Quotes About Historical

the idea that Jesus rose on the 'third day' was originally a theological construct, not a historical piece of information.

But one thing they all (i.e., E. P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, and many others) agree on: Jesus did not spend his ministry declaring himself to be divine.

Most people at the time Jesus lived, apart from the upper-crust Roman elite

As a historian I am no longer obsessed with the theological question of how God became a man, but with the historical question of how a man became God.

Making these "predictions" of the future was relatively easy when the real author was living after the events he "predicted.

Almost certainly the divine self-claims in John are not historical.

For now my point is that most readers don't see these differences because they have been trained, or at least are inclined, to read the Bible in only one way, vertically, whereas the historical approach suggests that it is also useful to read it another way, horizontally.

the followers of Jesus (most of them? all of them?) came to believe that Jesus was physically raised from the dead. That belief is a historical fact.

The reason we need books like these is that the Gospels cannot simply be taken at face value as giving us historically reliable accounts of the things Jesus said and did.

Price says this figure provides compelling evidence of his view. In his words, "I find the possible parallel to the case of Hong Xiuquan to be, almost by itself, proof that James' being the Lord's brother need not prove a recent historical Jesus." That is, since Hong Xiuquan was not really Jesus's brother, the same could be true of James.

any stories in the Gospels that do not coincide with what we know the early Christians would have wanted to say about Jesus, or indeed, any stories that seem to run directly counter to the Christians' self-interests in telling them, can stake a high claim to being historically accurate.

the criterion of contextual credibility. This final criterion insists that we understand Jesus's historical context if we want to understand what he said and did during his life.

The Christ of Nicea is obviously a far cry from the historical Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in the backwaters of rural Galilee who offended the authorities and was unceremoniously crucified for crimes against the state. Whatever he may have been in real life, Jesus had now become fully God.

for the purposes of this chapter, I am principally interested in what Jews of the time thought about God and the divine realm, since it is these thoughts that can make sense of how a man like Jesus could be considered divine.

One of the most immutable patterns of history is the rise and fall of empires and great nations. Some Americans, however, believe their country to be so far beyond comparison with any other country or empire that has ever existed that it has passed beyond the reach of history.

Whether Stalin, out in Siberia, met with actual peasants, let alone large throngs of them, as did Stolypin, remains unclear.

John Wesley drank wine, was something of an ale expert, and often made sure that his Methodist preachers were paid in one of the vital currencies of the day—rum. His brother, Charles Wesley, was known for the fine port, Madeira, and sherry he often served in his home; the journals of George Whitefield are filled with references to his enjoyment of alcohol.

Gagarin had just flown around the world. Now he needed a horse and cart. To those familiar with only slightly later TV footage of NASA spacecraft returning to earth [...] Gagarin's return is in a league of its own, an exercise of the surreal with a uniquely Russian twist.

Modern Germans were confirmed pacifists. They wanted no mention of the former wars, either directly or indirectly. By and large they were consumed with historical guilt, bleeding their anguish in rivulets of pride.

It may be upsetting when someone says mean things on Twitter, but it is not the same as the slave trade or the Holocaust.

The problem with dystopian rhetoric is that if people believe that the country is a flaming dumpster, they will be receptive to the perennial appeal of demagogues: "What do you have to lose?" If the media and intellectuals instead put events into statistical and historical context, they could help answer that question.

In a survey of historical memory, I asked a hundred Internet users to write down as many wars as they could remember in five minutes. The responses were heavily weighted toward the world wars, wars fought by the United States, and wars close to the present. Though the earlier centuries, as we shall see, had far more wars, people remembered more wars from the recent centuries.

Marxian Socialism and Bolshevism are two historical phenomena which have hardly a single common denominator.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies. Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling. Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its "people's sovereignty" the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized.