andrewcriddle

shows may be a bit strong. IIUC Stark assumes for his analysis that Christianity had a roughly constant percentage rate of increase from the crucifixion to Constantine.

This may be true and is an obvious default assumption, but I have reservations.

If, for example, one held on the basis of rather flimsy bits of evidence that Christianity grew (in percentage terms) much faster at the beginning than later on, then one would have a rather different set of results.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

But still no evidence of supernatural causes, or of any gaps that would require supernatural intervention.

Vorkosigan

Carr's point still holds, Andrew. The Lubavitch Rebbe's death did cause an ideological crisis but a minority of people, if anything, drew even closer to the idea of Scheerson as the Messiah, including arguing even more stridently with the foes in the movement, splintering, and claiming that the Messiah had appeared to them to carry out miracles. In fact, there is hardly any facet of the new Schneerson-as-Messiah movement that does not replicate the early Christian movement, as many commentators have noted. Thus CJD's objection:

....is major nonsense. In fact we have several examples of such movements in history, include that of Tzvi in the 17th century, in which his followers were able to maintain momentum for a couple of generations even though their messiah converted to Islam. LOL. Worse than dying!

The reasons Christianity was able to thrive and grow lay in its authoritarian organization and the fact that no other robustly ecumenical missionary movement competed with it. Unlike today, where new religions move into a very crowded market of missionary activity.

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

I'm sure NT Wright also points out how new religious groups reinterpret their ideas of Messianism, borrowing elements of other religions as they do so.

hum

The problem with Wrights position (as I see it) is that it rests on the assumption that ONLY a resurected Jesus would explain the growth in the numbers of his followers. It would seem that if only one viable alternative was offered then his argument fails to bite.
As as been stated by other posters there are certainly several possible explanations.

hum.

Ted Hoffman

I was told that the word "witness" in "witness to the resurrection" has theological meaning. So, theologically, seeing "Christ Crucified" + "Empty tomb"="Resurrected Jesus".

Killer Mike

I think people must remember the early Christians were a small movement within Judiasm. It was not until about the time of the failure of the Jewish revolt (about 68AD I believe) that Christianity finally split away from Judiasm. It remained rather small until Constatine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity grew much in part for political reasons. No, there is no reason to argue the resurrection must be true. I mean just look at Mormonism. How much it has grown in just a few decades. Does that mean Joseph Smith really did find gold tablets written by God and there were angels everywhere?

andrewcriddle

a/ Strictly speaking Constantine did not declare Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, that was does by Theodosius 379-395. (I quite agree that Constantine's preferential treatment of Crhistianity led to a major numerical increase thereof.)

b/ At the time of Constantine's accession Christianity was probably the faith of about 10% of the Empire (maybe 20% in Cities) which is reasonably impressive for an increase from almost nothing in less than 300 years.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

IIUC the messianic ideas of the Lubavitch group were (by conventional rabbinic/talmudic standards) rather unorthodox even before the death of Rebbe Schneerson.

Andrew Criddle

Storm

I have a question about this that's kind of been bothering me. Doesn't this assume a historical Jesus? If Jesus was mythic originally, couldn't the start of Christianity be much earlier and be a better explanation for the apparent explosion and diversity of early Christianity?