Originally Posted by maryhelena

Personally, I find it very helpful to have a starting position from which to work. I don't like going around in circles - which is often what happens when one is undecided about something. I prefer to take a position, run with it as far as I'm able - and if problems arise I'm more than willing to change course.

Originally Posted by archibald

Fair enough. I personally don't think that's a very good model. Much better, IMO, not to decide. It's not as if I'm landing an aeroplane, and must choose which lever to pull. :]

For me, the 'not knowing' is actually the fun part.

What I find happens, possibly because it's human nature, is that once I've 'decided' on something, and invested myself in it, it becomes hard to let go of. One inevitably sees things in a less open-minded sort of way. One is actually opting ito introduce more subjective bias than necessary. Not that any of us can be entirely objective.

Originally Posted by archibald

....Yes, others may have made a bigger initial splash, at the time. Had more followers etc. But that does not introduce a dilemma, any more than the equivalent 'dilemma' in the opposite direction, if he didn't even exist, why did people start to think he had? Sure, you have rumour and urban myth, but that doesn't seem like enough to fully explain the fervour which the very early followers seem to have had.....

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

But the other possibility is this. That at some point for a certain group of people there was a variation in the very concept of the Messiah. NOT SOMEONE TO COME BUT SOMEONE WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN.

And that's what "according to Scripture" pertains to - the first Christians thought they saw warrant in Scripture for tweaking the Messiah concept in this way. (i.e. "according to Scripture, He's already been you stupid plonker, so there's no point waiting for him - it's all done and dusted, but it wasn't a military victory like you thought it would be, but a spiritual victory")

The pre-Christian Messiah is a myth - the beginnings of the Christian Messiah is simply the "same" myth with some parameters tweaked.

The rest was just filling in the "backstory".

IOW, the first Christians weren't people who thought they'd found in some recently deceased human being the right claimant for the traditional role of Messiah; they are people who had revised the traditional concept of the Messiah, to make Him an entity of the past rather than of the future (hence it was a great "secret" that only they could see, but was only now being revealed).

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Early Christians were evenly split on the idea of Jesus being 'all God' or 'all human' (see Jerome's discussion at the beginning of his Commentary on Galatians). This does not settle the issue in any way. For me at least the whole idea that the world took to a messianic claimant who - in the words of Celsus - never did any of the things he promised to do is especially problematic to the historical Jesus argument. What was the chain of events which led to the systematic corruption of a body of literature associated with this failed messiah which led to his adoption by a community of Gentiles and transformed that failure into a 'victory'? It is utterly baffling to even consider.

Originally Posted by stephan huller

I have no opinion on the question of whether there was or wasn't a historical Jesus. On the one hand the events surrounding the life of Jesus have to be seen to be based on history in some sense. Yet on the other hand, it is just as easy to imagine the scenario where a God coming down to earth narrative became transformed into a narrative involving a human being as the other way around.

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Again what I find especially puzzling is why this failed messiah became so successful as opposed to all the others. Indeed most of the discussion on this subject fail to take into account that ALL the early discussions of the gospel are deeply involved in allegory and symbolism. No one took the story literally. As such it is difficult to believe in the 'facts' when none of the early commentators felt constrained by them.

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Strange as it may seem - it's the wanting to 'know' that has get me going all these years - for no other reason - no anti-christian, no anti-religion - just - I want to know.....what for? No reason at all - I just want to know....

Originally Posted by archibald

I think it's only fair to confess that I am not sure of my own motives. If I were a 'proper' atheist, it wouldn't matter. I might be mildly curious.

I think, since I was brought up Christian (though I don't remember actually believing at any age) I am carrying a bit of residue, a sort of irrational fascination.

The one thing I do like is finding out just how much debunking has been done by scholars. One can hardly fault them, or at least a lot of the more open-minded ones. One might fault the ministers who go to theology college, find out about the debunking, and then keep quiet about it when they get into the pulpit. :]

To me, the main thing is that whether he existed or not, there is a lot of baloney going on, and it's good to learn.

Originally Posted by maryhelena

If your remarks relate to my above post - then please qualify what you find "implausible" in my post - otherwise your post is meaningless.

As to the historical Jesus assumption - yes, the JC historicists are very wrong re a historical gospel JC - of whatever variety they dream up. But they are not wrong to maintain, to hold to, a historical core or component to the gospel storyline.

Yes, a prophetic lens will distort history, it will allow interpretations, meaning and salvation theories all to distort history - but what a prophetic lens cannot do is remove the object of it's focus - history. So, if we want to get to ground zero re early christian origins - we have to put the prophetic lens aside - and check out the actual history. That really is the only way - we have to get in front of that prophetic lens - rather than continue to be looking through it.

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Well now, I’ve been a ahistorict/mythicist for around 30 years and I’ve never found it necessary to propose such an unnecessary and such an implausible idea....People can believe many strange and wonderful things that they imagine will happen to them when they die. Ideas by the dozen and nothing that anyone can do to stop the imagination running wild. But that’s the downfall of ideas - they last only until the next big visionary pops up with his new claims to even bigger and brighter things in that after-world. In other words - for the Christian ideas to have found a foothold in reality, in the here and now, they had to have some reference point in history.

We can debate and argue just what that reference point was - but, methinks, to deny a historical grounding to the gospel JC story is to be denying reality any relevance to human thought. Flights of fancy come and go - but without our intellect seeking a base, a connection, in reality, within our physical environment, our flights of intellectual fantasy will ultimately let us down.

And no, none of the above suggests that the gospel JC was a historical figure. What it does suggest is that history was necessary for the creation of the gospel JC story. The gospel JC story is a prophetic reflection upon a specific historical time period; ie. history has been viewed through a prophetic lens - and the picture that was seen is the gospel JC story.

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

I did - I think Mormonism was initially a product of visions, then subsequently of fraud. You are aware that the Smiths were occultists? It often happens that people sincerely believe their own shit, but will indulge in fraud when it comes to public tests (such as the plates). Cognitive dissonance, but what they hey, we all have it sometimes.

You can't be sure the other way either, but in view of the fact that visions, mystical experiences, are fairly common, and in view of the fact that there are plausible non-pathological explanations for such phenomena (as well as sometimes pathological ones) and in view of the fact that nearly every mother******g religion or religious movement or cult on Earth has some sort of claimed visionary or mystical experience at its beginnings, fraud need not be the default explanation, even for rationalists.

Check out William James.