Can someone recommend me some reading material about historical Jesus or early Christianity? Preferably one that compares current New Testament interpretations with what they (probably) actually meant back then.
>>1299764
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium by Bart Ehrman.
I found it to be fantastic, and I was pleased with how much of the sayings and radical theology of Jesus were found to be consistent with the historical analysis by Ehrman.
He's one of the foremost New Testament scholars and historians.
I also recommend How Jesus Became God, also by him, on the subject of early Christianity.
Another book I recommend is When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible by Timothy Michael Law, based on the usage of the Greek translation of the Old Testament by the early Churches and New Testament writers themselves.
>>1299829
Thanks. I think I'd already heard his (Ehrman's) name, but I don't remember the context. I'll look for those books.
>>1299764
Nothing by that cunt Bart Ehrman. He's an absolute fraud.
>>1299916
How come a guy who knows latin-greek and has a phd in early christianity is a fraud?
>>1300040
https://bible.org/article/gospel-according-bart
>>1299916
Richard Carrier please, go and keep sucking vaginas.
>>1300044
>bible.org
Yep, totally not an unbiased source. How about some actual academic review that shows his fraudulence? Or is academia a conspiracy against the Bible?
>>1300044
Wallace is Christians Bart, in debates between them they agree on a lot of stuff and debate the trivial shit.
>>1300060
Wow, you read the entire thing in 3 minutes.
kek
>>1300067
Bart is not a christian. He's a natural man. The appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, doubly so when dealing with godly matters.
Natural men do not understand the things of God, as they are spiritually discerned and natural man is spiritually dead.
Bart Ehrman is a money whore; he's on the same tier as Dan Brown.
>>1300086
I bet you've never heard of the logical fallacy wherein not all logical fallacies are wrong. It might be because you're a self-taught internet smark guy.
>>1300086
I want christcucks to leave.
>>1300086
>Wow, you read the entire thing in 3 minutes.
Nope. I didn't even touch it.
>Natural men do not understand the things of God, as they are spiritually discerned and natural man is spiritually dead.
So, we're just going to disregard academia completely unless it comes from your absurdly biased corner? Fuck that noise. I'd be willing to hear a credible Christian academic's take on Ehrman, if you've got it, but it has to stand up to academic scrutiny.
>>1299764
You can start with the Cambridge History of Christianity, particularly the first volume and Cambridge History of the Bible to start. Academical and you won't be seeing Erhman shilling in there
Judging by the assblast itt op, it sounds like Ehrman is the way to go
If you want an atheistic take on early Christianity, Ehrman is the way to go. He does have a habit of interpreting evidence to suit his preconceptions, and glossing over that which doesn't, but Christian scholars do the exact same thing.
If you want something super fringe you can check out Richard Carrier.
>>1299764
Zealot by Reza Aslan
>>1300120
>Relies on logical fallacies.
>Backs them up with other logical fallacies.
kek
>>1300166
I'm waiting for the Rapture too.
You're waiting for hell to break out on earth.
>>1299764
OP: I want to learn about Jesus.
Anon: Read this atheist!
Anon2: Read this known liar!
Anon3: Read this muslim!
Stay classy /his/
And OP, how about reading Acts? You know, the book in the bible about the early church?
And not books about the Catholic church?
>>1300508
>Read this atheist!
What's wrong with that? He wanted to learn about Jesus in an academic sense.
>>1300508
Here is what the Early Church did
>>1300518
OP: I want to learn about God!
Anon: Ask someone who doesn't believe in Him.
>>1300545
>Didn't notice the papacy had already been slammed above.
OP: I want to learn more about Jesus!
Papist: Here's how we worship Mary and eat Jesus' flesh, and drink His blood.
>>1299764
Acts.
Compare Acts with Acts. And then compare Acts with every letter Paul wrote to every church, and with the bits of the Revelation written 60 years later by John the Revelator to the 7 types of churches.
>>1300579
But Jesus wasn't God. He was a man.
>>1300518
Not him, but there are plenty of theistic academic works on Christ, as well as plenty of neutral ones. Ehrman is a partisan atheist, and to equate him with objectivity is highly misleading. I'm not saying he's not a valuable resource, but he's like the atheist William Lane Craig of New Testament scholarship.
>>1300508
No one takes the Muslim as an academic source. He's purely a pop writer.
>>1300596
Jesus is as much man as though He were not God, and as much God as though He were not man.
lrn2HypostaticUnion
>>1300588
Ignatius is from the Early Church. Too bad loser
OP here. It may have been better that I clarified that I was an atheist. I have to apologize to the Christians who posted here, but I'm not interested in the Christian view. I can read a academic study done by a christian, but I won't be reading Christian writings about Jesus and his divinity or whatnot as historical documents.
As a side note, and to better explain my OP: Aside from a historical view of the time of Jesus and an interpretation of what what is written on the Bible meant to the people of that time, I'm also interested in how the early church transformed from a Jewish apocalyptic sect into the state religion of Rome (basically everything between Jesus's death and the council of Nicaea) and some of the early ideas that were abandoned in the process.
>>1300479
>>1300493
I can't really trust any of those in anything they say after reading/watching online statements of both. Both of these are liars with political agendas (Carrier being a feminist and Aslan being a Muslim apologist), and while an academic view to the history of Jesus has nothing to do (or should have nothing to do) with their agendas, I can't really trust them when I know they'll lie through their teeth when they deem it necessary.
That said, I've seen presentations of both about their thesis and deem them mildly interesting, which is why I'm disappointed that they are such dishonest fellows.
>>1300617
Yeah. The Roman Catholics killed him. Just like they killed Peter and Paul, and put Jesus on a cross.
Oh wait, they still have Jesus on the cross.
>>1300642
>I'm interested in what is written about in the Book of Acts.
>I will not read the Book of Acts.
>I consider myself a rational person.
>Euphoric even.
>>1300661
I may be interested in reading the book of Acts, but I need an explanation of the context of the time to know what those books meant for the people back then. It's pointless for me to read the translation of 2000 year old books written in a part of the the world I've never been to; my interpretation will have no value whatsoever.
However, many scholars who know about the historical context of the time and can read the Greek original versions can and probably have released writings explaining that for the laymen. I don't care if such scholars are Christian or not, as long as they're honest that is exactly what I want.
>>1300493
Do not read this book.
This book is ridiculous.
>>1300579
No, he wants to learn about the history of a religious movement you nigger.
I can't say I'm surprised by how this thread turned up.
Great work, Christian posters. Keep /his/ classy.
>>1299764
https://youtu.be/PESKI96jLGU
Reading ancient exegesis is probably your best bet if you want an ancient understanding of the New Testament.
If you are interested in a secular perspective on early Christianity, your best bet is not works saying Christians don't know what their own texts mean (this way of thinking is really an outgrowth of Protestant scholarship), it's more about trying to look at what was the case probably was in *contrast* to what the texts say.
>>1301721
>If you are interested in a secular perspective on early Christianity, your best bet is not works saying Christians don't know what their own texts mean (this way of thinking is really an outgrowth of Protestant scholarship), it's more about trying to look at what was the case probably was in *contrast* to what the texts say.
Nobody claims this, you strawman building fuck.
>>1302277
OP
>current New Testament interpretations with what they (probably) actually meant back then.
>>1300642
>everything between Jesus's death and the council of Nicaea
Again, How Jesus Became God by Ehrman.
>>1299764
This documentary is pretty solid. And loooong
https://youtu.be/gD2guEX9Jpg
>>1302282
Well I'll be damned. I feel a fool.
>>1302289
Honest mistake
Anyway, I notice a lot of recommendation for Bar Ehrman in this thread, and I'll point out two issues I have with him as a scholar.
Firstly, this
>>1301721
He tries to give the *real* meaning of Christian texts that supposedly no one knew until he came along. And not just on some details, but drastically.
Secondly, he begs the question on certain issues. For instance, he dates the Gospel of Mark (which, unlike him, I don't consider to the be the first Gospel, I consider Matthew to be, but I won't post the argument right now) according to the Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, no earlier, because it predicts that, so he assumes the prediction had to have been written afterward. Now this makes no sense to me--I'm not saying secular scholars must assume Christ could see the future in a supernatural way, but if he was an apocalyptic preacher, it's really not crazy for him to have said that, especially since the Hebrew Testament predicts the destruction of the Second Temple. But instead he jumps to the conclusion that is must have been written afterward purely out of some bias to make sure prophecy is absolutely ruled out of the question; to me, that's sloppy scholarship.
>>1302312
*Bart Ehrman
>>1302312
Atheist here, it does seem really dumb to rule out the destruction of the temple on those grounds. It doesn't exactly take a prophetic vision to see that a major site of Jewish worship stands a good chance of getting its shit wrecked in Roman Judea with the political climate of the time.
>>1302327
rule out that date of authorship based on the destruction, I mean
>>1302312
The first time we get any inkling that a Christian knew or cared
about who wrote these books comes from about 120-130 CE, in the
writings of an obscure author named Papias, whom the fourth-century
chronicler Eusebius—the so-called Father of church history—called "a
man of exceedingly small intelligence." His IQ notwithstanding,
Papias did make some remarks that are often taken as referring to two of
our Gospels. First, he claimed that the apostle Peter, on his missionary
endeavors, would speak about Jesus' words and deeds as the occasion
demanded, rather than from beginning to end, and that Mark, his sec-
retary, later wrote the stories down, but "not in order." This informa-
tion came to Papias, he claimed, from an elderly Christian he knew. If
so, then the tradition that our Second Gospel was written by a compan-
ion of Peter goes back to at least 110-120 CE or so. In addition, Papias
claimed that the apostle Matthew wrote down the sayings of Jesus in
Hebrew, and that "everyone interpreted them as they could." He says
nothing about Luke or John.
This tradition from Papias needs to be considered seriously. I would
assume that the tradition about Mark refers to the Mark that we have
in the New Testament, even though there is no way to know for sure,
since Papias doesn't quote any of the materials that are found in the
book he's referring to, and so we have nothing to compare it to. It is
striking, though, that he emphasizes that (a) the author was not an eye-
witness, (b) Peter would retell the stories at random, and (c) Mark
modified the accounts he heard from Peter so as to provide an "order"
for them. Moreover, the earliest we can trace this tradition is to
110—120 CE, at best—that is something like a half century after Mark
itself was written.
>>1302336
No other evidence from those years suggests that the
book goes back to a companion of the apostles—and, as I've already
stressed, Mark himself never claims so either!
The tradition about Matthew is even less fruitful, since the two
things that Papias tells us are that (a) Matthew's book comprised only
"sayings" of Jesus—whereas our Matthew contains a lot more than
that—and (b) it was written in Hebrew. On this latter point, though,
New Testament specialists are unified: the Gospel of Matthew that we
have was originally written in Greek. Papias does not appear, therefore,
to be referring to this book.
Apart from this tradition in Papias, we don't hear about the authors
of the Gospels until near the end of the second century. By then,
though, the tradition had become firmly set. Irenaeus, a Christian
bishop of the church in Lyons, Gaul (ancient France), around 185 CE,
maintains that there were four Gospels and only four Gospels that had
been inspired by God, and that they were written by Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. Let me emphasize that this testimony comes nearly a
hundred years after the books themselves appeared. And frankly, it
looks a bit suspicious. For there were clear reasons that a writer like Ire-
naeus would want his readers to accept the apostolic origins of these
books.
>>1302327
Yeah, that's why what anon said here
>>1300607
Is pretty spot on. Both Ehrman and Craig's works are worth reading (Craig's New Testament scholarship is a lot better than his scientific arguments and moralistic pop stuff) if you are into New Testament scholarship, but only if you remember they have very, very strong agendas and it is important to see them as *arguments* rather than sources of historical fact.
>>1302336
>Moreover, the earliest we can trace this tradition is to
>110—120 CE, at best—that is something like a half century after Mark itself was written.
That's the earliest surviving written record, but I don't see it is necessary to doubt it. Scholars don't doubt Heraclitus wrote what he wrote when it is dated.
>"sayings" of Jesus
What he says is *logia*, which is not nearly equatable to "sayings" in the Biblical sense (remata). "Logia" is the diminutive plural case of "Word", and we still refer to every Gospel at that in Liturgy.
cont
>>1302337
>On this latter point, though,
>New Testament specialists are unified: the Gospel of Matthew that we have was originally written in Greek.
On this I would disagree, based on the following
>it uses Hebrew syntax and tense; for instance, see the very Greek syntax of Mark 15:21: "And they compel passing a Simon [a passing Simon] of Cyrene, coming from country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, that [he might] carry the cross of his [Christ's]." This sort of syntax sounds natural in Greek (where inflection and declension almost completely determine grammatical relations), but in English or Aramaic, languages that rely heavily on syntax to express grammatical relations, it's chore to parse (and remember there was no punctuation, lowercase and uppercase, or even word spaces, in ancient times); Matthew 27:32, by contrast, reflects a Aramaic or Hebrew syntax: "Going forth and they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they compelled to carry the cross of his [Christ's]." Here is another example, Mark 1:12: "And immediately the spirit him drives into the wilderness." Compare the Aramaic Matthew 4:1: "Then he, Jesus, was led into wilderness by the spirit." In Mark, the indirect object is adjacent to the object, which is quite normal in Greek, but generally not feasible in Aramaic or Hebrew.
You can see my more exhaustive arguments here
http://pastebin.com/9XxNnSU6
>>1302312
>For instance, he dates the Gospel of Mark (which, unlike him, I don't consider to the be the first Gospel, I consider Matthew to be, but I won't post the argument right now) according to the Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, no earlier, because it predicts that, so he assumes the prediction had to have been written afterward. Now this makes no sense to me--I'm not saying secular scholars must assume Christ could see the future in a supernatural way, but if he was an apocalyptic preacher, it's really not crazy for him to have said that, especially since the Hebrew Testament predicts the destruction of the Second Temple. But instead he jumps to the conclusion that is must have been written afterward purely out of some bias to make sure prophecy is absolutely ruled out of the question; to me, that's sloppy scholarship.
The argument by the historians was never that the Temple is destroyed before Mark is written, it's the opposite, for example in the NOAB you read:
The vague references to the destruction of Jerusalem in Mark 13 (contrast Mt 22.7; Lk 19.43) could be clues
that the Gospel was composed just prior to the Jewish revolt that began in 66 ce and the Roman reconquest and
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 ce.
>>1302385
We're talking about Bart Ehrman, not the NOAB
>>1302385
And again Erhman:
Did Jesus then speak at all about the coming destruction of the Tem-
ple? One might be tempted to push the criterion of dissimilarity a bit
further, and claim that since the Temple was in fact destroyed by the
Romans in 70 CE, none of the predictions of jesus can be safely trusted
as actually going back to him—that is, that later Christians put predic-
tions of its destruction on his lips to show his prophetic powers. Most
scholars, though, consider this an extreme view, since the predictions
of the destruction on one level or another pass all of our criteria: (a)
They are obviously multiply attested (Mark, John, Acts, and Thomas!).
(b) Moreover, in one respect, at least, the earliest form of these sayings
appears to pass the criterion of dissimilarity, since Jesus' claim in Mark
that not one stone would be left upon another did not in fact come
true, as you can see yourself by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem
today; if anyone actually knew the details of the destruction, they
wouldn't have invented this verse, (c) And, just as importantly, the
sayings are completely contextually credible. For we know of other
prophetic figures throughout the history of Israel who had maintained
that the Jewish people had so strayed from God that he would enter
into judgment with them by destroying their central place of worship.
Of particular relevance are the words of the Hebrew prophet Jere-
miah, living in the sixth century BCE, before the destruction of the first
Jewish Temple in 568. Jeremiah maintained that since the people of
Israel had sinned so thoroughly, they could no longer trust God to
deliver them or their sacred temple. In fact, despite their trust in the
sanctuary to provide them protection, God was soon going to destroy
both it and them.
>>1302388
Jeremiah's words are worth quoting at some length:
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways
and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not
trust in these deceptive words: This is the temple of the LORD,
the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.... Will you
steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to
Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then
come and stand before me in this house which is called by my
name, and say 'We are safe!'—only to go on doing all these abom-
inations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a
den of robbers in your sight?...And now because you have done
all these things... therefore I will do to the house that is called by
my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you
and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh (that is, destroy
it). And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your
kinsfolk. ... And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and
gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a
waste" (Jer 7:3-4, 9-11, 14-15. 34)-
The prediction that God would enter into judgment with his people,
destroying them and their sacred places, is as old as the Hebrew
prophets that Jesus heard read as a child in the synagogue in Nazareth.
And the tradition was kept alive, not just in literary texts, but among
living, breathing people down through his own day. Recall the prophet
named "Theudas" and the unnamed one called, simply, "the Egyptian"
whom I mentioned in chapter 7. Both of them, in their own ways, pre-
dicted that God would bring about a destruction of Jerusalem and a sal-
vation of the remnant of his people who remained faithful to him (and
to his prophetic servants).
>>1302389
And consider the proclamation of yet another prophet of the first
century, another Jew who was, by an odd coincidence, also named
Jesus, the son of an otherwise unknown Ananias. Some thirty years
after Jesus' death, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, this other
Jesus went through the city of Jerusalem crying out: "A voice from the
east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against
Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the
bride, a voice against all the people" (Jewish War, 6.5.3). Jesus son of
Ananias spent seven and a half years proclaiming the doom and
destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. As with his better-known
namesake, he too was arrested and placed on trial before the Roman
governor as a trouble maker. In this instance, though, the accused was
found to be innocent on grounds of insanity, and was released after
being scourged. But his mistreatment didn't retard his proclamation: he
continued lamenting the coming destruction until he was accidentally
killed by a catapulted stone during the seige of Jerusalem, a couple of
years before his predictions came true.
To return now to our own Jesus. As part of his prediction of the com-
ing judgment of God, he too urged—as Jeremiah and other prophets had
done before, and several lesser lights were to do after—that destruction
was at hand, and that not only individuals but also social institutions
and structures would be brought low when the Son of Man arrived on
the clouds of heaven with the angels of glory and the power of God.
>>1302385
>it's the opposite, for example
But again, here, not by much. The date is still tied to the Destruction, presuming Christ did not say it, but that someone came up with it long afterward; here they just use the imminent of the Destruction as opposed to the Destruction itself as the cut-off date.
>>1302397
>not by much
The argument is not that the destruction of the Temple predates Mark because the prophecy is fuliflled, but that Mark predates the destruction of the temple, on the grounds that the prophecy is unfulfilled.
It's the complete opposite.
No evangelist would willingly put false words sorrounding a dramatic event like the Temple's destruction on Jesus, when there's a wall still standing.
>>1302388
Yeah, this is probably from his blog, since it contradicts "Jesus, Interrupted" by him
>>1302399
It's not the complete opposite at all, since it is presuming the imminence precipitated that being written, as opposed to Christ saying it is precipitating that being written.
>>1302408
Why did Jesus lie? Or was it Mark?
Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.
>>1302404
The quotes above are from Jesus Prophet of the New Millennium, this is Jesus Interrupted:
One of the best attested sayings of Jesus found in a
number of our independent sources is a prediction that at the coming
onslaught, at the end of the age, the Temple itself would be destroyed
(Mark 13:2; 14:58; 15:29). The Temple? The center of the worship of
the God of Israel? Isn’t that a blasphemous thought?
Some Jews evidently thought so. This is what ended up getting
Jesus into trouble. But Jesus himself appealed to a prophet of the
Hebrew Scriptures, Jeremiah, who also thought the Temple and
the activities within it had grown corrupt. Like Jesus, Jeremiah
inveighed against the Temple. Like him, he also paid a heavy price
(see Jeremiah 7:1–15; 20:1–6).
Jesus thought that at the judgment that was soon to arrive, the
Temple would be destroyed. Why, then, did he overturn the tables and
cause a ruckus? It is now a standard opinion among critical scholars
that Jesus was performing a symbolic act—a kind of enacted parable,
if you will. By overthrowing tables Jesus was symbolizing in a small
way what was going to happen soon in a big way when the Son of
Man arrived in judgment. God’s enemies would be destroyed. And like
many of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus thought that among
God’s enemies were the Jewish leaders themselves, in charge of the
Temple, who had become corrupt and powerful. But a day of reckon-
ing was at hand.
>>1302430
Neither, dude, come on. It's just hyperbole, like "I'll break every bone in your body."
>>1302436
Yeah, but look at the part where he dates the Gospels
>It also appears that the Gospel writers know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 ce . . . That implies that these Gospels were probably written after 70.
itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/historical-jesus/id384233911?mt=10
infidels.org/library/modern/thomas_sheehan/firstcoming/
amazon.com/Historical-Jesus-Mediterranean-Jewish-Peasant/dp/0060616296
>>1302361
>What he says is *logia*, which is not nearly equatable to "sayings" in the Biblical sense (remata). "Logia" is the diminutive plural case of "Word", and we still refer to every Gospel at that in Liturgy.
But does Papias refer to Mark's work as Logia?
See? Logia means a bunch of different things.
>>1302497
"Logia" generally means oracles or prophecies (not necessarily predictions, just divine pronouncements) in Greek, in both pagan and Christian contexts.
>>1301721
>it's more about trying to look at what was the case probably was in *contrast* to what the texts say.
Yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
>>1302286
This does seem to be a good entry point seeing from all the discussion in this thread. I did some research and it seems that Richard Carrier hates Ehrman's guts, so I guess he can't be that bad.
>>1302338
Thanks for the heads up, I'll try Craig's version too for the sake of impartiality.
Though since I can't really search for the books until Monday, if anyone has some good online sources or videos on the topic they'd be appreciated.
>>1302338
Tom Wright and James Dunn are also good on Paul
>>1302538
I know Durant is kind of taboo among historians, but if you want a secular theory of Christ and early Christianity, his (from Caesar and Christ) is the most thoughtful I've read. That's probably because of his feelings toward Christianity, which, while rejecting its miraculous truth, sympathized strongly with it as a social and cultural force.
>>1302538
>videos on the topic
Here's Ehrman 3 part lecture on How Jesus Became God, from his own channel, mostly a summary of the book but it can't contain what the 300-something pages can do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IPAKsGbqcg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbLm_Xiqih8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdSievHrris
If plurality is a concern, you can find several Ehrman's debates, or reviews - including critical ones - of this and other works, also on YouTube.
>>1300044
Wallace is a scholar who disagrees with Ehrman on some issues but he would never describe Ehrman as a fraud.
In fact from your own source
>Misquoting Jesus for the most part is simply NT textual criticism 101. There are seven chapters with an introduction and conclusion. Most of the book (chs. 1–4) is basically a popular introduction to the field, and a very good one at that.
He also specifically describes Ehrman as a "bona fide textual critic".
>It seems that Ehrman means that his is the first book on the general discipline of NT textual criticism written by a bona fide textual critic for a lay readership. This is most likely true.
>>1302867
>bona fide textual critic
Is that supposed to be a compliment?
Learn Koine Greek and buy a Koine New Testament and a Septuagint for the old testament.
It was originally written in Koine. St. Paul himself used a Septuagint old testament (in other words, an old testament in koine greek)
Despite what many people think, the bible translations we have now are pretty accurate. (I have the KJV and the NIV in mind when I say modern translations)
>>1304952
I don't think anybody believes Bible translations are inaccurate or bad, the point is that there's always nuance lost even with the best translations.
>>1304952
KJV is pretty bad though
>>1304902
Wallace does textual criticism too
