steve_bnk

Who is your 'we' and what is righteousness? I do not accept any religious definition of good vs evil or righteousness.

I go with the modern idioms, bad things happens to good people, and following the rules oes not guarantee anything.

The story is not so cynical as you infer In the story Job is restored by god when he forgives his antagonists.

While we can speculate on universal themes, in the end it is a story by and for believers in a god.

And this would be a derail to another thread on Job.

Job does show the themes attributed to JC of bearing suffering for a deferred relief through faith was not a new Jewish theme.

Grog

The Jesus meme would be subject to the theory in same way as any other meme.


It must be for lack of trying:

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

Who Was Jesus Christ?

Note the emphasis above. Clearly, Doherty believes the idea of Jesus emerged prior to Paul's teachings.




Ahhh. yeah. It's a dodge. It would probably better serve you to let this one fall quietly to the side of the road. I will pretend I didn't see it. .





I am asking for the possibility to be entertained. I am not proposing that i have all the answers to it.


I have responded to these examples. Sticking with the biological evolution model, here is what I see:

lutheranism = The Morgan Horse

Mormonism =


Ahmadiyya=Anglo-Arabian

Hare Krishna=Thoroughbred

Sikhism = The Arabian

See a pattern?

What I am saying is this:

Jesus-belief/early Christianity = Evolution of the Horse

Note in particular at that site this comment:

Also, that evolution is not a clearly linear process, but has branches and dead ends.

I must have missed it. Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Judaism? Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Taosim?

No. It can be recorded, but not as an event or traced to an individual, but in the thoughts and beliefs as recorded in the historical record. What you seem to be missing is that evolutionary processes take a long time and the precise origins are often necessarily obscure. We don't know where the first horse was. We don't know who the first Homo Sapiens was, or even what specific evolutionary branch of hominid led to the evolution of homo sapiens, but we do have enough in the fossil record to give us a clearer and clearer picture. I have attempted to draw your attention to movements with ideas that are not necessarily traceable to a single person: the New Age Movement and Unitarianism of the non-Christ centered variety. You responded by providing an example of an individual who incorporated an already existing idea. My point is that the ideas that are incorporated as "Unitarian Universalism" evolved basically out of a clash of ancient superstitution and modern rationalism. New Age spiritualism has evolved out of a clash of cultures. My argument is that the emergence of Christianity looks to me to have followed a similar path. Same for Judaism. Your response is very similar to a standard creationist response to evolution: Why don't we see Monkeys turning into People? That's not how it works. That is what makes it difficult, but not impossible, to document.

Luther did not found Christianity either. To me, what we are referring to as "Christianity" is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Lutheranism does not deviate from that sufficiently to be a separate religion. (I would make the same observation about some of the other examples you have proffered).

"Unitarianism" existed long before Theophilus Lindsey existed. You are mixing categories.

steve_bnk

Even the term Jesus Christ appears problematic.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ

'..The word Christ (or similar spellings) appears in English and most European languages, owing to the Greek usage of Christós (transcribed in Latin as Christus) in the New Testament as a description for Jesus. Christ has now become a name, one part of the name "Jesus Christ", but originally it was a title (the Messiah) and not a name; however its use in "Christ Jesus" is a title.[7][11]..'

In the 60s the Jesus Movement, aka Jesus Freaks, emerged as a collective identity.

I wonder if the term could have collectively referred to a movement rater than one individual.

outhouse

Good question.

I know the Romans used the term Christo's as a negative term describing members of the movement.

steve_bnk

An analogy to modern times.

What if it had been Gandhi/Hinduism in India 2000 years ago, how would we know him and how would he have been recoded?

He was educated, passed the bar in England. Knew Hindu scriptures. He wandered around in a loin cloth and a staff. Lived simply. Railed against a power structure with passive resistance as opposed to other militant Indian factions.

From a bio he had his quirks. He thought mud baths and fasting could cure organic disease.
He aligned with the poor even though he could have had a successful business career.

From his bio he was very down to Earth. Europeans who came later on seemed to be puzzled how people around him were on a simple social level. He had been raised to a pedestal by what sprang up around him as his story spread.

Toto

What is your source for this? What term exactly are you referring to - Christianoi? - and how do you know it was negative?

outhouse

Do you have any evidence that the early Christians were not viewed negatively by others? were they widely accepted by all?


Ill pull some sources but really the only thing we have here to debate is "when" was it used negatively. Did Romans factually persecute this sect?.

steve_bnk

Post crucifixion what I read was that they were initially viewed as Jewish heretics and that afforded them some protection for a time in Rome. They ran afoul of Rome when they took on a separate identity from Jews.

At the alleged time of JC the messianic prophesy was there, and tere we people claimng the mantel of messiah.

Rome would certainly hve been aware of the general political situation. Self proclaimed messiahs and movements would have been regarded as a pin in the ass.

outhouse

Yet at their conception they were viewed as a sect of Judaism and ignored.


It took a while for this sect's identity became known and persecuted by the Romans.

My best knowledge is because they didnt make the sacrifices to the emperors divinity.

Toto

You don't understand how things work.

If you claim that "I know the Romans used the term Christo's as a negative term describing members of the movement" YOU NEED TO TELL US WHY YOU KNOW THIS.

Did you mean the term "Christ" or "Christos" ? Those are not the same as Christian. And the issue is not whether the Romans persecuted Christians, but your claim that the Romans used the term Christos as a negative (not just a neutral) reference to the movement.