Reddit reviews The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
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So a few things first. Aslan's Zealot is not, in any way historical scholarship. It's pop history that is mostly dismissed among actual historians. Similarly, O'reilly's book is likewise almost useless since he is a journalist, not a historian. While both provide some interesting facts (mostly taken out of context) neither actually present an understanding of the historical Jesus as understood by historians.
Several I'd recommend are:
Ehrman, Bart's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
This book is written by one of the world's most well-respected historians on Early Christianity. This is also the very first book I had to read in graduate school on the historical Jesus and it's engaging and easy to read for non-historians. It also presents the view that the historical Jesus was an Apocalyptic prophet in the proper context -- which also happens to be what the vast majority of historians believe about the historical Jesus. Ehrman is also agnostic (like myself) but he doesn't attack religion.
Crossan, John Dominic: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
This is another excellent book. This book like, Ehrman's attempts to pain a proper contextual understanding of the historical Jesus, but does it in a different light -- he focuses on who the man was rather than what his primary preaching message was.
Sanders, E.P.: The Historical Figure of Jesus
I'd only recommend this one if the other two have been finished. It focuses on Judaism and Christianity and the dynamics of the historical Jesus after he died and the effects he had on his early followers.
Please let me know if you have any other questions or if I can help in any other way.
John Dominic Crossan wrote a book on the historical Jesus, which was published in a scholarly edition and a shorter edition for a more general audience. I know a few recent PhDs and advanced PhD students in Biblical Studies that tell me he is respected in the field.
Just in case you're interested in a more reliable source.
EDIT: here's the shorter version on amazon
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:
Christianity wasn't legalized until 313 C.E. and it didn't become the State Religion until 380 C.E. we can reasonably declare 380 C.E. as the beginning of the Catholic church. Before 313 Christians were persecuted throughout the empire. Also, did you even read the second link?
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>Preface
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>The Short answer is no: Tacitus is not the only or main reason why modern historians (whether Atheist, Agnostic, or Christian) believe the historical Jesus existed. I am going to copy and paste my answer from a previous post and also suggest that if you want in depth answers into what evidence we have for the Historical Jesus to read one of these two books:
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>Ehrman, Bart: Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
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>Crossan, John Dominic: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant Ehrman is a very vocal Agnostic (borderline Atheist) and Crossan is a Christian, just to give you both sides of the coin. I recommend Ehrman because he's one of the most engaging historians on this topic, period.
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>Why do historians overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was historically a real person?
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>First, we need to address one key issue that most people don't understand, so people on both sides of this argument like to take certain things out of context. It needs to be known that we have practically no primary sources for many secondary (non-monarchs or major political figures) characters in antiquity. This is what the historical Jesus was (a secondary character in his day). If we simply say "we have no archeological evidence, so he doesn't exist" then we need to say that Aristotle and Socrates did not exist because, like Jesus' story, we are left with written accounts that have been repeatedly copied through various generations.
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>Now when it comes to the historical Jesus (and what we know of him) well it's simple in a few ways. The first, is that although the gospels and other New Testament books were all written decades after Jesus died (however Paul started writing between 45-49 CE), they are independently attested. Yes, from a historical perspective (and personally for myself since I am agnostic) the miracles and resurrection are considered embellishments to help encourage early people convert to this new Jewish sect.
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>What does this mean
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>Now although much of this information cannot be relied upon for historical purposes, some of it can pass the test of historical plausibility. What do I mean by that? Well, every historian, when examining evidence, has a set of criteria they must use when comparing written accounts of any event. Part of doing this, is taking these four accounts, and cross examining with each other and seeing if any of the minor details (things that lack religious implications that would be less likely for people to make up) correspond to most or all of the documents. What you'll find is that many of these minor details correspond consistently in ways that you wouldn't expect-- this is something you almost never see with mythical figures.
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>You'll also see that the early Gospel writers likely had to create explanations for certain things about Jesus because his name was likely somewhat known around the time of his death. I'll give a brief example:
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>Two of the gospels deal with the birth of Jesus. Without going into too much detail, it's easy to make the argument that both Matthew and Luke did not get their information for this narrative from the same source. They are constantly at odds with each other over many specific areas of this story (example: in Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in bethlehem and then had to move to Egypt and then, years later, move to Nazareth. In Luke, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, traveled to Bethlehem for a theoretical tax registration, waited there for 32 days after Jesus was born, and then returned immediately to Nazareth).
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>Most historians believe it is likely that both of them made up nearly all (if not all) of the parts to their stories because they were trying to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament. See, in the book of Micah, it was predicted that a savior would be born in the city of David (Bethlehem), so these writers wanted to make sure that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. But wait, they had a real issue to deal with. It was probably well-known that Jesus was from some small town called Nazareth, thus he didn't fulfill that part of the prophecy. So, to deal with this, early gospel writers created these narratives to explain how this person from Nazareth could have still been from the city of David.
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>If Jesus was a mythological figure that sprung up out of thin air, there would be no reason to say he was from Nazareth, they would have said he was from Bethlehem and just left it at that. This is what we typically see for made up figures. Keep in mind that this is one of dozens of examples where the writers did this to meet personal agendas of their time.
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>What historians also find is that it is nearly impossible for a sect or cult to immediately spring up without a founding figure. After Jesus' death, the remaining followers were probably a group of people of about 20-30 people, and it expanded rather quickly -- probably hitting the hundreds within the decade after his death and by 50 CE, they had spread throughout the Roman Empire. Most scholars believe that the book of Mark, written between 65-70 CE, was actually written in the city of Rome for a local church there. This type of growth and expansion is, by historical standards, incredibly fast. The rapid rate of growth suggests, for historians, that a real figure of Jesus existed, had a few followers who immediately disbanded after his death. Yet, for those whom remained, they started preaching about his life and resurrection, which was likely very enticing for their day.
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>I hope this gave you a glimpse into the answer for this. If you'd like more examples I can provide them.
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>Addendum I wanted to add one more thing that I forgot to mention in my original post, and it's something that I find to be extremely important but is often overlooked. Tacitus is often identified as the first Roman to discuss or mention the historical Jesus or his followers which is actually not correct. The first mention of Christians actually comes several years earlier, around the year 112 CE (although I've read one scholar claim it was maybe even during the decade before that) by a Roman governor. Here's an excerpt from another Ehrman book on the topic:
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>"The author, Pliny the Younger, was a governor of a Roman province. In a letter that he wrote to his emperor, Trajan, he indicates that there was a group of people called Christians who were meeting illegally; he wants to know how to handle the situation. These people, he tells the emperor, “worship Christ as a God.” That’s all he says about Jesus. It’s not much to go on if you want to know anything about the historical Jesus." -- Ehrman, Bart D Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) HarperCollins. (2009-02-20) pp. 149
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>As Ehrman points out, it's not much to go off of, but it is important that we have multiply attested sources talking about the rapidly growing Christian base at this time.
Also, as a side-note I've also read The Historical Jesus which concludes that Jesus was thrown in a ditch like all other peasants.
And How Jesus Became God by atheist Bart Ehrman who sees the resurrection witness as nothing more that a public delusion comparable to some modern examples that he gives.
I highly recommend these as well. Though I disagree with them at some important points.
I got kind of lazy with the links, but anyways here is my collection of Christianity related books, links etc.
Listening:
Books:
Links
Well, the birth narratives and trial dialogues are narrative devices and aren't historical (Is 7:14 also isn't about a virgin. You didn't say that, but in case you don't know).
I'm pretty sure the Samaritan woman thing is from John, and again, John preserves less historical information about Jesus than other gospels. It was also written a lot later than Mark or Matthew.
For more information, you can read this book by Bart Ehrman, or this book by John Dominic Crossan. Crossan's book is brilliant, but it is pretty dense. I think he says that Jesus being the Messiah is the post-Easter Jesus.
You could also ask /r/AcademicBiblical for more resources. Even if some people there might not personally hold to the view, they can probably direct you to scholars that do (and those that don't).
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.
>you imbecile
I can already tell this is going to be fun.
>Jesus has literally ZERO contemporary historical data.
That's not what you asked for. You asked for peer-reviewed arguments for the historical existence of Jesus, of which I said there are thousands, and to which I said you'd have a much more difficult time finding the opposite--- peer reviewed articles and books arguing that Jesus was entirely a myth.
>I’ll wait for those libraries of sources you have.
Where do you want to start?
Probably the best place for you to start is with Bart Ehrman, a leading scholar of on the development of Christianity, and he's also a popular skeptic speaker and writer. In addition to publishing he's written popular books about how many of the books of the Bible were forgeries, and how the belief that Jesus was divine developed in early Christianity, he also wrote an entire book laying out the widely accepted case that Jesus was likely a real historical person, written directly to skeptical lay people like yourself.
If you want a great introduction to the scholarly debate about the historical Jesus, you could start here or here. I also think Dale Allison's work is great critical look at some of the issues at work in the debate. There are lots of historical reconstructions of Jesus' life. Some of the more popular ones like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan tend to sell books to liberal Christian audiences, so I've always thought E.P. Sanders treatment was perferable. I'll spare you the links to scholars who identify as orthodox Christians, like Luke Timothy Johnson or N.T. Wright. It sounded like you specifically wanted more scholarly sources and not popular books, so you could just look at the scholarly journal dedicated to the study of the historical Jesus. Or the Jesus Seminar. Or either of the following Introductions to the New Testament textbooks which are used in secular universities throughout the english speaking world:
Introduction to the New Testament by Mark Allen Powell
Introduction to the New Testament by Bart Ehrman
These are the ones I'm personally most familiar with. There are tons more like Geza Vermes and Amy Jill Levine I haven't read and I'm not as familiar with.
But I'm not telling you anything you wouldn't learn in any basic 101 intro to New Testament Class. The academic consensus is that regardless of what you think about him as a religious figure, it is extremely likely that there was a first century Jew named Jesus who started a faith movement that led to him being crucified. Why do scholars think this? Because by the time Paul started writing his letters 20 years later there was a growing, spreading religious movement that worship a crucified Jew named Jesus as their messiah, and given critical analysis of the texts produced by this movement, some of which are now in the New Testament, there really doesn't exist a coherent argument for the development of this movement that doesn't include the existence of a first century Jew named Jesus who was crucified.
It's incredibly thick and academic, but I would recommend giving this book a stab. Very in-depth analysis, broken down between various extant texts showing how scriptures have been altered and the Christ myth has changed over time (e.g. the Eucharist was a later addition.) Love it love it.
John Dominic Crossan dates parts of Thomas to the 50s CE, although the full extant document would be much later of course.
https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Jesus-Mediterranean-Jewish-Peasant/dp/0060616296
You could also try John Dominic Crossan's work on the historical Jesus and life in the 1st century.