excreationist
Married mouth-breather
This might be an original theory.... in the "Mythical Jesus Vs Historical Jesus" group no-one had heard of this theory before...
Mark 6:14-16
1 Corinthians 15:6 talks about Jesus appearing to 500 people.... mythicists sometimes say that that just involved a mass hallucination... I think the following event is relevant:
V: Jesus in Nairobi, Kenya, 1988
It involves an apparent sighting of Jesus by 6000 people in 1988... you might think the photo doesn't look like Jesus but with the 500 they didn't have any photos to go by.
The man on the road to Emmaus in Luke 20 and the gardener in John 20 looked like ordinary men then they were thought to be Jesus. I thought Jesus had a glorified body... Mark 6 shows that the person doesn't need to look like the person to be considered that person. So even if the gardener looked nothing like Jesus he could be seen as being Jesus by people of that era.
So there are many reasons to believe in the mistaken identity theory... though these reasons are normally just ignored and skeptics usually prefer the "mass hallucination" theory.
Mark 6:14-16
King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”
Others said, “He is Elijah.”
And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”
But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”
So the existence of Jesus was seen as proof of John the Baptist being raised from the dead.... so someone seeing an ordinary man could be seen as proof that Jesus was raised from the dead....
1 Corinthians 15:6 talks about Jesus appearing to 500 people.... mythicists sometimes say that that just involved a mass hallucination... I think the following event is relevant:
V: Jesus in Nairobi, Kenya, 1988
It involves an apparent sighting of Jesus by 6000 people in 1988... you might think the photo doesn't look like Jesus but with the 500 they didn't have any photos to go by.
The man on the road to Emmaus in Luke 20 and the gardener in John 20 looked like ordinary men then they were thought to be Jesus. I thought Jesus had a glorified body... Mark 6 shows that the person doesn't need to look like the person to be considered that person. So even if the gardener looked nothing like Jesus he could be seen as being Jesus by people of that era.
So there are many reasons to believe in the mistaken identity theory... though these reasons are normally just ignored and skeptics usually prefer the "mass hallucination" theory.