I mean, yeah. If you read something about gnostic non-Christian versions of Judaism existent at that time, you might notice that the whole idea of him is reminiscent of what a gnostic cult believer should be himself.
The part about being a higher entity clothed in human existence which should remember itself, drop those clothes and ascend.
Probably grew out of some story of “the guy who actually managed to do that”, ha-ha, which somehow blended with a few real figures.
EDIT: Now when I think about it, makes Jedi religion in Star Wars seem even more Christian. Especially if we count various concepts (Journal of the Whills) and branches existent in the EU (Living Force, Potentium and what not).
Saying the Bible is based in history is kinda like saying Cocaine Bear is based on a true story
In fact I’m pretty sure we have more evidence of Cocaine Bear’s existence
All of history should be taken with a grain of salt. Was a historical figure as bad as history said? Or did the patron of the guy writing things down really hate him? “Hey scribe, write on that scroll that this guy fucks donkeys.”
Or maybe the patron of the scribe really likes someone. “Write down that the Emperor made Rome Great Again!”
And you may be shocked to learn about many non-christian documents mentioning the gods they believed in at the time. Should they be ignored too?
Everything in history requires interpretation. And many times religious texts do contain indication of things that happened. Viking Sagas talked about going to North America. Next page they might talk about fighting dragons. Should all of it be ignored.
This is the importance of archaeology. Gotta dig up some stuff to confirm or reject the things they were writing down back then. Because none of it is really things we can fully trust.
History is just a story that tell each other until we find evidence that conflicts with it.
Read this wiki about Boudica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica
Seems convincing, right? It’s all made up. The only thing we know of this person (if she even existed) comes from two accounts from Tacitus who wrote about her many years later (sound familiar?) and Cassius Dio who wrote about her a centurey later. There’s archaeological evidence that four towns in Britain were burned to the ground in the same time period. I guess that might have been Boudica? It’s possible, so we’ll go with that.
“It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters” - Boudica to her army, as documented by a Roman historian that wasn’t there.
Interesting. I thought it was fairly well established that Jesus existed in some capacity but the debate was about who he actually was and (from a religious standpoint) if he did any of the things the Bible claims he did. It’s interesting to read that non-jewish people of the time seemed to have no knowledge of his existence.
At the same time though, I wonder if it’s possible that most people just ignored him, which is why there’s apparently very few accounts of him until after he supposedly died, resurrected and ascended to heaven. Kinda like a street preacher in Times Square, NYC. How many people actually acknowledge street preachers on social media, and how many of them actually know the preachers by name? Then think about how social media didn’t exist yet, so the bar to be recorded in history by uninterested third parties (even just as a letter to a friend about that “annoying Jesus guy”) is probably a lot higher.
Not saying he existed, just that it’s interesting to think that he could have existed but the lack of evidence is just because no one gave a fuck.
It’s a novel take for me, as well. I’d have assumed the Pharisees would have surely written about him as they hated him so much…
But I’m still trying to wrap my little head around mythologised history and historicised mythology!
How much of the gospels have to be true for you to be comfortable jesus existed? On one end you’ve got a dude named Jesus (0%) to every non-magical account at 100%.
Even the non-mystical stuff should have left a mark, but it doesn’t seem like it really did.
That’s the thing. Personally I’d need an individual who fits the nonmagical description moderately well and made the majority of the claims he’s said to have made. Namely I need most of his major teachings coming from the same individual. A parable or two here or there is one thing, but the beatitudes, the greatest commandment, turn the other cheek, etc that’s important to the claim that this individual existed. If it was just some dude who got executed named Jesus who wandered around clarifying the Torah that’s not the historical Jesus
I am always struck in the reading by how Jesus basically just sounds like every other two-bit cult leader. Everything is put in very grand terms as though he were greatly respected and doing everything for a captivated public but these could actually be just have been very commonplace interactions.
Like just look at how the Mormons mythologized Joseph Smith. He was literally just a “rock in a hat” grifter and dowser of the type was reasonably common who when his life is placed in appropriate historical context was not really super notable. He just got popular. There are a metric fuckton of cults at any given point who just never make superstar notoriety and die out largely uncommented on even in our news and propriety obsessed modernity. Their internal writings however are always self centered and bombastic. Cults elevate the mundane into hyperbole when you are inside them but from the outside they retain their mundanity. There’s a lot of people who just slip through historical cracks the further back you go because their contemporaries didn’t record things they didn’t think was notable or was just the water they swum in. Hard records generally tend to be beaurcratic and stories evolve dramatically to gain staying power.
We don’t treat “Christ” as the job title it is. It isn’t applied to other people but it could be. We say “Christ-like figure” but they could just be Christs. There are plenty of failed Christs out there. You generally dunno which ones have staying power until past the general limits of a human lifetime.
Some version of Jesus absolutely existed, since is was a pretty common name. Street preachers were not uncommon either, so it’s very possible that there was one named Jesus.
The real debate about whether Jesus existed is whether any of the biblical stories are at all accurate. There is No reason to think they are.
absolutely existed
vs
it’s very possible
are two wildly different claims which cannot co-exist.
Except they were two different claims. “Some guy named Jesus existed”, and “Some guy named Jesus was a street preacher”.
I’ve read some stuff suggesting pretty much that – a cult that he started, ditched when it got out of hand and they killed his brother, but then he rejoined to reign it back in. Far from low-born, far from celibate, far from magical. He’s buried in northern Spain and was survived by three children.
Can I get your sources?
Dave down the Red Lion
Your telling me there was no Jewish zombie carpenter?
I mean it sounds stupid when you think about it. As long as talking snakes are real, i’m finrle with it.
Jeez people, next you’re going to tell me the whole Jesus story is just a fucking rehash of other stories that already existed
I love that the article compared Bible stories to tv tropes
Seriously, Joshua? I’m willing to give you a pass for including a resurrection in your foundational myth, but this is… No one sees it happen, there’s nothing particularly impressive about it that stays afterwards, it’s just- some women find the corpse is no longer there, and they tell the men, and the men confirm that the corpse is indeed no longer there. What am I even suppose to do with this? It’s not just that you’re using the most tired trope there is, it’s that you don’t do ANYTHING with it. And I don’t mean anything new or innovative, I mean anything at all! What’s even the purpose of this resurrection? It even works against your narrative! You’re telling me that the father kills the son as a sacrifice for humankind, but then the son just resurrects? Then what’s even the point of the sacrifice? Does the son even have ANYTHING to do afterwards? No…?
I’m sorry, Joshua, but I’m going to have to give you an F. This might have been interesting before Osiris or Zagreus, but you’re literally thousands of years late. Try better with your next religion.
just some critical thinking notes.
The title says: “Findings Cast Doubt…” One might expect that the core of the essay will be … findings. One might expect that as with most commonly taught English writing practices, the first paragraph would both outline the point, and give a brief summary of the point.
Seven, eight paragraphs in, the ‘Findings’ are still being teased.
This type of article … accurate or not, is working through a ‘Palm reader’ technique, where they build up a series of ‘connections with the subject’, a long line of ‘Yeses’ then they slowly begin to introduce _their points. The technique is able to slip past some percent of critical thinking, because the person has been led down a path of agreements.
Again accurate or not, it couches the ‘Findings’ in a sea of ‘everyone knows’, ‘modern scholars agree’ , ‘doubts have existed from the beginning’. These are not facts, they are well worded disparaging digs, which contextualize the subject to their bias.
I mean, in the book it even mentions that there are other people doing the exact same thing Jesus did. The book even implies that Jesus was not even one of the more popular trouble makers of the time. It’s more or less the sophists in a back-woods community that the Romans gave very little fucks about. Not surprising there’s little-to-no evidence.
That much is obvious, if you read Lucian, street prophets with followers were a mundane thing to see.
Actually now when the fine tradition of burning heretics is all but gone in the European cultures, this trait of Antique Mediterranean is slowly coming back.
