ApostateAbe

Please don't misunderstand, and I apologize that I wasn't clear. Just as I find it unlikely that Jesus believed his own words, I also think it is unlikely that many if any of his leading successors believed those myths. The people who wrote the gospels were cult leaders, and cult leaders don't believe their own lies. Cult members, however, very much tend to believe those lies, without any known exception. The gospels were written to be literally believed, and the fact that the authors knowingly changed the story is not at all unexpected in light of that point.

Toto

If the authors did not believe the gospels were history, why should we?

I think you have broken any link between belief in the gospels and historicity.

ApostateAbe

You have lost track of the relevant argument, and I take that as one of the signs to call it quits with you.

dog-on

Written to be literally believed doesn't seem to necessarily imply written to reflect actual history. It's exactly this point where I have an issue with your argument, as it seems you may be trying to have it both ways. Perhaps I am missing something.

ApostateAbe

The relevant issue is whether or not the common Christians believed it. The televangelists very probably do not believe what they tell the cameras, but the Christians who watch the shows every day and send their money very much tend to believe what they hear. The gospels give every indication of being written to be literally believed. The alternative hypothesis, proposed by you, was that they were written to be taken as allegory. What is the argument for that position?

aa5874

But whether people of antiquity BELIEVED the Jesus stories cannot help the HJ theory that Jesus was a man.

CHRISTIANS of antiquity BELIEVED Marcion's PHANTOM existed that had NO birth and Flesh.

Unless you can get a Credible Contemporary source that EYEBALLED or Personally interacted with Jesus then you are wasting your time.

"Paul" was supposedly a Contemporary of Jesus yet he was a WITNESS, a FALSE WITNESS, to the resurrected Jesus. That is all we learn about Jesus from "Paul" that he was a FALSE WITNESS and that it has been deduced that MULTIPLE authors used the name Paul to write Epistles Later than was admitted by Christian writers.

Again, the HJ theory makes ZERO sense and cannot be substantiated. It is just not reasonable to expect that the Jesus cult started with PUBLICLY KNOWN and DOCUMENTED LIES about a man who could NOT REMIT the Sins of Mankind.

JonA

Or, they treated it as not the 'true' story and undertook the writing of their own gospels in order to 'correct' it.

Anything to make us think the writers didn't believe the stuff they were writing?

Jon

Toto

The Acharya S discussion has been split off here.

The discussion of whether Jesus is in the Didache has been split off here.

Shirley Jackson Case as the original refutation of mythicism has been split to here and will be merged with the other thread.

Dave31

Those first 11 posts were on topic and fine right here. The whole Pygmy thing started with your own post in #12. The others were on topic here.

That Pygmy stuff would've been better placed in GDon's Pygmy thread wouldn't it? Rather than start another Pygmy thread.

Toto

Hi Dave - There were at least three separate threads going on here, and I wanted to tidy things up. I moved all references to Acharya S to a separate thread, whether concerned with pygmies or not. Your first post was not exactly on topic. Whatever else you can say, Acharya S is not mainstream.