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Jesus and Paul, undoubtedly the two most important men of early Christianity, both preached an apocalyptic message, that the kingdom of God was near and that the current age of evil would be destroyed. See Jesus's first saying in our earliest gospel, Mark, for an example
> “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
I can't give a full overview of this, so if you have time read Bart Ehrman's excellent work on the subject of Jesus's apocalypticism.
As for Paul, his undisputed epistles are infused with apocalypticism as well. See, for example, 1 Thessalonians, where he describes the 'rapture':
>According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thess 4:15-17)
Both Paul and Jesus believed that the end of days was almost here, and that people must make themselves ready. The fascinating difference between Paul and Jesus is in how they believed they should do this. Jesus told people to be more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees, the models of lawful Jewish obedience; Paul emphatically stated that those who adopted the Jewish law were cursed.
Thanks, I like that :)
Bart Ehrman wrote a good book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium which explains the mainstream view of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet among Bible scholars.
When it became clear that Jesus wasn't actually going to come back soon, the Christian depiction of him changed. So the Gospel of John, which was written later than the others, tones down the apocalyptic message.
You're absolutely correct. As such, things like the sermon on the mount, feeding the multitudes, etc are probably highly exaggerated.
If you're interested, I highly recommend this book. It was the first book I read on what mainstream historians think about Jesus, and why. http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyptic-Prophet-New-Millennium/dp/019512474X
The other flared users on here covered most of the bases, but I thought I'd add in one more piece of information since I plan on teaching as well.
You're correct that high schools want you to have a broad understanding of history. Yet, keep in mind that if you plan on going to graduate school soon thereafter, you will be expected to pick a particular part of history and then narrow down to a specific topic for your thesis. But, at this point in your academic career, I recommend doing something that had been suggested to me right when I started college (I myself had a bit of a late start because I joined the Army and served for four years before going to get my bachelor's degree). That piece of advise is reading entry level books into various periods of history that you may find interesting. This can best be done by doing as /r/TenMinuteHistory suggested and talking to a faculty advisor.
I myself had a feeling I wanted to study something in Antiquity, so I read books on Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, Classical Greece, Hellenistic Period of Rome, and even some cultural anthropology books to put things into perspective. That was when I first read Bart Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. It's an entry level graduate book that is often on the reading list at colleges who study Early Christianity around the country, and I was captivated by it. It made me want to start studying books by other authors in the field, and really helped me see what path I wanted to follow.
Tl;Dr: Talk to professors about getting books in a wide range of the field you may find interesting -- it could change your life. It did for me.
Bart Ehrman wrote a book specifically about this called <em>Jesus: Apocalyptic Preacher of the New Millenium</em>. He's one of the most established Biblical Scholars in the academic community and his textbooks are used at many major institutions, including Yale.
Please consider purchasing a copy of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019512474X
If you don't want to spend the money, but are willing to read it, I would be glad to buy the copy for you.
If you would like to recommend any materials in turn from a reputable scholar, please do so. (seriously)
Thank you for the debate, it's been fun, Peace! :)
Just FYI, the "Christ Myth" stuff is not taken seriously by any New Testament historian. It is essentially the creationism of atheism.
If you want a good intro to the historical Jesus, check out this book.
Arguably, Jesus was one of them.
>We are talking first and foremost about a supernatural fictional character
Ah! Got it. I am not talking about a supernatural fictional character. I am talking about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a normal guy. He was likely born in Nazareth, baptized by John the Baptist, had a brother named James, taught that the world was going to end any day, and then was crucified by the Romans. Later, his followers, trying to make sense of his death, made up miraculous stories of him, including his resurrection.
If you'd like to know why historians are confident that those points are all historical, I recommend Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium,Jesus Interrupted, or Did Jesus Exist, all by Bart Ehrman. I also own both as audio and ebooks, and am MORE than happy to share the files. As honestly, everything you are saying is textbook Dunning-Kruger.
> So if all you've got is the Razor, that ain't much.
But you haven't explained why it isn't much. You also need to explain why your methodology (whatever it is) doesn't apply to other ancient people. Hand waving, dismissing, or making specific claims only work if you have an argument that accounts for the data better than another perspective.
The view of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is the mainstream view among Bible scholars. The earliest Gospel, Mark, is the one where Jesus talked in the most apocalyptic terms.
The Jews were traumatized by the Roman occupation, they wanted rescue. So they hoped that God would swoop in and change everything, perhaps with Jesus as the new leader in the "Kingdom of God".
But after awhile it became clear this wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So the later Gospels toned down Jesus' apocalyptic statements, and Christianity evolved from its early apocalyptic expectations, into a religion that saw Jesus' message as a moral prescription for living in this world.
Bart Ehrman wrote a good book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium about this.
The Native Americans similarly had a Ghost Dance religion
>The messianic religion promised an apocalypse that would destroy the earth and the white man. The earth then would be restored to the Native Americans. Salvation of individuals was to be achieved by purging oneself of the evil ways learned from the whites. The religion required frequent ceremonial cleansing, meditation, prayer, chanting and of course dancing the Ghost Dance. Each ceremony lasted for five successive days. The participants danced each night, on the last night the dance continued until morning. The ceremony was to be repeated every six weeks.
Very sad, you can see the same thing as early Christianity happening in a modern context.
Awesome. And these areas of church history are incredibly fascinating! So here are some book recommendations.
By default, I usually recommend people start their journey into understanding early Christianity by studying who the historical Jesus was. For that, I typically recommend Bart Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium He's one of the most famous and influential American early Christian scholars who are still alive. He's agnostic, but not arrogantly so.
However, you want to study church history. There are two books that I typically recommend. Another is by Bart Ehrman called Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. It's a fantastic book and really interesting. I read this before I considered going to graduate school and getting my degree in Early Christianity, and this book GREATLY influenced by decision. It's easy to read and incredibly mind blowing.
On the flip side, if you'd like to get a different perspective, The Birth of Christianity : Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus by another famous historian named John Crossan is also extremely engaging as well.
I don't want to over-load you, so I'll leave them at that. If you have more questions please feel free to PM me. I can't always respond immediately, but I love to converse / answer questions on the topic. My goal is to teach this topic to college students and I truly love it and enjoy discussing it with people.
His Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium is very well written, and quite entertaining. The basic ideas described there are shared by many other scholars across the theological spectrum.
A good add-on is Kris Komarnitsky's "Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?. He's not a biblical scholar, but this enables him to add psychological theories why Jesus' early followers began to think, he died for their sins. The text is a bit academic, though.
Hope this helps.
Richard Carrier isn't really 'esteemed' when it comes to New Testament scholarship. Some of his ideas are pretty fringe and not widely accepted (or even talked about) in academia.
Personally? I really like him. But that is just my statistics background (academically speaking) and anti-theism bias. You might want to take a stroll on over to /r/academicbiblical to see what academia really thinks of the New Testament.
If you want to here what the consensus is within academia in relation to the historicity of the Bible a really good source to start with is Bart Ehrman.
Here is a good critique of Carrier's thesis...
...again, I am a huge fan of Carrier's thesis, I have no idea if its a better explanation than the current consensus. As an amateur who likes history and reads the bible I will simply side with the academic consensus. Authors like Carrier or Price will simply be my guilty pleasure.
Here is a good book that you might want to consume if you are interested in a more mainstream academic approach to the New Testament (but still want something a layman can get through).
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyptic-Prophet-New-Millennium/dp/019512474X
Academic consensus can change over time, and maybe we will look back on Carrier as a revolutionary 40 years from now, but there is no reason to think that is the case right now. But thats not going to stop me from hoping it happens, how cool would that be?!
Computers are a huge game changer when it comes to literary analysis and I wouldn't be surprised if in 50 years we have computers that can simply tell us the date of origin (within a year or two) for every verse in the bible and describe to us who the author of that verse, or chapter was.
I suggest you ask /u/astrob0I for his evidence that the overwhelming majority of historians do not believe Jesus was actually a real person, and weigh it against the testimony I have provided from Ehrman, Carrier, and Lataster to the existence of a consensus. If his evidence is not forthcoming, you should pick up a history book, because a cursory familiarity with the field is enough to know what the consensus is. Two fine places to start would be <em>Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium</em> by Bart Ehrman and <em>The Historical Figure of Jesus</em> by E. P. Sanders.
>That blog has already been dismantled elsewhere in this thread
If that was so, then it would be easy for you to respond to the arguments. I'm still waiting (I know you won't though).
>A non-peer reviewed blog that has already been ridiculed in this very conversation is not proof.
Since when do you care about peer review? That's a bit hypocritical. Regardless, everything that the author has written is standard scholarly consensus. I gave you a blog because I know you won't read a book. But it looks like you won't even read the blog. Regardless, here is a peer reviewed book, which goes over many of the same arguments, but in much, much more detail. Though, I realize you won't ever read it.
But since you won't read that either, let me give you just one argument to respond to:
Our earliest sources have Jesus being born in Nazareth--a small, hardly populated village of zero significance. However, Jewish prophecy said that the messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem. And in fact, our later sources are shown to have changed Nazareth to Bethlehem, as to help Jesus appear to fulfill the prophecy. So here is the question: if Jesus was entirely made up, why would the Jews who made the story up say he was from Nazareth, since that is not what was predicted by the prophecy? What is more likely: that he exited, and was born in Nazareth, or that he didn't exist, but the Jews who made up the story decided to make the story not conform to their beliefs? And not that it matters, but this is the same argument that convinced Christopher Hitchens that Jesus was a real person.
Also, you forgot to answer one of my earlier questions. Please do so. Would you agree that you know more about this topic than all the historians on earth who disagree with you (despite never having even read a single book on the topic)?
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