TedM

Shesh, I think the problem is one of the words being used. When I refer to a rational basis, I mean it in the context of their existing belief system. In this day and age, is it rational to believe in ghosts if some stranger simply tells you about them? Not really. But, is it rational to believe in ghosts if you when you were younger you had a vivid dream about ghosts and you thought you were awake, and all the people in your life who mean something to you told you about their own experiences with seeing ghosts? Yes, that is a rational response.

Rationality, as applied to our behaviors, doesn't require a philosophy of materialism. It was rational for primitive cultures to believe in lightening Gods, sun Gods, demons...because THEY DIDN'T KNOW ANY DIFFERENTLY OR BETTER.

It was rational for the early Jews to believe that a man thought to be the Messiah, sacrificed during Passover, and allegedly to have been resurrected, was their savior who ushered in the new kingdom of God, washing away their sins. Had there been no prior experience it perhaps would have been as irrational as believing in ghosts just because some stranger tells you about them. But, with the longstanding pattern of passover animal sacrifice for sins, and the expectations for a Messiah (from God, sinless, Suffering Servant, King, Savior), it was very rational to believe in the story.

IF a Messiah wanna-be WAS crucified during Passover, the origins of Christianity are very understandable, not surprising at all, because of the rational response of those people to their teachings/beliefs of the time. To require them to be 'materialists' 2000 years ago, is what is really IRRATIONAL. I see a lot of that on this forum.

Sheshbazzar

There is no evidence that this fictional character was even known in the 1st century, much less in Judea.The Jews have enough problems with their own religion without being saddled with this Johnny-come-lately pagan Geek derived fabricated horse shit.

The first verifiable unambiguous evidence of this Jeezuz cult does not show up until after 150 CE and then in the works of the philosopher Justin Martyr writing in Rome.
The New Testament tale was composed entirely in Greek and is loaded with Greek and Egyptian theological symbology and motifs. Its content shows that the writers were unfamiliar with both the geography of Palestine, as well as with many known elements of Jewish practice.

The texts present multiple contradictory accounts, and thus perjure themselves, even if one omits taking the alleged miracles as being actual history.
And at that, much of the textual content and the ensuing situations are centered around the existence of these highly unlikely to be historical miracles.
Take out the miracle stories and the entire tale simply falls apart, having no rationale left for its existence, or even being interesting.

If "THEY DIDN'T KNOW ANY DIFFERENTLY OR BETTER" it was because they were not Jewish writers, and were not eyewitnesses to any of the Jeezuz horse-shit that they were inventing and repeating.

aa5874

TedM does not seem to understand we have brains and can read gMark for ourselves. Any one familiar with Jewish/Greek/Roman mythology can easily detect that the Jesus story is pure myth.

Roo Bookaroo

Sheshbazzar makes an important point, that has not been mentioned by anybody else.
The whole theory of sacrifice is to appease an angry god.
The factor that has not been put in the equation is the Wrath of God.

It's only in the context of the Wrath of God that the martyrs of Maccabees 2 and Maccabees 4 give a meaning to their willingness to die. They show God that they repent for their bad behavior (it was apostasy in the case of Maccabees), and by their death they hope that God will absolve, not just them personally, but the whole tribe of Jews who committed the sin of apostasy. The martyrs gain the appeasement of God for the whole community of Jews.

The Wrath of God was due to breaking the Law, disobeying the Commandments.

Jesus by his willingness to die, does the same. He becomes a martyr for the whole community of Jews, and by extension (with Paul) the whole community of men, to obtain the forgiveness of men breaking the law, that is for their sins.

Now all this makes sense if Jesus is a real martyr.
And if he is the son of god, it still makes sense if he is distinct from God, like in Psalm 22.

Things become murky when the son of God is also God, or the same as God. If there's no more distinction, no dualism, but the same divinity, how can a death be a real act of martyrdom? Is the sacrifice still a sacrifice if Jesus is one person of the divine essence?

The bishops of Nicaea in 325 AD didn't know what to make of it, their Greek was not good enough, and their heads were spinning.
But they voted anyway for "homoousios" (same substance). But the persons of the Father and the Son were still different. So a semblance of dualism was saved, to preserve a meaning for the martyrdom, the sacrifice.

The martyrdom and the sacrifice remain real only in the context of a bizarre construction. The Son of God appeases the Wrath of God by sacrificing himself to his co-substantial father.

We can hear the message: "Son, well done!"

Is the whole thing a big masquerade engineered by God for show? To convince reluctant men to abandon their sinful ways?

Or, more prosaically, was the Wrath of God simply an invention of the priests of Yahweh to promote his cult by rallying the Jews who were not monotheists by temperament but believed in other Gods?

Sheshbazzar

Drop the Jezuz myth out of the equation and the Jews have their ancestal religion, the doG doesn't chase its own tail

....and the world goes on as it has for the last 4.5 billion years.

aa5874

The killing of a human being to appease God was the most offensive sacrifice to early Christians and was considered murder.

Athenagoras of Athens Minucius Felix's 'Octavius'

TedM

Which is why Jesus wasn't considered just a human being. He was seen as perfect, and part-divine very early for the very reason you give. By doing so, his sacrifice wasn't seen as offensive to Christians. Rather, it was laudible, necessary, perfect obedience for which Christians would be forever grateful. The offensiveness of the cross is the very reason why the theology of Paul could have developed so quickly after the crucifixion, and why gMark imitates the same sentiments of salvation from sins through his death and resurrection. A mere man can't do that. That's why gMark's and Paul's Jesus wasn't a mere man, but a heavenly man. Thanks for furthering my point..

aa5874

Why do you persist with your fallacies?? I have shown that you do NOT understand the short gMark.

Murder of a human being was not acceptable to early Christians as a sacrifice to God.

Short gMark is NOT about Remission of Sins for the whole world by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God but a story about the Rejection and Killing of the Son of God by the Evil Jews and betrayal, denial, abandonment by the very disciples.

The Jesus of the short gMark quotes Zechariah 13 to show that he would be Killed by those of his OWN house and that the Jews will be scattered.

Mark 14 Zechariah 13 is not about Remission of Sins for the whole world but the Killing of the shepherd by his own people.

Zechariah 13

maryhelena

Well now, Ted, what am I reading here?

You know what, you have just blown your own illogical, immoral and anti-humanitarian argument to smithereens.



And now: Jesus "was seen as perfect, and part-divine very early for the very reason you give. By doing so, his sacrifice wasn't seen as offensive to Christians. ............A mere man can't do that. That's why gMark's and Paul's Jesus wasn't a mere man, but a heavenly man."

So? Ted, you have just admitted that you have no basis, either logical or rational, for your claim that a human flesh and blood sacrifice has salvation value.!!! You are dealing with, talking theology!! Jesus not a [COLOR="rgb(65, 105, 225)"]"mere man"[/COLOR]. Let me repeat your words to you: Jesus "wasn't a mere man, but a heavenly man".

So, finally, by your own words above, you have demonstrated that your premise, that human flesh and blood crucifixion/sacrifice has salvation value - [COLOR="rgb(65, 105, 225)"] "that it can be beautiful if it saves the world"[/COLOR] is not only an immoral premise - but falls down flat on it's face because your Jesus is not a "mere man" but a "heavenly man".

Thanks Ted, for inadvertently not only smashing your own argument to hell and gone - but for admitting that the NT story about finding salvation value in crucifixion/sacrifice and resurrection is not talking about a human flesh and blood sacrifice having salvation value - it is not talking about a human flesh and blood man at all.

Welcome, Ted, to the ahistoricist camp......

TedM

For reasons I don't understand, you have been misunderstanding me all along, Mary.

I never would have imagined that you thought I supported the idea that a mere human is what the Christians ever imagined had resurrected. Why would they? I thought I made it clear over and over that the theology required a perfect man. No man is perfect, so of course he would have to be given godly attributes.

It doesn't mean they were right. He may well have just been a man. IF he were just a man, that in no way does away with Christian origins based on the crucifixion of an actually 100% fully human being. As I tried to say several times, the BELIEFS are what caused Christianity to spread. IF they mistakenly thought Jesus was not a mere man, how does that affect their perception of his salvation value? It doesn't. They wouldn't have known their mistake.

Nor does his being an actual man mean he was much different than the Gospel portrayals of him. They may be fairly accurate about many points. As I said, a Messiah wanna-be who was crucified on Passover is plenty enough to have sparked Christian beliefs in the salvation value of his death--especially if resurrections were also being alleged. Nor does his being an actual man mean we need to look back 100 years to piece together various other stories to derive this 'made - up' more divine man. But, then again, that might be just as worthwhile as combing the gospels for accuracies. I doubt it, but it might be.

In any case, I reject the idea that I've been inconsistent. I accept the fact that for whatever reason you have not understood what I was saying. However, if we now are in sinc, all the better.