How much of Christianity came from Jesus, and how much came from other sources?

[One Bad Pig]

Christianity reversed a festival in to an ancient celebration from a far flung corner of the empire - and the church got the date wrong by two or three days?
Someone else comes up with Christianity co-opting Saturnalia, celebrated initially on the fifteenth of December, but from the time of Julius Caesar's adjustment of the calendar either the fifteenth or seventeenth of December, though by the first century it was a week long festival. So (as Rogue pointed out) the church messed up and set their date of celebration a week late.
Yet another comes up with Sol Invictus - the first celebration of which is 50 years later than that of the first recorded Christmas celebration.
There are plenty of conspiracy theories with more substance.
Hanukkah has all the lights and exchanging of gifts associated with Christmas, occasionally falls on Dec 25, and has the added advantage of actually being relevant to Christianity.
But the last thing many will consider possible is the reason recorded by the people who actually selected the date: a calculation based on the date of Zacharias' service in the temple.

Christians weren't very smart, you see (because they fell for Christianity, duh). Even though educated people could figure out the exact day of, say, the solstice, for Christians being off a few days was no biggie.

[Sparko]

Yes, I can do that for you:-
Miracles that can have natural explanations I keep. All the rest I dump.
References to actions which make prophecies to be fulfilled I dump.
Very long speeches by Jesus I dump.......... just who remembered those 'word for word'?
Much of John's gospel gets dumped, but some pieces of info ring true to me, for instance, why would the author/s make up the name of Judas's father? etc etc.
Stories that don't make sense probably are not true, such as a young pregnant Mary going walkabout to see relatives in Judea!!!
Claims such as the Baptist being related to Jesus when he later sends disciples to ask if Jesus is the one.....etc etc
Claims of coming back to life......... out.


I sieve the gospels for what I believe is true. Gotta be honest, it's like that advert that declares 'It's the ---- that J--- W--- reject that makes J--- W---- the best.'
I do not offer excuses, I offer my reasons, it's just that you see things your way and only your way can be right for you.

Much of G-Mark is the true story, imo,

So basically you just filter the bible through your already held beliefs and reject anything that doesn't match with what you want to accept. That is very closed-minded. What makes you an expert on what happened in the ANE?

Eider, if someone writes a mixture of truth and lies, there is no logical way to figure out which is which. If I thought the bible was full of lies and make-believe, I would reject it all. Conversely, if I read something that I know is true, I will tend to believe the parts that I am not sure of or think might be fantastic. After all if they are telling the truth in the ordinary areas why would they be lying in the extraordinary? Unless it can be shown they were telling a fiction somehow.

The bible is of the latter variety. We have evidence that does back up many of the places, people and events in the bible (the ordinary). Sometimes even years after it might have been thought there was no evidence, evidence has been found to show that the bible was accurate. I believe one such example was Pilate. For many years experts thought that Pilate was never in Judea during Jesus' times, but then they found items (coins maybe?) showing that he was indeed there. They have recently found the Pool of Siloam in 2004 (where Jesus healed the blind man). That doesn't prove the miracles, but it does prove that the authors were there and knew the city during the time of Jesus and not someone writing hundreds of years later as some skeptics claim. So why would we not accept their accounts of the events of Jesus' life?

As far as the long speeches being word for word? Maybe so or maybe not. How do you know that Jesus' disciples didn't keep notes as they followed him around? Writing down what he said and what speeches he gave? He was loved and practically worshiped by them and was their teacher. What students don't keep notes? Of course not all could write, but literacy was pretty high among Jews compared to pagans, given their reliance on scripture.

[rogue06]

I don't know about Cafeteria Christians .... the ones I know seem reasonable enough, but 'yes'..... I only accept those parts that I agree with.

Do you accept all parts of the New Testament?

Yes.

However I suspect that answer won't suffice and you'll incessantly ask it again and again over the next few days.

[rogue06]

Again......... mankind celebrated the return of the sun by simple observation, so the time was fixed.
Christianity clearly needed to 'cover' that celebration with its own.

Remember what I said about it being impolite not to offer to share?

[eider]

So basically you just filter the bible through your already held beliefs and reject anything that doesn't match with what you want to accept. That is very closed-minded. What makes you an expert on what happened in the ANE?

No!.......... The more I studied, so the more I found, so the more my opinions shifted from 'Social Christian' to Deist.

Eider, if someone writes a mixture of truth and lies, there is no logical way to figure out which is which. If I thought the bible was full of lies and make-believe, I would reject it all. Conversely, if I read something that I know is true, I will tend to believe the parts that I am not sure of or think might be fantastic. After all if they are telling the truth in the ordinary areas why would they be lying in the extraordinary? Unless it can be shown they were telling a fiction somehow.

The bible was written by various authors,
As an HJ researcher I don't study Paul's letters because they never wrote much about Jesus.
I don't take much notice of G-John because he wasn't there and that's easy to discover simply by reading his book.
etc. etc.

Of course you can research a person's claims.

Ask Cow Poke if he can sift out most rubbish from most truth in police statements.

The bible is of the latter variety. We have evidence that does back up many of the places, people and events in the bible (the ordinary). Sometimes even years after it might have been thought there was no evidence, evidence has been found to show that the bible was accurate. I believe one such example was Pilate. For many years experts thought that Pilate was never in Judea during Jesus' times, but then they found items (coins maybe?) showing that he was indeed there. They have recently found the Pool of Siloam in 2004 (where Jesus healed the blind man). That doesn't prove the miracles, but it does prove that the authors were there and knew the city during the time of Jesus and not someone writing hundreds of years later as some skeptics claim. So why would we not accept their accounts of the events of Jesus' life?

Proving that the authors were there cannot help me.
An example: Every driver who ever caused a crash was there, but you want to read their statements about what happened!
It's all true!..... I was there!...... No!

As far as the long speeches being word for word? Maybe so or maybe not. How do you know that Jesus' disciples didn't keep notes as they followed him around? Writing down what he said and what speeches he gave? He was loved and practically worshiped by them and was their teacher. What students don't keep notes? Of course not all could write, but literacy was pretty high among Jews compared to pagans, given their reliance on scripture.

I don't think that you believe that the boatmen of Gennesaret could read, which leaves Judas, Levi and maybe the Zealot? No.
How do you think people would take such notes in those days? No.

As Geza Vermes found in his researches, the person of Jesus slowly changed with the gospels, and what he said and did. In the end gospel many of his movements during the last week were just ignored, and a fake temple clearance reported in (maybe) the second/third of his mission to get it out of the way, after his vuisit to a celevbration where he felt the need to produce masses of wine for everybody after they had drunk the place dry. No..... I don't pay much attention to G-John although some anecdotes are clearly insertions of more credible information.

[Esther]

But that is how you see, read and perceive it.
I think that Jesus was a man rebelling against Priesthood corruption, Temple scams, a Temple coin which was an outrageous insult and more.

Ok. Have you read the book of Acts?

[tabibito]

The bible was written by various authors,
As an HJ researcher I don't study Paul's letters because they never wrote much about Jesus.

So what is an HJ researcher?

I don't take much notice of G-John because he wasn't there and that's easy to discover simply by reading his book.
etc. etc.

More gnostic grade knowledge, perhaps? What makes it so obvious that John was not there?

[eider]

Ok. Have you read the book of Acts?

Yes.
What verses in Acts would you like to refer to?

[eider]

So what is an HJ researcher?

A person who studies 'Historical Jesus'.

More gnostic grade knowledge, perhaps? What makes it so obvious that John was not there?

His descriptions of times and incidents are totally different to those of the other gospels.
He didn't know about things that the Boatman and Disciple John actually did.
He never mentioned such amazing and wondrous events such as up on that mountain with Jesus.
He pretended that he was there at the execution, etc etc.

[tabibito]

A person who studies 'Historical Jesus'.


His descriptions of times and incidents are totally different to those of the other gospels.

There are differences, certainly. Some of those differences arise because the authors did not necessarily organise their writing chronologically, but thematically.

He didn't know about things that the Boatman and Disciple John actually did.

As noted before, that a person was present for some events and not others is only to be expected. There is also the fact that authors will choose what to record without regard to what others might consider necessary or appropriate.

He never mentioned such amazing and wondrous events such as up on that mountain with Jesus.

Always remembering that John seems to have been the editor/author, with a number of contributors adding to the work. Perhaps he had reasons for not mentioning certain events.

He pretended that he was there at the execution, etc etc.

Oh - you subscribe to the theory unlikely hypothesis that the beloved disciple was John?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

A person who studies 'Historical Jesus'.


His descriptions of times and incidents are totally different to those of the other gospels.
He didn't know about things that the Boatman and Disciple John actually did.
He never mentioned such amazing and wondrous events such as up on that mountain with Jesus.
He pretended that he was there at the execution, etc etc.

You will find that some will always present their own highly speculative interpretations/explanations [entirely unsupported by textual evidence] in order to account for the various contradictions found in the four canonical gospels.

To paraphrase T S Eliot's Macavity poem "They always have an excuse and one or two to spare" .

[tabibito]

You will find that some will always present their own highly speculative interpretations/explanations [entirely unsupported by textual evidence] in order to account for the various contradictions found in the four canonical gospels.

The "highly speculative interpretations/explanations" are more from the mob that promote the New Testament as fiction than from those who consider it largely factual.




John records three trips to Jerusalem, and Jesus clearing the temple on the first trip, rather than on the final/only trip as is stated by the synoptic gospels. But there is no real way to decide whether it is John or Matthew and Mark that should be regarded as the more accurate. Aside from that, there doesn't seem to be much that can be considered contradictory.

John doesn't mention the transfiguration ... that an author might not mention something is proof only that he didn't mention it - the omission by no means shows that the author didn't know about it. John also doesn't seem to feel the need to reiterate much at all of what was previously recorded.

A well developed theology is supposedly evidence that the gospel was written well after John's time (that in itself incorporates three highly speculative interpretations).

John's gospel concentrates on Jesus' activities in Judah, where the Synoptics focus more on activity in the Galilee and surrounding regions, which may in part explain some of the discrepancies.

[rogue06]

As noted before, that a person was present for some events and not others is only to be expected. There is also the fact that authors will choose what to record without regard to what others might consider necessary or appropriate.

People will always give different accounts for the same thing, emphasizing what they think is important and leaving out things they don't find pertinent. If they didn't one could rightly suspect collusion.

[eider]

Always remembering that John seems to have been the editor/author, with a number of contributors adding to the work. Perhaps he had reasons for not mentioning certain events.

If you had walked up that mountain (possibly Horeb?) with Cephas, James, John and Jesus, and if you had seen Jesus go higher up where he was lit up in splendour and visited by by the ancient prophets, do you think that you might have mentioned such an experience?........... maybe?

Oh - you subscribe to the theory unlikely hypothesis that the beloved disciple was John?

What? I reckon that the beloved disciple was Magdalene.

[eider]

You will find that some will always present their own highly speculative interpretations/explanations [entirely unsupported by textual evidence] in order to account for the various contradictions found in the four canonical gospels.

To paraphrase T S Eliot's Macavity poem "They always have an excuse and one or two to spare" .

True.
And they ignore those verses that do not suit their beliefs.