Horatio Parker

If Jesus appears to me say in a dream and tells me something like "never put cream in your coffee" or "the Devil is in the churches".

spin

If you understand the discourse behind Earl Doherty's efforts, you will be aware that he is presenting the notion that the earliest believers in the religion that became christianity did nor believe that Jesus participated in this mundane world.

Cesc

Hm, I don't think the churches as such can 'concur' on such matters. There is still the matter of the creeds. I think most protestant churches confess to certain creeds typically the Chalcedonian. In some way then they do claim a sort of authority in salvific matters. So you would go and tell the priest of the dreams and see what he says, and anything that doesn't contradict the creeds goes, I guess, and I don't see how the cream-in-cofee-prohibition part does! But the Devil-in-the-churches part might...

Cesc

I'm not really familiar with Earl Doherty's efforts, but it sounds interesting. I'm very interested in Christian origins.
My point here though is pertaining to Christianity, not the religion it may have been before it became Christianity.

Onias

Well, Santa Claus also exists in our culture, but only children believe in him.

What does this say about adults in our culture?

spin

You're avoiding the basic problem. First you decide a posteriori what christianity is, then you exclude options on that basis. It seems to me that your notion of christianity is some derivative of normative christianity after it had gained orthodoxy. That doesn't say much other than you accept that normative christianity as the only one and retroject it to the beginning of christianity.

Horatio Parker

Priest of the Dreams, interesting title.

aa5874

I really do not know how it becomes so difficult to understand that people of antiquity believed Myths did actually exist.

The OT is bolted to the NT and is filled with Jewish Mythology and the authors admitted that their accounts of Jesus is based on the very OT.

The very Romans who accepted that Jesus was a Transfiguring Sea water walker, God the Creator, born of a Holy Ghost are the very people who accepted Apollo as a God.

How did Apollo become historical?

How did Romulus become historical?

How did the Holy Ghost become historical?

How did the feeding of the 5000 become an historical account?

How did the cursing of the fig tree become an historical account?

How did the resurrection become an historical event?

How did the Ascension become an historical event?

How did the Angel Gabriel become historical?

How did Joseph Smith Bible become historical?

It is rather easy to understand that people accept Mythology as history. It is known that there are BILLIONS of people who believe Myth Gods will forgive their Sins and Give them eternal life.

Cesc

Firstly, I think the context of my posts in this thread makes it clear that I'm talking about Christianity as it is today, not as it might have been once. That is: If you remove the HJ (something which can most likely never be done) you pull out the rug from underneath Christianity, and this is exactly what atheists sometimes seems to be trying to do, imo. In this context I assume you agree on my definition of "Christian" as we're talking about what Christinity "is", i.e. present day Christianity.

Secondly, a present day Christian is of course someone who believes that the risen Jesus Christ is his/her Lord and Savior. But has there ever been anyone you would call "Christians" who did not hold this belief? If you think there was, try to point me in that direction.
But you must understand by now that this has nothing to do with what I've been trying to say in this thread.

spin

What christianity is today has very little to do with BC&H. If you want to talk about modern christianity per se, then this is not the forum for it. We are supposed to be looking at the biblical text in its historical context of production and early development. Forgive me if I assumed that you were making statements that were relevant to this forum.