2 Comments

  1. Andries said:

    The christian gospels are not a direct source to the crucifixion of Jesus.
    Mark, the original narrative gospel story is not a history but especially written to inspire christians in their faith. The rest of the gospels came later and were based on Mark and on the sayings of Jesus collection which we now know as ‘Q’.

    The so-called letters of Paul are also not a direct source because we have no proof that these letters were written in the first century. There are no first century witnesses to the existence of the so-called ‘apostel Paul’ nor to a collection of his letters.
    They may have been fabricated to supoort the theology of the Marcionites who also rejected Matthew and may have also written the precursor of canonical Luke.
    In fact the core ideas in the letters of Paul support the ideology of Marcion very closely.
    Also the so-called letters of Paul haven been heavily edited and partly forged by the orthodox church who resisted their theology for a long time. This is recognised by many scholars.

    Then we have the very few “external” sources which are mistrusted by many scholars because they were kept and copied by the Church itself so probably edited by them also.

    So what DO we have to go on?
    The Jesus of Q is a certain type of mystical teacher or master which has little to do with the christian view of Jesus but which corresponds to the Jesus of the first half of Mark (the non-passion Jesus).
    For me personally, this is enough proof that this teacher Jesus is historical or Mark would not have included such a type of Jesus (that fits oddly with the passion Jesus who is quite different in behaviour).
    Christians like the authors of the gospel stories show clearly that they do not understand the teachings of Q, so the author of Mark inventig such a type of Jesus himself makes no sense.

    The crucifixion and resurrection story was needed to vindicate the “sinless” Jesus by projecting a cosmic dimension on the end of his mission (and possibly also the end of his life but we cannot be sure of that).
    The Jesus of Q and the beginning of Mark is also ‘one with his Father’ and with great supernatural powers, so he is no less great than the mythical Jesus of the cross and resurection.
    It depends on your personality which type of Jesus you feel most comfortable with.

    March 27, 2016
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  2. Caecus said:

    This mysterious “Q” source is not based on any evidence whatsoever. There are zero texts or even fragments for it, and no one mentions it anywhere in early or late history. In fact there are many theories trying to explain how and when the Gospels were written and the “Q Source” is only one of them and there is no reason to prefer over any other. The only reason it is so popular is because it fits well with skepticism.

    April 26, 2016
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