sschlichter

He is alive at the end of the story ruling the world. this makes sense if those that wrote the story beleive this to be true. if not, then the isolated events of the story are non-sensical and do not contribute to the motives you are assigning to the authors.

so, you beleive he was crucified? you beleive there was a peter? maybe you should just tell me what parts of the gospels you do not beleive.

the plain reading should be done from the perspective of a 1st century jew who beleived (Deut 21:23) ...for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

~steve

Elijah

So you think they should say he is still alive ruling somewhere? Wouldn’t the people who heard that story then just try to go and see him or check on that? Or wouldn’t they already have heard about the son of carpenter ruling the world and defeating Rome. It would be crazy and easily dismissed to try and push the story you are suggesting would have been more rational.

Even if they are just making the story up from scratch it has to be more reasonable then that for it to be believable.
Standard rules of not taking things literal that can’t be possible if taken literally. It’s not really about believing here though, it’s about understanding the story presented. Which seems obviously about a messiah claimant sacrificing his life in an attempt to establish a new kind of kingdom with a new kind of ruler.
Didn’t they take him down? Or is it that they called a hung man cursed here? Was he hung or are you now referencing Judas? Would he be considered by Christians to have committed a crime or was he executed because of the threat the peoples’ belief in him caused for the established authority?

Again history and what your hypothetical Jew wished would have happened aren’t necessarily going to match up. Sure plenty wanted a military ruling messiah figure but what took off was a submissive spiritual messiah figure.

sschlichter

So, you are accepting everything that you think is possible and rejecting everything else irregardless of context. Why, since they are beleivable are they to be seen as true? Why, if reading a story you beleive to be fabricated in part, do you assume the other part to be true?

If I lie to you 3 times but tell you 6 things, do you assume the other 3 are true?

aa5874

But you have identified HJers problem. They have no problem making stuff up without any historical source to support their imaginative skills.

So, the disciples were Romans or what? After Jesus died who deified him in Jerusalem after his body had vanished?

Based on Acts, it was the Jewish disciples, Peter and the eleven, that were claiming Jesus was the Son of a God after his resurrection and ascension when they were filled with the Holy Ghost of God and thousands of people were converted.

And even before he was raised from the dead, the author of gJohn wrote that many believed on Jesus.

John 2:23 - Acts 2:41 - Acts 4:4 -
Acts 14:1 - The Gospel of ABE is completely non-historical and unsupported both internally and externally.

The historicity of Jesus cannot be argued with imagination and discredited sources.

Elijah

This is just diverting the conversation for why people had a reason to write the gospels. Lets see if I can answer this question in the original context of what we are talking about.

I can't.

Let's just pretend it's all fiction and still try to understand the story and see what we get. I bet we still get the messiah complex guy with the death wish, establishing an anti-king. What are you getting out of the story with the premise it's all made up? You could maybe make a note or two on what you think the difference in interpretation of the story would be if you took it from historical instead, but not necessary.

Just try to understand the story.

spamandham

That's a possible interpretation, but once we allow for the possibility that the story is essentially fabricated, a better understanding is that it was constructed from pre-existing expectations derived from the Jewish scriptures, and that it is at least in part allegorical.

aa5874

In Judea and in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple committing suicide or being suicidal was not a criteria for a Jew to be called a Messiah.

Walking on water, raising rotting bodies from the dead, or falsely predicting your own resurrection will not make Jews worship you as a God and ask to forgive sins and abandon the Laws of Moses including circumcision unless you are a madman like Jesus son of Ananus who was just beaten to a pulp as found in Wars of the Jews by Josephus.

To be called a Jewish Messiah, one must emulate Simon BarCocheba. It is not possible to be wished into being a Messianic figure or a Son of God.

If you understood the story you would realise that it was not the Jesus character that was apocalyptic or suicidal but the author himself who thought that the end of the world was imminent or a conflagration similar to that mentioned in Isaiah 34 or some other Hebrew Scripture was about to occur.

sschlichter

No, if you try to understand any of the gospels as they were written, you will get the followers who beleive Jesus's death and resurrection were in fulfillment of Scripture. You cannot take pieces out of the story without lebotimizing it.

Elijah

How it was constructed or from what base doesn’t change the interpretation here. If it was built from a bunch of pieces of the OT doesn’t really change what they were trying to build, which was an anti king figure. Regardless if he was historical or mythical, the point being made is still the same.

Elijah

It is utterly insane to not expect some alternate attempts at the messiah idea, especially considering how successful the normal military messiah was working out.