We now come to the final point. Here is point 12 from the Jesus Puzzle:
12) Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a human man as an element of their faith. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical.
Evaluation: It is important to understand this claim and how it is framed. To appeal to documents well in the second century looks to include the Gnsotic Gospel texts, some of which were docetic (i.e., Jesus only appeared to be human). So the claim here technically is corrrect in terms of what we have for documentary evidence of the second century. However it ignores a key historical reality, that our earliest documents from the first century do not share this characterisitc, nor do the key personal historical witnesses of this earliest period. I have treated these issues in detail in my The Missing Gospels. Paul, our earliest literary witness clearly saw Jesus as a historical human figure (Rom 1:2-4; 1 Cor 15:1-19). John speaks of not believing of Jesus' physical existence as a heresy (1 John 1:1-4). The entire premise of Acts is built on Jesus' real existence as are the four gospels from the first century. Given that Paul had close contact with those who walked with Jesus, his testimony is important, being as early as it is. As I have said before if we judged classical history by the standards Doherty applies in his book, much of classical history would be lost.
What we have seen in our look at all twelve of these points is how problematic they are. There is little of credible historical judgment here that says Jesus never existed. The origin Doherty posits cannot explain the documentary evidence we possess or the form of the earleist Christianity to which that evidnce gives witness. There is no puzzle put together in this book; only pieces unrelated to the real Jesus or the emergence of what became Christianity.
This entry ends this series (please let me know what you thought of this style of blog entry and if I should do more these kinds of walk throughs with individual books)
I thought this was a great series. I read every post and looked forward to the next one. I also appreciated the way you interacted with your commenters. Thank you for taking the time to do this, and I would say, yes, this is a valuable type of series, and I would enjoy future walks through other books.
Yes, please do more walk throughs refuting popular atheistic books!
Dr. Bock,
In fact, even those who did not accept a human Jesus believed in a historical Jesus:
For e.g, Marcion (Golpel of the Lord)
"In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Jesus descended [out of heaven] into Capernaum, a city in Galilee,
and was teaching [in the synagogue] on the Sabbath days;
And they were astonished at his doctrine",
and Basilides:
"He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead, so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them."
Maurice Goguel (1926), has made some interesting observations about docetism, quoted by Christopher Price.
"If the Docetists had had the slightest reason to think that Christ was no more than an ideal person without historical reality, they would not have expended such treasures of ingenuity to give an interpretation of His story which cut Him off completely from too intimate contact with humanity. The Docetists thus appear as witnesses to Gospel tradition".
In my opinion, another good treatments of the Jesus Myth issues are:
" A History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth" by Christopher Price
http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm#C
Earl Doherty, the Jesus Myth and Second Century Christian Writings by Gakusei Don
http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Doherty2ndC_Review.htm
Nehemias
Dr. Bock,
I appreciated this series very much and would love to see more like it. I think this series displayed your erudition in a very concise manner and I thank you for taking up the challenge of putting together the 'Jesus Puzzle'. I wouldn't mind seeing some book reviews with pushbacks/sidebars resembling what you have presented in thes last 13 posts.
Thanks for your hard work.
Nick
Dear Dr Darrell Bock,
In your last entry on the subject, you ask whether you should do more these kinds of walk throughs with individual books. Personnally my answer is Yes. The attacks against the Bible are more and more frequent and amplified by the medias specially against the person of our Lord.. Consequently it is important that christians having an recognized authority as to the knowledge of the Bible and specially the New Testament can confront these attacks.
A small detail in your last entry : you wrote "John speaks of not believing of Jesus' physical existence as a heresy (1 John 1:1-4)." I suppose you meant 1 John 4:1-4
Sincerely
Gerard Dalboussiere
Thanks to all of you for the positive response. We will definately do more of these. If you have candidates for review, please suggest them. I cannot get to all of them, but let me know if you want a close look at something. I will choose something that I view as having had an impact.
dlb
Gerard:
Both texts make the point. So thanks for the additional reference.
dlb
>please let me know what you thought of this style of blog entry
I like it! Neither too little nor too much detail but an easily digestible and memorable nugget.
>and if I should do more these kinds of walk throughs with individual books
Yes!
Thanks for doing this.
Chris: Duly noted. Thanks. dlb
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