The Metaphysical Bible Dictionary defines Christ not as a specific person, but as a universal divine principle or idea.
OK ... and that's OK ... and I accept it as your position.
+++
Why I cannot accept it.
Hart, a classicist, knows Graeco-Roman late antiquity extremely well. His reputation is without question. He writes:
"I simply cannot place the teachings of Christ as they are credibly recounted in the gospels within the normal continuum of the religious and moral expectations of their age."
Speaking of the discourse between Jesus and Pilate at Jesus' arrest: "I cannot say with sufficient emphasis how absurd it should have seemed in the context of that age to see this condemned slave and rustic subject of empire as the very presence of God in this scene."
In short – Christianity survived not because of an idea or a principle, but because of a man. You can't take the man out any more than you can read the 'historical' man back in.
Christianity survived because a man lived, dies, and rose from the dead.
Scholars now accept the existence of a man, commonly known as Jesus, an apocalyptic prophet, healer and wonder-worker, who was arrested and executed by crucifixion by the Roman authorities, and that, really, should have been the end of it. It's the only logical reason how and why a body of believers appears on the scene with such a radical message.
And what is the core of that message: The Jesus was crucified, and on the third day rose again.
To be Christian is to believe in His resurrection.
Without that, Christianity would not have survived. It would have vanished along with the other prophets and wonder workers of the age. And the teachings? Without that, what do we have? The exhortations to justice and mercy, the care of the poor and oppressed, the warning of Divine Retribution. But all that is there in the great prophetic writings of Israel. And pagan culture had its own schools of compassion and universal brother- and sisterhood. We have the Golden Rule.
Without the Resurrection, the writings would not have survived, because quite simply they lack the merit to be worth copying. They're nowhere nearly as literate and sophisticated as the similar heroic narratives of their contemporaries – and look at how few of those survived, and how few fans and followers they have garnered across history.
The datum of faith for the early Christian followers was the Resurrection and the witness of Christ – without that, Christianity would not have survived its early, tempestuous centuries. Something they believed in, and thought worth dying for.
Paul is the first voice we hear – he speaks of his own experience as the last, or at least the most recent, of those experiences:
" … and that he was entombed, and that he was raised on the third day in accord with the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve; thereafter he was seen by over five hundred brothers at one time, of whom the majority remain till now, though some have fallen asleep; thereafter he was seen by James, then by all the Apostles; and last of all, as if by a miscarried baby, he was seen by me also." (1 Corinthians 15:4-8).
This straightforward account sets the minimal claim for an event of maximal implausibility. Take it or leave it.
Later narratives, with their empty tombs, their literary and theologically amplified variations on a theme about something perhaps none of the authors had witnessed, weaken by comparison. Certainly the event is not described in a consistently documentary manner, and the narratives themselves bear all the hallmarks of a contemporary narrative tradition – none as sophisticated, perhaps, but all the signs are there. These are literary works, intended for literary audiences. Mark's might be addressed more to a common readership, Matthew's bears all the signs of a sophisticated Jewish writer addressing an equally sophisticated audience. Luke is writing for the better class of gentile. John reflects a certain spiritual sensibility.
They were writing texts for people who were used to reading such texts. They employed the same stylistic devices as their literary predecessors and contemporaries. They organised their received data into embodies narratives that presented the 'fact of the matter' as they understood it.
Paul’s remarks fall outside any narrative or theological genre; they are pithy, unadorned statements of what he had heard and had himself experienced.
+++
www.sefaria.org
