dog-on

I think it does...

Regardless of an HJ, the stories about this creature are based on a mangling of OT materials.

You will need to demonstrate exactly why such should not be considered the most likely possibility, since you state it is "demonstrably specious".

I await your evidence...

KrisK10

Mythra, I'm not necessarily trying to determine the nature of the visitations to the early Christians. I'm just trying to determine how the claim of visitations came about. That may entail determining the nature of the visitations/appearance experiences, or it may entail an explanation along the lines of lies being told, or stretches of the truth, urban legend, vying for positions of power, etc, etc. Whatever the line of explanation though, I think an attempt at filling in the details is worthwhile (even if only in a heuristic sense) so as to allow one to really asses its explanatory power, i.e. broad brush strokes - it's just some kind of urban legend or lie - aren't worth much IMHO.

GuruGeorge, Thanks for opinion that Paul was probably the only one who was genuinely visionary and the other guys simply "saw" an idea. In this case, Paul seems not to know of that difference; he seems to equate his appearance experience with all the others (1 Cor 15:5-8), and therefore seems to think they too had appearance experiences. I think your idea though does have a role to play. I keep going back to this all being some combination of individual hallucinations, dreams, "seeing the idea", followed by a sociological selection of those able to teach/preach (leadership qualities) for positions of authority and then some inflation of events like happens in urban legends - he appeared to the 12 at one time (if that is what is intended), he appeared to the 500 at one time, he appeared to all the apostles.

Kris

aa5874

You should bear in mind that 1 Cor 15.5-7 is likely to be false, if Jesus was not a god, and died.

But consider this:

If Jesus was a mere mortal, his appearance to Cephas and the twelve would indicate he was still alive, therefore Jesus may have been alive when 1 Cor 15.5-7 was written. 1 Cor 15.5-7 is very likely to be false even in this scenario.

Amaleq13

You think there is a perfect fit between the story and the Scripture it purports to fulfill? You find none of the uses of Scripture strained? Really?

Please explain how "mangling" and "perfect fit" can describe the same relationship. They seem to be complete opposites.

I already did. There is no crucified messiah to be found anywhere in Hebrew Scripture. It clearly must be imposed upon the text. Therefore, no story about a crucified messiah can be said to derived entirely from Scripture.

QED

Do you like apples?