he visited on more than one occasion, the number of people who knew of him and supported him was almost certainly much larger than those who actually left home and family and journeyed with him.

Finally, being known doesn't equate with being liked. There were clearly people who knew of Jesus and who disliked him. The total number of people who knew of him has little relation to the need to support followers of Jesus who journeyed with him.

We also do not know exactly how political his movement was or was not on top of the Roman version of events were left with that claim he was popular as the Emporer, since they were competing his divinity with that of the living Emporers divinity.

It doesn't really matter how political his movement was when it comes to how many followers he had and how known he was. We know it was political enough to get him killed.

No matter how you slice it, the lack of credible information on HJ is not plentiful and has led to quite teh debate in a search for who he really is.

What characterized Jesus is a different question than whether or not he was known and how well. The more detailed a portrait of Jesus one wishes to paint, the more speculative the portrait becomes. But we need almost no detail at all to determine that he was a prominant figure. It is basically impossible to explain the evidence we have by imaging he was some unknown, broke, nobody who somehow happened to gain the attention of the most elite individuals in the land and (despite having no support) was executed by the region's ruler. And then, having speculated that incredibly implausible scenario, we are left with how this now executed nobody with a handful of followers ended up inspiring a group large enough to be known by the emperor a mere 30 years or so after that leader was dead. We'd expect that, after this nobody with a handful of followers was dead, after a few years he'd be completely forgotten. Instead, within only a few years someone like Paul had heard about this group and was persecuting them. But even though this nobody who was basically unknown was now dead and his followers persecuted, the number of followers grew! And not only that, but it didn't take long for this group to grow so large officials all over the empire, including the emperor, were wondering what to do with them.

 

[outhouse]

Sorry bud heading to bed, ill get to more tomorrow.

I do not know of any single scholar who argues that there were any other teachers doing exactly what Jesus did.

.

"Exactly", well maybe that was a little strong but you know what I ment and its really not far off. There were more then just traveling jewish teacher/healers, there were also Hellenistic traveling teachers and healers as well. JtB was such a identical figure and a embarrassment to Christianity to the point they had to cover up the fact Jesus was his apostle.

We are not really sure whether Jesus legends were modeled after Apollonius of Tyana or Jesus legends influenced his, id like to believe Jesus influenced his Hellenistic version.

Simon Magus also mirrored some of Jesus movement and was a rival to the point biblical tradition had to run a smeer campaign against hin in scripture.


The fact is, we really dont know exactly what Jesus was doing or preaching in total and its all heavily debated. I believe there are some certainties but with all the parrallels to the Roman Emporer and the way the early movement was open and obsorbed much of these other pagen religious ideas, its really hard to tell.

Ive even heard some say their not sure that the wine and bread for the last dinner wasnt influenced by the Mithras meal habits. Part of what made the movement so successful was its ability to bend and flex with the changing peoples beliefs during any given period.

We know the loving mother Mary and baby Jesus is a direct influence from Isis, Queen of Heaven in which Mary later adopts her title.

It doesn't really matter how political his movement was when it comes to how many followers he had and how known he was. We know it was political enough to get him killed.

false

Gjohn eludes to that, but it was his multiple disturbance in the temple that got him killed, NOT his popularity nor message.

 

[oldbadger]

I know you understand this, but this is for others.

Large groups of apostles would have starved living off the poor oppressed peasant Jewish population's dinner scraps.

You recommended the book. Here it comes....... E P Sanders. The Historical Figure of Jesus. Page 21. L23.
.........Antipas was not excessively oppressive and did not levy exorbitant taxes.................. Galileans in Jesus' lifetime did not feel that the things most dear to them were seriously threatened: their religion, their national traditions and their livelihoods.
---------------------

Come on...... get Jesus out from underneath that frigging table, crawling around for scraps. He didn't need them. And whilst he was living, teaching, healing around Galilee he was well fed on fish and other food, and moderately safe, as long as he kept amongst his own, and the lake.

And he was gathering a following........ it was (as you wrote) evolving. This time is reported and described well enough for me to take great interest in it.

 

[outhouse]

I do enjoy a intelligent deabte

It's rather difficult to portray a Jesus nobody knows who was brought before the leaders of the Jewish community and then before the leader of the entire region (Pilate) and executed.

Do you really believe what most claim as apologetics?

The trial is unknown and carries no historicity, less parts many scholars claim as fictional.

Any nobody can be placed on a cross during passover. That was quite normal. This was big money, and trouble makers would be quieted at no expense.

Jesus may not have even had a trial.

John stayed in one place making everyone come to him, limiting the number of interactions he'd have.

Thats leaping foward in historicity a bit to much for what we really know about him.

But I have heard others claim his movement was quite large compared to Jesus small traveling ministry.

(as Hurtado notes) "curiously for such a lengthy book on the historical Jesus, he makes only the briefest suggestion about why Jesus was executed, what it was that made the authorities take such a venomous measure against him."

This is a no brainer.

Pilate and Caiaphas demanded one thing above all others during passover, and that was peace. Jesus cause a unknown disturbance and died due to that. Insurrection is very possible.

These are details that would never have survived the Roman approved scripture we are only left with.

"Were the economic conditions driving the peasants of Lower Galilee toward poverty, even starvation?

really depends on which scholar you talk to. I like Johnathon reed who is a cultural anthropologist digging in Sepphoris.

other apologist like Ben Witherington try and portray a wealthy Jesus.

Fact is, jews were so desperate under Roman oppression and taxation they would commit suicide and fight Romans, rather then live in the horrible conditions in Galilee that spurred uprisings like the ones that got Sepphoris leveled. And exactly why the temple fell due to over taxation of Jews.

Times were very bad in my opinion.

What characterized Jesus is a different question than whether or not he was known and how well

Agreed

It is basically impossible to explain the evidence we have by imaging he was some unknown, broke, nobody who somehow happened to gain the attention of the most elite individuals in the land and (despite having no support) was executed by the region's ruler. And then, having speculated that incredibly implausible scenario, we are left with how this now executed nobody with a handful of followers ended up inspiring a group large enough to be known by the emperor a mere 30 years or so after that leader was dead.

Ah here is the beauty of Jesus legend and overlooked by most.

Passover was the striker for the match with 400,000 in attendance.

The Hellenistic Proselytes who had worshipped judaism for hundreds of years was the tinder.

And Jesus was simply the sulfur on the stick [stick metaphor for cross].

His death during passover caused the friction and fire that is still burning to this day due to the Hellenistic Proselytes that astarted the movement based on Judaism that would never fully accept them.

The Hellenistic Proselytes had been building in numbers for generations to the point they were ready to evolve away from Judaism. The fall of the temple and Judaism as a whole left a void to be filled.

Its my opinion his martyred death during passover generated his popularity and fame throughout the Roman Empire, when people went back home they all took the legend with them to all corners that attended. Jesus at Passover was known for fighting the corruption in the temple and it pleased most of the attendants. Within ten years these legends grew.

heres where I think other version fails, before his death the movement only appealed to Jews since the movement was strictly under Galilean Judaism, and he was not worshipped as "son of god". But we know the movement failed in Judaism with his death.

only after his death does he become popular and famous due the sheer number of people that witnessed his death and martyrdom, only after death did he become a Hellenistic deity.

He was never a Jewish deity while alive now was he?

Because the Hellenistic people made him famous after his death, by a growing oral tradaition that turned him into a deity. It was his death and reported ressurection that had finally found him fame, over that of a traveling teacher healer looking for dinner scraps to keep him and 3 or 4 apostles alive.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

"Exactly", well maybe that was a little strong but you know what I ment and its really not far off. There were more then just traveling jewish teacher/healers, there were also Hellenistic traveling teachers and healers as well.

That there were more is certainly true. That they were comparable in many ways to Jesus is as well. However, to use this as a means to say something about the extent to which Jesus was known is like saying all rulers were akin to Augustus Caesar or Alexander the Great simply because they were all rulers. It isn't as if all the various prophets, teachers, leaders, etc., were equally likely to be at the foundation of a religious movement which transformed an empire in a relatively short period of time. Jesus undoubtably has a number of unique traits which at the very least made him among the more influential people of that time in that locale. To imagine that Jesus was just a nobody, comparable to tons like him, is simply not at all credible. Were that the case, then either we'd have no information about Jesus at all, or we'd have lots of information about lots of people like him. Instead, there are not that many individuals during the entire period from the conquest of the Greeks to the destruction of the temple in the first century that we know of. And most that we know something about comes from a few lines.

In fact, in the entire ancient world, centuries before and after Jesus, there are almost no individuals at all who have had as much recorded about them in so short of a time as did Jesus. Now, it is also true that we have lost a great deal of what was written. But there is no doubt that Jesus was influential and well-known in a way that other teachers and preachers of that time were not.

JtB was such a identical figure and a embarrassment to Christianity to the point they had to cover up the fact Jesus was his apostle.

That's a common theory yes. But whereas John's followers seem to have vanished rather soon after his death, Jesus' did not. Were he so unknown and inconsequential, why did followers not only remain after he died, but continue to increase despite persecution first by other Jews and then by the Romans? This is a central mystery to the study of early Christian history, but whatever the answer, it isn't that Jesus was a nobody with a few followers.

We are not really sure whether Jesus legends were modeled after Apollonius of Tyana or Jesus legends influenced his, id like to believe Jesus influenced his Hellenistic version.

Well, as Philostratus wrote after the gospel authors were long dead, if there is any infuence it would appear to be from the gospels on Philostratus' work.

Simon Magus also mirrored some of Jesus movement and was a rival to the point biblical tradition had to run a smeer campaign against hin in scripture.

Pythagoras, Socrates, Jesus, Apollonius, Simon Magus, John the Baptist, and a number of others had a good deal in common. For one, they are among a very few people we know of because someone thought them important enough to write about. For another, none of them were inconsequential nobodies with barely any following.

The fact is, we really dont know exactly what Jesus was doing or preaching in total and its all heavily debated.

It's all heavily debated, but much of the debate is after we get to a certain level of detail. There is, for example, virtually nobody arguing that Jesus was a myth (among specialists, anyway). Or that he was executed, or that he was Jewish, or a number of other things. There is a great deal of debate about any number of other things, from the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus to the nature of the oral tradition behind the gospels. However, even for those who say that the gospels are so ahistorical we can't know much beyond the basics, one of those basic facts is that people who were virtually unknown and had a handful of followers weren't singled out by the elites and so inspire that handful that after the nobody's death the followers were increasing and being persecuted by "zealous" Jews like Paul.

I believe there are some certainties but with all the parrallels to the Roman Emporer and the way the early movement was open and obsorbed much of these other pagen religious ideas, its really hard to tell.

The parallels to the Roman Emperor are extremely limited, if they exist. It is possible (I'd argue probable) that the miracle birth narrative is one. Jesus was executed in the 30s, and Paul was converted shortly after. The death and resurrection, as well as a status accorded to Jesus which was generally reserved for divine figures, were very, very early stages. How to explain Jesus' transformation from man to resurrected messiah to god is a mystery. Again, however, the solution isn't to imagine him as a nobody.

Ive even heard some say their not sure that the wine and bread for the last dinner wasnt influenced by the Mithras meal habits.

The version of the Mithras which has similarities to Christianity wasn't around until the gospels were written and Peter, James, and Paul were all dead.

Part of what made the movement so successful was its ability to bend and flex with the changing peoples beliefs during any given period.

We don't know what made it successful. The passion narrative, which is at the core of every gospel and is so central to the movement, is also present in a formulaic state in Paul's letter, and isn't his creation. That was the core of the movement and was unchanging from Paul to the 21st century. Of course, had Constantine not adopted Christianity, things would likely be very different. But by that time Christianity was already a significant force in the socio-cultural dynamics of the empire.

We know the loving mother Mary and baby Jesus is a direct influence from Isis, Queen of Heaven in which Mary later adopts her title.

We know that the depiction which date much later were models of pagan iconography.

Gjohn eludes to that, but it was his multiple disturbance in the temple that got him killed, NOT his popularity nor message.

That's ridiculous. First, this is a Jewish individual in the first century who belonged to a culture and people defined to an extent that can hardly be overestimated by their relationship to that temple. To make a disturbance is in and of itself a message, and as religion and politics were not distinguished, it is a political message.

Second, had that been the only thing that he'd done, and were he unknown apart from that, then we are left with no explanation as to why he wasn't just immediately killed, why his handful of followers didn't just die out, why this was such a big deal that the Pilate and Caiphas were involved, etc.

You have argued elsewhere that Paul killed of Jesus' followers:

paul perecuted this sect of jews.

who hired him?

how long did he hunt jews?

how many did he kill?


these are all great questions to explore, now either you have guesses or you dont

If one could kill Jews like you seem to think Paul did, there is no reason to think that Jesus wouldn't just be killed on the spot.

 

[oldbadger]

I do enjoy a intelligent deabte

Fact is, jews were so desperate under Roman oppression and taxation they would commit suicide and fight Romans, rather then live in the horrible conditions in Galilee that spurred uprisings like the ones that got Sepphoris leveled. And exactly why the temple fell due to over taxation of Jews.

Times were very bad in my opinion.

I'll leave the intelligent work to Legion. Here's the simple stuff, one point at a time.

1. Galileans were not under Roman oppression or taxation. So you got that wrong.
2. Already quoted:- 'Galileans in Jesus' lifetime did not feel that the things most dear to them were seriously threatened: their religion, their national traditions and their livelihoods.' You recommended E P Sanders.. He disagrees with you strongly.