TedM

If Jesus was crucified, are you saying you think those who originally preached his resurrection likely had known and loved him, or had just picked up the idea from people who actually had known him, or something else? Would you also go as far as saying that this Jesus wasn't primarly a military-style leader, but was a teacher of some kind, or do you think neither was likely or needed much for the inspiration of the idea of his resurrection? Given the culture, do you think 'love' would have been enough? Might belief that he had been god-sent or god-like have been a requirement?

ted

King of Men

Water to wine, anyone? There are certainly plenty of hero-ish deeds in the Gospels. And then there's that promise of 'Whosoever believeth, eternal life'. Just the sort of thing a credulous, downtrodden peasant might want to believe in. And there are plenty of cult heroes and gods who die, rise again, and ascend to heaven; it's not an uncommon theme in hero myths.

Sparrow

You're right, it doesn't sound good enough for a hero savior.

So we add a few miracles - walking on water, healing leprosy, water to wine, etc.

Still not good enough.

So we add a virgin birth in meager circumstances. Wise men come to bow down before him and bring gifts.

Virgin birth has been done before and one man's wizard is another's simpleton.

So we add a humiliating death and a resurrection.

Still not good enough, been there, done that before.

Oh, but the death was a sacrifice - god sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself. Yeah, now we're cookin'!

TedM

You are suggesting a chronology that doesn't meet the criteria of the original post. If we first assume the crucifixion happened, what is required for Christianity to have 'caught on'? What does it imply about the man crucified and those who talked about him after his crucifixion?

ted

Sparrow

This chronology can meet the criteria of the original post. There's some sort of rabble rouser/preacher that manages to get the Romans to crucify him. Followers later invent the rest of the story. The savior isn't the man who was crucified, that connection is made later. The further away in time one is from the 'real' events, the more fantastic the story becomes.

I have no problem assuming that crucifixions happened, hell they still have them every Easter in the Philippines. The problem is connecting a crucifixion to a specific individual with specific qualities. I find the evidence for a historical Jesus unconvincing. I don't believe in miracles or virgins giving birth. But I'm not going to try to convince you that no one named Jesus was ever crucified.

TedM

This part is reasonable, but...

This is the part I'm interested in. The very earliest creation of Christianity. Why and how did it begin? And grow? Was it because of claims for a resurrection? If so, why was that claim made and why did it 'take'? What does that tell us about Jesus and his earliest followers after the crucifixion?

ted

Toto

You are asking a question for which there is no hard historical data. We just don't know. Christians like to speculate that Jesus must have had an extraordinarily charismatic personality to have set the events in motion that led to the growth of the church, but that's just speculation.

There are a lot of new religious movements that form around men or women with charismatic personalities, but they usually fall apart when the charismatic person dies.

Amaleq13

No and I have no idea how my rather simple statement could inspire such a convoluted question.

No.

I have no idea what you mean by "given the culture" but, yes, I think love is enough to motivate people to believe someone they loved had risen from the dead. It is actually quite common for those suffering from grief to experience what they believe to be a visitation from a lost loved one.

Requirement? No.

bajan

I think the Jews felt insulted at having their choice of king executed by the occupying power. Therein lies the causes for the political uprising that culminated in the Jewish War. Their defeat caused some proud followers to fall back on a religious explanation of the events which had first been expounded by Paul.

Certainly the oppression by the Romans on a peoples with a long & proud tradition had a lot to do with their desire to struggle above it and evolve into something greater embracing non-Jews.

Julian

If Jesus was just one of the innumerable preachers at the time, preaching the kingdom of god/heaven, and then suddenly, unexpectedly gets executed, it is not too farfetched that his followers, who presumably still believed in his message, would simply have incorporated his death into the growing mythology. I see no reason why his death should be the occasion giving rise to the movement.

Julian