johnbyronkuhner.com

Jesus was not the only first-century figure who was deemed to have a virgin birth, martyrdom and resurrection. In fact, these were quite common tropes in the Greek and Roman world at the time. Jesus was far from unique in being seen as part human and part divine in his time. The understanding of his divinity evolved over the years, as his followers argued among themselves and tried to make sense of the incarnational mystery that emerged from his first followers. Jesus himself was clearly an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who believed that the entire world was about to end, to usher in a new kingdom of heaven on earth. The Gospels are a mishmash of competing memories filtered through decades of repetition and translation and manual transcription. The followers of Jesus in his lifetime were primarily illiterate rural Galileans – far removed from the Greek and Roman sophisticates who later tried to make sense of them. All of this comes down to these peasants’ memories and the stories they told each 0ther and then the world.

I don’t consider myself neurotic or defensive as a Christian, but it seems to me that almost every one of these statements is baseless – they are all assertions without evidence.  “Jesus was not the only first-century figure who was deemed to have a virgin birth, martyrdom and resurrection.”  The Greek and Roman world of that time is my specialty, and my question is still the same when I hear people assert this: who were the other first-century figures who had virgin births, martyrdom, and resurrection?  Sullivan calls them “common tropes.”  I do not know of any examples of this at all, and I have studied this period of history my entire adult life.  I don’t think it makes any difference if there are any, by the way, but still, statements like this need evidence.

“The understanding of his divinity evolved over the years, as his followers argued among themselves and tried to make sense of the incarnational mystery that emerged from his first followers.”  True in the sense that everything evolves over the years, but also good to note that there are NO mentions of Jesus in any text whatsoever before the ones that call him the Son of God.  That’s the very earliest part of the tradition.  The “Jesus was just a guy” part of the tradition is the later part – not the “Jesus is the Son of God” part.  I think the modern presumption is that Jesus was just a guy, and the theology got foisted on him later.  This belief then informs the way people project their ideas onto the sources.  The sources do not agree with this interpretation.

“Jesus himself was clearly an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who believed that the entire world was about to end, to usher in a new kingdom of heaven on earth.”  This is part of the Gospel tradition, but it could be erroneous just as much as any other part.  It’s the same text that says he preached the end of the world that also says he walked on water.  It’s possible that he never preached the end of the world but that that part of the story was added on to make him fit into a trope.  That trope actually does exist in the writings of that time.

“The Gospels are a mishmash of competing memories filtered through decades of repetition and translation and manual transcription.”  I still don’t understand how the Gospels are dated.  If I told the world’s greatest Gospel scholar the Gospels were written in 30 A.D. rather than 70, I feel confident he’d be unable to prove me wrong.  Where do we have data on the development of religious doctrines so we can claim it would take decades of development to get to, let’s say, the Gospel of John?  How do we know it wasn’t months or years as opposed to decades?  How many religious cults wait for decades before deciding that their leader was actually a God?  Is that pattern so certain that we can project it back two thousand years onto a movement we know very little about?  In fact, I don’t think it ever happens that way.

“The followers of Jesus in his lifetime were primarily illiterate rural Galileans – far removed from the Greek and Roman sophisticates who later tried to make sense of them. All of this comes down to these peasants’ memories and the stories they told each 0ther and then the world.”  The source we have for this is the tradition, but again, it’s not more reliable than any other part of the tradition.  Go look at the archaeology of the area – Galilee was not a podunk area.  Whoever wrote the Gospels, they are masterpieces in a form completely different from any books written before them, and they are literary, i.e. they engage with, quote, refute, and echo the literary tradition before them.  In other words, the earliest things we know about Jesus come very well-developed, with a wisdom of life which has literally been the spiritual food of much of the Western world for the two thousand years since.  And it hasn’t had to be changed in all that time.  We haven’t had to write new Gospels to clean up the primitive dullardry the religion began with.  If this is the work of a few fishermen, that’s fine – it’s entirely possible, in fact – but remember, these were very special fishermen.

I’ve heard these scholarly claims so many times, I think it’s good to remember that they’re basically just a mirror to the modern mind. “Oh, all that mythy-stuff, yes they had to do that, it was like the clothes of the time, don’t worry about that… yeah people were confused then… I mean, people were kind of dumb back then, you know?  Not like us, we know exactly what we’re about.”