Chris Weimer

I think he just used it as common parlance.

Clivedurdle

http://www.nazarenus.com/

Read especially the discussion about the passion scene - I think he argues cogently there are stage directions in the gospels!

Authorship and how it was written are conjectural, but I think we are looking at a play here.

Add in Doherty and gnosticism (or neo pythagorianism if preferred) and a reasonably clear trajectory becomes clear - people seeing as in a glass darkly, Paul meeting Christ in a vision and then proclaiming the good news.

Later on or possibly completely unrelated someone writes a play about the salvation of Israel probably from a Roman perspective, others join up the dots and expand the hero story. Turtles all the way down.

gurugeorge

I don't believe the Son of God existed as described in the Gospels, because if he did it's inconceivable that he wouldn't have made a bigger splash on his contemporaries. The few sketchy/dubious references to someone existing of that name in the non-cultic historical record aren't enough to establish the existence of the full-blown, amazing God-man of the gospels.

They are, however, sufficient to establish a small possibility that there might have been someone existing of that name who was deified and mythologised (i.e. who had lots of divine, mythological aspects added to his story) - perhaps an obscure preacher, or revolutionary zealot, or something of that nature (biblical scholars have several theories). However, that's cold comfort for most believing Christians.

The other possibility, which seems more likely to me, is that the Jesus Christ idea was a blend of the Graeco-Roman idea of a dying/rising saviour god and the Jewish idea of a Messiah, with a fair bit of Platonism sprinkled in. I think he was initially an entity perceived in "visions" (like a cross between lucid dreams and out-of-the-body experiences) by people like "Paul" and the others "Paul" mentions in his epistles (Cephas, Apollos, etc.). This figure started off divine, but with sketchy life details. Gradually some detail came in to the stories about him - possibly as a result of the popularity of some sort of drama about his life that might originally been intended as a "sweetener" to introduce the concept to people by way of a good story - GMark, or the hypothesised Seneca play perhaps.

Historical details and dialogues were constantly attached to him, but eventually the growing orthodoxy called a halt to this profusion of invention, and a basic "party line" was eventually "frozen" in the NT Canon and Nicean Creed.

The reason the "mythical Jesus" is my preferred hypothesis is because my understanding of how religions work worldwide is that they are usually started by people who have these kinds of "visions" - they seem to themselves to meet and talk with entities who give them "laws", "moral guides", ways of life, etc. Modern day "channeling" is a contemporary low-grade version of this phenomenon, but it's the mainspring of religion., all the way from Daoism in China (e.g. several Daoist sects have their origin in spirit communications), through Buddhism in India and Tibet (Vajrayana Buddhism is all about having intimate communion with "deities" who are themselves supposed to be enlightened), through Islam (Mohammed meeting "Gabriel" and getting advice, ideas, etc.), through Graeco-Roman religion as a whole (Oracles, the Mysteries), through native European "paganism" (e.g. Seidr magic, in which an oracle would "take the high seat" and relay an audience's questions to the gods), through African religions (spirit mediumship), right across to Native American religion in the far West (spirit communication). There are "high" (e.g. neo-Platonic theurgy/magic) and "low" (shamanic) versions of it.

It's really the most common "thing" about religion. As religions grow and become formalised, then the "memetic" reasons canvassed by rationalists like Dawkins and Dennett take over, the intensity and weirdness of the original impulse, the original real-seeming experience of communication with a discarnate intelligence had by the original founder(s), gets lost and covered over; and as more people from different walks of life join in, and depending on the degree and type of the surrounding civilisation, the religion is "sanitised", made palatable, and the rules given by the "gods" become absorbed into society.

Hence this is most likely to be the origin of Christianity too.

Incidentally, this way of looking at it should appeal not only to rationalists but to many kinds of Christians too - after all, the real Jesus is the "living Jesus", the one they meet and talk to in their own visions. Whether or not he actually lived at some time in the past on Earth is actually kind of irrelevant to the way in which he affects the lives of many sincere believers in their day-to-day lives. The rather odd irony is, they may be the ones who are still believing in the "same" Jesus as the original Christians did.

The only kinds of Christians it won't appeal to are those who are heavily invested in the literal truth of the Bible, or heavily invested in the historical aspect of Jesus Christ, or whose particular branch of Christianity is heavily invested in the historical aspect. In particular, this is unlikely to appeal to Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, because the heirarchy of their Church is based on a supposed "apostolic connection" going back to people who supposedly knew the living, breathing entity. (In fact I think the reason why the "heavy" degree of historicisation came in was precisely to provide this pseudo-backing to certain of the bishops in the early Church - it was partly a way to tighten up the organisation, partly a way to gain psychological ascendancy over their churches and other churches. "Apostolic succession" is, I believe, the tail that wags the dog of "Jesus Christ" as a supposed flesh and blood God-man historical figure.)

Biff the unclean

A “Christ” was a specific type of hero/savior demigod. There were any number of Christs in the religions of the time, most notably Christna (spelling changed in the 1890s to "Krishna" for obvious reasons)
Being the “anointed one” was the only title that a Christ and a Messiah shared so it’s a straw that Christians grasp at. Otherwise they are completely different concepts.

I am quite sure that there was no HJ. What convinces me is the desperation of Christians for one. Had one existed, no matter how tenuous the connection, they would be waving him in our faces. Instead we get such silliness as the assertions from the Christians in this very thread.

aa5874

Where did you get information about this obscure Jewish sect and its leader?

Chris Weimer

Evidence for the Krishna assertions?

What if the historical Jesus isn't palatable to most Christians?

Biff the unclean

The guy running the Krishna racket in Rome during Jesus' time was Apollonious of Tyana

They would change him and still use him. It's better than what they do now.

FatherMithras

Wrong. Utterly, absolutely wrong. It´s on the person making the positive claim. You claim Jesus plead his case, yet we have no writings from him or anyone he knew, so this clearly isn´t the case. Regardless, the burden of proof is on the person making the positive assertion. Atheism is the default. Just like not believing in Zeus, etc. are the default positions.

From here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof

Under science. We´re not using this like lawyers, were using it as scientists.

´´The world functions naturally, exactly as is appears to, without intervention, as shown by the total lack of evidence to the contrary and all of science and scholarly knowledge.´´ Is not a bold claim. It´s basic. If you want to claim a particular magical story is more credible than another, when no magical story has ever been validated, than you are making a positive assertion, a bold claim, and the burden is on you.

Chris Weimer

Once again - now you have two statements that need evidence.

Make that three.

Tears In The Rain

I'd like to know why you think Heracles didnt exist? No historical evidence, and if you do believe he existed why do you not believe he is the son of Zeus?