Jane H

Johnny Skeptic-

Sorry, I missed your earlier post, as we posted at about the same time! Here’s a late response.

Firstly, although we’re going a bit off topic, the NT is little forthcoming on the post-mortem prospects of those who haven’t heard the Gospel message, with perhaps the sheep and goats being the best available clue.

I agree with much of the explanation you’ve given of the numerical rise of Christianity, although I wouldn’t underestimate the unpleasantness of the persecutions that were going on. I don’t regard that explanation as being connected with the ‘change of theology’ argument I’m advancing.

Iasion

Greetings Jane,

Yes,
observation of stars CAN be used to find out where you are.
But No,
a star can NOT indicate a single place on earth.
They are completely different concepts.


It is NOT possible, in any way, for a comet, star, or astronomical event to indicate a place on earth.
If YOU think it can, please explain how.


No possiblities exist.
No astronomical object or event can indicate a place on earth.


Iasion

Cheerful Charlie

1 Corinthians tells us the 500 saw the resurrected Jesus. But Mark has Jesus apppear to MaryMagdalene, two disciples, the 11 remaining apostles and then ascending to heaven.


9Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
10And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
11And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
12After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.
13And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.
14Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
.....
19So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

So, 13 people or 500? This is not a trustworthy myth, or trustworthy authorities.

CC

Chili

Now there is a good reason to deny the literal interpreation because the star that the magi followed was an intuit light inside the mind of Joseph. And for sure, they came from the East that Joseph left behind when he went West from East of Eden.

spamandham

If these are indeed works of fiction, why would they need to be this close to the purported events?

spamandham

I would say, "someone made up a story, passed it on, and others believed it" is a more than adequate acceptable alternative to the orthodox Christian explanation.

I don't know that this is what happened, but if you step outside the Christian faith box, it's a magnificently more likely alternative. I suspect the real answer is much more complex than either of these, and I doubt we'll ever uncover it.

Doug Shaver

I would using the conventional dating to avoid an argument. I think it likely that the gospels didn't reach their current form until the early second century.

But whenever they were written, I don't think need had anything to do with the timing. Whoever originated the stories just happened to be around at that time.

If you're asking why they decided on a setting of X years previously, well, I could speculate, but it would be pointless. Writers in general -- and not just writers of fiction -- do a lot of things for reasons that are not readily apparent -- often not even to the writers themselves.

Doug Shaver

I'd call that plausible. I have no strong feeling either for or against that particular hypothesis.

I didn't say "randomly made up," and I don't think for a minute that there was anything random about it.

I didn't say 40. I said "during the 40s." Whatever, I was giving a guesstimate from memory because I didn't feel like googling for the scholarly consensus.

I don't think the gospel stories as we know them even existed in Paul's time, because I don't think the appearances he had in his mind involved a man who had ever lived in this world. The gospel writers just took most of the names Paul used and added some of their own.

I think you are reading a great deal more diversity into them than is there. The differences are trivial. As for independent sources, except for certain apologists of the inerrantist persuasion, practically no modern scholar thinks they are at all independent. John, arguably, was almost independent, but not entirely.

Of course, there is a significant sense in which each writer was doing his own thing, marching to his own drummer, singing his own song, and all that good stuff. But when scholars of ancient history talk about independent sources, that is not the kind of independence they are talking about.

You seem totally convinced of that. I am not, and neither is the consensus of modern scholarship.

The consensus does disagree with my belief that Jesus probably never existed at all. Nearly all authorities agree that the man lived, did some preaching, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate. But most of them don't believe that some women found his tomb empty a couple of days after he was executed.

Well, let's see. Paul was trying to convince people that a dead man had come back to life. He thought folks would believe the story if he said the dead man was seen by a bunch of men, but if he said some women saw the dead man before the men saw him, nobody would believe it?

I don't think so.

Johnny Skeptic

Alternative to what, the Resurrection? Even if Jesus rose from the dead, that does not prove anything except that he rose from the dead. If Elvis Presley rose from the dead, you most certainly would not worship him even if he had predicted that he would rise from the dead.

Jane H

There’s a lot of good material here. Apologies for having to leave some of my started arguments for now, but there’s too much to deal with at one go, and I am particularly interested in exploring the line of discussion with which I joined the thread.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1907339.ece

Johnny, once again we are in agreement. Rising from the dead doesn’t prove Jesus was anyone special. After all, people do it all the time, and I’m sure this happened more often in C1, where categories of near death were less well understood. In C1 world, the natural reaction would be to say that, well, many strange things like that happen. Certainly, people come back from the dead.

But the first Christians drew completely different conclusions. Firstly the resurrection was seen as YHWH vindicating Jesus claim to be the Messiah inaugurating the Kingdom of God. Secondly, it was seen as YHWH constituting Jesus as the ruler of the world. And thirdly it meant that Jesus was the embodiment and revelation of YHWH.

So why did it mean what it meant to the disciples? Because in His life and His work, Jesus did things that were the preserve of YHWH alone. Jesus did the job of “God’s Son”, not just within the varied terminology found within the NT for the usage of that term, but within a specific very narrow range of meaning. And the resurrection declared to those who witnessed it that Jesus had been right to make those claims. It didn’t prove that Jesus was divine per se, but within the world of meaning the early Christians found themselves exploring, it lead to that conclusion.

This represented a massive, massive development of theology from the worldview within which the disciples began Jesus ministry. Clearly all this went out of the window when Jesus died. People were on their way home. Then something happened which was no narrow evasion of death (because as we agree that happens), was no vision (because they were also a familiarity in the C1 world, as they are now), but was a whole new kind of experience. An unexpected, compelling experience which drove belief into new places it should never have gone to, were there any other option.