The Evil One

Evidence?

Gregg

We've gone over this already, Magus. Mythicists approach the origin of Christianity from an entirely different direction. We believe it started with the worship of the Son, an entirely spiritual, heavenly entity. Different groups and individuals believed different things about the nature and role of the divine Son, depending on the various influences they'd been exposed to. Paul taught that the Son had performed a sacrificial act in a heavenly dimension, similar to other dying/rising savior gods of the time. It wasn't until some time after the early Christians were dead that some Christians began to regard the allegorical gospel stories as biographies.

I guess to some degree I actually agree with you, but I reach a different conclusion. I see no evidence that, if a historical Jesus existed, he did anything to distinguish himself from all the other Messianic pretenders; otherwise, I would expect to see more independent testimony to his existence, to his unique charismatic qualities and healing powers. Therefore, I think it's unlikely that Christianity started with legends and divine titles being heaped on an ordinary Rabbi with messianic pretensions who was crucified and tossed in a shallow pit like all the others. Jesus started as a divine figure who only later was brought "down to Earth," rather than the opposite.

Of course, in writing his allegorical account of Christ, it's possible that Mark had the various crucified Messianic pretenders in mind as models for his Jesus character.

chapka

I'm sure this is just as reliable as the fundies who claim, "Wiccans really do sacrifice babies and gain the power to kill with a glance. I know--I was one myself." [/Chick]

chapka

You do realize it would now be intellectually inconsistent for you not to convert to Mormonism, don't you? After all, a bunch of farmers in New York State certainly didn't give a crap about becoming famous and spreading a false religion. Protestantism was quite sufficient for them. I see the only plausible explanation for them following Mormonism to be that something happened during their lives that convinced them enough to conclude that Joseph Smith's message was true. Therefore the Witnesses must truly have seen the Golden Plates to follow the path of persecution and condemnation all the way to Utah.

You've proven it! No other explanation makes sense!

Weltall

Don't bother, I already know that you have no primary sources. If you did, we would have heard of them already.
Because among other things, we have physical descriptions of Alexander, we have coins he minted that show us his face. We don't have so much as a clue as to what your Jesus figure looked like. I'm not an Alexander historian, perhaps others can answer your question better, but we have far more evidence for his existence than for the existence of your god-man.
No, you can't. You ignore the fact that there are physical traces that Alexander walked the earth that we can verify. Your sources only report words. Don't believe me, try going to a good history museum sometime and look at their exhibits.
I'm familiar enough with what it says, thank you very much.
Even if the passage is entirely genuine, do the math and figure out how many people that could refer to. Hint, the answer is not 'one'.
Ever studied archaeology? Do you think that we learn everything about Egypt from studying what people wrote about it? No, we use other sources of knowledge and find evidence. This isn't to say that we can't learn anything from secondary sources, but when the secondary sources have no evidence behind them (and where there should be evidence) then we might want to ask how certain we are of the truthfulness of their writing.

Gregg

The problem is, Magus, that this is NOT the only possible explanation. I can think of two others:

1. Assuming a historical Jesus, his preaching could have been different from the other Messianic pretenders, who envisioned themselves leading a popular uprising to sweep away Israel's enemies. He could have envisioned a victory won by spiritual means rather than force of arms, and taught his followers that he would be victorious even in death. Then, after his death, one or more of his more devoted followers, remembering his teachings, could have had a powerful vision in which they saw their crucified rabbi uplifted and glorified. If you don't think people can be motivated by "mere" visions, or believe them to be real, you haven't been paying attention to human history. Islam supposedly started with Muhammad having a vision of the Angel Gabriel.

2. Jesus never was historical. Instead, various forms of worship--some with Jewish trappings--of a divine Son figure based on the Greek Logos, eventually coalesced around the emerging idea that this Son had actually been on Earth at some point in the past. The circulation of the allegorical Gospels, which eventually came to be regarded as biographies, probably started the process.

A kingly figure undergoing suffering and even "death" to redeem people from their sins, and the closely related idea of a god dying and rising and via this process, effecting salvation and eternal life for the believer--these are ancient themes that are nearly universal to the human species and continue to resonate even today. Christianity managed to tap into basic aspects of the human psyche better than other mystery cults. And when it was made the official state religion of Rome and thoroughly integrated into society, it became difficult for people to imagine any other sort of reality, any society in which Christianity did NOT exist. It became the new paradigm.

I mean, consider...the Egyptian gods reigned over that society for three thousand years. The Egyptians could hardly imagine things being different even if they wanted to. When the heretical pharaoah Akhen-aten tried to introduced montheism, he was done away with and the old gods were brought back. So it's not suprising that Christianity has endured as long as it has. Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism have had pretty good runs too...does that make them true in your eyes? I bet not.

Asha'man

See The brother of Jesus called Christ, whose name was James
See Testimonium Flavium and discourse analysis
Right, we cannot ignore the impact of second hand sources, but we must also recognize the limitations inherent in their position. Knowledge of Christianity in later centuries provides no support for the existence of a historical Jesus in the first century.

However, we have a number of early Christian apologists who were well versed in Josephus, but utterly failed to quote the TF when it would support the exact position they were defending. Suddenly, around the time of Eusebius the Liar, the TF starts getting quoted. Seems to be a pretty reliable way of dating when the TF was inserted into the text, and also provides a likely candidate for the crime.

azuresky

Weltall,

I unfortunately don't have much time to debate since school is keeping me so busy. In a few weeks, however, I'll have an entire month off and can post until my heart's content. I'll quickly respond to your last post, but after that I won't be back for 3 or 4 weeks.

You write: "I already know that you have no primary sources..."

Actually, Weltall, I do have both primary and contemporary sources authenticating the existence of Christ.

You write: "...we have physical descriptions of Alexander, we have coins he minted that show us his face."

Our physical descriptions of Alexander come from secondhand sources. Alexander's likeness is not depicted on coins contemporary with his life. His portrait is only found on coins minted after his death. We do find Herakles, Zeus, and other gods featured on his coins quite often, however.

You write: "You ignore the fact that there are physical traces that Alexander walked the earth."

What do you mean? Do you mean destruction levels in certain cities? Hey, I'm not denying that a Macedonian army led by a confederation of generals passed through the ancient Near East and conquered an empire. This army left scattered coins everywhere. Here's an interesting fact: On the coins minted by the Macedonian generals and depicting the portraits of various gods, the epigraph "Alexandros" can be found. This motto is translated as "Man-defender" and probably refers to the special way Herakles and Zeus protected their Macedonian soldiers throughout numerous dangerous conquests. Americans also have a motto engraved on their currency, which of course is, "In God We Trust." Now, it is unlikely that the epigraph "Alexandros" refers to a title for a king or ruler, since we would expect numerous contemporary historians to have mentioned this conqueror of such a vast sprawling empire. Since secondary sources are not allowed, we have no reason to identify "Man-defender" as the title of a monarch or leader.

You asked if there was another Jesus Christ with a brother named James that Antiquities 20.9.1 could be referring to instead of the Biblical Jesus Christ and James. The answer is probably "no". The Christian church was well-established in Jerusalem during the A.D. 60's. Josephus would never have confused his readers by mixing up the Christian Jesus Christ and James with a less familiar Jesus Christ and James.

By the way, I'm just having fun with the whole Alexander thing. All I'm attempting to do is to remind people that we have very little history when we constantly mistrust our secondary sources. For some reason, I'm always running into people (on other sites) who demand only primary sources relating to Christ and even insist that Christians provide the original copy of those primary sources!!! Yikes!!!

Jack the Bodiless

It is common for myths to be "re-assigned" to a single figure. For instance, many Celtic myths became "Arthurian", and Robin Hood appears to have been based on at least two different historical figures.

Thus, it is entirely possible that Christians DO venerate several of the Jewish "Messiahs", by attributing the mythical deeds of these people to the composite "Jesus" character. This would fit both the "historical Jesus" AND the "Jesus-myth" models: either could act as a nucleus for mythical deeds originally attributed to other Messiahs.

Jade

Well, for one we have a letter of his. Furthermore, unlike Jesus, Alexander had a major impact on history and the world during his lifetime, impacts which set the stage for much of the history of the classical world, and which still leave scars today. If Alexander had not existed, how could Greece have conquered the vast empire of Persia, giving birth to the Hellenistic world? If Alexander had never existed, then why do many sources speak of his tomb in the Great Library of Alexandria -- for that matter, why did Alexandria exist in the first place (as well as the many other cities and fortresses bearing Alexander's name throughout Persia, Egypt and Greece)? If Alexander had never existed, then why was his empire split between his generals when he died, starting several major dynasties and kingdoms that are extensively documented (including the Egyptian dynasty that produced Cleopatra)? And this list barely scratches the surface...

There is simply too much that would be very hard to explain if Alexander had never existed, whereas there is far less that is hard to explain if Jesus had never existed.