Historical Jesus Movement

[brucestrom]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

 

[Deadworm]

There have been 4 scholarly "quests" for "the historical Jesus. These quests are anchored to the criterion of dissimilarity", the principle that the Jesus sayings that have the highest claim to authenticity are those whose point is "disanalogous" to both the Judaism of the period and early church theology. The assumption here is that, with fading memories of the Jesus tradition, the early church confused and blended in the sound teaching of early Christians and the best of Judaism with what Jesus actually taught on issues that demanded (but may not have had) a known anchor in what Jesus said and did. This criterion is most useful in identifying the most certain sayings of Jesus. Why? Because if a the point of a Jesus saying is dissimilar from both the early church's teaching and the best of contemporary Jewish teaching, it is the least likely to have been invented and therefore has the highest claim to authenticity. But here's the problem: Application of the criterion tends to imply that the early church seldom used what Jesus actually taught and Jesus never echoed the best of contemporary Jewish teaching. Both implications strike me as most implausible.

With respect to Jesus' alleged miracles and resurrection, modern scholarship applies the historicist principles of causality and analogy: The principle of causality implies that in historical analysis, given a choice, a natural explanation makes the most sense. The principle of analogy teaches that the most plausible explanation of alleged miracles is that explanation which has modern analogies. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So, for example, from this perspective it is more reasonable to assume that Romans removed Jesus' body on Saturday evening after the Sabbath than to assume that He rose bodily from the dead. After all, standard Roman practice was to remove the corpses of criminals, including the 2 thieves on crosses, and to dump them in a common hole from criminals. No Christians were present on that Saturday night to monitor what happened to Jesus' body.

This principle works well as refutation of cassationists who claim that the age or miracles ended with the age of apostles. But here's my problem with this approach: I have experienced and heard compelling testimonies of modern miracles. If God can do it today, it's reasonable to assume that He could have performed miracles back then. This fact helps us dispose of the application of the principle of analogy.

 

[Doulosiesou]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

It's been a long time since I read any of their arguments but in general I associate it with liberalism. I associate modern liberalism (not classical liberalism) with humanism.

I associate humanism with the anti-christ since humanism seeks to define laws and norms on the whims of centralized control/authority. It's the idea that we must all adhere to the idea of the 'greater good' this greater good is never clearly defined, thus necessitating the existence of the central authority, a minority, that defines the greater good for everyone else.

My question for humanists is, why do you laud the greater good and ignore the greater evil? That is they never define, discuss or contemplate the existence of a greater evil. If you are going to structure everything off this nebulus greater good, which relies on the idea of 'good' where is the evil? The greater evil must be them for they also wield the greater good. You cannot have one without the other.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

What impresses me about the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts is that Luke wrote to a gentile official and stated that he had deeply and comprehensively researched, questioning eye witnesses and examining other relevant material so he could give the most well-researched and accurate account of the life and ministry of Jesus and the birth and development of the church. He was also an eye witness of the ministry of Paul and remained with him right up to his imprisonment in Rome. Luke was a highly educated intellectual person whose writing did not come by any undefined "inspiration" that came to his mind. He studied and researched everything he wrote to present the most reliable account of the Lord's ministry.

It is to be noted that Luke was writing to a very discriminating and intelligent Roman official, and not some insignificant person. That Roman official would not have accepted Luke's account of the ministry of Jesus and the Acts of the Church unless it had impressed him with the depth of research and scholarship at the back of it.

Luke's scholarship is much more reliable because he interviewed the people who were actually there to witness the actual events. His work is definitely superior than any modern examination concerning the historical Jesus. Luke's research and writing has never been surpassed. This convinces me that there was certainly a historical Jesus and was as Luke described Him to be and the deeds that He did.

 

[Doulosiesou]

I think they basically say that Christ was a great teacher, not God in the flesh.

 

[brucestrom]

Many people read Bart Ehrman's books and listen to his lectures. He is the current leading Historical Jesus scholar, and many lose their faith because of him, as he has lost his faith.

 

[hedrick]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

The guys who took that vote aren't "the Historical Jesus movement." Historical Jesus work has been going on for a couple of centuries, and includes a spectrum of views. The "Jesus seminar" represents just some of this.

 

[hedrick]

Many people read Bart Ehrman's books and listen to his lectures. He is the current leading Historical Jesus scholar, and many lose their faith because of him, as he has lost his faith.

Huh? He's written a number of popular-level books, but I seldom see him quoted in serious work. I think of him more as an expert on early Christianity than Jesus.

 

[Yekcidmij]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

What's most important is methodology and it's consistency and completeness. Majority opinion isn't a criteria of truth.

 

[Ron Gurley]

Historical Jesus - Wikipedia

Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia

Did Jesus really exist? Is there any historical evidence of Jesus Christ?

What is the historical evidence that Jesus Christ lived and died?

Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible - Biblical Archaeology Society

Yes Virginia...Jesus was True Man...True Deity

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

The truth is that Jesus was an historical person. He lived for 33 years in a particular place in space and time. The Gospels are as much history as any other historical document. Luke did extensive research, including interviewing as many of the eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus as he could so that his Gospel was absolutely accurate. There is more to prove that Jesus was a part of Jewish history than there is to prove that Julius Caesar was an historical figure in Rome. The rulers of Israel at the time were in the history, as well as the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were also historical events. If anyone had asked Luke if Jesus had really risen from the dead, he would have said, "Go and talk to the 500 eyewitnesses that were there and saw Him in His resurrected state.

If Jesus did not live in time and as part of history, then none of us can be saved, because as a requisite to our salvation we have to believe in the historical Jesus who actually lived, was crucified and rose from the dead. Paul the Apostle said that if the resurrection didn't happen [in history] then we might as well give up being Christians because we are all still dead in our sins and there is no hope for us.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

There have been 4 scholarly "quests" for "the historical Jesus. These quests are anchored to the criterion of dissimilarity", the principle that the Jesus sayings that have the highest claim to authenticity are those whose point is "disanalogous" to both the Judaism of the period and early church theology. The assumption here is that, with fading memories of the Jesus tradition, the early church confused and blended in the sound teaching of early Christians and the best of Judaism with what Jesus actually taught on issues that demanded (but may not have had) a known anchor in what Jesus said and did. This criterion is most useful in identifying the most certain sayings of Jesus. Why? Because if a the point of a Jesus saying is dissimilar from both the early church's teaching and the best of contemporary Jewish teaching, it is the least likely to have been invented and therefore has the highest claim to authenticity. But here's the problem: Application of the criterion tends to imply that the early church seldom used what Jesus actually taught and Jesus never echoed the best of contemporary Jewish teaching. Both implications strike me as most implausible.

With respect to Jesus' alleged miracles and resurrection, modern scholarship applies the historicist principles of causality and analogy: The principle of causality implies that in historical analysis, given a choice, a natural explanation makes the most sense. The principle of analogy teaches that the most plausible explanation of alleged miracles is that explanation which has modern analogies. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So, for example, from this perspective it is more reasonable to assume that Romans removed Jesus' body on Saturday evening after the Sabbath than to assume that He rose bodily from the dead. After all, standard Roman practice was to remove the corpses of criminals, including the 2 thieves on crosses, and to dump them in a common hole from criminals. No Christians were present on that Saturday night to monitor what happened to Jesus' body.

This principle works well as refutation of cassationists who claim that the age or miracles ended with the age of apostles. But here's my problem with this approach: I have experienced and heard compelling testimonies of modern miracles. If God can do it today, it's reasonable to assume that He could have performed miracles back then. This fact helps us dispose of the application of the principle of analogy.

The day they find the body of Jesus is the day that Christianity as we know it comes to an end. That is the reality. But the reality is that when the Christian Church started to multiply in Jerusalem, all that Herod needed to do was to produce the body of Jesus and the bottom would have fallen out of the Church there and then. Herod would have known where the body was if it was to be found, and if Herod couldn't find it, then it was nowhere to be found. If the disciples had stolen it as Herod tried to spread around, then all that was needed was for one disciple to confess, and then the Church would have come to nothing. But that didn't happen either, because all the disciples, up to 500 of them saw the risen Jesus, alive and well! So that put paid to that!

 

[lesliedellow]

What do you think of the Historical Jesus movement? In one meeting scholars voted with colored beads on what red-letter biblical sayings they thought were actual spoken by Jesus.
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/category/historical-jesus/

You are talking about the Jesus Seminar, which even by the standards of liberal theology is pretty much off the richter scale.

People have been producing historical Jesuses for a couple of hundred years now, and no two are alike.

 

[Babe Ruth]

I think it's interesting..

I know Thomas Jefferson constructed a Bible, based solely on Jesus' sayings. It was Jefferson's attempt to construct (his perception) of a purely historical Jesus (omission of supernatural events)..
I wonder if Jefferson was the originator of this movement/approach (?)

 

[Resha Caner]

People have been producing historical Jesuses for a couple of hundred years now, and no two are alike.

I wonder if Jefferson was the originator of this movement/approach (?)

I wouldn't think so. History as a profession didn't come until the 19th century (Leopold von Ranke). Prior to that, histories were often works commissioned by state officials either to promote their own superiority or to learn about foreign peoples.

Jefferson's work was done for his own personal interest and involved no standards of any kind ... though Jefferson did always have an eye toward building his own legend, so who knows what his intention may have been. Regardless, I know of no serious historian who was influenced by Jefferson.

Further, given the rather fluid nature of what constituted "history" prior to von Ranke, one could argue the Gnostic gospels were an attempt to write an alternative history of Jesus, and that happened very early - Irenaeus was opposing them in the 2nd century, and some would say Saint John's letters were written to oppose gnosticism.