andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2017 6:14 am
Is your argument that although 1st century CE Christians
believed in a recently executed historical Jesus, we cannot tell if this Jesus really existed or not ?
Or is your argument that we cannot tell whether 1st century CE Christians believed in a historical Jesus or not ?
I don't argue for either. I leave behind any questions that arise directly or indirectly from the assumption that the fundamental plots of the gospel narratives or any of their narrative details are derived from real historical events. Such an assumption I find unsupportable given the absence of independent corroboration.
I think some biblical scholars work on the same principle: they study the Jesus in the gospels as a literary and theological figure. The question of historicity or otherwise simply does not arise. It is not a question that the sources enable us to explore.
Further, your question assumes the existence of a certain group ("Christians") at a certain time (1st century CE) that I suggest are derived from the assumption of a historical background to the gospel narratives. What are "Christians" in your question? How are they defined? What is the evidence for them and for existing in the 1st century CE? I am not denying that you have reasonable answers to such questions. Just seeking my own clarification in turn.
(Even if we are relying upon Paul's letters, I am not sure that even those support the assumption that Paul and his followers belonged to a separate "Christian" group distinct from "Judaism".)
The best I think we can say is that we have narratives about an executed Jesus (whether "recent" from the time of writing we cannot say with any confidence) and the historian needs to work with these, seeking to understand the nature of these narratives and explanations for their origins and the functions and influences they served. As for what certain people at certain times "believed", that sounds to me like a very thorny question that will require a reliance upon more than the narratives themselves.
The letters of Paul are another set of documents that give rise to their own questions. The important thing, to me, is to study these questions without introducing traditional assumptions.