Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Historical Jesus

Argument breaks out on Internet. Film at 11. I used to spend a lot more time arguing about these sorts of things, and a lot of the details are a little fuzzy these days. I've read a couple of books that claimed Jesus was an entirely mythological construct, and never found them terribly compelling. I read a couple that claimed that the Gospels are perfectly historical, and Jesus did exactly the things they say he did, dammit. Those were laughable.

Between the two poles, there is this fuzzy middle ground where we can be pretty sure that Jesus existed, but we can't be sure enough of his doings or sayings to base our lives on them. Most Christians admit that their religion requires a leap of faith at some point, but I'm arguing that you have to make a big first leap in order to get to the point where you can make the second leap.

These questions used to be a big part of my life. Not anymore. I did my brain dump, and I probably won't contribute further to that discussion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like learning about the historical Jesus. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. My favorite class in college was The Life & Teachings of Jesus, taught from an academic perspective and not a faith one.
Have you read Marcus Borg's books? They are also compelling.

As a Christian, I'll admit that there are some things we'll never know. I believe there must have been something special about Jesus that made him have so much influence over the next two millennia. His philosophy was wack, yo.