What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus

Re:What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus by justanotherjoe on Friday April 07, 2023 @12:50PM (#35483866)

Well according to our understanding, on stories like these they usually embelish on the 'origin' part. In the case of the bible, the story of the archangel gabriel visiting Mary is number one on the suspect of being an embelishment.

And speaking of being 'historical', as in written down by a witness, there are things in the bible that strikes me as 'filled in'. I only go to church during easter, so it I had it read to me very recently.

Like the story of Jesus praying in Getshemane, it was supposed to be jesus' personal prayer, who witnessed that?

Or Jesus personal discussion with pontius pilate, again, who wrote that down? Maybe someone interviewed pilate again later, I don't know, that doesn't seem too plausible, as I never heard the name pilate written down again as one of the accounts.

Or when Jesus got tempted by the devil, again he was supposed to be alone. Did he tell his disciples afterwards, or is this completely creative writing (or oral as the first christians did it)?

These are just some of the thoughts I had while listening to the sermon. My point is I think that there was some artistic license in the whole mythology of Jesus. Maybe 'to make it flow better' or something like that.

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Re:What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus by krapp on Friday April 07, 2023 @01:11PM (#35484099)

None of the gospels (out of the hundreds that existed before canon was decided on) were written by actual eyewitnesses, much less by the apostles. All of them are embellishments written years or decades after the fact.

The Religion for Breakfast has some interesting videos on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyI1XOselI - Introduction to Biblical Archaeology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCy7NuujCLc - How Did the New Testament Form?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV9VPM7lIoQ - Did the Gospels copy each other?

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6PrrnhAKFQ - Who Wrote the Bible (Useful Charts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKp4yWGTfXo - 10 Changes Made to the Bible (part 1, Trey the Explainer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX62bRIG-OI - 10 Changes Made to the Bible (part 2, Trey the Explainer)

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Re:What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus by yamtaddle on Friday April 07, 2023 @01:23PM (#35484251)

I think it's helpful, when considering historicity as it relates to the stories in the Gospels, to think about what a believer or outsider view of, say, Mormonism might be if our only sources were written 2nd or 3rd hand, mostly by a very small number of believers, years to decades after the actual events.

In the case of Mormonism, we have tons of other sources from outside the faith, and the claims made by the faithful were largely recorded more-or-less as the supposed events were happening. Our view, and the religion itself, would likely be a ton different if our sources for all that were more like what we have for Jesus and the events of the Gospels. Plausibly, what survived might hardly have any basis in reality whatsoever.

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Re:What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus by justanotherjoe on Friday April 07, 2023 @01:21PM (#35484228)

I know, but I shouldn't have said 'written'. The early christians mostly use mouth-to-mouth to transmit the gospels. I agree that most of it are sus, but there are some couple elements that remains consistent, like the last supper, or the baptism of jesus, or his death and rise.

At least those elements of the lore, I believe are constant from the very first followers. A story must have a connecting thread, even though it may have many modifications.

I'm just saying this from a storytelling perspective of the early christians, not that I believe it really. I shouldn't even probably attend mass at this point.

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Re:What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus by v-erne on Friday April 07, 2023 @01:55PM (#35484666)

That's a great point about what bible or rather any holy book actually is - just a collection of stories that were passed from person to person (and we all know that we always tell the stories the same way, without mistake here and there, right?) and then written down at some point in time and curated, filtred and rounded up by clergy (which did not have any interests in the shape ot the stories, only truth, right?).

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