Checkpoint Luke

So we're ⅓ of the way through C's book of the life of Jesus and the tone is about to change somewhat, so I thought it would be worth looking at what we've had so far. Although a lot of what I've actually typed is about the text, the original point of this sequence of blog entries was to see if there was any real reason to think that C's gospel was written early on, and whether the story actually had any credibility as biography rather than myth.

Because of the first of these objectives I have had to pretend that C was not copying huge chunks of A and B's material, which in reality he clearly was. But, on the other hand, C's stated objective was to make all the material he was drawing on obsolete, so we can reasonably legitimately play the thought experiment of "what if he had succeeded?" and pretend that we don't have the other two synoptic gospels which, if C had held to the standard Christian methodology, he would have had destroyed once his version became the dominant one, leaving us as much in the dark about them as we are about the so-called "Q" gospel.

There are a couple of obvious anachronisms in C's account, already, which suggest that it was not an early document (quite apart from his introduction which make it clear that many previous documents had already been written). The first one is the obsession with Pharisees, who were not the dominant party in the supposed time of Jesus, but were towards the end of the 1st century. C also seems hazy on dates which should, if he was writing early, have not been so long before that they would be hard to check (although the fact that he's hundres of miles away in Asia Minor won't have helped). Finally, of course, there's the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple which have only been hinted at but are more openly discussed in later chapters. So, a reasonable amount of the book dates from post A.D. 70 and, given the nature of some of it, I'd guess quite a bit later.

What about the biographical nature of the story - how much of it could represent a real Jesus? First we need to define "real Jesus".

For a start, all the material C is compiling was written or spoken by someone, even if that person was C! So real historical people are at the core of this text in some sense. But if C's gospel is a collection of old myths, popular sayings, and what at the time were often quoted statements by many different preachers, one of which happened to be called "Jesus", does that count as finding the "real Jesus"? Not really, no. One of the main reasons for looking for something stronger is that, aside from all the other textual or contextual issues, use of language, patterns of speech or whatever one might want to throw at the issue, "Jesus" was a really common name at the time and finding one or two references to someone of that name would not be enough to pin down a specific person unless they were doing something which itself was unusual.

There is a similar problem with "James" which confuses discussions of the man who was, or maybe wasn't, Jesus's brother.

Within the Bible there are only two real traditions, two "witnesses" as apologists like to call them, to Jesus. One is the book we call "Mark", written by B, and one is the book we call "John", written by D. These Matthew and Luke lean very heavily on Mark for their material, too much so to really count them as different accounts by different people. D's story is wildly different from B's (and therefore from A and C's). Rather than giving a second vote of confidence to the life of Jesus, B and D's versions are so divergent that the really count as evidence that the story is built on very shaky ground.

But, let's pretend that C's work is all we have. What rings true, or at least possible? What parts of the story might represent a real person?

Chapter 1
Nothing here sounds remotely like the real world.

Chapter 2
The inn story in and of itself is possible, although the given reason (the census) is nonsense.

The story of the child teaching his elders is both common and possible; child prodigies are real things. Again, it's wrapped in unbelievable fantasy - the child is not just teaching in the synagogue, oh no, he's in the Temple in Jerusalem where his parents dropped him or something. But, yeah, it could happen.

Chapter 3
Jesus is baptised. Clearly, that's possible.

Chapter 4
He teaches in "the synagogue". There's plenty of reason to think that this is an exaggeration but it's still possible. He has some sort of falling out with the people in his village, and leaves.

Jesus starts healing people around here. Clearly shouting at devils doesn't cure disease, but faith healers around the world know that it can make people say that you've cured them of  a disease, so it's possible that Jesus's healings were real events even if not real healings.

Chapter 5
Jesus gains some closer followers who join him and does some more healing and a bit of teaching. The teaching isn't very noteworthy in itself. He has a run in with the established Jewish Church. C has the wrong specific people, but Church elders are Church elders the world around.

Chapter 6
More healing, more controversy, basically more of chapter 5.

Chapter 7
More of the same plus some dealings with the Romans. Could've happened.

Chapter 8
As above, plus an accumulation of women followers. Survived a rough sea crossing.

That's it. Everything else is patent nonsense so far. If we replaced all this with "there were people who", would it make any difference? For instance: "in that time there were many who healed by faith" instead of "Jesus healed those who had faith" doesn't actually change the stories. Similarly, Jesus's teaching are so generic that they could be from anyone.

There's no clear image of a specific person and none of these stories so far would raise any eyebrows if we heard that they were going on today: preachers preach, and many do "healing", and many healers find themselves at odds with established churches and attract followers; same at it ever was. The only thing that comes close is the childhood teaching incident which is at least unusual even though it's not unique (Josephus did something similar, at least according to Josephus).

The only stories that are really special are exactly those ones that we know are impossible - tempted by the devil, raising the dead etc. - and never happened.

What we need is an unusual but mundane (i.e., not supernatural) story for which there is unlikely to be a thousand examples that could be picked from and attached to any name the writer wants, whether Jesus or John. Preferably one that appears in the historical record outside of Christian writing. To put it a different way: C's Jesus has high entropy; we need something to reduce that before we can commit to him being a real person.

Don't hold your breath.