aa5874

I am afraid HJers cannot answer such questions. They have no idea whatsoever how their supposed Jesus was constructed. Over 1800 years ago Marcion put forward the plausible and believed notion that Jesus was a phantom or some kind of ghost-like looking docetic human that came directly from heaven as the son of a God without being born or conceived on earth.

Marcion has shown, without doubt, that there was no need for the character called Jesus to have been human. And it would appear that Marcion had tremendous success.

According to Justin Martyr, Marcion had many followers and the Marcionites used to laugh at those who believed Jesus was both God and man.


See http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

Marcion has, in effect, destroyed the HJ, since the 2nd century.

This is Justin Martyr on Marcion in First Apology And, it must not be forgotten that Marcion and the Marcionites were Jesus believers commonly called Christians.

mountainman

Had it not been for the later avid historical research
of the church historian Eusebius the entire world and
all of posterity may indeed have forgotten this inference.

Do we have any non christians mentioning Marcion?
Does Josephus mention "Christians"?
Does Marcus Aurelius mention "Christians"?
Does Galen mention "Christians"?
Why were ancient authors being interpolated
with respect to the mighty nation of christians?
How disconnected is "early christianity" from
the reality of corroborative evidence?

Anat

How many of the teachings attributed to Jesus originated in the 1st century CE or thereabouts, in the general area of the eastern Mediterranean? How many were more probably from a different time or place?

If there were someone who lived in the right time and place who taught several of the central teachings now attributed to Jesus but who was not crucified would he qualify as the historical Jesus? What about a preacher who was crucified and whose teachings only slightly overlapped those now attributed to Jesus? Is there even agreement as to what is the threshold to differentiate between the historical Jesus and any random person from his alleged time and place?

show_no_mercy

Probably one of the quirks in this entire debacle is determining what constitutes a "historical core" to an otherwise fictional persona. Was the one or two people that the cartoon Popeye based on make them the "historical" Popeye?

Is there a historical Wonder Woman since the creator of WW based her visage on his wife?

wordy

Doesn't Hoffmann write something important?

The further way from the alleged time of HJesus the more wild the stories about him.

The truth about a historical Jesus could be as non-sensational as the Average Joe Tele-Evangelist of the sort we have now? Jesus could be even more common or average Joe.

I would prefer that he was all made up and that one could find physical evidence for that from one of the writers talking strategy with the other writers them argueing over details in the plot they set up.

But suppose he really existed then the most likely thing is that he is nothing like the Jesus of the scripture.

The Gnostics AFAIK existed more than hundred years before alleged Jesus to exist and they needed no physical Jesus. Their emanations from God was spiritual beings.

The physical Jesus is a reaction to the spiritual. some people needed a physical person that god possesed or incarnated in. "Are you Elia?" "Are you the one we are waiting fore?"

The savior has to be physical to work politically.

So they based it on a real person but almost nothing of that real person is retained in the stories.

Just my wild take on it.

aa5874

Not so at all. Marcion proved it. Marcion claimed Jesus only looked human but had no flesh and did have many followers.

The mythical Gods of the Romans worked politically for hundreds of years before Jesus.

Essentially, the author of the Jesus story just simply picked a Jewish name and then proceeded to fabricate fiction. There were real persons called Jesus but none like Jesus of the NT.

wordy

Marcion and The mythical Gods of the Romans.

But if they where that good and popular then it is either a miracle that the Catholics won or they simply killed off all opposition? That could explain it.

dog-on

The later version had incorporated an ancient history into the bag of tricks.

The catholics eventually aquired some fairly powerful friends that pretty much sealed the deal.

wordy

But the Marcions and the Polytheists have had some 1000 years to work underground to make their case.

Is it not more likely that the inventions by the Catholics was more effective?

Even Marxists in Central and South America use one of their Heroes as a Catholic Saint to pray to him to not get oppressed by the Church and the LandOwners.

That effective they are.

Ohh oops I forgot to add that Gnosticism survive in West through New Age, Occultism, Hermeticism, FreeMason, RosenCreutch, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Martinus, PSI, PostModern Relativism, Mind-Body Dualism, etc

dog-on

I would agree.

Obviously the inventions of the Catholics was more effective.