Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00169)

--- In theos-talk@y..., "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@y...> wrote:
> I don't know that any statement about Jesus is more likely than any 
> other, outside the small body of generally agreed upon propositions

There are three Js: (1) the purely mythological character used by 
some large and prosperous businesses as their mascot, (2) the 
literary character depicted in the gospels and traditions, and (3) 
the historical character who actually lived. I think it is useful 
(but ultimately unprovable) to start with the premise that there is 
some reasonable mapping between the literary and the historical 
figures, in which case we should be able to understand him if we can 
understand Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Octavius, or Vespasian. The 
evidence is about the same for the historical existence of Jesus and 
Tiberius, which is to say, little. I have read some reductionist 
history, but it seems if we throw out the historical record we are 
just writing new fiction from scratch. That is the problem I have 
with extreme cases like Burton Mack.

Scholars think the Essenes took a hike in protest to what they 
thought ofas the invalid, polluted, etc., Temple in Jerusalem. The 
literary J starts an anti-Temple movement which would have had a very 
realistic chance of bringing the thing down, since it was supported 
entirely by superstitious belief and not by force of arms. That 
would have made such a person extremely dangerous. Everything he 
said and did including the ruckus in the Temple is consistent with 
that theme, but the question still remains whether the luterary and 
historical characters bore any resemblance to each other. That 
question shall be forever unanswerable.