Historical Jesus versus Christ: Relevant to Ripperologists?

[Jonathan H]

The source called by Biblical scholars 'Q' (from the word quelle meaning source) is based on St. Matthew and St. Luke sharing material that does not originate with St. Mark.

The Temple episode may have been lifted by the Gospel writers from Josephus' story of Jesus Ben Ananias--about thirty years after Pilate--and redacted back into the tale of Jesus of Nazareth.

This 'other' Jesus also faced trial before a Roman procurator (Albinus) due to pressure from the High Council. The Roman had the local prophet scourged and wanted to release him (and did so).

Sound familiar?

[GUT]

G'Day all

Interesting reading but review these references before you decide:

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004

Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould,

Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145 "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

[Jonathan H]

That's all fine, and Grant is a brillaint writer, but Crossan turned Jesus into a kind of wandering cynic-sage very at odds with the same Gospels he claims are backed by Josephus (who does not mention him) and Tacitus (who mentions only what later Crhsitians believed) that Jesus of Nazareth was definitely crucified.

[GUT]

G'Day Jonathan

I might have misunderstood the thread but I thought the issue was the historical Jesus and not the Biblical Jesus.

[Jonathan H]

Whether there was a Jesus of Nazareth (or even a Nazareth) is a matter of historical debate.

Here is a absic starting point:

There are no extant sources by people, who lived at the time of Jesus or just after, who mention such a figure.

[MrBarnett]

Whether there was a Jesus of Nazareth (or even a Nazareth) is a matter of historical debate.

Here is a absic starting point:

There are no extant sources by people, who lived at the time of Jesus or just after, who mention such a figure.

Unless you consider the Essene Teacher of Righteousness a prototype of Jesus.

MrB

[Jonathan H]

Fair point, but I don't.

In my opinion the connection is tenuous and unconvincing. Have you ever read Barbara Theiring? God, her revisionist take is just so much nonsense, yet was taken seriously in some quarters.

Of course she's Gibbon compared to Dan Brown.

The one potential link between the Essenes and a singular historical figure behind 'Christ' is they were both apocalyptic in ideology (well, St. Mark is, whereas by the time you get to St. John that element has been largely dropped).

[MrBarnett]

Hi JonH,

The TOR was at odds with the temple authorities in Jerusalem. He believed they had sold out and become 'seekers after smooth things'. He took his followers into the desert where they lived a communal life, referring to themselves as the meek or poor in spirit. They practised a form of ritual bathing and ate a ritual meal. The TOR identified himself with the patriarch Joshua(Greek form Jesus). The TOR was betrayed by an insider and was ultimately brought down by a 'wicked priest'.

Jesus's ministry in a nutshell, if you take out the virgin birth, walking on water, turning water into wine etc.

Dan Brown??? I prefer someone a little more respectable like John M. Allegro

On a personal note, and without wanting to offend anyone or belittle their religious beliefs, I have outgrown the flaxen-haired miracle worker that I was brought up to believe in. The idea of a fundamenatlist Jewish trouble maker seems at once more credible and more interesting.

Just as I have long since ditched the top-hatted freemason in favour of an ordinary bloke with a peculiar hobby.

MrB

[Jonathan H]

We will have to agree to disagree about the historical Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness, and Druitt did not wear a top hat while trawling for victims in the East End.

[Barnaby]

Thanks for the corrections to my prior post about Q. I was writing off the top of my head without referencing the material.

I also agree that most historians believe it is much more probable that a historical Jesus existed than did not.

This interest in Jesus, however, is either missing the point of the original thread or is more interesting than it (admittedly, probably the latter).

Person A believes that Jack the Ripper is an anonymous Polish Jew. Person B believes that Jack the Ripper is of an upper (possibly Royal?) class. After a long time believing that Person A is more or less correct, I'm coming to grips that BOTH are actually correct. It is what you make it once we divorce the historicity from the cultural phenomenon. Which leads to my question: Is this bad? Or is an analysis of the legend actually a more important area of study than the history of the actual killer(s)?

[Jonathan H]

Arguably we only have the letters of Paul who as a primary source for the decade or so immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus.

The problem is that St. Paul does not mention almost anything biographical about the man; not a miracle, not a parable, nor the specific circumstances of the execution (or that it involved Pilate, or any Romans for that matter).

This leads to the minority viewpoint among some scholars and lay people that Paul has nothing to mention--he was describing a purely other-worldly figure who would come in glory and power as the world ended.

The point of this thread was, I thought, about the tension between the historical figure and the Christ of Faith.

Are they the same?

Are they completely different?

Does the historical truth lie somewhere in between?

The majority view among scholars and lay people is that Jesus the man became, to a disputed extent, clothed in legend and myth (eg. I believe he was the Messiah but not that he walked on water, etc).

A minority view is that it evolved the other way round: Christ began as a literally-believed myth and was turned, after the fall of Jerusalem, into a man (who was also divine).

Re: the Ripper.

Let me put this to you.

Absolutely back to basics.

Who says the 'Jack the Ripper' case, or cases, remained a mystery?

Were they right who said this?

Why is their later opinion more valid than those who earlier said it was solved?

Perhaps their later opinion is more valid--but if so, why is this so?

[Stephen Thomas]

Plato had a handle on such things over 2000 years ago. It's known as the 'Noble Lie' theory which has the intellectual elite of any society cooking all sorts of mumbo jumbo to keep people in line. Christianity was invented by a bunch of clever Greeks in Alexandria.

[Jonathan H]

I appreciate what you are getting at, and you may well be right, but I think the Greeks would have come up with a much more sophisticated messiah-myth than the one a crumbling Rome ended up adopting--or being taken hostage by--as it's anti-technology, anti-classical learning, totalitarian ideology destroyed so much of what the same people had created.

[Mayerling]

Fascinating thread here. I always have been willing to accept the existance of an historical person named Jesus (or most likely Jeshua ben Joseph or something like that). The stories about turning water into wine and feeding hundreds at a poorly catered occasion are just nice stories, which a devoted Christian should be allowed to believe. My reason is simple - there was an entire earlier book called the Torah (with 34 additional books) that are usually collected as "The Old Testament". Before striking at the historical v. the religious Jesus, we have to also strike at the historical v. the religious Moses. Did he really write those first five books of the Old Testament? Did he actually talk to a burning bush?

Some time ago (in the last decade or so) I read that only recently has their been any archeological evidence of the existance of the House of David, and he was closer in time than Moses was. And so, for any suggestive reading on the historical Moses I am left with Freud's study, "Moses and Monotheism", linking Moses (who was supposedly brought up in Pharoah's palace) to Akhnaton and his peculiar from of monotheistic worship.

I might add that a modern minded Isamic scholar would have similar problems with Mohammed the man v. Mohammed the messanger of Allah.

Goes down the list for these figures: Buddha, Confuscius, Zoroaster...and heaven help us about the ancient pagan Gods and figures. Here you might make the mistake of believing von Daniken and his "Chariots of the Gods".

Unless further discoveries pop up (and they might) we are stuck trying to make do with fragmentary and questionable source material. Actually Whitechapel, being only 120 years ago, is far easier to tackle.

By the way Jonathan, why couldn't Montague ever wear a top hat if he was walking in the East End? I think he is wearing a hat (a cricket cap?) in one picture - we don't have that many photos of him. He could have had a top hat or a bowler or a homberg.

Jeff

[Jonathan H]

It is one of the great mysteries, if not the greatest, as to whether an historical figure, a flesh-and-blood man became a god, or really was divine all along, or was a myth turned into a man, and so on.

For anybody interested, I would recommend for further reading:

'The Mystery of the Kingdom of God' (1906) by Dr. Albert Schweitzer

'Sea of Faith' (1984) by Don Cupitt

'The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?' (2003) by Robert M. Price

To Mayerling

Druitt could have worn whatever he chose while trawling for victims in the East End. According to Joseph Lawende the toff barrister dressed down--as a seaman with a peaked cap.

How do I know that? I don't. All I know is that Sir Melville Macnaghten went to extraordinary lengths over several years to obscure and finally bury the Lawende sighting.