aa5874

The information about Achilles may be more ancient. The information from the NT and the church writers presented Jesus as the offspring of the Holy Ghost, so I will maintain that the offspring of the Ghost is a myth until reliable information can be found.

You do the complete opposite, you use no-good ureliable biased information, and want people to believe you know the history of Jesus when you really have no idea whatsoever.


You don't want to focus on what is in the NT and the church writings, you want to make stuff up. You don't want to see the information that clearly show that Jesus was presented as a myth.

If you don't focus on the fact that Achilles was presented as the offspring of a sea-goddess, you may falsely think that Achilles was a man who committed suicide.

You can't focus.
Right now, nothing can get past my shredder.

Elijah

Except reason.

Dodge dodge all you like.

bacht

The proto-catholic Christians re-interpreted Jewish scripture with their own spin, this has been known since the 2nd C. They wanted to have it both ways: retaining the Hebrew writings for the sake of authority and credibility while rejecting the traditional interpretations placed on the writings by Jews.

Thus we ended up with "Replacement theology", the notion that Israel had been rejected in favour of righteous gentiles. Also Christians moved from the traditional focus on the people of Israel as a cultural/political group to focusing on individual salvation regardless of ethnicity.

There is a logic to all this but it's disingenuous to claim that the Jews themselves saw it the same way, either when the scriptures were written or in the 1st-2nd centuries.

Elijah

You lost me. I'm not sure what you are suggesting here anymore. Your myth to man theory is a gentile takeover theory? Maybe you can clarify better about what you believe. Hopefully better then the other mythers on here have.

To me the myth theory, as it stands now, is a wishing-well where skeptics go to throw their reason down in it, while making a wish for no more religion.

bacht

Why would you think that dissing a debating opponent is useful?


Let's start with Mark's gospel: the Jesus figure described could be analagous to OT personifications of Israel (eg. "son of man). Thus the whole story presented is, from a Jewish point of view, a commentary on the destruction of the nation. Israel is, once again, punished by God for breaking the covenant, and "dies" at the hands of the heathen Romans.


Thus the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
Then I said, "O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
The LORD repented concerning this;
"This also shall not be," said the Lord GOD.
Amos 7

E'phraim was a trained heifer
that loved to thresh,
and I spared her fair neck;
but I will put E'phraim to the yoke,
Judah must plow,
Jacob must harrow for himself.
Hosea 10


Now fast-forward to the late 2nd C: Jews no longer wanted any part of Christianity, and the Christians didn't really want the Jews either. The story has been re-interpreted as a biographical report of a real man who lived 40 years before the fall of the temple. Is such a misunderstanding possible? I would suggest it happens all the time.

Elijah

There is no logical reason to push the myth theory except for ideological reasons (or you want to publish) and to pretend otherwise or act offended when it is suggested is just a ploy. I’m talking about what motivates someone to accept the theory. If you feel dissed I’m sorry. But you do have the opportunity to prove me full of it by showing that you have come to the belief through logic and reason.
Where do you getting Son of Man equals Israel?

Ok so in your take on the Gospel it is the story of a symbolic representation of the nation of Israel who makes god mad and is punished with death. So the story of Jesus is him making God mad and getting punished by him? The story is trying to blame the Romans or the Jews? No sacrifice? No atonement? No new convenient? Are the Jews being replaced with Gentiles as god’s chosen people in Mark as well? Is mark the original source of the story or is it a later adaptation?
This doesn’t tell me anything about what you think happened, sorry. Too vague. Why is the story re-interpreted as a biographical report now? What happened to the community that had believed in it as a symbolic representation at the time it was being confused for history? Illustrating how it went from being symbolically understood for historically confused you should put as much detail into as you can because it’s the hard part of the myth theory to imagine.
If you would suggest that it happens all the time then you should have some similar examples of what you think happened. Since I can’t tell what you think happened with Jesus maybe you could provide the other similar examples and I can figure it out from there.

Toto

This is a bizarre statement. I can only conclude that you are doing some sort of verbal combat and accusing others of what you are guilty of. It could be said that there is no logical reason to think that there was a historical Jesus, except for the ideological or religious motives that most scholars hold - but most of us refrain from making that accusation to keep the debate civil, and because we realize that speculating about others' motives can get into uncomfortable territory.

What opportunity? No one has been able to penetrate your cloud of condescending insults yet. And who made you the judge of what is reasonable?

I don't think you would recognize logic or reason. You refuse to cite any of your sources, you refuse to read others' sources. When people provide logical arguments, you reject them for some arbitrary reason - too vague, doesn't explain everything - that apply equally to your own theories.

Would you please list all of the books, articles, or websites that you have read on this subject, so I can find out if we have any basis for a discussion at all?

Elijah

We can move past it, my bad, I don’t want to upset anyone.

Believing in a magical Jesus is the equivalent of the mythical Jesus on the other side. Two sides of the same coin. The historical core is the rational and logical compromise.
No, no one has been able to answer any questions pertaining to their theory. See your last ignoring of my questions in post #209 The “oh we’re insulted” claim is weak and just for distractions. No one is offended as easily as you pretend to be.
There is no logical argument against a historical core there is no sound theory for the mythical origin. If the question in your myth theory of who created it and how it was confused for history isn’t answered you have no theory at all. “There were some Jews and they wrote a story and it was confused for history” is not an answer to the question but just rephrasing the actual questions of the theory.

What is too vague about my theory? What needs to be explained? Do you really still have a hard time seeing how a man sacrificing his life could create a following if their followers were imitating that sacrifice?
Yea, that’s it try to pick on my education because you can’t formulate a theory that supports what you believe. Is that what they teach in those higher education institutes you so proud of attending? Have you even asked yourself what you actually believe in regards to the myth theory? When I asked you those questions earlier did you even think them through at all?

Toto

FALSE. The historical core is NOT the default position. You are trying to shift the burden of proof.

Using your own standards, you have not explained exactly when this man lived and died. You have not given a reason for his death.

But, primarily, the standard Christian line has been that after Jesus' death, his followers scattered and were dispirited and depressed until they learned that Jesus had risen. Evidently, early Christians were not impressed with the mere death of someone, or their willingness to die. They needed something beyond that - a miraculous rising from the grave.

We have a lot of examples of new religions forming in recent history that we can study. We don't find the death of the founder kick starting a new religion - it usually leads to the religion falling apart, unless the founder leaves an organizational structure in place.

So your "theory" (it is yours) does not explain enough.

No - just trying to find some common basis for a discussion. I don't think you have laid all of your cards on the table. You are much too confident of your position. If you believe in your position, you need to test it against what other people think, not by coming to a message board and insulting everyone else, but by reading other points of view and considering them.

Elijah

I’m not talking about default position but the rational one given what we know.
You know when the figure I’m talking about is supposed to have lived so why ask such basic questions? “Reason for his death”? I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking for but I’ll go with, to establish an anti-king meme to compete against the king meme.
The conviction is often almost always tied to the appearances/resurrection of Jesus, but being a rational person I realize that isn’t possible because it simply isn’t possible so there has to be another reason. The other reason is people are sheep and imitate what they see. Monkey see, monkey do. It’s the imitation of the sacrifice that is what really gets people believing but when they see the imitation they don’t think it’s an imitation they think it’s conviction because they think the guy dying must have seen the dead return in order to be willing to die and then the meme spreads.
Obviously religions form after the deaths of their founders but no, not many religions are based on the death of their founder. That is correct and in understanding that you should be able to see what made Christianity work while others didn’t. You don’t see other religions trying to start new memes every day and you don’t see rebellions formed around a dead leader too often either.

You can’t throw every religion in a pile and look at them the same; you have to take into consideration what makes them special. Use reason to discern what makes one religion one way and different religion another. You can’t understand a Jewish Messiah the same way you would a pagan myth or a philosophical religion the same way you would a supernatural one.
What still needs to be explained?
I don’t know what you’re looking for or why you are having problems articulating your theory to me. You seem to think it is from some shortcoming of mine but I don’t see the complexity to what you are saying.

I don’t mean to be insultive. It is a problem for me. I do try to edit it out when I see it but stuff slips by.