The Case Against Ehrman's Historical Jesus

[Geezer]

 

[Geezer]

The actual interview begins at about the 15:00 minute mark. 

[mymistake]

I can't recommend this video (lots of side tracks and pointless digressions on this one) but you can probably skip the first 25 minutes.  From 10:00 to 25:00 he does a lot of complaining.  It's way off topic.  After 25:00 he gets back to the subject and makes some good points.  The Greek vs. Aramaic issue is quite strong.  I also like the issue of scholarship vs. science that starts around 40:00.  It really is for the cultural anthropologists to figure out how the Christian cult got started.  The video is very interesting at the 1:00:00 mark regarding treating Christianity like any other religion.  Sounds like the book might be good.

 

Anytime somebody talks about the historical Jesus it makes me want to ask about the historical Superman.  I don't see a difference.  When you search for the historical Jesus you get zero hits when you look for somebody like the character in the gospels.  If you back away, making the search criteria more generic, you still get zero hits.  You give up the name so it doesn't have to be somebody named Jesus or even Yeshua, give up the time line, give up his basic character, give up the city he was from, give up everything specific to him and suddenly you get dozens and dozens of hits.  You have to make historical Jesus so generic that he loses all his meaning before you find any possible candidates.

 

So . . . any man who was stronger than average and was employed as a newspaper reporter in a big city could be the historical Superman.

[Blood]

Good discussion. Some of my takeaways:

 

"Oral tradition." -- the 900 lb. elephant that no theologian/New Testament historian wants to address. No explanation for why, how or when Aramaic language oral tradition was reformulated into Greek oral tradition. Oral traditions which traverse different languages become utterly transformed and have broken with the original oral tradition. Why isn't the New Testament in Aramaic? 

 

"Names of Jesus." -- a long, complex evolution that the Ehrmans ignore or downplay. Lord, Christ, Logos, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Lord Jesus, Christ Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, Emmanuel, etc. These are residue of separate theologies and competing sects. Only very late did all these names become synonymous with one another, which follows a similar trajectory from El, El-Sabbai, El-Elyon, Adonai, Elohim, Lord of Hosts, Yahweh, etc. all becoming synonyms for "God." 

 

"Cultural Anthropologist." -- the only person qualified to study the origin of religions. The Ehrmans have no degrees in cultural anthropology; ergo, they cannot write authoritatively about the origins of Christianity. 

 

"No Nazareth." -- no evidence for this city existing prior to the second century, when it was probably created as an early pilgrimage site. Material remains can only be dated to the "Roman Era," which lasted from 63 BCE until the fourth or fifth century CE. The Ehrmans, as per usual practice, always select the earliest dates when dealing with Christian origins in order to protect the brand.  

[Orbit]

I have a degree in cultural anthropology, and my take on it has always been that Jesus is a heavily mythologized person or amalgam of messiah figures from the time. Similar to the way Santa Claus is associated with St Nicholas--the North Pole, elves, and reindeer are mythologized, but the mythology was inspired by an actual person. So to return to Jesus, the miracles, the theology, are all mythic elements of a story told by a sect of Jews using one or many human models as their inspiration. The stories are didactic, like fables.

 

It also pays to remember that those who wrote the Bible never intended that it be objective history -- these were the mythic legends of the tribes, based sometimes on real events, and based sometimes on the need to provide a narrative that taught people about the origins and values of their tribes.

[Blood]

6 hours ago, Orbit said:

I have a degree in cultural anthropology, and my take on it has always been that Jesus is a heavily mythologized person or amalgam of messiah figures from the time. Similar to the way Santa Claus is associated with St Nicholas--the North Pole, elves, and reindeer are mythologized, but the mythology was inspired by an actual person. So to return to Jesus, the miracles, the theology, are all mythic elements of a story told by a sect of Jews using one or many human models as their inspiration. The stories are didactic, like fables.

 

It also pays to remember that those who wrote the Bible never intended that it be objective history -- these were the mythic legends of the tribes, based sometimes on real events, and based sometimes on the need to provide a narrative that taught people about the origins and values of their tribes.

 

I believe "the consensus" of cultural anthropologists would agree with you, though few in the USA would state so publicly. "Jesus" is either a myth that became historicized, or a historic person that became mythologized. The popular human imagination doesn't care if a figure is a myth or historical as long as the figure fills certain psychological needs. Only a few clerics and scholars have anxiety over whether the figure was "real." 

 

As I've detailed in other threads, Biblical scholars concede that a large number of figures in the books were fictional -- Daniel, Ruth, Judith, Job, Tobias, and so on. There was absolutely zero need for "real people" among Biblical authors, though some of these same authors were indeed aware of Greek history writing and tried to imitate it. 

 

 

[Geezer]

I think Jesus real name being Joshua is a clue. The Jews were looking for a warrior Messiah, in other words a reincarnated Joshua who would lead them to victory over the Roman's. 

[Joshpantera]

On 6/14/2018 at 11:03 PM, Geezer said:

I think Jesus real name being Joshua is a clue. The Jews were looking for a warrior Messiah, in other words a reincarnated Joshua who would lead them to victory over the Roman's. 

 

And part of the amalgam is several "Joshua's / Yeshua's  from historical accounts rolled together into one character. Several Yeshua's from Josephus and the Talmudic Yeshua Ben Pantera come to mind. Many of which have some, but not all of the traits eventually rolled into the gospel Yeshua. So you can see how from the want or need to have a mythical Yeshua all of these resources could have been gathered and patched together to create such an amalgam over time.