maryhelena

Agreed, there is nothing inherently implausible about a crucified flesh and blood figure. The problem arises as to why such a nobody crucified carpenter should have had any relevance for a new 'take' on Jewish thinking re spiritual issues? Many flesh and blood men were crucified. Why was a crucified nobody carpenter more important than any other crucified man?

Diogenes the Cynic

What is different about ANY object of ANY personality cult? What was different about Rabbi Schneerson?

maryhelena

Don't change the subject!!

Why is a crucified nobody carpenter preacher deemed to be relevant to a new 'take' on Jewish spirituality?

Diogenes the Cynic

That is the subject. You are asking what attracted people to a personality cult. The same question can be asked of any personality cult. The answer is they are attracted to the personality. Why was anybody attracted to David Koresh or Jim Jones? It just happens. Cults develop around personalities with great regularity in human history, up to and including the modern, civilized world. A major American newspaper is currently owned by a man believed by 5 million people to be the Messiah.
I don't think the original movement was any kind of "new take on Jewish spirituality." The original movement was, at best, an obscure Jewish micro-sect with a belief that their crucified rabbi was going to come back as the Messiah. They probably weren't even the only group in Jerusalem that had developed some such fancy about some dead person they would have liked to be the Messiah. We have a modern group now, in the Schneerson cult, of a wholly Jewish expression of a personality cult fixated on a belief in the Messianic return of a dead rabbi. That is what I would call a "proof of concept," that such a thing was plausible and possible in 1st century Jerusalem. The original movement would have likely vanished into total obscurity after 70 CE, along with all the other crazy, Jewish doomsday sects of the day, if it hadn't been for Paul having gone out and setting up a bunch of satellite Gentile churches and adding his own Pauline, Gentile friendly special sauce to the recipe. Then a couple of centuries later, christianity REALLY hit the jackpot when they converted Constantine's mother.

maryhelena

It is to change the subject - this is not about a personality cult :huh:
Are you seriously going to maintain that the personality of the gospel JC was the major attraction to his followers?

And that is sufficient argument to base christian origins upon - deluded followers of a crucified nobody carpenter preacher? Yes, such things do happen. But to assume that christian origins stem from deluded followers of a nobody preacher is to do those early christians a serious injustice. If there is nothing else than can be said about the early writings that we do have - it is that those early christian writers were people of the highest intellectual abilities. Deluded followers - no way. We are dealing with some serious thinking going on in the early christian writing.
Deluded followers again.....

Illusions of grandeur for that crucified nobody carpenter preacher - not in life - but in wishful thinking.....

Wow - now we add crazy doomsday sects to the deluded followers in a personality cult. I'd much rather go with an intellectual/spiritual awakening than go for the lowest type of movement possible - the crazies and the deluded. :constern01:

Diogenes the Cynic

The character of the Gospels has nothing to do with the conversation as far as I'm concerned. I'm saying that the evidence is strong for the prima facie claim made by Tacitus that the Christian religion originated as a personality cult devoted to a crucified Jewish preacher.
You're inserting "carpenter." I didn't say "carpenter." A crucified preacher is sufficient.
The people who wrote the Gospels were not the original followers. The original followers wrote nothing. Those who wrote the Gospels never even had had any contact with the original followers. Jesus to Christ was an evolution, not a special creation.

What we might personally be more attracted to is neither here nor there, though, is it? Just because they were deluded doesn't mean they weren't real.

maryhelena

Quite - what personally attracts one is - personal......

What is interesting though is where you have to go with the premise of a crucified nobody carpenter preacher - deluded followers and crazy doomsday folk....that is the issue. Not whether one finds such a reality acceptable or not.

And oh my - another uncomfortable element of the gospel JC story is now dropped - carpenter......

EarlDoherty

This is supposed to answer my question? This is supposed to tell me anything? No wonder I can never understand you.

That’s the order of the “story” because that’s the order of documents in the NT canon? Is that your answer?

Leaving aside the question of whether Paul and the other epistle writers believed in a crucified man on earth, how would this tell you that the JC story was followed by the Paul story, or that this is a "given"?

This exchange began with you saying "The NT JC story is what it is. The JC story is followed by the Paul story." First you refer to the NT JC story, which includes both the Gospels and Paul, then you refer to the JC story followed by the Paul story, treating the two as separate. Yet the two are contained within the "NT JC story". Can you not even recognize the contradiction in your own words? Are you saying that Paul has no JC story? Do you even understand what you are saying? No wonder you can't answer my questions.

Earl Doherty

maryhelena

That's the order of the NT JC story. And its an order that makes sense. Why? because the gospel JC story is based upon terra firma. It is a story about a literary figure who walked the sands of Palestine. A literary figure placed within a specific historical time frame. Yes, it is pseudo-history, mythologized history, salvation history. It is a story about living on earth.
A flesh and blood crucified man, earthly reality, precedes the spiritual crucified man. Or in 'Paul's' words: "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit."

Earl, there is only one JC story - the NT JC story. I don't treat the two as separate at all. The 'Paul' story follows the JC story - within the NT JC story. It really is simple....'Paul' is part of the JC story.

And Earl, if you want to have an exchange with me - drop the negativity. I don't engage with people who seek to belittle their opponent. I won't do so with any historicists who plays that card - and I won't do so with a mythicist either.

Diogenes the Cynic

[Sigh]

There are many JC stories, and there is no "NT story." The NT is an anthology, not a contiguous narrative.