Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
This is the first problem though, we don't know what Jesus said, he never wrote anything down. All we have is accounts from a) anonymous authors who didn't know Jesus (the gospels) b) someone who explicitly says he didn't know Jesus (Paul), and c) forgeries (which a number of the letters attributed to Paul are).
So you're really not comparing it to what Jesus said, you're comparing it to what some other people said Jesus said, or what Paul said, or other people said in the name of Paul...
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Not so fast, photon. Without question, you are correct in noting that the four gospels (as well as a number of the other ancient "non-canonical" gospels) and Paul and his proteges have badly obscured the picture of the "historical Jesus". However, there are almost certainly actual sayings and stories therein attributed to Jesus that are genuine—i.e. I don't think there is any doubt that he was baptized by John, most of the Markan parables are probably authentic, and he was almost certainly condemned for sedition and executed by the Romans. Having said that, the authentic "message" of Jesus is one that requires a good deal of supplementation for it to be applicable or relevant, given that he was a Jewish apocalyptic nationalist. He preached social reform, but only on the expectation that the world was to end in the lifetime of his followers.