Heurismus

In answer to the OP

A phenomenon has 'no time'- its creators have.

Fuck me I'm stupid!!!

Eric H

Hello funinspace,

To my way of thinking it follows the original thread in the sense that Jesus didn’t have to write the book, in the same way that he didn’t have to write the calendar.

He inspired other people to spread his word and do that for him, in the same way that his words still inspire people to do things.

When you look at why Jesus went to all this trouble and suffering it did not appear to be for his own power or benefit.

peace

Eric

Toto

Mithraism split off here

Meaning of Dionysos split off here, with Khrishna

historical Jesus digressions left in because they are more closely related to the main topic, and we have so many other threads on HJ.

The Calendar digression is left in but if anyone wants it split off, or anything else, PM me.

funinspace

Ok, I see where you are going with this idea. However, to get to this idea, one has to believe the Gospels are at least close to the historical truth vice a major embellishment or flat out fabrication. Mohammad and Joseph Smith also got allot of followers and inspired people to do things. And they both wrote books with claims of inspiration or godly sources. And mere humans are quite willing to suffer/die for others benefits as well.

I think the point of the question, is that if all this xian history were true, then if Jesus wrote the first/major gospel (or suplanted the need for much of Paul's writing) it would have gone a long way towards removing what most all non-xians would see as real contradictions in the NT. Plus, if he had wrote a book, then it probably would have been preserved very carefully. So we would have a chance at having a real document from the actual time frame of events, vice oral tradition for 30-60 years; copies 100-250 years removed from the originals. Still we would have 2000 year old paper claims, so faith would still required, but at least there would be some significant evidence.

You seem to place allot of importance on the human power and spreading of the word. What do you think of the reality that xianity will become a minority religion in the next 10-20 years and Islam becoming the largest faith?

Toto

Calendar discussion has been split off here

Eric H

Hello funinspace,

quote funinspace.
Beliefs are a strange thing, I don’t think there is a way to write something as large as the Bible that all people will believe all the time.

You only have to belief that Jesus is the Son of God, for the Bible to be believable.

If you do it the other way round and search the Bible with the intention of looking for evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, then the chances are this approach will not work for you.

I agree people who founded any religion inspired people. But if Mohammad and Joseph Smith had not written their own book how confident would they have been that other people would write their words for them in the way that they wanted?

How could they trust that other people would not corrupt their vision and write their story accurately?

I think even if Jesus had written the Bible a lot of people would still think him to be a mythical person.

Also as Ruth had said in an earlier post, anything with the signature of Jesus on would probably be thought of as having some kind of magical powers. The object could be seen as more important than the words.

One of the qualities that Jesus was trying to inspire was faith. By not writing his own story Jesus had to put his faith in others to write it for him.

I believe in One God the creator of all that is seen and unseen. To me this means that God created all people with the freedom to be an atheist, Christian, Muslim Hindu etc.

I see God as being greater than the Christian Religion.

peace

Eric

funinspace

Without a doubt. But some consider all of it the absolute truth, and all anyone needs for spiritual knowledge.

I'll grant that if you first believe in "Jesus is the Son of God", then you can find the Bible true (whatever that actually ends up meaning). But other than taking this approach from growing into it as a child, it seams rather ass-backwards (as a side bar, this was myself, in a long ago universe). Most apologetics incorporate Biblical verses to "show" the truth. So, if you choose to believe in Jesus-God, then why not just God? Then you get even more flavors to choose from, like Allah.

Exactly. How do you know yours has not been corrupted. What if this Jesus was really just a heretical Jewish sage with a small following; was usurped by Paul; morphed with Greco/dualistic constructs. How do you know otherwise? If the Bible is just man's attempt to relate/know to his god, then it leaves it pretty wide open.

True, but I bet it would be allot less, and would have a lower drop out rate.

Ahh, and of course the fundies don't venerate the current Bible.</sarcasm>


And that makes you much more flexible than many xians. I guess it begs the question then, what's so important about this Jesus then? What becomes the minimum belief? Is just being generally a decent person to your fellow human beings good enough for the deity in the sky (or wandering in the 5th dimension)?

Sparrow

I think the OP is a valid question, but just one of many similar questions:

Why didn't any of Mary's friends write about her miraculous pregnancy?
Why didn't any of those wise men write about their travels to the manger?
Why didn't any of those astonsihed by the alleged brilliance of the 13 year old Jesus at the temple write about him?
Why didn't anyone chronicle the life of the one alleged to born to be the messiah?
Why didn't anyone write about all the miracles Jesus allegedly performed?
Why didn't anyone write about the crucifixion of the alleged messiah?

Yes, yes I know the Christians say it's all in the NT, but absolutely no one else wrote down anything at all that survived? Nothing whatsoever that can be reliably dated to the time of 1-30 CE?

Vorkosigan

Is that true? Historical Jesus research is a relatively recent affair, whereas suspicion toward historical characters and historical texts has been common throughout history across the old world. Real scholarly and methodologically rich work on the Jesus is probably only 25 years old, and the methodologies in HJ research suffer from numerous problems (see discussions in Crossan's The Birth of Christianity and Porter's Criteria in Historical Jesus Research). Jesus' existence as a historical individual is generally taken as an axiom rather than explored and mythicism is dismissed rather than discussed. The one volume where mythicism is replied to, The Historical Jesus by Theissen and Merz, does an awful job of replying to it, with a number of illogical and irrelevant arguments. None of the other major works on the Historical Jesus appears to grapple seriously with the issue.

The usual procedure is to establish the historical evidence for Jesus by reference to either the mentions in Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, the rabbincal writings, Mara Bar Serapion, and similar outside vectors (see, for example, the discussions of Crossan in The Historical Jesus, Meier in Vol 1 of A Marginal Jew or Theissen and Merz above). Unfortunately none of these is a sound basis for establishing Jesus' historical existence, since they all suffer from problems of lateness, interpolation, or irrelevance.

Worse still, the gospels are apparently fictions based primarly on the Old Testament and perhaps Josephus and other Greco-Latin sources. What we have here is a character whose only solid existence lies in documents that can be shown to be literary constructions almost in their entirety. Ordinarily we would label such a figure a fiction, and if not for the inertia of 2000 years of habit, the fact that most NT scholars are sworn to the Nicene Oath (I am not aware of any other field where scholars take an oath to certain aspects of it), and the fact that religion continues to exert a powerful hold on society, the gospel Jesus would almost certainly be consigned to the historical dustbin next to William Tell, Confucius, Lao-Tze, Lycurgus of Sparta, and numerous other Founder Figures.

Vorkosigan

Eric H

Hello funinspace,
I think the Bible was written for people to take this approach, I’ll pluck a number out of the sky and say that I could be 95 percent sure that God exists, that might be a truthful answer for me; but it’s not enough. I first have to accept totally, that Jesus is the Son of God, then I am free to seek my own interpretation of that.
If you questioned a thousand Catholics about their beliefs, they would be diverse and far ranging.
I agree with atheists who say that beliefs are not logical for this very reason. (I walked on the other side of the street for about thirty years being agnostic and the question of God having no meaning for me one way or the other.)
If God exists then it makes more sense that the same God created all people.
To me it’s a bit like a Mormon husband and wife having ten kids, who each take up their own separate beliefs, a couple remain Mormon the others are Muslim atheist, Sikh, and Catholic.
They are all children of the same parents; how should the parents relate to their children who are not Mormon? How should the children relate to each other and their parents?
You could ask the same question and say what if both parents were atheists and their children grew up to become members of different religions.
I don’t know, I can only accept it as true.
For me there are two things and when they are together they are profound; the greatest commandments and the resurrection.
I don’t know, I can only believe and hope that God is a loving God and has a good plan for all people.

peace

Eric