The Quest for the Historical Jesus pt. 1

It's futile. As all historical reconstructionists must needs know, there is never such a thing as absolute certainty. We work with proximity and probability, and what becomes "fact" is merely what has the highest probable chance of having occurred, not necessarily what did. We like to hope that our conclusions are correct, but putting any faith in them would be quite ludicrous.

Dealing with the Historical Jesus is even trickier. When dealing with historical facts, scholars ultimately aim for the earliest source about that person and how it dealt with the history. Since dependency usually rules out examination, this leaves out only a handful of sources which we can derive our foundation upon which the historical Jesus can be built.

These few sources I've indentified:

1. Earliest Christian Traditions - the earliest christian traditions are probably the oldest source to the claim on Jesus, yet they are the most scattered, most diverse, and are still being argued about today. If we can be fairly certain concerning these traditions, then we arrive to the clearest picture of Jesus.


2. Earliest Gnostic Traditions - the earliest Gnostic traditions, at least superficially, appear to be generally distinct from Orthodox Christian traditions. Unfortunately, most of the Gnostic traditions are too late to be recognized as independent, and several show dependency on Orthodox ones.
   


3. Talmud - The Talmud relates the stories of two men both named Jesus, both of which bare resemblance to Christian tradition. Whether or not they refer to the same people will be examined.
   


4. Josephus - Josephus, as we have him, contains two quotes which are remarkably similar to Christian tradition, but assuredly one is at least tampered with if not fabricated entirely and the other is suspect as well. The conclusions drawn from him are crucial to the historical Jesus.
   


5. Tacitus - Tacitus briefly mentions Jesus' crucifiction in the Annals. He may have merely gotten the information from Christians themselves, which would nullify his claim to being an original source. There's also some speculation that the passage might be tampered with, but the evidence thus far is inconclusive. Note that Tacitus uses the name "Chrestiani" instead of "Christiani" for the Christians.
   


6. Suetonius - Suetonius briefly mentions that an agitator named Chrestus caused the Jews to be expelled from Rome. The identity between Chrestus and Christus being either the same or distinct is still debated.
   

I am hoping to start arriving at conclusions soon. There's still so much to be discussed, so much to be unraveled. We must realize, though, that if this house is to be built, it cannot be built on so many presumptions as others have done. I've seen Jesus be it all - cynic, stoic, rabbi, zealot, mythical godman, itinerant ascetic, Wicked Priest, Teacher of Righteousness. Each of these rest upon suppositions and selectively choose evidence based on a seemingly arbitrary method of determination.

The real Jesus will probably never be known. There's too little information out there for anything to have real probabilities. However, with an examination of the sources, a firm, however incomplete, conclusion will hopefully be drawn.