120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[DBT]

But this does not explain how Jesus in the first century, in 3 years or less, could have become the only documented faith-healer for whom any real evidence was left for posterity

.

''Documented'' miracles is an exagerated claim.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, if you don't require any documentation to qualify, it's easy for something to become a documented claim.

 

[funinspace]

OMZ we are now only 2 days from 2015...but will we get there before 2016?

Wait...there is a Mythological Heroes Official Requirements Checklist?

I regret the phrase ". . . why this Jesus person became mythologized so greatly despite failing to meet the requirements that all myth heroes must meet in order to become mythologized."

But the point is correct despite the clumsy wording.

It should be obvious that mythic heroes are produced by a process, involving psychology and certain conditions, so that the mythologizing happens only to certain figures in history who did something noteworthy in some way.

ROTFLMAO…you did it again. Your language gymnastics notwithstanding, you are still insisting on a Mythological Heroes Official Requirements Checklist (MHORC). Your point is not correct and there is no only....

I didn’t find a MHORC in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth. Then I looked under my bed, hummmm….no MHORC there. Then I rummaged thru the dark closet….hummmm no MHORC there. “In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary... come again?”*

I.e., the hero does not get turned into a god unless he was special or did something special. In the case of a wise teacher, it requires decades of teaching plus charisma, in order to have enough strong impact to inspire the disciples to start a new cult or to deify the teacher. And for other heroes also a long period of time is needed to establish the hero's reputation.

What is an example of a mythologized hero who did not have an established reputation or career spanning several decades? or for whom we don't have any indication of what noteworthy act he performed that made him special?

“Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."** OMZ what if there was no Jesus? Then poof, your whole enchilada gets churned up in the disposal of wishes gone sour. And OMZ, there was this dude named Paul, though he didn’t know Peter and Mary, but he did spend a couple decades doing ohhh what? Oh yeah, doing that god building thingy…



* Quote from Snatch
** Quote from The Matrix

 

[Sarpedon]

Imhotep was made god of architects for building the first pyramid.

Amenhotep, son of Hapu was made a god for being a really good administrator.

Unlike Jesus, they were real people, who were documented.

 

[bilby]

Imhotep was made god of architects for building the first pyramid.

Amenhotep, son of Hapu was made a god for being a really good administrator.

Unlike Jesus, they were real people, who were documented.

IMHO Tep wasn't much of an architect.

 

[funinspace]

I.e., the hero does not get turned into a god unless he was special or did something special. In the case of a wise teacher, it requires decades of teaching plus charisma, in order to have enough strong impact to inspire the disciples to start a new cult or to deify the teacher. And for other heroes also a long period of time is needed to establish the hero's reputation.

What is an example of a mythologized hero who did not have an established reputation or career spanning several decades? or for whom we don't have any indication of what noteworthy act he performed that made him special?

“Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."** OMZ what if there was no Jesus? Then poof, your whole enchilada gets churned up in the disposal of wishes gone sour. And OMZ, there was this dude named Paul, though he didn’t know Peter and Mary, but he did spend a couple decades doing ohhh what? Oh yeah, doing that god building thingy…


** Quote from The Matrix

Expanding on this from the other direction. You claim that Jesus only preached/ranted/taught for 3 years. You base this on the same narratives that you admit are full of embellishment. There already is difficulty in nailing down when this purported Jesus was born with problems with census’, kingly reigns, and governorships. Never mind that the whole traveling to Bethlehem, wise men, he goes to Nazareth, no I mean Egypt, oh, but he stopped off in Jerusalem make believe mixed up tales. The Gospels, even if taken at face value for timelines, have an approximately 18 year gap what is sometimes called “the unknown years”. As well as, Jesus could have easily been born a decade earlier. He could have been building his cult for 20 years for all we know. The 3 years is built out of reading the tea leaves from the collection of stories of Jesus’ life and ministry.

The purported Jesus gets killed, never mind the how or where details circa 30-33AD. Paul conveniently gets converted sometime after the crucifixion/resurrection (circa 31-36AD), but doesn’t ever meet Jesus in the flesh. It could have been weeks, or it could have been a few years; that’s how little we know. He does a couple tricks, and then the story timeline goes mostly dark again for about 14 years. Then he comes out full bore converting, preaching and writing. Only after Paul’s 15-20 years on the preaching circuit does the first Gospel seem to appear (Mark). A couple decades later the 2 more magical and dramatic Gospels come out. Then at least another decade passes, and John’s Gospel comes out with Jesus barely even human any more. The Roman forced Jewish diaspora conveniently eliminates any reason we might see the giant gap in having Jesus cult followers in Israel. Instead this new cult slowly grows in what we now call Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. The whole thing reeks of embellishment. Again this is how the saga is claimed to have unfurled itself. With so many assumptions and having to eject many absurd elements, there is no reason to hold a “only 3 year” mantra. And it is obtuse to ignore the obvious fact that Paul built up much of this new cult as he worked it for around 15-20 years.

 

[Atheos]

Expanding on this from the other direction. You claim that Jesus only preached/ranted/taught for 3 years. You base this on the same narratives that you admit are full of embellishment. There already is difficulty in nailing down when this purported Jesus was born with problems with census’, kingly reigns, and governorships. Never mind that the whole traveling to Bethlehem, wise men, he goes to Nazareth, no I mean Egypt, oh, but he stopped off in Jerusalem make believe mixed up tales. The Gospels, even if taken at face value for timelines, have an approximately 18 year gap what is sometimes called “the unknown years”. As well as, Jesus could have easily been born a decade earlier. He could have been building his cult for 20 years for all we know. The 3 years is built out of reading the tea leaves from the collection of stories of Jesus’ life and ministry.

...

I mentioned a long time ago in this thread that Luke's childhood narrative (Luke 2:42-52) practically gushes with contradiction of this entire part of Lumpenproletariat's argument. Like most things that do so, Lumpenproletariat has completely ignored this inconvenient truth.

Not that I believe what Luke wrote was anything other than 99-100% fiction, but someone once put in to Jesus' mouth the saying "Live by the sword, die by the sword," so let's go with that.

This entire portion of Lumpenproletariat's argument is critically contingent upon the premise that Jesus did all his reputation farming in only three years. Luke couldn't disagree more.

In fact, let's go back. According to Luke (2:22-39), Jesus starts working on his reputation before he can even talk. He's only a few weeks old and his mother has completed the days of purification as specified by the barbaric and misogynistic laws of the Old Testament god Yahweh. His parents bring him to the temple to be "presented." As soon as they get there an old (and evidently respected) prophet named Simeon calls attention to Jesus, claiming that he is the promised Messiah. Seems like that would raise a few eyebrows.

As if that weren't enough, a prophetess named Anna calls even more attention to this infant. Luke further says that she "Spake of him to all them that look for redemption in Jerusalem." The meaning of all this is vague but Luke is clear that Anna was in the temple every day and had been that way for over 80 years. The implication seems to be that for however much longer she lived she continued telling everyone about Jesus if they'd let her.

Luke then says that "The child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." Sounds like reputation building throughout his youth.

Which, of course, brings us to the focal narrative about this early reputation-building. The final 11 verses in Luke 2 tell of Jesus showing up at the temple at the age of 12, confounding all the leaders of the temple with his wisdom and answers. When his parents re-located him after 3 days of that he asked them, "Why did you come looking for me? Do you not know that I must be about my father's business?"

Whatever the f*** that's supposed to mean one can only imagine. But it would at least seem that he fancied that he was going about it by showing off what a smart-ass he was in front of all the most wizened elders of the religious center. Reputation building.

The final verse of that chapter (which is the last thing any of the canonical gospels say about this character between the time he's 12 and 30) is that he "increased in wisdom, stature and favor with god and man." That's right, Luke directly contradicts everything upon which Lumpenproletariat keeps pinning his hopes and dreams of getting someone to swallow this silly argument. Luke tells us that from the time he was a very small baby Jesus pretty much spent his whole existence building reputation.

So even if one were to concede that a god-myth could not have developed about a character who pretty much crawled out of the woodwork, flashed in the pan and disappeared 3 years later (and that's a big-assed if), that's not the sort of character that is presented in Lumpenproletariat's gospels.

 

[funinspace]

Ya...well there is that. But then again, those were probably the embellished parts of Luke, so Lumpy should have no problem sticking to beating the dead horse further...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

In fact, let's go back. According to Luke (2:22-39), Jesus starts working on his reputation before he can even talk. He's only a few weeks old and his mother has completed the days of purification as specified by the barbaric and misogynistic laws of the Old Testament god Yahweh. His parents bring him to the temple to be "presented." As soon as they get there an old (and evidently respected) prophet named Simeon calls attention to Jesus, claiming that he is the promised Messiah. Seems like that would raise a few eyebrows.

Ya, I know that if I were a priest in a religion which was expecting a promised Messiah and then that Messiah showed up at my temple one day, I'd make a point of at least dashing off a quick note to other priests in my religion to let them know about it. Sure, they didn't have texting or anything at the time, but one has to assume that there were at least a couple of unpaid interns around who could have popped down the road to give people the heads up that the prohesized saviour had dropped in. Simeon decided to go the other route of instead never mentioning it again.

That's cool and everything and I'm not trying to say that I don't respect his right to make his own choices, I'm just saying that I would have handled the situation differently.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's cool and everything and I'm not trying to say that I don't respect his right to make his own choices, I'm just saying that I would have handled the situation differently.

At least a small plaque, 'The Promised Messiah stepped in HERE, bitches!' Maybe with a little spotlight at night? tastefully done, of course. No more than a talent of silver spent on the whole thing.

 

[Atheos]

Could probably get the memorial started with a small investment, maybe as little as 30 pieces of silver.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If the reasonable evidence for the Jesus miracles makes you unhappy, then just invent your own historical events.

Lumpenproletariat, you continue to make baseless assertions, never dealing with the real and tangible evidence presented by myself and others in this thread.

You seem to be making some big deal about the uniqueness of the Jesus myth because supposedly the stuff was written down within 50 years of when it actually happened. You've continued to ignore the fact that as far as we can tell the stuff never actually happened, . . .

That's true of all historical documents. I.e., "as far as we can tell, the stuff" in our history books never actually happened, because it's based only on documents that survived and no one has ever proved that what is written in the documents ever really happened. This is probably the best argument against the miracles of Jesus. And also against any other historical events.

This is a powerful argument for throwing out most of our known history, even 99% of it if we follow your rule strictly. So congratulations for coming up with a brilliant rationale for eliminating most of what is taught in our history books which "as far as we can tell never actually happened"!

. . . so when it was written down has nothing to do with anything, even if that somehow added credibility to the stories, which it doesn't.

Yes, by your rationale for throwing out most or all of our recorded history, it may not matter when a document was written, since you throw all of them out, whether it's Caesar writing about himself, or it's Shakespeare writing about him 1500 years later. When all of it has to be thrown out anyway, early or late, because "the stuff never actually happened" either way, then of course it becomes pointless to quibble over how early or late the document was written.

You should win a Nobel Prize for these insights and for your "real and tangible evidence" which debunks the "baseless assertions" of all those historians who think "the stuff" they teach really happened.

But for those who do accept the evidence of written documents for history, it does matter how near the writing is to the actual events. If it's much closer to when the reported events happened, the document is more credible. And the gospel writings are relatively close to the reported events, by comparison to accounts of other historical events that long ago.

I've personally spent a fair amount of time presenting plausible scenarios that agree in every way with the available evidence and do not require that anyone resort to believing that a magic man healed blindness, . . .

But your scenario has to explain how Jesus came to be deified, which you fail to do. You don't distinguish him from the 99.9999% of the population who are not mythologized or made into a god.

The Buddha was deified because he taught for at least 40 years and impressed thousands of disciples over that time period with his charisma. And we can explain in every case why a teacher was made into a god by his followers. Usually charisma and a long teaching career are part of the explanation, and probably also some new or radical teaching that made an impact on the hearers.

The scenarios you have presented do not explain why or how Jesus was made into a god, considering how short his public career was. Your scenarios explain nothing but just take it for granted that Jesus acquired this status without doing anything noteworthy. No "Jesus myth" scenario is credible without explaining what caused the new mythic hero figure to attract such singular attention in the first place.

. . . leprosy, paralysis and deformities with a touch.

Why "with a touch"? For many of the healings in the gospel accounts, Jesus did not touch the one healed.

There is no evidence that places the activities of the "Jesus" character in the time frame the narratives in the canonical gospels place him.

All the evidence places Jesus in the period of about 30 AD, in the time of Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas and John the Baptist. There is more evidence for placing him in this time frame than there is for placing most events in their respective time frame, that far back in history. If you exclude the evidence of the available written documents, then you must exclude most historical events.

You can't single out one event in history that you dislike and challenge the "time frame" for only this one event, while at the same time accepting the standard "time frame" for all other events. The evidence for the "time frame" is essentially the same for the Jesus events as it is for most other historical events.

Elements of myth or legend or miracle in the text do not disqualify the documents from serving to place the time frame. Most of the histories and epic poetry -- Homer, Herodotus, Livy, Virgil, etc. -- contain elements of myth and legend and miracle, and yet they are reliable for setting the time frame of the reported events.

Also, the Tacitus quote (Annals, book 15, xliv) places Jesus during the period of Tiberius and Pontius Pilate. There is plenty of reliable evidence that the time frame of Jesus was about 30 AD. This evidence is accepted by the vast majority of historians. The gospel accounts are the main source, of course, and they are as reliable as any source can be for the time frame, regardless of any flaws in those accounts.

For virtually all of the historical record we must rely only on the written accounts about the event or person to tell us the time frame. If you demand evidence for the time frame outside the written sources, then virtually no historical persons or events can meet your demand and so we have to toss out 99% of all historical events in order to satisfy your demand for proof of the time frame.

Further, if it's archaeological evidence you're demanding, to date the events, there is no basis for saying that such physical evidence is more reliable than the written documents. Archaeological evidence is unavailable for most events, and even when it is available it can also be doubted, just as the written documents can be. There is "no evidence" beyond these that proves the events really happened, whether those events are known from archaeological findings or from written documents. Those findings or documents are the "evidence" available to us, and nothing else, like going going back in a time machine to observe what happened, is available to prove that this evidence is reliable.

There is abundant evidence that the earliest legends about the Jesus character were little else besides a collection of anecdotes without a time frame.

There is a time frame in the earliest accounts. He is placed alongside John the Baptist, about the time of the imprisonment and beheading of JB, and thus near to 30 AD.

But further, the trial and crucifixion are mostly early, even if some later elements were added, and these clearly put Jesus in the time of Pilate and Herod Antipas. The general trial and crucifixion narrative is the most common or shared part of the Gospel accounts, shared by all 4 gospel accounts and following the same overall chronology (with the John Gospel deviating on some points), unlike the rest of the accounts where the chronology and events are less consistent. So the general account of this is reliable for the basic point of setting the time frame.

Historians generally agree on the "time frame" for Jesus, i.e., about 30 AD, despite having reservations about the general reliability of the gospel accounts.

The Gospel of Peter, for example, has Jesus being executed around 100 BC.

This is false. It places Jesus in the time of Pilate and Herod Antipas, as do all documents about the Galilean Jesus Christ. Claims that Jesus was crucified in a different century are ludicrous and stem from hysteria.

The authentic Pauline epistles say absolutely nothing about the time frame of Jesus.

They clearly place Jesus in the same time frame as the gospel accounts place him. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul describes the resurrection event and names some of the witnesses, including "Kephas" and "the Twelve." So, though he doesn't identify the date when the event occurred (why should he?), he clearly is naming the same resurrection event as is presented in the 4 gospel accounts, which place it with Pilate and Herod Antipas.

Paul also identifies the night when Jesus was "handed over" and when the "Lord's Supper" happened, quoting the words "This is my body" etc., which clearly is the same event as in the gospel accounts, just prior to the death and resurrection event. So there is plenty in Paul's writings to identify the time frame, even though Paul mentions no other historical events.

It is silly to make an issue out of "the time frame of Jesus." He is fixed in history, chronologically, as firmly as any historical figure. What he did or said is debatable, but the "time frame" is fixed -- Can we get beyond the prank April Fool arguments? You could play jokes like this with any historical figure.

Paul never mentions any of the towns in which Jesus supposedly lived, the miracles he supposedly did . . .

But Paul mentions nothing biographical about Jesus, except the night of the arrest and the death and resurrection. Anything prior to that night of the arrest goes totally unmentioned by Paul. So, what conclusion do you draw from this? that prior to that night Jesus did not exist? that Jesus suddenly popped into existence that night? sort of like some Creationists believe the first human popped into existence suddenly, as an adult, with no prior existence?

Just because Paul doesn't mention something does not mean it didn't happen. Most of the other epistles and also the Apocalypse/Book of Revelation say nothing biographical about Jesus, other than referring to his death and resurrection.

. . . or the people with whom he supposedly interacted.

Yes Paul does mention them. He names Kephas, also calling him "Peter" in Gal. 2, where he names also John and James. And in Gal. 1 he calls James "the brother of the Lord."

Even if one concedes that a "Jesus" character existed during the time frame in question, for over 30 years the only things written about this character are nothing but nebulous references to someone who for all intents and purposes could have never stepped foot on planet earth.

Then what planet was he on when he said "This is my body . . ." etc. and when he was "handed over"? And how did Paul think he was the brother of James if he had never been on planet earth? Was James also on a different planet?

Don't you understand that most historical figures at that time were not recorded or written about in less than 30 years? It is unusual that we have written documents about Jesus from even 50 or 60 years later. That is unusually close in time to the actual historical person or event.

There is compelling evidence that the stories of Jesus incorporated details from pre-existing mythological characters, . . .

No, there is no such evidence. Even if the virgin birth and star over Bethlehem are fictional, there was no borrowing of this from earlier myths. If there is mention of a star in pagan mythology, that doesn't prove that every mention of a star in later literature was "incorporated" from that earlier mythology. Do you think the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was derived from pagan mythology?

Just because there's a reference to some object -- wine, virgin birth, blood, sword, resurrection, angel/messenger, miracle, and other key words -- does not mean that the writer "incorporated" this detail from earlier mythology to be able to write it.

. . . so much so that Justin Martyr recognized the similarities and said that they were no different than what others said about "sons of Jupiter."

You are misrepresenting what Justin Martyr said. Nothing of his quote supports any notion that the gospel writers "incorporated" earlier pagan ideas.

You cannot name those "details from pre-existing mythological characters." You were told this by your favorite Jesus-debunker celebrity pundit, and you believe this without checking the sources for those claims. There are virtually no similarities which show any borrowing from pagan mythology.

There are miracle stories, in the gospels and also in pagan mythology. But virtually nothing of the Jesus narrative was borrowed from earlier mythology. It is nutty to insist that everything written or spoken had to be borrowed from earlier writings or sayings that used the same subject matter.

A person can mention a tree without having borrowed this idea from someone 100 or 1000 years earlier who also mentioned a tree. People from different historical periods can mention the same ideas or objects without the later one having derived his thought of it from the earlier one who mentioned it.

It is entirely feasible that the Jesus myth began with the simple version presented in the Pauline epistles and evolved over several decades with anecdotes being added.

No, that's not feasible if you mean a version of Jesus with no physical body or existence in history. Paul's audience had to have something concrete first. If all he preached to them was an abstract non-physical Jesus who was somehow "handed over" and crucified on a non-physical cross and then rose from the dead but had no body or any earlier history on earth, they would have locked Paul up as a wacko (after taking away whatever he was smoking).

You cannot explain why anyone would even listen to such a babbling fool. They had to have already known of Jesus the miracle-worker and his bodily resurrection in order for any of Paul's preaching to make sense.

The miracle pericopes gave Jesus various powers appropriated from well known Greek and Roman gods such as Bacchus, Asclepius, etc.

You can't cite any sources for these gods which show a resemblance to the miracles of Jesus. Again, you are just repeating by rote some rhetoric fed to you by your favorite Jesus-debunker crusader. You can quote nothing from the 1st century or earlier about the pagan gods from which the Jesus accounts might have been derived.

All your sources for this are of 20th- and 21st-century origin only. They use the descriptions of Jesus in the gospels as their guide to what the pagan gods must have been or must have done, and then they project these descriptions back onto the pagan gods and recreate those gods in Christ's image.

Only the early sources, prior to 100 AD, have any legitimacy for showing a connection of the "Jesus legend" to the pagan myths. And you have no such sources to offer. Your 20th-century Jesus-Debunker mythicism seminars are not a sufficient source for the early pagan myths that the Jesus accounts were "appropriated" from.

"Mark" collected many of these anecdotes and provided an adoptionist story with Yahweh choosing his "son" from the disciples of John the Baptist.

Whatever. It doesn't answer the critical question why or how Mark and others chose Jesus to make into a god or Yahweh's son or miracle hero.

Mark places Jesus in the same time frame as John the Baptist and Pilate, but provides little else by way of backdrop. As fans clamored for more childhood details . . .

But what "fans"? Why are they clamoring for such details, or for anything about Jesus? What else could it be but that they believed he had power because of the miracle acts he reportedly did? This is what you need to explain. You are leap-frogging over this important question in order to get to the virgin birth story which you want to poke fun at.

But in your obsession with later mythologizing you are circumventing the job of explaining how Jesus became this miracle legend in less than 40 years, even though such legends always required centuries to evolve and only if the hero figure had a long career in which he performed some outstanding deeds or mesmerized his followers with his charisma. So, by skipping over this, you are failing to explain how Jesus came to the point that the "fans" wanted to mythologize him and demanded stories about his childhood.

. . . the story of Perseus provided a tidy framework for the author(s) of "Matthew" to use, adding the drama of an infancy menace, a flight to a far-away land and a return to the homeland to perform many incredible deeds.

But the "incredible deeds" came earlier. Matthew's addition to the original account was not the miracle events, which were already there, but some elaboration on that original account. You can poke fun at some of Matthew's additions, perhaps, but you are running away from the real question -- the origin of the early "miracle pericopes" -- because the Jesus miracle-worker narrative, or the deification of him, had already taken place before Matthew found the need to make his additions.

So, even if Matthew's virgin birth is of later origin, to satisfy "fans" who wanted more, your obsessing on this leaves totally unanswered how Jesus was first made into a god, with the original miracle stories ("pericopes") BEFORE Matthew added anything. You're only explaining how some later stories were added, while ignoring the original Jesus person to whom the later stories were added. I.e., there is this earlier "mythologizing" process which you have to explain.

As long as the basic healing miracle events in the original Mark account are left unexplained, as you are leaving them unexplained here by obsessing on the infancy narrative, then the best conclusion to draw is that those basic miracle events must have really happened. While some additional symbols could have been added to satisfy a demand for more, this demand for more makes no sense unless we have the original miracle figure who has drawn attention and produced the "fans" who are making this demand.

"Luke" spares us Matthew's drama and contradicts his birth narrative gratuitously, concentrating his efforts on consolidating the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist.

Sort of. But you're totally ignoring how it is that Matthew and Luke, who obviously don't think alike and had no contact with each other, converged on this single Jesus figure in Galilee and wanted to enlarge on him and make him into a god, each according to his concept of how this superhuman fits into history.

Since they were thinking differently from each other, why didn't they each pick a separate hero figure to use for their mythological hero or deity figure? Why did they both pick this same Galilean with the fishermen who traveled to Jerusalem and was killed there? Why didn't they each develop separate miracle worker tales taken from any number of Messiah characters who were floating around at the time?

The miracle pericopes that everyone hungered for were pretty much kept intact.

What? No, that's not what they hungered for, by your explanation earlier. You said: "The miracle pericopes gave Jesus various powers" and "'Mark' collected many of these anecdotes and provided an adoptionist story . . ." to which then Matthew added more, like the virgin birth.

So the "pericopes" were the original accounts in Mark that caused the "fans" to hunger for more. Then Matthew and Luke each provided some new material to satisfy that hunger for more, while the Mark "miracle pericopes" were the original subject matter that caused the hunger for the something more.

This original subject matter is what you're passing over -- the miracle accounts -- which caused the original extreme interest in the Jesus person and led to him being mythologized and made into a god or messiah. This mythologizing happened AFTER the miracle accounts ("pericopes") already existed. You have not explained where those earlier accounts came from, or how they evolved. Rather, you are just getting your jollies poking fun at the LATER additions or mythologizing that then took place in reaction to the original miracle stories which you cannot explain but are pretending that you have accounted for.

Pouncing on the virgin birth, or on the rising of the corpses which invaded Jerusalem (Mt. 27:52-53) and other symbols, circumvents the real question of how or why Jesus originally became this object of mythologizing. Your "Jesus Myth" scenario is not plausible until you present the basic elements that explain how this mythologizing originated in the first place.


_________________________________________________

Jesus had only 3 years (maybe only 1)

Using the synoptic gospels, the public career of Jesus ended with a Passover celebration, and no other Passover is mentioned, making it likely that there was this one Passover only during his public life. (The John Gospel is clearly less reliable for setting the chronology.) And he was arrested at a point shortly after the beheading of John the Baptist, and began his own public activity shortly after John was arrested.

The Josephus account of John has him being beheaded shortly after being arrested:

Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Machaerus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.
Antiquities 5:2:119

Of course you can speculate long time intervals, but the plain sense of this is that the execution was soon, not late, and likewise the N.T. passages about Jesus indicate a short interval from John's arrest to the appearance of Jesus in Galilee, and then shortly after this the death of John.

Where there is some consensus between the accounts, there's nothing to show any longer period than that of his preaching and miracle healings near the time of John's arrest and execution.

All accounts of anything outside this time frame are single accounts only, like the childhood stories. There are many of these, in the apocryphal gospels and not only Luke. There's virtually no agreement whatever between the various stories from different sources. It's obvious that all of them are only trying to satisfy a need people had for a complete biography of him going back to his birth. But none of these is confirmed but is each from one source only. Likewise Matthew 1-2 is completely alone, and totally unconnected to the Luke version.

All they have in common is the birth in Bethlehem, and this obviously comes from the popular belief that the Messiah would come from there, as indicated in Jn 7:41-43, which shows that the John author was unaware of the Bethlehem stories of Matthew and Luke and thought Jesus originated from Galilee.

So it's best to rely only on the common information from all the gospel accounts, or the 3 synoptics, and omit the various stories emerging in different places about Jesus before his public appearance in Galilee.

So the long career theory is not supported by anything except a befuddlement over how he could have come and gone so fast and still left such a miracle-worker reputation behind him and the founding of a new cult which grew so fast.

So the case for his public career being longer than 3 years is based only on the ideological premise that the time had to be longer in order to accommodate the fact of the extreme mythologizing that took place, which cannot be explained if his career was short. Whereas the short career is based on the factual evidence and not any ideological premise.



(to be continued)

 

[DBT]

Matthew and Luke, who obviously don't think alike and had no contact with each other, converged on this single Jesus figure in Galilee and wanted to enlarge on him and make him into a god, each according to his concept of how this superhuman fits into history.

The gospels of 'Matthew' and 'Luke' are most likely based partly on 'Mark' and partly on a collection of oral stories in circulation at the time. None it came out of a vacuum. The Gospels were not written in total isolation.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If the reasonable evidence for the Jesus miracles makes you unhappy, then just invent your own historical events.

(continued)

Since the stories already existed in one form or another for hundreds of years before the Jesus myth started . . .

There are virtually no parts of the "Jesus myth" that existed earlier. The gospel writers did not need to have any familiarity with pagan myths in order for them to write their account of Jesus.

Any similarity to earlier myths is so superficial that the real explanation, if we assume myth-making is at work, would be that people in different periods or cultures sometimes come up with similar myths. (Like the many different flood myths, which are so widespread that it's more reasonable to explain them as a result of similar experiences happening in different parts of the world, rather than as having been invented at only one place and then traveling as oral tradition to other places.)

A similar event, real or fictional, occurring at different times is not evidence that the later event was borrowed from the earlier, or dependent on the earlier. In either case we judge if the event is true by the respective evidence for it, not by any similarity to something similar to it from a different time or place.

You can cite virtually nothing from earlier pagan sources showing a causal connection to anything in the "Jesus myth" (except some silly nonsense like the date of December 25, etc., which no time should be wasted on). Again, you derive this notion mainly from modern Jesus-debunker promoters, not from a comparison of the gospel accounts to earlier pagan accounts. To make this comparison, you must do what you have not done yet: dig out those pagan accounts and quote the earlier text (not modern-day Jesus-debunkers paraphrasing or spinning the text for you) to show the similarity between these and the gospel accounts of the Jesus miracles acts.

And your continued reliance on your distortion of the 2nd-century Justin Martyr quote shows your inability to find the real evidence for this theory and indicates that there is no such evidence.

There's plenty of sources, available now, in the early literature before Christ, from which you should be able to find something to show the connection of the "Jesus myth" to the pagan myths. If you continue to not show any such source, then the only conclusion to draw is that they do not exist and that you're basing this entirely on the popular modern Jesus-debunker sensationalist mythicism fad.

. . . for hundreds of years before the Jesus myth started getting traction it's no surprise that the written versions of the story could "quickly" appropriate all those details . . .

"written versions" meaning the gospel accounts? What "details" did they appropriate? "earlier stories" for which there is no evidence? How do you know these stories had existed for "hundreds of years" and yet there's no evidence that they existed at all? So you take it on faith that these early pagan myths existed and which the "Jesus myth" appropriated but for which there is no written evidence?

You're demanding that this be accepted on faith, while you're ignoring the reality of a huge body of earlier sources which should contain something of these "written versions" -- there's no excuse for not producing these earlier written accounts to show the pagan myths from which the gospel writers were able to "appropriate" their "Jesus myth" details.

There has to be something from the period before the "Jesus myth" began in order for a reasonable person to believe these stories, the pagan origins, existed. There are stories in Ovid and Homer and Hesiod and others which provide us with much of the pagan myths. Where is the "Jesus myth" to be found in sources such as these?

Why doesn't anyone ever provide those original or early sources? Why do the mythicists keep drawing these parallels and saying that Jesus is found in earlier figures like Horus and Perseus but they never provide quotes from any early sources to show the parallels?


Earlier pagan god-men living similar lives to Jesus?

Forgeries: Some have suggested that ancient evidence of Pagan god-men living similar lives to Jesus prior to the first century CE is a gigantic hoax. Anti-Christian religious historians and archaeologists have simply created fictional sets of religious beliefs, promoted them as accurate representations of ancient religions, and have perpetrated a massive hoax. This also is unlikely. The original source material is still available for academics to check. Someone by now would have written a book exposing the hoax; it would have become a best-seller.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa1.htm

What is this saying?

"The original source material is still available for academics to check." ? ? ?

What "original source material"? Is this saying that only "academics" have access to this "source material"?

Ordinary people are not allowed to see the evidence? I e-mailed the above publication to ask them directions to the "source material." Here is the response:

from Bruce Robinson: The original source material would come from ancient times. A surprising amount has been recovered from ancient garbage dumps. Other material from ancient graves, and ancient manuscripts which somehow survived. You would need LOTS of money and LOTS of time to tour the major museums in the world to see this material.

Some theologians have used the original material directly or indirectly to write books for general use by the public. Links to two books are shown at the bottom of the essay that you cite.

Kersey Graves, "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors," Adventures Unlimited Press, Chapter 32, Page 279. (1875; Reprinted 2001)

Tom Harpur, "The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light," Walker Books; (2005)

You may be interested in a new essay that I have just finished writing at www.religioustolerance.org/why-is-christmas-on-december-25.htm It contains VERY brief descriptions of 15 Pagan deities whose birthdays were celebrated on DEC-25. It also explains why Jesus could not have been born on Christmas, and the probable Jewish lunar month during Autumn when he was born.

It talks about why the birth date of so many Pagan gods were believed to have been on December 25, and why Jesus' birthday is celebrated also on this day.

There is also an older essay comparing the lives of Jesus and Horus, an Egyptian God. www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5.htm

To this I inquired further:

So then, are you saying there is nothing published of the original sources, in English translation, available to common folk, to provide the accounts of the earlier Jesus-like pagan heroes?

Do you mean, e.g., that there is nothing in the Loeb Classical Library providing evidence of such pagan hero figures? Nothing from any documents that are published for the general public?

I.e., nothing from Plato or Pythagoras or Herodotus or Homer or Latin authors like Ovid or Cicero or Virgil and so on?

So all the original sources for the Jesus pagan parallels are documents not available?

(no response to the above so far)

Here's another excerpt from this website:

Authors Freke & Gandy have concluded that the original, main Christian movement was Gnostic Christianity. They kept their inner mysteries secret, revealing them only to those who have been initiated into their branch of the Christian faith. Some early non-Gnostic, "literalist" Christians were unaware of the inner mysteries of Gnosticism. They came to accept the Gnostic outer, public, mysteries and their myth of a god-man savior as an actual description of the historical Jesus. The literalist Christians, being ignorant of the inner mysteries, did not realize that the god-man story was only a legend about a mythical being. Decades later, literalist Christianity became the dominant movement. They oppressed and exterminated the Gnostics, their rituals, and their knowledge. A few Gnostics survived to the present day. The movement is currently experiencing rapid growth.

Where is the evidence for any of this, from any original sources? Where is there any document before 1000 AD suggesting suppression of gnostic writings by early Christian zealots? Where is this paranoia coming from? This coverup story is entirely a 20th-century fabrication. We are expected to blindly believe certain alleged experts who supposedly have access to the alleged evidence which is not available to ordinary people?

Again:

The original source material is still available for academics to check. Someone by now would have written a book exposing the hoax; it would have become a best-seller.

So we are supposed to believe this massive Christian conspiracy coverup story, without any real evidence, because those who have access to it can be trusted to expose the truth if it were not so, as they have assured us that this Christian coverup did happen. So if this evidence did not exist, someone would have written a book "exposing the hoax" about the coverup, and that book would have become a best-seller. And that's the proof that there was a massive coverup by Christians to suppress the gnostic beliefs? Other than this, there is no evidence of any such coverup.

So there are two conspiracy coverups that have happened: 1) The suppression of all the pre-Christian Jesus-like pagan heroes, who were the inspiration for the "Jesus myth" of the 1st century AD, and 2) The campaign of early Christians to suppress the gnostics and their mystical non-historical version of the Christ.

We're supposed to believe that both of these Christian coverups happened, though there is no evidence of either coverup having ever happened, because all the evidence proving the coverup is available only to some select mythicist scholars, and these must be telling the truth, about the pagan Jesus-like heroes and about the earliest Christians being gnostics, because if all this was not so, someone would have got rich publishing a book exposing all this as a hoax being perpetrated by these mythicists.

This is similar to the elephant joke: How come we're unable to ever see an elephant hiding in a cherry tree? answer: because elephants paint their toenails red when they hide in a cherry tree. The proof? You've never seen an elephant hiding in a cheery tree, have you? So it must be working.

Likewise, the Christian coverup of the origins of the "Jesus myth" must be working, right? See how they've erased all the evidence of it? No evidence -- that proves how effective the Christian coverup has been!

That's a great argument for a belief for which there is no evidence: the lack of evidence is caused by those on the other side who erased all the evidence. We have no evidence -- which just proves how effective the other side is at shredding the documents and suppressing the evidence!

And so we just have to believe certain wise scholars today who assure us that those pagan Jesus-like god-heroes did exist. They've provided us with some sanitized accounts, for popular consumption today, for the vulgar masses, but only they have access to the real evidence.


The original early source vs. commentary of 21st-century pundits

The unwashed masses cannot have access to the original sources?

How can these not be available in translation? If we can have Homer etc. today in modern translations, why can't we have the documents about the pagan Jesus-like heroes? (or the earliest Christ-believers who were really gnostics?) Is there not anything about those pagan heroes in the thousands of writings that have already been published in several modern languages? Were Plato and Homer and others also part of the massive coverup?

Why is the information about those pre-Jesus miracle god-men not found in any of the literature already available? why only in some inaccessible documents available only to certain select experts?

"Something stinks here!" --Detective Thorn, from the film "Soylent Green"

These claims about Jesus being a derivation from earlier pagan mythology are never accompanied by any quotes from the ancient sources. Until the promoters of these theories provide the original sources for this, the only reasonable conclusion is that they are distorting those original pagan symbols/beliefs to make them fit the Jesus figure in the gospel accounts.

Why do they never give the original accounts of the pagan myths from which Jesus emerged? You can't say the original sources do not exist. We do have accounts about the various gods. At the end of Ovid's Metamorphoses there is a story about Asclepius, the healing god, who is often compared to Jesus, and yet there's no similarity at all between this and Jesus the healer in the gospels.

Asclepius does not heal the sick who are brought to him. And he is already an enshrined god from 1000+ years earlier which is widely worshiped, or whose statue is worshiped, as a healing god.

Where is the healer who comes abruptly on the scene -- not a lifeless statue being carried in a parade -- as Jesus did sometime around 30 AD, out of the blue, with no prior status, no wide reputation, and starts healing people, and soon multitudes are coming to him, or being brought, to be healed? Where is the pagan hero who did something similar and upon which the "Jesus myth" healing miracles are based? The Jesus healings are not about worshipers praying at statues and shrines, which is all the Asclepius stories are about.

Where are those pagan myths/stories that produced Jesus in the 1st century AD? Let's see the text. There's plenty of real text, not just oral tradition. We have Homer -- is that where the evidence is?

Stop pussyfooting around and GIVE THE SOURCE!

(even though 30+ years is plenty of time for legend-building to run amok).

No, there's no known case where a miracle-worker legend developed in 30 years. Not from an original figure who had no already-established repute or status as an important celebrity.

The closest example of a short time gap between the reputed miracle event and the written report of it might be Vespasian, who is credited with a couple healing miracles. This legend was not written until about 50-60 years after the alleged event. However, even if the story was circulating earlier, it can be easily explained as the response to a very powerful emperor with popular appeal and vast reputation. This could lead to early mythologizing of the celebrity figure.

But you cannot name any case of such mythologizing of someone who was a non-celebrity of no recognized status, such as Jesus in 30 AD (unless he really did perform those miracle acts, in which case he might have become recognized that early).

Others have pointed out the extreme amount of disagreement over what (if anything) Jesus did as a human being, and the decision was made by the council of Nicea (circa 325 AD) to summarily pronounce all versions of the Jesus myth that didn't include an actual earthly life as heretical.

This is false. It was only Arianism that was condemned by the Council of Nicea. Arianism's teaching was of an earthly Jesus who was a physical person in history such as is presented in the 4 canonical gospels. There was no condemnation of the gnostic sects or their books by the Council of Nicea.

Books were burned, heretics were persecuted, competing religions were outlawed . . .

Not gnostics or any version of Christianity which taught a non-physical or non-historical Jesus. The only ones condemned were those who taught the same "gospel" of the historical physical Christ person who lived as a real human in Galilee-Judea at around 30 AD. They were condemned because of some hair-splitting doctrinal differences with the "orthodox" teaching but not for any teaching about a non-physical or non-historical Jesus. Ideas about a Christ with no body and only a spiritual existence were not a topic at the Council. There is nothing about such ideas addressed by the Council or the Nicene Creed.

The idea that Jesus was non-physical or non-historical is not an idea that existed in this early church period, except for the gnostic movement which pre-dates Christ and did not come from him. These were Platonist ideas already popular among various cults, and when Christ appeared in about 30 AD and suddenly aroused much attention, these cultists found a need to fit him into their mystical ontology of disembodied spirits or Platonic abstractions or purely spiritual beings with no bodily form.

Some theories had him to be an illusion of some kind, with only an apparent body, not a real or physical one. Many theories popped up, coming from different directions, not necessarily consistent with each other.

The important question to ask is: WHY did these various gnostics try to adopt Christ? What compelled them to do something so unnecessary to their philosophy, even contradictory to it?

The best answer is that they were impacted by the miracle acts of Jesus and felt compelled to adopt him as some kind of god. They recognized a good thing and wanted to get in on it. They wanted to attract the Christ believers to their ideas, and so they used Jesus as a mouthpiece to promote their mystical teachings. It's obvious that these gnostic ideas did not originate from the Christ person but were placed into his mouth, in the gnostic "gospels."

And no gnostic literature was destroyed by Christians trying to wipe out these ideas. No evidence of such a coverup exists.

. . . and the victors wrote the history books to hide their guilt.

And so the Gospels weren't really written until 325 AD? and they were really written by Constantine?

Sure they were, and the nose of the sphinx was really shot off by Napoleon with a cannonball. ( http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html ) You can make up all the silly stories you want and pretend it was covered up because those in power "shredded the documents" and rewrote the history books to hide their guilt. What nonsensical story could not be proved with this kind of argument? You could rewrite any part of history with such conspiracy theories.

We might just as well toss out all of recorded history and each of us fabricate our own "history" -- which must be true because all the evidence showing something different was just planted by a conspiracy of those in power, "the victors," who covered up the truth and cooked the books!

Say it all you want to. Scream it if it makes you feel better. But there is no evidence Jesus ever existed that is any better than the evidence that Santa Claus exists.

But St. Nicholas DID exist. He was a real person in history. And over 1000+ years he became mythologized into something much greater than the original historical figure. He was a bishop for 26 years:

Obeying Jesus' words to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor," Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/

Obviously he was distinguished by his generosity, having been born into wealth and making the choice to give it all away to the poor. And some of the early stories about him which were probably true led to later practices of hanging out stockings and gift-giving. So we can identify how this noteworthy real person became mythologized, over many centuries, into something superhuman.

And we have similar evidence that Jesus really existed and must have done something unusual or noteworthy. He could not have been an ordinary person anymore than the original St. Nicholas could have been ordinary. So, what was unordinary about the original Jesus Christ figure of about 30 AD?

Of course later legends emerged, but what did the original Jesus person himself do that was noteworthy? So far there's only one answer offered that distinguishes him from all the other prophets and teachers and messiahs: He performed the miracle acts we see in the gospel accounts, which were too early to be a result of mythologizing, unlike the Santa Claus crossing the sky which evolved out of centuries of story-telling but began from a real human who did something noteworthy.

The existence of people telling stories is not evidence of the truth of the stories.

Virtually all the historical record is based on "people telling stories" in the written documents that have come down. If you eliminate all these "stories" as not valid evidence, then there is virtually no history left.

It is interesting that all your arguments to disprove the gospel accounts of Jesus are also arguments for tossing out all historical accounts and eliminating all that we know of historical events.

Agenda-filled testimony is the worst evidence imaginable.

And generally it's the ONLY evidence.

All or most of the historical record for 1000 years ago and earlier is agenda-filled testimony. We rely on the ancient historians and epic poets for most of it, and all of them had their agenda: Herodotus, Livy, Cicero, Homer, Virgil, Polybius, Tacitus, Caesar, etc. -- each had an agenda, and yet we believe them generally and use their accounts to determine the truth of what happened.

And we never have 100% certainty, often only 51%.

Your demand for only the BEST evidence -- a time machine that can take us back and let us see and hear exactly what happened -- is not yet available. But even so, it's good for us to rely on the evidence we have, from witnesses who were tainted, from which we can figure out the truth.

 

[atrib]

That's true of all historical documents. I.e., "as far as we can tell, the stuff" in our history books never actually happened, because it's based only on documents that survived and no one has ever proved that what is written in the documents ever really happened. This is probably the best argument against the miracles of Jesus. And also against any other historical events.

This is a powerful argument for throwing out most of our known history, even 99% of it if we follow your rule strictly. So congratulations for coming up with a brilliant rationale for eliminating most of what is taught in our history books which "as far as we can tell never actually happened"!

In the historical record there is not a single example of a person rising up from the dead and flying up into the sky that is accepted as factual by modern historians. In fact, there is not a single instance of a supernatural event in the entire history of our species that is considered factual by modern historians. Your claim that historians routinely consider supernatural events to be credible based on mythology and folklore is based upon a falsehood, as has been pointed out to you numerous times in this thread.

Yes, by your rationale for throwing out most or all of our recorded history, it may not matter when a document was written, since you throw all of them out, whether it's Caesar writing about himself, or it's Shakespeare writing about him 1500 years later. When all of it has to be thrown out anyway, early or late, because "the stuff never actually happened" either way, then of course it becomes pointless to quibble over how early or late the document was written.

Name one supernatural event performed by Caesar that is considered credible. Just one. You can't, because there aren't any.

You should win a Nobel Prize for these insights and for your "real and tangible evidence" which debunks the "baseless assertions" of all those historians who think "the stuff" they teach really happened.

We know people don't rise up from the dead and fly up into the sky. Any assertion regarding this event being factual can be dismissed without further consideration.

But your scenario has to explain how Jesus came to be deified, which you fail to do. You don't distinguish him from the 99.9999% of the population who are not mythologized or made into a god.

The Buddha was deified because he taught for at least 40 years and impressed thousands of disciples over that time period with his charisma. And we can explain in every case why a teacher was made into a god by his followers. Usually charisma and a long teaching career are part of the explanation, and probably also some new or radical teaching that made an impact on the hearers.

Please explain how Ganesha, the elephant headed god found in Hindu religious tradition, come to be deified in a population of about 1 billion Hindus? Do you believe that Ganesha actually existed and led a long public life announcing his presence to the people of ancient India?

All the evidence places Jesus in the period of about 30 AD, in the time of Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas and John the Baptist. There is more evidence for placing him in this time frame than there is for placing most events in their respective time frame, that far back in history. If you exclude the evidence of the available written documents, then you must exclude most historical events.

What is the evidence for Jesus performing supernatural acts? What is the evidence that Jesus rose up from the dead and flew up into the sky? Why are you unwilling to answer this question?

 

[Atheos]

That's true of all historical documents. I.e., "as far as we can tell, the stuff" in our history books never actually happened, because it's based only on documents that survived and no one has ever proved that what is written in the documents ever really happened. This is probably the best argument against the miracles of Jesus. And also against any other historical events.

No, this is completely incorrect. A tremendous amount of the historical documentation we have is accompanied by artifacts and other types of evidence that give corroboration. Still yet historians are eclectic about what they accept when it comes to blindly accepting written documentation. As an example there is an ancient document, the Sumerian King List, which blends fantastic claims with verifiable history. It is a classic example of the way real historical analysis is performed.

This list of kings starts with several individuals who allegedly lived for tens of thousands of years. Responsible historians recognize that while these kings may have actually existed they did not live these incredible life spans. It is generally believed that they probably never existed, but were added to the list to make it more impressive.

Due to the very presence of these extraordinary claims sensible historians are skeptical about many names on this list that cannot be "archaeologically verified." That's right, rational historical analysis does not merely accept an extraordinary claim simply because it is written down. There are no less than 7 existing (and independent) fragments containing portions of the Sumerian King List. The existence of these independent attestations to the extraordinary lifespans of the early kings does nothing to make rational historians more likely to accept the lifespans or the actual existence of these kings to be anything other than fabrications. If further archaeological evidence is discovered that confirms the existence of some of these earlier kings, historians will gladly accede that such kings existed. Until then their very existence is doubted.

That's how it works. Period.

When we read ancient stories about a magic Jew who did impossible things and then levitated off into the sky never to be seen again, absent any actual archaeological corroboration of the story we're left with a myth. It could be the dude existed and wowed people with magic tricks, it could be that the dude existed and wowed people with charisma only to be mythologized later and it could be that the dude never existed as such and was completely fictitious like Paul Bunyan.

There are virtually no parts of the "Jesus myth" that existed earlier. The gospel writers did not need to have any familiarity with pagan myths in order for them to write their account of Jesus.

Any similarity to earlier myths is so superficial that the real explanation, if we assume myth-making is at work, would be that people in different periods or cultures sometimes come up with similar myths. (Like the many different flood myths, which are so widespread that it's more reasonable to explain them as a result of similar experiences happening in different parts of the world, rather than as having been invented at only one place and then traveling as oral tradition to other places.)

Sure. That's why Justin Martyr, Christian Apologist of the early 2nd century wrote...

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound NOTHING DIFFERENT from WHAT YOU BELIEVE regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know.

When I referred to "parts of the story that already existed" I was referring to ancient god-myths about miraculous acts, such as healing sick people, raising dead people, taking small amounts of food and making them go a long way, walking on water, controlling weather, even levitation. These are all elements of ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman mythology. Hell, for that matter they are all part of the Jewish mythology that would have been most familiar to the earliest adherents to primitive Christianity. If you are truly so unwilling to find this truth for yourself that it is necessary for me to spoon-feed it to you you can kiss my ass. It's out there, it's in abundance and I am not going to waste my time bringing it here just so you can ignore it and keep preaching.

Sort of. But you're totally ignoring how it is that Matthew and Luke, who obviously don't think alike and had no contact with each other, converged on this single Jesus figure in Galilee and wanted to enlarge on him and make him into a god, each according to his concept of how this superhuman fits into history.

This is a complete falsehood. Or perhaps you can prove that the people who wrote "Matthew" and "Luke" don't think alike and that they had no contact with each other. The writers of these books are completely anonymous. For all we know they could have been brothers who wrote their versions of the tale differently due to artistic differences. To make any other absolute statement about these individuals is to fabricate.

Other than that I'll leave it be. You continue to ignore the very well reasoned and devastating arguments that have completely nuked the pitiful canards you keep parroting in this thread. Those of us with an interest in truth will continue to expose these things for the incorrect statements they are.

 

[DBT]

Could probably get the memorial started with a small investment, maybe as little as 30 pieces of silver.

The Potters field is going cheap, I hear. Only 30 pieces of silver, including a tree in the middle.

 

[funinspace]

The little Lumpy that could still has 30 days left to get thru 2 more posts (ignoring one that is purely humor) and respond to something from 2015 before 2016 arrives

 

[Keith&Co.]

so, i'm reading The Ugly Renaissance, and it made me think of Lumpy.

At one point, the author is recounting the claims of several Florentine writers bragging about how wonderful and perfect life in Florence is at their time.
One mentioned that 10,000 children were learning to read and write in various schools. That's an impressive part of the population, and historians suspect more than a little hyperbole. There are parts of the world today where that level of literacy would be a major accomplishment.

Anyway, Lumpy would have it that we're either allowed to accept the writer's claims at face value, because he's writing about contemporary events, without the time delay for any sort of mythmaking of some golden age of Florence. Or, according to Lumpy, we have to toss out all the accounts completely because we can't trust any history handed down.

But actual historians looking into the matter have discovered that at the time of the 10,000 student claim, about 70% of the citizens were literate enough to fill out their own tax forms.

So while we cannot just accept the student claim at face value, we can accept the general claim that people in Florence they loved them some literacy. So certainly a whole LOT of kids were likely in classes at the time, giving us a better picture of life and the priorities of the city.

Of course, this is just a claim of literacy. There have been literate people among the populace for, oh, oodles of decades going back into history. And yet historians are hesitant to accept the claim about something that's feasible and, these days, far more common.
Which explains a lot about how hesitant actual historians are to accept claims of miracles on the word of contemporaries. Or descendants. Or anonymous reporters of unknown distance from the events...

 

[Atheos]

Another aspect to all this that keeps getting lost in the walls of text he erects is the fact that even "eyewitness reports" are suspect if they include unlikely and uncorroborated claims. People lie. People lie a lot and one thing that motivates people to do so is the attention they get from their claims. Get a church full of pentecostials together and you're gonna have yourself some lying. From glossolalia to getting slain in the spirit those folks get into the "spirit" and begin tripping over each other in their haste to demonstrate their piety through some act of the spirit. All for show.

I know. I've been there.

There are nearly limitless motivations for folks to have made up and (over time) enhanced the stories about this magic Jew. There is absolutely not one whit of corroboration for any of the extraordinary claims made about things he did. Not one.

Only anonymous stories handed down and re-warmed as the movement grew.