Jesus

This book is an attempt to argue that those who criticize the Jesus Seminar and other writers aligned in a similar way (such as Crossan and Mack) for having a non-Jewish Jesus are simply engaged in an effort to deflect the real discussion.

We come now to point 11 of the Jesus Puzzle.

Here it is:

11) The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual Christ shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the religious trends and philosophy of the time, not as a response to a single individual.

Evaluation:

We now turn to point 10 and the source Q, a source that many NT scholars see as behind the teaching that overlaps between Matthew and Luke, where some 200 and 225 verses in these two gospels run in a similar manner and with the view that these two writers did not use each other.

Now we come to Point 8 of Doherty's work:

8) All The Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts of the Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.

Evaluation:

Point 5 of The Jesus Puzzle discusses the influence of Platonism on Paul. Here is point 5:

Here is point 4 from Doherty:

4) Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.

Evaluation: 

In many ways we have already discussed point 3 in many of the comments on earlier posts. Here is point 3 stated:

Antiquities 18.63-64

Josephus as it stands. I have included the three disputed portions in italics so they can be easily seen. It is clear why these portions are challenged as they are not likely to be things a Jew who was not a Christian would be likely to say. So here is the text:

We come now to the second point of the Jesus Puzzle. It is:

2) There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of first century) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.

I am in the midst of a three night Jesus Seminar here in Berlin at Beit Sar Shalom, a messianic congregation in Berlin. The last night is tonight. We are going through key scenes in the life of Jesus. I will cover about 22 passages when the Seminar is done.