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05-15-2007, 07:43 PM | #101 | |||
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05-15-2007, 09:15 PM | #102 | ||
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Since when did someone writing a work of fiction become a conspiracy?
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It reads like a fictional work, so why would we assume it's anything but that? Quote:
- someone sits down to write a mystical interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, and composes a story. - the story has widespread appeal and people start repeating it - eventually people forget it was a work of fiction (in the same way scientologists can't remember that Dianetics was a work of fiction, even though it really wasn't that long ago) - due to limited communication, versions proliferate, resulting in the gospels of the Bible (plus the nonBiblical gospels) Where's the conspiracy? |
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05-15-2007, 10:17 PM | #103 | |||||
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05-15-2007, 11:29 PM | #104 | ||||
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In other words, there could have been a historical Jesus, with some number of disciples, to possibly include Peter, John, and James, and yet no prophecies fulfilled. In that case, the gospels as we know them are fictionalized, rather than fiction. Quote:
For someone who does not accept these things a priori, they are assumed fictional until proven otherwise. The direct answer then, is that the stories contain reports of the dead being raised, men walking on water, talking with demons, etc. These things don't happen. Quote:
- there is a mystical Jewish messiah movement. The Christ of this movement is based on Hellenistic Jewish pagan ideas of the Messiah being a spiritual being rather than an earthly being. It is modelled on the books of Enoch combined with significance derived from the new age of Pisces, which conicides with the first century. This movement introduces some of the symbolism adopted later by the gospel story, such as the symbolism of the cross (a pre-existing solar symbol), and the idea of the death of god (derived from sun worship), the name Jesus (which means 'YHWH saves'). Paul is a member of this movement. - inspired by the fall of the temple combined with the dawn of the new age of Pisces, someone from this group decides to write a fictional story derived from the Jewish scriptures, folding in the ideas of groups such as Paul's, as a way of arguing the end of the old age that led to all the violence of the Jewish wars, and the dawn of a new age. - the rest proceeds as explained before. Those who came later didn't know the story was fiction/fictionalized, and simply wrote down myths that had developed around it, or filled in the blanks as they thought likely. The sequence is: Paul -> pre-Gospel work of fiction -> gospels as we know them (+the brief mention in Antiquities?) -> pseudo Pauline letters early church fathers writings -> gnostic letters + the remainder of the NT + later church fathers ...though it is possible some of this is out of order, I think it demonstrates how all the data can be explained with no extraordinary leap required. |
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