Llyricist

You need to provide an example of the former to rebut my rebuttal.

These are true, and I didn't dispute either one of these ideas, however....

Reverence is not worship, and he is not considered their god, nor their "object of worship" which, unless I am mistaken, are actually some kind of aliens. Muhammed holds an analogous place with Muslims.

Still not examples of:
founder = object of worship.

Actually, upon researching this, he appears to be another Muhammed type, rather than a god-man. Seems to attempt to syncretise Eastern religion with Christianity, one of his writings is a commentary on the four gospels which allegedly shows how "Christ is resurrected in all of us".

Ummm if you intended to say "the concensus view of" I still have to disagree, the "founder = object of worship" is at least uncommon if not extraordinary.

Even Rastafarianism, which actually does have a historical person as their saviour god-man figure (though quite obviously modelled on the conventional view of Jesus), was founded by someone else.

Doug Shaver

That would not include me, but I have been trying to acquire some relevant expertise.

After six years of research from the interested layman's viewpoint, I'm under the impression that the tide of professional opinion is not turning yet. Ahistoricism still seems to be considered a fringe position. I do believe, though, that this is due more to simple intellectual inertia than anything else. Considering the general ambiguity of the most important evidence, it should be no surprise if even the best scholars take a long time to discard an assumption that has been firmly in place for nearly 2,000 years.

wordy

Toto, maybe that historic guy was "charismatic" but why ascribe him to be "great"? When I read about him he doesn't seem great at all. Ordinary or less, one could still be very charismatic even if opposite to being "great".

spamandham

"Paul" (or is that Marcion?) is certainly the prime mover of modern Christianity, but he didn't start the movement even by his own admission. He considered others to be the pillars of the church.

aa5874

You have totally mis-represented my view. I have never put forward any idea that there is no proof of origin of Christianity. Never.

aa5874

I think you need the read the writings of Irenaeus, Eusebius of Caesarea and Julian to get a proper insight of how the concept of 'the Christ' may have been developed.

You may be surprised to find out how many versions of 'the Christ' were available during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th century.

It must be noted that all concepts of 'the Christ' were believed to be true by each individual sect. That is, there were sects that believed that Jesus was an apparition, not born, was actually a spirit and only appearing to be human. So, Jesus Christ, according to that sect, would be in fact a Spirit, and only appeared to be real.

Now, if Jesus Christ was indeed an apparition, then no historian would be able to locate him in any historical context.

Llyricist

What movement was that exactly that he didn't start? There were apparently a group of devout Jews who were pillars in something called "The Church of God", but beyond that, what exactly were their beliefs? All we have is assumptions and inferences that they held anything like "Christian" beliefs, even going by what Paul says, all we know is that they didn't seem to agree with Paul about keeping the Law. What they DID agree on is pure conjecture.

ETA: Oops, yes they apparently also had visions of Christ... so there is that.

driver8

As a casual observer, it seems obvious that there is more MJ to the biblical account than HJ. This doesn't mean that there can't be both. It seems quite plausible that there was an HJ, but the NT accounts are not believable. People don't attend church to hear about the HJ, its the miracles of the MJ they want. I read this forum in my own quest to understand the differences.

As for the assertion that Jesus = founder of Christianity, I'm not sure this is a credible claim. It seems that the "founders" were instead those who wrote the stories. I also have a hard time accepting Jesus as role model or teacher, as the purported message is ill-conceived, conflicted, and too rooted in its own time. So, if Jesus is neither credible teacher nor chronicler, what is he?

Is the tide turning? In a long-term sense, yes. The Christian message has been promulgated for centuries in a controlled environment, the church and community. There has been little ability to counter that message, and many disincentives to do so. The ability to communicate in forums such as this now offer a viable counter to that message. I predict that education, scientific study and archaeological discoveries will only weaken the Christian position. As we peal back the layers of falsehood we find less and less truth. I suspect the core is rotten as well.

Llyricist

Yeah, my only point was that the idea that the necessary founder of Christianity would most likely be Jesus himself, is not well supported by what we know of other religions.