Doug Shaver

I don't think even that would have done it, but let's suppose the gospel resurrection stories represent some distorted verison of actual events. We then have something over a dozen people seeing the man after his death, and from that they all infer that he must have been, in some manner of speaking, God incarnate.

How many other Jews are they going to get to agree with them? Enough to get a new religion going within a Jewish culture? I think that is pretty nearly as incredible as an actual resurrection.

Doug Shaver

I might or might not agree. In my experience discussing anything to do with documents pertaining to Christianity, "contextual clues" is a pretty broad term. Inerrantists use it and various equivalents a lot in their arguments for the Bible's consistency. (e.g.: "If you read that passage in its proper context, you'll see that there is no real contradiction.")

Whether we know who he was certainly has not bearing on whether he in fact wrote the truth. The truth or falsity of any assertion has nothing to do with who makes the assertion (with exceptions that need not concern us here).

The author's identity can have much to do, however, with whether we may reasonably believe that the assertion is true or false. It makes no sense to argue "X said it, therefore it is probably true" if X really is unknown.

Yes. Trust has to be earned. I need a reason to extend it to anybody, and the reasons have to start with knowing something about them.

According to whom? Aside from Christian historians, I mean.

(1) It took about half a millennium. That is not my idea of "quickly."
(2) It is not my understanding that the obliteration was ever complete. Insofar as it even got close to that, it was due more to force of arms than to intellectual advantage Christianity could have had over the native religions of Europe.

I'm under the impression that those religions already had hordes of followers when Christianity came along. They also did not include a meme saying that anybody who disagreed with them deserved to burn in hell forever, coupled with another meme saying that all believers were obliged to convert as many unbelievers as they could.

How many Christians do you think there were in 200 CE, and where did you get that datum?

You and I obviously (ahem) differ as to what makes something obvious.

You seem to conflate the acquisition of beliefs with learning. I see no useful sense in which a person who believes many things without good reason is more learned than a person who believes a few things with good reason.

I do not "discount everything" as possibly fictional. But neither do I assume everything is nonfiction. What I'm trying to do is minimize assumptions, not to see how many I can defend.

Yes. Christians do believe it, and they do not have evidence to support it.

No, there isn't, if by "massive" you mean "historically significant." There were some new interpretations of old philosophy, and those interpretations were historically significant.

Doug Shaver

Touche. I'll withdraw that objection.

I infer -- not assume -- that if there was a historical Jesus, the small group of Jews who followed him did nearly deify him because the earliest Christian writings clearly imply that they did.

Chris Weimer

That is not a good enough reason, in my opinion. The earliest Christian writings we have are from Paul, and from his own hand we know that there was already a long-standing movement devoted to Christ. Please tell us what sources are you using that would imply the earliest Christians deified him.

Near-deify is a worthless word - let's cut the crap and get to the heart of the matter. Did they or did they not deify him?

What does near-deify mean anyway? Would the Messiah be near-deification? Using vague terminology, of course we'll never settle.

RUmike

The earliest Christian writer, Paul, regarded Jesus as subordinate to the Father. I don't see how this is deifying Jesus.

1 Cor. 15:24-28
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "all things are put in subjection," it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Doug Shaver

Let no one say that I am not open-minded. Show me some evidence, other than the earliest Christian writings, for what the earliest Christians believed , and I'll see what I make of it.

Oh, OK, let me rephrase that just a little bit.
I infer, from the earliest Christian writings, that the earliest Christians whom we know about deified him.
That better?

I should have known better than to try to please everybody.
A few weeks ago somebody gave me a ration for saying what I just said, claiming that nothing Paul wrote stated an explicit belief that the Christ was a god. But, that person acknowledge that Paul's Christ had some kind of divine attributes. So, I modified my phrasing in the hope of forestalling such quibbles. That was obviously a mistake.

I believe they did.

Oh, I don't expect we'll settle anything no matter how precisely either of us states his case.

Doug Shaver

If Paul had never written anything about the son except for that passage, you might have had a point. Looking at everything he wrote, though, I would say that Paul's Christ looks close enough to being a god that any distinction is not a real difference.

Amaleq13

I think the evidence indicates that the idea did not catch on with Jews but only found acceptance within the Gentile population and, I suspect, primarily among the God-fearers of the Gentile population.

RUmike

First off, you say "close enough to being a god" here. Do you mean a god, or God? I'm assuming you mean the latter, but I just want to be clear here.

Second, can you cite verses which support your position that Paul viewed Jesus as God?

Didymus

The Pillars knew Jesus in the flesh? Paul didn't say that.

Didymus