Solo

Hmmm, I don't know.....

But I know there is no challenge in selling Christ as History to believers who are gladbags, or Christ as Myth to believers who are angry. Doherty does not know he is a believer. He thinks he can deny it by wearing his underwear inside out.

No, the real challenge is selling Christ to nihilists and maniacs, like Jesus of Nazareth or what was left of him in his buddies.

Jiri

No Robots

Why do you think I hang out here?

Malachi151

No, the real issue is that its no problem to feel a kindred spirit to imaginary people, whom you idealize in your own head.

No Robots

So now Spinoza is imaginary, too?

jakejonesiv

OK, without getting into the subject too deeply, John the Baptist is just as mythical as Jesus.

There is no mention of John the Baptist in any of the Pauline corpus, so we must move on to the gospels.

The mention of John the Baptist in Mark 8:27-28 reveals that John the Baptist and Jesus, if they existed at all, could not have been contemporaries. "And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets."

For Jesus to have been deemed the reincarnation of John, John would have had to been thought to live a minimum of decades before the time assigned to Jesus' career.

This leaves Mark 1:2-14a as an interpolation.

The actual beginning of the Gospel of Mark (urMark) is thus likely "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel...". (Mark 1:1 is a late title to the work).

The reason for the late adding of the passage concerning John was to have him subordinate himself to Jesus, "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose." This has nothing to do with history, and all to do
with a competing Baptist cult in the second century. This is why in Mark 2:18-20, the dispute is not with John, but the followers of John. The gospel stories are "mythical refelctions of theopolitical history." _The Jesus the Jews Never Knew_ F.R.Zindler, p 448, & throughout.

The next mention of JBAP in Mark is an incongruent flash back. Mark 6:14-29. Leaving aside the inconsistencies within this questionable passge, a simple reading of the verses both before and after reveal the interpolation.

"And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. ...interpolation... And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught." Mark 6:12-13,30.

There is reason to suspect that the John the Baptist is interpolated into Josephus "Antiquities" 18:5:2. John the Baptist is not mentioned in the table of contents of the original Greek table of contents to "Antiquities".

On Roger Pearse's most excellent site, we find an e-mail quoted from Professor Feldman.
"Prefixed to each book of the Antiquities is a rough table of
contents for that book. At the end of the table of contents for each book there is a statement as to the number of years covered by that book. For each of the portions of each book there is a very brief summary in two or three lines of that portion...The Table of Contents, in both the Greek original and in the Latin translation
does not refer to the Testimonium Flavianum or John the Baptist or James, the brother of Jesus. ... [It was] already referred to in the Latin version of the fifth or sixth century."

Also, just as the questionable Testimonium is not found in earlier work of Josephus, "The War of the Jews" neither is John the Baptist mentioned in this work even though there is a section discussing Herod.

The Baptist material intrudes into the context of "Antiquities" 18:5 which flows perfectly if it is taken away. Again, I refer the reader to Zindler.

We have difficulty in finding a trace of an historical person behind the John the Baptist figure.

So where is he found?

According to Arthur Drews, John the Baptist is a mythical figure based on Oannes the Dipper.
This is connected to astrology where the sun after its "birth" at the winter soltice is "baptized" by entering the constellation of Aquarius and Pisces.

"A complete understanding of the baptism in the Jordan can only be attained if here, too, we take into consideration the translation of the baptism into astrological terms. In other words, it appears that John the Baptist as we meet him in the Gospels was not
an historical person. ... Again, the account in the Gospels of the relations between John and Jesus is full of obscurities and contradictions as pointed out by Strauss. Those however, disappear as soon as we recognize that under the name of John, which in Hebrew
means "pleasing to God," is concealed the Babylonian Water-God, Oannes (Ea). Baptism is connected with his worship, and the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan represents the reflection upon Earth of what originally took place amoung the stars. That is to say, the sun begins its yearly course with a baptism,entering as it does, immediately after its birth, the
constellations of the Water-carrier and the Fishes."

_The Christ Myth_, pages 122-123, C. Deslisle Burns (Translator)

Jake Jones IV

Sarpedon

Well yes, it is trivial, in that it doesn't really matter. Even if you could prove that he didn't exist, no one who believed in him would believe you anyway.

Just because we don't know who invented shoes doesn't mean nobody did. Somebody did, and somebody invented christianity as well. I don't believe that christianity is the true religion, so I'm not emotionally attached to this question, and I don't care who the 'real' Jesus was, aside from as an interesting diversion.

There's no reason to be insulting. I merely said that someone had to start the cult. Why not call that person Jesus? Not technically accurate, but what difference does it make? The fact of the matter is that if the bible account is even moderately true, Jesus wasn't much of a cult leader, barely managing to muster 20 followers. That such a person might live and die unremarked on is quite easy to believe. In 200 years I doubt very many people will know about the heaven's gate cult either.

I'm making my argument based on the psychology of recent cult leaders who have been analyzed by psychologists. I think the character appearing in the bible fits the profile of a cult leader well, therefore the account smacks of realism. Is this not an argument? Because records of the time are incomplete, I'm making an analogy to similar situations in the present. Is this not reasonable? Look at your alleged facts and see if they are as good.

I view jesus as being kind of like merlin. A real person, but no one knows anything about what he was really like, because the mythology of the man has almost completely obscurred his real doings.

Oh yeah? I believe that many anthropologists and historians think that many gods are actually historical figures who have been deified. We know for a fact that this happened at least twice in Ancient Egypt: Imhotep and Amenhotep son of Hapu. Also, dead kings became gods as well. This has led many scholars to say that all egyptian gods may have been once 'real' people. Are you going to insult them now, as well? I think that if you think hard enough, you can think of many real men who became gods, or demi-gods. (Chuko Liang, Kuan Kung, Kim Jong-Il, Augustus, etc)

And it may surprise you that I agree, to a point. Some gods are deified people, some aren't. I think there are two basic kinds of religions (and I am not claiming that I invented this idea): the synthetic and the cult.

A cult is started by a charismatic leader, who gathers followers to him. It emphasizes mind control, unquestioning obedience, faith, and the forbiddance of all activities and associations that are outside the cult. I think christianity is a cult, but it is so old that some of the characteristics have weakened or been eliminated.

A synthetic religion is one that was made not by a deranged person, but by intellectuals for a purpose... national unity for an example. A good example of this is the mythology created by Virgil in the Aeneid. Another would be Judaism. This sort of religion focuses on nationalism, law and order, race and family life.

Of course there is considerable cross-over. Most cult leaders and religious synthesizers use elements of pre-existing religions in their new ones. I think that the cult is the oldest, and more successful of the two, while the synthetic usually doesn't survive the power structure that created it. The cult is deeply rooted in human social behavior, the cult leader being an alpha male type personality, which weaker personalities instinctively follow.

Our difference seems to lie in the fact that I think of christianity as a cult, whereas you see it as synthetic. Perhaps we may come into an agreement if we say that it began as a cult, but was synthesized into what we call modern christianity with Constantine's various religious councils and conventions?

Malachi 151:

As for your comments, they are all very good. However, I simply can't imagine someone with the kind of psychology necessary to create a cult casting himself as a mere 'apostle.' The true nutcase cult leader would ALWAYS cast himself as the messiah. In this case, the nutcase (Jesus) was a failure as a cult leader, and had to wait till a more able apostle came along. Paul being the Brigham Young to Jesus' Joseph Smith.

rlogan

[/QUOTE]

Nice material there Jake. Thanks.

We should add the Hebrew Bible midrash where jBapt is supposedly fulfilling the voice crying out in the wilderness. Typical distortion of Isaiah.

So you need him to be a yesteryear greenie bum - eating locusts, honey, and all.

That's how you get a big following. You inhabit places nobody lives and make the most disgusting countenance imaginable.

Then huge crowds will seek you out and listen to your wisdom. Unlike temple priests richly adorned and inhabiting the best appointed city buildings.

Nobody listens to them.

aa5874

Some of the people on this board were once believers, so your statement does not make any sense.

There is no evidence that there was a real Jesus Christ to be specific. There were many people called Jesus.

rlogan

It does not follow that Jesus was historical.

For the same reason you do not call the author of Little Red Riding Hood "Littel Red".


That is an odd posture to strike. If it doesn't matter to you, then why does it matter to you?

But one cannot have it both ways - that Jesus was a threat to the establishment and had to be executed, but on the other hand he was a nobody that would not have even come to their attention.

An "argument from best explanation" does not compete against nothing. It has to compete against any other complete argument - and in this case that Jesus was a myth retroactively placed into the 1st century when the need arose to claim ascendency over other competing sects. The alleged linear descendants from "the man".

Understandable. You need to address what evidence we do have in this case though.

But you don't have such evidence for nascent Christianity.


And if we accept the "official" line, it was a sect that developed out of Judaism. And yet there is no mention of it as such in, for example, Josephus' discussion of the sects of Judaism. And this is written decades after he supposedly was crucified and the movement allegedly grew.

Cheers...

jakejonesiv

Yes, and the voice from heaven is from Psalm 2:7.

But just to briefly return to the Pauline material, as important as baptism is there, no mention is made of Jesus' baptism by John or John's baptism of multitudes for repentance.

Instead to justify baptism, an appeal is made to Moses in the cloud and the sea (crossing the Red Sea) 1 Cor. 10:2. That doesn't make sense. Not if you have the allegedly recent memory of JNAZ and JBAP.

Justin Martyr knows more about John the Baptist than Paul does.WTF?

Jake Jones IV