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The Jesus Puzzle Was There No Historical Jesus? by Earl Doherty http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/jhcjp.htm Personal copies of this
article may be made as long as author identification is preserved. Return to Home Page The following article
appeared in the Journal of Higher Criticism, Fall 1997, published by
the Institute for Higher Critical Studies based at Drew University in
Madison, New Jersey (see Recommended Link at end of Home Page). It was
written at the request of the editors, Darrell J. Doughty and Robert M.
Price. * THE JESUS PUZZLE by Earl Doherty Part One That
Jesus was a man who lived and preached in Palestine during the early first
century, who gave rise to a faith movement centered upon himself which would
go on to become one of the world’s great religions, might seem to be a fairly
straightforward proposition. The idea lies at the base of nearly 2000 years
of Christian belief and remains the starting point for almost all scholarly study
of Christian origins. And yet, accommodating such a simple assumption to the
documentary evidence is an exceedingly difficult task, a puzzle whose
solution has proven stubbornly, perplexingly, maddeningly elusive. If we could reduce the
complexity of the evidence to a number of identifiable elements, including
the wider setting of the times in which Christianity arose, we might come up
with a list of ten puzzle pieces: Piece No. 1: A Conspiracy of Silence In the first half century of
Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other
epistles under names like Peter, James and John, the Gospel story cannot be
found. When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of
Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry,
the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him. God
himself is often identified as the source of Christian ethics. No one speaks
of miracles performed by Jesus, his apocalyptic predictions, his views on any
of the great issues of the time. The very fact that he preached in person is
never mentioned, his appointment of apostles or his directive to carry the
message to the nations of the world is never appealed to. No one looks back
to Jesus’ life and ministry as the genesis of the Christian movement, or as
the pivot point of salvation history. The great characters of the Jesus
story, Mary his mother, Joseph his father, John his herald, Judas his
betrayer, Pilate his executioner: none of them receive a mention in all the
Christian correspondence of the first century. As for holy places, there are
none to be found, for not a single epistle writer breathes a word about any
of the sites of Jesus’ career, not even Calvary where he died for the world’s
sins, or the empty tomb where he rose from the dead to guarantee a universal
resurrection. The one clear placement of
Christ in recent times, the accusation in 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 that Jews
in Judea had killed the Lord Jesus, has been rejected as an interpolation by
most of today’s liberal scholars,1
while the one Gospel episode Paul seems to allude to, Jesus’ words over the
bread and wine at what he calls "the Lord’s Supper" in 1
Corinthians 11:23f, can be interpreted as a mythical scene Paul has himself
developed through perceived revelation (see Piece No. 5). Otherwise, no
non-Gospel writer of the first century makes any statement which would link
the divine spiritual Son and Christ they all worship and look to for
salvation, with a man who had recently walked the sands of Palestine, taught
and prophecied and performed miracles, a man executed by Pontius Pilate on
Good Friday outside Jerusalem, to rise from a nearby tomb on Easter Sunday
morning. This "conspiracy of silence" is as pervasive as it is
astonishing. [See Part One: A Conspiracy of Silence in the Main Articles.] The Gospel Jesus and his
story is equally missing from the non-Christian record of the time. Philo of
Alexandria, the Jewish historian Justus of Tiberias, Pliny the Elder as
collector of reputed natural phenomena, early Roman satirists and
philosophers: all are silent. Pliny the Younger, in his letter to Trajan from
Bithynia c.112, does not speak of Christ in historical terms. Josephus’
famous passage in Antiquities 18 is acknowledged to be, as it stands,
a Christian interpolation, and arguments that an original reference to Jesus
either stood there or can be distilled from the present one, founder on the
universal silence about such a reference on the part of Christian
commentators until the 4th century.2
As for the reference in Antiquities 20 to James as "brother of
Jesus, the one called (the) Christ", this passage also bears the marks
of Christian interference.3
The phrase originally used by Josephus may have been the same designation
which Paul gives to James (Galatians 1:19), namely "brother of the
Lord," which would have referred not to a sibling relationship with
Jesus, but to James’ position in the Jerusalem brotherhood, something which
was probably widely known. A Christian copyist could later have altered the
phrase (under the influence of Matthew 1:16) to render it more
"historical" after Jesus of Nazareth was developed. [For a complete examination (and partial rethinking) of the Josephus
question, see Supplementary Article No 10: Josephus Unbound: Reopening the Josephus
Question.] The Roman historian
Tacitus (Annals 15:44), is the first pagan writer to speak of Jesus as
a man crucified by Pilate. Rather than representing information he dug out of
an archive (the Romans would hardly have kept a record of the countless
crucifixions around the empire going back a century), this was probably
derived from Christian hearsay about a human founder of the movement, newly
circulating in the Rome of Tacitus’ day (c.115). On the other hand, there are
those who question the authenticity of this passage as well. Around the same
time, Suetonius’ report (Claudius, 25) about Jews in Rome agitating
under "Chrestus" in the reign of Claudius is so brief and
uncertain, it may not be about Christ and Christians at all. In any case, it
would not witness to an historical Jesus. As for the references to
Jesus in the Jewish Talmud: even though some remarks are attributed to rabbis
who flourished around the end of the first century (none earlier), they were
not written down before the third century, and thus are unreliable. In any
case, they are so cryptic and off the mark, they can scarcely be identified
with the Gospel figure. [For the non-Christian
witness to Jesus, see Postscript in the Main Articles.] Piece No. 2: A Transcendent Christ and a Missing
Equation When early writers like
Paul speak of their "Christ Jesus", they do so in exclusively
mythological terms. He is the divine Son in heaven, speaking through
scripture, connected to the believer in mystical ways. Christ Jesus is the
very substance of Godhead, pre-existent and the image of the Father. Through
him God effected creation, and his sustaining power holds the universe
together. Christ is also the cosmic redeemer who descended from heaven to
undergo a sacrificial death (an earthly time and place is never stated) and
was subsequently exalted and enthroned by God’s side. Through this saving
drama, Christ has subjugated the demon spirits of the air who harass
humanity, he has brought the souls of the dead righteous out of Shoel, he has
been given kingship over all supernatural and earthly powers, and he has
reconciled an estranged universe to God. He has also been given divine titles
formerly reserved for God. Heady stuff. And all
within two decades or less of the presumed man’s life, a life which has
apparently disappeared from the minds of those early believers in the cosmic
Son, since they provide no mention of it, nor make any connection between the
two. For all that Paul and others have to say about faith, no one ever raises
the need to have faith that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and Messiah.
The very equation: "The divine, spiritual Son = Jesus of Nazareth,
recently on earth," is universally missing. Even the death of Christ
is presented in mythical terms. Passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ("We
believe Jesus died and rose again"), and the apparent designation of
scripture as the source of Paul’s doctrine that Christ died for our sins (1
Corinthians 15:3), suggest that Christ’s death was an article of faith, not a
remembered historical event. The same is true, of course, for the
resurrection. Paul never places Jesus’ death in an historical setting (he
never even tells us that Christ was tried), and in 1 Corinthians 2:8
he assigns responsibility for the crucifixion to the "rulers of this
age" who unwittingly crucified "the Lord of glory" and thereby
ensured their own destined destruction. While the meaning of the
phrase "rulers of this age" has been much debated, weight of
opinion4 has come down on the side of the demon powers who were thought to
inhabit the lower celestial spheres and were responsible for the evils of the
world and its separation from God. This interpretation is supported by
references to the demonic powers in relation to Christ’s work in Colossians
2:15 and Ephesians 3:10; and by chapter 9 of the Ascension of Isaiah, which
describes the descent of the Son through the heavenly spheres and declares
that he shall be hung upon a tree "by the god of that world,"
meaning Satan and his angels of the firmament. They, too, do not know who he
is (9:13,15). [See Supplementary Article
No. 3: Who Crucified Jesus?] 2 Timothy 1:9 is another
passage which alludes to an upper-world, beyond-time setting for the
redeeming act: "God’s grace was given to us in Christ Jesus pro
chronon aionion—before the beginning of time..." Knowledge of it has
only now been brought to light by the revelation of the savior Jesus Christ
(verse 10). The meaning of that Greek phrase is another much-debated item,5
but it would seem to be an attempt to convey that Christ’s redeeming act took
place outside the normal boundaries of time and space, in an upper Platonic
realm of God. [For a fuller discussion
of this "piece", see Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus? and Supplementary Articles No. 3: Who Crucified Jesus? and No. 8: Christ as "Man".] Piece No. 3: A Time of Revelation How do Paul and other
apostles like himself know of their Son and Redeemer? Is it through the words
and deeds of Jesus on earth? Through traditions about him going back to those
who had witnessed his ministry? No, Paul has learned of the Son through
revelation and scripture. "God chose to reveal his Son through me,"
he says in Galatians 1:16. The writer of Ephesians, in 3:4-5, gives us the
main elements of the new revelatory drama: "The mystery about Christ,
which in former generations was not revealed to men, is now disclosed to
dedicated apostles and prophets through the Spirit." Paul points to
scripture (Romans 1:2, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4) as the source of his gospel, his
knowledge about Christ and his saving work. It is God, through the Spirit,
who has supplied this gospel, God who has appointed apostles like Paul to
carry the message. All of it is couched in revelatory language, with words
like phaneroo, apokalupto, epiphaneia. The existence and role of
the divine Son has hitherto been unknown. He has been a secret, a
"mystery" hidden for long ages with God in heaven, now revealed
together with the benefits of his saving act. This is what Paul and the other
epistle writers are constantly telling us: in Romans 3:21f, 16:25-27,
Colossians 1:26 and 2:2, 1 Peter 1:20. They trace nothing back to a human
Jesus and indeed, as in Titus 1:2-3, often leave no room for such a figure in
their picture of the beginnings of the Christian movement. Instead, they speak of
Christ as now present on earth (e.g., 1 John 5:20), sent by God as he
has also sent the Spirit. (The Spirit and the Son are sometimes linked, as in
Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6, Phil. 1:19.) As the Pauline letters convey through
the use of their ubiquitous phrase "in—or through—Christ" (e.g.,
Romans 6:11, Ephesians 1:4, Titus 3:6), Christ is a spiritual medium through
which God is revealing himself and doing his work in the world. He is a
mystical force, part of and interacting with his believers, and he is God’s
agent of salvation. All this lies plainly on the pages of the New Testament
epistles, while beside it stands a void on the Gospel Jesus. [See Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus? and Supplementary Article No. 6: The Source of Paul's Gospel.] Piece No. 4: The Mythological Picture of the Times When we examine the
mythological features supposedly conferred upon an historical Jesus so soon
after his passing, we find that they all have their roots in contemporary
religious philosophy. The developing concept that an increasingly
transcendent God required an intermediary in order to have contact with the
base world of matter had led to the invention of secondary divine forces in
both Greek and Jewish thinking. For the Greeks, as well as philosophers of
Hellenistic Judaism like Philo, the Logos (largely an abstract concept)
became the Platonic intermediary who was the image of God, the force which
had produced creation, and a continual channel of spiritual communion between
Deity and humanity.6 All these properties are present in the early Christian view of the
spiritual Christ. In Jewish thinking, the
figure of personified Wisdom was envisioned as an emanation of God, his communicating
aspect and one who brought knowledge of him and his will to humanity. She
developed her own myths about coming to the world and inviting men and women
to learn from her (as in Proverbs, Baruch, the Wisdom of Solomon). She
eventually became very Logos-like, described as God’s agent of creation and
the divine power that pervades and sustains all things (Wisdom of Solomon
7:22-30). She was God’s throne-partner and his very image. These features, too, are
part of the language about Christ used by Paul and his contemporaries. Christ
sits at the right hand of God, it was through him that "all things came
to be and we through him," (1 Corinthians 8:6); he too sustains the
universe by his word of power (Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15f). Like the Logos
and Sophia (Wisdom), only the Son "knows" the Father, and humanity
can only know God through the Son. [See Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus? and Supplementary Article No. 5: Tracing the Christian Lineage in Alexandria.] Piece No. 5: Savior Deities in a Layered Universe The most popular
expression of religious faith during the era which saw the rise of
Christianity was not the official state religion of "Olympian"
gods, but the salvation cults known as the "mystery religions".
Each of these had its savior god or goddess, such as Mithras, Dionysos,
Attis, Isis, Osiris. Most of these cults possessed myths in which the savior
deity had overcome death in some way (not necessarily raised from it), or
performed some act whose effects guaranteed for the initiates good fortune in
this world and a happy existence in the next. Their rituals included communal
sacred meals, often involving such things as bread and wine and bearing
strong resemblance to Christian sacramentalism (Paul’s Lord’s Supper myth may
well have been influenced by Mithraic counterparts), and the mystical
relationships between initiate and deity are very similar to those expounded
by Paul in his branch of Christian belief. While Christianity and the pagan
cults interacted on one another as time went on, both can be regarded as more
or less independent branches of the same broad, ancient-world tree. [For the mysteries, see Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus? and Supplementary Article No. 6: The Source of Paul's Gospel: Learning of a Sacred Meal, and Response to Miles.] In the period around the
turn of the era, Platonism divided the universe into a timeless, perfect
higher realm (containing the "genuine" reality, accessible to the
intellect), and an imperfect, transient world of matter as its copy. The
mythical activity of the cultic gods was thought to take place in this upper
dimension of reality, having effects on humanity below. (Such Platonic-style
thinking tended to supplant older views of myth which regarded this activity
of gods as having occurred in a primordial, sacred past.) This was combined
with other, more popular views which saw the universe as multi-layered, from
the world of base matter where humans lived, to the highest level of pure
spirit where the ultimate God dwelled. The layers between (usually seven,
plus the air or "firmament" between earth and moon) were populated
by various sorts of angels, spirits and demons. The latter, responsible for
the evils that afflicted mankind and in the Jewish mind associated with
Satan, filled the lowest spirit layer and were regarded as part of the realm
of "flesh",7 cutting off earth from heaven. To perform their salvific
work, the savior gods descended into the lower reaches of the spiritual
world, taking on increasing resemblance to lower and material forms: Attis,
for example (so Julian the "Apostate" relates in Orations V),
to the level just above the moon; Christ, so Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians
2:8, along with the writer of the Ascension of Isaiah 9, to the sphere of
Satan and his powers in the firmament. Here Christ, having assumed the
"likeness" of flesh and a man (Ascension 9:13 and Philippians
2:7-8), was crucified. As passages like Ephesians 6:12 indicate, a cosmic
battle was going on for control of the world, between the forces of darkness
headed by Satan, and the forces of good directed by God. Christ was God’s agent,
his Messiah, in this struggle. The crucifixion was regarded as a decisive
move in the cosmic battle with the demons, wherein Christ subjected these
spirits to himself and restored the unity of the universe (Ephesians 1:10). [See Supplementary Article No. 3: Who Crucified Jesus?] More sophisticated
philosophers like Plutarch and Sallustius regarded the stories of the Greek
salvation cults as allegorical interpretations only, "eternal meanings
clothed in myth." Sallustius, writing in the 4th century, speaks of the
story of Attis as "an eternal cosmic process, not an isolated event of
the past" (On Gods and the World, 9). Paul, while he shows no
sign of regarding the myth and suffering of Jesus in anything but literal
terms, would have been quite capable of placing such redeeming activity in
this upper, spiritual realm, and indeed his language shows every sign of such
an interpretation. [See Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus? and Supplementary Article No. 8: Christ as "Man": section I.] Piece No. 6: A Single Story of Jesus The story of Jesus of
Nazareth is, for the first hundred years of Christianity, to be found only in
the Gospels. Moreover, each of the Gospels is dependent for that story on the
first one written, "Mark". That Matthew and Luke are reworkings of
Mark with extra, mostly teaching, material added, is now almost universally
accepted. Opinion is split as to whether the narrative elements of John are
derived from some Synoptic source as well. But since the Fourth Gospel,
despite some considerable revamping to fit John’s own theology, gives us no
fundamentally different material in its narrative of Jesus’ life from that of
the Synoptics, it is likely that it too goes back ultimately to the first
Gospel for its picture of the "historical Jesus." (The so-called
Discourses and distinctive Johannine Christology may well be the earliest
layer of tradition, originally applied to a spiritual Revealer Son, upon
which the "historical" Synoptic-derived biography has been
overlaid.) We thus have a Christian movement spanning half the empire and a
full century of existence which nevertheless has managed to produce only one
version of the events that are supposed to lie at its inception. Modern scholars often
refer to the common teaching and anecdotal material extracted from Matthew
and Luke, now known by the designation "Q", as a
"Gospel", though it is not a narrative work, nor organized
according to any other fashion than the traditional sayings collection. But
their confident claim that the material of this lost document, or at least
the earliest stratum of it, can be traced back to an historical Jesus and
thus constitutes an independent witness to him is not warranted, as I will
try to demonstrate in Part Three [of this article]. Acts, too, as an
historical witness to Jesus or the beginnings of the Christian movement,
cannot be relied upon. The more recent tendency is to see Acts as a second
century product, probably of Roman provenance, highly tendentious and written
for the purpose of creating a picture of Christian origins traceable to a
unified body of apostles in Jerusalem who were followers of an historical
Jesus. Much of it is sheer fabrication, and highly incompatible with
information found in the letters of Paul. There is no attestion for Acts
prior to the 170s. [See Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of
Nazareth.] Piece No. 7: The Gospels in Limbo The dating of the Gospels
is partly to be determined by their attestion in the wider Christian
writings. Here we run into an astonishing state of affairs, for there is no
clear sign of them before the middle of the second century. No surviving
writer before Justin makes use of narrative documents containing words and
deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, and more often than not Justin’s quotations do
not fit our canonical texts, indicating that such works were still in the
process of development, not to be finalized until some time later. Earlier allusions to
teachings or anecdotes resembling those of the Gospels seem not to be from
written works, but probably reflect developing traditions which themselves
found their way into the written Gospels.8
And Papias’ reference (around 120-130?, as reported by Eusebius) to documents
attributed to "Matthew" and "Mark" cannot be reconciled
with the narrative Gospels which now go by those names, names which were
still unknown to Justin as belonging to his "memoirs of the
Apostles". Moreover, these were documents which Papias himself had not
seen,9
but had learned about from another, making the whole report a distant third
hand. Thus, when scholars
regularly date the Gospels between 65 and 100, they present us with a
scenario in which the story of Jesus’ life as told by the evangelists remains
in a limbo and fails to register on the wider Christian consciousness for
almost a hundred years after it was first committed to paper. A generally
later dating would seem to be required, perhaps with Mark in its initial
version coming no earlier than the year 90. (The standard dating based on
Mark 13 is not necessarily valid, since apocalyptic expectations continued
until at least the end of the century, and Jesus’ suggestion in 13:7 is that
some time must pass after the Jewish War before the End-time arrives.) [See Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of
Nazareth.] Piece No. 8: The Gospels Not History When the content of the Gospels
is examined, two fundamental characteristics emerge to cast serious doubt on
the historicity of their story of Jesus. One is their incompatible
nature. The irreconcilability of such things as the baptism and nativity
stories, the finding of the empty tomb and Jesus’ post-resurrection
appearances, is, of course, universally recognized, but the myriad other
contradictions and disagreements in the accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds
are more than simple divergences in eyewitness testimony or imperfections in
transmission. Since at least the middle of this century, scholars have
recognized that the non-agreement between the evangelists, or between an
evangelist and his sources, is editorial, deliberate. That is, these writers
were consciously redacting their received material according to their own
beliefs and purposes, while many Gospel elements are recognized to be the
evangelists’ own creation. It follows that, if even the purported words of
the Lord could be arbitrarily changed or invented for tendentious reasons,
there could be no thought of preserving "history". These writers
obviously looked upon their stories as artificial products, designed for the
needs of their own communities. Such insights have led the last two
generations of scholars (and more) to label the Gospels "faith
documents", not historical accounts. The second characteristic
is the dependence of so many elements of the Jesus story on passages and
motifs from the Jewish scriptures. The Passion story is a veritable pastiche
of verses from the Psalms, Isaiah and various other prophets. Overall, it
represents the new telling of a tale found repeatedly throughout the Hebrew
bible and related writings. Scholars call it The Suffering and Vindication of
the Innocent Righteous One. The story of Jesus’ fate follows in virtual
lockstep this age-old pattern, its details culled from scriptural passages.
No history in view here. This process of mining the
scriptures was a reflection of a traditional Jewish practice known as
"midrash", in which the writer interpreted and enlarged upon
individual or combinations of passages from the bible to draw out new
meanings and relevance, to offer a new truth for contemporary times. One
midrashic method was to refashion an existing biblical narrative in a new setting.
Thus Jesus was portrayed as a new Moses, with features which paralleled the
stories of Moses. John Shelby Spong (in his Liberating
the Gospels) regards the Synoptic Gospels as midrashic fiction in
virtually every detail, though he believes it was based on an historical man.
Spong, building on earlier research by Michael D. Goulder,10
has argued that the Gospel story was designed to provide suitable lectionary
material for year-round Christian observances, based on the traditional cycle
of Jewish Sabbath and festival themes. This would entirely remove from the
Gospels any semblance of history.[See the book
review of Spong's Liberating the Gospels.] [See Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of
Nazareth.] Piece No. 9: A Diverse Patchwork If Christianity is to be
regarded as a single movement, then it is a wildly schizophrenic one. The
variety and scale of response to one man defies explanation. The
"cultic" expression, epitomized by Paul, apparently abandoned all
interest in the earthly life and identity of Jesus and turned him into a
cosmic Christ who created the world and redeemed it by his death and
resurrection. Individual communities like those responsible for the Q
document and the Gospel of Thomas, ignored that death and resurrection and
present a teaching Jesus, a preacher of the coming Kingdom of God. In what is
probably the earliest stratum of material in the Gospel of John, Jesus is a
type of "descending-ascending" redeemer from heaven who saves by
being God’s revealer (though he reveals nothing about him except that Jesus
is his Son and representative); later, John equates Jesus with the Greek
Logos. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus is the heavenly High Priest who
offers his sacrifice in a heavenly sanctuary, an expression of
Alexandrian-style Platonism. In the Didache, Jesus is reduced to a
non-suffering intermediary servant/child of God. He is presumed to lie behind
the Wisdom-Word-Son mysticism of the Odes of Solomon. In the diverse strands
of Gnosticism, Jesus (or Christ) is a mythical part of the heavenly pleroma
of Godhead, sometimes a revealer akin to John’s, sometimes surfacing under
other names like Derdekeas or the Third Illuminator.11
How many other forms of "Jesus" did not survive in extant documents
is impossible to tell, though Paul in his letters hints at divergent groups
and apostles all over the place, who "preach another Jesus" so
different from his own that he can lay curses upon them and accuse them of
being agents of Satan. Scholars like Burton Mack12
think to find behind the Gospels and other documents all sorts of little
groups preserving and formulating this or that type of tradition about Jesus
and viewing him in different ways. The Jesus extracted from Q and assigned to
a Q community is only the most prominent of these. All this fragmentation of
an historical man, the breakup of Jesus into a multitude of component parts,
is an unprecedented phenomenon, and not only does no document exist which
embodies such a process or even gives a clue as to why it took place, each of
these component parts seems blissfully unaware of the others. Paul’s letters
give no hint that there were communities centered around the very elements of
Jesus’ life and preaching which he had abandoned as of no interest. On the
other hand, communities like that of Q seem impervious to the cosmic
dimensions which the cultic circles have bestowed upon their preacher of the
Kingdom. Only the evangelists (which is to say, the first of them, Mark)
thought to bring these disparate elements together. The question is, where
did all the various elements come from, and were they associated with a human
Jesus in their pre-Gospel stages? [See Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of
Nazareth, and the book review of
Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament?] Piece No. 10: The Second Century If the historical Jesus
seems unknown to all in the first century but the early evangelists (and, in
a different sense, the later redactors of Q), the first stirrings of a
"knowledge" of an historical Jesus emerge soon after the second
century gets under way. Ignatius in his letters (by tradition written around
107 while on his way to martyrdom in Rome) offers the earliest non-Gospel
reference to Jesus as a man born of Mary at the time of Herod and crucified
by Pontius Pilate. Shortly after, Tacitus’ reference appears, the first in
non-Christian literature identifying Jesus as an historical man who was
executed at the time of Pilate. Polycarp (writing about 130?), reflects the
same outlook as Ignatius, and the Epistle of Barnabas (c. 120?) seems to
regard Jesus as an historical man, but the writer is still dependent on
scripture for much of what he assigns to this figure. If Eusebius is to be
relied upon, Papias too reflects a belief in an historical Jesus (in Asia
Minor), and he witnesses (at second hand) to some circulating collections of
sayings and possibly anecdotes that have become associated with this figure. And yet, there are major
Christian writings of the second century which fail to present an historical
Jesus. Both the Didache (which may have roots in the late first century) and
the monumental Shepherd of Hermas are devoid of any such figure; the latter
never utters the name Jesus. Even the New Testament epistles generally dated
in the early second century, 2 Peter and the three Pastorals, seem to lack an
historical man. (The sole reference to Pilate in the New Testament epistles,
1 Timothy 6:13, has been examined with some suspicion by certain commentators13,
since it doesn’t seem to fit the context well. I regard it, along with 1
Thessalonians 2:15-16, as an interpolation.) Most astonishingly, all
the major apologists before the year 180, with the sole exception of Justin
(and a minor apologist from Syria, Aristides), fail to include an historical
Jesus in their defences of Christianity to the pagans. This includes Tatian
in his pre-Diatessaron days. Instead, the apologists bear witness to a
Christian movement which is grounded in Platonic philosophy and Hellenistic
Judaism, preaching the worship of the monotheistic Jewish God and a
Logos-type Son; the latter is a force active in the world who serves as
revealer and intermediary between God and humanity. Theophilus of Antioch,
Athenagoras of Athens, Tatian in his Apology, Minucius Felix in Rome (or
North Africa) offer no beliefs in an historical figure crucified as an
atoning act, nor in a resurrection. (Nor do they have anything in common with
Paul.) In not one of them does the name Jesus appear, and none speak of an
incarnation of their Logos. Theophilus explains the meaning of the name
"Christian" as signifying that "we are anointed with the oil
of God." Minucius Felix heaps scorn
on any doctrine of a crucified man as divine and redeemer (indicating that he
is aware of some who hold to such a thing), while Tatian alludes to
"stories" told by both Greeks and Christians, implying that both
are of the same nature, mythical tales not to be taken literally. Only Justin
has embraced the story and the figure as presented in some early form of
written Gospel, but even he, in recounting his conversion experience of a
couple of decades earlier (Dialogue with Trypho, 3-8), shows a
telltale void about belief in an historical man in the faith movement he
joined. Into Trypho’s mouth (8:6) he places the accusation that "you
invent a Christ for yourselves." [See The Second Century Apologists] Part Two If
these are the salient pieces of the documentary record of the time, how have
scholars traditionally tried to put them together? Almost universally, they
have taken the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, which is attested to only in
Gospels beginning in the late first century, and placed him prior to the
earliest records—the letters of Paul and other epistles of the New
Testament—which themselves contain no sign of him. To compensate for this
absence in the early record, they have extracted elements from the Gospels
and attempted to trace roots of these back to the supposed time of Jesus,
thinking to uncover words and deeds which can be attributed to him. These
attempted excavations will be evaluated later. But the other anomaly
which scholars have had to address is perhaps even more challenging. If Jesus
died around 30 CE, and was no more than a charismatic preacher of the Kingdom
(not too charismatic, since he sank without a trace in all the non-Christian
record of the first century), how are we to explain the manner in which he is
presented in the earliest surviving Christian writings which begin no more
than two decades after his death, and which would seem to contain older
elements reaching back to a time when he had scarcely been laid in his grave? Scholars have long
realized that early Christian writers present us with a thoroughly divine
Christ. They acknowledge that Paul, together with the cultic circles he
represents, has made a leap so far beyond the human Jesus portrayed in the
Gospels that the latter figure has been completely lost sight of. Herman
Ridderbos is only one of a multitude of voices expressing the same resounding
perplexity: "No one who examines
the Gospels...and then reads the epistles of Paul can escape the impression
that he is moving in two entirely different spheres....When Paul writes of
Jesus as the Christ, historical and human traits appear to be obscure, and
Christ appears to have significance only as a transcendent divine
being." (Paul and Jesus, p.3). He goes on to ask: "Jesus was
not dead the length of a human lifetime before his stature was not only
infinitely increased, but also entirely changed. How did this come
about?" Others, such as Rudolf
Bultmann,14
have put the situation in different terms: that the early church almost
immediately lost all interest in the human life lived by its Master and
placed its entire focus on his nature and role as the Crucified and Risen
Lord. Not even the pinnacle of salvation history, the event of the cross, is
located upon the hill of Calvary, nor his resurrection placed in the context
of an empty tomb outside Jerusalem. Norman Perrin15
has presented a picture of the early church which made no real distinction,
he says, between the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ, seeing both
figures as continuous. This made no clarification necessary between what
Jesus on earth had said and what he continued to say in his new spiritual
state (an attempt to explain why nothing of the former actually appears,
stated as such, in the record). In all these scenarios,
there are difficulties which commentators have been reluctant to face,
difficulties which make many of their assumptions virtually impossible. Against the Jewish Grain The first difficulty is
that the vast majority of the earliest Christians were, of course, Jews.
"God is One," says the most fundamental of Jewish theological
tenets. Moreover, the Jewish mind had an obsession against associating
anything human with God. He could not be represented by even the suggestion
of a human image, and Jews in their thousands had bared their necks before
Pilate’s swords simply to protest against the mounting of military standards bearing
Caesar’s image within sight of the Temple. The idea that a man was a literal
part of God would have been met by any Jew with horror and apoplexy. And yet we are to believe
that Jews were immediately led to elevate Jesus of Nazareth to divine levels
unprecedented in the entire history of human religion. We are to believe not
only that they identified a crucified criminal with the ancient God of
Abraham, but that they went about the empire and practically overnight
converted huge numbers of other Jews to the same outrageous—and thoroughly
blasphemous—proposition. Within a handful of years of Jesus’ supposed death,
we know of Christian communities in many major cities of the empire, all
presumably having accepted that a man they had never met, crucified as a
political rebel on a hill outside Jerusalem, had risen from the dead and was
in fact the pre-existent Son of God, creator, sustainer, and redeemer of the
world. Since many of the
Christian communities Paul worked in existed before he got there, |
|
El
Trencaclosques de Jesús No
Hi Havia Cap Jesús Històric? pel
Comte[1][1] Doherty Les còpies personals d'aquest article es poden fer
mentre es conservi identificació d'autors. Retorn a Pàgina de Casa[2][2] L'article següent apareixia al Diari de Crítica Més
Alta[3][3], Caiguda[4][4] 1997, publicada per l'Institut per a
Estudis Crítics Més Alts basats a Dibuixava[5][5] Universitat a Madison, Nova Jersey
(vegi Enllaç Recomanat a extrem de Pàgina de Casa). S'escrivia[6][6] a instàncies dels editors, Darrell J. Doughty i
Robert M. Price. * EL TRENCACLOSQUES DE JESÚS pel
Comte Doherty Part
Un Aquell Jesús era un home que vivia i predicat a Palestine[9][9] durant primers del primer segle, qui
causava a un moviment de fe centrat a si que es passaria a convertir en una
de les grans religions del món, podria semblar que fos una proposició bastant
sincera[10][10]. La idea és en la base de gairebé 2000
anys de creença cristiana i roman el punt de partida per a gairebé tot
l'estudi erudit d'orígens cristians. I tanmateix, una suposició atenta tan
simple a la prova documental és una tasca extremadament difícil[11][11], un trencaclosques la solució del qual
ha demostrat tossudament, perplexingly, elusiu maddeningly. Si podríem reduir la complexitat de l'evidència a un
cert nombre d'elements identificables, incloent-hi l'escena més àmplia dels
temps en què sorgia la cristiandat, podríem aconseguir una llista de deu
peces de trencaclosques: Peça
Núm. 1: Una Conspiració de Silenci Al segle de primera part de correspondència
cristiana[12][12], incloent-hi cartes atribuïdes a Paul
i unes altres epístoles sota noms com Peter, James i John, la història
d'Evangeli no es pot trobar. Quan aquests escriptors parlen del seu Crist
diví, els ecos de Jesús de Nazareth són virtualment inoïbles, incloent-hi
detalls d'una vida i ministeri, les circumstàncies de la seva mort,
l'atribució d'alguns ensenyaments a ell. Déu mateix s'identifica sovint com
la font d'ètica cristiana. Ningú no parla de miracles realitzats per Jesús,
les seves prediccions apocalíptiques, les seves vistes sobre qualsevol dels
grans assumptes del temps. El mateix fet que predicava en persona mai no
s'esmenta, mai no s'apel·la contra la seva cita d'apòstols[13][13] o la seva directiva per transmetre el
missatge a les nacions del món a. Ningú no recorda a la vida de Jesús i
ministeri com la gènesi del moviment cristià, o com el punt de pivot
d'història de salvació. Els grans caràcters[14][14] de la història de Jesús, Mary la seva
mare, Joseph el seu pare, John el seu herald, Judas el seu traïdor, Pilate el
seu executioner: cap d'ells no rep una menció a tota la correspondència
cristiana del primer segle. Pel que fa a llocs sagrats, no n'hi ha cap per
ser trobat, perquè no un escriptor d'epístola solter respira una paraula
sobre algun de la carrera dels llocs de Jesús[15][15], ni tan sols Calvary on moria pels
pecats del món, o la tomba buida on pujava dels morts per garantir una
resurrecció universal. El clar que l'emplaçament de Crist en temps recents,
l'acusació a 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 que els jueus a Judea havien matat el
Senyor Jesús, s'hagi rebutjat com a interpolació per la majoria del liberal
scholars,1 d'avui mentre aquest episodi d'Evangeli Paul sembla al·ludir a,
les paraules de Jesús sobre el pa i vi al que anomena "el Sopar del
Senyor" a 1 Corinthians 11:23f, pot ser interpretat com una escena
mítica que Paul es fa que sigui desenvolupat durant revelació percebuda (vegi
Peça Núm. 5). Altrament, cap escriptor no-Gospel del primer segle no fa cap
declaració de quin connectaria el Fill espiritual diví i Crist tots ells
venerar i mirar a per a salvació, amb un home que havia caminat últimament
les sorres de Palestine, ensenyada i prophecied i miracles realitzats, un
home executat per Pontius Pilate a Good Friday a fora de Jerusalem, per
aixecar-se d'una tomba pròxima en matí de diumenge de Pasqua. Aquesta
"conspiració de silenci" és tan penetrant com és sorprenent. [Vegi en
Part Un: Una Conspiració de Silenci als Articles Principals.] L'Evangeli Jesús i la seva història falta igualment
del disc no cristià del temps. Philo d'Alexandria, l'historiador jueu Justus
de Tiberias, Pliny l'Ancià com col·leccionista de fenòmens naturals suposats,
primers satirists romans i filòsofs: tot és silenciós. Pliny el Més Jove, a
la seva carta a Trajan des de Bithynia c.112, no parla de Crist en termes
històrics. El passatge famós de Josephus en Antiguitats 18 és admès ser,
mentre roman, una interpolació cristiana, i arguments que una referència
original a Jesús qualsevol estava dret allà o es pot destil·lar del present,
enfonsar sobre el silenci universal sobre tal referència de part de cristià
comentaristes fins al 4t century[16][16].2 Pel que Fa a la referència en
Antiguitats 20 a James com "germà de Jesús, aquest anomenava (el)
Crist", aquest passatge també óssos les marques de cristià interference[17][17].3 que La frase originalment utilitzada
per Josephus pot haver estat la mateixa designació que Paul dóna a James
(Galatians 1:19), és a dir "germà del Senyor", que s'hauria referit
no a una relació de germans amb Jesús, però a James ' col·locar en la
fraternitat de Jerusalem, alguna cosa que àmpliament era sabut probablement.
Un copyist cristià podria haver canviat més tard la frase (sota la influència
de Matthew 1:16) per deixar-lo més "històric" després que Jesús de
Nazareth es desenvolupés. [Per a un examen complet (i parcial repensar) de la
pregunta Josephus, vegi Article Suplementari Cap 10: Josephus Unbound:
Reobrint la Pregunta Josephus.] L'historiador romà Tacitus (Annals 15:44), el primer
escriptor pagà per parlar de Jesús com a home és crucificat per Pilate[18][18]. Més aviat que la informació que representava
que remenava dins d'un arxiu (els romans a penes s'haurien quedat un disc de
les crucifixions incomptables al voltant de l'imperi que té al segle[19][19]), això es derivava probablement
d'hearsay[20][20] cristià sobre un humà fundador[21][21] del moviment, novament circulant en el
Roma del dia de Tacitus (c.115). D'altra banda, hi ha els que qüestionen
l'autenticitat d'aquest passatge també. Al voltant del mateix temps,
l'informe de Suetonius (Claudius, 25) sobre jueus a Roma que fan campanya
sota "Chrestus" en el regnat de Claudius és tan breu i incert, pot
no ser sobre Crist i cristians gens[22][22]. En qualsevol cas, no presenciaria a
un Jesús històric. Pel que fa a les referències a Jesús al Talmud jueu:
tot i que alguns comentaris s'atribueixen als rabins que florien al voltant
de l'extrem del primer segle (de cap manera més primer), no s'escrivien abans
del tercer segle, i així són infiables. En qualsevol cas, són tan críptics i
de la marca, difícilment es poden identificar amb la xifra de Gospel[23][23]. [Per al testimoni no cristià de Jesús, vegi Postdata
als Articles Principals.] Peça
Núm. 2: Un Crist Transcendent i una Equació Desapareguda Quan els primers escriptors com Paul parlen de
"el seu Crist Jesús", fan això en termes exclusivament mitològics.
És el Fill diví en el cel, parlant a través d'escriptures, connectades al
creient en camins místics. Crist Jesús és la mateixa substància de Godhead,
preexistent i la imatge del Pare. A través d'ell Déu efectuava creació, i el
seu poder que sosté manté unit l'univers. Crist és també el redeemer còsmic
que baixava del cel per sofrir una mort expiatòria (un temps terrenal i lloc
mai no es manifesta) i s'exaltava posteriorment i entronitzava al costat del
costat de Déu. A través d'aquest drama d'estalvi[24][24], Crist ha subjugat els alcohols[25][25] de dimoni de l'aire que assetjar
humanitat, ha portat les ànimes del totalment recte fora de Shoel, se li ha
donat kingship per sobre de tots els poders supranaturals i terrenals, i ha
conciliat un univers estranged amb Déu. També se li han donat títols divins
anteriorment reservats per a Déu. Matèria embriagadora. I tot dins de dues dècades o
menys de la vida de l'home suposat, una vida que ha desaparegut aparentment
de les ments d'aquells primers creients en el Fill còsmic, ja que no
proporcionen cap menció d'això, ni fan qualsevol connexió entre el dos. Per a
tot aquell Paul i han de dir altres sobre fe[26][26], ningú mai no alça la necessitat de
tenir fe de la qual Jesús de Nazareth era el Fill Déu i Messiah. La mateixa equació:
"El diví, Fill espiritual = Jesús de Nazareth, últimament a terra",
està enyorant universalment. Fins i tot la mort de Crist es presenta en termes
mítics. Passatges com 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ("Creiem que Jesús moria i
s'aixecava una altra vegada[27][27]"), i la designació aparent[28][28] d'escriptures com la font de la
doctrina de Paul aquell Crist morta per als nostres pecats (1 Corinthians
15:3), suggerir que la mort de Crist era un article de fe, no un esdeveniment
històric recordat. El mateix és veritable, naturalment, per a la resurrecció.
Paul mai no posa la mort de Jesús en una escena històrica (mai ni tan sols no
ens diu que Crist es provava), i a 1 Corinthians 2:8 assigna responsabilitat
a la crucifixió per als "governants d'aquesta edat" que involuntàriament
crucificaven "el Senyor de glòria" i així asseguraven que el seu
propi destinava destrucció. Mentre que el significat de la frase
"governants d'aquesta edat" s'ha discutit molt, el pes de opinion4
ha criticat el costat dels poders de dimoni que eren pensats habitar les
esferes celestes més baixes i eren responsables dels mals del món i la seva
separació de Déu. Donen suport a aquesta interpretació les referències als
poders demoníacs en relació amb el treball de Crist a Colossians 2:15 i Ephesians
les 3:10; i pel capítol 9 de l'Ascensió d'Isaiah, que descriu el descens del
Fill a través de les esferes celestials i declara que se'l penjarà a un arbre
"pel déu d'aquell món", significant Satan i els seus àngels del
firmament. També, no saben qui és (9:13,15). [Vegi Article Suplementari
Núm. 3: Qui Crucificava Jesús?] 2 Timothy 1:9 és un altre passatge que al·ludeix a
un món alt, escena de més enllà hora per a l'acte que redimeix: "La
gràcia de Déu se'ns donava en aionion-before prochronon de Jesús de Crist el
començament de temps... " El coneixement d'això ha estat descobert només
ara per la revelació del salvador Jesus Christ (vers 10). El significat
d'aquella frase grega és un altre item,5 molt discutit però semblaria que per
ser un intent de transmetre l'acte que redimeix d'aquell Crist tingui lloc a
fora dels límits normals de temps i espai, en un regne Platonic alt de Déu. [Per a una discussió més plena d'aquesta
"peça", vegi'n en Part Dos: Qui Era Crist Jesús? i Articles
Suplementaris Núm. 3: Qui Crucificava Jesús? i Núm. 8: Crist com
"Home".] Peça Núm. 3: Un Temps de
Revelació [Vegi'N en Part Dos: Qui Era Crist Jesús? i
Article Suplementari Núm. 6: La Font del Gospel de Paul.] Peça Núm. 4: La Fotografia
Mitològica dels Temps Quan examinem els trets mitològics suposadament
conferits a un Jesús històric així aviat després del seu mort, trobem que
tots ells tinguin les seves arrels en la filosofia religiosa contemporània.
El concepte que es desenvolupa que un Déu cada vegada més transcendent exigia
que un mitjancer per tenir contacte amb el món de base de matèria havia
conduït a la invenció de secundari endevinar forces en tant grec com jueu
pensar[30][30]. Perquè als grecs, així com als
filòsofs de judaisme Hellenistic els agrada[31][31] Philo, el Logos (en gran part un
concepte abstracte) convenia al mitjancer Platonic que era la imatge de Déu,
la força que havia produït creació, i un canal continu de comunió espiritual
entre Divinitat i humanity.6 en el qual Totes aquestes propietats són
presents la primera vista cristiana de l'espiritual Crist. En jueu pensar, la xifra de Saviesa personificada
s'imaginava com a emanació de Déu, el seu aspecte que es comunicava i un que
donaven coneixement d'ell i la seva voluntat a la humanitat. Desenvolupava
els seus propis mites aproximadament venint al món i convidant homes i dones
per assabentar-se d'ella (com a Proverbis, Baruch, la Saviesa de Solomon).
Finalment es convertia molt agrada Logos, descrit com l'agent de Déu de
creació i el poder diví que envaeix i sosté totes les coses (Saviesa de Solomon
7:22-30). Era el soci de trons de Déu i la seva mateixa imatge. Aquests trets, també, són part de la llengua sobre
Crist utilitzada per Paul i els seus contemporanis. Crist seu a la mà
correcta de Déu, era a través d'ell que "totes les coses vinguin a ser i
nosaltres a través d'ell", (1 Corinthians 8:6); també sosté l'univers
prop de la seva paraula de poder (Hebreus 1:3, Colossians 1:15f). Com el
Logos i Sophia (Saviesa), només el Fill "sap" que el Pare, i
humanitat només puguin conèixer Déu a través del Fill. [Vegi'N en Part Dos: Qui Era Crist Jesús? i Article
Suplementari Núm. 5: Localitzant el Llinatge Cristià a Alexandria.] Peça Núm. 5: Divinitats de
Salvadors en un Univers per Capes L'expressió més popular de fe religiosa durant l'era
quina serra la pujada de cristiandat no era la religió estatal oficial de
déus "Olympian", sinó els cultes de salvació coneguts com les
"religions de misteri". Cada un d'aquests tenia el seu déu salvador
o deessa, com Mithras, Dionysos, Attis, Isis, Osiris. La majoria d'aquests cultes
posseïen mites en els quals la divinitat de salvadors havia vençut mort
d'alguna manera (no necessàriament alçada d'això), o realitzaven algun acte
els efectes del qual garantien per l'inicia bona fortuna en aquest món i una
existència feliç en el pròxim. Els seus rituals incloïen àpats sagrats
comunals, que sovint implicaven tals coses com pa i vi i que tenien semblança
dura amb sacramentalism cristià (El mite de Sopar del Senyor de Paul pot
haver estat influït bé per homòlegs Mithraic), i les relacions místiques
entre inicien i divinitat són molt similar als explicats per Paul en la seva
branca de creença cristiana. Mentre que la cristiandat i els cultes pagans
interaccionaven l'un sobre l'altre mentre el temps continuava, els dos es
poden considerar com branques més o menys independents del mateix ample,
arbre de món antic. [Per als misteris, vegi'n en Part Dos: Qui Era
Crist Jesús? i Article Suplementari Núm. 6: La Font del Gospel de Paul: Assabentant-se
d'un Àpat Sagrat, i Resposta a Milles.] En el període al voltant de la volta de l'era,
Platonisme dividia l'univers en un regne més alt etern, perfecte (contenint
la realitat "genuïna", accessible a l'intel·lecte), i un món
imperfecte, transitori de matèria com la seva còpia. Es creia que l'activitat
mítica dels déus cultic tenia lloc en aquesta dimensió alta de realitat,
tenint efectes sobre humanitat sota. (Tal estil Platònic que pensava tendia a
substituir vistes més velles de mite que veia aquesta activitat de déus com
haver ocorregut en un passat primordial, sagrat.) Això es combinava amb
altre, més vistes populars que veien l'univers com multi per capes, des del
món de matèria de base on els humans vivien, fins al nivell més alt d'alcohol
pur on el definitiu Déu viscut. Les capes entre (normalment set, més l'aire o
"firmament" entre terra i lluna) eren poblats per diverses classes
d'àngels, alcohols i dimonis. L'últim, responsable dels mals que afligien
humanitat i en la ment jueva associada amb Satan, omplien la capa d'alcohol
més baixa i es consideraven com part del regne de "flesh",7 que
tallava terra del cel. Per realitzar el seu treball salvific, els déus de
salvadors baixaven al més baix arriba del món espiritual, presa augmentant
semblança per abaixar-se i formes materials: Attis, per exemple (així Julian
l'"Apòstata" es refereix a Orations V), al nivell just al damunt de
la lluna; Crist, així Paul indica a 1 Corinthians 2:8, junt amb l'escriptor
de l'Ascensió d'Isaiah 9, a l'esfera de Satan i als seus poders en el
firmament. Aquí Crist, que havia assumit la "semblança" de polpa i
un home (Ascensió 9:13 i Philippians 2:7-8), es crucificava. Com als
passatges els agraden indiquen Ephesians 6:12, una batalla còsmica estava
continuant per a control del món, entre les forces de foscor encapçalada per
Satan, i les forces de bo dirigit per Déu. Crist era l'agent de Déu, el seu
Messiah, en aquesta lluita. La crucifixió es considerava com a moviment
decisiu en la batalla còsmica amb els dimonis, on Crist sotmès aquests
alcohols a si mateix i restaurava la unió de l'univers (Ephesians 1:10). [Vegi
Article Suplementari Núm. 3: Qui Crucificava Jesús?] [Vegi'N en Part Dos: Qui Era Crist Jesús? i Article Suplementari Núm. 8: Crist com
"Home": secció jo.] |