Jobber

You must now present evidence that Jesus really spoke the words you say he did. His "words" cannot stand as true until we know that they were actually spoken by him and that he was who you claim him to be. The N.T. is hardly ironclad evidence for this.

You see, atheists are not atheists as a result of any evidence. We are atheists due to a lack of evidence. You should get your facts straight before you assert them, my friend.

aa5874

Exagerated stories based on lots of other people, and then claiming its the story about a single person is generally characterised as fiction.
And by the way, in which century was Christianity an obscure Jewish sect?

spamandham

Thanks for explaining the difference. I found it helpful!

BTW, I thought you were somewhat of a crackpot when I first saw your posts here, but have now come to think there may actually be something to your position - though I lean toward Christianity forming in the second century rather than the 4th - I appreciate your perspective.

mountainman

Thanks for the feedback spamandham. I am encouraged
by such small things. I can assure you that I am guided
by logic and scientific and/or archeological evidence in the
exploration of an alternative theory of ancient history.

The opening sentence of Robert Price's article recently
posted here, The Quest of the Mythical Jesus,
begins with this sentence ...

When, long ago, I first learned that some theorized
that Jesus had never existed as an historical figure,
I dismissed the notion as mere crankism, as most still do.

He writes well.

Lucretius

I studied Latin as my undergraduate degree and in my final year I studied Seneca in particular his play Medea under Dr C.D.N. Costa who is one of the foremost "Seneca Scholars " in the world (The Journal of Roman Studies has this to say "In 1973 C. D. N. Costa's edition of Seneca's Medea offered the first detailed commentary in English on a Senecan tragedy" )and at no time in the reading of Medea or in the overview of all of Seneca's works, plays or otherwise was there any reference at all to this "mythical lost play" such a "lost play" would obviously have been of intense interest to Classical scholars yet I have not been able to find any serious academic discussion of it.
I think that some people have been confused by the alleged Senecan play Octavia which is now thought to be a later (forged?) play by another author and have somehow come to the conclusion that there MUST be a "lost play" and that this MUST therefore be about Jesus.
Personally I am pretty much agnostic about an HJ or a MJ in fact I sometimes think that maybe we are talking about more than one "alleged Christ " or " alleged Messiah", who were about at that time which could at least in part explain some of the supposed contradictions in the NT
A real preacher/ revolutionary in Judea or several individuals about that time is quite feasible.
The actual "Son fo God" far less so.

Condraz23

There are many theories regarding the origins of Christianity. Most historians believe that Christianity was an obscure Jewish sect during the Ancient Roman era and was similar to Mithraism in terms of numbers of followers.

Amedeo

I presume you are talking about the Jesus of the Gospels, which are biographies of a person called Jesus.

Jesus cannot possibly have existed, since the Gospel Jesus is a composite of two different people: ONE person or one thing with contradictory attributes cannot exst. However, it is possible in principle that one of the two existed.

I have dealt with this extensively. So, here I'll give the briefest possible view:

One Jesus was the cousin of John the Baptist. He becam an apocalyptic teacher, warning people of the imminent end of the world [within one of the then-generation]. He aimed at bringing the strayed sheep [the Judeans] into the fold of Israel, and to prepare Israel for the world to come, the kingdom of God, which he taught in parables.

Jesus was born under King Herod the Great, a fact mentioned in the Gospels because of this relevant fact: Jesus was the legitimate king, because his Father was Joseph in the bloodline of King David. So, as the stories tell us under the guise of the myth of the Magi, King Jesus was a threat to herod, who promptly order the killings of the newborn in the whereabouts of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Gospels omit further references to King Jesus, except that that he was tried and crucified as the "king of the Judeans" -- obviously a pretender to the throne who failed.

King Jesus was said to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David, as expected by the Old Scriptures. Since Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth (in Galilee), they had to be in Bathlehem in order to fulfil the Scriptures as to where Jesus was to be born. So, as Providence would have it, there was a Roman census which required everybody to report to his native city and register. So, Mary delivered Jesus in Bethlehem.

The other jesus has also Mary for a mother and was born also in bethlehem, but Jesus was conceived when Mary had not known any man yet. An angel informed her that God made her conceive. An angel appeared also to Joseph in a dream to inform him as to how Mary got pregnant. So, according to this story, jesus is literally the son of God.

The two stories of the fatherhood are contradictory: It is impossible for one and the same Jesus to be fathered by Joseph and by God. (Such a person is not existible.)

For those who accept that Jesus was the son of God, there is another contradiction. According to John's Gospel -- which is on of the canonical or authentic Gospels -- God took on the human flesh and dwelt among men [in the person of Jesus]. That's what God did, according to John, but this is not a fact that was announced by either jesus or God. According to Matthew, for instance, God caused Mary to be pregnant with Jesus (who was actually supposed to be name Immanuel), not that He or hod Word [the Logos] descended into Mary or created an embryonic body for himself in Mary and later was born in the world. The divine fatherhood does not imply the divine incarnation.

The Jesus God created in Mary stands in contradiction with the Joannine Jesus whose non-body part is God's eternal personified Word through whom all things were created. In joh's view, Jesus is not the son of God; he is God (specifically, the Word) in the flesh. (The simple son of God would be a human person in the flesh.)

So, there are three counts against the possibility of the Gospel Jesus to have existed. Most likely, an apocalyptic Jesus existed and, having got involved in politics (actually like his cousin), ended up dead.

The royal Jesus failed; the apocalyptic jesus made a false prophesy. But his apostles did not give up. Assisted by Paul's new theology (which makes Jesus the atoner for men's sins), they brought the message to the Gentiles, to convert them to Judaism, for a limited period of time.

There must have been an old saying, "If you can't beat them, lead them to join you." But after 70 A.D., the Gentiles made their church autonomous; it's called the Catholic Church.

spamandham

Why would anyone assume they are biographies rather than religious texts?

Amedeo

Nobody has to assume anything. If you read the Gospels, they tell you of Jesus [or many of them], the circumstamces of his birth and death, what he said to others, and what he did. Whether an account is true or false, it is precisely a biography. Biographies are written about ordinary men, heroes, prophets, gods, and so forth. The Bible contains many biographies of heroes and, overall, the biography of God from creation to Malachi [ or so], the last receiver of the oracles of God.

What is a religious text? A psalm or poem addressed to God; a message from a God delivered by a prophet or Jesus or Orpheus or Hesiod or other "speaker of things divine." The Gospels are biographies of Jesus which include some of his teachings (theological, moral, apocalyptic). Thus some of the texts in the Gospels are "religious," that is, religion-teachings.

Sign Related

I think the author of the gospels made up all of the characters in the gospels. I think the author was the Sun of Man himself explaining true things and revealing hidden things about life and the world through his leading star character named Jesus. Thus the Sun of Man is revealed as greatest story teller of all time.