joedad

Thomas Jefferson might agree that the gentleman who ignited the Arab Spring was in the mold of the Gospel protagonist. Though not the cause or even the primer, he was certainly the spark that brought about great change.

I personally believe the Gospel Jesus is a fabrication simply because of the supernatural qualities he possesses, the same being true for Zeus or Athena. If someone wants to argue there are human individuals at the root of all supernatural personifications, and there may be, it doesn't argue for the historicity of the protagonist in the canonical gospels simply because they would be two different people.

But the main difference between the gospel Jesus and Mohamed Bouazizi is that at least for now Mohammed Bouazizi exists outside liturgical boundaries. He was simply carrying on with his life and in an act of great desperation took his life. He didn't take on any sins. He didn't take a journey to Hell. He didn't astound learned men who marveled at his wisdom as a child. He didn't have angels announce his birth. He didn't cause the sun to go dark or the dead to leave their graves and walk through the city. He wasn't a savior who flew away into the sky, telling his band of followers to not tell anyone. He didn't exist as a god millenia ago and isn't being touted as the second person of the Muslim Trinity.

He was different because he was just a guy, real, alive, and because he will be forever associated with a great change in an area of the globe same as the gospel Jesus.

So I think this is the thinking that exists with scholars and others when they say that there is a historical Jesus, a guy like this. Crazed literalists are a different matter but sane folk who hold to a historical Jesus probably liken that beginning to something like that which occurred with Mohamed Bouazizi.

BBC Article on Mohamed Bouazizi

gurugeorge

The problem with this is that there's a lot of people talking now about this guy.

Whereas, if Jesus existed, it seems (from the evidence) that nobody talked about him (in the equivalent sense) till a good while after his supposed death.

aa5874

You have EXPOSED the fundamental difference with the "Mohamed Bouazizi" story and the Jesus story.

You ACCEPTED the Mohamed Bouazizi story as historically accurate just as it was PRESENTED in order to "associate him with a great change".

On the other hand, the Jesus story MUST First be REJECTED , as found in the NT, and some other story IMAGINED.

Bouazizi was an ordinary man struggling to survive and put "FOOD on the table" in the BBC article but Jesus was WELL KNOWN throughout the region, was God's own Son, the Creator of heaven and earth, was LORD to whose name every knee should BOW in the NT and FED nine THOUSAND people with a few fish and bread.

Jesus could TURN STONE into BREAD, NOT Bouazizi. See Matthew 4.3

Jesus could catch Fish with MONEY to pay his Taxes, NOT Bouazizi. See Matthew 17.27

The JESUS story must be FIRST be regarded as FICTION and another story INVENTED for it to be Comparable Mohammed Bouazizi.

Now, when we REJECT the Jesus story we are ONLY left with that of Mohammed Bouazizi.

The Bouazizi story is the REAL story.

Jesus is ALL Fake.

lpetrich

The difference is the quality of the documentation. If all we knew of Mohamed Bouazizi was what some hagiographers had written several decades later, hagiographers in some big cult of him, we'd likely get a very different picture of him.

Consider Parson Mason Locke Weems's biography of George Washington. It was published a year after its subject's death, but it was blatantly hagiographic. Yes, it's the source of that story of GW and the cherry tree.

aa5874

The inclusion or non-inclusion of the cherry story has virtually no effect on the biography of George Washington since all biographies of G W would essentially be similar.

The same applies to Bouazizi. All stories about the events would be similar.

But, on the other hand, the Jesus story MUST be REJECTED.

1. The Conception and Birth of Jesus MUST be Rejected.

2. The story of the Baptism where there was a Holy Ghost Bird and a Voice from heaven MUST be REJECTED.

3. The Temptation of Jesus by Satan MUST be REJECTED.

4. ALL the Miracles where Jesus healed the blind, deaf, dumb and Lame MUST be REJECTED.

5. All the claims that Jesus raised the dead MUST be REJECTED.

6. The claims that Jesus WALKED on the sea and Transfigured MUST be REJECTED.

7. The Claim that Jesus was ALLOWED to be crucified when NO fault was found MUST be REJECTED.

8. The resurrection of Jesus MUST be REJECTED.

9. The Post-resurrection visits by Jesus MUST be REJECTED.

10. The Ascension of Jesus MUST be REJECTED.

The Jesus story MUST be FIRST REJECTED and then some other story INVENTED from IMAGINATION.

The Jesus story is NOT at all comparable to that of Mohammed Bouazizi.

lpetrich

aa5874, you ought to give *reasons* for rejecting these stories. Assertion is NOT enough.

For George Washington, there's plenty of independent documentation, and even his own writings: The Papers of George Washington Look at this discussion of the cherry-tree story, for insteance.

But imagine that our only detailed source on him was Parson Weems's hagiography, er, biography. Would we be able to tell fact from fiction very well?


For Jesus Christ, however, we have NO documents purporting to be his writings, and NO independent sources who had known him in person. All we have is hagiographies that are full of miracles and implausibilities, like a self-blaming lynch mob.

Chili

The difference is that this guy killed his body in public as an act of retalliation while Jesus killed his persona in private much like a one-man-show inside a coccoon. So this guy kind of did it wrong.

aa5874

Do we have documents from Mohammed Bouazizi? DID Bouazizi Light himself and then WRITE his own story afterwards?

Why don't we just REJECT the Mohammed Bouazizi story from BBC and INVENT some other more FANTASTIC story and say he was God's own son, Fathered by the Holy Ghost, was the Creator and DESTROYED a CHERRY Tree with a CURSE?

It is BLATANTLY obvious that it is really irrelevant who wrote about Bouazizi, Jesus or George Washinton but it is the fundamental VERACITY of the story that matters.

I really can't tell if the Mohammed Bouazizi story is true or if George Washington did everything in his biography but It can be shown that the Conception and birth of Jesus, the Baptism, the Temptation, the Miracles, the Transfiguration, Walking on the sea, the Crucifixion story, the resurrection, the post-resurrection appearances and the ascension are either Total Fiction or Implausible.

The ENTIRE Jesus story LACKS Veracity and Corroboration form non-apologetic sources.

The Jesus story is NOT comparable to the Bouazizi story.

Chili

It kind of is the same in opposites as death cannot be conceived to exist without life. Both show that death is required to end suffering and here Bouazizi killed his own self and is admired by sentimentals, while Jesus was their envy because he only killed his ego -- and kind of just let George be a hero in his own rigth to be admired by puritans minds as the cause of oppressoin.

Point in fact, suicide is an inuit urge and the only available alternate to end suffering.

ApostateAbe

There are some parallels, but I would not liken Jesus to this guy. Bouazizi was seemingly a hero by accident, igniting an uprising in a highly flammable society. Jesus of Nazareth fully intended to be a leader of a movement, and he knew what he was doing.

If Jesus existed (and he did), then we would not say that he was fabricated, according to the way we normally think about ancient historical figures, like Buddha, Muhammad, Pythagoras or Alexander the Great. We have no first-hand attestation about them, but we do have a set of extraordinary myths about them. They, like Jesus, are portrayed as a miraculous human being (not a god) by the earliest evidence. The historical Jesus roughly fits the biographical profile of Jesus in the earliest evidence (Paul, Mark and Q). He grew up in Nazareth, his parents were Mary and Joseph, he had four brothers including James and Jude, he was baptized by John the Baptist, he had twelve disciples, he traveled in rural Galilee as a religious orator, he praised the poor and denigrated the rich, he predicted that the world as he knew it was going to immediately end in calamity, he went to Jerusalem during Passover, and he was crucified by Pontius Pilate. That is a perfectly plausible historical figure for that time and place, and it is inferred from our earliest evidence using standard methods of inference. So, there are not two Jesuses any more than there are two Pythagoruses or two Alexanders the Great.