120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Atheos]

You challenge me with the following:



I've named several already but will name some again:

Horus, Osirus, Perseus, Promethus, Mithras, Hercules, Bacchus.

Each of these epic hero-god myths was around for centuries before their stories were reheated with your favorite hero-god's name inserted in place of their names.

But these are not historical persons, or alleged historical persons, who reportedly did miracle acts. My claim is that the accounts we have of Jesus performing these acts is evidence (not proof) that he did these acts, which indicates that he had super-human power. And there are no other cases of such miracle-workers in history, i.e., actual historical persons, for whom we have evidence.

Perseus and Hercules were alleged historical persons. Demonstrate otherwise. Their stories were set on planet earth with actual locations.

So there is no evidence that Horus, Osirus, etc. were historical persons who performed miracle acts. But there is evidence that Jesus had such power because of these reported acts that he did. That's how he differs from the gods you're citing. They are not analogous to him.

There is absolutely no evidence that Jesus was a historical person. There is strong evidence that the miracle acts of Jesus were made up. Evidence that has been presented again and again, and which you continue to ignore. The evidence is, once again:

• The earliest writings that talk of Jesus were the authentic Pauline epistles, in which Jesus was talked about in vague terms, never mentioning any act that he did, any place he visited or any time frame in which he supposedly lived.
• For at least 30 (more like 40) years from the alleged time frame in question nobody wrote down anything that would make this figure an historical one.
• Every source for this "historical figure" was written anonymously by people who did not claim to be witnesses, nor did any of them claim to have talked to anyone who was a witness of any of this stuff.
• The life story that emerged once people did start claiming he had lived in recent history was suspiciously similar to the well-known myths about "Sons of Jupiter," so much so that Justin Martyr not only mentioned the similarities, but apologized that "Satan must have known this was going to happen and planted these other stories to subvert the one true one when it did come out."

That some mythic symbols also became attached to Jesus is irrelevant. Why did they choose only Jesus to attach these symbols to? Where are the other reputed historical figures who became mythologized like he did? They could find only one figure to whom they could attach these symbols?

Even if the Jesus myth was the only one that ever followed this pattern it would not make the story more worthy of rational people believing the miracle claims happened. People believe miracle claims because they want to or out of ignorance and superstition, not because there is any rational reason to believe them.

That is the exact reason I copied the Justyn Martyr quote which you evidently didn't read (or comprehend). The quote doesn't imply that Jupiter was a man, it implies that Martyr was aware of many similar myths about Roman god-men who were "sons of Jupiter" whose story lines followed virtually identical paths to the one attributed to your favorite hero-god myth.

But there is no evidence that those gods did perform any miracle acts, and they were not even historical persons. The legends about them obviously evolved over many centuries and are not based on reports written during their lifetime (if they did live 1000 years earlier as real persons), and so there is no comparison between them and the historical Christ person of 29-30 AD. Nothing about them is any evidence that the Jesus accounts are untrue.

The evidence that these god-men were historical figures and performed marvelous acts is exactly as good as the evidence that your favorite god-man lived and performed marvelous acts. Towns in which Perseus and Hercules lived were mentioned in their stories. People with whom they interacted were mentioned in these stories. Hercules once held the sky on his shoulders, an absurd a claim as Jesus looking at all kingdoms of the earth from an exceedingly high mountain. Perseus was able to use the cloak of Hades to run around in public completely invisible to everyone around him. He used the decapitated head of Medusa to rescue Andromeda in Phoenicia. He showed it to the Krakon, a horrid sea monster Poseidon had sent to devour Andromeda, which immediately turned the Krakon into stone. Later he stormed the castle of Polydectes in Seriphus in an attempt to rescue his mother from being forced to be a sex slave to Polydectes. Once he had gained entry to the castle he again used Medusa's head to turn Polydectes and his court into stone.

Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons and two daughters and their descendants eventually became the Persians, growing into a mighty empire that conquered the Babylonians.

You keep having to draw increasingly tiny circles around your favorite god-myth in an attempt to extricate it from the context in which it is found. These arbitrary criteria you cite are truly irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the stories found themselves in written form within 50 years of when they allegedly happened or 100 years, 500 years or 1000 years. Truth is we have no way to determine when the Perseus story was first written down, but we have many written variants of it extending back hundreds of years before your favorite god-myth was ever thought about. Truth is also that the dates of the Jesus gospels themselves are hardly confirmed. We have no physical copies of any of it that can be confirmed to be earlier than the 3rd century. We know for certain that much of the content was edited and changed even after the earliest copies we have and can only imagine how much they might have mutated before that. Your case gets weaker the more it gets looked into.

I'd also encourage you to actually click on the link to the "Miracles of Joseph Smith" before embarrassing yourself yet another time with your lack of knowledge of the subject matter at hand. Since you evidently can't be bothered to do so I'll quote a brief portion of the article:

Healing
According to a number of eye-witness accounts, Joseph Smith is credited with the miraculous healings of a large number of individuals.

• Oliver B. Huntington reported that, in the spring of 1831, Smith healed the lame arm of the wife of John Johnson of Hiram, Ohio. This account is corroborated by the account of a Protestant minister who was present. However, he did not attribute the miraculous healing to the power of God.
• Smith related an experience in which he said the Lord gave him the power to raise his father from his deathbed in October 1835.
• Smith related another experience, occurring in December 1835, in which he said the Lord gave him the power to immediately heal Angeline Works when she lay dying, so sick that she could not recognize her friends and family.
• In his personal journal, Wilford Woodruff recorded an event that occurred on July 22, 1839 in which he described Smith walking among a large number of Saints who had taken ill, immediately healing them all. Among those healed were Woodruff himself, Brigham Young, Elijah Fordham, and Joseph B. Noble. Woodruff also tells of how, just after these events occurred, a ferryman who was not a follower of Smith but who had heard of the miracles asked Smith to heal his children, who had come down with the same disease. Smith said that he did not have time to go to the ferryman's house, but he charged Woodruff to go and heal them. Woodruff reports that he went and did as Smith had told him to do and that the children were healed.

Please note that the "evidence" in this case is of considerably greater quality than the evidence you keep presenting about Jesus.

Assuming we have the two accounts of the first case, which is not clear, then for this one there are two sources, and one of them qualifies it by saying the healing did not come from "the power of God," which makes it questionable. Why would he say this if he didn't think there was something suspicious about it?

Nevertheless, if there really are two written sources for this, then I'd say this is evidence that Joseph Smith may have performed a healing in this case, or an unusual recovery took place that is coincidental. If there were many other healing acts reported about Smith, with more than one source, then it should be taken seriously. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Though it looks like this one healing event would be the only one with any credibility.

The other two examples you give have only one source each, and one of those sources is Joseph Smith himself, which hardly is sufficient. The last example is impressive, but there is only one source for it, so it fails to meet the reasonable standard that we must have more than one source.

I do not discount the possibility of other miracles happening in isolated cases. There are many faith-healing stories. Of all the thousands or maybe millions of healing stories through the centuries, I believe there is likely some truth for a few cases, though 99% of them are no doubt just coincidence or examples of "hits" while at the same time there are 10 times as many "misses" that go unmentioned.

It is normal for believers to attribute miracle healings to their pastor or teacher-guru, such as to Joseph Smith, and most of these are just the "hits" that are noted while the "misses" are ignored. The preacher has a strong reputation among his followers and so becomes mythologized, as a result of his reputation. This did not happen in the case of Jesus, who did not have a long career in which to establish his reputation like the standard preacher-guru does.

Since Joseph Smith had only 10-15 years to establish his reputation, I will grant that he is more unique and so there is extra evidence that he might have had something beyond normal power. Maybe it was entirely charismatic, or I would not rule out the possibility that he could have had some healing power. But we should have more examples than these ones given above.

If he did have some healing power, it seems to be quite limited, if these are the only reported cases. He was a well-recognized public figure, which helps explain it. Plus, we should expect there to be some normal praying-healing stories with any highly successful preacher-religious founder, so this doesn't seem to be an irregular case of this.

Whereas for a teacher-healer whose career was less than 3 years, a great number of miracle acts reported in multiple sources is highly irregular and requires an explanation.

Much ado about nothing. You keep appealing to "multiple sources" as if the existence of more than one anonymous variant of the Jesus story somehow bolsters the content. It doesn't. Anonymous documents are not "source" material, they are hearsay evidence. The later anonymous writers used GMark's material, which hardly qualifies them as independent sources even if we knew who these people were, where they got their information and had actual copies of their original writings. We don't.

On the other hand, the attestation to the miracles of Joseph Smith are courtesy of signed witnesses. We actually do have independent corroboration of the existence of Smith that doesn't come from the same source as the documents that claim he performed miracles. The fact that some of these claims are from what can arguably be called "hostile sources" actually bolsters the credibility of the account. If you could produce something hostile (or even merely skeptical) written about Jesus that was contemporary to the time frame he is claimed to have lived you'd have a solid case that he was an historical person. You cannot because such corroboration does not exist. And what does exist is nothing but anonymous stories written by people who gush to paint the picture of this immaculate individual who had no flaws.

And you continue to have to vacillate between him having to be this obscure individual who nobody knew about (so you can extricate him from more famous people who had epic legends grow up around them) and having all these people so dead-sure certain that he was this great miracle worker when if he was so freaking obscure and unknown there wouldn't have been anyone around to be so certain of it. Either all these people were simply taking someone else's word for all this stuff or all of them knew it first hand and he was a much more popular figure than you make him out to be. You can't have it both ways.

In these instances the people who wrote the things down are named (and even signed in many cases). Actual named eyewitnesses were the writers as opposed to the completely anonymous NT gospels.

Having a name is much less important than having multiple sources. Since Joseph Smith had the advantage of the print media, we should expect far more examples of his miracle acts than these few, plus multiple sources instead of only one, or only himself.

LOL!!!!! That has to be the most wrong thing you've written to date and that's saying something. Try taking that to court and arguing "Having one actual signed eyewitness with a chain of custody is much less important than having a bunch of anonymous stories that showed up 40 or so years removed from the events in question." :laughing-smiley-014

But if he did heal someone in a few cases, this does not somehow prove that Jesus did not heal anyone. So what is the argument? If there is good evidence, multiple sources, near to the time of the reported events, not apparently due to normal mythologizing -- then I have no problem recognizing that Joseph Smith may have performed such an act. If the evidence is strong, maybe it's true.

The location and date of the events is considerably more precise. Much of the source documentation for these events can be dated to within days of the events in question rather than decades.

I'm not insisting that these half-dozen or so events did not happen. But we need more than one source. Having the date is less important than having some corroboration from a separate source. For the first event you list, there is the 2nd source, so it's more credible. But I'm still not sure if you've given adequate information about that one case. At best, that's the only one that is serious. It doesn't matter if the one source gives the date and exact time of day down to the second.

I would say tentatively that Smith may have had a higher-than-normal batting average for healing acts, compared to other preacher-healers. Maybe .150 rather than the normal .100. If he had an average of .700 or .800 we would have many more healing stories about him. But I think there's reason to believe Jesus had a 1.000 batting average. This would explain how he became mythologized into a god so quickly.

So we're back to the batting average BS. Okay, once again I ask you: What evidence do you have to back up your belief that the anonymous documents about Jesus performing miracles are a comprehensive list of every attempt he ever made to perform a miracle? What do you make of Matthew 13:58 which specifically excuses his lack of ability to perform miracles on that particular occasion on the lack of faith of the folks who were in that particular locale?

Why aren't you Mormon?

You mean why don't I believe in Joseph Smith? I don't think he had much power. A low batting average isn't good enough. And he attributed all his power to Christ anyway. So in a sense I believe essentially the same as he did.

I think a better case can be made that the mad monk Rasputin performed miracle healing acts in the case of one child, because there is good evidence from the historical record. But that doesn't mean I should join the Rasputinist Church or become a Rasputinist.

As I've already pointed out there were several other hero-god figures who had reputations of being able to perform miracles.

But they were not historical persons who really existed. I'm not saying there were no other legends or hero myths, but rather, that there is no evidence, or virtually none, that there were any other historical persons who performed miracle acts. Just running out a list of legends for which there is no evidence does not offer any comparison to Jesus for whom we have evidence.

There remains nothing in the Jesus myth that requires him to have ever existed for these stories to exist.

Yes there is: the accounts of him meet a standard of evidence that does not exist for any of the other miracle-worker hero legends. If such a figure is easy to create as an imaginary hero myth, we should have hundreds, or at least dozens, of other examples for whom there is evidence on this scale. The existence of this high degree of evidence is best explained by the fact that he actually did exist and did perform the particular acts described in the accounts about him.

Joseph Smith and Mohammad are both examples of individuals who started fast growing and extremely successful religious movements. When you answer the question of why each of these movements succeeded while other folks who tried to create religions met with less success . . .

This has nothing to do with trying to create a successful religion. There's no need to answer this. No doubt sociologists have answers to that.

The question here is how to create a miracle-worker legend about an historical person and get this hero transformed into a god in less than 50 years. Or even less than 30 years. From an original person who either did not exist at all or whose public career was less than 3 years.

Changing the subject to whose religion grew faster is not the point.

So no, it is not impossible to explain. There are many possible answers considerably more plausible than . . .

You've not given the explanation. Normal mythologizing like in the case of the ancient gods and various religious founders or mythic heros does not explain the case of Jesus. Because in order for that mythologizing to take place, we need an already-established public figure with a colorful career behind him, or a long tradition of myth-building over many centuries.

You can keep pretending to have explained how Jesus became mythologized in the same pattern as all these others, but you've not explained how he attained to this status despite having no distinguished career or recognition as a public figure, and you've not explained why he is the only one of this description.

Do you understand?

1. His career was LESS THAN 3 YEARS.

2. We have Multiple sources attesting to his miracle acts (a large number of such acts, not just 3 or 4).

3. These sources are all dated to within 100 years after his life, and some less than 50 years.

You do not address these points by continuing to fall back on Perseus and Hercules and Horus etc., or on popular gurus or founders of new religions who were famous public figures having status or recognition.

This is tiresome. You have no evidence that this man actually existed. Your "evidence" that his career was less than 3 years is the same as your evidence that he did all the miracles. In other words it's all part of the same story. You're using what's called circular logic, attempting to use the story to prove the story. But even if you had unimpeachable evidence that his career was less than 3 years what would it matter? How does that in any way increase the reliability of the miracle claims?

These "multiple sources" are all anonymous and never showed up until at least 40 years after the alleged events took place and that's being generous. The truth is that none of these anonymous documents can be demonstrated to exist prior to the 3rd century A.D.

One year is plenty of time for legend building to occur. 30 years is an eternity. It's laughable that you think somehow that makes these stories credible. It doesn't. I've already given you plausible scenarios whereby these stories could have come to exist and you have yet to deal with any of them.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But these are not historical persons, or alleged historical persons, who reportedly did miracle acts. My claim is that the accounts we have of Jesus performing these acts is evidence (not proof) that he did these acts, which indicates that he had super-human power. And there are no other cases of such miracle-workers in history, i.e., actual historical persons, for whom we have evidence.

That's cute, how you dismiss some people as 'historical persons' and accept Jesus as a historical person, for the express purpose of being able say that only Jesus was 'historical,' so you can then establish that he was, therefore, historical, because he's the only person (you'll allow) on the list.

It's just a teensy bit circular, though.

How would you go about establishing that these stories were made up, not handed down from actual events? I mean, besides just SAYING SO and expecting people on this forum to still be willing to accept your say-so as meaning more than a crap?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What was the "trial" of Jesus really about?

I will cite here an incident mentioned in all 3 synoptic gospels which tells us that Jesus, at the time of the arrest and trial, had a reputation for possessing psychic power of some kind. We can piece together what happened by comparing all 3 of the accounts.

This is a scene where the guards are mocking Jesus, and someone says to him, "Who is it that struck you?" which question is found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark, while in Mark and Luke it says they "blindfolded" him as he was struck.

The Matthew version (26:67-68) says they struck him and demanded, "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?"

The Mark version (14:65) says they blindfolded him and struck him, saying only "Prophesy!"

Each of these accounts leaves something out, which loses the meaning of what happened. The Matthew version makes no sense with the question, "Who is it that struck you?" Without the blindfold to explain what's happening, that question doesn't serve any purpose.

But the Mark version leaves the command "Prophesy!" without any point. What is Jesus supposed to prophesy?

The Luke version (22:64) makes it clearer, including both the blindfolding and the command, "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?" But even this version is problematic because the striking of Jesus comes BEFORE he is blindfolded.

The incident makes sense only if they first blindfolded him, then struck him, and then commanded him, "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?"

What this tells us is that the writer or redactor of Mark and Matthew, possibly also Luke, did not understand the incident, but they each reported what they had as a source for it. None of them invented this incident, because they would have put together something that makes sense. The Matthew and Mark versions make no sense, as they are.

The accounts of this must have come from the actual event, from the earliest sources, or witnesses, with little effort by the redactor to make it clear or to patch it up. Mt and Mk each lacked essential elements which would have clarified it, so they just reported what they had. This shows a certain reliability on the part of the redactor/writer to report what happened without inventing anything new.

How can this incident be explained without assuming that Jesus had a reputation as a psychic of some kind who could see what's happening even though blindfolded? And we must ask: How did he acquire this reputation in 30 AD?

How could this be anything other than an accurately-reported incident? Doesn't it illustrate that the writers or compilers of these accounts tried to report accurately what happened, based on their sources?

This isn't to say they could never have also invented something to insert. But it means much of their accounts is an accurate report based on earlier sources they relied on. Also, the phrase "Who is it that struck you?" is from the Q document, not Mark, and so reflects an early account prior to 50 AD.

So your evidence that Jesus was a reputed psychic all boils down to one of the literary devices from the myth that has been thoroughly debunked? Hint: The "trial" of Jesus in a Sanhedrin court never happened.

But there was a "trial" which probably involved some members of the Sanhedrin. Maybe it was not an official proceeding.

David Flusser, a Jewish scholar, suggests this possibility:

If, then, there was a session of the Sanhedrin before the crucifixion of Jesus, it must have resembled the arbitrary assembly of distinguished Sadducees who later condemned James, the Lord's brother, to death.

Was it an official assembly of the Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus to death? [The Gospel of] John knew nothing about it, and in the whole of Luke . . . a verdict of the supreme court is not even mentioned. Mark was the first to alter the ancient report.

David Flusser, Jesus, Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2001; p. 146

Flusser seems to blame the Mark account for the problems of the trial account. He seems to mean a later redactor, not an early Mark, who relied on "the ancient report" and altered it.

Flusser: He attempted to portray a session of the judiciary passing judgment. Matthew subsequently based his account upon Mark.

And Flusser gives more credibility to the Luke and John accounts. Where the events described are incompatible with what is known about the procedures of the official Sanhedrin, it was the Mark account, and reliance on it, that is to blame.

Atheos:

• Error #1: The Sanhedrin convened at the high priest's house
  Mark mentioned that the Sanhedrin met in the house of the high priest while all our other sources on the Sanhedrin tells us that the council does not convene anywhere else except in the Chamber of the Hewn Stone in the Temple. [5]
• Error #2: The Sanhedrin met at night
  The Sanhedrin was said to have convened immediately after Jesus was arrested and taken to the high priest's house. This was after the Passover supper and the prayer at Gethsemane which makes the council meet around 9 to 10pm at night. This is again incompatible with what we know of the procedures of the Sanhedrin which disallows nocturnal meetings. [6]
• Error #3: The Sanhedrin conveyed on the Passover
  To add to the absurdity, this night, if we are to believe the synoptic chronology, was Passover eve and by Jewish reckoning already the 15th of Nisan, Passover itself. As many eminent Jewish scholars have pointed out, this is simply inconceivable, given the strict ruling of no council meetings on the Sabbath, and on religious feast days, such as the Passover. [7] We quote the Jewish scholar, Joseph Klausner from his book Jesus of Nazareth (New York 1925):
  the Sadducees themselves would not have conducted even a simple judicial inquiry either on the night of the Passover or the first day of the Passover...the mishnah lays it down that capital cases may not be judged on the eve of a Sabbath or on the eve of a festival to avoid delay should the case not be finished that day, since all trials were forbidden on a Sabbath or a festival. [8]
  
• Error #4: The Sanhedrin pronounced the death sentence immediately
  Another procedural impossibility is given in Mark 14:64 which includes the sentence: they all condemned him as worthy of death. This means that the sentence was passed on the same day instead of the prescribed interval of twenty four hours. These procedural flaws in the Markan account weighs heavily against any claims of historicity for the episode described there.

... the high priest's assertion (Mark 14:64) that Jesus committed blasphemy in his reply (Mark 14:62-63) makes no sense. It was not an offence for a Jew to claim to be the messiah because eventually, according to their belief, someone has got to be he. It is no blasphemy, though of course it could be a mistake, in claiming the title of messiah for oneself. [12] The claim Jesus made, as being seated at the right hand of God does not necessarily have any divine connotation for himself, as the Jewish scholar Rabbi Morris Goldstein stated:

Use of the phrase "Son of the Blessed" or "Son of God" was no capital crime. The reference to sitting at the right hand of power (Mark 14:62) is not greatly different from King David's allusion to himself sitting at the right hand of God (Psalms 110:1), at all events, it is nowhere indicated as blasphemy.
​

Flusser explains how an illegal meeting of the Sanhedrin might take place:

In 62 A.D., the Sadducean high priest, Annas [Ananus], convened a session of the Sanhedrin at which the Lord's brother James and other Christians were indicted before the judges, and condemned to be stoned. The Pharisees engineered the deposition of Annas, because in their opinion, the session had been illegal . . .

Here is the Josephus account of this:

. . . but this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; . . . he brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned; but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus . . . and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent; whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, . . .
Antiquities, Book 20, ch. 9, 199-203

One further point to add to this picture, helping to explain reasonably what happened -- This is from a speech by a 7th-Day-Adventist lawyer, Lewis Walton, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9D46yW4ym0 , which seems to have the ring of truth on this one point, even if not on others, and that is that the rules of the Sanhedrin were such that it was very difficult to get a conviction in a death-penalty case, and the members of the Sanhedrin had a strong responsibility to defend the accused and to disallow false evidence or improper charges. And the only accusers or prosecutors were those of the public who attended and made charges, while the court per se provided only defense and not prosecutors. (Someone will correct this if it's not accurate.)

So a reasonable explanation about this "trial" which violated the rules is that there was ambiguity for the Sadducees who made up the Sanhedrin: Josephus says they were tough on the accused (the Josephus account above), and yet, the rules of the Sanhedrin were favorable to the accused and made it difficult to convict.

So doesn't it seem credible that other "trials" like that of James may have occurred? Isn't this the best explanation of what happened to Jesus? I.e., because the rules of the Sanhedrin were so favorable to the accused, in some cases a sham "trial" was held which violated the procedural rules and made it easier to get a "conviction."

As to the reports that members of the Sanhedrin spat on Jesus and struck him, this is just as incredible in the proceedings of that highly dignified body as if it were reported of the high court of England or the supreme court of the United States.

The scenes of the physical abuse don't say it was members of the Sanhedrin who did this, though you can easily interpret the Mt and Mk accounts that way. But it was probably the soldiers or guards who did it.

Flusser accepts it as a genuine description of the behavior of the guards, though he tries to interpret it as some kind of game that might have been played with prisoners generally. But he makes a poor case for this. The word "Prophesy" almost certainly means something that involves using psychic power, or power from a divine source, but Flusser was able to find one obscure use of the word "prophesy" which might have the meaning of "guessing" rather than that of making a pronouncement using paranormal or divine power.

But Flusser accepts that the scene did take place. And also that the "trial" did take place but that it was not an official session of the Sanhedrin. This makes much more sense than discarding the entire trial of Jesus as fiction.

Here is an explanation of the scene from David Strauss:

. . . and blows on the head and cheek, to which it is added, in Luke also, that he was blindfolded, then struck on the face, and scoffingly asked to attest his messianic second sight by telling who was the giver of the blow.
David Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, p. 657.

The footnote to this tries to explain the meaning of the Matthew version which omits the blindfold:

Matthew does not mention the blindfolding, and appears to imagine that Jesus named the person who maltreated him, whom he saw, but did not otherwise know.

Here, the meaning of "Prophesy!" is taken in the sense of showing supernormal power, but since the blindfold is omitted, Strauss takes it to mean that Jesus named to them the one who struck him, even though he didn't know that person. This is really a stretch -- a desperate attempt to make sense of the words "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?"

This shows the difficulty of making sense of the words when an important element is omitted. But the problem is solved by recognizing that it was an actual incident and that the witnesses who reported it left part of it out. What else better explains this scene?

Why would anyone totally fabricate a scene such as this? Why would biased Christian writers make it up? It's fine to suppose that fictional elements get invented and added to the whole narrative, but there has to be a motive for it. An invented story would not omit an essential element from the scene. But a witness hearing some shouts, seeing someone struck, is likely to remember some details but overlook others.

Which strongly indicates that it's a real event being reported, not a fiction account. Even if there are fictional elements in the gospels, there are basic real events going on, and in this case the writers have revealed, without intending it, that Jesus was reputed to possess psychic power.


In Rome and Judaea were all common criminals given an official trial, by the book?

There's another general point to take into account. Just because there are rules in place which dictate the formal procedures for criminals does not mean that these rules are generally followed for the whole population, i.e., for common citizens and those of low class.

Criminal charges were tried in the Roman Senate, and yet, was every criminal really tried before the Roman Senate? Obviously not. Cicero defended some high-profile defendants, but ordinary people could not have been tried before the Senate no matter how great their crime. The Senate did not have time to do trials of every commoner, even if the crime was serious, like murder.

The same is true of the Sanhedrin and the Judaean criminal justice system. We can't really believe that every common criminal was brought before the Sanhedrin. And in 30 AD was Jesus really a high-profile accused criminal?

In a population of tens of thousands, in Jerusalem, could this one body, the Sanhedrin, really hear all cases and hold a proper trial for everyone accused of a crime? There would surely be dozens of new cases brought before it every single day. It's unimaginable how all cases could really be heard by this one body.

So actually it would be surprising if this case, Jesus, accused of some unidentified crime, would be given a full proper trial before the official Sanhedrin.

And yet, it was routine for someone who was suspected of making trouble to be arrested and executed, by one manner or another. John the Baptist was surely arrested and beheaded by Herod Antipas, apparently without any trial.

So we need to put the case of Jesus into the same category as John the Baptist and James the Jerusalem church leader, who were arrested and executed without an official proceeding. What has gone wrong here is that we have over-dramatized the trial of Jesus, or made it into a showpiece or melodrama, more for symbolic reasons than for historical accuracy.

But a "trial" did take place, and we have in the gospel accounts a rough description of what happened, and we can reasonably separate some of the factual from the fictional part. We can also reasonably figure out some of the motivation of the accusers. It might have been mostly fear on the part of Pilate and Herod Antipas, similar to the case of John the Baptist, which explains it. And maybe also the Jewish or temple authorities fearing an uprising among the crowds.

It's also pretty clear that another Jesus, Jesus Barabbas, had been involved in a violent uprising and was being held on murder charges, and there's good indication that these two were being confused with each other or that Jesus Christ was being blamed for the incident Barabbas had instigated.

And, if it was anything to do with instigating a riot, there's little reason to believe there would be a formal trial done in accordance with all the proper procedures.

 

[DBT]

Originally Posted by Lumpenproletariat
This shows the difficulty of making sense of the words when an important element is omitted. But the problem is solved by recognizing that it was an actual incident and that the witnesses who reported it left part of it out. What else better explains this scene?

We don't have witness reports. We have accounts of alleged events that were written years after they were supposed to have occurred.

And as we know, it is hard to determine the details of an event that happened months, weeks or even days ago. Another difficulty is that accurate reporting was not really a top priority in ancient times. Embellishing events for the sake of promoting ones religion was most probably not frowned upon.

The Gospel accounts cannot be taken as accurate and reliable report of the events they describe.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

knowledge vs. belief supported by evidence vs. non-justified belief

Just like Prince Siddhartha Gautama became the enlightened one, the Buddha, and still has millions of followers world wide, thousands of years later. Historically significant figures arise from within their time and place to grow and to be a world religion.

So you recognize that Gautama was a real historical person about whom we have some accurate information, even if much of the legend is fiction. And so likewise Jesus was a real historical figure about whom we have some accurate information and also some legend. So there is some analogy.

But there is this difference, that in the case of Jesus, we have a record of his miracle acts which occurs within only a few decades, whereas in the case of Gautama the miracle stories are from centuries later.

Also, Gautama taught as a widely-known religious teacher for about 40 years, whereas the public life of Jesus was less than 3 years. This is important, because a teacher who became established through a long career during which to accumulate disciples can easily become an object of mythologizing, and so even before his death there can develop some miracle stories, and so we have a way to explain how these miracle stories became attached to such a teacher. But in the case of Jesus this explanation is not possible, because his teaching career was too short.

Faith is holding a belief that is not supported by empirical evidence . . .

Maybe some faith is, but faith in Christ is belief that is supported by evidence, but which still involves doubt, or which might extend beyond what the facts prove. We can have evidence upon which to form a belief, while still not having certainty, or definite knowledge of it as fact. We believe it's fact, with evidence to support that belief, but we don't know it as fact. Not with certainty.

Faith is leap that goes beyond what is justified.

Again, maybe some faith is such a leap, but faith in Christ is justified because it is supported by evidence. The evidence is not strong enough to make it known fact. Many facts of history are actually beliefs based on evidence, and that evidence is strong enough to form a reasonable belief, but not strong enough to constitute proof of something as known fact.

It is reasonable to believe that King Arthur existed and had some knights who served under his rule. But it is not known fact. The accounts of him may be mostly fiction, but some of it is probably true. So this is reasonable belief, based on evidence, but not known fact. If there were no evidence at all to justify this belief, then no one would believe there was any King Arthur. This is belief based on evidence, or supported by evidence, but it's not certain enough to be called knowledge or proven historical fact.

If there was proof, verifiable evidence, to support the biblical version of events, you would not need faith. You would have a justified belief.

But there is some proof to support some of the biblical version of events. E.g., that Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate is proved, and that Christ was a real person is proved, because there is historical confirmation of this. Also that John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas is proved. So there are some biblical facts that are proved by verifiable evidence. From historians like Tacitus and Josephus. But these verifiable facts may be a small minority of all the biblical events. Most of the biblical events are not provable.

Of the remainder, some are supported by evidence, but not enough to be confirmed as historical facts. So these are justified beliefs, if there is evidence to support them. The miracles of Jesus are in this category. There is evidence but not proof.

Then there are the reported events which are not supported by any evidence, or which are too doubtful or are even refuted by the historical evidence.

The phrase "you would not need faith. You would have a justified belief" is incorrect, because "belief" and "faith" are the same.

But that is not the case.

It is the case that some of the biblical facts are justified or supported by the evidence. Or some of them are consistent with the outside evidence and are probably true. Of course much of it cannot be disproved but is doubtful. We just don't know.

But you can't lump everything in the Bible into one large mass and call it "the biblical version of events" or speak of "evidence to support the biblical version of events" because there are thousands of events there and some are true and some not. So the biblical version is partly right and partly wrong, and there's evidence to support some parts.

The standard division of Faith vs. Fact is incorrect. If you want a simple breakdown of all truth claims, it should be a 3-fold division:

1) known fact, 2) legitimate belief supported by evidence, and 3) belief not supported or even contradicted by evidence

 

[Keith&Co.]

The standard division of Faith vs. Fact is incorrect. If you want a simple breakdown of all truth claims, it should be a 3-fold division:

1) known fact, 2) legitimate belief supported by evidence, and 3) belief not supported or even contradicted by evidence

What's the difference between a known fact and a legitimate belief supported by evidence?

Your three divisions are just two divisions, still:

Known facts supported by evidence, and beliefs that go beyond what the evidence can actually support.
You just want a special case where you can put YOUR beliefs and pretend they're supported by the evidence.

 

[funinspace]

The standard division of Faith vs. Fact is incorrect. If you want a simple breakdown of all truth claims, it should be a 3-fold division:

1) known fact, 2) legitimate belief supported by evidence, and 3) belief not supported or even contradicted by evidence

What's the difference between a known fact and a legitimate belief supported by evidence?

Your three divisions are just two divisions, still:

Known facts supported by evidence, and beliefs that go beyond what the evidence can actually support.
You just want a special case where you can put YOUR beliefs and pretend they're supported by the evidence.

Come on, why wouldn't Josephus call Jesus "the Christ"? Sounds quite believable. After all he probable wasn't a very pious Jew...

 

[Keith&Co.]

But you can't lump everything in the Bible into one large mass and call it "the biblical version of events" or speak of "evidence to support the biblical version of events" because there are thousands of events there and some are true and some not. So the biblical version is partly right and partly wrong, and there's evidence to support some parts.

So, Lumpy, your approach to evaluating the accounts in The Books is to say that while some are doubtful, we can still hold other accounts as trustworthy. You reject the idea that finding some faults in one or more books of The Books is a good reason to reduce the credibility of the rest of the contents.

However, way back on page one, you said:

I'll go through some of the "122 Reasons," taking them in order, so as not to leave out any that are more difficult. I might drop dead before reaching to the very end, but if I refute the first 20 or 30 in order, that's a good indication that the remaining ones also will collapse into the trash heap of traditional Bible-bashing Christ-bashing tirades. .

This would be more evidence of your bias. You figure if you can refute 1/6th of the Reasons, we can pretty well assume that the other 5/6ths are as good-as-refuted. Wouldn't it be more consistent to say that refuting 20 Reasons is only refuting 20 Reasons? The rest (and he's up to over 200 at this point) may be taken as probably useful UNTIL they are also specifically, individually, refuted?

Unless you're comfortable with treating the Books as a special case....?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Come on, why wouldn't Josephus call Jesus "the Christ"? Sounds quite believable. After all he probable wasn't a very pious Jew...

Well, yeah. There's also the Roman account explaining that early Christains covered a baby with raw bread dough, stabbed it to death, then partook of the bloody dough as a sacrament.
if someone wrote that down, it should be treated as an eyewitness account until someone can prove that it wasn't. That's the easiest explanation for anything written down way back when.

If it wasn't an eyewitness account, why would they have writted it down?

 

[funinspace]

Come on, why wouldn't Josephus call Jesus "the Christ"? Sounds quite believable. After all he probable wasn't a very pious Jew...

Well, yeah. There's also the Roman account explaining that early Christains covered a baby with raw bread dough, stabbed it to death, then partook of the bloody dough as a sacrament.
if someone wrote that down, it should be treated as an eyewitness account until someone can prove that it wasn't. That's the easiest explanation for anything written down way back when.

If it wasn't an eyewitness account, why would they have writted it down?

Well that doesn't make much sense. It would be much easier to stab the baby to death first (to keep it from wiggling), before covering it with bread dough. So see, it isn't the easiest explanation

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well that doesn't make much sense. It would be much easier to stab the baby to death first (to keep it from wiggling), before covering it with bread dough. So see, it isn't the easiest explanation

You haven't tried my sister's sourdough...

That stuff'll bring down a warthog.

 

[DBT]

So you recognize that Gautama was a real historical person about whom we have some accurate information, even if much of the legend is fiction. And so likewise Jesus was a real historical figure about whom we have some accurate information and also some legend. So there is some analogy.

It's possible that one or both existed. ''Accurate information'' is the problem.

But there is this difference, that in the case of Jesus, we have a record of his miracle acts which occurs within only a few decades, whereas in the case of Gautama the miracle stories are from centuries later.

A few decades is no more a guarantee of reliability and accuracy than centuries. Verifiability from independent sources increases reliability.

Maybe some faith is,

The essence of faith is holding a conviction without sufficient justification. Evidence upgrades you to a hypothesis, theory or a justified belief.

but faith in Christ is belief that is supported by evidence, but which still involves doubt, or which might extend beyond what the facts prove. We can have evidence upon which to form a belief, while still not having certainty, or definite knowledge of it as fact. We believe it's fact, with evidence to support that belief, but we don't know it as fact. Not with certainty.

Faith is supported by what? The best that the evidence supports is: there may have been a historical charismatic figure called Yeshua Ben Yosef, who was later believed to be the Christ.

Based on the evidence the best you can think is, there may have been a charismatic rabbi/preacher going by that name, upon whom the legend was constructed.

There is no evidence to support the accounts of miracles or the underlying supernatural world view. These are a matter of faith, convictions held without sufficient evidence.

Again, maybe some faith is such a leap.

All faith is an unfounded leap. If you have evidence your position, your position is upgraded to a perhaps a valid hypothesis, a theory or a justified belief. An element or elements of your belief may be justified by evidence and therefore not a matter of faith, but these elements alone may not support the remainder of your belief, which still remains a matter of faith.

But there is some proof to support some of the biblical version of events. E.g., that Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate is proved, and that Christ was a real person is proved, because there is historical confirmation of this. Also that John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas is proved. So there are some biblical facts that are proved by verifiable evidence. From historians like Tacitus and Josephus. But these verifiable facts may be a small minority of all the biblical events. Most of the biblical events are not provable.

Tacitus and Josephus are not considered to be reliable. The evidence supports some diddling the books by christian scribes keen to provide support for the doctrine. The verifiable facts are the lines that are written, the problem is their reliability.

The phrase "you would not need faith. You would have a justified belief" is incorrect, because "belief" and "faith" are the same.

Not true. The condition that entails a belief that is held without the support of evidence exists, and is quite common. This is in contrast to a belief held on the basis of direct experience with objects and events of the world, and is justified by verifiable, testable evidence.

The word 'faith' distinguishes the former from the latter. One being a faith based belief, the other a justified belief.

But you can't lump everything in the Bible into one large mass and call it "the biblical version of events" or speak of "evidence to support the biblical version of events" because there are thousands of events there and some are true and some not. So the biblical version is partly right and partly wrong, and there's evidence to support some parts.

I don't lump everything in the Bible into one large mass and call it "the biblical version of events" - only the points of contention: the supernatural accounts. Nobody is arguing that there was no city called Jerusalem or the presence of charismatic preachers, etc. Nor the possibility of the existence of a human foundation upon which the hopes and myths were built. It is reasonable to think that the man, the preacher, may have existed, but not reasonable to form a firm conviction that he did in fact exist.

The standard division of Faith vs. Fact is incorrect. If you want a simple breakdown of all truth claims, it should be a 3-fold division:

1) known fact, 2) legitimate belief supported by evidence, and 3) belief not supported or even contradicted by evidence

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Hebrews 11:1

We have two seperate and distinct conditions - one actual condition or state is where we develop confidence in the the things that we have experience with (evidence), and this is defined as Justified true belief.

The other belief condition develops when someone hopes or desire that something is true: the existence of a God, a religious worldview, etc.

As the article of one's belief - the God, the prophecy, or whatever - cannot be verified through empirical means, one's belief is a matter of faith.

Hence two distinct states, and the former (justified true belief) cannot be equated with the latter (faith based belief)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If this gag really could work so well, many others would have done the same.

A bloke in Goondiwindi won the Gold Lotto jackpot.

Goondiwindi must be extra-super-dooper special, because if it's not, how do you explain how none of the other towns where people play Gold Lotto hosted a winner? Where are all the winners in other towns? If Goondiwindi isn't super special, surely we would see other lotto playing regions with winners. But we don't.

I'll take this seriously.

If the facts are that there is a lottery game that has multiple winners, or that this game was held several times, so that there are several winners over a number of times that the game was played, and if all the winners are from this one town, and no winners from any other towns, even though the game is totally random, then there is a need for an explanation why all the winners are from this one town. So the improbability is legitimate and the question "Why only this town?" requires an answer.

On the other hand, if the facts are that there was one game with only one winner possible, then the fact that the winner was from this one town does not require any explanation, because it's inevitable that there will be one winner who will be from one town, whatever town it might be, and so this random win by whoever it is from whatever town will not be a surprise, or will not be contrary to the odds. Because it is dictated that there will be one winner, or the conditions dictate that there is to be one winner only, and no matter who it is or what town the winner is from, this result conforms to the expectation.

By contrast, suppose a phenomenon happens only once, which was not predestined to happen once only by conditions imposed artificially (as the conditions of a game are imposed artificially by those who create the game), and suppose someone caused this phenomenon to happen in order to gain a benefit, and suppose they are successful at causing this to happen and gain the result they intended.

Why would such a thing happen only once? i.e., why would only one person do it? If such a happening produces the intended benefit or result for those who caused it, or is easily predictable to produce that result, and if nothing prevents others from doing the same thing, why wouldn't others also do the same thing in order to gain the same benefit or result? Why would only one person or group do this and not many?

If a group can create a mythological figure in order to promote their crusade, and this mythic figure is likely to be successful, why would there be ONLY ONE group that creates such a mythological figure to promote their crusade? I.e., why wouldn't other groups, other crusades, do the same thing and create other such mythic figures, so that we would see several of these mythic figures created by several different groups promoting different crusades, i.e., each one creating its own mythic figure, and all of them being equally successful? Why would only one stand out far beyond all the others?

The Christ figure stands out uniquely in contrast to them all, as a reported miracle-working historical person, as the only one for which there are multiple sources near to the time when this historical figure performed the acts described and who had no fame or public recognition during his life or at the time of the reported events about him.

If it was so easy to create this legendary character by artificial means, with no real historical person performing the reported miracle acts, then why is there only one such reported mythic figure as this? Why didn't other groups, or competing groups also create such a mythic figure, since there was a reason or motive for them to do it and it was so easy to pull it off?

(No, Gautama was not such a figure, as he really existed and was famous at the end of his long public life. No one invented him, and over several centuries later his devotees mythologized him. And no, Joseph Smith was not such a figure, as he was never mythologized into a god. There are no other examples, though we can continue to go through the other alleged examples.)

To say this happened only once is like saying there was only one discoverer of oil or gold, or only one discoverer of new lands during the period of European exploration of the New World, or only one race or tribe that discovered language or how to use stone tools or how to map the stars.

Religion or church is obviously big business and a means to gain power or prestige or profit or fame, and for there to be a winning combination that only one would be able to use and foist as a successful hoax upon the world makes no more sense than for only one tribe to invent language or invent agriculture.

This is not about various religions competing through several centuries. There are many of those competing with each other with no clear winner. That's not the point.

This is about a mythic hero figure created as a strategy by one religious group, or one crusade, or one cult, which is the only mythic hero figure that succeeded in becoming deified into a miracle-working god in less than 50 years from its creation by that one religious group or crusade.

To explain this you have to believe there was only this one group, or cult, which had the intelligence to figure out such a plan, and so this was a unique experiment in history, by one religious cult, which pulled off a great hoax that no other group ever thought of trying to do.

You have to believe that anyone, or any small group, could fabricate a miracle-worker and present this fictional figure to people, give it some kind of fictional connection to prophets or gods or symbols of any kind, and people will automatically accept it and begin to worship this fictional figure.

Since that's all Christ was (if he didn't really exist or if he did no miracle acts), then this kind of myth-making is so easy that it is not plausible that only one cult or one religious group would adopt this ploy and be successful at launching such a hoax, and that no other group would do the same. If it was really so easy to perpetrate such a hoax, then surely there would be others equally successful, i.e., many other mythic hero figures for which there are multiple sources and which were deified into gods in such a short time period. There should be dozens or even hundreds of them, and several that would be virtually identical to the Christ hoax with only a few minor differences in detail about the names and locations and times.

But we have no others. Unlike the lottery game, which is predestined to have only one winner, the game of mythic miracle-working heros is not restricted to only one winner, and yet there is this one that stands out uniquely distinct from all other mythic heros, as the only one for whom there is good evidence that he performed miracle acts. Why didn't other players of this game also document their hero with scrolls that would appear to be from multiple sources and would appear within a few decades of the hero's historic time period?

It would even be an extreme coincidence, or virtually a miracle, if there were only 2 or 3 or 4 such identifiable mythic hero figures -- let alone only one -- instead of dozens. If it was easy to create this mythic figure, who need not have performed any miracles but who would be believed in because someone merely invented him or invented the stories, and in such a short time lapse from the point of his being invented, then there should easily be dozens more of these in documents which would be preserved just as the gospel documents were preserved. It makes no sense that only one such mythic hero figure has been preserved and passed on to us in documents dating from the period.

By analogy, it's obvious that virtually anyone can create a website or blog, and so if merely creating a blog automatically brings the blogger instant fame, then we should have a billion-or-so instant famous bloggers -- and thus it's not true that you can gain instant fame by merely creating a blog. And nor is it true that you can perpetrate a mythic hero hoax onto millions of believers by merely inventing a fictional hero and some miracle stories. The key is: the mythic hero always exists first as a recognized public figure, AND THEN we can see the miracle stories being invented and added to the recognized legendary figure that already exists.

(There's no reason to believe Jesus was a recognized public figure in 30 AD, unless you also believe he performed the miracle acts, because the only references which say that his fame spread are also ones reporting on his miracle healing acts (e.g., Mt 4:23-25).)

You claim the early Christ-inventors found a formula to perpetrate a mythic hero hoax without an already-existing recognized public figure to begin with? You must explain how they did this by a means that others could not do. If it was a tactic that any other group also could do, then there must be others from history who also did the same thing, and we should see dozens of other reported Christ-like miracle-workers by other names who are placed into history at other times and places and for whom there are multiple evidence sources near to the time of the reported mythic hero figure.

 

[bilby]

A bloke in Goondiwindi won the Gold Lotto jackpot.

Goondiwindi must be extra-super-dooper special, because if it's not, how do you explain how none of the other towns where people play Gold Lotto hosted a winner? Where are all the winners in other towns? If Goondiwindi isn't super special, surely we would see other lotto playing regions with winners. But we don't.

I'll take this seriously.

If the facts are that there is a lottery game that has multiple winners, or that this game was held several times, so that there are several winners over a number of times that the game was played, and if all the winners are from this one town, and no winners from any other towns, even though the game is totally random, then there is a need for an explanation why all the winners are from this one town. So the improbability is legitimate and the question "Why only this town?" requires an answer.

On the other hand, if the facts are that there was one game with only one winner possible, then the fact that the winner was from this one town does not require any explanation, because it's inevitable that there will be one winner who will be from one town, whatever town it might be, and so this random win by whoever it is from whatever town will not be a surprise, or will not be contrary to the odds. Because it is dictated that there will be one winner, or the conditions dictate that there is to be one winner only, and no matter who it is or what town the winner is from, this result conforms to the expectation.

By contrast, suppose a phenomenon happens only once, which was not predestined to happen once only by conditions imposed artificially (as the conditions of a game are imposed artificially by those who create the game), and suppose someone caused this phenomenon to happen in order to gain a benefit, and suppose they are successful at causing this to happen and gain the result they intended.

Why would such a thing happen only once? i.e., why would only one person do it? If such a happening produces the intended benefit or result for those who caused it, or is easily predictable to produce that result, and if nothing prevents others from doing the same thing, why wouldn't others also do the same thing in order to gain the same benefit or result? Why would only one person or group do this and not many?

If a group can create a mythological figure in order to promote their crusade, and this mythic figure is likely to be successful, why would there be ONLY ONE group that creates such a mythological figure to promote their crusade? I.e., why wouldn't other groups, other crusades, do the same thing and create other such mythic figures, so that we would see several of these mythic figures created by several different groups promoting different crusades, i.e., each one creating its own mythic figure, and all of them being equally successful? Why would only one stand out far beyond all the others?

The Christ figure stands out uniquely in contrast to them all, as a reported miracle-working historical person, as the only one for which there are multiple sources near to the time when this historical figure performed the acts described and who had no fame or public recognition during his life or at the time of the reported events about him.

If it was so easy to create this legendary character by artificial means, with no real historical person performing the reported miracle acts, then why is there only one such reported mythic figure as this? Why didn't other groups, or competing groups also create such a mythic figure, since there was a reason or motive for them to do it and it was so easy to pull it off?

(No, Gautama was not such a figure, as he really existed and was famous at the end of his long public life. No one invented him, and over several centuries later his devotees mythologized him. And no, Joseph Smith was not such a figure, as he was never mythologized into a god. There are no other examples, though we can continue to go through the other alleged examples.)

To say this happened only once is like saying there was only one discoverer of oil or gold, or only one discoverer of new lands during the period of European exploration of the New World, or only one race or tribe that discovered language or how to use stone tools or how to map the stars.

Religion or church is obviously big business and a means to gain power or prestige or profit or fame, and for there to be a winning combination that only one would be able to use and foist as a successful hoax upon the world makes no more sense than for only one tribe to invent language or invent agriculture.

This is not about various religions competing through several centuries. There are many of those competing with each other with no clear winner. That's not the point.

This is about a mythic hero figure created as a strategy by one religious group, or one crusade, or one cult, which is the only mythic hero figure that succeeded in becoming deified into a miracle-working god in less than 50 years from its creation by that one religious group or crusade.

To explain this you have to believe there was only this one group, or cult, which had the intelligence to figure out such a plan, and so this was a unique experiment in history, by one religious cult, which pulled off a great hoax that no other group ever thought of trying to do.

You have to believe that anyone, or any small group, could fabricate a miracle-worker and present this fictional figure to people, give it some kind of fictional connection to prophets or gods or symbols of any kind, and people will automatically accept it and begin to worship this fictional figure.

Since that's all Christ was (if he didn't really exist or if he did no miracle acts), then this kind of myth-making is so easy that it is not plausible that only one cult or one religious group would adopt this ploy and be successful at launching such a hoax, and that no other group would do the same. If it was really so easy to perpetrate such a hoax, then surely there would be others equally successful, i.e., many other mythic hero figures for which there are multiple sources and which were deified into gods in such a short time period. There should be dozens or even hundreds of them, and several that would be virtually identical to the Christ hoax with only a few minor differences in detail about the names and locations and times.

But we have no others. Unlike the lottery game, which is predestined to have only one winner, the game of mythic miracle-working heros is not restricted to only one winner, and yet there is this one that stands out uniquely distinct from all other mythic heros, as the only one for whom there is good evidence that he performed miracle acts. Why didn't other players of this game also document their hero with scrolls that would appear to be from multiple sources and would appear within a few decades of the hero's historic time period?

It would even be an extreme coincidence, or virtually a miracle, if there were only 2 or 3 or 4 such identifiable mythic hero figures -- let alone only one -- instead of dozens. If it was easy to create this mythic figure, who need not have performed any miracles but who would be believed in because someone merely invented him or invented the stories, and in such a short time lapse from the point of his being invented, then there should easily be dozens more of these in documents which would be preserved just as the gospel documents were preserved. It makes no sense that only one such mythic hero figure has been preserved and passed on to us in documents dating from the period.

By analogy, it's obvious that virtually anyone can create a website or blog, and so if merely creating a blog automatically brings the blogger instant fame, then we should have a billion-or-so instant famous bloggers -- and thus it's not true that you can gain instant fame by merely creating a blog. And nor is it true that you can perpetrate a mythic hero hoax onto millions of believers by merely inventing a fictional hero and some miracle stories. The key is: the mythic hero always exists first as a recognized public figure, AND THEN we can see the miracle stories being invented and added to the recognized legendary figure that already exists.

(There's no reason to believe Jesus was a recognized public figure in 30 AD, unless you also believe he performed the miracle acts, because the only references which say that his fame spread are also ones reporting on his miracle healing acts (e.g., Mt 4:23-25).)

You claim the early Christ-inventors found a formula to perpetrate a mythic hero hoax without an already-existing recognized public figure to begin with? You must explain how they did this by a means that others could not do. If it was a tactic that any other group also could do, then there must be others from history who also did the same thing, and we should see dozens of other reported Christ-like miracle-workers by other names who are placed into history at other times and places and for whom there are multiple evidence sources near to the time of the reported mythic hero figure.

We DO see dozens of other reported miracle workers reported at various times and places throughout history.

Your entire argument for the unique and special nature of your chosen religious leader is founded in apparent ignorance of all the other religions in history.

And by Christ you waste a LOT of words. Brevity is a virtue. You are not made any less wrong by expressing your errors in hundreds of words where a couple of dozen would do.

 

[Keith&Co.]

(There's no reason to believe Jesus was a recognized public figure in 30 AD, unless you also believe he performed the miracle acts, because the only references which say that his fame spread are also ones reporting on his miracle healing acts (e.g., Mt 4:23-25).)

You know, you've never quite explained why Paul never mentions any of these miracle acts.
You're spending a lot of time treating these 'miracles' as factual without actually producing evidence of the miracles.
Just anonymous accounts of indeterminate time post-miracle. And treating this as real from an argument-of-incredulity.

Your whole argument centers around being able to establish these events in time, as history.
And you're not going to do that by assuming they're historical before you try to evaluate the accounts.

The 'unique savior' argument is a red herring. You need evidence FOR your claims, not perceived holes in other people's claims.

Offer some actual evidence that's not written down a generation or two after the events, or based on rumor, gossip and possible editorial tampering.

Without any of that, you're killing a whole lot of photons for nothin.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why was only Jesus mythologized into a miracle-worker? Why not also John the Baptist?

It's easy to explain how the Christ figure was fixed as the primary savior-of-choice for those seeking such a savior from about 200 AD onward, but how do you explain this fixing as early as 30 or 40 or 50 AD when there must have been hundreds of individuals who were just as likely candidates as this Galilean Jesus to play this hero-role for those who were seeking such a hero? What made the Jesus figure the choice for them at that early period? Why couldn't some of them have chosen John the Baptist instead? or any of several dozen other possible candidates?

They did.

Part of the discussion at the Council of Nicaea was to identify which prophet was the actual Christ. One of the sects that participated insisted that John the Baptist was the messiah.

Get serious. Nothing like this was under consideration.

John the Baptist did not perform any miracles. I.e., had no reputation for this. It's irrelevant that his followers viewed him as the "Messiah."

The mythologizing we're talking about here is about miracle stories becoming attached to a mythic hero figure. John the Baptist is not an example of this.

But why? Why didn't they make him into a miracle-worker, if this could be done so easily?

There's no explanation why the myth-makers did not attach such stories to John the Baptist. If it was so easy to mythologize Jesus, why wasn't it also just as easy to mythologize John the Baptist? The truth is that it was not easy. The truth is that you cannot create an instant miracle-worker by inventing such stories and attaching them to someone picked at random, as would be the case if the gospel accounts are fiction and those miracle acts were invented.

If they were invented, then we'd also have stories of John the Baptist performing such acts.

They did not have enough votes to swing the Articles of Faith to their belief, though.

But why didn't they have enough votes? Obviously because everyone knew that John the Baptist did not perform any miracles whereas Jesus had done so. There was plenty of evidence that Jesus had such power but that John the Baptist did not.

Christianity did NOT completely settle on Jesus way back when, as you're saying they did.

There was no other reputed miracle-worker figure of any note. If Jesus was only one of several "candidates" for Messiah or Savior or Son of God, etc., then we would have several mythic miracle-worker heroes similar to Jesus also preaching their own "sermon on the mount" and raising the dead and healing the lepers and so on. But there are no accounts of such other candidates for the electors to "settle on" or who might have got "the nod" instead of Jesus, or who might have won if only Joe Biden had shown up to cast the tie-breaking vote.

There was no dispute over which mythic hero figure to choose for this role, as you're imagining in your desperation to pretend that Jesus was just one of many reputed miracle-workers running around and campaigning for the job. That's hallucination. There were no others.

There has to be an explanation why there was only this one.

 

[Keith&Co.]

They did.

Part of the discussion at the Council of Nicaea was to identify which prophet was the actual Christ. One of the sects that participated insisted that John the Baptist was the messiah.

Get serious. Nothing like this was under consideration.

Typical Christain Apologist. Talking condescendingly about something he apparently knows fuck-all about.

John the Baptist did not perform any miracles. I.e., had no reputation for this. It's irrelevant that his followers viewed him as the "Messiah."

Miracles are not a requirement for the Messiah.
He's supposed to be fully human, not a demigod.
It's rather relevant, as a reason to reject Christainity, that Jesus failed to fulfill the requirements for the Messiah.

The mythologizing we're talking about here is about miracle stories becoming attached to a mythic hero figure. John the Baptist is not an example of this.

It's what you're talking about, sure. Doesn't mean that it matters a damn.

You described Early Christainity as showing some unique sort of unity, which you say helps confirm that the Legend of Jesus as the Christ was there from the beginning.

But you really should look up what the word 'catholic' actually means. The beliefs of the Earliest Christains were not unified, but rather antagonistic to each other. Widely disparate and conflicting.

History counters your claims and poops on your credibility.

But why? Why didn't they make him into a miracle-worker, if this could be done so easily?

Because they wanted an actual messiah, perhaps?

There's no explanation why the myth-makers did not attach such stories to John the Baptist.

Yes, there's a good theological explanation.
You'd have to know how to recognize the messiah, though.
You've put a lot of capital into the miracles of the Jesus-fellow, though, so you're hampered in seeing the truth of it.

If it was so easy to mythologize Jesus, why wasn't it also just as easy to mythologize John the Baptist?

Because the poor bastards were trying to find a Jewish Messiah, rather than invent one the rest of the Roman Empire might find appealing.

The truth is that it was not easy.

I don't think anyone's said it would have been easy.

The truth is that you cannot create an instant miracle-worker by inventing such stories and attaching them to someone picked at random, as would be the case if the gospel accounts are fiction and those miracle acts were invented.

You know, when you say 'the truth is' after starting your thread with a completely false claim, all i can do is reject it as the yammering of a fool.

If they were invented, then we'd also have stories of John the Baptist performing such acts.

Not true. Not even logically necessary.

They did not have enough votes to swing the Articles of Faith to their belief, though.

But why didn't they have enough votes? Obviously because

Not even going to bother to read this sentence to the end. It's going to be self-serving and devoid of fact.

Christianity did NOT completely settle on Jesus way back when, as you're saying they did.

There was no other reputed miracle-worker figure of any note.

Macht nichts.

There was no dispute over which mythic hero figure to choose for this role, as you're imagining in your desperation to pretend that Jesus was just one of many reputed miracle-workers running around and campaigning for the job. That's hallucination. There were no others.

Speaking of hallucinations, i never claimed that the other candidates for the Christ were all miracle workers. You're projecting a lot of shit into my posts.

Again.

There has to be an explanation why there was only this one.

There are several.
Your rebuttals need to match actual history, though, to have any actual effect.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But why didn't they have enough votes?

Are you aware, Lumpy, that there have been two popes some of the time?
At one point, there were even three.
Being a pope doesn't depend on having the best Christain theology, or an unbroken chain of authority stretching back to the Christ. It often depended on the size of the armies of those supporting one or another guy as (one of) the pope(s).

The establishment of the Articles of Faith worked the same way. It was not a quiet time of prayer for revelation and enlightenment. It was politican infighting and people using secular authorities to influence, cajole, steal and establish their power base. Critical people were exiled so they couldn't lead followers. Churches were stolen, congregations hijacked or dispersed. Heresies were hounded and lies were told.

The Books was edited after all this, so the gospels matched the official story. It's far more like everyone in Nixon's administration getting their story straight than a reflection of history.

Look it up some time. Almost as much drama as Peyton Place. Kinda like Game of Thrones, but not as many titties. And half as many dragons....

So, all in all, having the most political clout at the Councils is not automatically evidence they had the best theology.

 

[Rhea]

There's no explanation why the myth-makers did not attach such stories to John the Baptist. If it was so easy to mythologize Jesus, why wasn't it also just as easy to mythologize John the Baptist? The truth is that it was not easy. The truth is that you cannot create an instant miracle-worker by inventing such stories and attaching them to someone picked at random, as would be the case if the gospel accounts are fiction and those miracle acts were invented.

If they were invented, then we'd also have stories of John the Baptist performing such acts.

You say this as if
a) you've read all the stories available and
b) all the stories got kept and are still available.


That's rather an odd thing to claim, isn't it?

[I disagree that] Jesus was just one of many reputed miracle-workers running around and campaigning for the job. That's hallucination. There were no others.

There has to be an explanation why there was only this one.

"It wasn't the only one," being one possible explanation.
I mean, what about that St. George guy and the dragons. There have been all kinds of miracles. Every Catholic Saint has to have one (or is it two?)
Be even contemporaneously to Nicea or 33 CE, I thought the record was quite clear about numerous claims of miracle work?

How do we know that someone else _didn't_ also raise zombies from teh graves during an earthquake that no one noticed?

 

[funinspace]

Well that doesn't make much sense. It would be much easier to stab the baby to death first (to keep it from wiggling), before covering it with bread dough. So see, it isn't the easiest explanation

You haven't tried my sister's sourdough...

That stuff'll bring down a warthog.

Ok, but how do you get that dough into both engines? A Warthog can still fly on just one?