Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 07-20-2004, 08:50 AM

Toto, I liked this summary in the Jesus Puzzle thread!

Quote:

Doherty's argument is that Christianity started with the worship of a spiritual savior, and that it was only after Christianity had been around for a while that someone constructed a human counterpart to this spiritual savior. Jesus was not so much like Zeus as he was like Joshua, Moses' lieutenant.

His argument is based on silences about a human Jesus where you would expect to find details. He does rely on Paul's letters.

This is the weak point in the theory. Paul's letters are hardly solid evidence, and may well have been forged later in the second century. This leaves us with no real evidence that Christianity existed before the end of the first century, and no evidence of how it started.

The main alternative to this theory is the "big bang" theory of Christian origins. Under this theory, Jesus was an extraordinary individual who made an life-changing impression on his small group of disciples, and these disciples spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire until it became the state religion. There is no real evidence that this happened, but some people hold to it because they can't image how else Christianity could have started. This is probably due to a failure of imagination.

What most people agree on is that late in the 2nd century, there was a Christian church, which started to make an effort to codify its beliefs and history. But whether they remembered their history or invented it out of whole cloth is the questio

We have hundreds of theories flying around in physics, so I think there is room for a few more here!

Imagine the Jewish diaspora in Rome, in the middle of huge changes from the Republic to the Empire, wanting to find some peace and sense in it all!

Ellegard discusses the use of terms like saints in Paul's writing, and thinks that this is evidence of older church structures - probably based on diaspora synagogues. He thinks there is evidence of church (bureaucratic - not physical) structures before 30 AD!

A messiah is an ancient theme! Let's make one! Much later on some literalists turn up who don't like the gnostic turn of events and try and impose some Roman order and turn the Christ into a human.

The religion returns to where it started - Rome.

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