The fallacy of the "newspaper reporter's" Jesus

[GakuseiDon]

This is something I've brought up before on this board. The "newspaper reporter's Jesus" is what I call the idea that the historical Jesus has to conform to a version of a man who did and said amazing things, such that even if the apostles hadn't thought him to have been resurrected and ascended to heaven, that people would have written about him anyway. So something along the lines of "he was so amazing we would have expected him to have appeared in the newspaper-equivalents even without the resurrection". But I don't think the evidence bears this out, as per the texts below.

This came to mind again when I read through Dr Richard Carrier's article about 1 Clement on his blog from a few weeks back. Part of his reasoning for dating 1 Clement to the 60s CE is what the letter DOESN'T say about Jesus's Gospel activities and sayings. I also see the same view popping up here all the time as well: "The Gospels were made up from the Old Testament" AND "people of the time should have noted the Gospel events". Both expectations can't be true.

But the evidence suggests that, rather than his life, it was his death and believed ascension to heaven that was important. I doubt that many people on this board would disagree with that. Furthermore, I speculate that it wasn't until the proto-orthodox were challenged by Marcion in the Second Century that the Gospels, written around the end of the First Century and the start of the Second Century, took on importance among Christians. Prior to that, Christians argued over the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus and how it conformed to the Old Testament.

How do Paul view the pre-crucified Christ? First, note that Paul writes how Jesus, born of a woman and of the seed of David, became Son of God (with power) at the resurrection:

Rom 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead

Prior to his death, Paul's Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient "unto death" which is why God exalted him:

Phl 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

We see something similar in Hebrews: Jesus learning obedience in life and then being offered "without spot" to God:

Heb 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him

Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ...
28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

In the Acts of the Apostles, written after the Gospels, the author does note that Jesus performed miracles, but writes that Paul convinced his audience through arguments based on the Hebrew Scriptures:

Acts 17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
3 Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
4 And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.
...
11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
12 Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

We can also see the importance of 'finding' Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures in Justin Martyr's Dialogue in Trypho. He also uses Hebrew Scriptures in his Apologies to the Emperors.

What I suggest is that the Gospels were built from pericopes that developed via arguments over 'finding' Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus himself was thought to be a humble man who was known for demonstrating obedience to God. If there is anything at all historical in the Gospels, it has been submerged by the importance of 'finding' Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. This means that the historical Jesus has been largely lost to us.

I've found that the analysis of mythicists like Dr Carrier relies too much on a historical Jesus being the "newspaper reporter's Jesus". But this ignores how Jesus is described in Paul and Hebrews. And given that most of us here thinks that much of the Gospels have been crafted from the Old Testament in the first place, it seems contradictory to then find it as unexpected. Both can't be true.

Any thoughts/criticisms are welcomed!

[davidmartin]

GD I take the opposite side of the coin about this, but I do see the logic of what you're saying and how well it pulls together the evidence
The first problem is the Pauline view of Jesus could have come about from re-interpreting the life of Jesus, where this re-interpretation becomes far more important than any historical details about teachings or his life. I think we are seeing something like this
This would explain why the epistles say odd things like "we used to regard Christ in a worldly way but we do so no longer" - that's a clue to some prior understanding being in existence.
In this way of looking at it, details about any historical Jesus could/would actually be a threat, unless suitably worked into the re-interpretation (which is also what we see, but in rather disjointed fashion - the Pauline set of writings avoid it, whereas others don't)
The problem with using the Pauline epistles as a base for theories is these writings themselves indicate the difficulty Paul's "my gospel" had in competition with others with all sorts of obvious troubles his gospel ran into with opponents and so on - why should we just assume he was the only game in town and put all the eggs in one basket it seems like a precarious base for a theory?!

[maryhelena]

GD I take the opposite side of the coin about this, but I do see the logic of what you're saying and how well it pulls together the evidence
The first problem is the Pauline view of Jesus could have come about from re-interpreting the life of Jesus, where this re-interpretation becomes far more important than any historical details about teachings or his life. I think we are seeing something like this
This would explain why the epistles say odd things like "we used to regard Christ in a worldly way but we do so no longer" - that's a clue to some prior understanding being in existence.
In this way of looking at it, details about any historical Jesus could/would actually be a threat, unless suitably worked into the re-interpretation (which is also what we see, but in rather disjointed fashion - the Pauline set of writings avoid it, whereas others don't)
The problem with using the Pauline epistles as a base for theories is these writings themselves indicate the difficulty Paul's "my gospel" had in competition with others with all sorts of obvious troubles his gospel ran into with opponents and so on - why should we just assume he was the only game in town and put all the eggs in one basket it seems like a precarious base for a theory?!

Love that.....reminds me of years ago telling Earl Doherty not to put all his eggs in a Pauline basket. ...

[davidmartin]

haha, i'm a crude man with a simple rule - any theory that ends up forcing me to be an apologist for Paul is by default a non-starter. I'm still not sure I've got far enough away from him yet but now he's an easy target to line up in the sights for a few bursts of gunfire.

[Giuseppe]

I don't think that 1 Clement was pre-70 CE, pace Carrier. I think that the epistle is anti-marcionite. From this pov, the silence about the Gospel Jesus in an early catholic epistle may be used as part and parcel of the more general argument (raised by prof Vinzent) that the Gospel Jesus, in particular the disturbing clamor of his miracles, was perceived prima facie for what it was: the proclamation of a new deity who has come down on the earth to destroy the Law and the Prophets.

That silence about the miracles is therefore deliberate and interested: none mention of miracles implies none clamor, none clamor implies none discontinuity with the past, none discontinuity with the past implies perfect continuity with the OT.

Prof Vinzent argues that the Trypho's scandalized reaction against Justin ("you invented a Christ for yourselves!") was really a Jewish (and partially also Jewish-Christian) reaction against the news about the Marcion's Jesus and the anti-nomian character of his exploits.

That deliberate silence about the Gospel Jesus remembers also the traditional tactics used by the Catholic hierarchy when it hears about presumed miracles happened in a particular place X by a guy Y. The hierarchy doesn't know in advance the intentions of X (and the his degree of loyalty to the church) accordingly it is reluctant to recognize soon his presumed holiness. In the case of the Evangelion's Jesus, the church wanted to confirm before his presumed degree of catholicism and only after give his imprimatur.

[Giuseppe]

So prof Vinzent about Trypho's 'mythicism':

Trypho does not reject the old man's talk of Christ, who was born, existed and needed the endorsement of the Prophet Elias to anoint him and make him manifest, but the invention of a Christ, based on 'empty fables, or words without any foundation', hence a Christ unrelated to the Jewish Scriptures, not predicted by the Prophets, but endorsed by invented narratives. The dialogue unfolds between Trypho and Justin after a short remark about 'the war that waged in Judaea'. Whether or not Justin reports historical data, his narrative reflects the argument that the 'so-called Gospel' that Trypho had read was regarded as fiction and literature.

(Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, p. 44, my bold)

Hence, the Argument from Silence against the Gospel Jesus in the case of 1 Clement is weak, differently from how it is when applied to Paul's epistles or Hebrews.

[Sinouhe]

The minimal theory has several problems:

- This random and almost unknown Jew whom Christians called Jesus is not attested by any document from the first century.

- All the informations in Paul and Mark are taken from the OT. Even the meager informations in Paul's letters are taken from the servant of Isaiah. If Jesus was a historical figure, it would make sense to find a mix of myths ands historical informations. Even the context of Jesus' death is absent from Paul: who killed Jesus? When ? Paul seems to be unaware of these informations and is simply repeating what he read in the scriptures.

- If Jesus had been a historical figure, it is difficult to explain why he was deified, considered pre-existent and a creative agent with YHWH only a few years after his death. It would make more sense that Jesus was first described as a Jewish apocalyptic preacher and then over time was deified.

So yes, if Jesus had been an average Jew, it makes sense that he would have gone unnoticed.

The problem is that this Jesus does not exist in any testimony.

[davidmartin]

This random and almost unknown Jew whom Christians called Jesus is not attested by any document from the first century

Apart from the gospel of Thomas
So a mystical preacher who gains a following by his teachings is later (add a few decades and some wars in between) the Christ of the Christians
He gets exalted, then his actual teachings are steamrollered and even his death is repurposed by a new influx of charismatic late entrants to the party who "know the real message" (ie their own message). Soon anyone merely adhering to the original guys ideas is labelled a heretic - for failing to "get with the program". The apostle Paul is one of the chief of these renegades, and there may be Judaics who further muddy the waters using him to advance their version of Judaism. Then, all these new guys start fighting with each other over who is authentic when none of them are. All we see are fragments of the original, except the Gospel of Thomas preserves his basic teachings which undermine the whole freaking lot of them
That's the simplest most distilled down explanation.

[GakuseiDon]

If Jesus was a historical figure, it would make sense to find a mix of myths ands historical informations.

I think there probably is some historical information in Paul and the Gospels, but it is so intertwined with the readings from the Old Testament that it is all but unrecoverable.

[GakuseiDon]

GD I take the opposite side of the coin about this, but I do see the logic of what you're saying and how well it pulls together the evidence
The first problem is the Pauline view of Jesus could have come about from re-interpreting the life of Jesus, where this re-interpretation becomes far more important than any historical details about teachings or his life. I think we are seeing something like this

Thanks davidmartin. Sure, there's probably a few things going on in Paul that gives us what we see today.

The problem with using the Pauline epistles as a base for theories is these writings themselves indicate the difficulty Paul's "my gospel" had in competition with others with all sorts of obvious troubles his gospel ran into with opponents and so on - why should we just assume he was the only game in town and put all the eggs in one basket it seems like a precarious base for a theory?!

True! Paul didn't write to inform the readers of today, but in reaction to events of his own time, including reacting to the factions that had already popped up.