Sources On The Life Of Jesus Of Nazareth

The canonical Gospels have long been the only sources on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The more recent research has expanded the list of documents used in particular to the writings apocryphal whose historic value is however still under discussion, including their dating ^General

The need for a rational and historical Jesus appeared in the eighteenth ^century with Samuel Hermann Reimarus who wanted to find the true teaching of Jesus emerged from that tradition. In the nineteenth ^century , there were many authors to write a "life of Jesus referred to the pageant, like the famous one, of Ernest Renan in France or David Strauss in Germany.

As Peter Geoltrain said, "No one would dare, nowadays, to write a life of Jesus as those who were born in the nineteenth ^century. Imagination then made up for the silence of the sources, we used a psychology of Jesus which was mostly that of the author. The work of Albert Schweitzer on the history of the lives of Jesus put an end to this kind of project. As the company reversed, as the theories of mythologists who, faced the difficulties encountered by the historian , thought to solve all in explaining the Gospels as a solar myth or sacred drama purely symbolic, it does not stand up to the analysis. The study of the Gospels can say not only that Jesus existed, but much more. . However, some authors ( Joseph Klausner , Rudolph Bultmann , Daniel Marguerat ,) argue that "Jesus existed" is not one we have the Gospels (See Modernist Crisis ).

Albert Schweitzer in his book History of research on the life of Jesus published in 1906 (never translated into French ), has demonstrated that it is not possible to have an accurate representation of Jesus. The most comprehensive available on his life are written that are not reporting facts but rigorous evidence attributed to the disciples that were written years after the events, interpreting them according to the prophecies of the Old Testament and a perspective eschatological , at a time when the notion of historical accuracy did not exist.

But the texts are sources of valuable consideration provided to subject them to criticism. The study of early Christian times, the exegesis of the Bible and other texts as apocrypha , now constitute a discipline which contribute together researchers and scholars regardless of their beliefs and their religious affiliation.

Christian sources

Canonical sources

The New Testament refers to all the writings regarded as canonical by most Christian churches. Taken as a whole is the most comprehensive source available regarding the life and teachings of Jesus.

Reconstructing a life of Jesus by extracting various passages and texts episodes articulated in a logical chronological however, can be likened to a biography qualities historians. Thus, the exegesis of historical-critical shows that each of the Gospel texts to a specific message, different and sometimes rival of others.

The Gospels

The Gospels according to Matthew , Mark and Luke , which tell the story of Jesus from a perspective somewhat similar, are called synoptic. The Gospel of John reports to another Christology , called John. The first of the gospels to be written appears to be that of Mark. The parts common to Matthew and Luke may depend, according to some researchers, but an earlier document called lost Q source. In their current state, the gospels probably date to between 68 and 110 . They are the fruit of a long process of collection of words and their arrangement is organized in the manner of a Life (a Vita) in the antique, not a biography .

The Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles , probably written by the author of the Gospel of Luke around the year 80, trace the beginnings of the early Christian communities from the Pentecost , which for this author close to Paul of Tarsus , prefigure the Universal Church . They narrate the beginning of the diffusion of what is so obscure stream of Judaism in some parts of the Roman Empire, in a vision centrifugal against the tide of Jewish eschatology centered on Jerusalem.

The Epistles

The Epistles of Paul , where the passage is the earliest mention of Christianity concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus , seven other epistles , say Catholics - that is to say, then sent to all Christian communities - and the Apocalypse are a body that reflects the thinking of the first disciples of Jesus. Their writing takes place between 50 and 65, but they provide little information on the life of Jesus .

Other Christian sources

The agrapha word meaning "things not written," are words of Jesus that are not in the canonical texts. Some of them might be genuine. They come from variants of the Gospels (eg Codex Beza , Luke 6.5: "The same day saw someone working on the Sabbath, he said, man, if you know what you do, you're happy; but if you do not know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law "cf. TOB ), quotes from Church Fathers (eg, "Ask great things and small will be added ), the papyri of Oxyrhynchus ("He who is far today, tomorrow it will be near you "), texts Apocrypha of the New Testament as the Gospel of Thomas ("Blessed is the man who has suffered; he found life ) and the Gospel of the Nazarenes.

• The Apocrypha are very diverse in style and content: stories of childhood ( Protoevangelium of Jacques ), a collection of logia ( Gospel of Thomas ), descent into hell ( Acts of Pilate ), speeches, stories of miracles, etc.. : The textual criticism shows a documentary reliability and / or seniority often much higher than those of canonical sources.

• The writings of the Apostolic Fathers ( Didache , Epistle of Clement of Rome , Homily ^of the second century, the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch , Letters of Polycarp of Smyrna , Letter to the Church of Smyrna on the martyrdom of Polycarp , Letter of Barnabas, Letter to Diognetus, Fragments of Papias of Hierapolis , The Shepherd of Hermas ) are those whose authors, without having known Jesus, lived at the time of the apostles. Those of other church fathers ( Justin Martyr , Irenaeus of Lyons , Hippolytus of Rome , Origen , Clement of Alexandria , Tertullian , Cyprian , Lactantius , etc..) range from ^second century to ^fifth century.

Non-Christian Sources

Flavius Josephus

There is no official act of the Roman authorities relating to Jesus. The first chronicler to Jesus that would evoke 94 is Flavius Josephus , the Roman Jewish origin born in 39. His testimony, or pseudo-testimony that the views, is known by its Latin name Testimonium Flavianum : "About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if he should call him a man. Because it was a miracle worker and master of men who gladly receive the truth. And he drew to him many Jews and many Greeks. Was Christ. And when the denunciation of our citizens first, Pilate was sentenced to the crucifixion, who had first baby did not cease to do so because it appeared to them three days later rose again, while the divine prophets had announced that and a thousand other marvels about him. And the group named after him that of Christians has not yet disappeared. " .
Josephus also evoke Jesus when he recounted the death of Jacques , at the instigation of the high priest Anan ( Jewish Antiquities , 20, 200): "As such, and Anan was he thought he had a favorable opportunity because Festus had died and Albinus still on the way, he gathered a council, translated before him Jacques, brother of Jesus called Christ, and others, accusing them of having transgressed the law, and brought them stoned. " . There is no consensus on what is authentic and what is not in the text. Expert opinion ranging from complete interpolation to complete authenticity through interpolation part.

Greco-Roman Authors

In a letter to Trajan in 111 or 112 , Pliny the Younger to the Emperor asked to behave with respect to the first Christians of Bithynia. there is written that "they assembled at the appointed day, before sunrise, they alternately sang hymns in praise of Christ, in honor of a god by committing themselves oath, not to some crime, but not to commit theft, robbery, adultery, not to miss their promise, not to deny a deposit and after that they used to separate, and gathered again to eat common foods and innocent. "

Around 116 , in his Annals , the Roman historian Tacitus describes the questioning of Christians in the fire of Rome in 64 : "But no human means, nor imperial generosity, nor expiatory ceremonies did silence the public voice accusing Nero of ordering the fire. To allay these rumors, he offered other culprits, and made to suffer the tortures of the most refined of men to a class hated for their abominations, and the vulgar called Christians. This name comes from Christ, who, under Tiberius, was delivered to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Repressed for a moment, this pernicious superstition again overflowed, not only in Judea, where it had its source, but even in Rome, where everything shuts the world of infamy and horror flows and find supporters. It first seized those who confessed their sect and their revelations, an infinity of others who were less convinced that the fire of hatred for mankind. They made their punishment entertainment: some covered with animal skins, eaten by dogs perish, while others died on the cross, or they were coated with flammable material, and when the day ceased to shine, we burning up the torches. Nero made his gardens for this spectacle, and gave the same time the circus, where sometimes he mingled with people dressed as a coachman, and sometimes driving a chariot. Also, although these men were guilty and would have deserved the utmost severity, opened hearts to compassion, thinking that this was not the public good, but the cruelty of one, they were sacrificed. "

In his Lives of the Twelve Caesars , about 120 , Suetonius wrote: "

. This operation is going on 50 , about twenty years after the death of Jesus. "Christus" and "Chrestos" are two different words, one meaning "the anointed" (meaning a person goes), the other resulting in "good" and which sometimes act as own name. Suetonius mention here the "Jews" when he refers to "Christians" in the book on the life of Nero : " .

The satirist Lucian in the second part of the ^second century , alludes to the torture of Jesus, without naming him, in The Death of peregrinos : "the one we had enjoyed in Palestine and there undergoes the crucifixion, guilty in the eyes of his fellows, have invented new mysteries to mankind. "( 11) and" These poor Christians believe themselves immortal and think that eternity awaits. They do not care about the tortures and rush boldly into the arms of death. He who was their lawgiver convinced them that all men were brothers. Once converted, they are discarded the Greek gods, to worship the crucified sophist they follow the letter of the least commandments. "( 13).

The Talmud

Twenty possible allusions to Jesus exist in the Talmud but still anecdotal and sometimes under another name. They are not prior to ^the third century . There is a reference to a certain Yeshu. Since the Middle Ages , we encounter a Yeshu Yeshu or Hanotsri (the Nazarene) in Toledot Yeshu , written in the ^eleventh century and reflecting the antagonist of Christian and Jewish communities at that time. While one encounters a Yeshu (understood as the Hebrew name of Jesus late) and the two characters have been identified as identical. However, evidence may suggest that the Yeshu Yeshu Toledoth and that of the Talmud are not connected together. However, Joseph Klausner is reliable approximation of Yeshu in the Talmud with the character of Jesus .

The text is most interesting is the following (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a): "Tradition: the eve of Passover Yeshu was hanged. A herald went before him for forty days saying it will be stoned because he practiced magic and deceived and misled Israel. Let those who know the way to defend come and testify in his favor. But we found no one who tmoignt in his favor and so we hung it on the eve of Passover. Ulla said: - Do you believe that Yeshu (in later editions - Yeshu Hanotsri) was one of those which we investigate what may be their discharge? He was a charmer! and the Torah says you did not spare and you do not excuse him (Deuteronomy 13.9) ... A Tradition: Yeshu had five disciples, Matta, Naqi, Netzer, Boni and Todah.

It is often referred to Ben Stada, as excerpted from the adulterous union of Miriam and a man named Pandera (compare Celsus , author of a speech against the true Christians of ^the second century but which we known that the rebuttal was that Origen in ^the third century : "The mother of Jesus was driven by the carpenter who had proposed to her, having been convicted of adultery and having become pregnant by a Roman soldier named Panthera. Separated from her husband, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. The family is poor, Jesus was sent to seek employment in Egypt, and when there was, he acquired some magical powers that the Egyptians boasted of having "( Origen , Against Celsus , Book I)). The text of Tosafot Shabbath 104, dating from the Middle Ages, dismisses the legend: "This was not Ben Stada Jesus of Nazareth, as we say here that Ben Stada lived at the time of Paphos ben Yehudah himself living the time of Rabbi Akiba. "

Bibliography

• John Paul Meier A Jew: Jesus. The data of history, Vol I, II, III Deer 2004 - 2005
• Andre Dupont-Sommer and Philonenko Marc (ed.), The Bible, intertestamental Writings, Apocryphal Writings Christians al. The Pleiades. Gallimard, 1987
• Geoltrain Pierre and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (ed.), Christian apocrypha Writings, ed. Galllimard, 2 volumes, 1997 (vol. I) and 2005 (vol. II)
• Peter Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud Princeton University Press, 2007 ( introduction )

See also

• New Testament | Bible Manuscripts | List of New Testament papyri
• Jesus of Nazareth | Jesus Christ
• Quest for the Historical Jesus | Jesus in contemporary exegesis
• Synoptic problem

References

• Christianity portal

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