Why didn't Jesus write a Gospel?

[The Adept]

... Would God have everyone writing books? ...

An interesting dilemma.
If No, then why all the human writings?

It depends what that which is called 'God' really is...compulsive book writing is a disorder of the mind.

 

[oldbadger]

I don't know. But the Bath House being there is only indication that Romans were there. And not evidence of a 1st Century Nazareth.

And it is unheard of for there to be no evidence for a particular place. Not a single building, pot fragment, door handle, disturbed geology or topography. Nothing indicates there was ever any kind of settlement or city there at all.

Hello...... I am back.

I don't think that the bath-house is any good to us. I get the impression that the bath house is later than our period of interest? However, it does show that the hilltop spring was there, and useful.

Moving on.... In 2009 archaeologists found a humble property which they claimed was early 1st century, but then the interest seems to have died away.

Can we agree on an empty hilltop which did have a high level sporing? No more....... I'll bullet the rest to save from boring you....

1. A year ago an RF member proposed that Nazareth had in fact been a tented community.
2. I don't know yet but Galilean land was most provident, as described by Josephus.
3. If there was a Linseed/flax crop this would have provided for most clothing, netting, belts, sandals, tent material etc.
4. When the Romans retook Sepphoris in 4Bc they trashed it.
5. Some of us (from another thread) are interested in the idea that the Roman forces leader would have left a force behind to deter any further insurrection attempts.
6. If the city was trashed, the force commander decided to place his garroison on adjacent, high ground with provision for fresh water.
7. So the Romans garrisoned Naz in tents.
8. When Antipas took control and initiated a city rebuild he needed somewhere to 'house' the huge labour and artisa force. So this force was installed at Naz in a tented community.
9. There may have been one or two dwellings built for senior officers. Nothing special.
10. Antipas now had his force, housed, and he needed to look after it. Only 5% of the whole community was composed of artisans (Crosson) and a much larger % in labourers, but Antipas needed to look after this force. It would have been daft to deplete it, so the force was fed well enoughh to be kept well and strong.
11. Joseph's fiancee may well have had an early pregnancy through a tryst with a soldier, and Nash8 has provided names and links about this suggestion.

So it could, just might, all click together. Everything......
So we have a reasonably strong, if somewhat oppressed, culture.
A strong community feeling is needed for there to be oral tradition, and since the history of Jewish OT does has significant depth (look it up?) then this is how the story of Jesus's mission would have been transmitted, until gentiles got interested (Hellenists) and started to use their own memoir transmission system, which was the written word in Greek.

The OP asked (a bit smugly) 'why did J not write?'..... the OP might just as well have asked why J did not get equipped with laptop and memory stick. Why the need to build a Naz etc?..... well..... because that was the start.... no start, then no middle, no end.

 

[Desert Snake]

Nazareth is quite real. The 'problem' of it's existence for scholars is no problem, it simply was recorded moreso at a later date. Remember people, we're talking Biblical history here, so a lot of what we can surmise is actually from religious writings. Raise your skepticism? Good, because religious writings comprise much of what is considered historical text. Oopsie.

 

[outhouse]

Except there is no archeological evidence whatsoever for the existence of a first century Nazareth.

There is, you just don't know it yet


Just so you know there has always been evidence for 70ce ish.


Even the harshest scholar that are mythicist believe there was a Nazareth, such as Carrier.


The only ones who discount a first century Nazareth are untrained bloggers, who refuse education and knowledge.


There is little evidence, but there is no reason to think people were not there. There is not one good reason.

 

[outhouse]

i await any confirmation of my questions before moving on.

You do dot get to steer a debate anywhere.


Your the one constantly making things up as you go.


We don't need to jump through your hoops, to have a credible position here.

 

[outhouse]

And it is unheard of for there to be no evidence for a particular place. Not a single building, pot fragment, door handle, disturbed geology or topography. Nothing indicates there was ever any kind of settlement or city there at all.

Sorry, what you may not know is the village site was built over and no one can dig any part of it.

Sepphoris in Jesus time had over 10000 people move into it in a very short time period.


Do you think a good well, 4 miles away would not have been a good place for a labor camp in a very very dry place?

Nazareth in case you did not know, was in a very good location, so much so people have lived there off and on for thousands of years.


And if you also did not know, at that time, many satellite villages popped up that would have been require to support the agrarian need of such a large city. There is one such village not far from Nazareth that was only used for a few decades during this exact period.

 

[idea]

If God placed Jesus on Earth, and Jesus had important words for mankind to hear, why didn't Jesus write his own account of what God wants us to do and prophecies etc.?

Perhaps because Jesus felt the best way to communicate with us was not through written words, but through the Spirit.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

I wonder if this is more a kind of dogma among historians though, seeing as we have contemporary accounts of Alexander but not Jesus. Its almost like a line historians agree not to cross but with no good reason. Some scholars are in fact bold enough to suggest it and take some heat.

Name one contemporary account of Alexander that has survived. And what of Pythagoras or Thales?

Grant was not a man to be afraid of "crossing lines": have you actually read the book I quoted from?

 

[steeltoes]

Name one contemporary account of Alexander that has survived. And what of Pythagoras or Thales?

Grant was not a man to be afraid of "crossing lines": have you actually read the book I quoted from?

Red Herring

We have writings of Alexander based on primary sources. We have no primary sources for Jesus. Grant is using smoke and mirrors to make it look like Jesus is historical, he should know better than to compare what we have on Alexander with Jesus but obviously he doesn't because he is making a very bad argument, but that's probably because there are no good arguments. If there were good arguments why would Grant stoop to such ignorance? Who is he trying to convince besides himself?


"Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived." wiki

 

[Bunyip]

Because he thought the end of the world was immanent. Mark (or rather Peter) records him saying "the end is near … the present generation will live to see it all."

Surely then that means that Jesus was not divine? He was wrong.

Poor peasants can be literate, and he was carpenter. We're told he spoke in the synagogue, which implies that he first read the scripture.

Very, very few people were literate back then.

As the historian Michael Grant observed, no professional historian has endorsed this idea: the arguments against an historic Jesus would, as Grant remarked, equally disprove the existence of Alexander the Great.

Well, isn't it interesting how people like Grant always phrase that particular and much repeated claim? No professional historians claim that the existence of Alexander the Great HAS been proven.

Historians work by inference to the best evidence, which is a very different thing than proof. In any other field of history you do not see claims of proof and certainty - only in apologetics.

So Grants little con trick is a common ruse - They say that the historicity of Jesus has been proven to the point where the existence of any character in the ancient world has been proven - which is to say, not at all.

 

[Bunyip]

Name one contemporary account of Alexander that has survived. And what of Pythagoras or Thales?

Grant was not a man to be afraid of "crossing lines": have you actually read the book I quoted from?

Name one historian who claims that the historicity of Alexander is a proven fact?

It would be a very strange and misguided historian, given that historians work according to the inference to the best explanation - not proof.

 

[fantome profane]

Name one historian who claims that the historicity of Alexander is a proven fact?

It would be a very strange and misguided historian, given that historians work according to the inference to the best explanation - not proof.

I have known for a long time that most people don't understand what science is, now I have come to see that many people don't know what history is either.

 

[Bunyip]

I have known for a long time that most people don't understand what science is, now I have come to see that many people don't know what history is either.

Yes, I noticed this particularly in relation to the historicity of Jesus. I had several people mocking me and telling me that I obviously had no idea how history works because I was just trying to point out that historians do not claim proof.

You never find history books called 'The historicity of Julius Ceaser, proven fact!'. Mainly because outside of the historical jesus fantasy you tend to have actual historians, as opposed to apologists.

Nor do you ever find historians trying to shut down any dialogue by relying on claimed scholarly consensus of fact in a field that deals with inference and not fact.

 

[Sunstone]

Perhaps because Jesus felt the best way to communicate with us was not through written words, but through the Spirit.

Through spirits? I agree! The last time I saw Jesus, he was trying to talk with me from the bottom of my scotch glass.

 

[Sunstone]

That's a good question. He should have

Yup...

 

[Huey09]

Through spirits? I agree! The last time I saw Jesus, he was trying to talk with me from the bottom of my scotch glass.

Well Jesus did turn water into wine. Maybe a new unorthodox method of prayer should be a glass of water and then a glass alcohol(Preferably Wine) then praying.

 

[Desert Snake]

I have known for a long time that most people don't understand what science is, now I have come to see that many people don't know what history is either.

Science is useful, but it doesn't explain the religious questions everyone faces.
There a lot of "religions", buddy....it depends on what you're worshipping, doesn't it?

 

[oldbadger]

You do dot get to steer a debate anywhere.

I asked two questions. You could not answer.

Your the one constantly making things up as you go.

I ask questions. Your stuff is often made up.

We don't need to jump through your hoops, to have a credible position here.

No..... not credible, but possible..... but better than your strange ideas!

I have offered you a 'joint ignore' deal before, and you refused. I offer it again.
You'll have a happier life! Think of the peace within.....

 

[outhouse]

I have offered you a 'joint ignore' deal before, and you refused. I offer it again.

Do you think weak unsubstantiated jabs make a difference to me? :slap:


Or that because I refuse to jump through petty hoops from ignorance you somehow have a credible opinion?



You don't get it.

YOU don't get to make unsubstantiated historical comments that go against scholarships, and not get called on it.




If you spent as much time reading modern scholarships instead of outdated ones that never focus on physical and cultural anthropology, you might have something worth debating about.

As it stands imaginative statements are not worth the time.

 

[outhouse]

Less talky more posty using links like this from credible people that understand what they are talking about.

http://povertyinitiative.org/sites/default/files/nt_and_empire_book_review_liz_theoharis.pdf

John Dominic Crossan has also engaged in attempts to study and
reconstruct the Roman imperial system, particularly the social
and economic position of Jesus and Paul in the first century of
the Common Era. Crossan’s book, Jesus: A Revolutionary
Biography, attempts to show the social, political and economic
structures of especially first century Galilee. In the
Introduction to this book, Crossan writes, “If, for example, we
are tempted to describe Jesus as a literate middle-class
carpenter, cross-cultural anthropology reminds us that there was
no middle class in ancient societies and that peasants are
usually illiterate, so how could Jesus become what never existed
at his time?” (xii). Instead, Crossan asserts, “If Jesus was a
carpenter, therefore, he belonged to the Artisan class, that
group pushed into the dangerous space between Peasants and
Degradeds or Expendables…Furthermore, since between 95 and 97
percent of the Jewish state was illiterate at the time of Jesus,
it must be presumed that Jesus also was illiterate… like the
vast majority of his contemporaries” (25).