ApostateAbe

Elijah, you put a lot of work into your counterpoints, and you should be commended for that. My final quarter in college is starting tomorrow, and I really need to concentrate my attention on that, so I am sorry to walk away from it all. My apologies, and happy new year of the tiger.

aa5874

You are actually guessing that Jesus did exist and then using your guess as an historical fact for Jesus.

The amount of purely mythical cult leaders or non-mythical cult leaders cannot make Jesus a figure of history.

The deification of a person of history does not make them a myth. Making stuff up about a person of history does not alter their historicity at all.

In the case of Jesus we have virtually all mythology and no history,

And when you try to place Jesus in Jerusalem in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple you end up with a dead duck with twelve dead ducklings.

As you would have already guessed your Gospel does not take into account that Jesus was placed in Judea as a Jew who was circumcised on the eight day.

There is no record in the Jewish history, as found in Josephus, that a Jewish man in Jerusalem would have been worshiped by Jews as a God and asked to forgive the sins of the Jews and to abandon the Laws of Moses including circumcision, even if he was a King or called Christ.

And Jews do not call a person a Messiah because it was believed he was raised from the dead or walked on water. A Jewish Messiah is a ruler who must destroy or help to destroy the enemies of the Jews.

And I am not guessing. Just read the writings of Flavius Josephus and Philo.

Your Gospel is very weak on historical facts but very strong on speculation and guesswork

Elijah

No prob. Focus on your schooling. Consider expanding that cult leader deal. :wave:

spamandham

Although they do seem to have existed, ancient cults founded by and dedicated to the same individual seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Just about every ancient Greek or Roman cult is an example of a cult not founded by it's object of worship. Was the cult of Asclepius founded by a historical Asclepius? Was the cult of Apollonius founded by Apollonius?

Sure it's possible that a HJ formed a cult devoted to himself and this was the origin of Christianity, but there isn't a good reason to suppose that's how it happened or even to assess a 'most likely' label to that particular scenario. The cult leader of Christianity as we know it, was Paul.

aa5874

There is NO known history of Jewish cults in Judea where the leader was deified. Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy Ghost of God was placed in Jerusalem and lived in Galilee.

Based on Philo, it is extremely unlikely that if Jesus was a Jew or even an Emperor that he would have been deified by Jews. The Jews have no history of deification of humans.

IF Jesus was placed in Rome or anywhere outside Judea and not been called a Jew, perhaps he may have been deified.

John the Baptist in the Gospels was not deified. John the Baptist in Josephus was not deified. Jesus son of Ananus who foresaw problems in Jerusalem was not deified. Stephen in Acts of the Apostles was not deified.

Peter, in the Gospels, who denied ever knowing Jesus, appear to be some kind of leader of the Apostles, but he was not deified.

An apocalyptic Jew in Jerusalem has no deification value.

By the way Paul has no history of being a cult leader. The numerous Pauls were letter writers. In the 1st century, there is no history of letter writers who were cult leaders through the courier service and this is confirmed now that it has been deduced that more than one person used the name Paul possibly pretending to be cult leaders.

It is just fantasy that Jesus being a Jew was worshiped as a God, even internally, Paul was beaten to a pulp and stoned. This letter writer received 195 lashes from the Jews.

These are the supposed words of a Pauline writer in 2 Cor. 11.24-25 The Jews did not deify the Pauline writer, they tried to kill him.

Only in a fiction or mythological story could Jesus, a Jew, be an apocalyptic preacher in Jerusalem and be deified.