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Historical Jesus
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For a start you could look at this 400 post thread on the topic. Or just do a thread title search for jesus and see 40 other tangentially related topics.
And IIRC I made a thread on the topic a few years ago on Free Ratio that should be archived, and which spanned for over a thousand posts.
Or we could do this:
And IIRC I made a thread on the topic a few years ago on Free Ratio that should be archived, and which spanned for over a thousand posts.
Or we could do this:
For a start you could look at this 400 post thread on the topic. Or just do a thread title search for jesus and see 40 other tangentially related topics.
And IIRC I made a thread on the topic a few years ago on Free Ratio that should be archived, and which spanned for over a thousand posts.
Or we could do this:
Complaints are not evidence
The only explanation I've heard that makes me think a historical Jesus might have existed is the Criterion of Embarrassment. Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist kind of makes Jesus look less than godlike. Being hung or nailed to a tree is also usually the fate of the most worthless people according to Jewish tradition, so it's less likely to be made up. But it does seem a bit odd that none of the Roman historians mentioned this guy during his lifetime if he was supposedly performing miracles all over the place. If the story of Jesus is supposed to be the most important message from God that mankind ever received, you would hope God would make the story a little more different than all the other myths we have created.
Ramaraksha
Member
Well you have to remember that is how Romans killed people in those days, not just Jesus but the very same day quite a few more people were nailed to the cross and of course continued to happen. Jesus was just a name that the religious founders picked - they could have picked any name - tom, dick or harry - just pick a name, weave a nice story around him, push some miracles that supposedly happened and now you have a religion
All religions have these markers
What is needed are believers who fall for this Ponzi-scheme - zero evidence of any such miracles or virgin births or stars zooming in the sky - and that is why they stress belief so much - "only if you believe, he will reward you" and for those pesky people like yourself and myself who ask pesky questions, here come the threats of hell
I have increasingly come to embrace the word - Brainwashing - that is the only way how i can explain why millions of bright, educated people refuse to ask questions. The fear of death and greed for the easy good life overcoming all intelligence it seems
To save you a thousand pages of reading, the HJ argument basically boils down to that there's some scant evidence that maybe there was some guy who vaguely resembled the guy from the stories. Is pretty thin, though.
It's enough of a tenuous thread to cling to if you're a believer and you want to pretend that there's validation for you beliefs because you know deep down that faith doesn't actually cut it, but if you have no emotional investment in the story then it's kind of dumb to put any credence in what's out there.
It's enough of a tenuous thread to cling to if you're a believer and you want to pretend that there's validation for you beliefs because you know deep down that faith doesn't actually cut it, but if you have no emotional investment in the story then it's kind of dumb to put any credence in what's out there.
DBT
Contributor
I think the book of Mark was written only decades after the claimed events. So it seems that something happened in relation to some charismatic rabbi going by the name of Yeshua Ben Yosef, and from there the myth of the 'godman' grew.
Who, in the Roman Empire, could possibly have gained from making him up? Read the two different accounts of Socrates (who undoubtedly existed), then go back to the NT - they are far less consistent than the Gospels, which are manifestly by different people. American conspiracy theories are way out of hand!
Atheos
Veteran Member
ApostateAbe, who I believe still hangs around here, was an avid proponent of the criterion of embarrassment. I never bought it because the very things touted in this model are just as easily explained (and better, IMO) by the possibility that these stories developed over time and over large areas. GMark is an adoptionist narrative of the Jesus myth, opening with the baptism which marks the point at which Yahweh "adopted" Jesus as his son, saying "You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." There is no reason to believe at that particular juncture in the development of the Jesus myth that people believed him to be immaculate. That sort of thinking could easily have come later.
There may have been an historical person around whom the legends developed or there may not have been. The evidence we have right now is inconclusive either way.
The gospels are not independent accounts. They are embroidered versions of some older text.
Atheos
Veteran Member
Well if you discount the untold amount of money, power and fame that can manifestly be traced back to the fabrication of this myth then maybe you have a point. If your argument is that the originator(s) of this myth could not envisioned the impact thereof you're still stuck with the fact that such myths are generated on a nearly hourly basis by people all the time. Only a very few make the big time, but the process never stops. Might as well ask what possible gain Joseph Smith thought he would get from inventing Moroni and the golden plates. Or what possible benefit Marshall Applewhite would get from inventing a dumbass story about the Hale-Bopp comet, or L Ron Hubbard's invention of Xenu's genocide.
We don't have to know everything about how a story was originated to recognize that a story about a magic Jew who cured neurological disorders with a touch, performed alchemy, defied the laws of gravity and magically turned morsels of food into feasts for thousands is probably fiction. Rewrites of the same story appearing decades later, especially ones that include demonstrably false additional details, do nothing to corroborate the original tale.
In spite of this there still could have been an original itinerant cult leader name Jesus who provided the original nucleus around which these mendacities were attached. But even if such a person existed the story is still manifestly fictional as a whole. This person didn't walk on water, levitate off the ground to disappear into the sky or cure lifelong paralytics with a mere touch. These sorts of fantastic things constitute most of the earliest version of this story we have (GMark).
funinspace
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Oh yeah...but the Kingdom of Colchis and the golden fleece are real
Now where did I leave my Dodonian stem....
Colonel Sanders
Senior Member
No. Socrates had fellow philosophers who came both immediately before and after him and there is a well documented and undisputed body of historical knowledge about him. His ideas helped found etcetera etcetera.
We also know that while many works of art depicting Socrates as muscular he-man are inaccurate, we do know that in reality he was considered rather ugly and even had an ugly wife. We know of other factual figures he interacted with.
It's just not an apt comparison.
As to Jesus, like someone else said, there was probably some guy that people liked who went against the Jewish power structure and got obliterated for it. From there, the legend grew. It's similar to the Roswell incident in that myths don't develop overnight. Some event or series of events occurred--some Thing happens. Then, after a period of incubation, when the real story has faded and fantastical things begin to cling like lint, a myth emerges. Then you get things like Jesus and UFO conspiracies.
Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
How do you know that gain was the motivation?
The author of gMark, usually considered the first, created a blockbuster. But we know nothing about that author or his motives.
Socrates we know of through contemporaneous accounts. There are none for Jesus, advantage mythicists.
Keith&Co.
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A while back, someone sent me an email of a letter put out by the cops in Jacksonville. Someone was attaching HIV-infected needles to pumps at gas stations. It's hard to identify a way that profit could have motivated someone to perform such an act.
Then someone else sent me an email showing that the title of the person allegedly writing that letter did not exist in Jacksonville. It's hard to identify a way the author of the hoax could have been motivated by profit.
certainly, profit was not the motivation for the people who forward me such emails or link me to Snopes pages.
Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
I think a situation like that of gMark allows anyone to project whatever motives they wish onto the author.
'Q', yes. They are so different in style that they are clearly be different people however.
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How much was Mark paid? We know Socrates from Plato, and Xenophon's picture is hugely different. We have no independent evidence.
funinspace
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Mark who? The author of the Gospel of Mark is pretty much unknown. Whoever it was could have been part of a cult group and getting housed and fed while spinning his story onto papyrus. And/or maybe Paul was cutting him in on the fame factor. We know that very few people like to feel they are important after all....
How much was Joseph Smith paid?
Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
Nothing about the author of gMark is known.
Our information about Socrates may conflict, but the point is, he existed.