They didn't recognize resurrected Jesus

So who did recognize JC, straight off? The people who saw the face of Jesus in.....
> a tortilla in New Mexico (1977)
> the stains on a soybean oil tank outside of Fostoria, Ohio (1986)
> cheese toast in Inman, SC, in 2009
> shower mold in an unscrubbed shower in Splendora, TX (2012)
> a splash of bird droppings on a man's windshield in Brooklyn, OH (2013)
And many, many similar sightings -- there must be a cantina full of taco and tortilla sightings. It's a phenomenon called face pareidolia. Testimony to the endless suggestibility of sign seekers. You can see these images and more on google. The Splendora shower is hard to take. Bird poop just happens, but that shower is seriously f'd up.

Keith&Co. said:

Oh, please. The disciples are less realistic than Jesus.

Trump iterally has followers already convinced he can pull off miracles. Praying to him.
Every one of the Christ's followers argued with him EVERY miracle.
No one can do that!
I can.
No way!
Way!
Nope!
...Jesus does his thing...
Whoa! You really ARE God!
Toldja.

Repeat next miracle.... real people wpild have begun accepting his claims, eventually.

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Many Gospel details are embellishments to counter skeptics. Because the disciples doubted, a doubting reader can think "Those guys were not gullible. But they did eventually accept the Miracles."

Swammerdami said:

"... But they did eventually accept the Miracles."

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Only on seeing them. Direct eyewitness observation. Not faith, like we're asked for, based on fourth- or fiftieth-hand accounts.

If nothing else, this proves the gospels were not written by witnesses. Matthew wpuld DEFINITELY have shaded the narrative.

...and Thomas, and Mark, were like, 'No WAY!'
And Jesus was all, 'Way.'
And Peter and Simon were still, 'No way!'
And Jesus was all, 'Way.'
And Matthew was pretty, 'Maybe?'

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What were the literacy rates like in the day, and would the apostles have been literate enough to actually make a decent record of events? How many people in general were literate enough to write detailed observations?

The more I think bout it the more it seems the gospels were outright fabrications not just embellishments.

To understand the social dynamics of how a fabrication becomes aken as truth we only have to look at Trump and UFOs.

steve_bank said:

What were the literacy rates like in the day, and would the apostles have been literate enough to actually make a decent record of events? How many people in general were literate enough to write detailed observations?

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Like most of the ancient world, most people made use of a scribe class, regardless of their literacy level. Only the wealthy received formal training in language skills otherwise. It was predominately an oral culture in most respects, and we possess very few surviving manuscripts that can be dated and sourced to 1st c. Palestine. The only explicitly historical works we now possess from or about the time period are the Christian corpus and the works of Josephus.

It has always perplexed me that there are virtually no accounts of Christ's physical appearance. There is the Transfiguration, consistent, I believe, in all of the gospels (I could be wrong - long time since I have read them), where Jesus physically transforms into His true form of radiant, god-like beauty and power. I assume this means His appearance was not remarkable ordinarily, which makes one wonder why Jesus is portrayed as very handsome, even beautiful, in so much Western art, and in film. Beyond silly was choosing Jeffrey Hunter to play Jesus, because if Jesus actually looked that good there almost MUST have been some reference to it? One would imagine. Von Sydow was a great actor but no great looker, but others who portrayed Christ in TV and film were good looking. The only one, as I recall, who was actually homely, was Willem Dafoe.

Even more silly is choosing white men to play Jesus. Or the almost universal tendency to portray Him in art as caucasion. Silly, and no doubt offensive to middle eastern people (and rightfully so).

Perhaps Jesus really was a spaceman, a humanoid alien, or some person from the future? Hence using the word "saved" - as in saved to a super duper hard drive? Be a good person, and live eternally, because your noodle will be mapped and uploaded. ? Seems utterly unlikely, but not completely implausible. Dropped off in the desert because aliens seem to like the desert? Oh, hell, I don't actually believe it - but it's interesting to think about.

I believe there is a passage that describes JC as bronze skinned and black haired.

Given that real literacy was for the wealthy, the question then is who wrote the gospels and who was the targey audiance give low literacy rates. They reflect Jewish themes not Greek or Roman.

The idea of Jesus as son of god was blasphemous. A serious Jewish crime.

I suspect a Roman writer would be facing issues with Roman rule over claims of a human-god.

What in mythology would be the antecedent from any mythology for the resurrection? Pharos went to an eternal afterlfe, I think.

I saw something about A Jewish cemetery in Israel across form a gate through which the resurrected dead would walk. In the report the gate was actually n Arab territory and they erected a brick wall in front of the gate for spite.

Then the disagreement between Paul and Peter on theology. Peter presumably having known Jesus/Yeshuah personally, should have known better.....plus Paul being ignorant of events that are described in the Gospels.

steve_bank said:

I believe there is a passage that describes JC as bronze skinned and black haired.

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Nope.

Given that real literacy was for the wealthy, the question then is who wrote the gospels and who was the targey audiance give low literacy rates.

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You're assuming that they were meant to be read in private as a book, as opposed to listened to in a weekly communal liturgical setting as they have been throughout all of Christian recorded history.

They reflect Jewish themes not Greek or Roman.

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Highly, highly debatable.

The idea of Jesus as son of god was blasphemous. A serious Jewish crime.

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"Son of god" = Angel, in most of the Hebrew Scriptures.

I suspect a Roman writer would be facing issues with Roman rule over claims of a human-god.

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Why? The Roman pantheon was replete with half-human demigods.

Keith&Co. said:

Swammerdami said:

"... But they did eventually accept the Miracles."

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Only on seeing them. Direct eyewitness observation. Not faith, like we're asked for, based on fourth- or fiftieth-hand accounts.

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Christians are asked for faith today, but in the 1st and 2nd century only evidence, faked or otherwise, would work. Most scholars agree, I think, that much of the Gospels are falsified to encourage belief, and to use as "evidence" against counter-arguments.

On the topic of when the early Gospel accounts were actually written, note that papyrus deteriorates quickly, clay is inconvenient, and parchment much more expensive than papyrus. And even papyrus wasn't cheap: it would have been imported from Egypt, I think, and priced at 2-4 pennyweights of silver per sheet or thereabouts.

So there's little evidence of what early versions of the Gospels might have existed.

Keith&Co. said:

This element of the Resurrection always confused me. That when they met Jesus, post-mortem, he looked different.
Why would they specify this?

You don't see this in modern stories. No matter how convincing the fake death was, or the real death before the regeneration or whatever, people always recognize the actor when they step back in the room. Lots of screaming, maybe accusations, "You're supposed to be dead!" or "I watched you die!" and so on, but no 'Do i know you?'

Someone suggested that Jesus made himself look different, because there were people that wanted him dead, or dead-er, anyway. But that's kinda stupid. Because apparently he still had the HOLES from the nails and the spear in his side. The first Stigmata. Kind of hard to claim that's from walking into a door or cutting yourself while shaving.

So, why bring this up, multiple times, in the narrative? Especially from an atheist point of view, that it's just a tale being told, how does this add to the story?

But i was reading the memoirs of a forensic anthropologist. She talks about the fourth dead body she ever saw (after a few dissections), but the first corpse of a person she'd known in life. Her uncle. And weirdly, she didn't recognize him in the casket. Seems to be a common occurrence in her experience. a lot of people's faces are drastically different in death. Less animated. Looking at some of the people around me, those with ready smiles, or near-permanent scowls, i can accept this. Mr. Brown, at peace, will not look like Mr. Brown any more.

I haven't experienced this, Grandpa looked like Grandpa. But Dr. Black has argued with colleagues who are surprised when relatives don't recognize their dead.

Which got me to wondering, maybe it was just accepted by the authors of The Books that death changed your looks? Maybe everyone knew this, it was an established meme. Not in terms of muscle tone or blood pressure going away, just 'you die you differ.'

So the change in appearance for Risen Jesus was a specific detail to make it clear, he didn't just hide for three days. He died, and did the reverse-death-mask thing.
A detail to make the death scene more authentic against the contemporary understanding of death's effects.

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I'm going with literary device. It's a basic rule of any story telling that if you have an opportunity to increase tension, take it.

I think the reader is supposed to inwardly yell at the book "BUT CAN'T YOU SEE YOU FOOLS.... HE'S RIGHT THERE!!!"

As far as the medical theories go. It's a book written to be understood by anybody. There's no point referencing something only known to experts, not explain it, and then just leave it at that. It's just going to confuse the reader and breaking immersion.

DBT said:

Then the disagreement between Paul and Peter on theology. Peter presumably having known Jesus/Yeshuah personally, should have known better.....plus Paul being ignorant of events that are described in the Gospels.

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I was thinking about that, wud Paul have been aware of the gospels.

Paul makes a reference to false Christian groups, so the conflict was on right from the start. Who knows, maybe Paul was the false view.


OMG!! What if the gospels were written as satire or parody.

steve_bank said:

DBT said:

Then the disagreement between Paul and Peter on theology. Peter presumably having known Jesus/Yeshuah personally, should have known better.....plus Paul being ignorant of events that are described in the Gospels.

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I was thinking about that, wud Paul have been aware of the gospels.

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Paul died before any of them were published save possibly Mark, if the traditional date of his execution is correct, and in Rome, far from where they are thought to have begun circulating.

Politesse said:

steve_bank said:

DBT said:

Then the disagreement between Paul and Peter on theology. Peter presumably having known Jesus/Yeshuah personally, should have known better.....plus Paul being ignorant of events that are described in the Gospels.

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I was thinking about that, wud Paul have been aware of the gospels.

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Paul died before any of them were published save possibly Mark, if the traditional date of his execution is correct, and in Rome, far from where they are thought to have begun circulating.

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I thought that though Mark's location of writing is a wide range of locations (Antioch, Rome, southern Syria...), and that Rome is one of the several possible locations it came from. So, if it was written there it seems that Paul could have been familiar with the oral/crib sheets of his time. As with so much, lots of guesses...

funinspace said:

Politesse said:

Paul died before any of them were published save possibly Mark, if the traditional date of his execution is correct, and in Rome, far from where they are thought to have begun circulating.

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I thought that though Mark's location of writing is a wide range of locations (Antioch, Rome, southern Syria...), and that Rome is one of the several possible locations it came from. So, if it was written there it seems that Paul could have been familiar with the oral/crib sheets of his time. As with so much, lots of guesses...

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As with many things in early Christianity it is possible, just not very likely.

Indeed, the traditional Roman Catholic story is that Mark was written by a scribe, the eponymous Mark, on the basis of an interview with Peter, with whom Paul is said to have spent the last part of his ministry with and been executed synchronously with at Rome. If both of those stories are to be believed, then it would not be unfathomable to suppose that Paul might have been in the room while Mark was being set down.

It's usually doctrinaires who make the case for a Roman, Peter-sourced Mark, though. Not so much scholars. I'm an Antiochene hypothesis fan myself, at least by lean, but I think it very clear that it was at least written somewhere in the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean, where Christianity saw its first wave of publications.

It seems to suggest that an actual charismatic person, Yeshua Ben Joseph, existed and was the foundation for the embellishments and mythology in the gospels?

DBT said:

It seems to suggest that an actual charismatic person, Yeshua Ben Joseph, existed and was the foundation for the embellishments and mythology in the gospels?

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Or someone composed a closet drama, or borrowed a script and gave the protagonist the most common male name.

T.G.G. Moogly said:

DBT said:

It seems to suggest that an actual charismatic person, Yeshua Ben Joseph, existed and was the foundation for the embellishments and mythology in the gospels?

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Or someone composed a closet drama, or borrowed a script and gave the protagonist the most common male name.

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Quite possibly, but Paul was a contemporary who met Peter, who is said to be a disciple of Jesus. Which suggests a charismatic preacher/miracle worker (one of many) as a foundation for the myth. This may or may not be true, but it's possible.

T.G.G. Moogly said:

DBT said:

It seems to suggest that an actual charismatic person, Yeshua Ben Joseph, existed and was the foundation for the embellishments and mythology in the gospels?

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Or someone composed a closet drama, or borrowed a script and gave the protagonist the most common male name.

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Or....

Entirely possible.

Spinoza, in his Theologico-politicus-tractatus (Theological-Political Treatise), goes about his investigation into scripture, and comes away with the notion that Jesus did exist. Spinoza also defends Christ and refers to him as "enlightened", albeit as a normal man. Spinoza defended the gospels far more than he defended Judaic writings, especially the Kabbala (sp?), which he considered absolute lunacy.

Josephus *seems* to be fairly good evidence that the biblical Jesus existed.

I don't think it truly matters either way, at least insofar as the gospels influenced the world. But I do believe Jesus of biblical account existed. He may have been a rabbi, since as I understand it no-one can just wander into a synagogue and teach, at least not in that time; and he may have been more intimate with Mary Magdalen, if the apocryphal books are any indication; and he may have been actually married to her, and this fact has been corrupted and effectively erased by the early church fathers, as well as Paul and the gospel writers (assuming they knew of it).

Or ---

He may have been a spaceman. Super-duper alien humanoid, future human come back to that period to teach when people were generally more simple and mostly illiterate; to teach in an agrarian society with parables such people would understand (hopefully). ??

He could even have been fully in on the carpenter's son/ Son of God/resurrection/miracle worker facade, and KNEW for certain that he was going to be arrested, and by whom. Which means he KNEW that he would be crucified, and that he would suffer horribly (but that was okay since his brain was already mapped, uploaded, and he would have returned to consciousness and existence in another body - which could explain the lack of recognition ??

OR ---

He really was the literal Son of God (God being a super-de-duper ultra magnificent alien life form or super computer of some sort). If Jesus was the biological Son of God, then Mary's impregnation could be explained by abduction and artificial insemination. Would explain the appearance of Gabriel (a super duper alien life form, hologram, or implanted mental figment), the Annunciation, and all of the rest. Particularly Joseph's complete compliance and lack of natural indignation or jealousy. ??

ORRRRRRR -

He really was the actual Son of GOD, the biblical accounts are true, the OT is true (for the most part, barring human error), and we are all either saved or in deep, deep trouble. But this cannot be logically possible, since any god that could be called GOD (as Brian was to be called Brian), would not, and could not, go about things in such a confusing manner, causing confusion, war, and horror, and terror all over the globe.