When exactly was Jesus born? Mark Driscoll discusses this question at The Resurgence. His conclusion?
In the end, the year and date of Jesus’ birth are apparently not a significant issue because God did not find them valued enough to clarify in Scripture, which simply says it happened “in the fullness of time.
via theresurgence.com
Do you see the year and date of Jesus’ birth as a significant issue?
The date of Jesus' birth is significant to His establishment as an historical figure. The only thing the gospels agree on is that He was from Nazareth. There are examples of the writers of the gospels saying in so many words that something or other was done "so that the prophesy should be fulfilled". Whether this is an example of the writers trying to shoehorn the events of Jesus' birth into prophesy is a matter of faith. As a matter of faith, it significantly weakens the argument that Jesus was an historical figure and that the Gospels are historically accurate.
Would you further explain this statement: "The date of Jesus' birth is significant to His establishment as an historical figure."
Do you doubt that this Jesus from Nazareth existed? Serious historians, Christian or not, do not doubt that Jesus existed. Or do you feel the date is important in terms of reconstructing the "historical Jesus?"
Can we assume that there are multiple historical figures for which we do not know an exact year/date of birth?
Don: I would be interested to hear your reaction to this lecture by J.P. Moreland about "The Modern Search for the Historic Jesus." It's an hour long, but well worth your time, in my opinion. I would love to hear your thoughts and reaction.
Are there multiple historical figures that claim divinity or are ascribed supernatural powers? Can we assume that amazing claims require amazing "evidence" and not mere assertion? You may not be from Missouri, but if I claimed there was a pink elephant outside your office, would you require more evidence than if I claimed there existed a pink elephant 2,000 years ago, even if I could produce translated copies of second hand accounts of the fact? The legendary King Arthur may have been based on a real figure, but to my knowledge no one is claiming the legend as fact.
You are correct in stating that Jesus claimed divinity. So, what options do we have then? 1) He was actually who he said he was. 2) He was not who he claimed to be, thus making him a liar, a con artist, a nut job, or any combination thereof.
Let's use Jesus' grandest miracle as an example: his own resurrection. If, in fact, his resurrection was a hoax, then why didn't those who crucified him in the first place produce his body? This would have abruptly ended the movement. Problem solved.
Perhaps, you might say, his followers stole and hid the body of their fallen savior.
Jesus' death without resurrection would have proven him to be a false messiah, no? It isn't realistic to assume that his followers would have put their own lives at risk by attempting to steal the body of one who proved to be a false messiah. Further, is not likely that eleven of his twelve disciples would have died a martyr's death proclaiming Jesus' name. Keep in mind, these men were fearful cowards following the crucifixion of Jesus. Following the resurrection, however, they were transformed, boldly testifying for the resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul claims the resurrected Jesus appeared to 500 people, most of whom were still alive at the time. Skeptics could have gone straight to one or more of these living sources in order to confirm the resurrection was a hoax.
The tomb was empty on Easter Sunday. Why wasn't Jesus' resurrection exposed as deception?
I agree that the efforts of Matthew, in particular, to shoehorn various Scriptures into the narrative, or various events, "so that the prophecy should be fulfilled" weakens the Gospels as a divinely inspired and completely accurate record of Jesus's ministry, divinity and significance. Even more jarring is the conflict between Matthew, the sole source for the Magi/King Herod/Sojourn in Egypt account, and Luke, who says they went to the Temple in Jerusalem and then straight home to Nazareth. Matthew even attempts to say that they went to Nazareth, after Herod's death, so that a prophecy might be fulfilled, rather than because Mary and Joseph came from Nazareth.
I don't, however, conclude that Jesus was not who or what he said he was, or that he didn't exist. I conclude that we have to be careful about jumping to conclusions just because somewhere in the gospels it says that a specific empirical event happened. In the end, we can't know in great detail exactly what is the truth. But, that God intervened in a major way through the person of Jesus, that Jesus death on the cross was a necessary step in this intervention, that Jesus as — well, let's stick to Son of God, since no human word better suffices — rose from the dead… that is not cancelled out because some scribe may have recorded things with less than perfect accuracy.
In the end, like so many doctrinal issues that churches have devoted tremendous time and energy to, even killed each other over, the exact year of Jesus's birth is not of great significance to who or what he was.
I had trouble hearing the audio on the link so I got the book "Jesus Under Fire" by J.P. Moreland. Half way through the introduction the straw man is out and taking quite a beating, and when the author tires himself, "a number of intellectuals have offered convincing arguments…", he appeals to unnamed authorities and unreferenced arguments to do the beating for him. The first chapter by Craig L. Bloomberg starts out no different. Without addressing the methods of "The Five Gospels" directly, he expresses incredulity and appeals to tradition "No other scholarship on Jesus…" I can only hope things improve. There are a number of contributers after all.
"Plausible harmonizations", how our understanding of ancient literary conventions can help to reconcile discrepancy in an ancient text. "Not every proposed harmonization is as credible as every other, but enough are sufficiently credible that it is best to give the text the benefit of the doubt where we are less sure rather than immediately speaking of proven contradictions." Ambiguity it seems is preferred to contradiction. Ambiguity necessitates interpretation.
Ambiguity does not necessitate interpretation. It invites speculation, but speculation doesn't have to become the center of our faith. C.S. Lewis observed, in his eloquent back-handed way through the mouth of Screwtape, that materials for a definitive factual biography of Jesus had been deliberately withheld from men, not by Our Father Below, but by his Enemy (our Lord). The empirical details are not the point. One of the great tragedies in the history of the church has been how much energy theologians expended arguing over mere details, and how many avenues for doubt this opened up in the polemics of atheists.
I finally finished "Jesus Under Fire". There's this thing called a logical fallacy.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
While one may come to a correct conclusion from a bad argument ( it is possible but unlikely), you cannot come to a bad conclusion from a good argument. "Jesus Under Fire" is one bad argument after another. They aren't even difficult to recognize. The most insidious was the genetic fallacy. You cannot claim that because one ancient text is considered reliable that all similar texts are as well. You can not claim that if one witness is telling the truth that all witnesses are as well. The authors are well educated and respected. Why can a good argument not be made?
On ambiguity, who decides which of the eight ways to get to Heaven is the right way? Luke 10:25-28, Mark 18:18-22, Luke 14:26-33, John 6:53-54, Matt 18: 2-3, John 3:3-8 (surely Jesus knows where and why the wind blows), Matt 5:17-20 and everybody's favorite John 3:16. We are risking eternal damnation if we're wrong aren't we?
I concur, it's a shame we Christians can't agree on things as straight forward as the exact time of Jesus' birth, baptism, how and when to honor the Sabbath, instrumental music, ordination of women, communion, celibacy, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, predestination, the nature of the divinity of Jesus himself, speaking in tongues, prayer, saints. They're all just details that atheists have no right to bring up. Why do atheists hate God anyway?
The most commonly accepted year for the birth of Jesus is usually given as that stated in the Gospel of Matthew or 4 BCE. However, Luke claims the birth to be in the year of the census of Quirinius, a census which dates to 6 CE. How could someone be off by 10 years in estimating the year of birth of a person who only lived for 30 years. According to Josephus both of these years listed were very traumatic years in the life of Jesus.
First, if Jesus were born in the years stated he would not have qualified to be the Jewish kingly Messiah. At that time there were at least 2 other members of his family, namely his brother James and his uncle Symeon, who were older. There are other sources for this material other than the scriptures which indicate that Jesus was indeed born before 25 BCE. To learn more about how the Romans usurped the ancient sriptures of the Nazoreans and Yeshu and proclaimed them the revelations of their godman Jesus Christ visit: nazoreans.com