Jesus was Myth

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Could be a thousand reasons. History is, alas, not physics. It's chaotic, unpredictable.

So's physics. Even before quantum physics, we developed statistical mechanics to deal with epistemically indeterministic systems even thought the common belief was that all systems, no matter how complex, were at least in theory predictable/ontologically deterministic. That was before "chaos theory", before "catastrophe theory", and before the quantum realm started acting out at the macroscopic level.

A person or event or idea might be ignored 99 times, while on the 100th time, it may rampage though the human heart and imagination.

This is true. History is, like everything, a matter of probability. What is the probability that a common story told in various forms (epic, drama, history, biography, and hard to classify in-betweens) about a historical individual who was claimed to be divine and/or the son of god and to whom miracles were attributed was ignored for the most part both before and after Mark when this was such a sensational story? Further, what are the chances that if Mark did indeed "catch fire", it was 300 years later after this new type of historical Jesus Christians suddenly were finally at least allowed to practice their religion (in theory) without being executed or persecuted? Having posited that both of these incredibly unlikely turns of events occurred, how likely is it that a story which required a Jewish understanding was first persecuted by the Jews, and then both the Jews and the Christians were viciously and ruthlessly persecuted by everybody else when Mark's story was so "exciting"? In fact, how can it be so exciting to people for whom it would be nonsense? If someone came and told you that "she of the bear had finally come!" and you had no clue whom the person was talking about, but you did know that they belonged to a marginalized "primitive" and fundamentalist lot, why would you suddenly be overwhelmed by this individual who means something to a culture you don't belong to and thus would have to be explained to you in order for it to be meaningful at all?

Most importantly, why on earth do we find the letters of Paul which, if Jesus didn't exist and Paul didn't know his brother or his disciples, indicate that we have a Jewish cult that talks about a messiah who doesn't do anything a messiah was supposed to, who is a divine figure when that was blasphemy (and Paul says that's why he persecuted the very group he joined), and that is so marginally connected to any Jewish expectations that Mark, among others, is filled with half-baked reasons why particular lines in the Jewish scriptures indicated what nobody though they did? Then, once we admit that there is the non-Jewish group worshipping someone other than YHWH yet situates itself with a Jewish matrix, where would an author who wrote that this non-Jewish non-pagan divine character was historical find an audience? The people who were worshipping this individual were already outcasts from every group and were never reaccepted in to the Jewish matrix the entire story is situated in (and only after 3 centuries were they legally allowed by pagans to practice their religion), so all Mark would have done would be to say that a idolatrous figure to the Jews was really a historical messiah, but who still didn't do what a messiah was supposed to, and thus no this godman is historical like so many others but
1) he makes no sense for the pseudo-Jewish Christ cult who worshipped him earlier
2) he isn't accepted by the Jews or pagans once Mark claims he's historical
3) he doesn't make sense as a pre-Markan Messiah in the first place nor does the movement we find reported in Paul (which, again, is neither Jewish nor pagan but the inception of a Christianity before Mark which, if Jesus was already a divine figure, would mean that Mark ruined everything because nobody was going to follow an Attis or Mithras who was historical)

How do you situate this story within the socio-political and cultural setting of the first century?

But I would say that the major difference between Alex/Caesar and Jesus is that Alex/Caesar were probably historical figures, certainly powerful political figures, while Jesus was a lowly Galilean preacher.

Plato was claimed to be a god and was not of any noble lineage. Socrates was attributed miracles and he was broke and executed. Also, the messiah was not supposed to be a "lowly Galilean preacher" but the restorer king/priest of Israel. There were other revolutionaries who had some following but they were executed or killed and their followers gradually forgotten. You're claiming that this Christ-Figure (who doesn't fit the Christ role) was already worshipped in a way that was unheard of blasphemy for the Jews, common for the pagans, but wouldn't make sense for the latter and was unacceptable for the former. Now someone says he's not only not a Christ Godman but a historical lowly peasant who was executed instead of restoring Israel, and what about that is going to attract people? The Jews were hoping to be saved, the Qumran sect left their caves to fight in yet one more struggle to restore Israel, and they were crushed, defeated, their temple destroyed, and you claim that a Christ-figure who existed as such before this would now, after no messiah appeared to restore Israel, would suddenly be more popular as a failure?

That's a lot sexier

To you, perhaps. Try being fundamentally defined by your connection to a homeland and the Lord God who brought your people to that land and suffers no rivals, whom you are connected to by a sacred history recorded and studied in household synagogues and whom you worship in his temple where he dwells, waiting for the anointed of God to come and liberate Israel, only to have all this be destroyed: temple, land, people, families, etc. Then someone comes up and says "hey, you know that weird group of people who worshipped a divine Christ? Turns out he lived and didn't save us! Instead or restoring our land, he allowed himself to be killed so that the Romans could utterly wipe out our sacred land! Wanna sign up?"

Not very sexy.

Also, I don't believe that Alex/Caesar were ever associated with the Jewish messiah.

According to you, a divine messiah was already being worshipped and not believed to exist, and as that is not Jewish nor messianic, who knows? Maybe Paul worshipped Alexander the Great and just called him Jesus.

Huh? Why do you think that Aztec sacrifices had anything to do with godmen? Or with sin, for that matter? Have you read about them?

You were asked "Where did the idea of sacrifice for other's sins come from?" and you used the Aztecs as an analogy. They sure sacrificed people, but as you say it had nothing to do with godmen or sin or anything related, so why bring it up?

 

[garrydons]

Please read history if Jesus or more correctly Yeshua is just a myth

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

This is true. History is, like everything, a matter of probability. What is the probability that a common story told in various forms (epic, drama, history, biography, and hard to classify in-betweens) about a historical individual who was claimed to be divine and/or the son of god and to whom miracles were attributed was ignored for the most part both before and after Mark when this was such a sensational story?

A common story? What do you mean? I know of no other story like the story of Jesus. What story do you find to be the same as the Jesus story?

Further, what are the chances that if Mark did indeed "catch fire", it was 300 years later after this new type of historical Jesus Christians suddenly were finally at least allowed to practice their religion (in theory) without being executed or persecuted?

Very high chances. But I don't follow your argument. What effect would (non)historicity have on the delay of Christianity becoming legitimate? You're saying that if Jesus were historical, that explains why Christianity suffered a delay, but if he were non-historical, the delay makes no sense? I don't follow.

Most importantly, why on earth do we find the letters of Paul which, if Jesus didn't exist and Paul didn't know his brother or his disciples, indicate that we have a Jewish cult that talks about a messiah who doesn't do anything a messiah was supposed to, who is a divine figure when that was blasphemy (and Paul says that's why he persecuted the very group he joined), and that is so marginally connected to any Jewish expectations that Mark, among others, is filled with half-baked reasons why particular lines in the Jewish scriptures indicated what nobody though they did? Then, once we admit that there is the non-Jewish group worshipping someone other than YHWH yet situates itself with a Jewish matrix, where would an author who wrote that this non-Jewish non-pagan divine character was historical find an audience? The people who were worshipping this individual were already outcasts from every group and were never reaccepted in to the Jewish matrix the entire story is situated in (and only after 3 centuries were they legally allowed by pagans to practice their religion), so all Mark would have done would be to say that a idolatrous figure to the Jews was really a historical messiah, but who still didn't do what a messiah was supposed to, and thus no this godman is historical like so many others but
1) he makes no sense for the pseudo-Jewish Christ cult who worshipped him earlier
2) he isn't accepted by the Jews or pagans once Mark claims he's historical
3) he doesn't make sense as a pre-Markan Messiah in the first place nor does the movement we find reported in Paul (which, again, is neither Jewish nor pagan but the inception of a Christianity before Mark which, if Jesus was already a divine figure, would mean that Mark ruined everything because nobody was going to follow an Attis or Mithras who was historical)

I don't mean to offend, Legion, but I find your prose to be just too much of a chore. The block above is some 400 words, with various subthoughts angling off in dizzying directions. It's nothing personal. I just don't have the time to unpack all of that and address each item, and I can't make coherent sense of the whole.

Plato was claimed to be a god and was not of any noble lineage. Socrates was attributed miracles and he was broke and executed.

Sure. And some people think I am a prophet of God. But I doubt my story will ever catch the imagination of god-needers. Very few prophets make it to the big time.

Also, the messiah was not supposed to be a "lowly Galilean preacher" but the restorer king/priest of Israel.

Right. That's part of the story's power. The unexpected moves us moreso than the expected. And the king-in-rags-with-an-ultimate-godly-authority is a powerful image, of course.

Now someone says he's not only not a Christ Godman but a historical lowly peasant who was executed instead of restoring Israel, and what about that is going to attract people?

If you don't know, I doubt I can explain it.

But again your agument seems offpoint to me. Are you denying that the story of Jesus attracted people? You're describing Jesus and seem to be arguing that his story did not attract people. But if not, why do we have Christianity today? How did Christianity start if people didn't find Jesus' story to be attractive?

You were asked "Where did the idea of sacrifice for other's sins come from?" and you used the Aztecs as an analogy. They sure sacrificed people, but as you say it had nothing to do with godmen or sin or anything related, so why bring it up?

Someone asked me about sacrifice so I discussed sacrifice with him. It seems to me to be the polite thing -- to address the questions which people ask me.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

A common story? What do you mean? I know of no other story like the story of Jesus. What story do you find to be the same as the Jesus story?

Yes, and look how they have all failed in comparison to Christianity. Their weakness is the historical person at their origin.

Yes. That obviously makes the best sense. It was an exciting idea -- to claim that the godman Christ had actually lived on the earth just a few years earlier. I think that the Christ myth would have mostly died out except for someone's idea to claim that he had been historical.

Smith made the Huge Claim to start Mormonism. Mark made the Huge Claim to start Christianity.

You claimed that Mark "caught fire" because it made this divine figure of Christ historical. You even state that had the author not done so, "the Christ myth would have mostly died out". Your big claim (the claims about "the big lie") has been to insist over and over and over again that Mark, by claiming a mythic Christ-figure was historical, did something revolutionary. It was "exciting", it "caught fire", and were it not for this work, the "Christ myth would have mostly died out". That's your story. An ingenious (or accidental) author who wrote about this Christ myth and set in in some historical setting, and somehow this was revolutionary.

Only it wasn't. I named plenty of examples of claims that historical figures were sons of gods, heavens, and/or gods. Now you "know of no other story like the story of Jesus". What was so special about it? You insisted it was that this idea of a historical godman "caught fire" and was so exciting. I refer you other people who were historical and who also were deemed gods. Now this isn't significant? That was the foundation of your argument: Mark is a historical religious fiction which situates a Christ myth into a historical setting and that is why Christianity succeeded. I tell you there were many more godmen we know are historical, from Plato to Alexander, and all the sudden you ask "which story"? How about the one you've insisted founded Christianity: the story of a godman who was historical? Or was their something else besides what your entire argument has rested on until it turns out it is baseless that you can offer?

Very high chances. But I don't follow your argument. What effect would (non)historicity have on the delay of Christianity becoming legitimate?

That's not my argument. You have insisted that Mark was revolutionary in taking a divine figure and writing a historical fiction that "caught fire." You have multiple problems then, the most important of which are
1) it didn't catch fire. You can rely on cultural elitism all you want, but something that "catches flame" refers to a highly popular and rapidly spreading thing. Not 300 years of systematic opposition.
2) If it's so exciting, then why were the others all not exciting and why did the Jesus historical godman suddenly become so exciting that the followers were universally hated and persecuted for 300 years?

This is basic logic: we have other godmen who were historical, so the idea was hardly some thing new or exciting, and instead of catching fire it was systematically persecuted. What is the basis to your argument?

Sure. And some people think I am a prophet of God. But I doubt my story will ever catch the imagination of god-needers. Very few prophets make it to the big time.

Right. But Jesus' did and your sole reason for thinking so turns out to be utterly wrong.

Right. That's part of the story's power.

If it were a story. The thing is, other than asserting it is a story you've nothing but how "exciting" a historical godman would be, which turns out to be pretty standard and didn't end up exciting at all. The Jewish people didn't consider their scriptures stories. When they believed that their God would deliver them from the hands of their oppressors and restore Israel through they anointed one only to be slaughtered, expelled and loose the home of their god, they don't flock to a religion because of plot twists.

The unexpected moves us moreso than the expected.

True. And when one is expecting YHWH to send his anointed one to reclaim Israel, and the unexpected part is that this failed completely and everything was lost, they moved (if they weren't killed) because they were driven out.

And the king-in-rags-with-an-ultimate-godly-authority is a powerful image, of course.

Which we know because...?

But again your agument seems offpoint to me. Are you denying that the story of Jesus attracted people?

Not at all. I don't need to resort to nonsensical Christ myths that wouldn't be acceptable for pagans or Jews. I can point to a figure who originated a movement and attracted people. You point to an anonymous text and claim that of all the godmen, this one somehow was so special that Mark "caught fire" (only it didn't).

You're describing Jesus and seem to be arguing that his story did not attract people.

The story didn't. The individual did. That's how movements have worked since recorded history.

How did Christianity start if people didn't find Jesus' story to be attractive?

Jesus. Duh. Nobody cared about a Jesus fiction of some anonymous author, which is why your explanation has so many contradictions.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Jesus. Duh. Nobody cared about a Jesus fiction of some anonymous author, which is why your explanation has so many contradictions.

My explanation actually has no contradictions at all and clearly makes the most sense of any that have been proposed regarding the historical Jesus.

But I don't expect everyone to embrace it. Lots of people prefer their own guesses about Jesus.

 

[steeltoes]

Jesus. Duh. Nobody cared about a Jesus fiction of some anonymous author, which is why your explanation has so many contradictions.

But all we have is the story so obviously people did care about the Jesus fiction of some anonymous author, it's the story that Christianity revolves about and it need not even be true. Not to say that the story is not true, just that it need not be.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My explanation actually has no contradictions at all and clearly makes the most sense of any that have been proposed regarding the historical Jesus.

I have asked you numerous times to explain one simple logical contradiction you never have.

You claim two things (among others):
1) Mark (the text) "caught fire" and was "exciting", and further that you know this through your observations of the human psyche: human nature makes this story so exciting and it is only a lack of familiarity with human nature that makes other unable to see how extraordinary Mark (the text) was.
2) That the reason it took so long for Christianity to be legal, for this exciting story to stop being mocked, those who told it executed, and the religion it represented to be legal was because these people were primitive.

This is prima facie invalid. By definition, something that "catches fire" spreads like a fire (hence, as you know, the reason for the term; a metaphor of something that is exciting, burning hot among people, spreading from mouth to mouth with uncontrollable excitement). There is no possible explanation (not primitive times, not fundamentalism, not anything) that can make something both "catch fire" and be systematically opposed for 300 years. It's a contradiction in terms.

You have also claimed this:

What can I say. If you don't understand the excitement of believing in an historical godman, then I can only imagine that you may have spent a bit more time in declension argumentation than you might've. Sorry to put it that way, but it's what I really believe. Not only are (some, many) biblical scholars biased toward an historical Jesus, by virtue of investing their lives in him, but academics tend to be poorly-equipped to understand the thought of average folk, the sort of folk who would flock to the idea of an historical godman, even if the godman were not historical.

I have provided for you the some few of the total names of those, from emperors to philosophers to miracle-workers to physicians, who were either believed to be historical or were historical and who were believed to be godmen. You use your observations to make an inference about what people would have done when presented with the idea of a historical godman. But they had already. So while it may be true that there

Could be a thousand reasons.

these other stories didn't catch fire, and that you offered one for some, this is now no longer you using your understanding of human nature. Your understanding of human nature, or rather that part of it which makes you so sure that such a historical godman would be such a powerful thing even now let alone in antiquity is a model of sorts. It is inferences from certain observations that can be tested against others. It has: there were other godmen and no such reaction.

Nor have you situated your claims in the cultural context by e.g., explaining the way that a Jewish notion of messiah fits into your explanations.

But I don't expect everyone to embrace it. Lots of people prefer their own guesses about Jesus.

Who would prefer another's? Once one has offered another a guess that one prefers, it becomes there own guess. But not only are your guesses contradicted by the evidence, they are incomplete. You are missing something so fundamental that even if you were right about historical godmen being so "exciting", you would still not have explained anything. You haven't explained how this particular godman was called the messiah, a Jewish notion.

I guess that Jewish monotheism, which was by Jesus' day long since fully developed, would have adherents who viewed claims of a divine figure the way they did then and before: as blasphemous. I guess that when a messiah was supposed to restore Israel, the best explanation for why a this was reconceived into something non-Jewish and non-pagan was because an actual messianic historical person named Jesus had followers who believed that he was the messiah, only to have their hopes fail when Israel was not restored. I guess that the way we arrive at a non-Jewish non-pagan Christianity out of a Jewish matrix is because Jesus' followers couldn't cope. They experienced some kind of cognitive dissonance or even delusion brought on by despair. So they searched through their scriptures, they thought about the words of their teacher, and rather than give up in despair, at least some reconceptualized what restoring the kingdom of god meant. That way, they could hold on to Jesus as messiah because they changed what was expected of him. They turned his failure into success. I guess that this created quite a problem the most important of which is how to make a messiah who failed one who did not, and that it was this process which led to a divine Jesus.

That way, I don't have logical contradictions running through every part of my explanation.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

But all we have is the story so obviously people did care about the Jesus fiction of some anonymous author

No. That's only "obvious" if you assume that it was fiction rather than ancient historiography (which was never free from myth, legend, rumor, etc.). If you assume there was a Jesus, then you can explain far more evidence. Because we can now explain an anonymous author mattered: we already had an oral Jesus tradition and even tidbits in Paul and much more in Q. Nobody was passing Mark around saying "hey, man, you've got to read this! Turns out some dude named Jesus was anointed or something. You wanna worship him? Everybody's doing it."

Mark mattered because it was a written version that could made dissemination easier, but it was written and like written works in general it wasn't preferable.

 

[theosis]

The vast majority of serious academics believe that Jesus the human being existed and lived between ~5 BCE and ~30 CE. What else is there to debate?

 

[steeltoes]

No. That's only "obvious" if you assume that it was fiction rather than ancient historiography (which was never free from myth, legend, rumor, etc.). If you assume there was a Jesus, then you can explain far more evidence. Because we can now explain an anonymous author mattered: we already had an oral Jesus tradition and even tidbits in Paul and much more in Q. Nobody was passing Mark around saying "hey, man, you've got to read this! Turns out some dude named Jesus was anointed or something. You wanna worship him? Everybody's doing it."

Mark mattered because it was a written version that could made dissemination easier, but it was written and like written works in general it wasn't preferable.

That's easy for you to say because you know what people were saying back in the first century. Really, all you have this pet theory about an oral tradition because you need to fill in a gap from the time Jesus died until a gospel was written. It doesn't fly because not a bit of it can be tested as this isn't science, this is speculation based on opinion at best. Personally, I don't think we can know.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

That's easy for you to say because you know what people were saying back in the first century. Really, all you have this pet theory about an oral tradition because you need to fill in a gap from the time Jesus died until a gospel was written. It doesn't fly because not a bit of it can be tested as this isn't science, this is speculation based on opinion at best. Personally, I don't think we can know.

Personally, I find the 'oral tradition' thing to be nonsensical. Generally, 'oral tradition' refers to formalized recitation, often in some kind of verse. That takes time to find its form. There is no reason to believe that such a thing could or did happen in the 40 years between Jesus and Mark.

Now if Legion merely means 'stories' or 'news' or 'gossip' when he talks about oral tradition, that's more possible, but I still see little reason why someone would wait 40 years to begin putting words on paper -- especially if Jesus were considered a big deal in his own lifetime.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I have asked you numerous times to explain one simple logical contradiction you never have.

Actually I've explained it repeatedly, demonstrating that it is no contradiction at all... but I'll do it one last time. I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself.

You claim two things (among others):
1) Mark (the text) "caught fire" and was "exciting", and further that you know this through your observations of the human psyche: human nature makes this story so exciting and it is only a lack of familiarity with human nature that makes other unable to see how extraordinary Mark (the text) was.
2) That the reason it took so long for Christianity to be legal, for this exciting story to stop being mocked, those who told it executed, and the religion it represented to be legal was because these people were primitive.

Close. In the ballpark at least. But not the way I would explain my position.

This is prima facie invalid. By definition, something that "catches fire" spreads like a fire (hence, as you know, the reason for the term; a metaphor of something that is exciting, burning hot among people, spreading from mouth to mouth with uncontrollable excitement).

I'm not sure what you mean. You're saying that any idea which 'catches fire' necessarily spreads across the globe within a decade or so? So you would deny that Joseph Smith's revelation caught fire, since it remained relatively small, with his followers persecuted?

You're focused on two words ('caught fire') to disprove my theory -- since you think they (objectively? transcendently?) mean something different than what I mean by them?

There is no possible explanation (not primitive times, not fundamentalism, not anything) that can make something both "catch fire" and be systematically opposed for 300 years. It's a contradiction in terms.

I'm an ex language student, so I don't see contradiction as existing in words. Contradiction only exists within human minds. Now if I could not explain this contradiction that you are trying to implant within my words, then I would be contradicting myself, but since I can explain it, there is no contradiction.

Again I point to Mormonism. Smith's revelation caught fire, yet it remains a small religion even today and was systematically, violently opposed for at least 50 years, and some would argue that it is still opposed today.

Now imagine 2,000 years ago and the case with Christianity. We even have stories of adherents willing to die rather than recant. If you think that means the Jesus story had NOT caught fire in their hearts, I really don't know what else to say about it.

I have provided for you the some few of the total names of those, from emperors to philosophers to miracle-workers to physicians, who were either believed to be historical or were historical and who were believed to be godmen.

But none of those parallel the Jesus story, so i find them irrelevant.

Nor have you situated your claims in the cultural context by e.g., explaining the way that a Jewish notion of messiah fits into your explanations.

I'm not much interested in that. But I will tell you of a curious experience or observation from my own life: Even as a child, I noticed that my (Christian) family and culture were strangely fixated on Judaism and the messiah story. Many of the local churches were named from the OT. Gideon. Zion.

Apparently, Christians find it exciting to think that a Jewish messiah/godman actually existed in the flesh back in the day. They have no problem embracing an offshoot of Judaism.

So I assume that the ancient gentiles had no problem either.

Who would prefer another's? Once one has offered another a guess that one prefers, it becomes there own guess. But not only are your guesses contradicted by the evidence, they are incomplete. You are missing something so fundamental that even if you were right about historical godmen being so "exciting", you would still not have explained anything. You haven't explained how this particular godman was called the messiah, a Jewish notion.

Just explained it for you. And not with theory but with observation. Lots of stuff in life is counterintuitive. We just have to accept that.

I guess that Jewish monotheism, which was by Jesus' day long since fully developed, would have adherents who viewed claims of a divine figure the way they did then and before: as blasphemous. I guess that when a messiah was supposed to restore Israel, the best explanation for why a this was reconceived into something non-Jewish and non-pagan was because an actual messianic historical person named Jesus had followers who believed that he was the messiah, only to have their hopes fail when Israel was not restored. I guess that the way we arrive at a non-Jewish non-pagan Christianity out of a Jewish matrix is because Jesus' followers couldn't cope. They experienced some kind of cognitive dissonance or even delusion brought on by despair. So they searched through their scriptures, they thought about the words of their teacher, and rather than give up in despair, at least some reconceptualized what restoring the kingdom of god meant. That way, they could hold on to Jesus as messiah because they changed what was expected of him. They turned his failure into success. I guess that this created quite a problem the most important of which is how to make a messiah who failed one who did not, and that it was this process which led to a divine Jesus.

Those are fine guesses. I think you are mistaken, but it's not a big deal to me.

That way, I don't have logical contradictions running through every part of my explanation.

Yeah. I don't like to live with logical contradictions myself. That's why I've purged all contradictions from my Jesus Theory.

 

[steeltoes]

Personally, I find the 'oral tradition' thing to be nonsensical. Generally, 'oral tradition' refers to formalized recitation, often in some kind of verse. That takes time to find its form. There is no reason to believe that such a thing could or did happen in the 40 years between Jesus and Mark.

Now if Legion merely means 'stories' or 'news' or 'gossip' when he talks about oral tradition, that's more possible, but I still see little reason why someone would wait 40 years to begin putting words on paper -- especially if Jesus were considered a big deal in his own lifetime.

Yes, people that believe the story is an historical account have to come up with these theories in order to answer to the obvious questions that arise from that belief.

We have a storied account that caught on towards the end of the second century. People love that story whether it's true or not and no one has any way of knowing whether or not any of that story is true.

 

[steeltoes]

The vast majority of serious academics believe that Jesus the human being existed and lived between ~5 BCE and ~30 CE. What else is there to debate?

They have to believe or they are out of a job.

Two, they know which side their bread is buttered on as there is no shortage of believers that never tire of buying books in order to read that Jesus was historical.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm not sure what you mean. You're saying that any idea which 'catches fire' necessarily spreads across the globe within a decade or so?

No. I'm saying it means more than being mostly disliked, found disgusting, or hated, and that there should be some evidence even a small group of people found it "exciting""

So you would deny that Joseph Smith's revelation caught fire, since it remained relatively small, with his followers persecuted?

I would deny that "caught fire" describes Joseph Smith's movement, but it also doesn't matter. Mark was a text, and we have no evidence that either its author or the text was particularly influential. There were Christian churches before Mark, there were Christian churches after Mark. There was already an account of Jesus death and betrayal, and we already have Paul telling us that if Jesus didn't rise from his death, faith in him is in vain.

What we don't have is a Joseph Smith who went around proclaiming his Book of Mormon was of God and gathering a following.

Now if I could not explain this contradiction that you are trying to implant within my words, then I would be contradicting myself

You have. You compare the idea in an anonymous text authored by nobody we ever really hear about except as the author of the text to Joseph Smith's idea.

But Mormons had that 1 text and that 1 person: Joseph Smith. And he didn't just have an idea, but actively spread it himself to gain follower; a nexus around whom they oriented. Christians had texts before Mark and after Mark, and they all claim the nexus was this Messianic figure Jesus. Not a valid comparison.

We even have stories of adherents willing to die rather than recant.

And nobody claiming it was for Mark, but for this Jesus Christ that Paul and the authors of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John spoke of.

But none of those parallel the Jesus story, so i find them irrelevant.

They follow them as far as this "exciting" idea of a historical godman. The main thing they lack is the conception of a Jewish messiah. But as your account ignores this completely, it just makes it that much more of a contradiction. Most Jews didn't become followers of the Jesus movement (and we know of at least one Jewish group who continued to think of Jesus as a human sent from God, not divine). The earliest references in pagan literature to this Christ show that the concept was completely alien.

I'm not much interested in that.

Which is why you don't see your contradictions.

Even as a child, I noticed that my (Christian) family and culture were strangely fixated on Judaism and the messiah story

So Christians were interested in a Christian bible. How does that explain the origins of Christianity?

Apparently, Christians find it exciting to think that a Jewish messiah/godman actually existed in the flesh back in the day.

This is simply not true. They don't believe in a Jesus as a godman (godmen wasn't part of the English languages until recently and godman died out before it was). As for historicity, even Paul said that Jesus died and was buried, and that if he didn't rise from dead Christianity was pointless. Those who were not ever upon the earth cannot be buried in it after death.

You assume first that there was a godman Christ around before Mark (even though nowhere in Paul or the gospels is Jesus called god), and that Mark made this figure historical. Only both Paul and Mark spoke of a messiah, a Jewish human person who existed to restore Israel.

They have no problem embracing an offshoot of Judaism.

So I assume that the ancient gentiles had no problem either.

You assume incorrectly. That was the first conflict we have recorded, and it was before Mark. Paul tells us of discord in Jesus movement about whether gentiles had to obey all the laws of Moses and be circumcised as a result.

The first version of a Christian cannon rejected the entire OT. In fact, the Marcionites, the earliest clear "gnostic" Christian group we know of was built around a rejection of YHWH as the true God and a rejection of the Jewish scriptures. Many a gentile refused to listen to this "claptrap" about some human Messiah raised by this Jewish God, and developed other versions in which something more pagan happened.
For example, the followers of Valentinus said that the human Jesus was nothing but a host for a divine entity who entered Jesus in the form of a dove during baptism.

Nor did this end in antiquity. Of the 60,000+ books on Jesus written in the 19th century, how many would you guess talked about the Jewishness of Jesus, Paul or even of Christianity (other than to note that 1) it replaced Judaism and 2) the Jews killed Jesus, a motive for anti-Semitism for centuries)? Sure, the view that won the day was that Jesus was a continuation of the Old Testament, and thus what were the Jewish scriptures became part of the Christian canon; but it was the less important half, the older testament before Jesus came with the New.

Just explained it for you. And not with theory but with observation.

What you explained was how Christians were interested in their bible. That doesn't explain how the first followers of this Christ (the ones that were before Mark) worshipped this messiah who was not earthly (despite the fact that this defeated the entire notion) not the other problems listed below.

That's why I've purged all contradictions from my Jesus Theory.

Perhaps you really do think you have. But the problem is that your Jesus theory is inconsistent with the ancient evidence:

Yes. That obviously makes the best sense. It was an exciting idea -- to claim that the godman Christ had actually lived on the earth just a few years earlier. I think that the Christ myth would have mostly died out except for someone's idea to claim that he had been historical.

This supposes that the godman Christ was believed not to exist on Earth. But Christ is the Greek for Messiah (as you know), and the Messiah was a Jewish notion of a human who would restore Israel. It further supposes that making the Messiah who failed into a human messiah (that was already entailed by the term itself) who also failed was what won the day. Yet
1) We now have no explanation for why a Jewish notion of a human restorer was somehow a godman before Mark, which isn't just inconsistent with the notion of a messiah but a blasphemy within Judaism.
2) We have no explanation for why Paul never calls Jesus god or godman (theos aner), why he says Jesus ate with his disciples, died, forbade divorce, was descended from David, etc., because there was no earthly Jesus to make this possible
3) We have no explanation for why the other historical godmen, who (as we are told as early as Celsus) were as great or greater than Jesus) did not cause anybody to flock to them (except for you modern conception of what is sexier)
4) We have no explanation for why the idea of a human Messiah godman was attractive to anybody, as this meant a failed messiah
5) We have no explanation for why, unlike with Joseph Smith, we have multiple texts but no founding figure (as we have no evidence that the author of Mark went around gathering followers and proclaiming his text to be of God like Joseph Smith did)
6) We have no explanation for why Jesus is never called God in the gospels
7) We have no explanation for why at least as early as the 2nd century Christians were already turning Jesus into a more pagan-like deity who either inhabited a human host or never had a human body but appeared on Earth in human form

and others problems. All this because you base your entire theory on what you think is a powerful idea and therefore even more powerful then, yet the evidence says otherwise.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Personally, I find the 'oral tradition' thing to be nonsensical. Generally, 'oral tradition' refers to formalized recitation

Can you back this up? "Oral/aural tradition", orality, oral transmission, and oral societies are all terms used to refer to specific things. So if you are basing this on observations, your observations conflict with those of many others who spent years and years as part of illiterate communities speaking other languages (which these individuals learned as part of being accepted into these communities). Or you are basing it on the study of orality, in which case I'd appreciate knowing what evidence you have because it conflicts with work done since before orality became a field of research over 40 years ago.

 

[outhouse]

Yes, people that believe the story is an historical account have to come up with these theories in order to answer to the obvious questions that arise from that belief.

We have a storied account that caught on towards the end of the second century. People love that story whether it's true or not and no one has any way of knowing whether or not any of that story is true.

NO one with any credibility at all, claims anything but a early first century origin for the movement.

 

[outhouse]

Can you back this up? "Oral/aural tradition", orality, oral transmission, and oral societies are all terms used to refer to specific things. So if you are basing this on observations, your observations conflict with those of many others who spent years and years as part of illiterate communities speaking other languages (which these individuals learned as part of being accepted into these communities). Or you are basing it on the study of orality, in which case I'd appreciate knowing what evidence you have because it conflicts with work done since before orality became a field of research over 40 years ago.

It is a argument from ignorance the other website promotes.

Some people find it hard to understand that people talked in illiterate societies, and they with a severe lack of historical knowledge, they don't understand the OT could be recited orally alone.


What's worse is the ignorance that written material was not always viewed as important as oral tradition. I believe Carrier even goes into this in detail.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

They have to believe or they are out of a job.

Do you have any idea what kind of things are said about Jesus in the specialist literature? Or in the popular literature by specialists? Why is ok to smash Christianity, call the NT a distortion of Jesus' message, say that Jesus wasn't resurrected but eaten by dogs, that the founders of Christianity were liars who distorted whatever Jesus' real message was, but you can't say he didn't exist?

Remember The Da Vinci Code? It sparked a firestorm among Christians, but in it Jesus was historical. But Jesus was described as something contrary to what most Christians believe. That's most of historical Jesus scholarship.

Two, they know which side their bread is buttered on as there is no shortage of believers that never tire of buying books in order to read that Jesus was historical.

Richard Carrier has published almost nothing in his field. His one major publication (one he needed for his doctorate), his dissertation, was years after he had published the need to use Bayes' Theorem (or, rather, his pathetically inaccurate version), but guess what? He didn't use it for his dissertation on science in antiquity. Why? Because all of his pompous, idiotic ramblings about being skeptical and logical apparently aren't important when he has to write scholarship on ancient history that doesn't have to do with Jesus. On the contrary, his ideological views (his desire to turn the Greeks and Romans into non-theistic scientists) resulted in a credulity I've seen rivaled only by the most fundamentalist Christian scholars.

But at least he has a doctorate. He's credentialed. How many people do you think there are with degrees like those of Doherty, Freke, Gandy, D. S. Murdoch, Wells, and others (including those who were the basis for The Da Vinci Code) who publish about the historical Jesus? I have more or as many relevant credentials as they, yet the only way I could get a book on Jesus published was if I joined the mythicist crowd. Why? Because all the people who are specialists no how full of it these other authors are (as do the authors, in many cases), and so they don't publish sensationalist junk about how he never existed. Do they publish anti-Christian stuff for both specialists and the general publish? Absolutely they do.

That's how Ehrman became so popular. He started with a book on the historical Jesus, but hardly anybody read it, and after The Da Vinci Code he realized that the way to cash in was write sensationalist bunk for the mythicist and anti-Christian crowds. So he did. And his works were a best-seller. So good that people believed he was a mythicist because mythicists are such poor researchers they can't even be bothered to see if the scholar they can't wait to read actually already wrote a book clearly stating Jesus was historical, and thus didn't realize it until his latest junk. At that point, suddenly he lost his fans.

For every pro-Christian book you point to, I can point to an anti-Christian one. For every mythicist book you point to, I can't point to a single historicist text by someone without a relevant PhD.

But sure. Believe that it's pro-Christian that wins the day. That's why a book published as fiction was so successful it created a market for people seeking to purchase sensationalist garbage and swallow whatever junk they could published by whatever idiot was just literate enough to copy and paste together a blog.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

No. I'm saying it means more than being mostly disliked, found disgusting, or hated, and that there is some evidence even a small group of people found it "exciting""

Really I can't seem to follow much of your reasoning. You're arguing that if anyone hates and opposes an idea, that idea cannot be said to have 'caught fire' among other people? If early Mormons were hated (which they were), then we cannot say that Smith's revelation caught fire?

That's my best guess as to your meaning, but it doesn't make sense to me, so I'm asking for clarification.

I would deny that "caught fire" describes Joseph Smith's movement, but it also doesn't matter.

Of course it matters. We're comparing the origins of the two movements and you have focused much of your argument on denying that early Christianity 'caught fire'.

Plus, if you deny that Smith's revelations caught fire, well, we may just be speaking different languages, and that would be a very important thing for me to know.

Mark was a text, and we have no evidence that either its author or the text was particularly influential.

The Gospel of Mark wasn't influential for Christianity? I don't know. It may not be fruitful for us to be talking. We seem to see things in radically different ways.

There were Christian churches before Mark, there were Christian churches after Mark.

And probably there were churches before 30 CE. But I don't know that they were focused on an historical Jesus or were even aware of an historical Jesus. What makes you think so?

There was already an account of Jesus death and betrayal...

That startles me. What account? What was it called? Tell me about it. I'd like to do some reading on it.

...and we already have Paul telling us that if Jesus didn't rise from his death, faith in him is in vain.

Sure. That was standard godman stuff. But Paul obviously didn't know anything about a 30 CE Jesus.

But Mormons had that 1 text and that 1 person (the one who didn't just have an idea but who actively spread it himself to gain followers around whom they oriented. Christians had texts before Mark and after Mark, and they all claim the origin person was this Messianic figure Jesus. Not a valid comparison.

My comparison is entirely valid, of course. As for texts before Mark, I hope you're not referencing Q. If it existed, it was a sayings gospel, as you know. What texts did they have before Mark which told Jesus' story?

And nobody claiming it was for Mark, but for this Jesus Christ Paul and the authors of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John spoke of.

Who said anything about the early Christians claiming that their fervor was for the man 'Mark'? What are you talking about?

They follow them as far as this "exciting" idea of a historical godman. The main thing they lack is the conception of a Jewish messiah.

No. The main thing is that a non-existing character was claimed to have existed a few years earlier. It's the only way a Jewish messiah could ever succeed. Real men have too many warts. In my opinion, all the ones you've mentioned (Alexander, Caesar) probably lived in the time and place as claimed for them. So there's no parallel there with Jesus.

So Christians were interested in a Christian bible. How does that explain the origins of Christianity?

I'm lost. You're claiming that gMark wasn't seen as religious literature in early Christianity?

You assume first that there was a godman Christ around before Mark, even though nowhere in Paul or the gospels is Jesus called god, and that Mark made this figure historical. Only both Paul and Mark spoke of a messiah, a Jewish human person who existed to restore Israel.

Paul spoke of no human person. And the messiah and the godman concepts got entertwined. It's theology. Theology was major entertainment back then. It's why we have so many gospels after Mark.

You assume incorrectly. That was the first conflict we have recorded, and it was before Mark. Paul tells us of discord in Jesus movement about whether gentiles had to obey all the laws of Moses and be circumcised as a result.

So in your rationality, if there was any trouble and discord in a movement -- any dissenters at all -- that means that there was no movement. Yes? Really, your argumentation often just confuses me. I don't know if I'm misunderstanding it or whether you and I just use rational thought in different ways.

The first version of a Christian cannon rejected the entire OT. In fact, the Marcionites, the earliest clear "gnostic" Christian group we know of was built around a rejection of YHWH as the true God and a rejection of the Jewish scriptures. Many a gentile refused to listen to this "claptrap" about some human Messiah raised by this Jewish God, and developed other versions in which something more pagan happened.
For example, the followers of Valentinus said that the human Jesus was nothing but a host for a divine entity who entered Jesus in the form of a dove during baptism.

Yeah. It's theology. It's messy. It's fierce disagreement over The Truth... just as we often see here in this forum.

What you explained was how Christians were interested in their bible.

No. I explained how Christians have no problem embracing an offshoot of Judaism -- a thing you argued that the early Christians would obviously never do.

Perhaps you really do think you have. But the problem is that your Jesus theory is inconsistent with the ancient evidence:

Maybe. But not so inconsistent and contradictory as your own.

This supposes that the godman Christ was believed not to exist on Earth. But Christ is the Greek for Messiah (as you know), and the Messiah was a Jewish notion of a human who would restore Israel. It further supposes that making the Messiah who failed into a human messiah (that was already entailed by the term itself) who also failed was what won the day. Yet
1) We now have no explanation for why a Jewish notion of a human restorer was somehow a godman before Mark, which isn't just inconsistent with the notion of a messiah but a blasphemy within Judaism.
2) We have no explanation for why Paul never calls Jesus god or godman (theos aner), why he says Jesus ate with his disciples, died, forbade divorce, was descended from David, etc., because there was no earthly Jesus to make this possible
3) We have no explanation for why the other historical godmen, whom (as we are told as early as Celsus) were as great or greater than Jesus) did not cause anybody to flock to them (except for you modern conception of what is sexier)
4) We have no explanation for why the idea of a human Messiah godman was attractive to anybody, as this meant a failed messiah
5) We have no explanation for why, unlike with Joseph Smith, we have multiple texts but no founding figure (as we have no evidence that the author of Mark went around gathering followers and proclaiming his text to be of God like Joseph Smith did)
6) We have no explanation for why Jesus as never called God in the gospels
7) We have no explanation for why at least as early as the 2nd century Christians were already turning Jesus into a more pagan-like deity who either inhabited a human host or never had a human body but appeared on Earth in human form.

It feels like we are talking about a million different things. This seems like a message set all on its own, and I'd rather stay focused. But if you'd like to keep this for a later dialogue, I'll be glad to address it.