Historic Jesus, was he really an apocalypse reacher?

[Svartalf]

So a recent post round here reminded me that Jesus, insofar as he may bave been a historical character, is thought to have been an apocalyptic preacher...

Now, I don't remember if that's really the image given in the gospels (I'm purposefully omitting the paulinian works and revelations)

I'm wondering if this apocalyptinc image was true to him, or was grafted on the character after his death by the likes of john... the same way as he was artificially identified as the expected Messiah, a title he never claimed. (referring to god as one's father is a claim to inspiration, but not a claim to being the Anointed Chosen ONe).

Do you folk have any convincing sources one way or the other? books and net links welcome.

[aufbahrung]

Invention by committee. Wouldn't expect to square the circle on a character of invention story from antiquity.

[Hermit]

So a recent post round here reminded me that Jesus, insofar as he may bave been a historical character, is thought to have been an apocalyptic preacher...

Now, I don't remember if that's really the image given in the gospels (I'm purposefully omitting the paulinian works and revelations)

I'm wondering if this apocalyptinc image was true to him, or was grafted on the character after his death by the likes of john... the same way as he was artificially identified as the expected Messiah, a title he never claimed. (referring to god as one's father is a claim to inspiration, but not a claim to being the Anointed Chosen ONe).

Do you folk have any convincing sources one way or the other? books and net links welcome.

Questions regarding the gospels' accuracy, authenticity and how their authors portrayed Jesus are pretty irrelevant. What matters is the cast the church authorities of most Christian denominations gave the lot of humanity by judicious cherry picking and spreading the chosen message from the pulpit and elsewhere. It was a dark one, consisting of most people being cast to hell and the impending, though usually not precisely dated apocalypse.

A sea change began almost imperceptibly and at a glacial pace during the renaissance, but gathered pace in the Age of Enlightenment. God and Jesus became seen as benevolent. Again, it was not so much a matter of what was written in the New Testament. That remained pretty much unchanged since the Codex Sinaiticus was inscribed on vellum sometime between 325 and 360 CE. What mattered was which verses were selected from it. I credit much of the change to increased scientific knowledge.

[Brian Peacock]

I agree with Hermit. The many historicisations of Jesus have always been a retrofit; a post-hoc justifier for ecumenical priorities as countless and varied as the versions, and interpretations, of supposedly authorised scripture.

We all bear the weight of approaching our own inevitable end-time. The yearning for a great and impending cataclysm expressed down the ages is either a projection by the narcissistically inclined who cannot imagine a world continuing without them in it--the ending of their world must surely be the end of The World--or a psychological bulwark for those unable, for whatever reason, to draw meaning in their own existence from the everyday circumstances of their lives as regular members of regular society.

[Scot Dutchy]

Of course he is a retrofit. Who has any idea what the git looked like. Is that thread still going? The one that got into "That Highland Play" by Shakespeare status.