spamandham

The "how" and "why" are central to the plausibility of whole cloth fraud. It isn't enough to simply show inconsistencies and impossibilities (miracle etc.), as inconsistency and impossibility are also found in cases where history can be independently confirmed through archeology.

dog-on

Political power, convert potential, etc.

We know that this indeed happened, the exact reasons for which I believe where probably mundane, reasons like I listed above.

rcscwc

No, it did not. It sprang from jewish religion, the most exclusive one. Jews were surrounded by non Jews 2000 years ago, but kept themselves insulsted. They just about tolerated non Jews, but lacking state power, they could not exterminate them like the earlier times. Jesus used most derogatory terms for non Jews.

aa5874

I have claimed that Jesus of the NT was a myth.

I am not dealing with "whole cloth fraud" .

The TONS of evidence of antiquity presented Jesus as a myth.

Homer wrote about Achilles.

Achilles was a myth, there need not be any "whole cloth fraud". Somebody writes a story and people believe it is true.

Joseph Smith of Mormonism wrote about the angel Moroni and people believe that there is an angel called Moroni.

I think some time ago, very long ago, that it may have been the same method use to turn stone into gods but the story may have been told orally or through some kind of sign language.

rlogan

But see now how you keep doing the bait and switch.

Using examples of ceasars who are deified - extraordinary men: the most famous of all men in the land in their time -

and then the switch: uh, yea Joe Smith deified. Since the leader of the whole known world can be deified, then so can a goat herder.


And there has already been a shift in the original position of "ordinary man", now to "cult leader".

And that shows the strategy. When wanting to explain "no evidence" you need to play the "ordinary man" card.

I really do wish to be in polite discussion here, so don't take me wrong. It really is preposterous to be saying Jesus is at the same time so outstanding as to be deified at the same time one is claiming he is ordinary.


For some HJers there is this longing to establish a linear progenitor to Christianity. There is no evidence that such a thing happened. It is just a wish.

The only thing we have are these ridiculous superman stories that are clearly mythical. And, as with superman we can wish there to be a "historical superman" too, and define him in such a way that he was really just a 92 pound weakling, which is why nobody noticed he was so incredible, and stories about him got aggrandized.

But look at the evidence instead of theorizing.

We have the pliny-trajan exchange in the early second century. The first solid evidence on christianity at all. And there is no Jesus.

That evidence is in stark contradiction to the theory that there is a Jesus who has successively more aggrandized stories being told about him. It is an immediate nullification of the theory.

Cheers.

Amaleq13

I agree but who is claiming Jesus was both at the same time?

Isn't the scenario more like this: He starts out ordinary, obtains a group of followers who think he isn't ordinary, something extraordinarily horrible happens to him and they subsequently mythologize his memory rather than accept he was a complete failure. The myth or, more accurately, belief in this myth becomes the focus of remembrance and the actual man who inspired it is almost entirely overshadowed.

That doesn't seem preposterous to me.

How? The better part of a century is not enough time for myth to overwhelm fact?

rlogan

Howdy, southerner. :wave:

My response was to an individual referring to the actual historical examples of persons who had been deified. Ceasars, for example.

So it is exactly a bait-and-switch. See how Ceasar is deified... (bait)... therefore an "ordinary man" is deified.... Jesus the toal nobody...(switch).

Well Ceasars are not ordinary - they are precisely the most exraordinary men of their entire known world population. It is unreasonable in the extreme to use such an example to claim a nobody should be deified.






You pose that there is a person founding Christianity - one they mythologize. The most recent adherents know of no such person. They are interrogated at length by Pliny. No Jesus.

I don't see how you fail to understand this as a fundamental paradox for the historical Jesus crowd.

Just above you have stated his followers thought something "extraordinary" happened at his alleged crucifixion.

Yet two generations later the Christians Pliny interrogates have no knowledge of such a person.

Contradiction.

Cheers.

andrewcriddle

Your reference gives as source Talmud tractate Moed Katan 16a.
I think that the relevant passage is From Moed Katan.

Even if this passage implies what is claimed; it is Gemara involving Amoraim (IE later than the early rabbis who wrote the Mishnah), appears to date from c 300 CE, and is unlikely to be relevant to the 1st century CE.

Andrew Criddle

IamJoseph

What evidence do you have that Christianity sprang from Judaism - aside from christianity saying so?

The writers of the gospels cannot be given as Jewish - no proof exists. The Jews never could have come up with a Trinity or divine human, or write anything in Latin, or call themselves by a latin name. The terms christianisty, christ and Jesus emerged much later, in Europe, post 174 CE, when Judaism and Hebrew were forbidden, and when the jews were in exile and under great persecution. Here, anyone could have said whatever they want and gotten away with it - all that was needed was it be anti-Jewish.

There is nothing in common with Judaism and the gospels, and the latter is totally allignable with Eurpean religions such as Hellenism and Romanism - which incurred great wars with the Jews for a period of 300 years before Christianity emerged. The situation is that Jews could not reconsile with the Gospels, and that Christianity cannot abandon the Gospels and believe only in the Hebrew bible. A parallel situation exists with Islam, vis avis Judaism and christianity. There are no alligning factors here.

In such a diabolical situation, only the writings of Moses, or a return of Moses, can affirm or deny all or any of these three religions.

Amaleq13

Almost all my snow is gone but the skeeters are already on the attack!! As soon as I'm sure that it will stay above freezing, I'm going to have to break out the mosquito magnets. It is a constant battle for survival.

PS I had a lynx in my yard not long ago. Now I just need to spot some whales and I'll have a complete set of AK animals.

Gotcha.

No, I would say that the person who founded Christianity was the one most successful at selling the myth (ie Paul). The original inspiring man only had an impact on a few. The idea of the myth had serious legs and those few were able to sell it to others and they ran with it regardless of the views of the originally impacted few.

Think of the development of the internet as an example. The original idea versus what it has become once other folks embraced it and ran with it. Not a perfect analogy for detail but a similar sort of genie-out-of-the-bottle explosion that creates popular trends, etc. That is the sort of phenomenon I think we must be dealing with given an HJ perspective.

Yes because what sold and survived was the myth. The man was a failure.

I just don't see the incompatibility.

The crucifixion, itself, is the "extraordinarily horrible" thing that happened to him. The total unacceptability of that was the first step toward forgetting the man and remembering only the myth.

Only if you think it is impossible for the embarrassing memory of a revered man's failure to be completely overshadowed by a far more upbeat, uplifting, and self-reinforcing myth in a little less than a century. I don't and I don't know of any evidence that suggests it is.

An ordinary but charismatic preacher attracts a small but devoted following which ends in the most horribly embarrassing way possible. They react to the resulting cognitive dissonance just like the mother of a serial killer with bodies in his basement. Somebody framed my boy! He sacrificed himself for us! The myth begins.

Enter Paul. He takes the myth in a new direction and a new market. And that new market is already interested in the Judaism that permeates Paul's good news but isn't averse to the inclusion of any pagan-like notions and certainly not to the notion of leaving their dicks intact. He's selling the Snuggie to folks who are already living on their couch.