The official portrait of Jesus

Absolutely fascinating discussion and I would suggest that anyone who agrees take a look at their ancient coinage at the divinities one finds on their coins. Gods and goddesses are ubiquitous on those artifacts and they have something in common. Whether it be Zeus/Jove or Athena/ Minerva they show us what those of the Ancient World wanted their divinities to look like-themselves. The people of the Classical Ancient World (even horses sometimes) created deities in their own image and likeness. It's not surprising that we would want our deities to resemble ourselves. It's flattering to associate those powerful beings with ourselves and us with them Would you not want to look as powerful as Jupiter, as beautiful as Aphrodite? Now that is not true of all civilizations where coming off as Quetzalcoatl or Siva is just fine. Some cultures have deities with unusual, sometimes frightening visages, but in the Western World, good looking gods (ones that look like us) are what we want. When it comes to Jesus of Nazareth being imaged, we do the same thing. We make him look what we think is a good version of ourselves, hence Jesus being imaged as the ideal, well, us, is the way to go. Some non-Western cultures today even picture Jesus looking like a person who would have been unusual in the First Century Levant, but remarkably like themselves. So, when we see images of Jesus pictured in Fourth Century Rome, Ninth Century Byzantium, Renaissance Europe or Twenty-first Century Samoa what we are looking at is a mirror of the "fairest of them all".
From upper left, Athena as Velia saw her, didrachma of ca. 300 BC , 7.4 grams. Diana Artemis as Macedonians saw her, ca. 150 BC, tetradrachma of 16.7 grams. Apollo as Romans saw him. Denarius of ca. 84 BC, 3.9 grams. Jesus of Nazareth as Byzantines saw him, ca, 1,000 AD. An anonymous follis of 19 grams. A Venetian grosso of ca. 1285 with a seated image of Jesus seated on a throne. A delight to the medieval eye, just like our doge.

 

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Glad you brought in the mention of the Fayum portraits, because some scholars hold that the earliest icons of Christ were derived from them.

 

Here's one of my hexagrams from Justinian's first reign, mirroring the types of his gold.
Constantinople, 692-5. 6.43 gr. 24.5 mm. 6 h. Sear 1259; DO 17; H. 40; BNP 2; BM 26-27; Yannopoulos 3-12.

 

I did not know that hexagrams were issued by Justinian. I had always associated that denomination with Heraclius.

 

He means Justinian II ! He reigned from 685 to 695, was toppled by a coup, had his nose cut off and was exiled in Cherson. He fled and found refuge with the Khan of the Bulgarians who helped him take Constantinople and reclaim his throne. He reigned again from 705 to 711. He was nicknamed rhinotmetus, "nose cut off".

 

Do you know what they called his nose after that? Nobody nose

 

Agreed, but the important word in all of that is "think". I'd say that it is more likely than not that Jesus, defined by some loose criteria, existed. Nobody here is trying to argue that he didn't exist, we're just saying that it isn't anywhere near certain. There is a difference between "Thinking" and "Knowing".

Agreed, but the thing that these people have in common is that there are reasons to doubt their historicity. Once you get past a certain point, certainty in a historical figure's having existed falls on a spectrum. For instance, here is a ranking of how certain I am that these people existed:

George Washington > Julius Caesar > Jesus > Homer > Merlin

I'd bet my life that Washington and Caesar existed, but I can't know with certainty. I'd bet money that Homer and Merlin didn't exist, but I can't know with certainty.
Jesus is somewhere in between.

Ya, that was a bit of a brain fart on my part.

True, but if you are talking about whether or not Jesus existed, then you have to define "Jesus" to some degree. If we are just talking about a person named Jesus (Yeshua, Joshua, or whatever), then the answer is definitely yes. Once we start piling on other criteria, then the likelihood decreases. I guess the first step is to define the criteria.

 

Well !... it sounds like philosophy, the typical essay in philosophy class in... how do you call this level? in France it's "Terminale", in US it must be 12th grade.
Do we know anything? Or do we just think we know it?
Conspiracy theorists would tell you that, after all, you have no real evidence Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin actually walked on the Moon. You just think they did because of all the media, books, photographs, videos unanimously telling you they did. But what if all this stuff had been forged by conspirators? I have seen a book written by a journalist, paid by the late Libyan dictator Kadhafi, explaining that the Roman Empire never existed, it was an entirely fake history forged by medieval monks in order to give Rome more importance and justify the supremacy claims of the pope, bishop of Rome!
Scepticism ha been a philosophical school since Antiquity. We can question everything, doubt everything. I think () life is not about making a difference between thinking and knowing. You said you'd bet your life on such or such question, but actually we do bet our life each time we board a plane or sit in a car. And it's perfectly OK...

 

One theory for the switch from clean shaven cropped hair Jesus to the longer haired version, is that this was associated with the highest divinity in the Roman world. As theological innovations made Jesus' divinity more "full" and as the knowledge of Jesus slowly moved away from its Semitic place of origin to the gentile empire, he slowly morphed into resembling Zeus/Jupiter.

My personal opinion on the historicity of Jesus is that he certainly existed and some basic facts about his life an be assumed to be true.
He was from Galilee
He was baptized by John the Baptist
He preached and had followers
He caused a ruckus in Jerusalem
He was crucified by the authorities

I believe that this template is real, and some particular circumstances about Jesus, life or his teachings/prophecies were intriguing enough to be used as a theological springboard for his disciples (and later, Paul) to launch a new attractive religious movement.

I do think that Jesus gets a hard time regarding sources. The authentic letters of Paul are very close (in a historical sense) to the date of the crucifixion. As another posted pointed out, Paul claims that he met the "brother of the Lord" and had a bit of back and forth with him. At least two of the New Testament gospels appear to arise independently (Mark and John) and there are a few corroborating references to Jesus in non-Christian works. I personally think that is quite a decent resume of sources for one of the many Semitic preacher figures. I am also unsure why people use the argument that there were no sources written "while Jesus was alive", a rather arbitrary delineation. His ministry only lasted a few years, mainly involved illiterate followers, and it was only during the crucifixion and perhaps "resurrection experiences" of his followers that he becomes a truly significant figure.

It's also worth pointing out that the prevailing opinion is that much of the Josephus text is an interpolation, but a part of it which still attests to the existence of Jesus, is legitimate. This version being the "original" is the most accepted opinion according to Bart Ehrman


Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Even if you don't buy this rather contentious passage for whatever reason. There's still a reference to James the brother of Jesus that almost all scholar's accept as legitimate.

Of course we can never be one hundred percent sure about such things, but there is quite rightly a heavy preponderance by scholars towards Jesus existing and some basic facts about his life being very likely.

 

What we know, we know with greater or lesser degrees of probability, though I think that in our everyday life we assign certitude to matters and things that are, in reality, a high degree of probability, but nothing more than that. We like certainty in our lives and will accept high degree of probability as the equivalent of absolute certitude just for the comfort level. Is the average person certain that he has seen pennies issued by the US mint? Probably. But is he correct about this?

 

If we want to get philosophical about it, then we are stuck at, "I think, therefore I am", but that's not what I'm doing here. I'm drawing a distinction between "think" and "know" in the way that we use the words in everyday conversation, not in what is fundamentally knowable.

You said:

Which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say. However, if a person were to say:

"The overwhelming majority of historians, regardless of their political affiliations if any, think that John F Kennedy actually existed."

Well, that would just seem like a silly thing to say. And therein lies the difference.

It would seem silly to use "think" with respect to JFK because evidence of his existence is overwhelming to the point that it would be stupid to question it. Even though I concede the possibility that the world conspired together to make me believe JFK really existed when he actually did not, I still say that I "know" that he existed.

The reason that it doesn't seem silly to say "think" with respect to Jesus is because the evidence is sparse, people throughout history would have had ulterior motives for making the case, and even the mundane things that we could possibly know about him are mixed in with mythology and obvious untruths that make it difficult to know where to draw the lines.

 

@Sister Donna. I'm a Christian and believe in Jesus and Abraham. But can you tell me frankly that Abraham had ever existed in History ?!

 

Some interesting articles/blog posts written from different viewpoints:

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2014/01/did-jesus-exist-jesus-myth-theory-again.html

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/05/nailed-ten-christian-myths-that-show.html

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evide...istence_of_Jesus_Christ#Non-Biblical_evidence

 

History is a science. Tell me of one Historian that said Jesus had never existed in History! In a few days we'll commemorate 2022 AD . Happy New Year to all Humanity.

 

If you're talking to me, no, I don't believe in the historicity of the Biblical Abraham -- as opposed to the existence of many other historical individuals named Abraham! -- given, among other things, that his name simply means "father of many" in Hebrew. And given that I don't believe that, historically speaking, the Hebrews/Israelites had their origins in Ur, or Egypt, or anywhere else, really, besides Canaan. For a summary of the historical/archaelogical evidence, I recommend the book by K.L. Knoll entitled Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: a Textbook on History and Religion (2d ed. 2013).

 

I'm interested in coins and Numismatics because I love History, just like music. I feel you're an intelligent and realistic lady. I meant by my question: Do you believe that Jesus, son of Mary from Judea, had really existed in History? at least as a man.

 

I neither believe nor disbelieve as to the historicity of the man. I don't know. More likely than Abraham. Less likely than Abraham Lincoln.

 

Very interesting discussion, but please remember that discussion of Religion is not allowed on this channel. Flip over to http://partisanlines.com/ if you wish to go deeper into the subject. Thank you much, jim

 

What I want to know is when the first coins depicting Christ showed up and who minted them?