They didn't recognize resurrected Jesus

[Keith&Co.]

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.

 

[southernhybrid]

Interesting thoughts, but I personally think that the entire story was made up. Maybe there was some charismatic guy who went by the name of Jesus and perhaps he wasn't liked by those in power. After all, he was pretty far left and the aristocrats certainly didn't want to give up their wealth, feed the poor or heal the sick. We can see that social crisis in today's world, but I digress. Back to Jesus...

So, assuming that this Jesus guy who was so charismatic that people believed. he could perform miracles, a bit like the Trump cultists believing that their idol is god-like. Anyway, if the far left Jesus guy was executed by those in power, I assume that his followers had an extremely difficult time accepting this.

It's sort of like Elvis. Rational people who weren't Elvis fanatics but lived through that era, know that Elvis is dead. I was a child during the Elvis fanaticism. It was crazy. Since his death, large numbers of his fans have insisted that they've seen him alive. He never died! Or maybe some even believe that he survived death or they saw his spirit. Point being....this type of myth has been around for a long time. I'm not expert in the field of mythology, but I've read enough to know that myths are often similar, and repetitious.

If there was a Jesus like the one in the Bible, he died, but his closest cultists couldn't accept that. They thought he was supernatural, so they invented a story that promoted the idea that he was dead for three days and then he rose from the dead and was swept up into heaven magically. Of course he was wearing a spotless flowing white robe and a halo

Btw, I've never seen anyone I knew who didn't look like themselves in their coffin. Sure, they were pale and lifeless, but that's because they were dead!

To me, the entire story is obvious mythology.

It would be interesting and fun to read what others think about why or how the Jesus myth was created and became so popular.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Interesting thoughts, but I personally think that the entire story was made up.

Yeah, me, too, but it's still an odd element to add. Chekov's gun.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I like the part in John 20 where Jesus apparently walks through a locked door (or materializes in a locked room -- hard to tell), which as you might guess APPEARS IN NO OTHER GOSPEL. (He suddenly stands among them in Luke 24, but there's no mention of a locked door.) We are so lucky there were no zombie movies when John was writing (apparently very few movies of any kind), as he might have borrowed some memes from that source and we'd have more-than-symbolic flesh eating and centurions trying to spike Jesus through the brain.

 

[Keith&Co.]

(Jesus appears out of thin air)
Centurion1: Jesus Christ!
Jesus: Well, hello to you, too.
C1: No, sorry, meant that as an expression of shock, fear, surprise.
J: Oh.
C2: You're dead.
J: Not anymore! The Good News (c) is that everlasting life is available.
C1: Pull the other one. You died. You're back. That's Undead, not life everlasting.
C2: Marcus Absent stabbed you in the side.
J: Right! Right! Here's the scar!
C1: That's not a scar, that's an open wound.
C2: An open, MORTAL wound.
J: Um...
C1: What's for zombies? Wooden stakes an' garlic?
C2: That's Vampires. We need silver.
C1: That's werewolves! We need holy water and a pair of-
J: You fucking idiots! You defeat zombies by filling their mouth with salt and sewing their lips shut.
C2: Salt? You priced salt recently?
J: I suppose you could spike the brain...
(Swords are drawn, centurions approach.)
J: Oh, Christ.

 

[funinspace]

It's sort of like Elvis. Rational people who weren't Elvis fanatics but lived through that era, know that Elvis is dead. I was a child during the Elvis fanaticism. It was crazy. Since his death, large numbers of his fans have insisted that they've seen him alive. He never died!

LOL...now I have "If Dirt Were Dollars" ringing in my head: "I saw jesus on the plane...or maybe it was elvis. You know, they kinda look the same".

All I remember is the fat old (to an early teen) has been Elvis, then again I was tuned into "News of the World" in 1977...

 

[OLDMAN]

It shows exactly what it was...myth building. They spent the evening talking with a stranger and after he left they realized "hey, that was Jesus our dead leader". I think they decided this based on his words he had spoken. But I can't be bothered to reread it. Lazy.

 

[James Brown]

It is rather curious that every post-resurrection appearance involves a case of mistaken identity. Even from the woman who was his lover|wife|biggest crush, depending on whom you ask.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Yes, at John 20:15, Mary Madgdalene apparently sees the risen Jesus but thinks he is... the gardener. (A little steretypical, maybe -- a gardener named Jesus.) I think the scholars are right, Mary M. gets a bum rap of being a reformed whore. For all we know, she was like the ladies who volunteer at the church office these days. She might have kept a set of index cards for Jesus. And maybe her eyesight wasn't too good. Or maybe it really was the gardener, although I'll call him Carlos, and he was stringing her along, just to be a dick.

 

[Politesse]

Well, he also walked through walls. It's a mystic's vision, not a zombie movie.

 

[WAB]

Yes, at John 20:15, Mary Madgdalene apparently sees the risen Jesus but thinks he is... the gardener. (A little steretypical, maybe -- a gardener named Jesus.) I think the scholars are right, Mary M. gets a bum rap of being a reformed whore. For all we know, she was like the ladies who volunteer at the church office these days. She might have kept a set of index cards for Jesus. And maybe her eyesight wasn't too good. Or maybe it really was the gardener, although I'll call him Carlos, and he was stringing her along, just to be a dick.

Yeah, Carlos!!!!!!!! Why not Javier, or Raul?!!!!!!!! Huh???!!!!1!!! Ya fascist stereotypist...typer..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1! Not like it'd be some....some CRACKER named Rupert!!!!!!!!!!!!! or Chauncey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...lessen he was some reetart!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!

 

[DBT]

Jesus believed to be in spirit form possessing someone's body, manifesting stigmata while in the borrowed body? Kind of like demon possession, only in a Divinely Sanctioned Form?

 

[Politesse]

Jesus believed to be in spirit form possessing someone's body, manifesting stigmata while in the borrowed body? Kind of like demon possession, only in a Divinely Sanctioned Form?

More that, having ascended to the pleroma, he was no longer constrained by the natural limitations of matter, manifesting in it but not imprisoned by it. All oppositions are illusory when viewed from the standpoint of the One, and that includes the distinction we mortal fools try to make between matter and spirit. You likely weren't taught Christianity by committed Neoplatonists. But the early church documents, Gospels included, were written with a Platonic perspective forming many of their base assumptions about the world.

 

[steve_bank]

Obviously it was not Jesus who was crucified, it was a stand in.

 

[Rhea]

I think it was Judas, in cosplay, trying to convince the guys that Jesus isn’t really dead so they’ll forgive him and let him back at cards night on Wednesday.
That’s why they didn’t recognize him - all that make-up.
And that’s why they didn’t see him again, becuase Judas had to change his clothes and wash up to be back for family dinner night, or his mom would have asked all the guys where he was and the jig would be up.

 

[steve_bank]

I think it was Judas, in cosplay, trying to convince the guys that Jesus isn’t really dead so they’ll forgive him and let him back at cards night on Wednesday.
That’s why they didn’t recognize him - all that make-up.
And that’s why they didn’t see him again, becuase Judas had to change his clothes and wash up to be back for family dinner night, or his mom would have asked all the guys where he was and the jig would be up.

Now that you say it that should have been an obvious possibility.

 

[WAB]

I think it was Judas, in cosplay, trying to convince the guys that Jesus isn’t really dead so they’ll forgive him and let him back at cards night on Wednesday.
That’s why they didn’t recognize him - all that make-up.
And that’s why they didn’t see him again, becuase Judas had to change his clothes and wash up to be back for family dinner night, or his mom would have asked all the guys where he was and the jig would be up.

Now that you say it that should have been an obvious possibility.

Judas always makes me wonder about the Trinity concept (ie that Jesus and God, while being distinct, are really the same...which is a mind-boggler in itself, not to mention Christ's behavior in Gethsemane, where He pleads with God to relieve Him of the charge of being crucified. He was obviously scared to death. Whether there was a real Jesus or not, He is obviously frightened in the gospel accounts. Not to mention the mysterious, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" remark, which would be inconceivable if Jesus and God were one and the same - lessen His partly human brain had made Him temporarily delerious...which would imply a literal abandonment of God the Father from Jesus and, IMO, make the crucifixion even more horrible. If He knew he was going to resurrect with absolute certainty, then He would at least have had that consolation; if he was just a biological mortal man [which is most likely] then he would have been like all the others, dying horribly, with no certainty of after-life):

Iff Jesus was a part of God, or in some way God Themself (Their self? Themselves?), then He would have known all about Judas, and Judas could be safely absolved of responsibility, being that there was nothing he could do to alter his fate. Even if he only believed that he was choosing of his own free will, it would have been an illusion, and who could blame anyone for anything if it were true that they could not possibly have acted other than the way they did? Certainly not God, who is supposed to be perfect, and merciful.

The whole concept of hell and damnation is absurdly evil anyway, on its face, and Iff Jesus taught that hell was a real place, not just a state of mind as some apologists contend, and that eternal damnation meant exactly that: eternal suffering and torment - then he was a mortal man and certainly not divine in the sense that he was literally fathered by God.

Iff hell and eternal suffering, physical AND mental, is REALLY true, then our universe is in the grip of a hostile and sadistic being, not one even remotely capable of love and mercy. And in that case, everyone is fucked.

What I truly think is that the universe (or what we know of it for sure) is terribly hostile, unbelievably and immeasurably unfair, and essentially a gigantic clusterfuck for any thinking, feeling, entity that is not extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely lucky.

But it is not that way intentionally.

Which is why I would prefer non-existence over having to do all this shit over again.

 

[steve_bank]

As a Christian kid I was told the Trinity is a mystery. ‘God the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost’. I thought that came from Nicaea.

From a book I read on Islam it was said that historically it was common to spread a prophesy and then have someone show up to fulfill it. It was happening at the time of the gospels, people claiming to be the Jewish messiah.

That somebody stepped in to claim to be the resurrected Jesus is not entirely implausible. In our allegedly educated enlightened age we see such religious chicanery all the time. And people buy it.

As to the alleged betrayal by Judas, without that the Jesus dies to save the world narrative fails.

As fiction Judas is important to the plot. He kicks off the last chapter.

 

[WAB]

As a Christian kid I was told the Trinity is a mystery. ‘God the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost’. I thought that came from Nicaea.

From a book I read on Islam it was said that historically it was common to spread a prophesy and then have someone show up to fulfill it. It was happening at the time of the gospels, people claiming to be the Jewish messiah.

That somebody stepped in to claim to be the resurrected Jesus is not entirely implausible. In our allegedly educated enlightened age we see such religious chicanery all the time. And people buy it.

As to the alleged betrayal by Judas, without that the Jesus dies to save the world narrative fails.

As fiction Judas is important to the plot. He kicks off the last chapter.

Agreed.

 

[DBT]

If the purpose of Jesus was to die for the sins of the world, rather than a betrayal, the role of Judas was to help fulfill the mission, playing his role in the Divine Drama.