Sheshbazzar

For those who assessed NO actual human being Jesus ...
I for one, sure would like to hear more input in this thread from "those who voted NO"
The original thread is still open to those who want to comment on their own personal reservations, or to weigh in on the opposite side.

In the second post here, I spelled out the reasons that were behind my NO vote.
I am sure that the other NO voters each have their reasons, even be it so simple as, "It's all a crock of crap"
Let's hear it guys.

dog-on

I voted no simply because it is, most likely, the correct answer.

Actually, I do not even believe that the founders of Christianity were, themselves, Jews.

Christianity seems to be a grafting of a Roman religion onto the Septuagint. This grafting gave "historical weight" and therefore "truth" to a "dime-a-dozen" Roman mystery religion.....

genius...

ph2ter

According to my opinion Jesus is a construct built from Jewish scripture. We can see how picture of Jesus evolved from Paul to Mark and after them. Jesus in the process got more and more meat. Paul has only the skeleton. He has Jesus born of woman in an unspecified past, crucified, resurrected and nothing more. By the way, why to emphasize that someone is born of woman, unless this fact is in dispute?
The biggest quantum leap was made by Mark. He put meat on the skeleton of Paul's Jesus. After Mark the process of historicization was actually unstopable. The birth naratives were the next logical step.
The main problem is Mark and his motives. Gospel of Mark is possible to derive almost solely from Paul and Jewish scripture. Most important invention of Mark is putting Jesus in the time of Pontius Pilate. I think he has no choice except to put Jesus some time before destruction of the temple. After destruction the story of Jesus would not be possible, again much time before, the story also could not be plausible. He chosed the right time, not too late and not too early.
The story was initially probably supposed to be allegorical, but after generation or two the literal reading was unavoidable. Docetism probably originated in allegorical reading but was one step further toward traditional Jesus.

sharrock

At the risk of being intellectually bullied, which is what happens normally, I voted no as I believe the thesis put forward by Jospeh Atwill holds water... and it's not entirely without its supporters...

http://110559.aceboard.net/110559-97...-influence.htm

mountainman

Well you can count at least in me defending to
the best of my ability any "intellectual bullying"
concerning Joe Atwill's thesis. The fact that no
evidence exists by which to categorically either
reject or accept any mainstream theory,
let alone Joe's theory, is the state of affairs, and
that thus all is still conjecture.

The problem remains to try and explain christian
origins by means of a simple theory of political
history that does not need to invoke supernatural
occurrences, and which explains the evidence
that is now available to us concerning "christian
origins".

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Dirge

The vast majority of ancient written history is lost. The library at Alexandria burned. Most Roman records are lost. Even a lot of what the ancient Greeks wrote is gone, and it's almost lucky that all of it wasn't lost. Were the Persians and Hitites illiterate? I doubt it. All anyone can hope for is some ancient docxuments are found to look into the past, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, or a newly unburied garbage dump with papyrii from ancient Egypt, or the Middle East.

Minimalist

Why? Was Zeus ever a real person? Or Jupiter? Or Osiris? Or Quetzalcoatl? Or Marduk? Or Odin? Or Yahweh, for that matter?

Mankind has been inventing 'gods' since the stone age. It is not "different" because it is your 'god.'

mountainman

All these gods have archaeological footprints
by way of their priesthoods of various forms
which persist over epochs.

The christian priesthood to this new god Jesus
exploded into the archaeological record in the
fourth century, along with a vast amount of
literature, purporting to have been written
centuries earlier by the "christian priesthood".

Along with this explosion of things christian
is tremendous evidence of extreme persecution
and intolerance of the fourth century christian
regimes.

A literary assertion is made and published.
Military supremacy ensures canonicity.
It is all very docetic.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

JohnG

I voted no, but take my vote with a grain of salt. I am not nearly as educated in bible studies as many here, but I tend to think the composite rabbi theory is the most logical theory I have heard.

My current take on the bible is that it is not reliable enough to put serious time into studying the hidden meanings, OTOH, I realize the impact it has, along with Roman culture, on western society. I may get into the finer detail of the books one day to look further into the cultural paradigm that was set in motion by the bible.

For now, I tend to focus on independant study of the culture in those times (and others), and use the bible as more of a reference for the thoughts/mood of the people.

After doing some reading, I come to the conclusion that it may be very likely that there was no one messianic figure who did all those things as told by the bible.

I feel 100% sure that a character didn't exist in the same context that the bible describes (a miracle making ghost god-man).

Minimalist

But that wasn't the question, Pete. Why does there have to be a real person behind "Jesus" but not behind all the other cultic heroes that mankind has invented?

You'll get no argument from me that Jesus had followers. But what they were following was no more real than what the Greeks invented.