The Jesus Puzzle E-Book

Johannes Neumann

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 137

Beschreibung

Jesus of Nazareth is a fascinating figure. His miracles and his sermon from the Kingdom of God are legendary. His death on the cross in Jerusalem touches people all over the world. But what are facts? What is fiction? Refreshingly critical the historian and theologian Neumann, author of severeal books of Jesus, deals with the texts of the bible and shows how facts and fiction can be separated. Behind the beautiful legends appears the historical Jesus, whose true story fascinated people at that time and astonishes them today. Read the Blog https://bibleblog-en.com

Leseprobe

Neumann, Johannes: The Jesus Puzzle. Facts und Fiction - 280 Theses, 2018

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Jewish cultural community - a late fiction

The Christian myth

The "natural world" explanation: To Christianity in eight steps

Faith, the Bible, Science

The sources: Josephus and the Bible

Previous history

Pastoralists and Merchants

Yahweh and the donkey cult

Roman globalisation

The Jews' secret love: the Parthians

The Jewish family: Herod the Great

The Starting Point

Looking for a state religions

The models

The Jewish elite and the national solution

Jesus and the ideal of monarchy

Going separate ways

Judaism

Antipas

Jesus

John the Baptist

Agrippa I

The prophets

Agrippa II

The great revolt

The completion of the Old Testament after 70 AD

Christianity

Antipas

Jesus - the biography

Jesus - the message

The chronicles of the Apostolic Age

The phases of early Christianity

The disciples / Apostles

James

John

Simon Peter

Other early Christian groups

Mary and Joseph

Paul

The myth of Christ's self sacrifice

Mark's Gospel

The Canon of the New Testament

Literature

Foreword

I withdraw nothing, unless the Holy Scripture or rational argument prove me wrong.

Martin Luther on 18 April 1520 at the Diet at Worms

Philosophical thought is often the only ground for understanding and dialogue with those who do not share our faith.

Pope John Paul II on 14 September 1998 in the Encyclica Fides et Ratio

The story of these theses stretches back a long way. I grew up in an evangelical pastor's house and was also confronted with the GDR's atheist theology, with the result that as a schoolboy I was already interested in the historical basis of Biblical stories. My father studied chemistry during the war, and theology afterwards; instead of the pictures of saints one might expect, his study was hung with photos of Einstein and other Nobel award winners who represent scientific progress during the 20th century. My father's careful scientific approach to theology influenced me more than his basically Pietist religious faith. When I studied theology in Leipzig and East Berlin from 1968 to 1973, Bultmann's demythologising approach felt like a liberation from narrow Pietist religious practice. Jesus' miracles were seen then as the relics of an ancient classical world view; the resurrection was a mythological formulation that needed to be translated in terms of existential philosophy for modern people. However, I then wanted to philosophically analyse the divine itself, which brought me into conflict with the church, so I only completed my degree in the scientific aspects of theology.

I left the GDR and settled in the West German Federal Republic in 1975 to study history in Mainz and Hamburg from 1975 to 1979, where I was once again confronted with the Jesus story in my minor subject, Greek and Roman classical history. Contrary to Bultmann's statements, the first century AD was not a mythological age; it was a post-mythological, enlightened era during which science and philosophy flourished and poets used traditional mythological images to examine sensitive issues of their day in cryptic form. Were Jesus' miracles and resurrection historical events after all? And if so, how were they to be understood?

I plunged back into study of the Biblical writings. Four hints helped me both then and in later studies:

By studying Gottfried Schille in Leipzig, widely known for his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, I had learnt that the underlying tone in stories passed down and reworked for inclusion in the Gospels and the Acts is often quite different to the final Biblical version. If these stories in the Gospels and the Acts are examined "against the grain", then quite new layers of tradition emerge.

At first I concentrated on searching for the historical facts. Then a theologian friend pointed out that the Bible is to be read initially as literature, and as such it can, and must, be compared with other literature (intertextuality). The question of historical facts only arises on the second level. This prompted me to thorough study of classical literature and philology. Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and other heathen writers were model authors in the classical period and Homer the model for the New Testament authors who wrote in Greek. If the New Testament is compared with their works, it becomes clear that far from being non-literary memoirs, the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles were written by authors familiar with, and in imitation of, the literary conventions of their time.

We owe to Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann the insight that reality is always "socially constructed", in other words, embedded in society. This also applies to the Bible's authors, of course. The religious reality they describe follows contemporary social conventions that we are no longer familiar with, so we need to research them. The difference between oral and written tradition must also be taken into account. As long as traditions are passed on orally, the wording can change. As soon as they are written down, a change of meaning can only take place through an interpretation of the tradition. Because the written versions of the Gospels and Acts were preceded by a long period of oral tradition, we must assume that they were adapted to the changing early Christian consciousness before being written down.

Sigmund Freud describes human personality in terms of the triangle of Ego, Superego and Id. Of course there are many other definitions of personality in psychology; the details aren't important. Descriptions of Biblical characters often break basic rules of psychological descriptions of human personality, so the historical credibility of the narrative is compromised. A modern supplement of psychological characteristics, however, often leads to decorative novel-like elements that are inconsistent with the facts in the text. Thus Peter becomes the committed, quick-tempered disciple and Jesus becomes the very lovable Messiah. Both descriptions fail to match historical facts.

Explaining the Bible without the God hypothesis

I aim to scientifically examine and present the Jewish/early Christian narrative of events, the religious and literary history of the Bible. What is the difference to theological Bible research? I search for scientific findings that are equally plausible for Christian and atheist scientists. Above all, I attempt to explain the Bible and early Christianity without the God hypothesis. For this reason, I consider it unscientific to argue that only Christians can understand the truth and beauty of the Christian faith. Nor can I accept the argument that since only Christian sources for early Christianity exist, we must therefore adopt the Christian view of these Christian sources.

I would express the task I have set myself as follows: to research and present the origins of the Bible and early Christianity in relation to the history of events, ideas and literature as events within the natural world.

Necessary rational truths and random historical truths

The real problem that historians of early Christianity have to solve lies deeper, however. If Christianity is not ordained by a higher power, is its emergence random or a historical necessity? Is it, in Lessing's words, a random historical truth or a necessary rational truth? To put it another way, is the emergence of Christianity a necessary requirement of the time or rather a random event? Paul says in Ephesians 1: 10 that God sent his son when the right time, the Kairos, was fulfilled. The New Testament seems to be of the opinion that it was the deity's free will to save mankind through his son Jesus; however, God's goodness also forced him, so to speak, to carry out his intention. The early Christians fixed the change of the astrological age to the change of the spring sign of the Zodiac, from Aries to Pisces. What do the historians say? In the period of Constantine it is not hard to conclude that the Christianity of the 4th century AD was best suited to becoming an empire-wide religion. But what about the early Christianity of the 1st century AD, a small Jewish sect, so unimportant that Flavius Josephus overlooked it? Or should we perhaps reconsider? Didn't Jesus himself lay the foundation for Roman Christianity, long before Paul? Is Christianity perhaps more than a Jewish offshoot after all? Is Palestine, a religious melting pot, a pool of cultural and religious influences, perhaps necessarily the breeding ground for a new religion? Emperor Augustus reshaped Rome into an empire when it was sunk in civil war and set new social standards; was this era perhaps also the compelling reason to found a new religion? The clash of Eastern and Western cultures took place in little Galilee on a model scale and much earlier than in the rest of the Roman Empire, and reconciliation was needed much earlier; is it possible that this was the cultural and religious model for the Roman Empire that faced the same conflicts at a later date? If the transformation of the Roman Empire into an imperial monarchy was made necessary by historical circumstances - in other words it was a historical necessity - was not the emergence of Christianity on the eastern edge of the empire, on the dividing line to the hostile Parthians who ruled the Orient, also a historical necessity, dictated by historical conditions? This was the view of Paul and the early Christians, at any rate, and they named the inevitability of what they observed and experienced "God's will". The emergence, evolution and historical development of Christianity was considered to be a rational truth, seen by Hegel as the unfolding in history of the world spirit - viewed as Christian, of course. This view prevailed up to the period of German idealism and the liberal theology of the 19th century.

Then the First World War broke out, and that changed everything. The Christian cultural consensus was challenged. History was no longer perceived as a rational development, but as a chaotic process. Protestant theology held on to the view that God guides history, although it was obviously no longer rationally guided but happened chaotically. God's will could therefore no longer be understood as a historical necessity, so instead the theologians emphasised the erratic in God's will, God's freedom, and placed God in opposition to the chaos of the world and world history.

What did the changed view of early Christianity mean? After the First World War, God's sending his son into the world was no longer viewed in Protestant theology as a rational decision by God, but as a totally free decision of a sovereign deity freed from all historical constraints. In other words, God could have sent Jesus 500 years earlier or 1,000 years later. The necessary rational truth of early Christianity became the random historical truth of Jesus. Protestant research on Jesus "freed" Jesus' person and message from all conditions of spiritual history and its historical setting. Jesus was suddenly placed as an erratic block in a historical landscape with which he did not communicate. Attempts to understand Jesus from the Jewish point of view can't really weaken this impression.

What were the consequences? The Jesus who stood in the centre of historical events, who could only be silenced by the personal intervention of Pilate, the Roman governor, became an insignificant itinerant preacher. The acclaimed Messiah, whose followers were driven out of Rome by imperial edict for causing tumult a few years after his death, became an unknown rabbi who avoided Hellenistic cities. A piece of world history became a pale social utopia. The foundation of a world religion dissolved into nothing. Protestant theology solved the problem by making Jesus into a religious genius who drew all his wisdom out of his own person or to put it in religious language, who was given his gifts by God. Theologians proved to be supporters of the thesis "people make history", through the concept of genius that originated in the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. This thesis has long dropped out of fashion in historical studies and has been replaced by more modern methodological concepts.

Early Christianity: a necessary manifestation of the early Roman imperial period

My answer to the question of whether early Christianity is a necessary rational truth or a random historical truth goes back to the solution that was favoured during 1,900 years of Christianity. Post-World War I Protestant theology's concept of a free-floating divinity (God as the "entirely other") is completely foreign to the Biblical authors. In their view, God is always related to the world and to human history. Early Christianity saw itself as closely linked to the time when Jesus and his apostles appeared. That is why the Jewish ruler, the Roman governor and the emperor are mentioned by name. That is why the text refers to astronomical phenomena such as the star of Bethlehem (planetary conjunction of 7 BC) and the transition to the new spring sign of the Zodiac. Early Christians were convinced that God became man, precisely in the early Roman imperial period, in the historical person of Jesus (prologue to John's Gospel). Theologians are on the wrong track if they try to make Jesus into a myth (Bultmann), the star of Bethlehem into a legend and the new age that began with Jesus and the disciples into a religious fantasy. Early Christianity is a necessary phenomenon of the 1st century AD. The emergence of imperial power in Rome and the new social rules it entailed demanded a religion that could give a religious blessing to the new social norms. The coexistence of many peoples and cultures in the Roman Empire encouraged religions that all cultures found acceptable. If early Christianity hadn't existed, another religion would have taken its place. The emperor's cult was an attempt along these lines in Asia Minor. Because early Christianity was a necessary phenomenon of the early Roman Empire, it can, and must, be investigated as a historical phenomenon, beyond theological assumptions.

My special approach

I have the advantage of being independent of the church. Theologians interpret the Bible in the light of Christian dogma and the needs of the contemporary church. No one can deny their right to do so. Historical Bible research, however, must have different priorities and different standards. Historically, the very diversity that has been overpainted by dogma in favour of Christian unity is interesting. Historically, the heretical statements in and outside the Bible are interesting. Investigating and appreciating them is not likely to advance a theologian's career, unfortunately. Who could blame them for not touching these subjects? This is my advantage: I am financially and emotionally independent of the church, so I can examine and describe many things impartially.

My problem: I had to start from scratch, because theological Jesus research is ideologically suspect due to its close links with the church. Beyond the theological genius cult around the religion's founder, Jesus, and beyond the outdated thesis that people make history, the questions to be answered are the usual historical issues: sources, environment, story of events, impact, literary history of source texts. The next point is usually the question of the actual status of research. The topics of Jesus and early Christianity are usually only examined academically from the theological point of view, however; non-theological work invariably depends on the theologians' preparation of the sources. In general, however, theological works are ideologically suspect; in other words, they cannot be objective in the sense of historical studies, because they present - and want to present - Jesus' life as the church sees and preaches it (hermeneutic circle!). So I had to start my investigations from scratch. That relates to the sources in particular, but also to the history of events, impact, literary history and the immediate environment that relates to the history of events. I have already published a range of findings in earlier works. Of course I have benefited from the current state of theological Jesus and Bible research and have used it gratefully, but critically. In addition, I have also drawn in particular on recent work on classical philology and the history of the early imperial era.

Why is my image of Jesus different from that of theologians? I inquire about the person Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago. Theologians ask how the church can preach Jesus' message today, and claim that what they preach today is identical with the message of the historical Jesus. I would like to present the difference in four points:

How did the theological image of Jesus develop?

Theologians interpret the Biblical legends about Jesus as historical reports that they need to adapt carefully to modern understanding. They aim to overcome the "broad and ugly ditch" (Lessing) that separates our time from the time of Jesus.