Reddit reviews Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
We found 9 Reddit comments about Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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Reddit reviews Jesus: A Revolutionary BiographyWe found 9 Reddit comments about Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Short Answer: Truthfully, we are not sure at all. We are actually pretty unsure of where/how the historical Jesus was executed and what happened after his death.
Long answer: In order to answer your specific question, we need to ask, if Jesus was crucified, what happened to his body? And, what do we historically know about the sequence of events that happened after his death.
This has been the subject of historiographical debates over the last two decades. Consensus wise, most Early Christian historians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was most likely executed by the state, and because the Roman state's typical form for punishment was crucifixion, this is most likely what happened to him. The area near Golgotha is a place known to have done execution, but so were other areas around Jerusalem.
Many historians lean on the side of John Dominic Crossan who has argued that in all likelihood he was executed and thrown into a mass grave. This is outlined in Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee and I think it was
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish PeasantJohn Dominic Crossan's “The Dogs Beneath the Cross,” chap. 6 in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. The reason for our uncertainty is that secondary characters of antiquity are increasingly difficult to find out key aspects of their life, especially when their biographers were not witnesses and lived decades after the character's death.Your question about the Tomb is even more difficult because the story as described in the Gospels is troublesome. None of them pass our tests for historical certainty, including the Criterion of dissimilarity and Criterion of multiple attestation. What do I mean by this? The stories don't actually match up. This is a problem for historians since every single resurrection narrative are completely different. A good example can be found if you ask what did they find at the tomb the morning of the third day? In Mark 16:5 it's One Young Man in Matthew 28:5 it's One Angel, in Luke 24:4 it's Two men, in John 20:12 - they don't find anyone there the first time they visit the tomb. This goes for every other detail in these narratives. Historians like Crossan and Ehrman both have also argued that the purpose of Roman Execution was to desecrate the body of the person being punished, thus allowing it it a burial in a tomb is highly unlikely (but not implausible).
So about that church in particular, no, the likelihood that he was executed and buried near that church is unlikely because we know nothing reliable about his death. It was picked up as the cites of both places for non historical reasons in the 4th century.
Edit: corrected a book title.
You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?
It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:
Colin Howson – Objecting to God
George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God
Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods
Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God
Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science
J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism
J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt
Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism
Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God
Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God
Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism
Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion
Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil
[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)
Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted
Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus
Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?
Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels
John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary
John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
Karen Armstrong – A History of God
Mark Smith – The Early History of God
Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?
Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?
Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus
Unfortunately, it is difficult for people with a Western Post-Enlightenment worldview to simply interpret what Pre-Modern Hellenistic Jews were writing, especially if unaware of the context.
I was supplying interpretations from biblical scholars and showing that there are multiple ways that people understand Jesus' divinity. I wasn't making any value statements that they are better or even exclusive of one another. These are just the ways that people read the text.
Edit: If you want to read some biblical scholars and their interpretations of what Jesus meant by claiming divinity.
[N.T. Wright- Jesus and the Victory of God] (http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Christian-Origins-Question-Volume/dp/0800626826)
[Marcus Borg- Jesus: A New Vision] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Vision-Spirit-Culture-Discipleship/dp/0060608145)
[Richard Bauckham- Jesus and the God of Israel] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-God-Israel-Testaments-Christology/dp/0802845592)
[John Dominic Crossan- Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolutionary-John-Dominic-Crossan/dp/006180035X)
[Reza Aslan- Zealot] (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480) Edit 2: Apparently his credentials are in some dispute and this particular book is pretty "pop theology" but I found this [post] (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/08/two-scholars-respond-to-the-actual-content-of-reza-aslans-take-on-jesus/) by a theologian I respect that gives some insight into the whole thing.
[Thomas J.J. Altizer- Contemporary Jesus] (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1876258.Contemporary_Jesus)
First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...
General:
Christianity:
Judaism:
Islam:
Buddhism:
Taoism:
Atheism:
For a first step into biblical study, I'm not sure I would only read Carrier's book. As I haven't read it fully, I can't really comment on it like /u/koine_lingua.
But if you want to get a broad spectrum, you can check out:
John Meier Marginal Jew - (maybe vol. 2 or 3)
NT Wright's How God Became King
John Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
Marcus Borg Jesus: An uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
Craig Blomberg Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey
You can take a stab at Albert Schweitzer's The Quest for the Historical Jesus
or Raymond E. Brown's Death of the Messiah or Birth of the Messiah if you want. I found Schweitzer's book difficult to get through. And one Easter holiday my plans were to read Death of the Messiah. After page like 17, I quit and played WoW.
That will give you a healthy dose of different perspectives - and will not only give you a survey of the scholarship but also will argue for a model, as opposed to Luke Timothy Johnson's The Real Jesus which just criticizes one aspect of HJ studies.
Honestly I very rarely read any of the historical Jesus stuff, it's just not that interesting to me.
John Dominic Crossan is suppose to be pretty good in this book.
Marcus J. Borg is also suppose to be a good in this area with his book
First, remember that the time over which your dad can really force you to go isn't very long. It may seem long now, but really, it's not.
Religion is not about God... or at least, not only about God. Religion is a complex set of a variety of practices -- social structures, codes of behavior, rituals (personal and social), and others. Theology (including beliefs about God) is a way many participants think about these things, and many (in some religions, particularly Abrahamic religions), believe that that it is about, but I disagree.
These things (rituals etc.) can have profound psychological effects, both social and personal. They are neither inherently beneficial or destructive, but rather are tools that can be either depending on their use. Participation in such rituals as a child, or even young adult, lays a psychological foundation upon which later rutuals can work. Those old enough to understand what is going on (old enough to become an atheist by choice), can reframe them in your mind as you participate, and have some influence on how they influence you.
Just because you participate in a ritual doesn't mean you need to believe in the theology, any more than a musician needs to believe that scales and chords are fundamental theories of acoustics, or have supernatural powers, or were created by supernatural beings.
Consider Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny. The decorations, presents under a tree, baskets with brightly colored eggs, and other traditions are rituals, ostensibly about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Even as adults, though, long after we stop believing in either, these rituals are important to many of us. The ritual is the key; the supernatural beings are just a motif. Most of these traditions are descended from pagan traditions with either entirely different or barely recognizable assiciate supernatural beings anyway.
More formally Christian rituals, such as Sunday morning church attendance, mass, confession, marriages, funerals, are no different. They may be not be as entertaining, fun, and light-hearted as Easter baskets and stockings over a fire, and are sometimes aimed at far more painful parts of the human condition, but they can be meaningful none the less.
Stoicism and Christianity have similarities and differences. Due to the similarities, Christians have been finding value in using Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus as inspirational material for centuries, selective adopting, rejecting, and ignoring different elements according to their own beliefs. There is no reason, I think, why a Stoic can't do the same while participating in Christian rituals such as sunday morning Church attendance. Just look for what you find value in, what seems correct to you, and focus your attention on that, reinterpret the experience. There is no need to tell anyone that's what you're doing. For the rest, there is no need to argue about it: just be a respectful spectator, and go your own way when you leave home. In other words, exercise patience, for now.
Instead of resisting it, try to get the most out of it you can. It may be helpful to deliberately draw correspondences between elements in Christianity and Stoic exercises. Indeed, there are some that think some elements of Christian practice originated in ancient philosophical exercise.
For example, the Stoic reverence toward the natural universe corresponds directly to the Christian reverence toward God. Christian exhortations to obedience to God's will have strong similarities to acceptance of externals and viewing things from a 3rd party perspective. Various restrictions on behavior can be used as Stoic exercises concerning voluntary self-denial. Focus on these things, think of God as something of gimmick or artistic motif if you need to.
Similarly, you may think what they teach you about Jesus is pretty crazy, but it isn't that hard to interpret Jesus as having been a near-Cynic but entirely human sage -- a Jew who attended some lectures by Cynics (which is entirely possible -- remember that Jesus lived under the Roman empire during a time when Cynicism was widespread across the empire) and adopted some of the Cynic teachings without entirely letting go of his Jewish beliefs, and whose teachings then got exaggerated, reinterpreted, and/or outright corrupted in the following centuries, and elements of his biography got merged with other mythological stories. (Some scholars believe this -- see this book for example.) Personally, I don't think enough evidence has survived that any conclusions one way or another are anything other than wild speculation, but that doesn't matter; considering exemplars ("contemplation of the sage") is a perfectly good Stoic exercise, and minor details like historical accuracy are not relevant: this is self-improvement, not history. Regarding him in this fashion may make you more comfortable with celebrating his life.
Now, the Stoics were not Cynics, but the later had a lot of influence on the former, and some Stoics (particularly Epictetus) regarded them as good role models. Diogenes in particular was sometimes held up as an example of someone who actually managed to become a sage.
edit: typos
Do my research for me? I've already done my research, you should do yours.
Here's a good starting point.
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolutionary-John-Dominic-Crossan/dp/006180035X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EFZ7FB757V42YEK86HSA
Or if you're short on cash:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/historical-jesus/id384233911?mt=2
https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152
The short answer is not much. What we know comes from critical analysis of the synoptic gospels, anthropological and archeological facts about the region that we can use to interpret those texts, and Roman writings from the time period, most importantly those of Jewish-Roman historian Josephus. There's a whole field of scholarship on the historical Jesus, and you should check out the work of the Jesus Seminar(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar).
I can recommend a couple books on the subject as well:
If you want the full monty, big ol' weighty tome, you need John Dominic Crossan's The Historical Jesus: The life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. -http://www.amazon.com/The-Historical-Jesus-Mediterranean-Peasant/dp/0060616296
For the shorter, more digestible version, see his book Jesus: A revolutionary Biography http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006180035X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060616296&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1QHBK1Y6G36CNGSTPAZ7
For a counterpoint to many of Crossan's arguments, see Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Millenarian-Dale-Allison/dp/0800631447
New Testament Scholarship is a really interesting field and if you really want to answer the question you've asked here you should check out the work these historians/religious studies scholars have been doing in the last 20-30 years.