National Geography and Archeologists view as The Jesus :
Historical Jesus
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as
interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are
traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical
and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of
antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that
Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly
consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and
teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with
only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus:
Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.
The portraits of Jesus that have been constructed through history using
these processes have often differed from each other, and from the image
portrayed in the gospel accounts. Such portraits include that of Jesus as
an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish
messiah, prophet of social change, and rabbi. There is little scholarly
agreement on a single portrait, nor the methods needed to construct it, but
there are overlapping attributes among the various portraits, and scholars
who differ on some attributes may agree on others.
The Christ myth theory is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never
existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of
Christianity and the accounts in the gospels. In the 21st century, there
have been a number of books and documentaries on this subject. For example,
Earl Doherty has written that Jesus may have been a real person, but that
the biblical accounts of him are almost entirely fictional. Many proponents
use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century: that the New
Testament has no historical value with respect to Jesus's existence, that
there are no non-Christian references to Jesus from the first century, and
that Christianity had pagan and/or mythical roots. Contemporary scholars of
antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and biblical scholars and classical
historians view the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted.
Robert M. Price, an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that
his perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars. Michael
Grant (a classicist and historian) states that "In recent years, no serious
scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus, or at any
rate very few have, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much
stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." 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 anymore.
The Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources of historical information
about Jesus and of the religious movement he founded. These religious
gospels – the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke
– recount the life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of a Jew named
Jesus who spoke Aramaic and wore tzitzit. There are different hypotheses
regarding the origin of the texts because the gospels of the New Testament
were written in Greek for Greek-speaking communities, and were later
translated into Syriac, Latin, and Coptic. The fourth gospel, the Gospel of
John, differs greatly from the Synoptic Gospels and scholars generally
consider it to be less historical than the Synoptic Gospels. As James
Crossley and Robert J. Myles explain, John "is of limited use for
reconstructing the life of the historical Jesus." However, scholars usually
agree that John is not entirely without historical value: certain sayings
in John are as old as or older than their synoptic counterparts, his
representation of the topography around Jerusalem is often superior to that
of the synoptics, his testimony that Jesus was executed before, rather than
on, Passover, might well be more accurate, and his presentation of Jesus in
the garden and the prior meeting held by the Jewish authorities are more
historically plausible than their synoptic parallels.
Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around AD 93–94, includes two
references to the biblical Jesus in Books 18 and 20. The general scholarly
view is that while the longer passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum,
is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon
that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then
subject to Christian interpolation. Of the others mentioned in Josephus,
Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the
genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1 ("the
brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"). Paul
references meeting and interacting with James, Jesus' brother, and since
this agreement between the different sources supports Josephus' statement,
the statement is only disputed by a small number of scholars.Roman
historian Tacitus referred to "Christus" and his execution by Pontius
Pilate in his Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44.[80] Robert
E. Van Voorst states that the very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on
Christians makes the passage extremely unlikely to have been forged by a
Christian scribe and the Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an
independent confirmation of Jesus's crucifixion. The historical
reliability of the gospels refers to the reliability and historic character
of the four New Testament gospels as historical documents. Historical
reliability is not dependent on a source being inerrant or void of agendas
since there are sources that are considered generally reliable despite
having such traits (e.g. Josephus). The question of reliability is a matter
of ongoing debate.Historians subject the gospels to critical analysis by
differentiating authentic, reliable information from possible inventions,
exaggerations, and alterations. Since there are more textual variants
(200,000–400,000) than words in the New Testament, scholars use textual
criticism to determine which gospel variants could theoretically be taken
as 'original'. To answer this question, scholars have to ask who wrote the
gospels, when they wrote them, what was their objective in writing them,
what sources the authors used, how reliable these sources were, and how far
removed in time the sources were from the stories they narrate, or if they
were altered later. Scholars may also look into the internal evidence of
the documents, to see if, for example, a document has misquoted texts from
the Hebrew Tanakh, has made incorrect claims about geography, if the author
appears to have hidden information, or if the author has fabricated a
prophecy. Finally, scholars turn to external sources, including the
testimony of early church leaders, to writers outside the church, primarily
Jewish and Greco-Roman historians, who would have been more likely to have
criticized the church, and to archaeological evidence.
Albert Schweitzer, whose book coined the phrase Quest [for] the Historical
Jesus: The enthusiasm shown during the first quest diminished after Albert
Schweitzer's critique of 1906 in which he pointed out various shortcomings
in the approaches used at the time. After Schweitzer's Von Reimarus zu
Wrede was translated and published in English as The Quest of the
Historical Jesus in 1910, the book's title provided the label for the field
of study for eighty years.[106]: 779– Second quest The second quest began
in 1953 and introduced a number of new techniques, but faded away in the
1970s.Third quest In the 1980s a number of scholars gradually began to
introduce new research ideas, initiating a third quest characterized by the
latest research approaches. One of the modern aspects of the third quest
has been the role of archaeology; James Charlesworth states that modern
scholars now want to use archaeological discoveries that clarify the nature
of life in Galilee and Judea during the time of Jesus. A further
characteristic of the third quest has been the interdisciplinary and global
nature of its scholarship. While the first two quests were mostly carried
out by European Protestant theologians, a modern aspect of the third quest
is the worldwide influx of scholars from multiple disciplines. More
recently, historicists have focused their attention on the historical
writings associated with the era in which Jesus lived or on the evidence
concerning his family.
Scholars involved in the third and next quests for the historical Jesus
have constructed a variety of portraits and profiles for Jesus However,
there is little scholarly agreement on the portraits, or the methods used
in constructing them. The portraits of Jesus that have been constructed in
the quest for the historical Jesus have often differed from each other, and
from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts. These portraits include
that of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic
philosopher, Jewish Messiah and prophet of social change, but there is
little scholarly agreement on a single portrait, or the methods needed to
construct it. There are, however, overlapping attributes among the various
portraits, and scholars who differ on some attributes may agree on others.
The conception of a "Historical Jesus" is limited to the abductions from
modern scholars on the sources and the results can only produce fragments
of what the "real Jesus" or "Jesus of history" may have been. Such
conceptions are merely a sketch or model which may inform about but never
will be the real Jesus of history; similar to how models exist in the
natural sciences that inform about phenomena without specifying a
particular object. W.R. Herzog has stated that: "What we call the
historical Jesus is the composite of the recoverable bits and pieces of
historical information and speculation about him that we assemble,
construct, and reconstruct. For this reason, the historical Jesus is, in
Meier's words, 'a modern abstraction and construct.'"Contemporary
scholarship, representing the "third quest" and the "next quest" places
Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition. Jesus was a Jewish preacher who
taught that he was the path to salvation, everlasting life, and the Kingdom
of God. A primary criterion used to discern historical details in the
"third quest" is that of plausibility, relative to Jesus' Jewish context
and to his influence on Christianity. Contemporary scholars of the "third
quest" include E. P. Sanders, Géza Vermes, Gerd Theissen, Christoph
Burchard, and John Dominic Crossan. In contrast to the Schweitzerian view,
certain North American scholars, such as Burton Mack, advocate for a
non-eschatological Jesus, one who is more of a Cynic sage than an
apocalyptic preacher.Given that Jesus was poor, long-established
historiographical approaches associated with the study of the poor in the
past, such as microhistory, are relevant to the study of his life.
KR IRS 28324
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