ChronoJesus
Professor, I have a question that is related to biblical scholarship. From all your years studying the Bible, Christianity, and Jesus what do you think the personality of the historical Jesus was like? Do you think he was mentally insane, a power hungry cult leader, a wise teacher, a man who felt very strongly about his beliefs, etc?
BDEhrman
My guess is that he had a charismatic personality, was a bit of an uneducated religious genius, a wise teacher, and a committed prophet.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
In my opinion, Jesus was a composite figure of historical fiction consisting mostly of the Apostle Paul, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, a stoic sage, and the rebel Jesus of Galilee who rejected General Vespasian’s diplomacy for surrender and peace by stealing the horses of the party sent to Jesus to avoid the Battle of Galilee where the follower of Jesus were horribly defeated (when history was written by the victors, the biography of the historical Jesus, the Galilean, was rewritten to make him a person in whom Rome found no fault). Jesus’ act of salvation was Holy Communion knowing full well Leviticus 17: 10-11. After believing in Moses, King David and King Solomon, the Babylonian Exile resulting in Messianism and Apocalypticism (Tribulation of AD70 and Glorious Victory) where the Glorious Victory did not happen, we were saved from continuing any further along that path.
The stoic sage would not be another historical person, the Biblical Jesus is made into a sage.
The folks who constructed the composite Jesus went to their local Hobby lobby and purchased an all purpose generic Stoic Sage Template.
Unfortunately the personality of the historical Jesus is completely occluded. Right back to our earliest sources Jesus was a mirror which reflected the needs and desires of his interpreters.
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
That’s not to say we can’t glean some information about his ideas but that’s a far cry from having insight into his individual personality. And we can try to gauge who he might have been against our meager knowledge of other ancient religious figures. So yeah it’s not unreasonable to suppose he was personally charismatic and a religious savant. I suspect by modern standards he would be considered a religious fanatic.
Robert
So do you find the teachings of Jesus, as reported in the gospels,
to be the common fare of Flavian moral teaching???
Steefen
Vespasian and Titus were closer than Vespasian and Domitian and closer than Titus and Domitian.
Maybe you want to rephrase the question given Flavian moral teaching isn’t a thing.
What source would you use to find the common fare of Flavian moral teaching?
Robert
The moral teachings of Jesus seem rather different from Roman morality, eg, ‘love your enemies’ doesn’t sound like what you observe among the emperors and their legions.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
False. Please brush up on the biography of Julius Caesar or read Historical Accuracy (for more than just “love your enemies” coming from imperial Rome.
Robert
Hard to imagine that Flavian authors or Josephus came up with these rather distinctive teachings.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
As Flavian authors or Josephus, one really has to know the biographies of Julius Caesar and
Augustus Caesar
Tiberius
Caligula
The Real Caligula
Barrett says there are serious difficulties in accounting for the life and reign of the Emperor Caligula. The period of Caligula’s 4-year reign is missing from Tacitus’ account of the Julio-Claudians. As a result, the historical sources are limited mainly to the late writers, the third century historian Cassius Dio and the late first century biographer Suetonius. Seneca the Younger was a contemporary, but he was a philosopher with personal reasons for disliking the emperor—Caligula criticized Seneca’s writing and sent him into exile. Philo of Alexandria is another contemporary, who was concerned with the problems of Jews and blamed those problems on the Alexandrian Greeks and Caligula. Another Jewish historian was Josephus, a bit later. He detailed the death of Caligula, but Barrett says his account is confused and riddled with mistakes.
Barrett adds that most of the material on Caligula is trivial. It’s even hard to present a chronology. However, Caligula fires the popular imagination far more than many other emperors with similarly short stints on the throne.
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Claudius
* * * Nero and Roman Stoic Philosopher, Seneca * * *
Nero without Seneca
Galba, Otho, and Vitellius
Vespasian
Titus
Domitian (81-96 CE)
…
Hadrian (117-138 CE)
Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE)
Barrett says there are serious difficulties in accounting for the life and reign of the Emperor Caligula. The period of Caligula’s 4-year reign is missing from Tacitus’ account of the Julio-Claudians. As a result, the historical sources are limited mainly to the late writers, the third century historian Cassius Dio and the late first century biographer Suetonius.
That’s why I’m a Caligula mythicist. He was obviously a composite of several Nubian goat herders who were taken aboard a flying saucer and returned to earth with surgical implants. If you work at it long enough everything connects.
Robert said
Steefen said
Robert
The moral teachings of Jesus seem rather different from Roman morality, eg, ‘love your enemies’ doesn’t sound like what you observe among the emperors and their legions.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
False. Please brush up on the biography of Julius Caesar or read Historical Accuracy (for more than just “love your enemies” coming from imperial Rome.
Robert
Hard to imagine that Flavian authors or Josephus came up with these rather distinctive teachings.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
As Flavian authors or Josephus, one really has to know the biographies of Julius Caesar and
Augustus Caesar
Tiberius
Caligula
The Real Caligula
…
Can you please expand and clarify what exactly is false? I do know there is much more than ‘love your enemies’; that was just one example, hence my use of “eg,” which is an abbreviation for exempli gratia.
You brought up love your enemies.
The moral teachings of the Biblical Jesus about loving/forgiving enemies are not different from the morality found in the biography of Julius Caesar.
The moral teachings of the Biblical Jesus about loving/forgiving enemies are not different from the morality found in the diplomacy of General Vespasian (who also mentored his son, General Titus) during the First Jewish-Roman War.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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