We're Still Not Done with Jesus
180 comments
·March 25, 2025Ninjinka
Many points in this article are presented as accepted fact, but are not (even among non-Christian scholars).
Such as:
> "Most important, there are the four Gospels, written in Greek some forty to sixty years after the Crucifixion is thought to have happened. These were composed somewhere far from Jerusalem, in a language that Jesus and his disciples would not have known, by writers who could not have been eyewitnesses.
The claim that Jesus and his disciples "would not have known" Greek is historically inaccurate. Greek was the lingua franca of the Eastern Roman Empire and commonly spoken in Galilee and Judea alongside Aramaic and Hebrew. Coins, inscriptions, and documents from the period confirm its widespread use.
And "writers who could not have been eyewitnesses"? Presumably this is referring to Mark and Luke only, because Matthew and John were two of the twelve apostles.
davmre
Scholarly consensus is that the "Gospel of Matthew" was not written by the apostle Matthew and the "Gospel of John" was not written by the apostle John:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew#Author_and_d...
Ninjinka
For that assertion to hold water, "scholarly consensus" would have to define "scholarly" so narrowly as to exclude the vast majority of scholars (it seems like it should go without saying that most scholars in this area are Christian who maintain apostolic authorship).
Perhaps they are dismissing scholars who identify as Christian? That would be quite the catch-22.
jarpadat
In case you are interested, here is some data on how scholars view apostolic authorship: https://thesacredpage.com/2024/12/13/the-2024-survey-of-paul...
To me, it is apparent that the data cannot support any clean division between two "sides", it tells a more complicated story about sometimes there was apostolic authorship, sometimes not, and sometimes we don't really know.
I would suggest that the real academic consensus is that we can confidently rule out the us-vs-them preoccupation that is common in lay discussion.
goatlover
Where do the attributions come from, Papias? He claimed Mark wrote down Peter's teachings in the wrong order, and that Matthew's gospel was written in Hebrew. But the Matthew we have is in Greek, copies from Mark and shares other Greek material with Luke (Q source).
normalaccess
And 8 out of 10 dentists prefer Colgate...
room271
You are overstating the case on authorship (we don't know who wrote Matthew and John) but otherwise you are wholly correct -- the article misrepresents the scholarly consensus. I.e. as you say, Greek was pervasive and Jesus almost certainly spoke it (along with Aramaic) and it is quite possible that gospel accounts are either written by eyewitnesses or contain the direct testimony of those who were. The historical timeline allows for this and we simply lack historical evidence to make a wholly conclusive case either way (though many attempt to do so on each side).
dizhn
This is exactly the subject of this book by Robyn Faith Walsh.
The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture ( Preview pdf: https://robynfaithwalsh.com/content/files/2023/01/Walsh-OECL...)
She has a ton of content on youtube as well.
Anthony-G
I always enjoy coming across examples of nominative determinism – even if the name is only tangentially related to what the person does.
vinceguidry
Thanks for confirming the low quality, now I don't have to bother listening, like, the whole area got conquered by the Greeks before the Romans showed up. It's called Hellenization and is a major theme in the Book of Maccabees.
Unreal.
krapp
As far as I know the scholarly consensus is that none of the gospels, including Matthew and John, were written by disciples, or anyone who lived within Jesus' lifetime. Obviously Christians believe otherwise.
room271
This is not correct. Secular academics disagree quite a lot about the specifics as we lack sufficient historical data but it is very widely accepted that:
* the gospels were written in the 1st century
It is therefore entirely possible that they were written by eyewitnesses, even though many do not think they were written by some of the 12 disciples. The topic of 'eyewitnesses' is however hotly debated. See e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitne... which is pro this view but also plenty against.
Even John's gospel, which is often thought of as the latest, may well have been written very early; arguments for a late dating are almost wholly made in relation to the text itself (i.e. it has a 'higher' Christology) and not wider historical data.
Source: I am studying theology at Cambridge University in the UK and have heard several professors here debate these topics, plus I am familiar with the literature.
goatlover
They "eyewitness" testimony would include things like Pilate talking to Jesus and the devil tempting Jesus in the desert. Or the women in Mark's gospel finding the empty tomb and then not telling anyone about it. There is a lot of legendary type of story telling that you get with ancient heroes.
Some of the teachings of Jesus might be historical.
red_trumpet
> Obviously Christians believe otherwise.
Depends on the Christians. My Catholic school teachers in Germany taught us what you write.
michaelsbradley
Depends on the Catholics, too. Some who profess the Catholic Faith, educators and non-educators alike, find it scandalous that staff at a Catholic school teach their pupils such ideas. Others find it amusing, at best, that Catholic teachers impart any ideas re: Scripture that don't line up with areligious academic commentary.
ZephyrP
In the mid-2000s, I attended evangelical 'kids night'. Held each Friday at the dead-center of an unincorporated community in rural Colorado.
The "cool" youth pastor who was responsible for these events told us "the Gospel's authors are anonymous, their names are totally traditional". I never had the sense that this view was in any way heretical or contentious, even in a strain of Christianity that strongly emphasized the historicity of the Bible.
anon291
This is what we learned in Catholic school. Christians are not delusional about the source of the gospels.
There's been this weird push to view the Bible like the Quran and the two really have nothing in common. The entire view on the book is wholly different.
The authorship of the Bible is actually not really important if you believe the claim of the Catholic/Orthodox church (who make the same claim)
xhevahir
Catholics may be willing to believe that the Gospels were written by other authors than the traditional ones, but many, many Protestants are not, particularly in the US.
MisterBastahrd
None of the gospel writers were the people whose names are attributed to them.
room271
It is not correct to assert this. More precise is to say: it is unlikely that all of the gospels were written by the names we now associate with them -- at least not insofar as these names relate to the 12 disciples.
The truth is we don't know who wrote the gospels. The evidence is that they are quite early (i.e. for Mark, consensus is late 60s so perhaps 30-40 years after Jesus' death). In fact, many scholars think 'Mark' was written by 'Mark Antony' who is mentioned in Acts. And John may have been written by a 'John the Elder' who is mentioned elsewhere. These are educated guesses though -- the evidence is circumstantial.
AStonesThrow
> [Our] truth is we don't know who wrote the gospels
Okay, because y’all forgot? People purposely want to remake Sacred Scripture?
I mean, the Church knows who wrote them; Jesus, Mary and the Saints know; bishops and priests and the faithful knew for centuries.
Naming of Bible books isn’t about some guy holding a pen and making stuff up: the names speak to provenance, lineage, and perspective. Somewhat the same function as the “begat” passages everyone hates (because who can remember who all THOSE people were???)
If scholarship wants to move past that attribution and unmoor the books from tradition, then they can. Modern interpretations, perspectives, and hermeneutics are always in demand. But I confidently assure you that anyone who mattered was well aware of where those books came from and “who” had written them, notwithstanding meddlesome medieval monkey business.
shawabawa3
But Mark Antony died before Jesus was born
freeopinion
This is bit besides the point, but I'll stick it here anyway.
When I read <u>A Man Called Ove</u> in English I was impressed over and over again with the writing. It made me wish I could understand Swedish to compare the original prose. I concluded that Henning Koch is an amazingly talented wordsmith. And it made me suspect that Fredrik Backman might also be one. Clearly, Backman is a very good writer. But I wonder if Koch is a better wordsmith. Sadly, I am unable to enjoy Backman in the original language. As it is, I credit Backman with great writing and Koch with great wording (probably inspired by Backman's great wording).
niemandhier
I often read translations along side the original. So far the originals always were better.
throw0101c
> Pagels’s larger point is that the most improbable Gospel tales serve to patch a fractured narrative—using familiar tropes and myths to smooth over inconsistencies that believers struggled with from the beginning.
"Familiar tropes and myths" is perhaps something you'd consider as the 20/21 Century literary critic, but I'm not sure a bunch of mostly peasants writing in the 1st Century would be.
And it's not like they had anything to gain by writing and spreading about their beliefs: the early Christians were ostracized from their community(s) and persecuted. For the first ~300 years of the existence of Christianity there was probably little but trouble from believing in it, until roughly the conversion of Constantine (312) and later the Edict of Milan.
onlypassingthru
Were first century peasants educated and wealthy enough to write? How good were the public schools back then?
throw0101c
> Were first century peasants educated and wealthy enough to write?
"Peasant" would exist on a spectrum: some think Luke was a physician and thus literate. Peter was a fisherman and probably illiterate, but it was certainly possible to dictate someone who could write.
Remember also that oral tradition was a thing as well in many societies:
myth_drannon
In Judea? Probably very high, some sources say up to 20% of men. It's was religious duty of every Jew to read the sacred texts and also to be able to write a Torah scroll(but most likely it was not mandatory). Father was to teach his son to write. Actually it was the initial reason for public schools, for orphans to learn read and write.
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drekipus
> the first-century Jewish rabbi
I don't know why they put rabbi there. Jesus is later rejected by Jewish teachings and is probably considered heretical.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_Jesus
Although I really appreciate what Jesus adds to the religious stories as it opened it up to the world, in a sense of "everyone can be Christian" without the need for completely surplantting yourself with old laws and traditions (like circumcision).
cherryteastain
How is it inaccurate?
John 1:38
> Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
John 3:2
> The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
John 20:16
> Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
drekipus
"which is to say, master" is the part we're talking about here. jesus isnt a modern day rabbi, but was a teacher in the classical sense. makes sense to me. thanks
calebio
I think there's a decent case to be made that he was considered a "rabbi", or teacher in the time period prior to the destruction of the second temple, by a group of jewish folks.
As far as I understand it, the more formalized, institutional rabbinic structure came after the destruction of the second temple.
drekipus
That's fair. Thanks
VOIPThrowaway
That's the Christian viewpoint in that Christians view themselves as the valid continuation of the first convenient between god and the Hebrews.
calebio
Sure, but as far as I understand it, his followers were Jewish people, those followers called him Rabbi, so at that time... it was a "Jewish viewpoint".
ViktorRay
It is possible for one to be a rabbi and also be rejected by other rabbis.
Judaism wasn't a monolith then and isn't now.
AStonesThrow
Yeah but as for Jesus, he was rejected by all Jews, Sanhedrin and high priests, also the Roman Empire for hundreds of years, zillions of Hellenics, and a large chunk of the entire world 2000 years hence.
I’d call that a unique achievement in the history of rejections.
bdcravens
Rejected later upon evaluation of his entire life, but that's not to say he wasn't considered a teacher at the time. After all, there's plenty of modern-day preachers who have done some heinous acts, but they don't retroactively lose that title during the time they held it.
It's worth noting that Messianic Judaism is an offshoot that holds that Jesus (Yeshua) was who he claimed. (While I'm not religious at this point in my life, my wife is a member of such a congregation)
dismalaf
The fact he was rejected posthumously by those who became the dominant orthodox sect doesn't mean he wasn't a rabbi during his time.
stared
Jesus' teachings fit within the diversity of Jewish sects existing at the time—Sadducees, Pharisees (literally "sectarians," derived from the Greek word Pharisaios, sharing the same root as the word "pariah"), and Essenes (a mystical, monastic sect; some speculate Jesus may have been associated with them).
Had it not been for Paul of Tarsus, Christianity might still be considered one of many Jewish sects. (In early Christian times, the Romans referred to Christianity as a "Jewish superstition.")
> "everyone can be Christian" without the need for completely surplantting yourself with old laws and traditions (like circumcision)
This idea originates explicitly from Paul's teachings.
null
bjourne
The most compelling evidence for the historicity of Jesus does not come from the gospels, but from Paul's letters. He claims to have met with Peter and James which he calls Jesus' brother and the leader of the Jerusalem congregation. We can assume that James did exist since Paul writes about disagreements he has with him. Paul had no reason to make up a figure that challenges his views. Moreover, if James did exist, it seems far-fetched to believe that he were able to assume the title "brother of Jesus" without actually being the brother of Jesus. People would have known whether his brother had been publicly executed or not.
In a similar vein, the gospels have Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan. Various form of baptism were common among Jews at the time to purify themselves or cleanse them from sin. Why would the son of God need that? If Jesus was invented from scratch you would probably not include that story because it raises more questions than it answers.
mystified5016
> Paul had no reason to make up a figure that challenges his views.
Sure he would. Today we'd call James a strawman. A narrative fiction intended to argue against the author so that the author can pre-emptively debunk any argument from the actual audience. It makes a lot more sense if you consider the writing is intended to outlive the author. You have to present all possible arguments because there's no going back, republishing, or even talking to the audience.
You see strawmen like this a lot in scriptures. It's a pretty obvious tool when you think about it.
But I have no real reason to doubt James existing. The evidence I've seen is convincing enough that I don't doubt that a man named Jesus existed and did historic things. Whether he was a Messiah is a different question.
Always remember that the Bible is a collection of stories. It was intended to be passed down orally and to the illiterate. Oral histories are always dressed up. Either intentionally or mutated through the generations, the stories become more memorable over time, and thus more embellished. It is unwise to treat any religion's scripture as a literal, factual, historical document. They aren't, none of them are. They're all stories meant to teach lessons, and not a technical manual.
goatlover
> Sure he would. Today we'd call James a strawman. A narrative fiction intended to argue against the author so that the author can pre-emptively debunk any argument from the actual audience.
It's apparent from Paul's letters that his audience knew who the leaders in Jerusalem were (James, Peter, John), and had contact with them or their followers. He is writing letters responding to some issue(s) a particular group is having. Such as whether Paul was a proper apostle like those who new Jesus when he was alive.
As such, there's no reason to think Paul could get away with creating a fictional leader and family member after Jesus's death. The people he's writing to would know better.
AStonesThrow
You’re totally right, I mean that Jesus we crucified was probably made out of straw or 3 kids in a really long tunic. And that’s why I still worship scarecrows.
bjourne
Well, you don't make up straw men that makes you inferior. Paul never met Jesus, James did and also was the leader of the (clearly) very important Jerusalem church. Paul knew and admitted that he lacked authority, hence he had to sell his ideas very hard to the readers of his letters. Nothing suggest that he intended for those letters to outlive him (the vast majority probably didn't) or become the backbone of a new religion. It just so happened.
The Pharisees in the gospels are good examples of straw men, though.
ggm
Historians of reddit have to deal with this on a recurring basis. It's hard when textual refs stop in Josephus and the accretion of centuries of editorial over ur-texts.
Often times people seek to argue by comparison: "we have less evidence Darius or Julius Caesar existed" type arguments about the primacy of contemporary eye witness accounts, distinct from eg economic and architectural evidence.
Fugitive Christians didn't have time to collate the "I was there" takes and now it's Analects.
NoMoreNicksLeft
[flagged]
TheBlight
Why is this acceptable but if referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately? I fully expect my critique here to receive a flag.
AlecSchueler
> referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately?
Would it be? It's my experience of HN that these things are all grouped as Abrahamic mythology. Cult is quite a charged word but I would be surprised to see it flagged in this environment.
pirgidb
Your comment wasn't flagged, and the parent was. How does this impact your views?
NoMoreNicksLeft
How is it unacceptable? Do you not know what a mystery cult is?
krapp
Christianity isn't a mystery cult.There isn't really a hierarchy keeping secret rituals and knowledge from the masses or acolytes. At best it's a failed apocalypse cult.
And by "failed" I mean it seems clear from Matthew 24:34 that first generation Christians believed the end times would occur within their lifetimes (assuming that account is credible,) and such a belief is consistent with every other apocalyptic cult, Christian or otherwise. Like Seventh Day Adventists, Christians do keep kicking the can down the road, but just as the book of Revelations more likely refers to Nero Caesar and a belief at the time that he would return from the dead ("Nero Redivius[0]") than some future nuclear war where the "locusts" are really Apache helicopters[1], so Christian beliefs about the second coming should be assumed to apply their own cultural and temporal context, rather than some as yet unknown future millennia removed.
Obviously the cult as a whole has been very, very successful.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Redivivus
[1]I know people who believe this, and they'll claim it as evidence of the Bible's divine prophetic power.
selfhoster
Agree with the first part of your comment but "that first generation Christians believed the end times would occur within their lifetimes" is at odds with Jesus's teachings where he said he does not even know when God will choose to bring the apocalypse.
In modern culture, it's often asserted the apocalypse has occurred any time someone doesn't get their way.
NoMoreNicksLeft
>Christianity isn't a mystery cult.There isn't really a hierarchy keeping secret rituals and knowledge from the masses or acolytes.
I don't even know what to say. For the first thousand years or so, they didn't even teach their own scriptures to so-called Christians. They conducted mass in a language most didn't speak. Even now, the Vatican squirrels away who knows what down in some vault.
Yeh, in many places today it's not a mystery cult, if you ignore its origin, its history (and recent history at that), and nearly every other detail of consequence.
Boogie_Man
The section of Mathew is understood by mainstream Christianity as a "double prophecy" concerning both the destruction of the second temple and the eventual second coming of Christ. I can understand someone seeing this as moving goalposts until I consider that it could've been quietly deleted to avoid embarrassment if it wasn't intended this way.
Christians have a wide range of views on eschatology, but the mainstream position for a while has been amillennial, which are not the people who get freaked out about locusts and red cows and whatnot.
dctoedt
> failed apocalypse cult
See also the additional New Testament citations I compiled in "Is Jesus Coming Again? The Predictors' Track Record Doesn't Inspire Confidence" [0]
(Some of the comments there are mildly amusing.)
[0] https://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/10/is_jesus_coming... (2005; self-cite)
pstuart
> no one seems to care now.
Indeed. They believe and that's that -- there's zero proof that would change their minds. I'm a non believer but would be willing to change my mind if there was compelling evidence.
swat535
If you don’t want to believe, I think that’s fine, however saying that there is zero evidence or philosophical arguments that could at least gives you pause would be shortsighted.
Hitchen’s tried to hold this position by regurgitatation decade old counter arguments publicly and all he got attributed to him at the end was “hitch-slaps”.
adamtaylor_13
If you haven’t found compelling evidence, then you haven’t looked. I’m not being snarky. Look up a list of atheists who set out to disprove God. Once you start looking, it’s impossible to miss.
What most people seem to mean by this is, “If God himself came down in a column of fire, then I’d believe.”
Most folks can’t be bothered to actually dig into the real, ample evidence that exists. You like philosophical arguments? There’s philosophical arguments for it. You like astronomical or geologic arguments? There’s that too. Logic? Check.
There’s so much evidence for Christ, it’s basically the only logically consistent worldview. I know I’ll get downvoted to hell for saying that (heh) but it’s true. There is not another logically consistent worldview beyond Christianity.
throw0101c
> Strangely, that's the one constant... no one cared back then if he was real, and no one seems to care now.
Plenty of people cared then:
> 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died[e] in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
* https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians...
And plenty of people care now:
pyjarrett
> no one cared back then if he was real,
This was directly addressed in 2 John 7
"I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world."
room271
The article is polemical, which I don't mean as a criticism but simply as genre description. There is no attempt to engage with the scholarly consensus (or indeed any of biblical scholarship beyond the named author). The piece wants to explain why religion persists but even on this lens it is heavy on words but lacking in depth. A lot is asserted.
Reasoning
> In various texts, including Apocryphal works that date to around the same time as the Gospels proper, Joseph appears to suspect Mary of infidelity.
This struck me as a strange statement to not explain further. Plenty of Christians interpret Matthew 1:19 to mean Joseph was going to divorce Mary because he believed she was unfaithful.
> The consoling notion of divine impregnation was commonplace in the Hellenistic world, with countless tales of gods foisting demigods on virgins. Plutarch, for instance, described Rome’s founder Romulus as born to a divinely impregnated vestal virgin.
The later is true but it's strange to use Plutarch as an example considering that at best he would have been writing Parallel Lives at the same time the Gospels were being written.
> Those attributed to Jesus—described in language nearly identical to accounts of the Greek mystic and holy man Apollonius of Tyana, say—are neither more nor less convincing than others.
Well "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" was written in the early 200ADs, approximately 100 years after the last Gospel was written. Once again, the point may be correct but the example given is confusing cause and effect.
> A scholarly paradigm that has shone in recent years shifts the focus: the Gospels are now seen as literary constructions from the start. There were no rips in the fabric of memory, in this view, because there were no memories to mend—no foundational oral tradition beneath the narratives, only a lattice of tropes. The Gospel authors, far from being community leaders preserving oral sayings for largely illiterate followers, were highly literate members of a small, erudite upper crust, distant in experience, attitude, and geography from any Galilean peasant preachers.
That seems like an extraordinary claim to make. The Gospels were drawn from no oral tradition, really? So there was a complete disconnect between the practitioners of early Christianity, who obviously would have their own oral tradition, and the Gospels writers. And the early Christians then accepted the Gospels even though they had no relationship to their existing traditions? Or is the claim the Christianity didn't exist until the Gospels were created, in which case you have to contest with the Apocrypha and historical accounts of Jesus.
The simplest explanation seems to be that the Gospels drew from early Christian oral tradition and now lost writings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels# for an explanation "now lost writings".
corkybeta
Mention of Richard Carrier was odd. The mythicist angle of Gospel accounts seems the least worthy of mention, even when the author encourages taking his work with the proverbial sodium. I like watching Tim O'Neill angrily refute everything Carrier says - he really doesn't like the guy.
akomtu
The historicity of those events is a distraction. What matters is this is a symbolical story of how any soul can ascend from the prison of its own persona, with all its egocentric thoughts and desires, to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus most likely walked this path to prove it's possible, but it shouldn't distract you from the fact that this symbolical struggle and crucifixion is taking place in every human. It's also important to realise that this story isn't unique to Christianity. All major religions of the present and of the past tell the same message, using different symbols appropriate for the culture of the time. This message is, in fact, the only reason religions exist at all.
legitster
[dead]
https://archive.ph/CrwBy