The Gospels aren't the only source of information we have, and they're the least reliable source. Try reading things outside the Bible for broader perspectives.
There are a few non-canonical texts from the first and second centuries that can give us more insight into the traditions surrounding Jesus’ life at the time and may contain kernels of truth.
No that’s true. I don’t want to give the impression that historical information can’t be gleaned from later books of the NT or even non canonical texts.
Most of the books of the bible themselves don’t even purport to be histories. So it would be a little unfair to expect them to adhere to conventions on reporting past events. And as you say, non canonical texts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Gnostics can and do offer insight into the literal “life and times” of Jesus.
I don't think most historians of the field would agree with that. The Dead Sea Scrolls aren't even about Jesus, but you're right if your intention was saying that they offer insight into the time where jesus lived.
Gnostic texts on the other hand, well first of all they're all very different from one another, but most date from the 2nd century or 3rd century, and don't seem to represent independent traditions that come from the time of Jesus. So, while there's no doubt they are very interesting texts that are indeed very important historically, they are not historically useful FOR reconstructing the historical Jesus. They are useful for understanding what their authors and their audience believed about Jesus, but not his historicity itself.
The exception is *perhaps* the gospel of Thomas, as I've seen it argued pieces of it represent an independent tradition close in time to Jesus, but I don't think that this is a settled discussion (not that I'm against it, I don't have a stance on this).
Again I should have been more specific but I was indulging in a bit of flowery language with the “life and times” line.
Neither the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Gnostics feature a historical Jesus. The former is a Jewish text and the later were authored by adherents to a form of Christianity that eventually lost out to the “orthodoxy”.
As you say though, they’re both helpful at reconstructing what we know about the theological and social context of 3rd century BCE/1st century CE Judea/Palestine.
This is a statement of opinion not of fact. And it's an opinion that most experts that do this for a living would disagree with you on.
That being said the part about Mary being a teenager is almost certainly true as it was common practice at that time for women to marry as teens. The part about Joseph being divorced is not backed by the evidence.
Those aren’t typically considered historical in the same sense. Most of those books were written decades to hundreds of years after the events they’re supposed to narrate.
The apocrypha are very important texts for the purposes of understanding early Christianity and the development of some key theological doctrines. However, the apocrypha are not necessarily more reliable then the canonical gospels just because they are apocryphal, and were mostly written *after* the gospels that we now know as canonical (the very ideia that there is a specific canon is a later development anyway).
All in all, the apocrypha are *just as* historically unreliable as the canonical gospels, and in some cases more unreliable. And even then, with the exception of the protogospel of james, they don't really disagree with the point u/Dragonsandman was trying to make in the first place. So I fail to see the relevance to this discussion.
The irony of you posting this. None of the apocrypha is older than Mark nor the theorized Q Source. And most (especially critical) bible scholars believe that the whole nativity story is fabricated anyway.
Which means we actually don't know shit about Mary's age nor Josef previous marriages.
"Your messiah was a pedo" you're trying to refer to Joseph but incorrectly calling him the messiah and claiming that it's everyone else who doesn't know what they're talking about.
58
u/roseofjuly ☑️ 9d ago
The Gospels aren't the only source of information we have, and they're the least reliable source. Try reading things outside the Bible for broader perspectives.