I’m pretty sure that in one of the storybooks he’s quoted as saying “Ouch motherfucker. Nails? Really??”
Pretty sure “my God why have you forsaken me?” counts.
I think he actually said “Damn bro wtf?”
Everything written about the life of Jesus was recorded decades later from personal recollections—the words attributed to him can’t be regarded as representative of his everyday speech, to the extent that they’re accurate at all.
And the Jews were exempted from Roman religious laws—speaking against Rome might have been regarded as seditious, but not blasphemous (at least by the Romans).
Just like to note that no academic of value doubts if Jesus lived or not.
Question everything, within reason. Any academic of values should take reasonable arguments (for and against something) into consideration. Boxing someone off against a hard-line of “values” projects bigotry. (I don’t want to say that was your intent, but that can be a downstream effect.)
For example, I personally believe chiropractors practice pseudoscience. However, there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggesting chiropractic care has value. So, in my opinion, it’s possible that chiropractic treatments do something, but it more likely to be a placebo.
I say as an academic that it is our job to question everything and to find the answers. If academic consensus cannot be relied upon, then nothing can. Why would you think academics do not take reasonable arguments into consideration? (this is a rhetorical question) Stating that no academic of value doubts the existence of Jesus is a fact grounded in reality. This is not a religious statement but an acknowledgment of historical evidence. If we cannot agree on basic facts, then meaningful discussion becomes impossible, and societies like America will continue to descend into anti-intellectualism.
For example, I personally believe chiropractors practice pseudoscience. However, there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggesting chiropractic care has value. So, in my opinion, it’s possible that chiropractic treatments do something, but it more likely to be a placebo.
This analogy is not applicable to a factual statement about someone’s existence. The existence of a historical figure like Jesus is supported by evidence and scholarly consensus, whereas the efficacy of chiropractic care is not comparable to established historical facts.
Saying the phrase “an academic of values” suggests that an academic that doesn’t 100% believe a statement as fact is someone who doesn’t have values or operates purely with bias. I am pointing out that the statement, in reasonable circumstances, is odd.
analogy is not applicable
Probability. It’s an example of how to balance out conflicting ideas when even I can’t escape my own bias. So, there is strong evidence that jesus existed and also compelling arguments against. I can say there is a very high probability that he existed and a small chance he didn’t. The only way to resolve this to 100% certainty would requre we travel back in time. (This is just a long form version of Occam’s razor, TBH.)
So, we both understand that facts exist. A fossil in a rock is generally a fact written in stone and has a low probability that it was planted or tampered with, assuming appropriate accountability during discovery.
A document supposedly written by a shop owner 500 years ago can be absolutely proven it is a piece of paper that may be carbon dated to about 500 years ago on a sliding scale to about 95% accuracy. The type of ink could imply it was manufactured around that time and its content aligns with other documents around that same time. We both would say there is a reasonable amount of data to assume that document is what it appears to be. Regardless of consensus, the document being fake is still a possiblity given that there are layers of probability baked in.
I love me some facts grounded in reality! We can, and do, agree on what some facts mean. However, it seems we diverge philosophically at that point. You would say something must be, where I say something should be.
After spending the last hour or so reading about the debate of his existence and evidence for his existence was weird. Biblical scholars generally have consensus that mythic jesus theories are fringe. While there are quite a few statements from historical scholars about the possibility of jesus existing, Ehrman and Casey are the most vocal. The general consensus outside of biblical experts is more like “there was a dude named jesus who might have lived during that time and it seems there are cross-references between the bible, Mark and Paul.” If you want to dive into Richard Carrier’s opinions, feel free. His work, while vocal, absolutely breaks consensus.
It’s extremely difficult to find data that isn’t quoted from Ehrman, btw. On the surface, it looks like authors of many articles I found had a consensus that Ehrman was a primary source. There are plenty of other works, but filtering out repeated quotes and rehashed interpretations of Ehrman takes a bit of work.
Hell, I haven’t even started reading into formalized, peer-reviewed studies yet. Opinion articles have their place, but it’s not fun to dig through them.
Edit: I should note that the prevalence of people saying there is consensus rarely show who they are talking about. When you start digging into the references of the Historical Jesus page, it has a clear bias with an attempt to show a counter-opinion from Price, that really isn’t a counter opinion. Many pro-jesus scholars themselves reference similar sources.
I personally don’t care if jesus existed. I am just pointing out how the consensus argument is vague.
You’re nitpicking a point that is not important to what I said and was clearly used to emphasis general consensus (non-fringe). Arguing the fringe is equally as valuable as the general academic consensus is like saying anti-vaxxers opinions are important because they exist.
Skimming articles for an hour doesn’t allow you enough time to reach any depth of understanding.
It appears that you’re arguing just for the sake of an argument. I did not anticipate nor want to argue about semantics and consensuses. I merely responded to OP’s comment.
I won’t engage further.
what I said and was clearly used to emphasis general consensus
And with a trivial amount of reading, I found the general consensus was not as general as implied and actually somewhat confusing.
anticipate nor want to argue about semantics and consensuses // nitpicking a point
Words have meaning and I took issue with your phrasing. So yes. You are absolutely correct.
anti-vaxxers opinions are important because they exist.
Yes and no, and not for the reasons you would think. Every fallacy or myth might have a grain of original truth, or at minimum, it might help source the misinformation. In the interest of not arguing, I won’t comment further on that non sequitur.
Feel free to respond with anything and I won’t reply so you can get the last word in, if you choose. (Seriously, I am not trying to be cocky.)
Well, you could probably get detailed listings online fairly easy, so I’m not digging them up; this will stay general purpose and casual.
That being said, yeah, Jesus was one blasphemous motherfucker. He was claiming to not only be the son of God, but “his” equal. There’s like a half dozen or so examples of that in the gospels (don’t quote me on that number, I ain’t been Christian since I was in elementary school, and haven’t read the Bible since the nineties), though it’s important to note than what is and isn’t blasphemy changes over time, and depends on what religion is the frame of reference
Jesus claiming to essentially be god isn’t blasphemy to a Christian (at least, none of the denominations I’m aware of), but it was to Judaism in the era
To the Romans, they essentially didn’t give a fuck about blasphemy afaik. There’s no biblical mentions of it that I can recall anyway, but I’m no expert, so maybe someone will come along that’s more definitive about that. And criticizing rome wasn’t a religious issue either.
My hot take is that Jesus was intentionally blasphemous, as a choice. He, biblically, was a shit stirrer with the goal of changing religion and maximizing the effects of his cult. Blasphemy is a powerful tool to challenge a religious edifice, and the stories in the bible that I can remember are very deliberate looking.
The best example of that was Jesus forgiving sins. He was doing his healing, and there was some drama, and he ends up “forgiving” one of his patients. By doing so, he was directly staking a claim of being god, since only god can grant forgiveness within the framework of the era. That’s either someone that’s batshit crazy, or someone declaring war. It’s such a giant slap in the face that there’s no way for it to be ignored as stories of it would spread.
While it is debatable exactly how crazy Jesus was or wasn’t, he was consistent about how he attacked the establishment, imo. So I doubt laying claim to godhood was a random decision in the moment. It’s certainly possible, but I find it inconsistent with the rest of the gospels. All of that is with the assumption that, regardless of belief in the religions, that there was probably a person that was Jesus, or whatever the name night have actually been. Since I’ve yet to run across a historian that is willing to categorically say there wasn’t such a person, I can’t see a point in addressing this kind of question without that assumption in place.
