On the historicity of Jesus the Christ

On the historicity of Jesus the Christ
January 10, 2003
Pepe

To a “rara avis Pastor” Kim Min-woong:

A. I would like to know whether “the human Jesus” historically existed in the small village, Galilee or he just lived in an assemblage of books called the Bible as if King Arthur did:
Are there any source materials other than the books of Gospel that tell us he was born, lived, and died as if the Pharaohs did?

B. I also wonder what “Jesus the Jew” was doing during his 30-something years of his physical life…that is, was he teaching the doctrines of Christianity that we hear now or the then-existing Jewish laws with that he lives?
One of the Jewish rabbis challenged the Christians:” were he ever coming back on earth, he would feel more at home in Synagogue than the Church.”
How do you respond with that?

C. How do you subscribe to the mysterious Gospel narratives such as Virgin Birth, Eucharist, Resurrection, and the Trinity?
I think that we live in an age where the elemental forces of myth, symbol, and belief are supposed to be surrendered most of their power to reason and science.
Do you think that you could remain as a devout Christian, believing that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are two separate beings?


*On the above queries, Pastor Kim has not replied for weeks and Pepe pushed him to wall, posting the following note.

Pardon me, Pastor Kim
January 22 2003

Where have you been hiding Doctor Kim? Behind the London pulpit?
I have posted some questions in this forum and you’ve sent a spokesperson to tell me shut up.

Is that a way to tell your sheeps as a shepherd when you are in a pickle as most of the Korean pastors do?
Do you strut with the vanity of self-importance on the pulpit, ignoring the voice from the wilderness?

Well, I cannot read your high BS in Korean language here, but I take away the title “a rara avis” from you, because you don’t deserve to have it.
So long, Mr. self-lover.

Dear Pepe
January 22 2003
Rev. Kim minwoong

The following is the message I tried to post on the board to no avail because of my computer problem before I left London.

Please do not be misunderstood about me.
Your words, “is that a way to tell your sheeps as a shepherd when you are in a pickle as most of the Korean pastors do? Do you strut with the vanity of self-importance on the pulpit, ignoring the voice from the wilderness? Well, I cannot read your high BS in Korean language here, but I take away the title “a rara avis” from you, because you don’t deserve to have it. So long! Mr. self-lover.” seems to go too far.

Dear Pepe:

I am so pleased to reflect your definition of my identity as “a rara avis Pastor”.
I would like to take it as a hilarious expression of your theological solidarity with me, since you yourself are a rara avis Christian.

I do not have any doubt about the historicity of Jesus, who shared his life as well as his vision with the contemporary Jewish people.
It is hard to find the hard evidence that could verify his historicity, but Josephus, the famous ancient Jewish historian, recorded the historical situation of Jesus times and the life of his followers.
Though there are no other materials than the Gospel, that concern the historical existence of Jesus, the way the authors of the Gospel wrote about Jesus convinced me of historicity of Jesus, the man of Nazareth.

We do not have any credible documentation with regard to his life of childhood, and youth.
But we can imagine now he grew to be a man of spirit who proclaimed the coming Kingdom of Heaven, which meant an alternative way of life or community on earth, faithful to the vision of God.
If we read carefully or cautiously, we could find out many clues to the understanding of the historical experiences of Jesus, as a poor carpenter or a peasant in Galilee under the imperial rule of Rome.

Faith always teaches us that there is some area which is far beyond our human understanding or reason. Our existence itself is very mysterious, and science still could not explain about the origin of life.

I am now writing a novel on the historical Jesus. I hope I could translate it into English someday.

Thank you for your challenging and amusing question.

Minwoong Kim

To Pepe
Seong Heon Lee (yhsh@hotmail.com) a.k.a. Paul JDSN
January 23, 2003

It might help you to see an ancient historical proof of the existence of Jesus.
Josephus lived in Palestine (Galilee) and Rome from 37ce to 100ce. He gave two passing noted on Jesus; one more consciously and the other more passing.
If you want to see the text, click here.
http://www.ccat.sas.upenn.edu/-humm/Topics/JewishJesus/josephus.html

The first text is debatable in its origin. The second is just a passing note regarding James.
When we see that Josephus is a secular ancient writer, not a Christian and he was also an actual military general in Galilee area just one generation after Jesus and the same time of the formation of Christianity, Jesus seemed to really exist on history.

This is my view.
Good luck, Pepe, to your journey for looking for historical Jesus.

PS. This is a good web-site on historical Jesus, which gives lots of links, and also academic.
http://www.ntgateway.com/Jesus/

Seong Heon Lee


Jesus Christ as a cult leader in Judaism
January 24, 2003
Pepe

”Jesus, if he ever existed, was no less a cult leader in the first century Judaism than Rev. Moon is a rebel in the 20th century Christianity.”

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.” (Matt 5:17) kjv.

During my brief tour in this forum, it dawned on me slowly and steadily that I was an alien stranded in a foreign land and no friendly approaches should I expect from the residents in this Christian forest.
However, people here, like Pastor Kim, were not as antagonistic or hostile against an unorthodox view on Christianity as at other Korean Christian communities, but quite forthcoming and forthright in the discourse for that I appreciated very much.

On my queries about the historicity of Jesus the Christ, Pastor Kim quoted the Flavius Josephus’ writing about Jesus in the First Century as a only historical validation, and his disciple (?) Lee SH kindly (?) provided me with the web-site that Pastor Kim’s quote is not worth a grain of salt.

As Pastor Kim quoted, Josephus (his Jewish name was Joseph ben Matthias) was only one of the Jewish historians who, in his book “the Antiquities of the Jews”, made a very brief mention of Jesus. (There were many other contemporary historians, like Philo and Justus of Tiberius, who had never mentioned about Jesus)
When you read the modern versions of Josephus’ work, one can immediately detect that the texts were “rewritten”, “reworked, or ”redacted” by the early Christian Fathers

Again, the brevity of the passage on Jesus in the book troubles many scholars…the book comprises voluminous twenty books that sometimes whole pages were devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders and the life of a single king was written in whopping forty chapters.
Only dozen lines were allocated to the story of Jesus who was a Messiah, Son of God!
In short, the historical evidence, to which the Christians have been quoting for centuries as a testimonial, is as flimsy and unreliable as a “doctored” and “concocted” work of the early Christian writers.

Pastor Kim said: “the way the authors of the Gospel wrote about Jesus convinced me of historicity of Jesus, the man of Nazareth,” and “we read the Bible carefully or cautiously, we could find out many clues to the understanding of the historical experiences of Jesus, as a poor carpenter or a peasant in Galilee under the imperial rule of Rome.”

It is a fallacy to believe that Gospels are works of history or biography in depicting as the documents for some historical accounting or Jesus life, but it is rather a mismatching and jumbled stories of devout Jesus followers who even could not agree with each other on the events and occurrences, as the authors of Gospels could not settle on where Jesus was born.
Even if Pastor Kim were to select a “cherrypicking” as his work paradigm for biblical analysis, he still has a lot of contextual hurdle to overcome in the grasp of the dumb tales that meant only for Cattle.

Contrary to Pastor Kim, Mr. Lee SH always tried to be frank and straightforward, not persuasive or convincing…saying that Jesus “seemed” to really exist on history.
Mr. Lee evidently knows what troubles him but he can not bite the bullet.
Neither do I believe that Pastor Kim is ignorant of what Mr. Lee knew, as you know you, as a professional, have to earn a living. (In this sense, I have to admit that I am privileged to write or query no matter my curiosity kills a cat.)

As a lay person, I, Pepe, sometimes shudder to realize that I might have been snared and gnawed by the ancient mythology and fairy tales, if I were not diligently to seek liberating me from them.
To make a long story short, I settle for the following: there was a rabbi named Jesus in somewhere Palestine who was not happy about what the contemporary Jews were doing, he revolted with a pack of his followers, and was caught/hanged. And years later, another Pharisee Jew named Saul, later became Paul, marketed his rebellious belief to Hellenic Jews that was adopted later by Roman Emperor.
In this sense, Jesus was nothing more a cult leader in Judaism than Rev. Moon is a rebel in Christianity, and Jesus has never meant to create a new religion, Christianity, that is, an offshoot of Judaism as Islam is.


Dear Pepe
January 25, 2003
Pseudo Christian

Allow me to throw in my few cent worth of brief opinions of the Christian churches and Rev. Kim.

I, too, have fallen out of the “traditional” Christianity a long time ago. I see many of the so-called Christian churches as a pathetic, self-serving, soul-corrupting organization that is in a bed-partnership with the most war-mongering and money-grabbing capitalism.

Thus, I stayed away from them, be it may, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc, and the players behind them.
As for the UCC, I had my reservation as well. However, in my recent days, I do have to admit that UCC of Gillbott Church is different and better, for my own satisfaction, mind you.
Incidentally, I am not anyone’s sheep, and do like to consider myself as my own shepherd in intellectual spiritual political understandings even though I wouldn’t be able to shepherd my way out of a wet paperbag.

As for Rev. Kim, I like him and his style. I have sat in on his sermons, and enjoy them immensely.
Have I been a born-again Christian as a result of it? No, not quite!
But, I do find his spiritual philosophy quite refreshing.
As for his style of sermons, he doesn’t preach the kingdom of diamond-studded heaven, the subliminal messages of the obedient “sheep”, or the all-mighty power of wrathful god and eternal damnation.
In other words, in him, I detect, the lack of hypocrisy and mega-ego of many other rev/minister/priest/etc.

Moreover, what I like about him is his political philosophy of which he managed to blend with his spiritual interpretation of Jesus’ teachings.
To me, I find nothing wrong in mixing the two together if they can get the ‘messages’ to the people, to remind them of the social injustice, political oppression, spiritual stifleness, etc.
If Rev. Kim has managed to awaken the consciousness to the fore-mentioned and conscience within, then, in my opinion, he is doing an admirable job—not to be confused with anyone else’s “judgment”.
Also, I assured you that there are people within his congregation that disagree with his style.
You can’t satisfy everyone. But, people can choose to agree and stay, or not with him—an ostentatious blaring of their objections is rather an ugly gesture, don’t you think?

As for the enraging debates on the historicity or the unofficial biography of Jesus, does it really matter?
So what if he was a cult leader? Does it make his teachings any less valid?
But, if you insist, be my guest. To me, it matter very little how he has spent his years in wilderness, cultivating himself in Himalayas with a Hindu yoga, Buddhist sutras, or Taoist internal alchemy—for that matter, three Temptations as well.
I care not to shove it down anyone’s throat what I think of Jesus, Jesus’ teachings, Jesus’ politics, or his biography.

Neither does Rev. Kim. Should anyone’s else? In point of a note, I get more pleasure out of reading Tolstoy’s Christian short stories than the Bible itself, but then, that’s just me enjoying Tolstoy’s fiction (fairy tales).
Lastly, if and when you are in NJ, please pay us a visit. I’m sure Rev. Kim, Mr. Lee and others would love to meet you. Of course, I as well.

Pseudo-Christian

Jesus means today
January 25, 2003
Lee SH

To Pepe

I want to make some comments on your writing:

1. The historicity of Gospels; You strongly appealed that Gospels are not historical writings. You suggested reading Gospels as “a mismatching and jumbled stories of devout Jesus followers who even could not agree with each other on the events and occurrences.” In some senses, your opinion is true in the sense that Gospels were written according to the memory of authors in faith. However, the sharp separation between historicity and faith-story cannot be made because Christian community grounded itself on historical events regarding a historical figure, Jesus. After Bultmann, whose theology contributed the separation of history and kerygma (church proclamation) for the last century, biblical scholars argued severely about ‘historicity’ of Gospels. I think that your dualistic separation of history and faith-story must be on reconsideration.
2. Intriguingly, you described well the image of Jesus as a Jewish. I think that you heavily deepened on some modern scholars (like Sanders, Crossan) who read Jesus as a Jewish person. This is a question to me. How do you have such a confidence of Jewish identity of Jesus, while having a doubt of the historicity of Jesus: I think that you don’t care so much about the problem of historicity of Jesus. Your main concern seems to be more on Christian interpretation of Jesus.
3. Finally, in terms of the term, “cult”, I just remind you that cult does not have any inferior sense in academic field as people usually mean today. (I believe you know this fact). The term is neutral. In addition, I think that it would be more proper to compare Jesus’ Jewish cult with Re. Martin Luther King, rather than with Rev. Moon. Don’t you think so?
4. In terms of Josephus, you wrote, “when you read the modern versions of Josephus’ work, one can immediately detect that the texts were “rewritten”. “reworked” or “redacted” by the early Christian Fathers.” First, one correction should be made. We don’t know who redacted Josephus’ writing (your guess of early Christian Fathers seems a little far). As I mentioned, the originality of Josephus writing regarding Jesus is debatable. However, it seems that Josephus clearly conceived the person of Jesus as a historical person and Christian groups scattered about Asia Minor under Roman Empire. Josephus’ writing is highly valuable for historians, not only for biblical scholars, because it has really lots of historical information about the first century. Horsley’s reconstruction of historical Jesus is heavily based on Josephus’ writings, of course, with his mindful judgment.
5. You said: “Jesus has never meant to create a new religion. Christianity, that is, an offshoot of Judaism as Islam is.” Yes, true. However, his movement was apparently “new” for the first century Jews, because of the novelty of his teaching and action. I think that it would be more proper to see Jesus movement, not as a religion but a creative response to a historical situation, if you use the term “religion” as meaning an officalized institution.
6. Lastly, I have one question. What is it for to know historical Jesus? For breaking church dogmas (Christology) or re-realizing the vision of Jesus? I want to choose the latter purpose. When we read the Bible, it is hard to resist the message of Jesus. Today, I read Mark as a whole text. I found that Jesus confronted ‘bad social dogmas’ with resolute action. For me today, Jesus is not an old fashion of Jewish cult leader, but he is a guide of my passion.

Paul


Hi, Pepe
January 26 2003
Rev. Kim minwoong

I am so happy about your message, which shows a good will to continue to have a dialogue with us or our community. As lee and pseudo-Christian remarked, the biblical witness to Jesus or its reflection on his teachings and life is immensely fascinating me, which vividly clarifies the way of emancipating us from the shackle of the existing system or its spiritual hegemony through a revolutionary path.

Jesus’ confrontation with the reactionary system of Jewish society as well as the imperial power of Pax Romana is a very significant model of anti-hegemonic movement against the injustice, hypocrisy, death-loving establishment of Jesus’ contemporary world of Palestine.
It still has a remarkable power to let us understand our situation and discover the way of revolutionary transformation of not only ourselves but also our society.
This is my belief.

Thank you for your sincere way of discourse


Pepe is on the road…
January 25, 2003
Pepe

Wow!
I am overjoyed and overwhelmed, but somewhat humbled to have you guys swarmed over my writings.
Unfortunately, I am on the road for a week or two, depriving me of replying your lengthy rebuttals immediately. (I have to take care about some earthly things.)

When I took the bull by the horns, especially a profession of faith, I expected that I have to fight all along myself with no friendly salvo of any kind.
However, I did not frankly prepare to encounter four bulls at once, a smug high priest and two well-trained lieutenants (a political commissar, pseudo-Christian, and an acolyte, Mr. Lee SH), plus a jealous spin doctor, Deog or Look. (I know I am in a pickle.)

Definitely, I won’t roll over and play dead.
I will engage with you guys when I return from my trip. (Don’t get me wrong. I am not a Gen. MacArthur.)
In the meantime, anyone who wants to sing Handel’s messiah or Gregorian chants, please do so.

Adios, Folks

PS. By the way, what does UCC stand for, Comrade pseudo-Christian?