bacht

Christ is a Greek translation of messiah meaning anointed. In the Old Testament it was applied to kings, priests and prophets. Christians apply these titles to Jesus, but there is no secure evidence that there ever was such a man.

No Robots

My point is that nowadays this term is used more-or-less exclusively to refer to Jesus of Nazareth.

Some of us maintain that there is such secure evidence.

aa5874

You must mean Constantine was the man whose personal power overwhelmed the pagans.
There is no information to show that people of antiquity were overwhelmed by the personal power and originality of some character called Jesus.

In every century from the 2nd to 4th, from Justin Martyr to Eusebius, Jesus believers were persecuted, ridiculed and harrassed, were called cannibals and atheists, and had their properties confiscated. Even, the authors of the NT and church writers claimed many believers were executed unjustly.

Jesus believers were living a life of hell on earth for 300 years, if the story is true, until they were saved by their Saviour, Constantine.

aa5874

But, this is what Theophilus of Antioch wrote in the 2nd century. Theophilus to Autolycus And there were many people in the OT who were anointed, so the word "Christ," meaning "anointed with oil" predated the supposed character called Jesus by hundreds of years.

bacht

Yes, and how many threads have there been here about "evidence", "proof", historical method etc.

Christians want to have a supernatural saviour who can be placed in an historical time and place. The only evidence for this man is in books and letters written by people who knew Jesus through faith. The only thing historians know for sure is that someone wrote these testimonies, and wanted others to believe their content.

We're not going to convince each other the way this discussion is going.

Analyst

I'm sure that as the priests of other religions saw that Christianity was the 'next thing' more than a few jumped over.

Analyst

There was a theory that Unix (operating system) and C (programming language) were intended as jokes also.

Doug Shaver

That is certainly true, but it is irrelevant to my point.

Since I never denied that you think it is inexplicable, that, too, is irrelevant. You might assume that there is a perfect correlation between what you think and what are the facts, but I don't make that assumption.

And that is not the only thing that exists despite my not having produced it.

Yes, and countless people can be wrong.

aa5874

Now, has it ever occurred to you that your post may be irrelevant?

If you think that it can be explained how a man was eventually worshipped as a God by people who did not worship men as Gods, then please explain.

It is inexplcable to me, if Jesus is supposed to be only a man.

Amaleq13

It had to be redefined because he clearly didn't qualify by the original definition. And he didn't redefine anything. The redefinition was subsequent to his death.