Reli 104 1st Edition Lecture 13 Outline of Last Lecture I Basic Background II The Nag Hammadi Library III Tenets of Gnosticism IV Outline of Current Lecture II Introduction III Sources outside the New Testament IV Sources within the New Testament V Criteria for determining Authentic Tradition Current Lecture I Introduction The gospels as Literature and History o moving from studying them as literature to studying them as history o up to this point looking at Gospels in order to see what they can tell us about their views of jesus studying them as pieces of literature and what is there message focusing on book b c want to know what authors want to say about Jesus haven t talked about historical Jesus haven t talked about what he really said did experienced haven t talked about him in History just what the Gospels say about him o start talking about NT as historical documents o important point if you want to know anything about someone in the past have to have sources of info obvious for some reason people think that you don t need to for jesus Our Need for sources o what kind of sources do you want ancient near time of events they are describing lots of sources about the time o eye witness sources lots of them that agree in what they have to say corroborated one another without having collaborated what you would want for everybody These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute o what are our sources What sources do we have if what we are interested in is what really happened II Sources Outside the New Testament Roman Pagan anything not Jewish or Christian o Jesus is never mentioned in any Roman source of the first century o don t have any birth records any accounts from people who knew him any trial records death certificates his name never appears o have lots of sources from first roman century medical doctors poets philosephors letters enscriptions lots of sources no Jesus o these will not help o Pliny the Younger ca 112 CE Book 10 letter 96 to Trajan the Christians were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light when they sayng a hymn to Christ as to a god and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to commit any fraud first time Jesus is mentioned in any Roman source 80 years after death as important as he is for western civilization but may not have been that important in first century o Suetonius ca 115 CE Life of Claudius 25 20 years after Jesus death Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome for creating a tumult at the instigation of Chrestus supposed to be Christ if reference would be second reference o Tacitus ca 115 Annals 15 book called Annals of Rome talking about something that happened about 50 years earlier in 64 when emporer was Nero Nero who was a bad emperor decided he wanted to redesign the city of Rome problem it was already built He arranged the city to be torched by Arsons so they burnt down a chunk of the city Nero was at fault tried to shift blame off himself and did so by picking on the Christians Nero falsely accused those whom the populace called Christians The author of this name Christ was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate while Tiberius was emperor but the dangerous superstition though suppressed for the moment broke out again not only in Judea the origin of this evil but even in the city of Rome where all atrocious and shameful things flow together from all sides and are practiced inline with the gospesl that he was put to death by Pilate the governor of Judea during the rain of Tiberius o if you limited your self to Roman sources the three here is all there is Jewish not as many Jewish sources for the first century as we have Roman sources o famous philosopher from 20 years Philo wrote many books but never mentioned Jesus o Josephus was a prominent historian in first century Wrote number of books still have several Wrote 20 volume history of the Jewish people adam and eve to his own day also wrote 6 volume people of uprising of Jewish uprising to get rid of Romans out of Palestine 66 lasted 3 years till Jeruselum was destroyed in 70 General for Jews was captured by Romans wrote book while he was a court historian Still have both books what does he tell us about Jesus 2 passages from his 20 volume The high Priest Ananus called a meeting of judges and brought into it the brother of Jesus who is called Messiah James by name and some others He made the accusation that they had transgressed the law and he handed them over to be stoned Antiquities 20 9 1 consistent from gospels second passage in reading maybe not what Josephus said tells us important things about Jesus o is a wise teacher who does amazing deeds o has followers o accused by Jewish leaders by Pontius Pilot o condemmed to the cross o 93 CE 60 years after he died o jewish historian knows something about his life only two passages that mention Jesus within 100 years of his death Christian do have Christian sources outside new testament other gospels o gospel of peter portrays Jesus as giant Jesus coming out of tomb o gospel of Thomas 114 saying of Jesus sound similar to Gospels and some sound weird o Gnostic Gospels o Infancy Gospel of Thomas o problem all later than gospels of NT and seem highly legendary seem to be filled with legends about Jesus o don t appear to be historically all that useful o pretty much restriced to NT if we want to know about Historical Jesus whether you are a Christian or not best sources for knowing what he said did experienced are the NT III Sources Within the New Testament Outside the Gospels 23 sources not the Gospels o don t tell us much about the Historical Jesus o example Paul doesn t say much about Jesus tells us that Jesus was Jewish says he had Brothers one named James friends with bros had 12 disciples he had a last supper in which he took the bread and said this is my body and took a cup and said this is the new covenant and my blood mentions two teachings of Jesus pay your preacher should not get a divorce knows he got crucified Paul is interested in death and resurrection of Jesus There is very little to indicated hes interested in life of Jesus This may seem weird contrast to gospel of Thomas saying number 1 ask yourself how does a person have salvation for this gospel Is it by believing in death and resurrection The Gospels o basically have the four Gospels four biographies written about Jesus so much more than