joedad

Nomad:
I am looking for ideas from skeptics that have thought about this question, and have something to offer. Do you have anything?

Hello Brian,

The practice of religion/myth, trans-culturally, is a fact of human history. Certainly you accept that observation as accurate. Yes?

And although it can be credibly argued that the practice of organized religion is not a "band" or "tribe" specific characteristic (due primarily to population densities), with the arrival of agrarian civilization and specifically "chiefdoms" and "states", religion becomes a powerful, unifying, cultural force, and achieves the institutionalized form we know today. Joseph Campbell would have called it the Power of Myth, I suppose.

Civilization did not "invent" religion anew, it only institutionalized supernnatural beliefs, behaviors and superstitions for purposes of cultural survival.

So, if you take one of the specifics of any one of these numerous cultural myths and liturgies, in this case, the return of a dead god to life, and now ask what in actual history caused the appearance of that liturgical artifact, I think I understand your question.

Pardon me if I ramble, and correct me if my memory is wrong. There are others far better qualified to respond to your query.

Anyway...

Luke's gospel is the only gospel which mentions a virgin birth? Correct? Have you ever wondered why that is? No doubt you have, and perhaps you have come up with your own explanations.

My understanding of this anomaly is that the Greeks were still very much, mythologically and culturally, a "goddess" based society/civilization. Contrast this with the nomadic (no pun intended) Hebrew experience with their conquering male based mythology.

I believe it is a matter of historical record that, generally speaking, the initial "fertile crescent" - Tigris/Euphrates Nile, Indus civilizations were goddess based in their mythologies. This makes sense, as these were the first agrarian civilizations, with an attachment to a "Mother Earth/ Fertility Cult" mythological structure. Very expected and, culturally, very understandable.

The Hebrews were Nomadic by comparison, (Again, no pun intended) and their mythology was more naturally male based, as they were herders without as strong an attachment to the land.

In pointing out these different mythologies, and noting once again that the Greeks were female based, it is not so difficult to understand then, why Luke's gospel mentions the virgin birth. It simply connected with the Hellenistic mythological foundation, and made the liturgy more acceptable as a result.

The appearance of a god coming back to life in a piece of liturgical writing at this time in history is hardly something new. There are many examples which have been exhaustively cited on this board and which are available on others.

Why do it? Popular mythological appeal, the same reason Luke incorporates a virgin birth in his liturgical gospel narrative.

If you are looking for a more specific reason, I fear you will be looking for a very long time. In a way, you are looking for evidence to support your faith in your preferred liturgical or mythological narrative. And, once again, as Joseph Campbell would tell you, if you have evidence, why do you need "faith"?

Joe

eh

Nomad wrote: What is hard to understand? No evidence for any alternative theories, and evidence (stories from the followers of Christ)for the rising deity that I don't find to be credible.


I don't know, but I have some ideas. Will post on it later.
Is that really first hand?


OK, so zero of the 500 witnesses accounts are available to us today. The point was not whether or not the early believers had contact with the witnesses or their accounts, but the fact that we do not. We have much writing from Paul, but I'm sure there are a lot of minor details he left out. Imagine the wealth of detail on the life of Jesus we would have if more accounts of those witnesses survived. Such a wealth of information, we do not have. Instead, we have a limit amount of text.

I said the writings of Peter, not Paul. As for other writings, I was specifically talking about any possible texts from people who knew Jesus personally.


Maybe I'm using a bad choice of words here, but isn't a story written down by someone other than the actual witness a second hand account? The earliest gospel was written 40 years after Jesus had died, and I haven't read any non fundy books that say any of the gospels were written by the actual followers. Does that not make it a second hand account?


You don't know, I don't know. You think you know the answer, but I'll admit I don't. I'll post some ideas below.


In no way did I say that other miracle claims are false, or that if they are false, that in being as such they make the resurrection false. I was merely pointing out that we have nothing to sort through the true and the false if we accept such poor evidence. Sorry, I'm getting off topic. See my post below.


Ahh but I'm not using an argument at all. I'm simply rejecting an argument on the basis that the evidence is lacking. I treat the resurrection like the other miracle claims. But again, I suppose I'm going off topic again so, we ought to be moving on...

[ November 26, 2001: Message edited by: eh ]

Family Man

Actually, Nomad, I think you're the one that's missed the point. I provided a quite reasonable theory, one that is shared by more than a few New Testament scholars, that fits in quite well with the facts as well as human nature as we know it. You can certainly feel free to ignore it if you like, but that doesn't mean it is going to go away. In fact, I fully expect that anyone with an open mind on the subject would look at your credulous theory and swiftly reject it in favor of the one I put forth. So go right ahead Nomad; all you're really doing is convincing people that you're living in fantasyland.

However, I would be open to an actual critique of the theory, instead of a uninformative dismissal. But then, you'd probably have to face the fact that it is a very good explanation of what happened and you've have to stop repeating the lie that we don't have a good explanation, wouldn't you?

[ November 26, 2001: Message edited by: DennisM ]

Sauron

Nomad appears to be laboring under the misconception that, by rejecting a fantastic story, that somehow burdens the skeptic with creating an alternative hypothesis. Such is not the case. The attitude that "if you can't come up with a better story than my preferred wild fairy tale, then my fairy tale must be the correct answer" is nonsense. It's also not scientific. We did not understand the structure of the atom for centuries. Had we followed Nomad's approach, we would admitted that we don't understand, shrugged our shoulders and simply said "goddidit" - - and stopped trying to formulate the Atomic Model.

Secondly, it stands to reason that any explanation that does not resort to miracles or special pleading is (by definition) automatically more plausible than Nomad's views of the resurrection.

Thirdly, someone claiming to have seen something, or someone who says that 500 people witnessed some event, is not evidence. There is strong evidence, and there is weak evidence. But in all cases evidence, by definition, is testable. These (alleged) witnesses, what they (allegedly) saw, and what they (allegedly) said, are all beyond verification. So such claims do not even rise to meet the definition of evidence.

[ November 26, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]

Vorkosigan

Mark Goodacre, the peripatetic defender of the faith who has a wonderful website on Q, has just posted a new article at this address on the Myth vs. History issue.
http://ntgateway.com/ProphHist.doc

Michael

aikido7

Rather than positing mass halluciantions,conspiracy and legend theories or Jesus Seminar flights of fancy, how about this:

Jesus died and was buried. Simon Peter went back to Galilee and had some sort of revelatory experience which convinced him that Jesus' power was still available to him in a new way--available even after the crucifixion.

First-century Jews had a wide spectrum of traditional manifestations to draw from and to compare their own with:

1.Theophanies (Acts 7:55)
2.Angelophanies (Luke 1:11)
3.Revelations (Galations 1:12) and
4.Epiphanies of returning prophets (Mark 8:28)

He shared this manifestation to others, got named "the Rock" and experienced Easter.

(Thanks to Thomas Sheehan for this outline)

Family Man

Omnedon1 is exactly right. We don't have to prove a thing. All we really need to is to show a plausible alternative and/or the implausibility of Nomad's. We have done both.

By it's supernatural nature, the resurrection as a historical fact is implausible. Nomad is free to believe if he likes (and we all know millions do), but he's not free to say that, because it was written down it must have happened. It is prima facie absurd.

On the other hand, the point I've been making is that it is not necessary for the resurrection to have occurred for stories about a resurrection to get started. As I've previously pointed out, visions and dreams were (and still are by many) taken seriously in the 1st Century. It doesn't take an enormous leap of logic to see a vision being turned into the passion narratives in the gospels, especially given the passage of 40 years before it was written down.

Thus, Nomad is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He has to argue that a supernatural event is an actual historical event, which flies in the face of normal historical enquiry, and he has to deal with perfectly plausible alternative theories that don't rely on supernatural explanations.

Once you realize his difficulties, you realize why he ignores both of the above points. He has to. He has no choice, really.

eh

What about the theories of Jesus being a militant rebel who was crucified for his crimes? What if his small band of followers primary concern was a polital one, and not religious? Is it not true that 100 armed soldiers came to arrest Jesus in the garden?

Before I go into any detail, if you have any URL's with a lot info on this topic you might as well post it. That will save the trouble of bringing up topics we're already familiar with. Any interesting sources that deal specifically with the idea of 'Jesus the armed rebel'?

lpetrich

Interesting theory, but that would not explain why Pontius Pilate was reluctant to execute him, as the Gospels describe. However, the Gospel writers could have had a pro-Roman slant -- and thus a desire to let Rome's underlings, like PP, off the hook.

Toto

There was a thread on this very topic some months ago. I think this is the URL that it was based on:
Hidden Jesus

[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: Toto ]