This is hardly news. I remember colorful radio evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong (he also believed the Anglo Saxons were the lost ten tribes -we are not even sure they are truly Anglo Saxon for the most part much less Jewish- but for a short roman haircut and shave for Jesus, he had more factual grounding - a similar representation of Jesus - I am not sure from what century) and he was talking about this during the 1970s. It is of historical interest. It is said Jesus was a rabbi but he was also supposed to have been from a small rustic town, and a devotee of John the Baptist (whose historicity is unmistakeably attested by Josephus and who almost certainly was bearded and long haired. It should not be of any religious or social significance (any more than Jesus color -does it really matter?) But as many of the lightweight academics who are cashing in on the fact that it gets people excited to talk about whether Jesus existed or not based on the evidence could tell you, it is a great way to sell books. As to that ilk, we let them talk because that is the honorable way - we have at last learned not to burn those with different opinions - even ill suited ones - and I do not regret it. I am with Mill, it makes us stronger in the long run collectively to have many voices, even a few wrong ones. Mill admitted that opinions and ideas were not all created equal but that, absent a small exception to prevent overtly harmful thoughts, speech and acts, the opportunity to express them should be. Having said that, I was amused at the end of this article Paulkovich (one of the more lucrative - stir up the evangelicals and atheists academics) comments: I must conclude this Jesus Christ is a mythical character. Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than urban (or desert) legend, likely an agglomeration of several evangelic and deluded rabbis who might have existed. Now oif Paulkovich could tell the difference between a deluded rabbi and an undeluded rabbi then I am chopped liver. As to the rest, it has been a long time since any serious historian discounted the possibility, even the likelihood that the Jesus we end up with by the time Irenaeus, Tacitus and others start bringing what by then was beginning to resemble what we now call orthodox Christianity into the clear light of history has elements of more than one contemporary Jesus. might have acreted onto the figure recognized by a religion. I must check my Josephus but I seem to remember he talked of perhaps two others (and a third religious leader with a different name I have forgotten - some of them ruthlessly put down by the romans) The two points of historical contact that Jesus seems to have left were his baptism by John (presumably near his home town) and his death at Jerusalem. Paul wrote about him and his writings, at least some of them have been authenticated. Paulkovich and his ilk quickly imagine a conspiracy derived by Paul (an otherwise intelligent man). But it has been very clear for a very long time that what Paul was doing with his letters was settling doctrinal controversies that sprang up in certain of the churches he visited. That fact that he as doing this less than 20 years after Jesus died and not so very long after his own conversion (if we accept Luke account of that conversion - I dont get into that) there were apparently christian communities all over the place and few of them had been started by Paul. The particular timing, the nature of the organizations he found and the problems he was trying to solve make it (from a legal standpoint) almost impossible rationally even to suggest a conspiracy much less prove one. And if not Paul them whom? Peter? John? James? It is easily argued that these men and their followers had gone about proselytizing. But was there a master plan? a script? And if there was it seems inconceivable that the gospels waited another 30 years to be written (and from such a disparity of viewpoints). Finally, and this is the keystone to any good conspiracy charge, there is the question cui bono. Paul was well to do, respected both in the secular world and among Pharisees (OK maybe he was not likable but it certainly had not ruined him, He was still making tents well into his conversion). To suggest that he threw that all away on the off chance that the Roman Emperor would not try to exterminate the Christians a few years later (as he did at least in Rome) and that the Christians would not have to go through centuries of intermittent but violent persecutions, that the Jews themselves would not be to a great deal exiled and made to endure terrible things before after interminable and violent doctrinal quarrels they were finally made the state religion, centuries after Pauls death. What is the percentage in that? The entire value of Paulkovichs contribution, and one can scarecely call it original, is that he correctly states that the Jesus we think of today very very likely has mythologized acretions and is to some extent a composite of more than one Jesus (though I would strongly argue for a Galilean Jesus being the one at the heart of the story.) Even the Christians admit this to a degree (rightly or wrongly) in their rejection of non-canonical gospels I am not proselytizing here. Continued historical research is going to give us a better understanding of Jesus or, if you will, the conditions that gave rise to Christianity. But Paulkovichs works and works like them are not genuine historical analyses, They are junk studies designed to excite the insecurities and passions of modern Christians and Atheists and, (conspiratorially) make a whole lot of money. examiner/article/beardless-jesus-image-found-spain-one-of-the-earliest-likenesses-of-christ
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 01:39:13 +0000
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