The Historical Jesus

[poliphilo]

 Every so often Quora sends me a debate about the historicity of Jesus and I go upstairs to have a shower and find I'm thinking about it.

Albert Schweitzer wrote a brilliant book on the Search for the Historical Jesus which is both scholarly and funny. He concluded every one who has written about Jesus creates an image of him in accord with their age and culture and individual predilections and the actual Jesus- if he even existed- is unknowable and, being so far away in time- quite alien to us.

Did he even exist? That's an open question. As with Lao Tzu, Buddha and Mohammed, all the early scriptures and chronicles date from a good while after his supposed lifetime. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that you don't create figures like this out of whole cloth- and that there was almost certainly a real person- however poorly attested and badly reported- on whom the legend was built. For the record I think the same to be true of King Arthur and Robin Hood.

But the bigger point is that it doesn't matter. The legend and the teachings are what they are. Take from them what you can use.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I tend to perceive him as a part Greek Jew because that was the most likely background given where he came from- Nazareth.

It tends to mean that the images of a dark haired man are probably right but a light skinned one not.

[poliphilo]

Certainly. The blond Jesus of crummy Christian art is highly implausible.

[paserbyp]

For me personally, Jesus just Jew rabbi who tried to reform Judaism.

[poliphilo]

Yes, I' don't think he meant to found a "church".....

[kaishin108]

I can really relate to what you wrote. It kind of resonates with what I think and believe. Thanks for sharing it.

[poliphilo]

I'm glad you like it.....

[wantedonvoyage]

My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that you don't create figures like this out of whole cloth- and that there was almost certainly a real person- however poorly attested and badly reported

I tend to agree with you here, unsurprisingly. I think a big part of it is that--when these events were unfolding--it was far outside the imaginations of the people witnessing them that anybody this far behind them would care. When things didn't rapidly play out as they had hoped (and--inconveniently for my own trade--Jesus himself predicted) they probably went back to their hardscrabble lives, and it wasn't until it became clear that this crazy idea was actually going to stick that it occurred to them to try to get their story straight.

But the bigger point is that it doesn't matter.

This as well. The animals we know don't speak to us (at least not in the way we think of it) but it doesn't mean Aesop had nothing to teach us.

[poliphilo]

I love that parallel with Aesop's Fables.