The Case for the Historical Christ
- Thread starter Unknown Soldier
- Start date
Thanks to Jesus Christ, I still believe in Jesus Christ in spite of it all. Jesus is the truth in these latter days when churches & believers are falling away.
I just hope to see you one day in Heaven by the grace of God & His help in coming to & believing in Jesus Christ to be saved.
rakovsky
Well-known member
I think that the "Historical Jesus" is an exciting topic. Mainly I would want to check what happened with the miracles if I could time travel.
I would also like to get interviews and commentaries from the OT prophets on their Messianic resurrection prophecies, like on how specifically they arrived at their prophecies.
No bystanders would have seen the virginal conception by Mary. It's curious then that about 170 years later the story circulated among Jews about her having intercourse with a soldier named Pandera. The origin of that Ben Pandera story is not clearly known, although Origen postulated an Apologetic explanation.
There is also a longstanding tradition in Christianity that the Virgin Mary not only conceived as a virgin, bit also that she was a virgin in her birthgiving. The first narrative that comes to mind where the birth itself was miraculous was in the Ascension of Isaiah, a Christian apocryphal text wherein Jesus left Mary's womb with her birth canal unmarred. I am not sure offhand if the virginal birthgiving teaching is Biblical or implied by the Bible.
Then after Jesus' infancy narrative, his life until he meets John the Baptist is almost unnarrated in the Bible except for the time when he left his parents to talk to the Temple elders in his adolescence. So there is kind of an open question whether he had family background related to a specific sect or group of the Jews, like the Maccabbees or the priestly Onias dynasty, or the pharisees at large, or a clan in Nazareth.
Jesus spent time preaching and doing public miracles, but usually the public miracles seem of a nature that would be hard to convince modern skeptics. They might see Him as someone like modern charismatic faith healers whom mainstream American Christians don't put much stock in.
Even if the healing of Lazarus happened rather close to what the story said, it could be hard for a modern skeptical person to prove whether it was or was not Jesus who raised Lazarus, whether Lazarus healed and recovered on his own, or whether Lazarus faked his illness to con believers as part of a scam.
With some miracles like the Transfiguration, the walking on water, and some Resurrection appearances by Jesus, we are talking about events witnessed by a handful of people or up to about a dozen. In that case, if you time traveled and interviewed the apostles, you could get at least a little sense of their sincerity. And being apostles, they would probably come off as sincere. But hypothetically you could also get versions of narratives that conflicted in details with the gospels' versions of those major miracle events. This is because we don't have individual accounts from every one of the apostles. Imagine for instance if the apostle Thaddaeus and a few others said that they were standing in the room on Day 1 of the Resurrection and that he didn't see Jesus physically and directly but just pictured Jesus being there instead.
Alternately, imagine if you were with the apostles on Day 9 of the resurrection and the 11 apostles there all said that they saw Jesus, but you looked and didn't see Him. There seems to be a subtle "debate" so to speak among Christian theologians on whether based on the Biblical account Jesus could be seen objectively in His appearances, like whether He would show up on a camera.
I would also like to get interviews and commentaries from the OT prophets on their Messianic resurrection prophecies, like on how specifically they arrived at their prophecies.
No bystanders would have seen the virginal conception by Mary. It's curious then that about 170 years later the story circulated among Jews about her having intercourse with a soldier named Pandera. The origin of that Ben Pandera story is not clearly known, although Origen postulated an Apologetic explanation.
There is also a longstanding tradition in Christianity that the Virgin Mary not only conceived as a virgin, bit also that she was a virgin in her birthgiving. The first narrative that comes to mind where the birth itself was miraculous was in the Ascension of Isaiah, a Christian apocryphal text wherein Jesus left Mary's womb with her birth canal unmarred. I am not sure offhand if the virginal birthgiving teaching is Biblical or implied by the Bible.
Then after Jesus' infancy narrative, his life until he meets John the Baptist is almost unnarrated in the Bible except for the time when he left his parents to talk to the Temple elders in his adolescence. So there is kind of an open question whether he had family background related to a specific sect or group of the Jews, like the Maccabbees or the priestly Onias dynasty, or the pharisees at large, or a clan in Nazareth.
Jesus spent time preaching and doing public miracles, but usually the public miracles seem of a nature that would be hard to convince modern skeptics. They might see Him as someone like modern charismatic faith healers whom mainstream American Christians don't put much stock in.
Even if the healing of Lazarus happened rather close to what the story said, it could be hard for a modern skeptical person to prove whether it was or was not Jesus who raised Lazarus, whether Lazarus healed and recovered on his own, or whether Lazarus faked his illness to con believers as part of a scam.
With some miracles like the Transfiguration, the walking on water, and some Resurrection appearances by Jesus, we are talking about events witnessed by a handful of people or up to about a dozen. In that case, if you time traveled and interviewed the apostles, you could get at least a little sense of their sincerity. And being apostles, they would probably come off as sincere. But hypothetically you could also get versions of narratives that conflicted in details with the gospels' versions of those major miracle events. This is because we don't have individual accounts from every one of the apostles. Imagine for instance if the apostle Thaddaeus and a few others said that they were standing in the room on Day 1 of the Resurrection and that he didn't see Jesus physically and directly but just pictured Jesus being there instead.
Alternately, imagine if you were with the apostles on Day 9 of the resurrection and the 11 apostles there all said that they saw Jesus, but you looked and didn't see Him. There seems to be a subtle "debate" so to speak among Christian theologians on whether based on the Biblical account Jesus could be seen objectively in His appearances, like whether He would show up on a camera.
How do you know that?
En Hakkore
Well-known member
Indeed, the majority of New Testament scholars are Christians --- I should know since they're my colleagues! --- and they are active churchgoers.
Kind regards,
Jonathan
El Cid
Well-known member
The majority of Biblical scholars are liberals and no longer accept the infallible authority of the Bible.
En Hakkore
Well-known member
Oh here we go again... yes, the majority of biblical scholars reject the ridiculous notion of inerrancy you propound, but that does not mean they aren't Christians or that they do not regularly attend churches as you erroneously claimed.
Kind regards,
Jonathan
El Cid
Well-known member
That may possibly be true if you only include NT scholars but I am referring to both OT and NT scholars. Also it depends on what you define as Biblical scholars and where they live. I have a hunch that European biblical scholars rarely attend church. Probably a higher percentage of American scholars attend church.
En Hakkore
Well-known member
If one considers scholars of the Hebrew Bible, the majority are either Jews or Christians and if one extends church to include synagogue, again the majority will be regular attendees of some religious worship service. Your hunch would appear to be based on general demographics rather than a poll of scholars in the two regions...
Kind regards,
Jonathan
Unknown Soldier
Well-known member
It's a very interesting topic that is often difficult to discuss dispassionately
Many people including myself have thought of that possibility. Since we cannot actually observe the events described in the gospels, we must settle for seeing through a glass darkly.
That would settle the debate between Christians and Jews regarding the Hebrew Bible passages Christians cite as prophecies of Jesus.
Yes. Some miracles described in the Bible had no human witnesses. In addition to the virgin conception, the resurrection also was not witnessed by any persons.
I think that the enemies of Christianity made up that story to ridicule and scandalize the belief in the virgin birth. As far as I know there is no credible evidence for Pandera.
According to Matthew 1:25, Joseph didn't have sex with Mary until she gave birth to Jesus.
No doubt Jesus was at least familiar with the beliefs and practices of the Jewish sects of His day which was knowledge He picked up prior to His starting his ministry.
Yes. Jesus was the "real faith healer" you might say.
That's an astute observation. It's not difficult to fake miracles. Prudence suggests that all purported miracles be carefully investigated.
Apologist William Lane Craig has argued that the Gospel writers were very honest. Personally, I cannot judge their honesty based on the available evidence.
I was not aware of that debate although I know that the risen Jesus is described as difficult to recognize.
The devil himself can teach the Bible, probably better than anyone.
Anyone can teach it no matter if they believe what is written as truth or not.
Anyone can study the origin where and how man compiled a book and called it a bible and decided what they like to put in it.
rakovsky
Well-known member
I was not clear enough. There is a tradition that Mary is "ever virgin" in the sense that her birth canal was not affected like women naturally are affected when they give birth. In birthing, a woman's birth canal and anatomy are pressured, loosened, and changed by the birth process of passing a baby through the canal. In this tradition, her canal remained virgin or pure or pristeen not only in the sense of lacking intercourse with a partner, but in even the sense of anatomically changing the canal. The pseudepigraphal Ascension of Isaiah, from the 1st-2nd century AD is one of these sources. So in the Nicene Creed, when we say that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, I'm not sure if it only refers to her lack of intercourse or if it includes her birthgiving process itself being pristeen and undamaging. I am having a little difficulty finding more information on this latter tradition. It might be more familiar to other Eastern Orthodox.
MAtthew 1:25 says, "And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS."
This means that she did not have sex with Joseph before giving birth to Jesus, but it doesn't necessarily mean whether they had sex afterwards.
Luther writes:
Thus, the words of the evangelist do not refer to anything that occurred after the birth, but only to what took place before it. For the prophet and the evangelist, and St. Paul as well, do not treat of this virgin beyond the point where they have from her that fruit for whose sake she is a virgin and everything else. After the child is born they dismiss the mother and speak not about her, what became of her, but only about her offspring. Therefore, one cannot from these words [Matt. 1:18, 25
Luther Believed in Mary's Perpetual Virginity?
A favorite tactic of Rome's apologists is to find quotes from Martin Luther in which he says things sounding blatantly Roman Catholic and co...
beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com
rakovsky
Well-known member
The issue of whether a third party witness bystander could or could not see Jesus is not really a big issue that Apologists (or Skeptics) emphasize because the Bible doesn't give an explicit, open answer on that topic. We don't have a case in the pre-Pentecost appearances where (A) Jesus shows up for a believer witness and a third party standing nearby does not see Jesus, or alternately, (B) Jesus shows up and a large crowd explicitly including hostile witnesses or nonbelievers do see Jesus. In Matthew's Gospel, the soldiers see an angel who has a sword and it practically makes them faint. Matthew's Gospel narrates the angel as having descended from heaven. There is the story of the 500 witnesses, but it doesn't specify whether it included nonbelievers, or even give any more information about it. We can guess that it may have been the same appearance as the one in Matthew's Gospel where Jesus appears on a Mount. I suppose that hypothetically it could have been a confusion with one of Jesus' meetings with 500 people by the Sea of Galilee where he had the miracle with loaves and fishes, but the NT presents those as separate incidents.
In Acts, Paul's traveling companions see a light, and Paul alone hears a voice that he ascribes to Christ. To give an interfaith comparison, in major Islamic writings, there is an episode where Mohammed claims to see an angel, and his wife (or companion woman, I forget), comments that Mohammed sees what she does not see.
Nonetheless, theologians occasionally address in passing the issue of whether the resurrected Jesus could have been or was seen by bystanders, and they give opposing answers on the question.
Unknown Soldier
Well-known member
So some Christians debate if Mary's birth canal was stretched a bit from giving birth to Jesus. I'm not sure why that would be important.
The passage cited appears to strongly suggest that Mary did have sex after giving birth to Jesus, Roman Catholic theology notwithstanding. But again, I don't see why that issue is important.
Our Lord's God
Well-known member
More like they don't talk about it because they don't know what to do with it.
15 Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 18 When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Strike this people with blindness, I pray.” So He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. 19 Then Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, nor is this the city; follow me and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he brought them to Samaria.
2 Kings 6
15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. 16 But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him...... 28 And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther. 29 But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” So He went in to stay with them. 30 When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
Luke 24
And they do this because they do not know God needs to give us eyes to see and He blinds the unbelieving so that they cannot.
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rakovsky
Well-known member
The idea in a common (perhaps the most standard Eastern) tradition was that the birth itself was miraculous, not just the conception. One of the curses in Genesis was that the woman (Eve and her descendants) would suffer in childbirth.
Luther goes into detail showing that in the Bible, this expression "until" does not indicate whether after the event another event occurred. He correctly pointed to the prophecy in Isaiah of that the Messiah would not fail "until" the islands await His law as one example. Rambam pointed to this verse in Isaiah as an indication that the Messiah would die after the islands awaited Messiah's law, but the verse does not really specify this.
Our Lord's God
Well-known member
rakovsky
Well-known member
That's one of the theories that I've seen from theologians, like that Peter and John didn't notice the angels at the tomb in the ending of the Gospel story (IIRC, it was in John's or Luke's gospel) when they went to the tomb because they didn't have strong enough faith. Another explanation within the theory that bystanders couldn't see the angels or the risen Jesus is that God can choose to reveal them to some and not to others.
Our Lord's God
Well-known member
NO.
Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
Didnt get a response from that one LOL. For you know it is truth.