Elijah

First, admit that you have completely misunderstood the concept of Son of God from post #159.

Second, answer what I have been asking of you.
Let’s move past this first before we tackle suicide man again or it's just going to be a waste of time/broken record.

aa5874

The letters of the writer called Paul support a God/man, a mythical creature, with power and authority to forgive sin, to rise from the dead, and ascend to heaven to be with his Father, the God of the Jews. The writer even claimed Jesus was coming back a second time to earth.

All throughout the letters the writer made the claim that a character called Jesus rose from dead and ascended to heaven, these facts must not be overlooked at all, otherwise a complete erroneous picture of the letter writer's Jesus would emerge.

No way. The letter writer supports a resurrected mythical God/man.

aa5874

You have already shown clearly that you have no credible information, no explanation and no idea whatsoever if any thing about your suicide man is true.

All you have is no-good biased evidence.

Now, I understand that the son of God of the NT, was presented as the offspring of the Holy Ghost, born without sexual union, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds as stated by the church writers.

What do you understand about your Jesus, using your no-good biased information?


I have presented what the authors of the NT and church writers wrote, you are the one who believe that their presentation of the offspring of the Holy Ghost is false or confused.

It is extremely obvious that they presented a myth.

You disagree.

You must produce your evidence to support your disagreement. That is all.

I know what you believe, people can believe anything, but it is another thing to produce support for your belief.

But, in any event, whatever you bring forward to support your suicide man, I will shred it to bits.

rlogan

No, what you are doing is baiting.

I suggest people stop taking it.

Pretty obvious.

Elijah

Do you understand the term son of god as a title for the messiah now or do you still imagine it means an anthropomorphic genie's biological offspring?

You don't think it's possible for the writers of the time to believe in stories of a virgin birth or the dead rising? Their understanding of biology was too sharp to consider that?
Enough that if you wish to ask me something about it you’re going to have to be a little more specific with your questioning.
It doesn’t matter if it was false or confused you haven’t shown that they are obviously presenting a myth and not something they believed happened.
I present exhibit Aa5874 who despite over 5 thousand posts here trying to prove Christianity is a myth can’t present a complete coherent theory to support that myth origin. Shred away and see if you can get a coherent theory out of yourself. It’s should be obvious that if you can’t conceive of a rational alternative to the historical core then the historical core is what we should be going with.

Toto

But we all know that there is no evidence of early oral traditions before the gospels.

Here's a hypothesis that is completely coherent: After the Bar Kochba Rebellion, a movement started among the disaspora Jews that incorporated a unique reading of the Septuagint. A story was written about an imaginary Savior who was crucified and rose from the dead, which represented the nation of Israel being crucified by the Romans but rising again spiritually, which was set 100 years before it was written. After a generation, a group took over the church and required belief in this story as a condition of commitment to the movement. It rewrote Paul's letters to make him appear to be a Christian. Why did this movement grow? Because if filled a need in the early Roman empire, just like other new religions grow when they fill a social need.

I can't say that this can be proven, but it is coherent, and there is no evidence that contradicts it.

There are other hypotheses. Why do you think they can be dismissed?

Heaven's Gate - you don't see people signing up for that, do you? Jim Jones isn't making any new converts either.

Your idea that Jesus' death inspired a movement has no logic or history behind it. People die all the time, but that doesn't create a religion. Something else is required. The standard historicist claim is that Jesus was a charismatic figure whose self sacrifice inspired his followers to found the church. But this hypothesis seems to be ad hoc, with no basis in the sociology or psychology of religion.

Where did this come from? What do you think the sign of Jonah was?

Elijah

Just skip it. It’s off topic and I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.
These are some of the questions I would ask:
Who are the Jews you are talking about in particular?
Where are they at this time, is the movement widespread or centrally located?
What does the story look like at the start?
What do they have to believe in about the story?
In the beginning is Jesus a messiah story or does that evolve later?
Are the gospels meant to be a story of a messiah or of a symbolic Israel and where do they fit into your theory?
What do you mean by made Paul appear to be a Christian?
What were Paul’s letters about before?
How did this group come about Paul’s letters?
When and why did it go from a Jew to Gentile religion?
At what point was there confusion on him being historical and what do you think the transition looked like?
What need did this religion fulfill for the Roman Empire?
What did the religion look like before Rome took it over? (size, beliefs and such)
Are there martyrs and if so who is the first recorded?
Who are the earliest historical figures of this movement that you believe actually existed?
It wasn’t bad, it’s still real vague. I still don’t see you being able to point to an origin or how it was confused for history. I think trying to use the Diaspora as the source of the confusion is the way to go instead of the source of the story. I’m not looking for proof or evidence just something that makes sense. Problem may be with the use of the term coherent which is my bad because the theory in a sentence is coherent but I'm speaking of laid out in a way so that it can be understood what you think actually happened without giant holes.
I just haven’t heard one. Somebody may bust in this thread and lay out a throughout rational myth theory, I don’t know.
Well if Jesus gave all his followers poison punch then his message probably wouldn’t have spread either. Bad comparisons, I asked what suicide cult you thought was similar to that of the early Christians. What figure do you think tried to spread a meme of self-sacrifice like Jesus did? In comparing them we may be able to understand why one succeeded and one failed.
People die all the time but people don’t sacrifice their lives too often. I think if you could imagine someone willingly giving their life up because they believed it would change the world you could see the impact it would have on his immediate followers. I also think if you considered the impact on Paul to see that conviction in full display with Stephen’s imitation you could see how that could change a man. A willingness to die isn’t a common thing, you have to imagine what it must have looked like to the Roman audience to see Christians who were willing martyrs in the colosseum because they believed in a higher whatever. It’s going to call attention and bring credibility to their beliefs.

Tank Mans aren’t that common and their impact is substantial even if the evidence they leave may not be.
It is conviction spreading from one man’s conviction. (I’m aware of the three days interpretation.)

Solo

Tacitus ?

Jiri

gurugeorge

Yep, that's the one.

The only thing I'd add that there's a pretty strong mystical element (i.e. a Mysteries-like, salvation-guaranteeing personal relationship with the deity) right from the beginning that eventually develops into Gnosticism, as the thing gets further and further away from its roots and becomes more eclectic.

aa5874

I do not make stuff up, I only look at the evidence presented and then formed an opinion.

I have looked at Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, the letters of the letter writers, including the writers called, Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John. They all presented a creature that was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, born of a virgin, who existed before the world was created, and himself created the world, transfigured, resurrected and ascended.

I have looked at many writings of the Church, including Justin Martyr, Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Tatian, Origen and Eusebius and they all are in agreement with the writers of the NT.

The church writers unanimously concur that the creature in the NT was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, born without sexual union, who existed before the world began, and who himself created the world, transfigured, resurrected and ascended.

The written statements, the evidence, presented is of a MYTHICAL creature, I must concur.

Now, you cannot present one single piece of evidence, except no-good biased information or present your case for your Jesus.

You are reading from what appears to be a blank sheet of paper, and you just make stuff up as you go along.

You have admitted that you cannot explain your suicide man to me.

You never will.

And if you try, I will shred your explanation to bits.