Koyaanisqatsi

Ok, enough of this and welcome back, Meta.

Your entire argument hinges on the use of the qualifier "basic" and therefore easily falls.

From the opening of your very first post you state: For some bizarre reason, no one has pointed out to you several pertinent facts:
[*] The myth in question is not Jesus as Man, but Jesus as God and the only compelling argument that Jesus was God was the resurrection myth, for which we do have alternate versions in the New Testament!

They are synoptic (aka, "basic") only in the manner that you are alluding to as some sort of circuitous proof; that elements composing the myth are shared, but the actual mythical aspect to the story (the resurrection) has four alternate versions, which cannot be reconciled.
[*] There are alternate versions of the Gospel story contained within the gospels you presented!
[*] All this proves is that the Jesus myth was a popular one to embellish and write about within the Jesus cult!

Of course cult members following the same cult myths would base their variations on similiar themes and include cult leaders in their versions.

Your "11 different points" are easily explained within the mythology. Let's use Star Trek for an example.

Everyone who was a devotee of the original show knows the basics about Captain James T. Kirk. We know that Kirk's crew (his disciples?) consist of Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Uhuru, and, depending upon which episode you see (which Gospel you read?), either Sulu or Chekov and/or Yoeman Rand and/or Nurse Chapel and/or a guy in a red shirt destined to be killed the minute they beam down.

Now, hundreds of books have been written involving Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise and the ship itself going on various missions, all of which follow the same kinds of "11 points" you refer to (none of which are outside the Star Trek cult, mind you, just as the stories you presented are not outside the Jesus cult).

Same principal players; variations on the same theme of going where no man has gone before!

Does this prove either the reality of Kirk or that these other books are works of non-fiction simply because they all share "11 points of Kirkdom?"

Of course not.

The Jesus myths are the exact same thing. You've got a rabbi or teacher with a cult formed around his wisdom sayings who dies.

Some forty to fifty years later one of the cult members (whom we call "Mark" for no good reason and who is perhaps a second or third generation cult member) writes a myth surrounding this teacher's cult; turning a man into a miracle.

A decade or so later, another anonymous cult member (this one we call "Matthew" for no good reason) takes Mark's story (most likely heard through oral tradition or perhaps he directly read it, who knows?) and then presents his alternate version of the mythical events based on the same "basic" elements from Mark.

And so on and so on until hundreds of years later, we've got a collection of alternate variations on the same theme, only four of which make it into the final collection.

They share basic plot points (as would be expected; don't make me reference Star Trek again), and when they come to the only section that allegedly proves deity--the resurrection--we have alternate (contradictory and mutually exclusive) versions of the primary mythical element all interpreted and embellished in alternate (contradictory and mutually exclusive) ways!

You have gone to great lengths to attempt a circuitous proof that contradicts its own contentions. Bad form.

There are alternate versions of the Gospel story; you've just tried to pre-emptively avoid dealing with that by deceptively addending the word "basic" to your argument, implying that since the different versions we have on record don't differ on certain common elements, therefore none of it is a myth.

That is remarkably bad scholarship and transparently invalid logic.

You should be ashamed, sir, ashamed.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ July 23, 2001: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]