by VorJack
I once joked that the real difference between Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith was 1800 years. Poor Smith was born into a time with court records, journalists and scandal-mongers. He couldn’t get away with anything. In contrast, we only know about Jesus from the religious writings of his followers. What would Jesus look like if 1st Century Jerusalem had tabloids? What would we think of Jesus if we could interview his mother? (“He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”)
I thought about this joke again while I was reading Paul Johnson’s The Kingdom of Matthias. This is the history of the Prophet Matthias (aka Robert Matthews), a contemporary of Joesph Smith. Like Smith, Matthias lived and preached in the Burned Over District of New York during the Second Great Awakening. Like Smith, Matthias received messages from God and preached an apocalyptic message.
Pullquote: What would Jesus look like if 1st Century Jerusalem had tabloids?
Unlike Smith, who mostly stayed in the hinterlands, Matthias tried to take his gospel to New York City. It didn’t go over so well. If the choices are Liar, Lunatic or Lord, then Matthias was clearly the middle option. Unfortunately for Lewis’ Trilemmia, Matthias was nevertheless able to step in and take over a collapsing religious community. The community was founded by Elijah Pierson, a perfectionist and reformer who emphasized lengthy prayer and fasting.
It’s an odd combination, since Pierson was Matthias’ polar opposite. Pierson was a feminist and a liberal who believed in healing the fallen world. Matthias was extremely patriarchal and sought his own kingdom apart from the world. But shortly before Matthias had arrived, Pierson’s wife had died from too much stress and fasting. Pierson lost his ministry and his mind, and the scenes of him trying to resurrect his wife are some of the most painful I’ve ever read.
For a while, Pierson provided the property, money and community, while Matthias provided the crazy. Others from Pierson’s old group fell into their orbit, including his servant Isabella Van Wagener. She was an ex-slave who would later become the itinerant preacher Sojurner Truth. The group continued to dance to Matthias’ tune until Pierson died. The death was considered suspicious, and the whole thing fell apart in a scandalous murder trial that became a five-day sensation in the NYC papers.
Pullquote: It’s frightening how the extremes of religion blend imperceptibly into madness.
I want to make fun of these people, but I don’t have the heart. Both Matthias and Pierson were two mindsick, broken individuals. I can’t blame them for retreating from a world they couldn’t understand. They’d be laughable if Matthias hadn’t been a dangerous and abusive man. I’ll only say that it’s frightening how the extremes of religion blend imperceptibly into madness. When Matthias strutted around in pseudo-military garb, he was a madman. When Smith did the same, it was accepted by his community. When Matthias whipped a woman with his belt, it eventually destroyed his community and sent him to prison. When Jesus used his belt on the moneychangers …
In the end, Matthias’ legacy was not made by his message or his ministry (thankfully), but by the juicy scandal he created by breaking up the marriage of two of his followers and taking the wife for himself. He left the region after being convicted of abusing one of his female followers. Later on, Joseph Smith and Matthias (under a different name) met in one of the Mormon camps, where Matthias tried to preach his way into the movement. Smith had Matthias cast out of the camp, and the local papers would have us believe that both men proclaimed the other to be a tool of the devil.
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Jerdog: That’s good satire for ya. 
Elemenope: That sounds pretty tame for him. 
32 Comments
Interesting story, but what’s your point here? Matthias = Jesus, except Jesus got lucky and had more followers?
Point? What makes you think I have a point? Life’s confusing enough without people going around and having a point all the time.
Alright, I suppose I can dig something up to give some direction to this pile of musings. There are two thoughts here:
1. “how the extremes of religion blend imperceptibly into madness”
2. Our difficulty in telling the difference, particularly through the distorting lens of history.
The closer a character is to our modern times, the easier we find it to dismiss them as a madman. Most scholars have no problem diagnosing self-proclaimed messiahs like Sabbatai Zevi as mentally ill.
But consider someone like St. Paul. Isn’t it possible that a man who could deliver such lines of self-loathing – “Wretched man that I am!” – was more than a little disturbed? But our information about him is sketchy enough that we’ll never know. A few mavericks like Rev. Spong feel comfortable diagnosing Paul as a closeted gay man, but for the most part we feel compelled to treat him as a profound religious thinker, simply because that’s our tradition.
Hmmm. There may be something interesting here. Pity I didn’t think it through before I started writing.
I don’t know that I’d make that comparison.
Yeah, the point wasn’t entirely clear to me, either, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
Maybe the difference between Matthias and Smith wasn’t what they were praying, but who them were praying to. Maybe if Matthias had left the city looking for the red-necks…
Believers of Jesus can’t deny that they have the same proofs as Mohammad’s believers have.
I have a suggerence for Pillars of Faith: “Marcial Maciel”, founder of the Legion of Christ;
Praised by Pope John Paul II,”sent into exile by Pope Benedict XVI as punishment for sexual assaults against young men decades ago” and recently discovered father -literally father
Amazing…
Father Fichter, once the chief financial officer for the order, said he informed the Vatican three years ago that every time Father Maciel left Rome, “I always had to give him $10,000 in cash — $5,000 in American dollars and $5,000 in the currency of wherever he was going.”
Father Fichter added: “As Legionaries, we were taught a very strict poverty; if I went out of town and bought a Bic pen and a chocolate bar, I would have to turn in the receipts. And yet for Father Maciel there was never any accounting. It was always cash, never any paper trail. And because he was this incredible hero to us, we never even questioned it for a second.”
(I’m doing cut&paste from here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/8282097/Legionaries_of_Christ_face_disaster_after_founders_double_life_is_exposed/)
Wow. I totally got the point. I don’t see what’s so hard to get.
Crazy works in the right context, and sometimes that context requires less immediate press coverage so the cult can form and bolster themselves against ridicule or total slaughter for a couple centuries.
Jesus was successful because he actually inspired around ten contemporary cults surrounding his message. The one that caught on was the one that Paul preached, but their were many others, each fighting with the other for position or at least bad talking the others in some way or another.
And then many of them withdrew from society and built a strong community before setting out to change the world. We see this in Acts and Romans.
Smith was successful because he, too, ‘got away’ from the skeptical eye developing modern society just long enough to take. There were other factors, sure, but he had to have some amount of privacy to develop the cult.
To be that successful these days, you’d have to be, I dunno… a science fiction writer with lots of money to back your new religion.
Luckily, that could never happen, right? :P
I don’t know about that one, Vorjack …
You’re probably right. The analogy doesn’t work. Jesus’ actions could make him more than just a messianic prophet or a madman. He could be a political revolutionary,a zealous puritan, a religious fanatic or a number of other things. Matthis’ actions don’t allow that kind of range.
Matthias whipped a woman … (for what?)
Jesus overturns money tables because people are getting duped into spending their money on things that don’t matter.
I realize your response to me is tongue-in-cheek, but I have to think you realize the incredible difference between the two stories.
I realize your response to me is tongue-in-cheek,
No, it wasn’t, I’m actually serious, but in a way that’s not coming across. My apologies for that, this piece went through about eight revisions and none of them really worked. In hindsight I should have held it back.
I’m not arguing that there’s a moral equivalence between the two actions. Morality is not part of the discussion. Simply this: what would you think of a person doing what Jesus did today?
Bear in mind that your interpretation of the actions of Jesus is a traditional Christian interpretation. Look at it from the perspective of a 1st century Jew. The money changers and the animal sellers were not simply capitalists trying to make a buck off of other people’s piety. They were an important part of the process of giving honor to God.
A 1st century Jew making the pilgrimage to the temple could not carry a lamb with him. He also probably had a pocket full of foreign money, with the graven image of the emperor or some other ruler upon it. If he was to worship as a Jew, he needed to change his money into something that could be taken into the holy Temple, and he needed a sacrifice with which to purify himself. The merchants at the door provided what he needed. From the 1st century perspective, Jesus was actually preventing people from worshiping properly while inflicting financial and physical harm in the process.
Look at it this way: if someone were to storm into a church during communion and overturned the alter and toss away the sacramental wine, what would we think of them? I suspect we’d either think he was a fanatic or a lunatic – if we acknowledge there is any difference between the two. What we wouldn’t do is recognize that this person was making a profound theological point.
When the first generation of Quakers disrupted church services (while naked, according to some stories), they were not treated to a theology debate. They were cast out, considered lunatics, and occasionally hung for blasphemy. Whether a person is a prophet or a lunatic seems to be a matter of prospective, and perhaps a matter of distance. Jesus looks like he’s making a deeply religious statement to us, but to the Jews he must have looked crazy.
Matthias whipped a woman … (for what?)
Disobedience. Matthias was profoundly patriarchal.
Excellent reply. I was sitting here thinking of how to make the same point. You did it first, and better.
“Bear in mind that your interpretation of the actions of Jesus is a traditional Christian interpretation. Look at it from the perspective of a 1st century Jew. The money changers and the animal sellers were not simply capitalists trying to make a buck off of other people’s piety. They were an important part of the process of giving honor to God.”
I was going to argue with you, but that makes sense.
I agree, you have to look at the spirit of time back then when jezus lived. Beating up people, beating up women and stoning people would be normal everyday business as usual back then. Fingerprinting and DNA checks did not exist back then to prove that you did it.
Charles Russell, the founder of the International Bible Students (later changed to Jehovah’s Witnesses) came out of this same Great Awakening.
One thing I enjoyed researching was the number of itinerant apocalyptic rabbis and holy men wandering around Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus is claimed to have been doing his ministry. He wasn’t all that unique at the time.
Why did the Jesus cult linger and the others fail? Why does Mormonism survive and the cult of Matthias doesn’t?
Viewed from a historical perspective, it seems very random and arbitrary.
Well, the cult to Jesus survived, but we don’t know if Jesus’s cult did. It seems plausible that christianity was made up later -mostly(?) by Paul who never meet him
You are correct.
I have studied this very matter in excruciating detail, and have arrived at the firm conclusion that even an “historical Jesus” is pure fabrication.
If Robert Matthews were alive today, he would just start a mega-church or a television ministry and work within the framework of modern Christian fundamentalism. Instead of creating a new religion, just claim to be the only Christian leader in the world who correctly understands the bible. We may never have another Joseph Smith, but we have Benny Hinn and Pat Roberson.
What I can’t understand is why ALL these years later, people are still falling for wackos like Smith and Mattias.
One idea is that politicians aren’t doing anything to help the masses acquire critical thinking skills. Were the masses learned in understanding trickery and deception, politicians wouldn’t stand a chance.
It’s still sad, though, that in this day and age, the masses are still so naive and manipulable. Sometimes I think that Mattias would have an easier time nowadays.
Mattias and Smith would be wondering why they went to all of the fantastic effort that they did, in order to fabricate a religious cult, if they could only see just how very little effort L. Ron Hubbard put into his transparently invented religion.
No ‘gold tablets’, no Book of Moron, nothing but a puerile wager that he could start a fully fledged cult! Bingo!
In an age where scientific literacy should be at a high, and superstitious gullibility be at an historical low.
Sigh…
Every time I drive through Utah it makes me wish that we had let the Mormons have Missouri…
W.W.J.T.
What Would GEEZUS Tweet!
The REAL insanity is that we can follow the actual happenings and roots of religions like the LDS, Christian Scientists and Scientology. And people really believe this stuff! At least 2000 year old literature, like the Bible, has some mystery involved in it’s creation. But for crying out loud, how can people REALLY believe what’s in these religions when there is REALLY CLEAR EVIDENCE that it’s all made up by humans???
Some people will believe anything just to have magic in their lives.
The crucial difference between Jesus & Smith is that Smith actually existed.
On balance, it is extremely unlikely that an historical Jesus ever existed.
I think that a man like Jesus probably existed, like Agamemnon, Paris, Trajan, Helen of Troy. But it seems pretty clear to me that he was turned into a mythical figure, like Heracles, Theseus, et al, because the Jesus story is just like those myths. A god for a father, a magical birth, does miraculous things when he grows up. But just because a human Jesus exists doesn’t mean he was magical, maybe a nice guy who preached nice things. And some not nice things, too.
Eh? Paris and Helen of Troy are *entirely* mythical people.
Emporer Trajan has solid physical extant contemporary evidence (coinage, inscriptions etc).
There is ZERO extant contemporary evidence for anyone called Jesus in that era.
None. Nothing. Zilch.
Methinks you are putting the ‘definitely mythical’ in with the ‘confirmed real’ and calling them the same thing??
In fact, the absence of evidence for a Jesus is telling in itself.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are but one example of contemporary original documentation that we have large quantities of, from that very location, and that very time.
And guess what?
They make no mention whatsoever of any character who might even interpreted at a stretch as Jesus.
“I think that a man like Jesus probably existed” is nothing more than wishful thinking, which actually goes against all of the available evidence.
“There is ZERO extant contemporary evidence for anyone called Jesus in that era.
None. Nothing. Zilch.”
I’m not finding this a very compelling argument (perhaps because you’re saying the same thing over and over with little to nothing backing it up). I don’t know where you’re doing your research, but I was under the strong impression that the bulk of scholarship on this matter is in basic agreement that Jesus of Nazareth probably existed, and did some itinerant rabbi stuff, and was killed. Maybe you could explain to me why this isn’t the case?
(Incidentally, it seems that you must be refusing to acknowledge any motivation at all for the existence of the NT. I think most people agree it was written and collected for a reason, however deluded they might believe that reason to be. Furthermore, the current textual criticism I am aware of indicates that the synoptic gospels are adapted from a fragment of text which describes Jesus of Nazareth’s rabbinical teaching and subsequent death. Estimates at the date for this fragment put it from 10 to 30 years after Jesus’ purported death, which by no means precludes his existence.)
I just feel like you might be backing the wrong horse here. Argue that Jesus isn’t the Son of God. If you set up a standard of empirical proof, you won’t ever have to accept Christianity as true, and you’ll refrain from being argued into the ground by someone who knows more than I do about this subject.
@JonJon
“There is ZERO extant contemporary evidence for anyone called Jesus in that era.
None. Nothing. Zilch.”
It is not an argument. It is a statement of fact.
Then it is encumbent on those who belive the POSTIVE assertion that there IS valid extant contemporary evidence for the existence of a Jesus to present same.
I say there is not.
You say there is.
Show it to me, and I shall humbly apologise and recant.
No, you don’t.
Why not ask? I’d be happy to outline my decades of personal research.
You only have to ask.
Ah, here I can agree with you to an extent.
I, also, used to think that.
Which is why I learned to read biblical Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and am now learning to read Coptic, and have been bruhing up on my college Latin.
I have eyeballed copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest fragment of the bible known, and many other original scripts.
I have translated portions of the Torah and the New testament myself.
That journey from what you now assume, (that Jesus is reliably assumed to have been an historical figure), to my current position, (that Jesus is an entire, but rather poor fabrication), has been one that has taken a significant portion of both my life and my efforts.
It is not one that I can expect any reader of this blog to have ‘gone through’. (Unless Matt Dilahunty is reading!)
Eh? This appears as the greatest non-sequitur that I have encountered on the intertoobs in the last 6 months!
WTF?
gah, see reply below, I fail at internet
1)
If the NT’s claims are bogus, fine. The NT makes claims. It is a historical document. You summarily announce that there is no evidence for the existence of Jesus. Whether or not its the best possible evidence, it is evidence. Thus, “it seems that you must be refusing to acknowledge any motivation at all for the existence of the NT,” since you acknowledge no evidence for the existence of Jesus as an actual person, but the NT attempts to provide evidence. Even if the NT is entirely fabricated, it is evidence. (To clarify, you might be able to debunk this evidence, but that does not simply happen because you said that it did.)
Sorry for non-sequitur-ishness. I was tired.
2) I haven’t heard of P457, but I thought it was called ‘Q;’ the theory seems to go that the overlapping portions of the synoptic gospels borrowed their overlapping parts from Q, although no extant copies of this supposed document remain. If I conveyed something different, I apologize.
3) “Your feelings do not enter into a scholarly debate.”
Dude, didn’t know we were having one. If you’ve done what you say, that’s awesome. If you haven’t, this is the internet. This isn’t where scholarly debates happen, for just this reason. I’m inclined to believe that you speak all these languages and have done all these things, but I’d be justified in skepticism.
If you are more well-versed in biblical scholarship than I, (easily possible, I assure you) then when exactly did the consensus (which I picked up on during my own very limited experience with biblical criticism) that Jesus was an actual person shift into the widespread acknowledgment that he wasn’t? I’d be very curious to know this, if you’ve kept up more closely than I have (again, easily possible.)
A short reply, as you so egregiously misquote me that I fear for your reading comprehension.
You assert: “You summarily announce that there is no evidence for the existence of Jesus.”
I have never said any such thing, sir.
Read what I wrote, please: “…extant contemporary evidence…”
Until this bizarre error is corrected, there is no point in addressing issues that arise from it.
If you do not know what extant contemporary evidence means, then again, all you have to do is ask.
Or you might reference a good dictionary.
If your reading skills are really as miserable as they seem, then I may insist that further intercourse between us is suspended until you correct that defect.
I know what you mean when you say ‘extant contemporary evidence.’ Thanks.
What does it mean to you? Does it mean ‘the only evidence you will consider?’
‘Extant contemporary evidence’ is not the only evidence that needs to be taken into consideration. We have no extant contemporary evidence for the existence of Homer as a real person either, although the consensus seems to be that he existed.
I’m also curious about your definition of ‘contemporary.’ I mean, I know what it means (don’t throw anymore dictionaries at me) but would you accept evidence dating from five years after Jesus’ death? Ten? Twenty? One? Or will you accept only extant written records from Jesus’ own lifespan?
Is there a particular reason why the non-existence of evidence within your specialty has led you to disregard experts from other specialties?
(I know good and well that there might be other evidence against the existence of Jesus but, as I’ve said before, you haven’t mentioned any. You only seem prepared to state that you haven’t found positive evidence of his existence in your field. You’ve already lectured me about burden of proof…)
Don’t suppose you’d mind terribly much telling me what the current evidence is for the existence of Jesus, and how your discovery of no ‘extant contemporary evidence’ has led you to dismiss that evidence?
You may insist what you like!