{"id":4458,"date":"2012-07-10T16:11:55","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T22:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4458"},"modified":"2012-07-10T16:14:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T22:14:24","slug":"the-historical-jesus-and-the-grizzly-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4458","title":{"rendered":"The Historical Jesus and the Grizzly Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to who Jesus of Nazareth was, I tend to think that there is somebody<\/em> behind the stories, a real person, not, for example, a mushroom<\/a>. (Although that would make for great video.)<\/p>\n

As Craig Keener argues in this column<\/a>, it remains the simplest explanation at its counter-intuitive core:<\/p>\n

Scholars’ confidence [in the historical Jesus] has nothing to do with theology but much to do with historiographic common sense. What movement would make up a recent leader, executed by a Roman governor for treason, and then declare, “We’re his followers”? If they wanted to commit suicide, there were simpler ways to do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, there are people in some esoteric circles who think that the Jesus of the New Testament was a composite character<\/a>, made of perhaps three individuals’ stories.<\/a><\/p>\n

It works with grizzly bears.<\/p>\n

Last month, on my birthday, M. and I made a sort of pilgrimage to the haunts of Old Mose<\/a>, the last grizzly bear killed in central Colorado, on 30 April 1904. (The last known grizzly killed in Colorado died in 1979.)<\/p>\n

When I lived in that county, I heard and read all the stories about how Old Mose was this terrible bear, killer of several humans and countless livestock, et cetera et cetera<\/em>, who lived to be at least forty years old.<\/p>\n

But a Colorado historian who dug into the story and conducted some elementary scientific research made a good case that Old Mose’s legend conflated the lives of at least three bears between the early 1880s and 1904.<\/a> The big male grizzly killed in 1904 was simply too young to have done all that.<\/p>\n

And this in an era of (by 1904) telephones, telegraphs, electric lights, railroads, and newspapers, not an antiquity of oral wonder stories and hand-copied manuscripts.<\/p>\n

If it happens with bears, I wondered at the time, could it happen with prophets?<\/p>\n

Still, I lean towards the single-Jesus theory. And if I could choose between bringing a messianic Jewish wonder-worker or a big grizzly bear back to walk this earth, I know which one I would pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to who Jesus of Nazareth was, I tend to think that there is somebody behind the stories, a real person, not, for example, a mushroom. (Although that would make for great video.) As Craig Keener argues in this column, it remains the simplest explanation at its counter-intuitive core: Scholars’ confidence [in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[185,24,18],"class_list":["post-4458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bears","tag-christianity","tag-nature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-19U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4809,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4809","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":0},"title":"Weirdest Google Search String Yet","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This brought a visitor to the blog: \"grizzly bears knowing Jesus Christ is coming.\" The truth is that I did have Jesus Christ and a grizzly bear in one blog post.","rel":"","context":"In \"bears\"","block_context":{"text":"bears","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=bears"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4645,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4645","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":1},"title":"Following Up the Hint of Jesus’ Wife","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00a0 recent announcement of a bit of Coptic writing that apparently referred to Jesus' wife has stirred up plenty of controversy. Was the inscription really as old as claimed? Was it a forgery? Did it really mean \"wife\"? At the Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog, Ian Brown will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3698,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3698","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":2},"title":"Learning about Pagans for the Purpose of Converting Them","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month, I answered some questions from a reporter for a Christian news site. He had such response that now he is on the Pagan beat. So I give you \"A Peek at Modern Paganism, Part One\" and \"Part Two.\" Soon \u2014 wait for it \u2014 you meet that reliable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6651","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":3},"title":"Postscript to “The Danger in Being Ministerial”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When I wrote my recent post, \"The Danger in Being Ministerial,\" I omitted a couple of points. For one thing, the priest\/ess vs. pastor \u2014 or cultus vs. social ministry \u2014 distinction is largely rhetorical. I do not mean to say that they cannot overlap, only that often they do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7932,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7932","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":4},"title":"Assessing a New Book on Jesus’ Wife","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to think that of course Jesus was married \u2014 what normal 1st-century small-town Jewish man would not be married? Answer: most of the Essenes, to name one group. The perennial interest in an actual bloodline of his descendents is periodically stoked by books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1605986100","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4608,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4608","url_meta":{"origin":4458,"position":5},"title":"Evidence of Jesus’ Wife?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You don't think a good Jewish boy from a peasant culture got to be thirty years old without being married, do you? Now there is textual evidence that suggests that he was. \u201cThis fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married,\u201d Dr. [Karen] King said.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4458"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4466,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4458\/revisions\/4466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}