Diogenes the Cynic

It was a post hoc interpretation of an emotionally traumatic event believed only by a very few people. We have a modern example, in Rabbi Schneerson, of a very similar event, and it's significant to note that the Schneerson cult is very small and considered eccentric at best, heretical at worst, by the vast majority of other religious Jews.

Toto

That scenario is not implausible. It is less plausible that this obscure nutcase became elevated to godhead among people who had witnessed his massive failure of a life.

But it is also plausible that someone invented the allegory or story or fictional creation. How do you weigh these competing plausibilities?

aa5874

Well, please IDENTIFY the source of antiquity that wrote of a Crucified Messiah called Jesus.

There is NO non-apologetic source of antiquity that DOCUMENTED Jesus the Crucified Messiah.

Somebody INVENTED Jesus the Crucified Messiah.

Apologetic sources INVENTED Jesus the Crucified Messiah.

Even HJers BOLDLY claim their Jesus was NOT a Crucified Messiah.

Even HJers BOLDLY and VEHEMENTLY argue that their JESUS was an actual OBSCURE preacher man.

Jesus the Crucified Messiah had NO existence.

See Albert Schweitzer "Quest for the Historical Jesus"

See http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...chapter20.html


Somebody did INDEED INVENT Jesus the Crucified Messiah.

Toto

Schneerson died a normal death, leaving a coherent thriving community, not just a few followers. I don't see the similarity at all.

There are more intriguing parallels with Sabbatai Zvi, the bipolar Jewish Messiah whose followers continued to think he was the Jewish Messiah after he was forcibly converted to Islam.

Diogenes the Cynic

But they didn't elevate him to godhood. That was done later by Gentiles.
Not so many people independently, no.

aa5874

According to HJers their JESUS was NOT a Crucified Messiah but an OBSCURE preacher man.

Jesus the Crucified Messiah MUST have been INVENTED if Jesus was actually OBSCURE.

outhouse

exactly.


while alive he was a nobody. Plus he was invisible in the crowds at the temple.

Until he started a small riot.



I still think theres more to the tax evasion mentioned in Luke and that he died as a martyr standing up for the hard working overtaxed poor jews, his story grew through the illiterate until being stole by the romans

outhouse

biblical jesus was invented from the oral traditions in the area.


the first version of jesus was that of a teacher/healer, half zealot within judaism whos story grew after death, when the romans got a hold of this legend they hellenized it, and removed any anti-roman theology.

Steven Carr

But Bart has explained that it was an *impossible* post hoc interpretation to take place. A first century Jew could no more conceive of a crucified Messiah than conceive of a crucified Emperor.

According to Bart's scholarship, the one title early Christians could not bestow on their exalted Son of God was 'Messiah'.

So how did the impossible happen?

Why was it impossible for Christians to invent a crucified Messiah when that was exactly the title they gave to a person Bart insists ticked none of the 'Messiah' boxes?

Steven Carr

You mean that when Bart alludes in his introduction to Philippians 2 and 1 Corinthians 8 as showing an obscure preacher elevated to a status that was virtually god-like, he meant that early Christians still regarded Jesus as a mortal being?

Ehrman claims on page 238 that PAUL gave Jesus divine attributes and divine worship.

(That is even after Ehrman strenuously tries to deny what he himself admits is the natural reading of the passage)

So why do you say that was done later by Gentiles?

Rather amusingly, Ehrman after claiming all these early sources, which nobody else can see, then claims that even if Philippians 2 predates Paul , it still doesn't represent early Christian thought!


Because Ehrman has to deny that Jesus was thought of a as a god, he denies that anything which predates Paul must represent early Christian thought, if the picture of Jesus it presents is not one he is selling, while he has simultaneously has to invent oral and written sources for the Gospels which go back to early Christianity and predate Paul.



Amazing. This book gets worse. You can see Ehrman rewriting history, moving sources around in time, to build up a picture of Jesus he can sell to himself.