| Age of Reality Truth, Love, Justice and Peace to All |
| This site is dedicated to the advancement of Atheistic Humanism |
| And a New Enlightenment in which mankind is free from ignorance, superstition and fear! |
|
| Age of Reality Truth, Love, Justice and Peace to All |
| This site is dedicated to the advancement of Atheistic Humanism |
| And a New Enlightenment in which mankind is free from ignorance, superstition and fear! |
|
|
CHRISTIANITY
INTRODUCTION
Christianity is one of three religions that claims its origins in the monotheistic beliefs of Abraham. The other two religions, of course, are Judaism and Islam.
Christians, of course, allege that a man named Jesus Christ lived from a few years before the beginning of the common era to about 30 C.E. He is alleged to be divine, to have preached for one or more years near the end of his life, that he met death through crucifixion and then was resurrected. I will examine the whole story and, of course, my investigation will be with a great deal of skepticism.
The sacred text of Christianity is the Holy Bible. The New Testament relates directly to the religion. The Old Testament is based upon the Jewish Tanach and appears to have been added to put the religion in historical context and because there are some references in the New Testament to passages now found in the Old Testament. The story of how the Christian Bible was put together is a fascinating story which I will examine.
The general story of Christianity will be told in this section, but there are some areas that require their own sections and can be linked from the menu on the right. They are:
EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
The orthodox story of the Christian church movement is that following the ministry of Jesus Christ on earth and after his death, he appeared several times to his disciples and others, that he set in motion the formation of the early Christian church, that the disciples spread out around the known world setting up local churches, that Jesus came to Saul of Tarsus in a vision and enlisted him as an apostle who ministered primarily to the gentiles, that though persecuted mercilessly by the Romans they persevered and eventually gained acceptance as the church of the known world at the times of Roman emperors Constantine and Theodosius. Of course, I am using the term Christian here in a generic sense to represent the entire Christian movement.
What is clear, however, that this is a very sanitized version and reality was much different. In reality there was a rich variety in beliefs related to Jesus, Christ and Jesus Christ. It is clear that the development of Christian dogma was not nearly as orderly as one might think from reading the Book of Acts, for instance. There was a lengthy struggle among the individuals and groups representing those various beliefs and that beliefs now considered to be heretical may well have constituted the majority if one could combine them against what is now considered to be orthodox.
Some of the early Christian movements that lost out to what is now orthodox Christianity were:
JESUS CHRIST
Preliminary Comments
Most Christians believe in a triune God consisting of the father, son and holy spirit. Christianity, however, would not exist without a belief that a real man, Jesus Christ, the son, existed in the early years of the first century of the common era. This web site, of course, is skeptical of all claims made by the various religions, so we will be looking at the evidence that exists for believing that a real divine son of God, Jesus Christ, actually existed. Scholarship as well as propaganda about Jesus Christ abounds. Two thousand years is a long time for both to accumulate.
Most people today believe that there is only one Jesus story and that is the one that can be found in the New Testament of the Bible. The New Testament or Biblical Jesus is what remains today and is what we now consider to be orthodox, but in the early centuries of Christianity, there were other versions of the Jesus story which are now considered to be heretical. It was in the fourth century of the common era that the orthodox story of Jesus won out over the other stories.
Once established in the fourth century, the orthodox version of the Jesus story remained the only acceptable story until relatively recent times. Now there are many scholars who have been looking at the Biblical Jesus using modern discoveries and methods. Books trying to identify the true historical Jesus or tell us what Jesus really meant or to put Jesus in a modern context are released on a monthly basis. And even more recently, we have a burst of scholarship that questions the very existence of Jesus and we will call that Jesus the Fictional Jesus.
To illustrate the situation in modern biblical scholarship, an article appeared in the November/December, 2007, issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR0711-Crossan, p.22) quoting Jesus Seminar and prolific writer John Dominic Crossan as follows:
. . . [W]e ended the last century with two visions of Jesus. One vision was of the literal Jesus - the figure obtained from a careful harmony of the four New Testament Gospels. The other vision was the historical Jesus - the figure reconstructed through those and other gospels, behind those and other gospels, before those and other gospels.Then came my surprise as we moved deeper into the first decade of the new century [the 21st]. A third vision of Jesus started to appear to the left of people like myself and other members of the Jesus Seminar. The vision was of the fictional Jesus - the figure married in a novel, crucified in a film, and buried in a documentary. There is even a growing far-left wing proposing that Jesus never existed and that it was all an early Christian conspiratorial fabrication. So there are now three divergent base-visions of Jesus - the literal, the historical and the fictional.
I now find it fascinating to look to my right, bemused - permanently - at the literal Jesus masquerading as the historical Jesus, and also to my left, amused - recently - at that fictional Jesus masquerading as the historical Jesus. Surprise therefore: I have not moved except forward but am now in the center and not the left or the right wing. Surprising that, and also rather satisfying.
So, basically, we have four general Jesus types: (1) the Biblical Jesus; (2) the Heretical Jesus based upon ancient noncanonical beliefs; (3) the Historical Jesus based upon modern scholarship which assumes or concludes that he actually existed and (4) the Fictional Jesus based upon modern scholarship as well but scholarship which concludes that he did not exist. All of these types will be examined below!
The Biblical Jesus The Biblical Jesus can be found in the four gospels of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The basic story is that Jesus Christ was a real living human who was the divine son of God who lived, preached, performed miracles, was crucified, was resurrected, spoke with his disciples and others and then ascended into heaven where he is today with God. It is important to note that the gospels differ in many points of the story and when one tries to conflate them into one story, that person is in essence creating their own gospel; yet, the story of Jesus that most people know is, in fact, a conflation. The Heretical Jesus Most people today believe that Christianity was a single movement that began with the man, Jesus Christ, and was then spread around by his disciples and converts after his death. They believe that Christianity became diverse only as a result of the reformation. In reality, there were several different Christian concepts and movements in the early days of Christianity. Following are some of the groups and how they viewed Jesus: All of these movements were considered heretical by what we now know as orthodox Christianity. This orthodox version of Jesus and Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire and the other views were either stamped out or became extinct. The Historical Jesus Biblical scholars in the last couple of centuries (at least) have begun to take note of the fact that there are discrepancies in the gospels that are irreconcilable. Thus, there is a large body of work in which scholars try to identify who the real historical Jesus was and what he preached and what happened to him. Most allege that Jesus was a real person who preached in Galilee but there is a lot of disagreement about many of the other details of the four gospels. Modern scholars are, also, aided by recent archeological finds and an acceptance of critical thinking and skeptical conclusions. The variety of historical versions of Jesus seems to be limited only by the number of authors writing about Jesus. It has been said many places, also, that each author's Jesus seems to reflect that author's own philosophy. For a comprehensive list of biblical scholars who advance historical Jesus theories, the genre of their theories and books they have written, see Early Christian Writings. You can, also, find a lot of information through the Jesus Seminar, a group of skeptical scholars devoted to studying Jesus. Their web site is at the Westar Institute. Their stated purpose is "to discover and report a scholarly consensus on the historical authenticity of the sayings and events attributed to Jesus in the gospels." They have, also, developed profiles of Jesus drawn by individual scholars using the the results of the sayings and deeds of Jesus. The Mythical (Fictional) Jesus In the last few years several scholars have advanced the idea that Jesus Christ was a mythological person based upon stories of real itinerant preachers in Galilee, the mythologies of pagan gods, various philosophical schools of thought extant in the eastern Mediterranean area 2000 years ago, the Jewish God and Jewish prophecy and Jewish dreams for a messiah to bring back the glory that they believed existed at the time of the unified monarchy under King David. In support of the idea that Jesus is a fictional character, it is often pointed out that the first written rendition of a Jesus story did not appear until at least 65 to 70 C.E. which is 35 to 40 years after Jesus is supposed to have died. It is assumed by Christian apologists that the Jesus story existed as oral history up until that time, but skeptical scholars question that idea. It is, also, noted that Paul whose first epistles appeared around 50 C.E. never places Jesus on earth and never mentions the Jesus story as it is found in the gospels. What is found about Jesus in his epistles is thought to be interpolations added at a later date (see 1 Thessalonians, 2:15-16 and 1 Corinthians, 15:3-11). One would think that Paul, given the opportunity, would have mentioned the miracles, the suffering of Jesus, his preaching or something about the life of Jesus, but he did not. For more on this issue, see Earl Doherty in The Jesus Puzzle in his section entitled "The Jerusalem Tradition" (Doherty - Puzzle, pp. 11-140). And, why was it necessary for the biblical writers to copy so much out of the Old Testament? Robert Price writes as follows: For more on the arguments for the fictional Jesus, I would recommend the following resources: NEW TESTAMENT PERSONAGES No prepared text. Paul, The Apostle No prepared text. John, The Baptist No prepared text. The Disciples No prepared text. SPECIFIC ISSUES Martyrdom & the Jewish Messiah Concept The origin of the word messiah "can be traced back to a common Near Eastern royal ideology, where the king was considered to have a very special status in relation to the gods and sometimes was thought to have a divine origin. In ancient Israel, however, the concept of the Messiah, 'the anointed one,' was connected to King David in particular. In spite of his human fallibility, Kind David became the primary role model to which messianic expectations were connected, and the throne of David was thought to last forever" (Zetterholm in Zetterholm - Messiah, p. xxi). While many persons today believe that a messiah is a savior, its original meaning is "anointed one" and its meaning was far different then it is conceived today. "The Hebrew word from which it is derived, maîah, means 'anointed one.' It is used in the Hebrew Bible both for kings and high priests, who were in fact anointed, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it also is used metaphorically with reference to prophets. It does not have a future or eschatological connotation in the Hebrew Bible." (Collins in Zetterholm - Messiah, p. 1). By the 1st century, however, several messiah concepts had developed: Humans as Gods, Son of God & Son of Man No prepared text. Resurrection Christians believe that Jesus died and was resurrected on the third day following his death. They believe that this is proof that all humans can be resurrected and have life after death. Obviously, this is a very problematic belief, but it is at the core of the Christian faith; see 1 Corinthians, 15:14. Prophesy The New Testament is full of statements in which it is claimed that Jesus and what he did fulfills things prophesied in the Old Testament. Following is an incomplete list of those prophesies. If the text is specific as to the prophet relied upon, then I have so noted that fact. Jesus and Moses No prepared text. Dreams No prepared text. Satan No prepared text. Christians & Jews Christians have long held a hatred toward Jews based upon the alleged role of the Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus. Of course, the flip side of the issue is that, unless Jesus was crucified, a large part of the Jesus story would lose its meaning; and, if Jews were looked upon as the facilitators for this important event, then they ought to be thanked for their role. Much has been written on the subject and I will have more to say about it myself. For now, let me mention that the involvement of the Jews in the crucifixion is not mentioned in the New Testament until the gospels were written. The epistles were written before the gospels and according to Earl Doherty, there is only one mention in the epistles of Jewish involvment in the death of Jesus and he says that is a post-Pauline interpolation in 1 Thessalonians (Doherty - Puzzle, p. 15, and see 1 Thessalonians, 2:15-16). Relationship Between Believers and Jesus/God No prepared text.
If early Christians had actually remembered the Passion as a series of recent events, why does the earliest gospel crucifixion account spin out the whole terse narrative from quotes cribbed without acknowledgement from Psalm 22? Why does 1 Peter have nothing more detailed than Isaiah 53 to flesh out his account of the sufferings of jesus? Why does Matthew supplement Mark's version, not with historical tradition or eyewitness memory, but with more quotes, this time from Zechariah and the Wisdom of Solomon? (Price - Jesus, p. 275.)