Peter Kirby

Thank you, Diogenes, I will catalogue this as the first theory properly submitted.

I will request that everyone else get to work on their own pet theories!

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

Iasion

Greetings Peter and all :-)

I voted 4, and hereby present a quick precis of my theory -

The Jesus as Human Soul being Son-of-God Theory

This represents an off-shoot of Earl Doherty's theory. The specific difference to mine is that I see Jesus as originally being seen as:
* the Son-of-God - a spiritual being "living" and moving in the heavens,
and (as above, so below)
* the divine spark inside every human being - our "soul"

I base my theory on the early writings of Paul, and some of the later esoteric writers.

I note that Paul speaks of Christ in very NON earthly ways, which suggest somehow that Christ is within us, e.g. :
"Christ in you, the hope of Glory"
Christ in you seems clear. But "glory" less so - I think it means to be transfigured, to be raised up to the higher planes.

Paul makes much of being lifted up HIMSELF, to the 3rd heaven - it's a prime boast of his, it represents his spiritual credentials. He also talks much of the concept of being "raised" - I think he is refering to that very idea - to being lifted up the planes into heaven.

And somehow, it is the Christ, crucified within all of us, that forms the link between us down here, and heaven above.

The ancients had an idea that our souls were divine spirits - that when they came to earth to incarnate in humans they "died". We live their death, they live our death.

My theory is that Paul (and others like him) had developed that idea a little further, and added the crucifixion element.

That originally, Jesus Christ refered to a concept of the Son-of-God who descends to earth into every human as their "soul" , is "crucified" on the cross of our body, and "raised" again when we die (or are transfigured or out of body.)


Iasion
Quentin David Jones

fromdownunder

There was a man who was nothing more than a man, but got caught up in the John the Baptist hype, and thought he would do something about it. He never thought he was either God, nor the Son of God.

But after John baptised him, he decided he was not quite purified enough, and thought he would go into the "wilderness" This was a bad call, because he would not have survived there, but luckilly, he was found by one of the Essenes, revived, and learned the Essene way, which he took to heart.

He spent a year or so preaching, gaining followers and support groups among the poor (which is probably not that difficult, since he was telling them of a "future" where they would dominate those who were in power at the time).

Eventually, he decided to tackle the Big One - Jerusalem, rather than barnstorming around the suburbs. He was familiar with the Jewish Bible, and thought that an entrance based on existing scripture would be a neat thing to do. So, he came riding in, with his few dozen followers, on a donkey, and the citizens, who were not all that happy about the Roman occupation, thought he was the Messiah, (even though he still did not think so)

Then things started to go wrong. The Powers That Be in Jerusalem (by consent of the Romans) did not like the attention that he was getting, and arranged to have him executed. This event actually happened and was simply one of hundreds carried out on the day by bored Roman officials. His followers fled, but started spreading stories about miracles and wonderful works, although it must be said, that following the Essene philosophy, Jesus had some pretty pacific and communistic type ideas. THe very sort of ideas that a suppressed people could and would embrace.

A guy named Saul, who had heard of Jesus and some, but not many of the stories about him, had an epileptic fit on his way to Damascus, and decided that it was a vision from God. Although Jesus followers had spread, even as far as Rome, there was a lack of consistancy about what he had said and done, so Paul decided that God had chosen him to set that right by writing letters to all the Jesus movements that he knew about, and setting them straight about his personal view of what he thought Jesus should have said.

30 years later the person we now know as Mark, who was familiar with the Jesus stories, wrote a "biogrophy" of this person, which was later copied by people we know as "Luke" and "Matthew" who attached their own philosophy and slants on the story, including birth and resurection myths which Mark did not include.

Then 20 years or so later, along came "John" and his Logos concept of Jesus. Far beyond anything that Paul or the authors of the synoptics ever conceived of. The rest is, as they say, history...

A historical person? Probably. A son of God? Highly doubtful. God Himself (if there is such an entity)? No!

Norm

Clivedurdle

I understand there are more possibilities than in the poll:

Teacher of Righteousness
Itinerant preacher
Someone invented by Romans around time of Hadrian or possibly earlier.....
Buddhist monk...

Full blown creedal son of god member of trinity is least likely. Is there a shorthand for that one?

Lord Jesus Christ?

Diogenes the Cynic

"Orthodox Jesus?"
"Christian Jesus?"

mountainman

The differentiation between:

* Jesus was originally an idea, in the mind of believers,
about a man who lived on earth a while back. [e.g., G.A. Wells]

* Jesus was originally an idea, in the mind of believers,
about a being who didn't actually touch down on earth. [e.g., E.J. Doherty]

is the question ........................................
"How did Jesus get into the mind of believers"?

I will expand my contribution:

Jesus was originally an imperial idea, conceived in the mind of
the emperor Constantine and implemented in the literature by
his literacist Eusebius, and placed into the minds of the citizens
of the fourth century Roman empire, formally, at the time of
Constantine's "Supremacy Party" (Nicaea, 325 CE), by means
of absolute power.

Jesus was a being who didn't actually touch down on earth,
in any historical sense, but who commanded alot of respect
in the literature published by that Roman Emperor circa 330 CE
(Constantine Bible) in which it was (fraudulently) claimed that
said being actually lived on earth during the reign of Tiberius.


Pete

Johann_Kaspar

When one is coming to the conclusion that there is not enough data to decide either way, the question of Yeshua historicity becomes completely unimportant. Imo, any theory (guess work) trying to fill in the gaps is only contributing to develop the "gospel", the mythology and denotes a xian mentality.

Peter Kirby

Pete, I still don't get it. Fraudulent claim or not, the Jesus of Eusebius and Constantine was the idea of a man on earth. Therefore, you would be classed with #3 and not #4.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

JoeWallack

Key Assumptions regarding Jesus:

1) Peter = Follower

2) James = Brother

3) Jesus = Possible (Teaching & Faith Healing)


Chronology:

1) Jesus dies

2) Peter & James document Possible (Historical) Jesus with Q

3) Paul promotes original Concept of the Gospel (Impossible) Jesus:

- Reaction to Peter/James

- Emphasis of Impossible

4) "Mark" uses 3) to create original Gospel Narrative

- Reaction to Peter/James is extended to Rejection of them as Authority

- Reaction to Peter/James is extended to Rejection of what they
taught (Possible Jesus)



Joseph