My understanding is that the commonly accepted secular position is that Jesus was a real historic person. How much of that is due to interpretation of Christian scripture?
There are very, very few people who deny Jesus actually existed. It’s considered a fringe theory and isn’t accepted in current academia. Bart Ehrman is very openly atheist after leaving Christian fundamentalism and he doesn’t even consider Jesus mythicists worth responding to.
Kinda? Paul was definitely a huge part of spreading Christianity, but we also know many important churches had no association with him at all. He writes to the Roman church as someone who’s never visited them. We never hear of him visiting Alexandria, another very important early Christian site. One of the biggest names at the beginning of the second century is in France (St Irenaeus of Lyon). Paul is a very important part of the early movement, for sure, but the other disciples and their disciples were too.
As far as first hand writings: Paul’s letters are the earliest NT docs (1 Thessalonians is early 50s we think), that’s true. But a few of the other works aren’t much later. For example, Mark’s gospel is not that much later, around 60-70CE. Mark very easily could have interviewed eye witnesses or descendants of them, though this point is heavily contested admittedly. But yes, the rest are later. Matthew and John were written later still in the 80s, Revelation and John’s Gospel sometime in thr 90s and Acts was probably written around the turn of the century. The pastoral letters may be as late as 125CE. So the foundation of the theory seems okay, but I don’t know of any historian or scholar who argued the above theory personally.
Right with the exception of Mark’s gospel which is independent from Paul. Last time I looked, the non Christian sources’ authenticity (Josephus and Tacitus) are debated heavily, and it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at that so I don’t know the newest research there.
Is Q supposed to be meaningfully older than Mark? I know the synoptics all are believed to be taking from it, but I don’t remember ever being told how distant of a predecessor it was imagined to be.
I think it’s argued to be a sayings text like the Gospel of Thomas compiled in the 40s/50s. I’ve actually leaned towards scholarship by Mark Goodacre and others who argued against the existence of Q. His books and blogs have more on that, but he’s pretty convincing.
Paul making up some dude who was the son of God makes no fucking sense when Paul could just say that he was the son of God. Why would Paul make up some dude who could heal people and raise people from the dead when Paul could just say that he himself healed people and he himself raised people from the dead? Like, why would peasants believe some random miracle worker they’ve never seen before (because he’s not real) but not the actual huckster saying that he’s a miracle worker? Imagine if Joseph Smith said that he knew a guy who knew a guy who knew another guy who stuck his head in a hat to decipher a bunch of text. Why would anyone remotely believe or care what Joseph Smith had to say?
My understanding is that the commonly accepted secular position is that Jesus was a real historic person. How much of that is due to interpretation of Christian scripture?
There are very, very few people who deny Jesus actually existed. It’s considered a fringe theory and isn’t accepted in current academia. Bart Ehrman is very openly atheist after leaving Christian fundamentalism and he doesn’t even consider Jesus mythicists worth responding to.
So is this Paul stuff just as silly?
Kinda? Paul was definitely a huge part of spreading Christianity, but we also know many important churches had no association with him at all. He writes to the Roman church as someone who’s never visited them. We never hear of him visiting Alexandria, another very important early Christian site. One of the biggest names at the beginning of the second century is in France (St Irenaeus of Lyon). Paul is a very important part of the early movement, for sure, but the other disciples and their disciples were too.
As far as first hand writings: Paul’s letters are the earliest NT docs (1 Thessalonians is early 50s we think), that’s true. But a few of the other works aren’t much later. For example, Mark’s gospel is not that much later, around 60-70CE. Mark very easily could have interviewed eye witnesses or descendants of them, though this point is heavily contested admittedly. But yes, the rest are later. Matthew and John were written later still in the 80s, Revelation and John’s Gospel sometime in thr 90s and Acts was probably written around the turn of the century. The pastoral letters may be as late as 125CE. So the foundation of the theory seems okay, but I don’t know of any historian or scholar who argued the above theory personally.
Ok so it’s like “Jesus was a real guy” but also “Paul is why we know about this real guy”
Right with the exception of Mark’s gospel which is independent from Paul. Last time I looked, the non Christian sources’ authenticity (Josephus and Tacitus) are debated heavily, and it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at that so I don’t know the newest research there.
If you are interested in this, there are hundreds on books on “the historical Jesus” (distinguished from the Jesus of faith). The Oxford Handbooks and Cambridge Companion series are great and approachable or you can go absolutely bonkers with this 3300 page tome. https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D597337E74CEC5AA08EB9280D05BE570. Also of note, Crossley and Miles approach historical Jesus studies through class conflict in an approachable and easy read: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=78F35D96CD1497BED0C59C5DD2ACC50F
Is Q supposed to be meaningfully older than Mark? I know the synoptics all are believed to be taking from it, but I don’t remember ever being told how distant of a predecessor it was imagined to be.
I think it’s argued to be a sayings text like the Gospel of Thomas compiled in the 40s/50s. I’ve actually leaned towards scholarship by Mark Goodacre and others who argued against the existence of Q. His books and blogs have more on that, but he’s pretty convincing.
Paul making up some dude who was the son of God makes no fucking sense when Paul could just say that he was the son of God. Why would Paul make up some dude who could heal people and raise people from the dead when Paul could just say that he himself healed people and he himself raised people from the dead? Like, why would peasants believe some random miracle worker they’ve never seen before (because he’s not real) but not the actual huckster saying that he’s a miracle worker? Imagine if Joseph Smith said that he knew a guy who knew a guy who knew another guy who stuck his head in a hat to decipher a bunch of text. Why would anyone remotely believe or care what Joseph Smith had to say?