Did Jesus really say...?

[polonius]

I see a number of discussions using the claim "Jesus said..." rather than present evidence to prove a point.

But the problem here is the gospels were written between 70 and 95 AD by non-witnesses.

And as has been pointed out by at least one historian:

Excerpted from A Concise History of the Catholic Church
By Father Thomas Bokenkotter, SS

"The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah of God, risen and living now in his church and coming again to judge all men. Their authors did not deliberately invent or falsify facts about Jesus, but they were not primarily concerned with historical accuracy. They readily included material drawn from the Christian communities' experience of the risen Jesus. Words, for instance, were put in the mouth of Jesus and stories were told about him which, though not historical in the strict sense, nevertheless, in the minds of the evangelists, fittingly expressed the real meaning and intent of Jesus as faith had come to perceive him. For this reason, scholars have come to make a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith."

[bjs]

I see a number of discussions using the claim "Jesus said..." rather than present evidence to prove a point.

But the problem here is the gospels were written between 70 and 95 AD by non-witnesses.

And, as has been pointed out many times, this doesn’t really mean anything. The overwhelming majority of historians, both past and present, were not witnesses to the history they recorded. Instead they used reliable sources to gain information about events (see the opening verses of Luke). To suggest that this makes the Gospels unreliable while still accepting a basic understanding of history in general would be an egregious example of special pleading.

Bokenkotter’s theory is, to say the least, debated. The biggest challenge to his theory is a fundamental lack of evidence.

[Elijah John]

I see a number of discussions using the claim "Jesus said..." rather than present evidence to prove a point.

But the problem here is the gospels were written between 70 and 95 AD by non-witnesses.

And as has been pointed out by at least one historian:

Excerpted from A Concise History of the Catholic Church
By Father Thomas Bokenkotter, SS

"The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah of God, risen and living now in his church and coming again to judge all men. Their authors did not deliberately invent or falsify facts about Jesus, but they were not primarily concerned with historical accuracy. They readily included material drawn from the Christian communities' experience of the risen Jesus. Words, for instance, were put in the mouth of Jesus and stories were told about him which, though not historical in the strict sense, nevertheless, in the minds of the evangelists, fittingly expressed the real meaning and intent of Jesus as faith had come to perceive him. For this reason, scholars have come to make a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith."

Bokenkotter puts it very well. And further, historical Jesus (HJ) scholars tend to find his parables and saying's far more likely to have been actually uttered by Jesus than his rambling theological discourses and claims to Divinity, as found in the Gospel of John. (if he actually said some of the more radical things attributed to him by the Evangelist John, why do the Synoptic writers seem unaware of them or not noteworthy enough to include in their own accounts?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

I see a number of discussions using the claim "Jesus said..." rather than present evidence to prove a point.

Some may simply mean "The gospel of --- has Jesus say." I often use 'Jesus said' as a shorthand for this, without presuming the historicity of the statement.

But the problem here is the gospels were written between 70 and 95 AD by non-witnesses.

This would be a problem if we knew that Christianity had no life prior to the composition of the gospels; we know this is untrue. There is also a difference between a work written by a non-witness, and a work with no eye-witness source behind it. But we have no reason to suppose that the gospels are without eyewitness power behind it. Luke refers to "those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word have handed them down to us" and I see no reason to conclude he was lying. We should also note the gap between the event reported and the reporting of the event is quite ,quite small compared to nearly all histories of antiquity; very few were written by eye-witnesses. The gospels (except for the fact that moderners don't like miracles and religion) come out quite well when contrasted with the historical credentials of other ancient texts.

And as has been pointed out by at least one historian:

Excerpted from A Concise History of the Catholic Church
By Father Thomas Bokenkotter, SS

"The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah of God, risen and living now in his church and coming again to judge all men. Their authors did not deliberately invent or falsify facts about Jesus, but they were not primarily concerned with historical accuracy. They readily included material drawn from the Christian communities' experience of the risen Jesus. Words, for instance, were put in the mouth of Jesus and stories were told about him which, though not historical in the strict sense, nevertheless, in the minds of the evangelists, fittingly expressed the real meaning and intent of Jesus as faith had come to perceive him. For this reason, scholars have come to make a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith."

The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus: this is misleading at best and absolutely false at worst. The gospels were obviously not "raw" historical data. Some philosophers of history maintain that no historical work achieves "raw historical data", as all requires interpretation by the historian himself. Fine. But the notion that the gospels were not intended by its authors to contain sayings and deeds of JEsus is simply ridiculous. The gospels have been recognized by scholars as belonging to the genre of ancient Graeco/Roman bios and, like them, can be culled for historical bedrock.

Words, for instance, were put in the mouth of Jesus and stories were told about him which, though not historical in the strict sense, nevertheless, in the minds of the evangelists, fittingly expressed the real meaning and intent of Jesus as faith had come to perceive him.

I don't doubt this is true, but it is an assumption. Thus we are pitting one assumption "the church made up things" against another assumption "the gospels contain the words of Jesus".


Historians have developed good criteria for judging the historicity of various sayings of Jesus. For instance, his teaching on divorce in Mark is given high credulity, while his supposed declaration that all foods are clean is given very low plausibility.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

historical Jesus (HJ) scholars tend to find his parables and saying's far more likely to have been actually uttered by Jesus than his rambling theological discourses and claims to Divinity, as found in the Gospel of John. (if he actually said some of the more radical things attributed to him by the Evangelist John, why do the Synoptic writers seem unaware of them or not noteworthy enough to include in their own accounts?

And yet, scholars have noted that the fourth Gospel fits very well within the genre of ancient bios; historians of the period faced the difficulty of reiterating an entire speech or dialogue when one was given. They thus extrapolated from sayings recorded to reconstruct a fuller speech.

It is not difficult to see how a John could take something like what we find in Matthew and turn them into something fuller:

"All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Mat 11:27 NAS)

Of course, it is possible that Jesus only said this once; but more than likely he said things "like this" often enough that it sank into his disciples' memory. John, in the interest of a full bios, improvised a bit, no less than the speeches in Josephus or Plutarch.

[polonius]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

historical Jesus (HJ) scholars tend to find his parables and saying's far more likely to have been actually uttered by Jesus than his rambling theological discourses and claims to Divinity, as found in the Gospel of John. (if he actually said some of the more radical things attributed to him by the Evangelist John, why do the Synoptic writers seem unaware of them or not noteworthy enough to include in their own accounts?

And yet, scholars have noted that the fourth Gospel fits very well within the genre of ancient bios; historians of the period faced the difficulty of reiterating an entire speech or dialogue when one was given. They thus extrapolated from sayings recorded to reconstruct a fuller speech.

It is not difficult to see how a John could take something like what we find in Matthew and turn them into something fuller:

"All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Mat 11:27 NAS)

Of course, it is possible that Jesus only said this once; but more than likely he said things "like this" often enough that it sank into his disciples' memory. John, in the interest of a full bios, improvised a bit, no less than the speeches in Josephus or Plutarch.

RESPONSE: Tell. How many times did Jesus say he was going ride into Jerusale on two animals as Matthew reports. But Matthew miunderstoot the OT prophecy he used.

There are other examples. But if we begin reviewing them, we will be getting off-topic an should therefore start a new thread. Should we.

Incidentally, where in the Old Testament do you find a prophecy that Jesus shall be called a Nazarene as Matthew reports?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

historical Jesus (HJ) scholars tend to find his parables and saying's far more likely to have been actually uttered by Jesus than his rambling theological discourses and claims to Divinity, as found in the Gospel of John. (if he actually said some of the more radical things attributed to him by the Evangelist John, why do the Synoptic writers seem unaware of them or not noteworthy enough to include in their own accounts?

And yet, scholars have noted that the fourth Gospel fits very well within the genre of ancient bios; historians of the period faced the difficulty of reiterating an entire speech or dialogue when one was given. They thus extrapolated from sayings recorded to reconstruct a fuller speech.

It is not difficult to see how a John could take something like what we find in Matthew and turn them into something fuller:

"All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Mat 11:27 NAS)

Of course, it is possible that Jesus only said this once; but more than likely he said things "like this" often enough that it sank into his disciples' memory. John, in the interest of a full bios, improvised a bit, no less than the speeches in Josephus or Plutarch.

RESPONSE: Tell. How many times did Jesus say he was going ride into Jerusale on two animals as Matthew reports. But Matthew miunderstoot the OT prophecy he used.

There are other examples. But if we begin reviewing them, we will be getting off-topic an should therefore start a new thread. Should we.

Incidentally, where in the Old Testament do you find a prophecy that Jesus shall be called a Nazarene as Matthew reports?

This is all terribly off-topic. I am not an inerrantist when it comes to scripture; so I have no passion to defend the historicity of every single claim in the bible. I was merely pointing out that the gospels fit quite comfortably in the world of ancient Graeco/Roman bios. There are no doubt inerrantists among us, and so a new thread might be worthwhile. IF you are interesting in debating me in particular, we would have to find a specific logion to debate.

[imhereforyou]

[Replying to post 2 by bjs]

The overwhelming majority of historians, both past and present, were not witnesses to the history they recorded.

Not only that, even modern writers of history can't get it right when they witness it. Then there are those who 'interpret' it one way or the other.

The biggest problem here, though, is the vast majority of historians aren't writing something that pertains to one's eternal salvation as the bible is said to speak about nor are the vast majority of historians making claims their points are taken from an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, eternal being.

As far as I can see, if one makes those claims, those claims need to be right, thorough, reliable and provable to say the least. This isn't the case with the bible.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 2 by bjs]

The overwhelming majority of historians, both past and present, were not witnesses to the history they recorded.

Not only that, even modern writers of history can't get it right when they witness it. Then there are those who 'interpret' it one way or the other.

The biggest problem here, though, is the vast majority of historians aren't writing something that pertains to one's eternal salvation as the bible is said to speak about nor are the vast majority of historians making claims their points are taken from an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, eternal being.

As far as I can see, if one makes those claims, those claims need to be right, thorough, reliable and provable to say the least. This isn't the case with the bible.

That is a subjective criteria. Understandable, but still highly personalized. I for one do not require that if God interacted with men in a highly personal way, these men HAVE to be EMPOWERED to write their experiences of this perfectly. I simply do not see how this logically follows. It seems to me quite obvious that numerous factors will intervene should a higher power, even the Highest Power, reveal himself to mere men.

[imhereforyou]

[Replying to post 2 by bjs]

The overwhelming majority of historians, both past and present, were not witnesses to the history they recorded.

Not only that, even modern writers of history can't get it right when they witness it. Then there are those who 'interpret' it one way or the other.

The biggest problem here, though, is the vast majority of historians aren't writing something that pertains to one's eternal salvation as the bible is said to speak about nor are the vast majority of historians making claims their points are taken from an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, eternal being.

As far as I can see, if one makes those claims, those claims need to be right, thorough, reliable and provable to say the least. This isn't the case with the bible.

That is a subjective criteria. Understandable, but still highly personalized. I for one do not require that if God interacted with men in a highly personal way, these men HAVE to be EMPOWERED to write their experiences of this perfectly. I simply do not see how this logically follows. It seems to me quite obvious that numerous factors will intervene should a higher power, even the Highest Power, reveal himself to mere men.

For me, I'd think if this 'highest of all' power wants us to know something, it should be able to get that 'something' to the people who are writing it correctly (not to mention why such a being needs less being to WRITE anything anyway - surely there's a better way of communicating that would solidify its place in all this).