Moonwatcher wrote:proudfootz wrote:Moonwatcher wrote:proudfootz wrote:
I was asking the same question a thousand or so pages ago.
Clearly we have about zero idea about anything the fellow ever did or said. In my opinion, of course. For me it's inadequate to simply draw a line through the miracles and accept anything left over that's possible as being factual, or even probable.
Here's Carrier's definition:
This has some good features - one of which is that it is not a requirement that the actual man who inspires the movement needs to have been executed, only that this is something claimed by members of the movement.
Just as it isn't required that he really rise from the dead, that is only a claim.
Me, I'm not sure I would even require that the fellow be named Jesus.
So I set the bar pretty low for what would be required for an "historical Jesus'.
I have no disagreement with any of this.
I have no "requirement" that the person did every non-magical thing or even most of them. For a HJ to have existed, it need merely be a real person who was partly the basis for the religion while there were clearly many other things that were involved. That he was named Jesus is just about impossible as I understand it as that's an extrapolation into later languages.
I think that has a lot to do with it, that there is no agreed upon standard as to what constitutes a Historical Jesus. My bar is also pretty low. If a real person who actually lived is in there anywhere, I think of that as a HJ. It may well be that many people count as MJ what others would call HJ.
Yes, I think that it is convenient not to define what constitutes an HJ as it's easier to be vague.
There is a bit of gray area where I think MJ shades off into HJ (or is it the other way around?).
For instance, if the literary figure is a pastiche of several real people that kind of straddles the line.
It probably does. Way back in the thread (maybe 500 or a thousand pages ago), the idea of multiple people as a basis was brought up and I seem to recall there were those who thought of that as MJ while others thought that would constitute HJ.
I said it was a perfect win/win solution: King Solomon couldn't have done better to give both sides their due.
Carrier's definition seems reasonable.
If this person existed and there was enough of a movement to go anywhere, he would have to have followers.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of the execution sprang up. Was it really what happened? Does it matter? The rumor sprang up. If he existed, it would most likely come from his followers.
The third one I question a little. I don't think it has to be the followers who knew him personally or saw him because there were some good arguments presented that the idea of Jesus as "living deity" is something that got added into the mix later coming in from religious influences other than Judaism. It's believable that "messiah" was something they saw him as. But that's very different from perceiving him as equal to and/ or the same thing as their god.
Yes, I think there's room for some looseness about whom we might consider 'followers' - it need not be anyone who met Jesus personally or heard him speak. Maybe a generation or two later 'messiah' meaning a man sent by a god became transformed into a demigod or angel.
Of course, it's all guesswork. Reading Paul we see Jesus is already a pre-existent being who takes on the likeness of a human to perform a mission. If Paul is a contemporary of disciples of Jesus, that leaves very little time for any development from obscure nobody whose mouldering bones anyone could see for themselves to wholly divine being in disguise.