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The Jesus Puzzle

This article is a good example of why it might be useful, for some topics that are particularly contentious, and unlikely to achieve consensus, to have a system of "alternative points of view" written and linked from a common index page.

At the same time, I do think the effort to arrive at a common POV for an article about "historical Jesus" is valuable.

BTW, after reading 'The Jesus Mysteries' by Freke and Gandy and taking a look at material from Earl Doherty's pages (he's the author of The Jesus Puzzle) and other sources, my own view is that the evidence is in: Jesus never existed as a historical person. He's quite clearly a fusion of the Egypto-Greek Osiris/Dionysius myth with the Torah stories of Joshua, the prophet who is said to have brought the Jews across the river (which in turn is a riff on the Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea myth). In other words, he's a syncretic mythological construct, probably invented initially by Alexandrian Jews and propagandized effectively by Saul of Tarsus, the real founder of the worship-circles that became the Christian church. (posted by User:Jaspersky)

We need to realize, however, that the vast majority of the academic community does believe Jesus to have been an actual historic figure (though they can obviously say very little about his presumed divinity, miracles, Resurrection, etc.). So, to mention the Jesus-Myth theory or any other minority view is OK, as long as we don't give it undue weight or give the impression that it's too greatly accepted by scholars. KHM03 (talk) 01:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Jesus and Drugs Use

Does anyone else feel like I do that this article should mention the possibility that Jesus' visions may have been influenced by cannabis? I am referring to the material found in Sex, Drugs, and the Bible by Chris Bennett. I'll write a little bit if there is agreeance, but I won't waste my time if people keep deleting it because of bias. RecSpecz

I would have a real problem with that, not because of bias, but because it's not generally supported by scholars. I suggest you make your case here on the talk page first. KHM03 16:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Nowhere is it recorded that Jesus had any visions himself, afaik.. Although others in the Bible certainly did... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone who uses the word "agreeance" should be allowed to write about the proported effects of ancient cannibis use. The correct term is "consensusitude."

The difference?

Whats the difference between this article and the main one in Jesus and the New Testament view? -C2Sane

Not much; this article considers critical scholarship, where the other one does not; I suppose they could be merged. Ben Standeven 06:06, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, this article is more to do with religion than actual history. It is not really a true historical article and should not be posted as such in an Encyclopedia. Please could someone remove it or over write it. For eaxmple, what whs Jesus´s family name. How many brothers and sisters did he have. Is it correct that Mary was Joseph´s second wife?. These are historical questions. The religion should be kept to those with the gift of faith, whereas us historians are really interested in tangable fact.

To the guy above me: Religion is the study of truth. Don't act like historians seek truth but the religious don't?

Faith implies belief in something without proof. Historians only believe with proof.

Heh... Could it be that science does not claim to provide truth, but rather a conclusion that can be challenged based on a preponderance of evidence. Religion wants to declare certain things unchallenged true, or truth. Scientific historians don't say anything is true, but rather probable and open to challenge. Check out the article on scientific method if you have a whim... (this from a biblical lit major with a wierd interest in science.)


You're both wrong and too clever by half. History is the narrative re-creation of the past based on the best evidence available. As evidence improves, the reconstruction of history improves. History is not what occured in the past; rather, it is our current and best understanding of previous events. While both using evidence in their methods, science and history are two separate pursuits and disciplines. Faith is belief without regard to evidence. Methods of historical analysis have been used to support faith. Historical analysis can be used to show that that articles of faith -- a past event, or personage, perhaps -- are not supported by the best evidence. Believers may take this as an attack on faith. It is not. Faith neither needs proper history writing nor evidence. Historical analysis cannot exist without evidence. Faith and historical analysis are not mutually exclusive things, but rather two things that are not the same and share little in common. Therefore, one cannot be used to definitively snuff out the other. In a world of locks and keys, one is a lock and the other is a pickle. They don't go together, but each is useful. --by unregistered user Ego Nemo

Speedy delete

This page can be edited to make a worthwhile article, or at least a worthwhile stub. It does not fit criteria for speedy deleteion. Rich Farmbrough 23:29, 7 May 2005 (UTC)


I agree; I am oppposed to deletion. Please remember the history: in an attempt to keep the Jesus article NPOV, detailed accounts of a variety of views were added, and the article became too long for many servers. There was a quick consensus to have the article focus on the Christian POV, with sub-articles on other points of view, and very brief summaries with links as subsections of the Jesus article. The main topics spun off were on the historical and cultural context for Jesus, which placed Jesus in the context of what we know about Jewish history and culture; one on the "historicity" of Jesus, meaning, debates over whether or not Jesus actually existed; this article, and I think one or two more on the critical study of the NT and Christology. I am sure that some of the material in these different articles can be redistributed, and that many of them could use much more development. But we simply can't put all the relevant content reflecting diverse points of view in one article, which means we need subarticles like this. This article should not be an account of Jesus' life according to the NT, it should be about different ways critical historians have reconstructed Jesus' life sans theological interpretations. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Vfd vote

Vote failed per Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Historical_Jesus. --Woohookitty 06:29, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Peter Kirby

Why did you revert yourself?

Ahistoricity of Jesus

The article as written relies exclusively on the New Testament as sources of information about a historical Jesus. However, since the epistles were written by someone who had never met Jesus before his death, and the gospels were written by anonymous parties at least five decades after Jesus' death, there is good reason to doubt the reliability of the NT.

Here [1] is a link to a list of articles critical of the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus as a historical figure. The current wiki article as written seems to violate NPOV. The Bearded One 19:09, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Reference

  • You misunderstood me. I meant that the articles Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus cover such similar ground that they could easily be merged, or one subsumed into the other. Your homepage article ends its introduction with the sentence, "Reference to the historical Jesus presumes the historicity of Jesus, that is, that he existed." If the Historical Jesus page had such a disclaimer, I'd have much less problem with it. The Bearded One 01:39, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have replaced the sentence in the Intro: Reference to the historical Jesus presumes the historicity of Jesus, that is, that he existed. While few other biographical articles require this kind of "hedging", the case of Jesus is quite a rare one. He cannot be dismissed as a purely fictional character like Frodo Baggins, nor can he be treated like a well documented historical figure like Julius Caesar.

There is considerable ongoing academic debate as to the historical status of Jesus, and so he should be treated with caution. The only other figure I can think of whose mix of historicity and mythology is similar might be King Arthur of Camelot. Where the truth lies, we may never know. Because the historicity of Jesus is uncertain, we should err on the side of caution. The Bearded One 16:01, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The problem is, this sentence doesn't say anything. To anyone at all familiar with the English language, and the meaning of the words "historical", it simply goes without saying that "historical" presumes "historicity"... When you belabor this self-evident point too much, it looks like the article is trying to presume some kind of POV on behalf of the reader - even though I realize that is the very opposite of what you probably intend. Codex Sinaiticus 17:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about this, either way. It'll be a moot point, I hope, when the article is swapped out with a new one. So I'll step out for now, and think about comments left on the work in progress. --Peter Kirby 17:45, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

References for this article

feel free to contribute to this list:

  • Marcion
  • Jefferson Bible
  • Albert Schweitzer The Quest Of The Historical Jesus; A Critical Study Of Its Progress From Reimarus To Wrede [2]
  • Jewish Encyclopedia: Jesus of Nazareth
  • Raymond E. Brown Death of the Messiah, Birth of the Messiah
  • John Dominic Crossan Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus; The Historical Jesus : The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
  • James D. G. Dunn Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians 1990 ISBN 0664250955 Collection of essays written throughout the 1980s, including the historic 1982 lecture "The New Perspective on Paul"; A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed. ISBN 0801027101 2005
  • Jesus Seminar The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus ISBN 0060629789 1998
  • Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus ISBN 0385264259
  • E. P. Sanders The historical figure of Jesus, Penguin, 1996, ISBN 0140144994. An up-to-date, popular, but thoroughly scholarly book.
  • Schaberg, Jane. Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives
  • Theissen, Gerd, and Annette Merz. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Fortress Press, 2003, ISBN 0800631226. An amazing book, tough but rewarding, exceptionally detailed.
  • Vermes, Geza. Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels ISBN 0800614437

"New Testament Jesus" + Wishy-Washy Words = "Historical Jesus"?

Clearly this article needs to be either massively cleaned up or merged into Historicity of Jesus and New Testament view on Jesus' life. What kind of article on the "historical Jesus" is divided into sections called "Works and miracles" and "The resurrection"?! This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. -Silence 04:13, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Why, because you don't believe they happened? Ancient history is full of stuff like this, so you can either choose to believe them or not, but they certainly can be discussed as part of the historical record.

Let's leave the straw men out of this and discuss it between ourselves. Whether they happened or not has nothing to do with whether we should be defining them as "historical" or not, because as long as we don't know that they happened to any reasonable degree, we cannot safely deem them "historical". What I was trying to say was that the sections were misnamed, not that they were bad sections altogether and should be scrapped; "the resurrection" makes it sound like you're describing a definite, solid historical event that we all know surely occurred, much as "works and miracles" sounds like you're rattling off a historical list of miraculous things Jesus actually did occur, sine dubio. This problem is partly caused by the fact that this article is named "Historical Jesus", not "Historical view of Jesus"! That implies that the article's about Jesus' historical, real, factual life, rather than stating that it's about what historians think of the New Testament, which is this article's true topic.
Ancient texts are full of countless records, yes, but to call every ancient account "historical" just because it seems to be describing something that happened is POV. This page is just as POV as if we had named the New Testament view of Jesus page "Mythological Jesus" (we do have a Jesus-Myth page, but it's about theories that Jesus was mythological, not about a supposedly "mythological" analysis of the New Testament! likewise this article wouldn't be problematic if it was about theories that Jesus was historical (which it probably should be, it fits better with the dichotomy set up at Historicity of Jesus), rather than being a so-called-"historical" analysis of Jesus' life); weighing in on Jesus being either historical or mythological, and especially weighing in on specific events (like the reincarnation, miracles, resurrection) as being either historical or mythological, is both POV and unnecessary, when what we should be doing is just presenting each side of the issue fairly, without labeling any one side as "historical" or one side as "right". Furthermore, I see absolutely no benefit to segregating the "historical view" from the religious ones. It makes perfect sense to have one article for Jewish views on a matter, one article for Islamic ones, one article for Hindu ones, etc., and then to have the responses to those views in the same articles as the views themselves, especially the historical responses (because the other religions' ones can to some extent be mentioned in their individual pages as well).
However, this "historical" view is nothing but a critical analysis of the "religious" view; it's not in any way a distinct perspective on Jesus' life, it's just the responses to the Christian perspective. Furthermore, it's POV to define one response to the Christian perspective as "historical" and another as non-historical, and to exclude ideas about what did or didn't happen from this page based on some abstract notion of what is or isn't "history", which we can't confirm anyway, and which to even attempt to do is, again, "both POV and unnecessary". Why go to all the term of segregating critical analysis from the information being critically analyzed? Why not integrate all major, important interpretations of the New Testament view of Jesus' life into the New Testament view on Jesus' life page, not just the Christian interpretation? That would not only be much more encyclopedic, but it would also be a lot easier on the readers of both pages, who would much rather see the point-counterpoint take place on a single page, rather than having one point give the point and the other page the counterpoint. Too disjointed.
This article should be integrated into all the Jesus articles. There is no reason to lock all historically critical thought away into a little box; unlike a religion's perspectives, there is no one, distinct group that is absolutely "historical" while every other group is totally unhistorical; there are historians, but plenty of non-historians have said things that are enormously important to historical analysis of Jesus, and likewise plenty of so-called historians have said some profoundly nonsensical things about Jesus' life. I see no more reason to have a page like the one this one currently is than we would to have a "Historical Santa Claus" that critically analyzes the Santa-myth, or a "Historical George W. Bush" that examines his life from a historical perspective; whether the New Testament is a reliable historical account (George) or not (Santa), pushing aside all the historical viewpoints into a separate article just does harm to every other article for lack of those views, and does a disservice to the readers of the Jesus series of articles. -Silence 09:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

From a NPOV, the "historical Jesus" as a concept is one that takes up a lot of time for seminary students (such as myself). There is a lot of emotion in it, and seeing as WikiPedia is attempting to catalogue information, there's a use in putting things like "The Resurrection" in the article. The "event" itself the subject of much study (See things like THe Shroud of Turn or books like The Case for the Crucifixion, etc..) Additionally, the whole point of (trying not to use the word 'silly') projects like The Jesus Seminar, Bultmann's demythologizing, or The Quest for the Historical Jesus was to deny the Resurrection in the first place. By including it as a subject of discussion, I think you go a long way towards a happy compromise where people who dislike the Nestorian type views at least see themselves represented. --User:Michael Hollinger (no page yet!) 29 October 2005

Yes, sorry for using the word "silly" and other unnecessarily strong language. But anyway, straight to the meat: I never once argued against the inclusion of any of those views, I argued against the inclusion of them in this article. Since they're valid interpretations of the Gospels/New Testament, they belong in New Testament views of Jesus' life along with the religious views. To do otherwise is POV not only because it tries to segregate all views that aren't mainstream Christian into a separate article (even though both articles are quite short and could thus easily be merged), but also because it suggests that a religious view is inherently unhistorical (even if it is, we shouldn't state so in our article titles). And if religious views aren't unhistorical, we just get into even more redundancy. I'm fine with most of the Jesus articles being distinct from one another in the way that they are, but this one alone (along with the stubtastic Jesus in the Christian Bible) I object to, not only for the many reasons listed above, but also because the more articles we have on a single subject, the harder it is for readers to find and understand and navigate information on that subject, and the harder it is to keep all that information at a high level of quality because of the ridiculous (sorry, I have to say it again at this point, because that's what it is) perspective some people have that only a single certain article they're working on is important, and even extremely closely-related articles or articles elaborating sections of the article in question don't matter because they're not on the same page; this is how inconsistencies breed and grow and take over whole articles on Wikipedia. We shouldn't have distinct articles just for the hell of it; historicity of Jesus should be where we discuss the historicalness of Jesus' existence, and New Testament view of Jesus' life should be where we discuss the Gospel accounts of actual events in Jesus' life (exactly like this one does) and the interpretations and analysis of those events. -Silence 02:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, most of that looks pretty fantastic. Something like that would start us on the road to solving most of the problems I mentioned above. I say be bold, I can't wait to start editing it, and it'll certainly get people's attention faster than a Talk comment. -Silence 02:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Verifying the reference

The article states that "Luke's gospel records that Jesus' mother, Mary, was the sister of John's mother, Elizabeth, making the two men first cousins." It does not. The King James Bible reads that they are "cousins." The Revised Standard Version uses the term "kinswoman." Several other translations use "relative."

Unlike the question of Jesus's miracles, his resurrection, or even his existence, this matter is easily verified. The question is not whether Jesus and John are first cousins, but whether the Gospel of Luke says they are. Cousin Ricky 23:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

the word in Luke 1:36 is Koine Greek συγγενις/sungenis, meaning a related female

A subtle challenge for the faithful

A potential snare for faith-related articles is the author's faith mindset itself. I started paying serious attention to the Bible about a dozen years ago, and to my surprise, discovered that what a lot of believers say is in the Bible ain't there. Faith means never having to go back and make sure. However, this attitude must not be allowed in a disinterested scholarly work such as an encyclopedia. All of us need to be aware of our biases, of course, but my experience is that people of faith are likely to take many of their biases for granted, not realizing that these beliefs are not facts, and not universally held. Christians need to be extra careful when they discuss Jesus in a neutral setting. Cousin Ricky 23:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Non-Christians should also be extra careful to not let their biases interfere, as they are likely to have opinions about Christianity without ever having read the Bible at all.

Ah, I agree (though most Christians haven't read much of the Bible either), but that's not relevant here: having an opinion on Christianity without having read the Bible isn't significant to avoiding bias in a "Historical Jesus" article. Rather, having a strong opinion on Jesus without having studied accounts of his life is indeed a danger for Christians and non-Christians alike. This is also just as much a danger for people who have heavily studied the Bible, and assume its complete accuracy, ignoring external concerns. So every extreme in this matter can lead to bias; all the more reason to work hard on improving the article, and all the more reason for all of us (myself included) to try to get a view of Jesus that's both detailed and nuanced, and thorough and widely-researched, acknowledging multiple sides on numerous issues—though not assuming that all sides are equally significant to reconstructions of the historical Jesus! -Silence 13:10, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
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