steve_bnk

But the climactic end of the story, JC dies as a human and is resurected. Resurection for the human faithful is the fundmanmental cornerstone of the faith.

Horatio Parker

That's the strongest argument for death. It demonstrates the eternal aspects.

steve_bnk

Without the alleged accounts of witness to the ressurection, there is no Christiianity.

Horatio Parker

As we currently understand it. There's an argument that the Gospel of Thomas, lacking any reference to the passion or resurrection, was not written for Xtians.

But there were also traditions among early Xtians that Jesus lived. Sorry my memory is not such that I have cites at my fingertips. There are also arguments that the Simon of Cyrene episode in the Passion and the quick death of Jesus with Pilates consequent surprise reflect those traditions.

Obviously those traditions didn't stand the test of time. The consensus here also seems to be that death is the strongest ending, and I agree.

My problem with the death ending is that it's so dark. I have a problem with a spirituality that demands so much contemplation of suffering, violence and brutality.

In the Phaedo, the death of Socrates isn't so grim; his last words are a joke. Maybe if Jesus were some kind of Achilles figure defeated in battle instead of a helpless victim...

steve_bnk

Not dark, the promise of eternal life. The JC of the NT was not hanging with the elite, he was hanging with the bottom. Fishermen as disciples. Bear yoiur suffering and believe and find eteranl life. Hope for the downtrodden.

The American Christian 'god wants you to be rich' is an absolute corruption of the NT message.

Of course what we have as Christianity is based on a narrow selection of text. There were a number of competing Christian sects. Chrtianity is more correctly called Paulism.

There is no way to know what the real genesis was. That it was a Jewish movement seems to be a safe assumption.

Horatio Parker

I can't agree that it's not dark. Transcending death is of course hopeful, but a bloody tortuous death is not, sorry. I can't agree with that.

Maybe the downtrodden of the early church liked it dark. Maybe they liked it lurid; maybe they could relate to it better that way. Also there's an element of no matter how low you go, how bad it is, the promise is still there.

I don't think a Jewish movement is at all a safe assumption. There are fingerprints of Hellenism are all over the early church.But I agree, there's no way to know.

mountainman

I agree with this statement. Eusebius asserts the books of Moses to be in ways superior to the books of Plato. Why did he think he needed to do that? The Jewish language was not used, it was the Greek LXX which was "lifted" , or "borrowed" or "commandeered" as a source material with embellished and false antiquity, and then data mined to arrive with the Greek books of the new testament. One does not need any Jewish knowledge to do this. What one needs to do this is knowledge of the common greek language. That's all that is required. That's all the earliest manuscript evidence is - Greek. Jesus was a Roman fiction in Greek.


I disagree, in that I think there are pathways by which we can know about the Hellenistic fingerprints with more and more technical certitude, such as the use of C14 dating etc. Time will tell. The pathways to greater knowledge is critical examination and analysis of all the available evidence, and its secure and accurate chronology. And new evidence entering the "mystery" to be solved.