TedM

Hi Tristan. Appreciate your thoughts. Interesting take but how was a dead preacher the fulfillment of that prophecy when life went on for everybody else?

Also, anyone is free to assume Jesus didn't live. I AM assuming that the early Christians were Jewish based on numerous corroborative accounts of such, including a few secular. But, if they didn't believe Jesus was a human, what were they responding to in the story? (I would think it would have to fit into their culture in some way--like the prophecy you mention).

Toto

Drugs? Alcohol? Ergot? Fasting? Too much time in the desert sun?

Visions happen.

Vorkosigan

Some individual who had it. When Hong Hsiu-chuan had a vision that he was the younger brother of Jesus and started the Taiping rebellion, nobody asked what started the vision. Ditto for Wovoka.

TedM

What is a vision of a "Savior figure"? Can you flesh that out some, to give some color on what there was that required following? What need did it fulfill and how did the one(s) with the vision satisfy that need? What would they had to have said, for example?

I've read a need fulfilled by Mormonism (other than multiple sex partners), was to show that God was not unfair to the Indians--that Jesus had come to America to preach to the Indians some 2000 years ago. That kind of thing..

outhouse

Here is my take.

A peasant Zealot Jew had been teaching and healing around Galilee in poor villages. What his political stance we don't know because in this case the authors were writing to and for Jesus enemies, and didn't want the Romans persecuting them, so that is lost. Galileans were known as Zealots and with their socioeconomic divide due to Antipas forcing many off their land so he could have farms to feed Sepphoris and Tiberious, its no wonder we don't see Jesus teaching or healing in these large cities of Hellenistic Jews. Add to that of the extreme taxation of these poor peasants, Galileans had it rough.

What we have here are gospels that really deal with the last week of his life and death at Passover and crucifixion and resurrection through a different view then the original movement. Written by people that had no relationship at all with the original movement.

The original movement was in Galilee for Galileans.


What happened is the man went into the temple and cause some amount of disturbances and Pilate punished him severely for it.

There were hundreds of thousand of people in attendance "Sanders claims 400,000". The man was martyred for fighting the known corruption in the temple. My guess is while Passover was still going on, legends of resurrection surfaced for who knows which reason, and it was pretty much the talk of the event.


After Passover people went back home all over the Diaspora with these legends and in a slight few, the story hit home and mythology grew. This explains why within a few decades the legends were all over the Diaspora.

Paul was not the only teacher, and he didn't spread the word as much as many people attribute. He tells us there were other teachers, and he only went to houses not churches, half the time correcting what he thought was wrong with their view and defending his version of the movement.

The movement grew in Hellenism in my opinion, because there was already a cultural divide in Hellenistic Judaism, and Judaism. Hellenistic Proselytes had been worshipping Judaism for centuries but would not fully convert. WE know there was tension between Jew/Hebrews and Hellenistic Judaism, Acts even talks about how the women in a soup line were not being taken care of over favor for the "real Jews"


This martyred man was the match that lit off theology that was found appealing to a few people, and within these few people, and from the Jewish theology, the Proselytes had grew the theology and mythology to fit their needs, much based on oral tradition, the mythology and theology grew a new, and within a few decades or so the movement grew and legends started hitting papyrus. having little to do with the original movement or man.

outhouse

Speculation

The reason Paul's version survived, is because it was not a Jewish version, but a Hellenistic one due to his background in the Diaspora.

Had this been a Jewish version, it would have been chopped and redacted to bits and pieces formed to Hellenism.

This is a religion of the Diaspora within Hellenism, who adopted Judaism for the pieces of theology and mythology they liked.

Its amazing it stuck and is worldwide, all from a poor working mans, man.

J-D

Is there any historical evidence attesting to the existence of the visionary you're describing that is of a similar kind to historical evidence attesting to the existence of Hong Xiuquan?

Are claims by Hong Xiuquan that he had visions sufficient evidence to establish that he did have visions? and is there any evidence of the visionary you're describing claiming to have had visions?

Is there any evidence that Hong Xiuquan, or anybody else, got the whole text of a book out of visions?

If nobody asked what started Hong Xiuquan's visions, is that a reason why I shouldn't ask what started people's visions?

aa5874

What started the story you ask?

I will form an opinion based on the evidence from antiquity.

It was the fall of the Jewish Temple and the Words of the LORD in the books of the Prophets.

Examine Isaiah 1 Examine Isaiah 6This is found in the early version of the Jesus story.

Mark 4.12 KJV Examine Hippolytus' Treatise Against the Jews See also the books of Daniel ch.7 and Joel 2.31.

The story of Jesus was invented because of the Fall of the Jewish Temple and the words in the books of the Prophets.

Joel 2:31 KJV The words of the Prophets are Bolted to the Jesus story.

Matthew 26:56 KJV We know exactly what started the story--the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE and the so-called Words of the Lord documented in the writings of Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and the books of the Prophets.

J-D

How did the fall of the temple and the words found in other books start a story that has things in it that are not the fall of the temple and not found in those other books?

maryhelena

Obviously?

Methinks the JC historicists, and NT scholars, are not buying this vision idea as the root of early christianity. Visions don't take either the one claiming a vision, or those who buy into that vision, very far at all - just until the next big vision comes along. A Battle of the Visions - such a simplistic view of what started early christianity - a view that will continue to keep the ahistoricist JC position on the back foot in any debate over the gospel JC story.

The gospel JC story, a story set within Jewish history, is, like the stories of the OT, a story about Jewish history. A story about Jewish history retold, interpreted, through a prophetic lens. It is a very Jewish story - and it's roots are entangled within Jewish history. While that story, via it's resurrection element, has reached for the sky, it's roots are securely based on terra firm. Without that base, visions have no 'legs' by which to run very far at all. Visions, however imagined, might be, for some people, the cherry on the cake - but it's the 'cake' that holds and sustains that cherry.

'Visions', without relevance for living on terra firma are visions of the night; visions with no more value than the entertainment value of science fiction.
The 'visions' that are important, that have relevance for living on terra firma - are the 'visions' of the day. Day dreams about the reality that is - and the reality that could be.