Sheshbazzar

Hmmm, it appears our erstwhile instigator has checked out. Wonder why?

aa5874

You can't answer the question?

Do you or do you not BELIEVE that the NT contains the history of a human Jesus?

The NT claimed Jesus was BAPTIZED by John but is there a credible historical source that can corroborate a man named Jesus? Not at all.

Now, if Jesus was just a MERE ORDINARY man in the NT Canon and was SIMPLY a new follower and convert who needed to be taught scripture and the doctrine of God why does John as the MASTER TEACHER and CULT LEADER ask that he be baptized by a NEW CONVERT, by someone UNFAMILIAR to John himself whom he MEETS for the first time.

Examine gMatthew 3

Mt 3:13-14 - Is not John's question extremely odd if Jesus was just a man whom John MEETS for the very first time?

What did this "man" call Jesus do to make John asked to be BAPTIZED by him?

One answer is obvious. In the Gospels Jesus was NOT considered or BELIEVED TO BE A man. In gMatthew, Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and John recognised the Holy THING in him.

in gMatthew, John wanted to be BAPTIZED by the HOLY GHOST itself

Listen to the words of John again.

" I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?"

Toto

Abe is in graduate school in an unrelated subject, and periodically pops in here, then goes on self ban when he has to get back to studies.

Sheshbazzar

John the baptist was the imaginary Jebus's 'cousin'. According to the tale, their mom's used to hang out together.
So John would likely have been acquainted with his cousin Jebus, that is if he ever had any such cousin.
Conveniently, for Christianity, their tall tales were never written down until after JtB had been pushing up daisies for fifty years or more, so no one will ever know what Johnny the B actually would have thought about this 'cousin' he was supposed to have

Story is, as a kid he practiced murdering his playmates so he could bring them back to life.

DCHindley

But there would be no point to inventing Joseph Blow. Why would this even be necessary? I would want a set of historical events to prefigure the need for such a scenario.*

I can reasonably come up with a set of historical events that could explain the transformation of a Jewish messianic prophet/claimant into a cosmic mediator by those who were under his sway. For Jesus to be a refashioning of mythical figures, there would have to have been a need that such a refashioning could fill. What would you say that might have been?

DCH

*I have it on very good information derived from Stephen Huller himself that Glen Beck has already come up with the plan. Joe, he explains, is somebody special, hidden from the ages until that very moment, in order to accomplish the plan of Jesus' evil alien zygote twin, the AntiChrist. In that secret meeting between Joe and Jack, the seed was planted for Jack to create the Peace Corps. This contact between disparate cultures would lead to the meeting of a carefully selected African man and a white woman, who would mate in an unnatural manner to create the human shell into which the AntiChrist would descend, his essence being imprinted in his very brain by means of an electron beam wielded by a master Mason associated with the worldwide caliphate(tm). However the righteous Right, the elect of god, shall make a stand, and root out the evil one, that man of perdition, so that he stands convicted before the Lord Jesus at his return on May 21, 2011, and his minions will be tormented in the lake of fire (Lake Erie) into the ages of the ages. Amen.

Sheshbazzar

Hell, if you want a Book as long and as ridiculously contrived as the Bible, just about anyone with enough time can make up a tale about the great God Jababba, and few thousand characters inhabiting greatly imaginary stories all loosely and crudely strung together predicting the miraculous birth of Joe Blow.
Don't got no historical events? just cob a few dozen, just like The Bible does.
The result won't be historically accurate? or make any sense? Just like The Bible!

show_no_mercy

Let's say the entire baptism scenario was invented whole cloth, for the sake of argument. Would we expect JtB in this "alternate reality" to be more or less reverential to Jesus?

As for other gospels not simply getting rid of the baptism in this "alternate reality" because they were embarrassed... the entire Barabbas pericope is almost definitely fiction, yet this still fictional episode was kept. Why? We can tell that other gospel writers were a bit embarrassed by it because Barabbas' first name - Jesus - was probably edited out.

DCHindley

Mythical belief systems come together because they fill a psychological need among a group of human beings. They are manufactured from whatever "facts" (actual events, already existing myths, etc) that are laying around and handy. What I am looking for is the set of conditions that caused them to be fashioned into the Jesus myth. That is what JMers have yet to come up with. It just didn't pop up like a mushroom. HJers can come up with such a set of set of conditions.

Well, I don't want to stay up beyond my beddie bye time. G'night.

DCzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sheshbazzar

I don't believe the original composers of the JtB portions of the story would have been the least bit embarrassed by the baptism of Jesus by John.
It would have been a point of great pride that their unknown nobody leader had been baptized, and especially honored (whether he was or not) by this famous and popular figure.
It was only latter as the years went by and the Jebus stories grew and grew more outlandish, that the big boo-boo they had made at the beginning became apparent, so that by the time of the composition of The Gospel according to St John, the JtB story goes completely missing.

Sheshbazzar

You may catch up with this latter, my views on the development of this myth trace back all the way to Genesis, become attached to the heroic figure of Joshua the son of Nun, transitioning through the 'type' figure of Joshua the son of Josedech The High Priest, and the 300 BCE introduction of The Greek LXX with its Hellenisation of names, and introduction of the Greek 'christos' for 'anoint(ed)', into a "Joshua the Messiah/ Jesus the Christos" mythological Priest/King/Messiah/Saviour/legendary/mythical 'type' figure, hundreds of years before the NT "Jesus Christ" was even "born" -that is, explicitly written about.
This process culminating in the compilation and redaction of hundreds of years worth of Jewish 'Joshua/Jesus' legends and attributed 'sayings', all finally cobbled together with a large dose of Hellenistic and Zorosteran theology sometime after 70 AD.
No it 'didn't pop up like mushroom', and neither did it originate in the 30s AD as is presented by the HJers.
The explanation requires no real flesh and blood -man- named Jesus. 'he' was and is nothing more than a legendary figment.