Didymus

I'm not so sure. Post-mortem cults have been formed to worship people who were most assuredly real, like the Emperor Augustus, in whose honor temples were built across the Roman Empire. Members of the Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco believe that "A Love Supreme" is a divine revelation. And Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, is worshipped as God incarnate by Rastafarians the world over.

This is in no way affects the possibility that Jesus was a mythical figure, but openlyatheist's "argument" does sound like a principle in search of falsifiability.

Didymus

Iasion

You've read The Holy Blood and Holy Grail,

you've seen the Da Vinci Code,

you've got the Jesus Christ Superstar T-shirt

but NOW -
(Twilight Zone music)

ChandraRama

So even if a Historical Jesus is found (one big if), then it is no more than a big Rastafarianism?

ChandraRama

after writing the above comment, I just went to Wikipedia to read about Rastafari.

What a comparison!

I can see how the Jesus movement started and became a cult and then a religion comparing with the Rastafari's historical and idelogical growth.

openlyatheist

Perhaps my quote above was too hasty. In my own post on page 7 I admitted that religions do "spring up" concerning the worship of real people, and Didymus’ post, reinforces that fact. Instead of "spring up" I should have written "endure long-term".

Indeed. I think the real factors involved are those of lifespan of a religion vs. quality & quantity of the deified individual around which the religion is based. Roman Emperor based religions are extinct. Now we just have to see how long something like Rastafarianism can ride out it’s claims to a god incarnate. Only time will tell.

What a double-edged sword it is for Christians:

For those that don’t believe that a religion can start w/out an historical founder, there are a myriad of world religions based on no apparently real people.

For those that don’t believe a religion can be based upon a non-divine person, there are examples like Rastafarianism.

Either is more probable to me that Christianity.

(Although, a lot of Rasta- seems like it’s mutated from Christianity anyway: Wikipedia: She claimed, in interviews, that she saw scars on the palms of Selassie's hands (as he waved to the crowd) that resembled the envisioned markings on Christ's hands from being nailed to the cross- )

post tenebras lux

In that case, why does Paul mention them seperately? Especially as your referenced Mark 6:3 states - and continues:RPS: do you have a reference to show when the biological brothers of Jesus started to honour/follow him?

By the way, any news about what happened to his biological sisters?

Clivedurdle

Can we do the football cards before we speak to Tom Hanks? Julia Roberts as Mary Magdalene?

Vivisector

I'll let RPS carry his own water, but I'd like to ask: do you think Mk 6:4 could have been intended to undermine the authority of James and those of likeminded persuasion?

Cheers,

V.

RPS

My apologies, but I have no idea what you're asking here.

I don't think so. We know that James became a big cheese in the early Church though and many equate the Judas of the Mark text with Jude the apostle (St. Jude, the patron of lost causes).

None that I'm aware of.

post tenebras lux

Depends if we're working from the assumption that there was a real James in the first place.

I don't think that Jesus was the first literary hero to be ignored or ridiculed in his own home/town/land, so I'd just read it as being a bog standard literary device.