arnoldo

So at the time of the writings which were to become the gospels/epistles there was a general expectation for a prophetic return of a HJ? How can this be if no one ever knew about this Jesus before the "anonymous writer(s)" created their fictional accounts?

aa5874

You just switched on me. You were previously talking about MJ now you are talking about HJ.

You need to concentrate.

Or take notes.

The following is a possible chronology.

1. The Jewish Temple fell and Jerusalem was made desolate at around 70 CE. The Jews are demoralized and scattered.

2. Some time later an apocalyptic character believed that a conflagration is imminent based on Hebrew Scripture and have an anonymous writing with the words of the conflagration supposedly from the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

3. The son of God, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, says in the anonymous source that there would be a conflagration unlike there ever was but just believe in him, repent, and you would be saved.

4. People believe the anonymous writing was written by the disciples of the Son of God long before the Fall of the Temple.

4. People believe the anonymous writings contain the words of the Son of God, they repent, and begin to wait for the conflagration and for Jesus to come back to save them in the kingdom of heaven.

5. This is the beginning of the Jesus Christ movement. Jesus will be coming soon for those who believe in him and will live with him in the kingdom of heaven. The message is simple "Repent or Perish".

Now, Joseph Smith started a religion because people believed he copied the words of a God from Golden Plates. It is likely that the Jesus religion was started because people believe in the words of Jesus Christ, the offspring in an anonymous writing.

I hope you realise that the possible chronology does not affect the recorded description of Jesus in Matthew 1.18-20, and Luke 1.34-35. There may be numerous other possibilities on how the MYTH started.

However, the mythological description from antiquity of Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, cannot be altered.

arnoldo

So this movement began primarily with the Jews in diaspora after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Possibly hellenized jews as well began to believe in this mythical god man. Of course, more orthodox jews may've had a more difficult time believing that their savior was someone who was hung on a tree, i.e, cursed, but Paul convinced them otherwise. How do you explain that non jewish believers began to join this jewish sect and worship the offspring of the holy ghost?

aa5874

You must know that I did not claim the Jesus movement began primarily with Jews.

There is no credible historical source external of the NT and Church writings that can show or demonstrate that Jews of any sort deified a man as a God knowing that he was a man for thirty years and that he was crucified on account of blasphemy.

This is the opinion of Aristides concerning Jews of antiquity.

"Apology" So, it is extremely unlikely that Jews would have worshiped a man as a God. Aristides declared that, up to the 2nd century, the Jews worshiped one God alone.

The Synoptic Jesus story is simply about belief, repentance and the arrival of the kingdom of heaven which was suppose to come shortly after the Fall of the Temple.

Look at the Jesus story in gMatthew and gMark, there is the tribulation, the Fall of the Temple, and immediately after the tribulation, the return of Jesus.

Matthew 24.29-30 So, immediately after the Fall of the Temple, Jesus will be coming back.
This passage gives an indication that it was initially written or originally propagated sometime shortly after the Fall of the Temple.

The inventor of the Jesus story is using the Fall of the Temple as fulfilled prophecy by the very mouth of the son of God to get his apocalyptic message across, very soon the sun and moon will be darkened, the stars will fall, the heavens will shake. Repent or Perish.

So, what we possibly have is an apocalyptic character in possession of an anonymous writing with the supposed words of the Son of God but believed to be written by the apostles of the Son of God, long before the Fall of the Temple, trying to convince people all over or propagating that some great conflagration is at hand and that the Son of God is coming to earth very soon. So, REPENT or PERISH.

It would appear to me that all that was needed in antiquity was for some-one to claim they had a writing which contained the words of the Son of God in order to appear credible or believed to be a messenger from God.

And Joseph Smith seemed to have done the same. There are millions who believe the words from the "Golden plates" are from a God.

arnoldo

True, yet Joseph Smith was a real historical person. Some MJ'ers claim that the the NT is entirely mythological including the Apostles and Paul. Obviously, someone (i.e., a real historical person(s)) had to begin the movement which would become Christianity which has existed for the past two thousand years. But, if there was a MJ then who invented this mythological creature? Robert M. Price writes,
I would counter the above bolded (mine) statement by arguing that there was a historical Buddha so why couldn't there be a HJ?

aa5874

Joseph Smith is not worshiped as a God in Mormonism. And the Mormon Bible is not about a son of a God called Joseph Smith who was raised from the dead.

It is the information that was supposedly copied from the "Golden plates" that people believe in or believed were the words of a God and was the fundamental basis for the start of Mormonism.

The biography of Joseph Smith is not at all directly dependent on information supposedly copied from the "Golden Plates", however the biography of Jesus, the Holy Ghost of God, is directly dependent on information found in the Canon.

If Joseph Smith did not admit that it was he who supposedly copied information from the "invented Golden Plates" then who would have guessed that it was Joseph Smith who wrote the first Mormon Bible from "Golden Plates"?

I can only tell you what has been written about Jesus in antiquity.

It is written that he was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and a Virgin, that he cursed a tree, [it later died ], that he talked to storms [the storms obeyed his commands], that he walked on water,[even with Peter in his arms], that he transfigured [his clothes and face shone like the sun], that he resurrected, and ascended through the clouds.

The Church writers did write that those things were true.

Well, it must be or most likely that they only believed those things were true or wanted people to believe those things were true since the entity described is MYTHOLOGICAL.

There is no actual history for the entity described in the Canon and the History of the Church is filled with bogus information.

It is very difficult to say who ACTUALLY invented the myth.

Well, now that you have made your proposal that there may have been an HJ, it is NOW time to produce your evidence from sources of antiquity.

Otherwise, the HJ will be considered a most SENSELESS proposition forrever.

arnoldo

Obviously there is a reasonable doubt that a HJ existed from a dogmatic materialistic perspective which disallows the miraculous events documented in the NT. Therefore, no amount of evidence from sources of antiquity can convince such a "Doubting Thomas" of a HJ.

ApostateAbe

Be the materialistic perspective dogmatic or probabilistic, you are not going to convince aa5874 of a historical Jesus one way or another. The mythical Jesus position is something like an ideology to a lot of people, especially aa5874, and ideologies are not easily deterred by evidence of any sort. There is a sector of mythicists who take seriously the proposition that Nazareth did not exist in the first century CE. Do you think that the publication of the recently-uncovered archaeology of Nazareth will change that? To a few, it may. To the loudest and most obnoxious, nope. Of course, they are the ones who promote the idea that archaeology is supreme to understanding history, but, to them, archaeology is not really the point. The point is the maximization of the seeming falsity of religion.

aa5874

But what you are proposing has very little logical value. You REALLY do not appear to have any evidence to support your HJ proposal so you claim no amount of any evidence will convince anyone of HJ.

Once you claim that Jesus could have existed as a Jewish man during the time of King Herod to Tiberius and was deified by Jews who had earlier caused him to be crucified, then you need to provide some historical external of the sources that claimed he was the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

You must realize by now that once you produce credible evidence for HJ then MJ will be dead forever.

But it is the other way, HJ is eternally dead because of no credible evidence.

Now, once you are claiming that Jesus was a God or his son, the Creator of heaven and earth, but lived on earth as a man, then you are actually arguing for MJ. Jesus was presented as a peculiar entity, he was fully God and fully man. A most awesome MYTH.

arnoldo

It was a rather common belief in the ancient world that people were offspring of a deity. In fact, the Apostle Paul quotes a greek poet in Acts 17:28

Thus, the claim that someone is the offspring of a deity does not equal being non-historical.