As a secular person I can understand Jesus as an important historical figure, but it seems to me his "historicity" is a pretty uninteresting question. I know this can be hard for a person who was raised in Christianity to understand, but from an outside perspective, the guy is pretty boring. His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier (and they were better explained an examined by them). From this perspective, its hard to care about detailed historical questions about the guy except purely as history, which is full of a lot of other arguably more interesting questions.
The more interesting way to approach I think is not so much through great man-style history like that about what he did or why, or even why him. But what was it about that time and place that produced so many of these movements, of which his was one (notably john the baptist who had a similar thing going first/with some overlap, and whose movement was almost certainly more popular than the jesus movement in their time)?
What made rome react to these movements the way they did, were they able to identify the real risk they posed (it did end up becoming a massive source of unrest and radicalism in the empire), did they understand the risks inherent in martyring apocalyptic religious leaders?
It's also a good entry point for understanding the process of history as a practice and discipline. For example we can be pretty sure jesus was from nazareth because it's mentioned in mark, the earliest gospel, and nazareth was a nothing place nowhere, there's no reason to fabricate an important figure being from there. Similarly his nativity story is probably a later attempt to link him to bethlehem, a city of deep significance to jews at the time. That's an interesting technique! There are lots of those, historians aren't just people who know facts about history, they are practitioners of this discipline.
It's one of the most researched, most discussed subjects in history and the movement that started there is one of the most impactful regardless of your personal relationship to it. So it's a good place to get an understanding of the concepts and techniques of history and historicity.
Although "show us some citations" is getting to be a pretty boring response, I would like to see some elaboration on "His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier."
I don't think so. The pagan "religions" were not very big on "everyone, even the poor, the sick, and the lame, is equal." Slavery was accepted almost everywhere. Women were very definitely second-class citizens. "Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe.
I mention the last one especially because in the pre-Constantine era, the notion that other Christians were your brothers and would take care of you was pretty powerful. That was not a common thing back then.
I mean not to be all like “read Plato’s republic, literally the most famous Greek philosophy” but…
* Polemarchus claims that justice is helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies and that this is what one owes people (332c). Socrates’ objections to Polemarchus’ definition are as follows: (i) Is this appropriate in medicine or cooking? So in what context is this the case? (332d)? (ii) The just person will also be good at useless things and at being unjust (333e). (iii) We often do not know who our friends and enemies are. Thus, we may treat those whom we only think are our friends or enemies well or badly. Would this be justice? (334c). (iv) It does not seem to be just to treat anyone badly, not even an enemy (335b). Discussion between Socrates and Thrasymachus follows (336b-354c).*
* Adeimantus complains that the guardians in the just city will not be very happy (419a). Socrates points out that the aim is to make the whole city, and not any particular class, as happy as possible (420b). Socrates discusses several other measures for the city as a whole in order to accomplish this. There should be neither too much wealth nor too much poverty in the city since these cause social strife (421d-422a).*
Jesus wasn't anti-slavery, because he was a Jew and slavery is directly supported by Jewish law and scripture, sometimes with quotes from God himself. Jesus even commands slaves to obey their masters.
>Women were very definitely second-class citizens.
Read the Pauline epistles, particularly 1st Timothy. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet."
>Giving charity" was not a central concept in the Greek moral universe.
What linguistic root is the word "philanthropy" from? It isn't Hebrew[0].
So you haven't answered my question: what Greek philosopher said anything like what Jesus said (as you understand those sayings)?
Your other points are disingenuous at best. The eventual abolition of slavery in England was driven directly by Christian beliefs, however much they'd evolved in the ensuing time.
The bit about the Pauline epistles is also disingenuous. You picked one quote. Mary Magdalene was one of the disciples. Women were considered to be "in the image and likeness of God." They did not attend Mass in a separate section from the men (a separation which is still done at the Western Wall).
Lastly, who cares what the linguistic root was? And your link ignores one of the primary drivers of very early Christianity: the Romans didn't care how much you suffered. It was the Roman Empire where Christianity took off first.
"Philanthropy" seems to have been much like a lot of celebrities' "charitable foundations" nowadays: "Hey, everyone: Look at what a good person I am!"
> But the tendency for many donors to use such legal instruments for self-glorification, personally advantageous politicking, and the conservation of family wealth did little to help larger numbers of the destitute in growing Roman imperial cities.
> The eventual abolition of slavery in England was driven directly by Christian beliefs, however much they'd evolved in the ensuing time.
You do need to provide some evidence to support this claim. AFAIK slavery became unnecessary in the industrial era. So it morphed into Indentured servitude. Bible followers didn't hesitate from pillaging the world.
> Women were considered to be "in the image and likeness of God."
Could you quote something from Bible on this topic.
> the Romans didn't care how much you suffered. It was the Roman Empire where Christianity took off first.
Christianity tool off when Roman king understood it's political power and decided to use it. He then forced it down the throats of unorganised pagans who got eliminated brutally.
> But the tendency for many donors to use such legal instruments for self-glorification, personally advantageous politicking, and the conservation of family wealth did little to help larger numbers of the destitute in growing Roman imperial cities.
If that is the case then why GDP of Europe was declining?
> "His moral lessons are mostly facile and poorly explained and similar ideas were expressed by the greek philosophers earlier.
Read any Hindu upnishads especially Bhagwad Gita[0]. Chapter 16 especially defines the code of conduct for good peoples. Here is the opening statement.
श्रीभगवानुवाच |
अभयं सत्त्वसंशुद्धिर्ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थिति: |
दानं दमश्च यज्ञश्च स्वाध्यायस्तप आर्जवम् || 1||
अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्याग: शान्तिरपैशुनम् |
दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम् || 2||
तेज: क्षमा धृति: शौचमद्रोहोनातिमानिता |
भवन्ति सम्पदं दैवीमभिजातस्य भारत || 3||
renunciation, peacefulness, restraint from fault-finding, compassion toward all living beings, absence of covetousness, gentleness, modesty, and lack of fickleness; vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, bearing enmity toward none, and absence of vanity.
Bible on the other hand is directed responsibility for the dark ages in which people were tortured for having different beliefs, women were burned for witch craft, believers in other gods were eliminated brutally. Scientists were killed for stating their theories. Remember Bruno was burned on stake for merely saying earth revolves around the sun. World history is filled with divine crimes sanctioned by Bible. There are hundreds of examples to read from history. For example Goa inquisition in which is Indians were tortured to death not because they didn't believe in Jesus. But because they also continued to believe in the gods they used to worship[1].
There are enough references in the Bible. One only needs to read it critically.
I am simply responding to your assertion that world before Christianity was a dog eat dog uncivilized wasteland and Jesus taught it morally.
On the contrary, before the
advent of Christianity Greek and Romans had dialogs on various topics. IFAIK Science and Philosophy came to a stand still for a thousand years till renaissance happened. If you evidence to the contrary, please do share some references.
Bible divided the world in believers and heathen so claiming it promoted universal brotherhood is laughable. World was never a perfect place, Christianity made it worse.
