Was Jesus unique from the point of view of contemporaries?
Upvote:-2
Let's be quite clear. Jesus probably did not exist.
(Of course, Jesus was unique, even from the point of view of someone who completely disbelieves everything about the religious views about being the Messiah. He played a very important role in defining our culture, society and value systems. This question tries to limit itself only to the aspects of the local culture and customs of that era from a secular point of view)
Was Jesus unique? If he was this would then lead to the conclusion that in fact there were no other messianic apocalypse preachers such as himself. We however, know that in fact, if such "messiahs" were indeed very common.
Palestine in the first century CE was in fact awash with messianic apocalypse cults. There were were in fact many of these sects existing at the time. That Christianity arose in such a period is indeed no surprise. Carrier describes it eloquently as " yet another messiah cult in the midst of a fad for such cults."
Josephus records at least four such other messianic cults and how widely popular they are: "The Samaritan gathered followers and said he would reveal the lost relics of the Temple on Mount Gezirim", which strongly implies that the Samaritans believed in the imminent arrival of a Messiah at this time.
"Thuedas gathered followers and claimed he would part the Jordan - another act of obvious messianic significance", Joshua (the original "Jesus") also miraculously parted the Jordan before his conquest of Israel.
Josephus also mentions "The Egyptian" who preached from the Mountain of Olives and claimed he would topple the walls of Jerusalem (another allusion to the Joshua symbolism). Preaching from the Mount of Olives also held messianic symbolism.
Another 'imposter' mentioned by Josephus (code for : false messiah) gathered followers and promised them salvation if they followed him into the wilderness - a strong reference to Moses and teh Temptation in Exodus.
John the Baptist could also be considered yet another messianic figure - who preached the arrival of the Messiah (and by extension, the end times that such a figure would herald).
Acts also makes reference to Simon Magus, who is depicted as a messianic pretender.
The Dead Sea Scrolls attest to several such cults existing at the time, especially in Qumran where the keepers of the scroll were already expecting the imminent end of the world.
Philo of Alexandria also wrote a text adapting the apocalyptic expectations of the time. The Gospels also assume that messianic fervour was so high at the time that many people expected Elijah to walk among them.
The reason for this was because of religious scholars, studying of the book of Daniel had come up with a timetable that predicted that the coming of the Messiah would occur sometime in the first century CE. Many of these texts were also used by other cults at the time.
That Christianity survived to propagate is really only indicative of natural selection. That it pushed all the right buttons and mixed all the right elements as well as dodging all the bullets is simply a matter of probabilities. It is not a question of uniqueness. By the same token the Arthur myth also widely shaped British culture, but nobody seriously asserts that he was a real historical figure.
Make no mistake, 1 CE Palestine was simply awash with these kinds of cults, and and some of the surviving sources that attest to them are Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The answer to your initial question of was a possible Jesus unique in either the content or context of his life. Absolutely not. The surviving sources (Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls) strong imply that this kind of cult was in fact, very commonplace and very popular within the historical context.
Most of this is documented in Richard Carriers "On the Historicity of Jesus Or Why We Might Have Reason To Doubt", which collates many sources and examines the historicity and mythicism arguments in detail. http://www.amazon.com/On-Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason/dp/1909697494
Upvote:1
Apparently this was quite common. As stated in the comments the New testament mentions John the Baptist and possibly others. There is also some primary sources describing the situation: I mean the dead Sea Scrolls (a. k. a. Qumran scrolls) which describe a religious community and a leader with some similarity to Jesus.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0019_0_19666.html
Upvote:10
Yes and no.
This is one of the questions addressed in Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan. From what I can see of the reviews, it does a good job (for an "accessible" popular book) of representing the current state of scholarly historical research on the historical Jesus.
According to Aslan, there were the following people wandering around the occupied Jewish territories claiming to be the Messiah within a couple of generations of Jesus of Nazareth:
...and others. Believe it or not, that area was even a bigger mess of oppression and radicalism then than it is today. Nazareth in particular.
Jesus of Nazareth also pretty clearly acted as a traveling miracle worker. This was an actual job back then, and he wasn't the only person plying this trade in the area. But typically a miracle worker of the era would have demanded payment up-front, and it doesn't look like Jesus did. Free healing would definitely have drawn crowds (as was depicted in the Gospels).
Other miracle workers of the time and area we know of include Honi the Circle-Drawer and his grandsons Abba Hilqia and Hanan the Hidden, and Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa.
Your typical Galilean would definitely have had an opportunity to see and listen to any number of these traveling Messiahs, Rabbis, and miracle-workers. Even if they didn't bother to avail themselves of that opportunity (and it's not like they had TV to watch instead), they would certainly have known of them from others who had.
As for the content of the message...here's where things can get a bit controversial. What exactly Jesus was preaching was actually a subject of great debate even in the early church, when some of The 12 were still alive.
I'll weasel out a bit here. Aslan distinguishes the historical Jesus of Nazareth from the modern Christian Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, as depicted in the Gospel of John and Paul's early letters, his message would definitely have been a huge departure from anything being peddled by those others.
The historical Jewish Jesus of Nazareth? Probably not so much. Paul's letters can be thought of as one half of the world's first flamewar. We don't have a lot of written material from the other side, but we know they included multiple people who (unlike Paul) actually were followers of Jesus during his lifetime, including Peter and Jesus' own brother. As historians, we are forced to admit they likely had a better handle on what Jesus of Nazareth was historicaly preaching than Paul did. It's pretty clear from Paul that his antagonists thought Jesus had a much more traditional Jewish Messiah's message.
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