that you are making shit up
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120 Reasons to Reject Christianity
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Keith&Co.
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But in the context of Lumpy's assertions, his 'evidence' is the theory that eyewitnesses passed dependable tales of the miracles by oral tradition, across a couple of generations, until someone wrote down what he'd heard. Which would make Lumpy's use of the term 'evidence' less accurate than 'hearsay testimony documenting the receipt of hearsay testimony of eyewitness testimony of a miracle.'
Atheos
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And this is every bit as reasonable as "Christmas toys for the rest of my life is a possibility, based on the evidence of Santa's power, and I hope it's so."
Please explain the difference if any exists.
Keith&Co.
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He already did explain the difference.
Namely, "We're not talking about Santa."
So there.
No. You mean you can provide actual witnesses?
no, more along the line "can you prove any of it was hearsay".
Easy: there are no witnesses.
witnesses to what?
Atheos
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Seriously?!?
The stories of Jesus follow the textbook definition of "hearsay." It is information received from other people that nobody can substantiate.
We don't know who originally told these stories.
We don't know who wrote them down in their earliest written forms.
We have no artifacts, corroborative narratives from otherwise disinterested parties or any other evidence that would substantiate any of it actually happened.
Pray tell, none, what would have to change for it to be hearsay?
The stories of Jesus follow the textbook definition of "hearsay." It is information received from other people that nobody can substantiate.
We don't know who originally told these stories.
We don't know who wrote them down in their earliest written forms.
We have no artifacts, corroborative narratives from otherwise disinterested parties or any other evidence that would substantiate any of it actually happened.
Pray tell, none, what would have to change for it to be hearsay?
Perspicuo
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Reason #N:
No human goes to heaven or hell.
If humans have free will, which is the ability to freely choose,
and if heaven and hell are eternal,
One would think people in hell may freely want to repent or those in heaven wank or kiss a virgin in the lips (yeah, those lips or the ones down there!)... then that would mean someone in heaven is impure, and someone in hell just freely decided to be righteous.
Now, an eternity is a long time, an inimaginably long time. There is no way a free spirit will stay unmoveable forever and ever.
No actual human goes to heaven or hell.
No human goes to heaven or hell.
If humans have free will, which is the ability to freely choose,
and if heaven and hell are eternal,
One would think people in hell may freely want to repent or those in heaven wank or kiss a virgin in the lips (yeah, those lips or the ones down there!)... then that would mean someone in heaven is impure, and someone in hell just freely decided to be righteous.
Now, an eternity is a long time, an inimaginably long time. There is no way a free spirit will stay unmoveable forever and ever.
No actual human goes to heaven or hell.
I was getting at there is no evidence that the stories didn't originate before they were recorded in scripture.
that scripture didn't record hearsay it was the origin of the hearsay.
Atheos
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I dig what you're saying but IMO it's a distinction without a difference. Hearsay can be written information just as well as oral, in spite of what the components of the word imply.
Keith&Co.
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No, none's not disputing written vs. oral.
He's saying the author of godspell Mark may have been the original source of the gospel. That there's no evidence it was conveyed to him by a source closer to the origination of the godspell.
A fictionater rather than a recorder of cherished fictions.
Atheos
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Well we do have the authentic Pauline epistles which probably predate GMark. These are evidence that the character was not likely invented by the writer of GMark. On the other hand the epistles say nothing about an earthly ministry or time period in which the character might have lived. So one might indeed make a case that the life story of the Jesus character may have been invented by whoever wrote GMark.
But once again, what's the difference? It's still information that comes from someone else (whoever wrote GMark) that cannot be substantiated. That's pretty much the definition of hearsay as I understand the term.
But once again, what's the difference? It's still information that comes from someone else (whoever wrote GMark) that cannot be substantiated. That's pretty much the definition of hearsay as I understand the term.
Perspicuo
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Not even hearsay. Since the writer cannot be identified, it's more like hearing a whisper in a dark alley.
Atheos
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Oh how the mighty has fallen. Crumbling from "Unimpeachable Eyewitness Testimony" to "Not even rising to the level of hearsay" under the force of nothing more powerful than a cursory glance.
Atheos
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Putting it into perspective
Hypothetical - A Parable:
And that's exactly what the 4 canonical gospels are. They appeared anonymously, strung out over dates analogous to those in my parable. Around 30 years after the last of them appeared a guy named Papias attributed one of the books to Mark, claiming that Mark heard it from Peter (a claim for which Papias is the only source), and Papias also claimed that Matthew wrote the "sayings" of Jesus down. The canonical gospel Matthew is not a "sayings" gospel (but the gospel of Thomas is), and Papias also claimed that Matthew wrote these words in Hebrew. The earliest extant copies of what is called "Matthew" today are in Koine Greek. These two facts make it nearly certain that GMatt is not the book Papias was talking about even if one believed Papias to be an unimpeachable source of information.
About 30 years later, Eusebius made the claim that he'd heard Papias claim that the other two books were written by Luke and John.
So along comes someone like Lumpenproletariat. He argues that the document that appeared in 1913 appeared too soon after 1873 for it to have been faked. And the existence of three other documents that talk in general terms about the same thing are sufficient evidence that Hank did, indeed, predict the Titanic disaster.
When we put it into actual years we can relate to I think it helps demonstrate just how pitiful this line of reasoning is. Hank predicting the Titanic disaster 30 years before the fact would be an absolutely extraordinary thing, for which any reasonable person would demand extraordinary evidence that it had actually happened rather than just some anonymous document (or several) that didn't appear for several decades after the alleged events in question. But even so it remains possible that one could make such a prediction and get lucky. Jesus walking on water, turning water into wine, healing blindness/paralysis/etc., raising dead people and levitating off into the sky would have been much more extraordinary. Adding more extraordinary claims does not diminish the need for extraordinary corroboration, it amplifies it. Yet not even one scrap of even the most mundane evidence that this person ever existed cannot be found. Only anonymous stories that could easily have been authored by human beings who weren't even so creative as to invent their own miracles to include but instead plagiarized the miracles of older stories. It's sad, really.
And that, my friends, is it. That's the entire case upon which strongly held christian tradition often sells the blatant untruth that these are "Four eyewitness accounts, much more than would be necessary to establish certainty in a court of law." I've heard many preachers make this very claim. I used to make it myself when I was a preacher who was just taking other people's word for it. I know better now.
But these little known musty facts, buried deep in the history books are anathema to those who continue to profit from selling Christianity. It is my belief that the Internet, with its unprecedented penchant for connecting people with the information necessary to learn for themselves the truth behind many of these claims, will continue to help people throw off the yoke of these absurd beliefs, just as it did for me.
Hypothetical - A Parable:
In 1913 an anonymous document appears. This document says that about 5 years after the conclusion of the Civil War a man named Hank stood for three years openly in the streets of Atlanta Georgia. He told everyone who would listen that in 1912 a great ocean liner named Titanic would sink during its maiden voyage from England to the United States, resulting in the deaths of over 1500 people. For a few months many people believed him and it caused a great stir. But then interest faded away and he died.
In 1918 another anonymous document appears, telling most of the same things, but shifting the locale to Augusta, Georgia, and instead of dying he was committed to an unnamed insane asylum where he still lived.
In 1923 yet another anonymous document appears, giving many of the same details but also telling about a few other oddball predictions Hank had made in his youth that had come true.
In 1933 a fourth document appears, once again from an anonymous source. This document talks of Hank in symbolic terms, equating his activities with spiritual connections. The prediction of the Titanic is also included but obvious contradictions between this tale and any of the other three are abundant.
In 1963 a guy named Pete who makes no secret of the fact that he's a big fan of Hank, starts claiming that the first of these four documents was written by none other than James G Woodward, the Mayor of Atlanta, and that the second document was written by Georgia Governor John Stanton. Pete has no evidence tying these documents to these well known individuals, and they and all their staff are dead now, so there's nobody to argue the point. But Pete's followers welcome the opportunity to put names on the documents they've come to accept and uncritically agree that Pete knows what he's talking about. Those first two documents were written by important people who were in positions to know about these events that had happened around 90 years ago.
Move forward to 1993 and a guy named Ernie shows up who says that when he was young Pete (who is now dead) also told him that the other two documents were written by Secretaries of State David G. Cotting and Nathan Barnett, who served around the time of the events in question.
A great movement begins in which adherents of the story of Hank search in vain for any evidence of the vast throngs of people in either Atlanta or Augusta who heard Hank's words. Copies of newspapers are poured over. Countless letters are hand-read, trying to find that one piece of evidence that demonstrates that someone who lived between 1870 and 1873 was aware of Hank and the great interest he had attracted for awhile. But nothing is ever found. Just these anonymous documents.
In 1918 another anonymous document appears, telling most of the same things, but shifting the locale to Augusta, Georgia, and instead of dying he was committed to an unnamed insane asylum where he still lived.
In 1923 yet another anonymous document appears, giving many of the same details but also telling about a few other oddball predictions Hank had made in his youth that had come true.
In 1933 a fourth document appears, once again from an anonymous source. This document talks of Hank in symbolic terms, equating his activities with spiritual connections. The prediction of the Titanic is also included but obvious contradictions between this tale and any of the other three are abundant.
In 1963 a guy named Pete who makes no secret of the fact that he's a big fan of Hank, starts claiming that the first of these four documents was written by none other than James G Woodward, the Mayor of Atlanta, and that the second document was written by Georgia Governor John Stanton. Pete has no evidence tying these documents to these well known individuals, and they and all their staff are dead now, so there's nobody to argue the point. But Pete's followers welcome the opportunity to put names on the documents they've come to accept and uncritically agree that Pete knows what he's talking about. Those first two documents were written by important people who were in positions to know about these events that had happened around 90 years ago.
Move forward to 1993 and a guy named Ernie shows up who says that when he was young Pete (who is now dead) also told him that the other two documents were written by Secretaries of State David G. Cotting and Nathan Barnett, who served around the time of the events in question.
A great movement begins in which adherents of the story of Hank search in vain for any evidence of the vast throngs of people in either Atlanta or Augusta who heard Hank's words. Copies of newspapers are poured over. Countless letters are hand-read, trying to find that one piece of evidence that demonstrates that someone who lived between 1870 and 1873 was aware of Hank and the great interest he had attracted for awhile. But nothing is ever found. Just these anonymous documents.
And that's exactly what the 4 canonical gospels are. They appeared anonymously, strung out over dates analogous to those in my parable. Around 30 years after the last of them appeared a guy named Papias attributed one of the books to Mark, claiming that Mark heard it from Peter (a claim for which Papias is the only source), and Papias also claimed that Matthew wrote the "sayings" of Jesus down. The canonical gospel Matthew is not a "sayings" gospel (but the gospel of Thomas is), and Papias also claimed that Matthew wrote these words in Hebrew. The earliest extant copies of what is called "Matthew" today are in Koine Greek. These two facts make it nearly certain that GMatt is not the book Papias was talking about even if one believed Papias to be an unimpeachable source of information.
About 30 years later, Eusebius made the claim that he'd heard Papias claim that the other two books were written by Luke and John.
So along comes someone like Lumpenproletariat. He argues that the document that appeared in 1913 appeared too soon after 1873 for it to have been faked. And the existence of three other documents that talk in general terms about the same thing are sufficient evidence that Hank did, indeed, predict the Titanic disaster.
When we put it into actual years we can relate to I think it helps demonstrate just how pitiful this line of reasoning is. Hank predicting the Titanic disaster 30 years before the fact would be an absolutely extraordinary thing, for which any reasonable person would demand extraordinary evidence that it had actually happened rather than just some anonymous document (or several) that didn't appear for several decades after the alleged events in question. But even so it remains possible that one could make such a prediction and get lucky. Jesus walking on water, turning water into wine, healing blindness/paralysis/etc., raising dead people and levitating off into the sky would have been much more extraordinary. Adding more extraordinary claims does not diminish the need for extraordinary corroboration, it amplifies it. Yet not even one scrap of even the most mundane evidence that this person ever existed cannot be found. Only anonymous stories that could easily have been authored by human beings who weren't even so creative as to invent their own miracles to include but instead plagiarized the miracles of older stories. It's sad, really.
And that, my friends, is it. That's the entire case upon which strongly held christian tradition often sells the blatant untruth that these are "Four eyewitness accounts, much more than would be necessary to establish certainty in a court of law." I've heard many preachers make this very claim. I used to make it myself when I was a preacher who was just taking other people's word for it. I know better now.
But these little known musty facts, buried deep in the history books are anathema to those who continue to profit from selling Christianity. It is my belief that the Internet, with its unprecedented penchant for connecting people with the information necessary to learn for themselves the truth behind many of these claims, will continue to help people throw off the yoke of these absurd beliefs, just as it did for me.
Can'tRepJustQuoting
Lumpenproletariat
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How to succeed at myth-making without really trying
That's close, but not quite correct. The question is: Why would so many believe if there were no evidence that it is so? It's because the evidence was so apparent that so many believed. They knew this had to be something more serious than any traditional religious cult figure or mythic hero.
It is not true that anyone can create an instant mythic hero. But the reports of the miracles of Jesus were so persuasive that people were convinced. You can't name any similar case where a fictional hero or deity or savior figure gained a following so quickly.
What makes an instant hero possible is that the real person actually exists, i.e., someone who really does perform something extraordinary, and this creates the original figure to which myths can then be added. Or, additional characteristics, fictional ones, may be added to the original unusual figure. But you have to start out with a real person who really did have some extremely unique features.
You can't just invent such a figure artificially, as a fictional entity, and get large numbers of people to believe in him in a short time period. There is no example of such a thing.
The only possible exceptions are someone who was famous before he died, such as a very powerful figure, or a sage who taught for 30 or 40 years or longer and was able to amass a reputation during that long period of teaching and impressing his disciples. Figures like this might become mythologized earlier, but they at least had to have a long public career.
So, except for these cases of famous public figures, you cannot create an instant hero myth such as the case of Jesus. But if your hero really did perform miracle acts, then he might emerge as an instant mythic hero. And only then the mythologizing begins.
We're talking about miracle-working mythic heroes, not just any teacher. And these examples you give here were people who had long careers. They were not instant mythic heroes. People were won over to them partly because of their charisma, but also because they had time to amass a following, over decades of teaching. But Jesus had only 3 years at most, and that is not enough time for a charismatic teacher to amass a large following.
So any explanation as to how these persons were believed or won a following tells us nothing about how Jesus accomplished it, in such a shorter time period.
No, "this sort of phenomenon" is not the same as the 1st-century Jesus phenomenon. You have to find a phenomenon that is similar to the Jesus phenomenon in order to make a comparison and explain how the Jesus figure became deified in such a short time.
In addition to happening in a short time period, there must be several sources which attest to the miracle acts he performed, not only one, and it cannot be a result of a long career of teaching and winning disciples.
But only over a long time period, at least a long career of teaching, and usually longer than the lifetime of the charismatic. Also, it's not about winning the followers over to a set of doctrines, but getting them to believe that the charismatic performed miracle acts. It's not true that people generally believe in miracle acts if there's no evidence for them or if there's no long tradition of miracle stories attached to the mythic hero.
All the examples of miracle heroes you can name are ones who had a long tradition of miracle stories attached to them, and usually long after the hero's actual lifetime, even centuries. You can't win hundreds of followers over to a miracle-worker for whom there is no evidence or long career, or who has no long tradition of miracle stories amassed over many generations.
Why? Why did he appropriate this? What was there about this Jesus myth that he would pay any attention to it? And why would anyone listen to this Paul fanatic ranting and raving about some mythic hero that he invented, or that someone else invented, who did nothing and was a nobody, which he was if he performed no miracle acts?
Without explaining why Paul chose this mythic figure, your scenario doesn't answer the critical questions. Without an answer why he chose the Jesus myth, your scenario is not consistent with the evidence and fails to explain how the Jesus myth became popular, and it's less plausible than the explanation that Jesus must have performed miracle acts, because this explanation does answer these questions which your invented Jesus scenario does not answer.
You can't just say Paul's Jesus myth caught on and he won followers to it. That answers nothing. You yourself could invent a mythic hero right now and go out and market it, and there's just as much likelihood that you'd win a following for your new cult as there's any reason to believe Paul could win a following with his myth. You've said nothing about what made Paul's new cult successful. Or even what made Paul choose Jesus as his symbol to launch his cult.
Not by choosing a nobody for his mythic hero. A cult leader has to have a tradition or a set of heroes or gods that have some recognition. A cult leader cannot simply invent his own mythic hero and expect to gain any power or lead any cult. Where will he get followers for a cult that offers to the followers some new invented imaginary fictional character the followers never heard of or give any credibility to?
But an imaginary figure that no one related to. No one recognized this hero for anything of value. How can Paul foist this imaginary figure onto anyone or gain any followers for him? People don't just willy-nilly join without asking any questions. It's not true that people just swallow any garbage a charismatic hands to them. You can't name one who succeeded by offering followers some imaginary figure he invented himself and claimed exclusive private revelations from.
None of the charismatics you listed above did this. All of them started with a traditional belief system centered on some god or gods that were already recognized, not on some fictional character they invented. The swami gave them Krishna -- and you can go down the list -- they all offered the followers a deity that already existed or was already recognized or had a tradition of beliefs as the starting point. Jesus was not such a recognized figure that Paul could start with. (Unless he had a reputation for performing miracles.)
OK, but you need more than an attractive common theme. You must have a hero figure that is recognized, so there is some credibility to your sacrificial hero narrative. You can't win followers to a nobody mythic hero you invented yourself.
If such a cult was so easy to create and foist as a hoax, there should be many of these mythic heroes for whom we would have miracle reports, not only one. It makes no sense to say that only one such miracle mythic hero legend could emerge to meet the need. Anyone could invent their myth and launch such a cult, and there should be thousands of them if that were so.
This is why your scenario is ludicrous. No one would fall for this. You can't name any other example from history of a hero myth getting started this way, i.e., where one charismatic figure claims to have private revelation about a mythic hero no one recognizes, who has no history, no recognized existence, no tradition -- nothing but the private claims of one weird fanatic with alleged visions that no one else has access to.
You're wrong -- people do NOT fall for such rubbish. Name one example where they did. Name a case in history where a new cult got started this way. People want a hero figure who they have some knowledge of, or that is verified by some existing sources and not just one person making it all up or imagining it by himself privately.
People are not as stupid as you're implying they are. Name an example where any number of people got conned this way.
Reverand Moon claimed to be Jesus Christ. He did NOT make up a new messiah figure of his own but fell back on traditional religious beliefs and then added his own new twist on it. But a new cult leader cannot just invent some new imaginary figure he claims to have a revelation from and expect to accumulate a following. There is no such thing. Your scenario is just as fictional as the mythic heroes that never existed.
Yes, over many generations or centuries you might get some followers for something new or for a new invented hero myth. But not in only 10 or 20 years, as Paul did.
Little or nothing of the above is mentioned in the Book of Acts either. Yet the writer of Acts obviously knew of them. It is typical of the early Christian writers to ignore the biographical details of Jesus and focus only on the Risen Christ figure and on theology that is not in the gospel accounts. It was typical to ignore these biographical details even though they were aware of them.
Paul mentions the resurrection appearances and the "Lord's Supper" scene and the handing over of Jesus to the authorities. This shows knowledge of the manner of the arrest. It clearly shows that Paul knew that someone among the disciples handed Jesus over, so that it was not just a surprise arrest without the cooperation of at least one of the disciples. This is a detail that is not prominent, or is mentioned in passing, but it shows that Paul was aware of this event and probably much other detail that he didn't mention.
He mentions that Jesus and James were brothers, which is also noted in Josephus. Whether they were really brothers are not, this detail is mentioned in these two sources, and there is no point to it that serves any visionary purpose for Paul, so he must have intended it to mean that they really were genetic brothers, which is not possible unless Jesus was a real person. The Josephus reference also supports this. The mention makes no sense if Jesus was not an historical person.
The only way Paul's Jesus could be sold by him was if his audience already knew of the biographical details of Jesus. There is no basis for claiming that Paul sold his audience a "Jesus" who was his own invention that he was introducing for the first time based only on his private revelations. His avoidance of biographical detail was possible only because his audience already had that information, and he wanted to work from that as a basis or a starting point upon which to build his own christology, or his own explanation of the Jesus figure they already knew about.
Almost everything. But not the above points: the last supper scene, the handing over of Jesus to the authorities, and Jesus and James being brothers. This theory of a non-physical Jesus is not tenable if there is even only one point in Paul that contradicts it. We can easily understand how Paul would avoid the biographical details of Jesus. He wanted his audience to believe he had private revelation. They would accept that, but only if he had a real historical figure or mythic hero they already recognized to serve as the object of his revelations.
The fact that Paul found a receptive audience proves that Jesus must have had a reputation for something very unusual or unique, so that his listeners would respond to Paul favorably. But if he had just invented his own myth based entirely on private revelation, as you're suggesting, they would have dismissed Paul as a wacko.
How could Paul speak of "the night when Jesus was handed over" or say Jesus had a brother James, a known historical person, if his Jesus existed only in a spiritual realm apart from the physical world? Without answering this, your scenario is not plausible.
It's plausible to take an already-existing recognized figure and then build upon it and invent new elements, or interpret the old ones in a new way, and even play down the earlier-recognized elements in order to add one's new symbols or interpretations. But it is not plausible to create a totally new mythic figure of one's own making and expect an audience to believe it.
I.e., almost the only thing.
But the only reason Paul could sell his Jesus was that he wrote about an already-existing resurrected Jesus. He did not invent Jesus and the death and resurrection and offer this fiction to an audience who had never before heard of such a person. His readers and listeners already knew of the Jesus who did miracles and rose from the grave. It's only because they were already familiar with this figure that they were receptive to Paul's preaching and writings. Otherwise Paul would have been laughed off the stage.
It was less than 40 years. The Q document is dated around 50 AD, and it contains two miracle narratives, and at least one clear non-narrative reference to the miracles of Jesus.
But aside from your false chronology, your scenario offers no explanation how his product would become popular. There was nothing to this product if your scenario is correct. It was all Paul's imagination, his own private revelation. Unless you assume all the people back then were idiots, you can give no reason why this product would become popular, why they would slurp down this snake-oil Paul was peddling. There was nothing attractive about it that anyone would buy it. There was never before, and has never been since, any such product as this that ever became popular. It takes generations and even centuries for a mythic hero to evolve, not only 20 or 30 years.
Even if it's possible for a charismatic figure to amass a following over many years and they start mythologizing him during his lifetime, there is no case of a charismatic getting followers to mythologize someone else he invented and having no previous status of any kind.
Name one that popped up in a short time and from nothing. No one builds a cult and recruits followers for a mythic hero he invented and that had no basis in earlier tradition. You can't start out from a nothing, which is what you're saying Paul did. He had nothing at the beginning of his enterprise except his mouth and some private revelations.
If it was this easy to start a new cult that would be widely received and become popular, then we should see many more messiah figures like Jesus, for which there are multiple sources near to the time the mythic figure was created.
At least some of the miracle stories of Jesus already existed in the 50s. How did Paul get people to believe in these miracles? Since he did not preach the miracles himself, who did? How did Paul get them to believe in a hero who would have miracle stories about him being circulated in the 50s and yet Paul did not teach such stories himself?
Details were being added long before the 40 years you imagine. The Q Document definitely puts Jesus in Galilee, in Capernaum, naming the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. It reports an encounter between Jesus and some disciples of John the Baptist when the latter was in prison. This clearly puts Jesus in Galilee, or somewhere near the area ruled by Herod Antipas, so he has a geographical location, which is possible only about a physical person, not an imaginary invention of Paul who gave him no biographical details. These details were current at about the same time that Paul was writing.
So don't say "over the 40 years or so" -- no, it was at about the same time Paul was writing his epistles that the new biographical details were being added.
You'll have to find something beyond the Bethlehem and virgin birth stories to prop up your scenario. Just because some legends like these got added later does not change the fact that there had to be some real events to begin with that made Jesus an important figure to which mythological symbols could become attached.
Another historical figure who acquired a virgin birth origin was Alexander the Great. And you think this must make Alexander orignally a fictional non-historical figure? You can't just write off every famous person who is said to have been virgin-born. There's a long list of such real historical figures, including Pythagorus, and there are many others. It doesn't mean they started out as a myth someone concocted in order to sell their new cult.
All these legendary figures, if they were real people, lived many centuries or even 1000+ years prior to the stories about them emerged. So in their case we know the stories had centuries of time in which to evolve.
No miracle stories like these evolve in a short time out of a nobody who did nothing noteworthy. You cannot name any other example in history of this happening. Naming all these earlier mythologies that are so dissimilar to the Jesus example proves nothing. They are dissimilar because they required 1000+ years to evolve, while the Jesus legend arose within 30 years.
It is possible that some fictions could become attached to Jesus in a short time, but ONLY IF there is first a real historical person who had some recognized status due to something significant and real that he did. With something real as a starting point, something that makes him stand out uniquely from everyone else and brings recognition, it is then possible that a mythologizing process can begin. But not from a nobody who is a mythic invention of someone's private revelations and nothing more.
But you're hallucinating these myth-marketers. They did not exist. You cannot give any plausible explanation who they were and what profit they had to gain from creating this myth out of nothing.
If myths are this easy to invent and market successfully, then we should see dozens, or even hundreds of Jesus-like mythic heroes emerging in history, all who were non-existent and yet became popularized within 50 years or less in documents circulating from writers who joined the cults that created these mythic figures. Yet there's absolutely no other examples of such mythical hero figures evolving like this Jesus myth evolved, in a short time, and for whom we have multiple sources.
How did this one clique of myth-makers succeed in foisting this hoax onto the world and no others succeeded? Where are the others? You've not named any. All you can name are ancient god-myths that had been around for centuries or even thousands of years before any sources about them existed.
But why are they promoting this inferior product in the first place? Why are you pretending someone else would do such a thing as this which you know you never would do and that no one else has ever done? How can you pretend there were idiots out there doing something insane like this, trying to sell a phony product that had no reality and that only an idiot would buy? You're making a singular case out of this one legendary figure, this Jesus figure, and creating a yarn to explain it, and yet there's no similar explanation for anything else that ever happened. Nothing like what you're imagining here has ever happened any other time in history. Name another example of it. There is none.
All mythological figures required generations or centuries to evolve, not only 20 or 30 years, and all mythologizing that anyone ever plotted as a marketing strategy was done on an already-existing recognized public figure or traditional hero figure already having some status, not on a new invented fictional figure. You cannot name one other example of such a phenomenon as you're hallucinating in this one singular case.
No it's not. None of the legends you named worked this way. All the mythologizing that happened was done to a recognized public figure or traditional hero figure that already had status. Not on some upstart sudden hero myth that someone invented out of nothing in order to launch a new cult. That's not how cults or legends or myths get started and build.
But you have to have a product to begin with. The "product" cannot develop without first existing and gaining its first followers, which this one could not have. Not an invention that exists only in the mind of a myth-maker. There are no other examples of a legend developing this way.
In a few cases a guru can develop a school of disciples after a career of teaching and impressing his listeners, and in some cases the mythologizing begins during the lifetime of the guru.
Where a mythic hero legend develops quickly, in only a few decades, then there has to be something truly noteworthy about the historical figure. I.e., he has to have accomplished something real, or be something truly important, not something imagined, like your hypothetical St. Paul invention.
The emperor Vespasian got credited with a couple miracle healing acts for which there is some questionable evidence. This could not have happened if he had not been a famous recognized public figure who could become mythologized due to his reputation.
Joseph Smith became recognized quickly, in less than 20 years, and there's a few miracle acts attributed to him, but he did not start out with his own private invented mythic hero, but with Jesus Christ as his god. He would not have succeeded at all if he had done what you're saying Paul did, i.e., invent a totally new mythic hero based only on his private revelations. Rather, he started with a recognized deity figure and then added his own modifications to it.
No he could not and he did not and no one else ever did this, as you're imagining Paul did. The charismatic cult leader has to start out with a recognized mythic hero that people already relate to, not some invention that comes only out of personal revelations he has privately. No one ever sold a product this way. No one ever even TRIED to sell a product this way. They always took an existing hero figure or tradition and added their miracle stories to it, i.e., to something that people were already buying.
No, no "flock" ever believed anyone the way you're imagining they believed Paul. They didn't already believe it nor continue doing so. Paul could never have won over any "flock" with the kind of hoax you're proposing, and neither did any charismatic in history win over any "flock" with this method. You can't name one other example of it.
No, Paul is the one who would be dismissed as a lune if he tried to perpetrate such a hoax as you're hallucinating happened here. If you should be confronted by someone doing what you're saying Paul did, you would dismiss him as a wacko and so would everyone else.
If it were true that such a wacko could succeed in creating a successful cult and get it to spread, like the early Jesus cult spread, then there would be hundreds of these cults, or thousands, down through history, each with its miracle-worker for whom we would have multiple sources near to the time that the miracle-worker lived. We do not have such examples. You cannot name any.
No, it was not and never would be viable nor would sell. It couldn't even get started in the first place. There has to be something at the beginning that is real. You can't start from a totally fictional entity. The fiction gets added to the early part that was real. You can't name an example of a mythic hero that was viable even though totally fictional, with the possible exception of a tradition that required several centuries to evolve, like Zeus and Apollo etc. And even these may have been real persons originally.
We can't be sure these mythic entities didn't exist as real persons, because all those legends about the gods, and about Romulus and Hercules and the Argonauts and others were arguably about real people who became mythologized later. There are plausible theories about all of them, including Asclepius, who might have been a real healer. Also Krishna, who might have been a real person. We can't be sure that any of these god-hero-legends was total fiction rather than a real person originally who then became mythologized.
We do know for sure that it required 1000 years or longer for them to evolve, if they were not real, not 20 or 30 or 40 years as in the case of Jesus.
No, "as the years continued" the belief had long since disappeared, having been rejected from the start as nonsense. Your make-believe is not historical fact nor even a plausible hypothesis of anything that could ever happen. Don't speculate about how the belief would adapt "as the years continued" when the truth is that it would not survive even a few days but would be totally rejected and would fall flat from the very beginning.
But what you're hypothesizing could never have gained any "core group of believers" that could be milked. You can't milk something that doesn't exist and never could exist. And the "for all it's worth" is meaningless because the "it" is totally worthless and non-existent and has no "economy" or anything for there to be any "incentive" about. There has to be something of substance to begin with, not some wacko's empty-headed private revelations.
No, there were no "purveyors" here and nothing that anyone would buy and no one idiotic enough to buy it or pay into the collection. You can't propose a scenario in which every character in it is a fool and a wacko. They had to be real people.
What "product"? and more appealing than what? How can a nothing that has no appeal be made "more appealing"? It has to have some appeal to begin with, and yet this "product" would have had no appeal at all.
It never held true, today or then, without some product that has some recognizable substance to it that someone sees value in. You can't market market market non-existent nothingness.
No it could not have happened. Unless you assume that in the 1st century there was an unprecedented explosion of idiots who were all born in a short time space and were all somehow dumped into St. Paul's lap and whose brains were pre-programmed to immediately believe the first charlatan who would come along, and this is the only time in history that any such group of idiots ever existed, before or since. You can't name any other time in history where any such thing as this happened.
It is not plausible to hypothesize that only this one time in history an extremely large number of idiots appeared, perhaps out of a mad scientist's lab, who were programmed to believe the first charlatan who would appear (like the girl in Midsummernight's Dream who fell in love with the first creature she saw) and Paul just happened to pop up where they were deposited and captured all these idiots for his new cult. No, it could not have happened that way -- it's not plausible.
No, all the evidence disproves this brain-dead scenario. The total absence of any such thing ever in history is abundant evidence that contradicts the possibility of such a scenario. If such a thing were possible we would see some other examples of it.
In modern times, with the advanced media and Internet, there are millions of upstart cults or scams or hoaxes. But even today, with all the communication capability, there is no hoax claiming a hero who lived in recent history who did miracles and for whom we have multiple sources attesting to his miracle powers and yet was not a traditional myth but the exclusive invention of one person's private revelations.
All we've had are faith-healers or gurus who have long careers and who based their preaching on ancient traditions going back centuries. None of them promote mythic deities who are invented new and imagined by a non-recognized charismatic who sells them based on his private revelations. Any such crank of this description gets no following today, nor in the 1st century, or at any other time in history, and no writers publish accounts or "gospels" about such a mythic deity.
It has the much greater DISadvantage of requiring one to believe that there was only one set of idiots that ever lived, all about 30 AD to 100 AD, and they believed in one hoax only, even though anyone could have hoaxed them, and yet only this one hoax was able to win them. This is a one-of-a-kind event in history, never duplicated anywhere else. This is less credible than believing that Jesus had the power to do the miracle acts described in the gospels.
But you're insisting that a unique group of 1st-century idiots swallowed Paul's nonsense hook, line and sinker, which is nuttier than the far more plausible explanation that Jesus actually had power to do the miracle acts. If there is another explanation, then give us a plausible one, not this hallucination you've just described. No one can foist a new hoax such as you are describing. You cannot seriously claim that these 1st-century people were so retarded as to believe in this new fabricated mythic hero that only this unknown wacko St. Paul could reveal to them in his private revelations.
There is no other example of similar cult development. None of the cults invent a new mythic hero that exists only in the private revelations of a nobody charismatic who is believed by a herd of mindless cattle such as these people would have to have been. There is no evidence of any cult development doing anything similar to this that you can identify in history.
You are basically assuming that people who believe any religious cult are total mindless idiots who will just believe anything at all for no reason whatever. They are not the brain-dead zombies you're pretending. They look for longstanding symbols and mythic heroes that have tradition behind them, or they are impressed with a guru's performance over decades of teaching. They do show some critical judgment and do not just suddenly convert impulsively and buy whatever suddenly pops up out of nowhere at a lucky moment or place.
This seems to say that if the miracles really happened as described, then the response of the crowd or the disciples would have been more emphatic or not so casual.
But there's no indication of what the response was to most of the miracles. When there is a response, it's very emphatic. E.g., the calming of the storm: "They were filled with great awe and said to one another, 'Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?'" (Mk 4:41). Or the healing of Jairus's daughter: "At that they were utterly astounded." (Mk 5:42). Or the curing of a deaf mute: "All the crowd was astounded, and said, 'Could this perhaps be the Son of David?'" (Mt 12:23).
You might say that the "faith" of these onlookers was shallow, or not deep-rooted, or superficial in a way that it might dissipate quickly. This might be implied in some of the gospel description of the followers. But this in no way distracts from the truth of the actual miracle act performed. Maybe you could demand that Jesus do something different that would leave a deeper impact or express a message on a higher plane.
But even so, the acts described do in fact bring the kind of response from the onlookers that we should expect. These reported miracle acts are not undermined somehow by a perceived superficiality about them and about the gawky response from the crowd. You can criticize them as to the superficiality, but not as to the authenticity of the described response from the onlookers. This described response has the ring of truth about it, even if one perceives a superficiality to it or a shallow-mindedness of the observers.
I'm not sure there's anything wrong about this form of communicating with a large number of ordinary people. Sometimes a little simplicity or superficiality might be the correct way to communicate. Maybe there's an important point to it. It might be more effective than preaching sermons out of Isaiah or expounding upon the Neo-Platonists or on Epicureanism vs. atomism or determinism etc. Showing the crowd miracles might get across to them better.
At this point it might have been several days or weeks since his last miracle act. Maybe the initial impact on the disciples had become dulled over that time lapse. This also has the ring of truth to it. Jesus probably did no miracles in Jerusalem, because there are none reported in the synoptic gospels (other than the resurrection).
Not if you mean unbelief was stronger in these towns. Nothing suggests that.
Where he denounces Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, it says these towns had not repented, but that's not a comparison to other towns he had visited less or not at all. This condemning of the towns is better explained as words coming from his disciples years later who remembered his miracles there and were angry at those townspeople whose memories were so short. The condemnation makes more sense if it came years later, long after he was gone from the scene. The words, "For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they long ago would have repented . . . ," fit much better if spoken many years after those deeds, after Jesus was gone, rather than by Jesus referring to deeds he did only a few days earlier.
These words are from the Q document, and so reflect a relatively early tradition. Don't they sound like words his direct disciples would say to unresponsive people of these towns where Jesus had performed many miracle acts years earlier?
If on the other hand they are the words of Jesus himself who had just recently performed miracles in these towns, and no one believed him and just scorned him, then it's a legitimate question why they didn't believe and respond favorably following such convincing proofs of his power. But the words do not seem to be from the time of the "mighty deeds" referred to, but to a more distant time in the future from those deeds.
Perhaps they could be words Jesus himself spoke several months later after the deeds he performed. In that case the time lapse could explain the falling away of those people and their decreasing faith, even if the "mighty deeds" were very impressive and had had a strong impact at the time they happened. So this condemning of the towns for nonbelief or nonrepentance does not indicate that the "mighty deeds" never really happened, but that there was a significant time lapse since they happened and those people had a "short memory" for which they are criticized.
Even this passage, from the Q document, implies that Jesus was a miracle-worker, and this is of early origin. So the notion that the miracles are much later additions is contradicted here.
Yes, this could be such an "escape clause" for later evangelists who could not perform the same miracle acts. If so, it in no way contradicts the miracle accounts about Jesus, but only shows that his later followers could not produce such miracles. This is no indication of any "hooey" or "gimmick (lie)," but only that the disciples or evangelists later were unable to produce any miracles, even though people were demanding this from them. So the evangelists attributed to Jesus the retort that they are not entitled to such signs.
It would have been more honest to tell them that the signs had already been provided by Jesus, and that this evidence ought to be sufficient.
You may be right that this passage belittles the miraculous. It shows that there was a general disdain for miracles, or some forms of miracles. This would be very consistent with the reality that Jesus actually did perform miracle acts but that his later followers could not. And thus later Christian evangelists played down the miraculous. It would also explain why St. Paul would disdain the miraculous, other than the resurrection of Jesus, and would make no mention of other miracles or suggest anything that would cause some to demand a "sign" from him.
So this pattern to belittle the miraculous in no way casts doubt on the miracles of Jesus as actual historical events, but even supports these miracle accounts, explaining why people were demanding miracles but had to be told it was "evil" to demand a sign. It was because of the reports of the earlier Jesus miracles that they were making these demands.
If you want an argument against this interpretation -- why they demanded a "sign" -- you should look for them making such demands BEFORE Jesus, or there being a hunger for such miracles and lots of such stories circulating in the region in the period prior -- from 100 BC up to about 30 or 40 AD. You won't find much there.
The fascination with miracle stories and the demand for them explodes in the period AFTER Jesus, from 50 or 100 AD and afterward. This is where a rash of new miracle stories comes on the scene. Prior to this, all you have is Zeus and Apollo and Asclepius and Osiris etc. and Moses and Elijah. It's really not true that there was some fertile ground for miracle stories leading into the Jesus miracle stories. There was no such groundwork being laid. Rather, the Jesus miracle stories pop up from nowhere, and then there is an explosion of new miracle stories afterward going on for 2 or 3 centuries.
All this is best explained by the fact that the miracle acts of Jesus are real events, and then this set off the new explosion of miracle stories we see subsequently.
But they DID have evidence. They just didn't see Jesus directly, so had to believe in his power based on the reports rather than direct observation. Isn't it appropriate to believe if there is good evidence, even if you don't see directly what it is you believe? There are abundant examples of such believing based on evidence.
There's plenty of substance. The reports of his miracles are substance, just like what we believe happened in history comes from substance in the form of reports of it rather than from direct observation. Where would we be if we could only believe that which we directly observe ourselves? Why can't we have knowledge, or reasonable belief, true belief, based on probability from evidence? Isn't it good to seek the truth even if we can't get to it directly and have the absolute certainty of direct contact?
The phrase "god behaves today exactly like he would if he didn't exist" is self-contradictory. But rather than picking it apart and trying to salvage something from it, it's better to look at the term "escape clause," because this seems to mean just any argument someone gives in reply to an objection from the other side.
So, e.g., an environmentalist answers a global warming denier who argues that some place he knows of is actually colder today than it used to be, and so global warming must be a hoax; and the environmentalist's counterargument is that the global warming theory itself provides that there would be some places where it would get colder rather than warmer, because of the climate conditions, so that the overall temperature rises even though in certain places it would get colder. And the denier then charges that this is an "escape clause" resorted to by the environmentalist in order to wiggle out of this obvious refutation of his belief in global warming.
And so any argument a believer in something makes to save his theory is condemned as an "escape clause" contrived in desperation to save the belief. Every belief in anything, even the heliocentric theory, could be refuted by just saying all its arguments are only "escape clauses" to try to prop up the theory in the face of some contrary evidence.
You can plainly see that the earth is flat by just walking a mile or 2 and seeing that it stays level overall, with the ups and downs offsetting each other, and the sphericalist who tries to explain the truth is ridiculed for using "escape clauses" to deny the reality that should be apparent to anyone who just looks with their own eyes.
So no matter how scientific or logical you are in your reasoning, and no matter what your belief is -- that the earth is round, that humans evolved, that the moon landing really happened and was not staged -- all your reasons can be dismissed as "escape clauses" you are fabricating in order to save your belief which is obviously contrary to the plain truth anyone can see.
So the "escape clause" argument is a convenient universal refutation of any belief you dislike. And presumably whichever side uses this "escape clause" argument first is the winner of the debate. So you can win any debate in your opening statement by saying everything the other side says are just "escape clauses," and so the other side is immediately refuted and you win. All you have to do is win the coin toss to determine which side speaks first.
Christ-bashing and Bible-bashing are also big business that rake in the profits. There are people who make a living at it.
So then, the fact that someone today makes a profit proves that Jesus Christ did not do any miracle acts 2000 years ago? These profiteers today must have planted the evidence in the gospel documents telling of those events? Oh those bastards'll stop at nothing! -- even reach back over the centuries to plant false evidence in order to mislead us and maintain their grip on power today.
That's close, but not quite correct. The question is: Why would so many believe if there were no evidence that it is so? It's because the evidence was so apparent that so many believed. They knew this had to be something more serious than any traditional religious cult figure or mythic hero.
It is not true that anyone can create an instant mythic hero. But the reports of the miracles of Jesus were so persuasive that people were convinced. You can't name any similar case where a fictional hero or deity or savior figure gained a following so quickly.
What makes an instant hero possible is that the real person actually exists, i.e., someone who really does perform something extraordinary, and this creates the original figure to which myths can then be added. Or, additional characteristics, fictional ones, may be added to the original unusual figure. But you have to start out with a real person who really did have some extremely unique features.
You can't just invent such a figure artificially, as a fictional entity, and get large numbers of people to believe in him in a short time period. There is no example of such a thing.
The only possible exceptions are someone who was famous before he died, such as a very powerful figure, or a sage who taught for 30 or 40 years or longer and was able to amass a reputation during that long period of teaching and impressing his disciples. Figures like this might become mythologized earlier, but they at least had to have a long public career.
So, except for these cases of famous public figures, you cannot create an instant hero myth such as the case of Jesus. But if your hero really did perform miracle acts, then he might emerge as an instant mythic hero. And only then the mythologizing begins.
We're talking about miracle-working mythic heroes, not just any teacher. And these examples you give here were people who had long careers. They were not instant mythic heroes. People were won over to them partly because of their charisma, but also because they had time to amass a following, over decades of teaching. But Jesus had only 3 years at most, and that is not enough time for a charismatic teacher to amass a large following.
So any explanation as to how these persons were believed or won a following tells us nothing about how Jesus accomplished it, in such a shorter time period.
No, "this sort of phenomenon" is not the same as the 1st-century Jesus phenomenon. You have to find a phenomenon that is similar to the Jesus phenomenon in order to make a comparison and explain how the Jesus figure became deified in such a short time.
In addition to happening in a short time period, there must be several sources which attest to the miracle acts he performed, not only one, and it cannot be a result of a long career of teaching and winning disciples.
But only over a long time period, at least a long career of teaching, and usually longer than the lifetime of the charismatic. Also, it's not about winning the followers over to a set of doctrines, but getting them to believe that the charismatic performed miracle acts. It's not true that people generally believe in miracle acts if there's no evidence for them or if there's no long tradition of miracle stories attached to the mythic hero.
All the examples of miracle heroes you can name are ones who had a long tradition of miracle stories attached to them, and usually long after the hero's actual lifetime, even centuries. You can't win hundreds of followers over to a miracle-worker for whom there is no evidence or long career, or who has no long tradition of miracle stories amassed over many generations.
Why? Why did he appropriate this? What was there about this Jesus myth that he would pay any attention to it? And why would anyone listen to this Paul fanatic ranting and raving about some mythic hero that he invented, or that someone else invented, who did nothing and was a nobody, which he was if he performed no miracle acts?
Without explaining why Paul chose this mythic figure, your scenario doesn't answer the critical questions. Without an answer why he chose the Jesus myth, your scenario is not consistent with the evidence and fails to explain how the Jesus myth became popular, and it's less plausible than the explanation that Jesus must have performed miracle acts, because this explanation does answer these questions which your invented Jesus scenario does not answer.
You can't just say Paul's Jesus myth caught on and he won followers to it. That answers nothing. You yourself could invent a mythic hero right now and go out and market it, and there's just as much likelihood that you'd win a following for your new cult as there's any reason to believe Paul could win a following with his myth. You've said nothing about what made Paul's new cult successful. Or even what made Paul choose Jesus as his symbol to launch his cult.
Not by choosing a nobody for his mythic hero. A cult leader has to have a tradition or a set of heroes or gods that have some recognition. A cult leader cannot simply invent his own mythic hero and expect to gain any power or lead any cult. Where will he get followers for a cult that offers to the followers some new invented imaginary fictional character the followers never heard of or give any credibility to?
But an imaginary figure that no one related to. No one recognized this hero for anything of value. How can Paul foist this imaginary figure onto anyone or gain any followers for him? People don't just willy-nilly join without asking any questions. It's not true that people just swallow any garbage a charismatic hands to them. You can't name one who succeeded by offering followers some imaginary figure he invented himself and claimed exclusive private revelations from.
None of the charismatics you listed above did this. All of them started with a traditional belief system centered on some god or gods that were already recognized, not on some fictional character they invented. The swami gave them Krishna -- and you can go down the list -- they all offered the followers a deity that already existed or was already recognized or had a tradition of beliefs as the starting point. Jesus was not such a recognized figure that Paul could start with. (Unless he had a reputation for performing miracles.)
OK, but you need more than an attractive common theme. You must have a hero figure that is recognized, so there is some credibility to your sacrificial hero narrative. You can't win followers to a nobody mythic hero you invented yourself.
If such a cult was so easy to create and foist as a hoax, there should be many of these mythic heroes for whom we would have miracle reports, not only one. It makes no sense to say that only one such miracle mythic hero legend could emerge to meet the need. Anyone could invent their myth and launch such a cult, and there should be thousands of them if that were so.
This is why your scenario is ludicrous. No one would fall for this. You can't name any other example from history of a hero myth getting started this way, i.e., where one charismatic figure claims to have private revelation about a mythic hero no one recognizes, who has no history, no recognized existence, no tradition -- nothing but the private claims of one weird fanatic with alleged visions that no one else has access to.
You're wrong -- people do NOT fall for such rubbish. Name one example where they did. Name a case in history where a new cult got started this way. People want a hero figure who they have some knowledge of, or that is verified by some existing sources and not just one person making it all up or imagining it by himself privately.
People are not as stupid as you're implying they are. Name an example where any number of people got conned this way.
Reverand Moon claimed to be Jesus Christ. He did NOT make up a new messiah figure of his own but fell back on traditional religious beliefs and then added his own new twist on it. But a new cult leader cannot just invent some new imaginary figure he claims to have a revelation from and expect to accumulate a following. There is no such thing. Your scenario is just as fictional as the mythic heroes that never existed.
Yes, over many generations or centuries you might get some followers for something new or for a new invented hero myth. But not in only 10 or 20 years, as Paul did.
Little or nothing of the above is mentioned in the Book of Acts either. Yet the writer of Acts obviously knew of them. It is typical of the early Christian writers to ignore the biographical details of Jesus and focus only on the Risen Christ figure and on theology that is not in the gospel accounts. It was typical to ignore these biographical details even though they were aware of them.
Paul mentions the resurrection appearances and the "Lord's Supper" scene and the handing over of Jesus to the authorities. This shows knowledge of the manner of the arrest. It clearly shows that Paul knew that someone among the disciples handed Jesus over, so that it was not just a surprise arrest without the cooperation of at least one of the disciples. This is a detail that is not prominent, or is mentioned in passing, but it shows that Paul was aware of this event and probably much other detail that he didn't mention.
He mentions that Jesus and James were brothers, which is also noted in Josephus. Whether they were really brothers are not, this detail is mentioned in these two sources, and there is no point to it that serves any visionary purpose for Paul, so he must have intended it to mean that they really were genetic brothers, which is not possible unless Jesus was a real person. The Josephus reference also supports this. The mention makes no sense if Jesus was not an historical person.
The only way Paul's Jesus could be sold by him was if his audience already knew of the biographical details of Jesus. There is no basis for claiming that Paul sold his audience a "Jesus" who was his own invention that he was introducing for the first time based only on his private revelations. His avoidance of biographical detail was possible only because his audience already had that information, and he wanted to work from that as a basis or a starting point upon which to build his own christology, or his own explanation of the Jesus figure they already knew about.
Almost everything. But not the above points: the last supper scene, the handing over of Jesus to the authorities, and Jesus and James being brothers. This theory of a non-physical Jesus is not tenable if there is even only one point in Paul that contradicts it. We can easily understand how Paul would avoid the biographical details of Jesus. He wanted his audience to believe he had private revelation. They would accept that, but only if he had a real historical figure or mythic hero they already recognized to serve as the object of his revelations.
The fact that Paul found a receptive audience proves that Jesus must have had a reputation for something very unusual or unique, so that his listeners would respond to Paul favorably. But if he had just invented his own myth based entirely on private revelation, as you're suggesting, they would have dismissed Paul as a wacko.
How could Paul speak of "the night when Jesus was handed over" or say Jesus had a brother James, a known historical person, if his Jesus existed only in a spiritual realm apart from the physical world? Without answering this, your scenario is not plausible.
It's plausible to take an already-existing recognized figure and then build upon it and invent new elements, or interpret the old ones in a new way, and even play down the earlier-recognized elements in order to add one's new symbols or interpretations. But it is not plausible to create a totally new mythic figure of one's own making and expect an audience to believe it.
I.e., almost the only thing.
But the only reason Paul could sell his Jesus was that he wrote about an already-existing resurrected Jesus. He did not invent Jesus and the death and resurrection and offer this fiction to an audience who had never before heard of such a person. His readers and listeners already knew of the Jesus who did miracles and rose from the grave. It's only because they were already familiar with this figure that they were receptive to Paul's preaching and writings. Otherwise Paul would have been laughed off the stage.
It was less than 40 years. The Q document is dated around 50 AD, and it contains two miracle narratives, and at least one clear non-narrative reference to the miracles of Jesus.
But aside from your false chronology, your scenario offers no explanation how his product would become popular. There was nothing to this product if your scenario is correct. It was all Paul's imagination, his own private revelation. Unless you assume all the people back then were idiots, you can give no reason why this product would become popular, why they would slurp down this snake-oil Paul was peddling. There was nothing attractive about it that anyone would buy it. There was never before, and has never been since, any such product as this that ever became popular. It takes generations and even centuries for a mythic hero to evolve, not only 20 or 30 years.
Even if it's possible for a charismatic figure to amass a following over many years and they start mythologizing him during his lifetime, there is no case of a charismatic getting followers to mythologize someone else he invented and having no previous status of any kind.
Name one that popped up in a short time and from nothing. No one builds a cult and recruits followers for a mythic hero he invented and that had no basis in earlier tradition. You can't start out from a nothing, which is what you're saying Paul did. He had nothing at the beginning of his enterprise except his mouth and some private revelations.
If it was this easy to start a new cult that would be widely received and become popular, then we should see many more messiah figures like Jesus, for which there are multiple sources near to the time the mythic figure was created.
At least some of the miracle stories of Jesus already existed in the 50s. How did Paul get people to believe in these miracles? Since he did not preach the miracles himself, who did? How did Paul get them to believe in a hero who would have miracle stories about him being circulated in the 50s and yet Paul did not teach such stories himself?
Details were being added long before the 40 years you imagine. The Q Document definitely puts Jesus in Galilee, in Capernaum, naming the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. It reports an encounter between Jesus and some disciples of John the Baptist when the latter was in prison. This clearly puts Jesus in Galilee, or somewhere near the area ruled by Herod Antipas, so he has a geographical location, which is possible only about a physical person, not an imaginary invention of Paul who gave him no biographical details. These details were current at about the same time that Paul was writing.
So don't say "over the 40 years or so" -- no, it was at about the same time Paul was writing his epistles that the new biographical details were being added.
You'll have to find something beyond the Bethlehem and virgin birth stories to prop up your scenario. Just because some legends like these got added later does not change the fact that there had to be some real events to begin with that made Jesus an important figure to which mythological symbols could become attached.
Another historical figure who acquired a virgin birth origin was Alexander the Great. And you think this must make Alexander orignally a fictional non-historical figure? You can't just write off every famous person who is said to have been virgin-born. There's a long list of such real historical figures, including Pythagorus, and there are many others. It doesn't mean they started out as a myth someone concocted in order to sell their new cult.
All these legendary figures, if they were real people, lived many centuries or even 1000+ years prior to the stories about them emerged. So in their case we know the stories had centuries of time in which to evolve.
No miracle stories like these evolve in a short time out of a nobody who did nothing noteworthy. You cannot name any other example in history of this happening. Naming all these earlier mythologies that are so dissimilar to the Jesus example proves nothing. They are dissimilar because they required 1000+ years to evolve, while the Jesus legend arose within 30 years.
It is possible that some fictions could become attached to Jesus in a short time, but ONLY IF there is first a real historical person who had some recognized status due to something significant and real that he did. With something real as a starting point, something that makes him stand out uniquely from everyone else and brings recognition, it is then possible that a mythologizing process can begin. But not from a nobody who is a mythic invention of someone's private revelations and nothing more.
But you're hallucinating these myth-marketers. They did not exist. You cannot give any plausible explanation who they were and what profit they had to gain from creating this myth out of nothing.
If myths are this easy to invent and market successfully, then we should see dozens, or even hundreds of Jesus-like mythic heroes emerging in history, all who were non-existent and yet became popularized within 50 years or less in documents circulating from writers who joined the cults that created these mythic figures. Yet there's absolutely no other examples of such mythical hero figures evolving like this Jesus myth evolved, in a short time, and for whom we have multiple sources.
How did this one clique of myth-makers succeed in foisting this hoax onto the world and no others succeeded? Where are the others? You've not named any. All you can name are ancient god-myths that had been around for centuries or even thousands of years before any sources about them existed.
But why are they promoting this inferior product in the first place? Why are you pretending someone else would do such a thing as this which you know you never would do and that no one else has ever done? How can you pretend there were idiots out there doing something insane like this, trying to sell a phony product that had no reality and that only an idiot would buy? You're making a singular case out of this one legendary figure, this Jesus figure, and creating a yarn to explain it, and yet there's no similar explanation for anything else that ever happened. Nothing like what you're imagining here has ever happened any other time in history. Name another example of it. There is none.
All mythological figures required generations or centuries to evolve, not only 20 or 30 years, and all mythologizing that anyone ever plotted as a marketing strategy was done on an already-existing recognized public figure or traditional hero figure already having some status, not on a new invented fictional figure. You cannot name one other example of such a phenomenon as you're hallucinating in this one singular case.
No it's not. None of the legends you named worked this way. All the mythologizing that happened was done to a recognized public figure or traditional hero figure that already had status. Not on some upstart sudden hero myth that someone invented out of nothing in order to launch a new cult. That's not how cults or legends or myths get started and build.
But you have to have a product to begin with. The "product" cannot develop without first existing and gaining its first followers, which this one could not have. Not an invention that exists only in the mind of a myth-maker. There are no other examples of a legend developing this way.
In a few cases a guru can develop a school of disciples after a career of teaching and impressing his listeners, and in some cases the mythologizing begins during the lifetime of the guru.
Where a mythic hero legend develops quickly, in only a few decades, then there has to be something truly noteworthy about the historical figure. I.e., he has to have accomplished something real, or be something truly important, not something imagined, like your hypothetical St. Paul invention.
The emperor Vespasian got credited with a couple miracle healing acts for which there is some questionable evidence. This could not have happened if he had not been a famous recognized public figure who could become mythologized due to his reputation.
Joseph Smith became recognized quickly, in less than 20 years, and there's a few miracle acts attributed to him, but he did not start out with his own private invented mythic hero, but with Jesus Christ as his god. He would not have succeeded at all if he had done what you're saying Paul did, i.e., invent a totally new mythic hero based only on his private revelations. Rather, he started with a recognized deity figure and then added his own modifications to it.
No he could not and he did not and no one else ever did this, as you're imagining Paul did. The charismatic cult leader has to start out with a recognized mythic hero that people already relate to, not some invention that comes only out of personal revelations he has privately. No one ever sold a product this way. No one ever even TRIED to sell a product this way. They always took an existing hero figure or tradition and added their miracle stories to it, i.e., to something that people were already buying.
No, no "flock" ever believed anyone the way you're imagining they believed Paul. They didn't already believe it nor continue doing so. Paul could never have won over any "flock" with the kind of hoax you're proposing, and neither did any charismatic in history win over any "flock" with this method. You can't name one other example of it.
No, Paul is the one who would be dismissed as a lune if he tried to perpetrate such a hoax as you're hallucinating happened here. If you should be confronted by someone doing what you're saying Paul did, you would dismiss him as a wacko and so would everyone else.
If it were true that such a wacko could succeed in creating a successful cult and get it to spread, like the early Jesus cult spread, then there would be hundreds of these cults, or thousands, down through history, each with its miracle-worker for whom we would have multiple sources near to the time that the miracle-worker lived. We do not have such examples. You cannot name any.
No, it was not and never would be viable nor would sell. It couldn't even get started in the first place. There has to be something at the beginning that is real. You can't start from a totally fictional entity. The fiction gets added to the early part that was real. You can't name an example of a mythic hero that was viable even though totally fictional, with the possible exception of a tradition that required several centuries to evolve, like Zeus and Apollo etc. And even these may have been real persons originally.
We can't be sure these mythic entities didn't exist as real persons, because all those legends about the gods, and about Romulus and Hercules and the Argonauts and others were arguably about real people who became mythologized later. There are plausible theories about all of them, including Asclepius, who might have been a real healer. Also Krishna, who might have been a real person. We can't be sure that any of these god-hero-legends was total fiction rather than a real person originally who then became mythologized.
We do know for sure that it required 1000 years or longer for them to evolve, if they were not real, not 20 or 30 or 40 years as in the case of Jesus.
No, "as the years continued" the belief had long since disappeared, having been rejected from the start as nonsense. Your make-believe is not historical fact nor even a plausible hypothesis of anything that could ever happen. Don't speculate about how the belief would adapt "as the years continued" when the truth is that it would not survive even a few days but would be totally rejected and would fall flat from the very beginning.
But what you're hypothesizing could never have gained any "core group of believers" that could be milked. You can't milk something that doesn't exist and never could exist. And the "for all it's worth" is meaningless because the "it" is totally worthless and non-existent and has no "economy" or anything for there to be any "incentive" about. There has to be something of substance to begin with, not some wacko's empty-headed private revelations.
No, there were no "purveyors" here and nothing that anyone would buy and no one idiotic enough to buy it or pay into the collection. You can't propose a scenario in which every character in it is a fool and a wacko. They had to be real people.
What "product"? and more appealing than what? How can a nothing that has no appeal be made "more appealing"? It has to have some appeal to begin with, and yet this "product" would have had no appeal at all.
It never held true, today or then, without some product that has some recognizable substance to it that someone sees value in. You can't market market market non-existent nothingness.
No it could not have happened. Unless you assume that in the 1st century there was an unprecedented explosion of idiots who were all born in a short time space and were all somehow dumped into St. Paul's lap and whose brains were pre-programmed to immediately believe the first charlatan who would come along, and this is the only time in history that any such group of idiots ever existed, before or since. You can't name any other time in history where any such thing as this happened.
It is not plausible to hypothesize that only this one time in history an extremely large number of idiots appeared, perhaps out of a mad scientist's lab, who were programmed to believe the first charlatan who would appear (like the girl in Midsummernight's Dream who fell in love with the first creature she saw) and Paul just happened to pop up where they were deposited and captured all these idiots for his new cult. No, it could not have happened that way -- it's not plausible.
No, all the evidence disproves this brain-dead scenario. The total absence of any such thing ever in history is abundant evidence that contradicts the possibility of such a scenario. If such a thing were possible we would see some other examples of it.
In modern times, with the advanced media and Internet, there are millions of upstart cults or scams or hoaxes. But even today, with all the communication capability, there is no hoax claiming a hero who lived in recent history who did miracles and for whom we have multiple sources attesting to his miracle powers and yet was not a traditional myth but the exclusive invention of one person's private revelations.
All we've had are faith-healers or gurus who have long careers and who based their preaching on ancient traditions going back centuries. None of them promote mythic deities who are invented new and imagined by a non-recognized charismatic who sells them based on his private revelations. Any such crank of this description gets no following today, nor in the 1st century, or at any other time in history, and no writers publish accounts or "gospels" about such a mythic deity.
It has the much greater DISadvantage of requiring one to believe that there was only one set of idiots that ever lived, all about 30 AD to 100 AD, and they believed in one hoax only, even though anyone could have hoaxed them, and yet only this one hoax was able to win them. This is a one-of-a-kind event in history, never duplicated anywhere else. This is less credible than believing that Jesus had the power to do the miracle acts described in the gospels.
But you're insisting that a unique group of 1st-century idiots swallowed Paul's nonsense hook, line and sinker, which is nuttier than the far more plausible explanation that Jesus actually had power to do the miracle acts. If there is another explanation, then give us a plausible one, not this hallucination you've just described. No one can foist a new hoax such as you are describing. You cannot seriously claim that these 1st-century people were so retarded as to believe in this new fabricated mythic hero that only this unknown wacko St. Paul could reveal to them in his private revelations.
There is no other example of similar cult development. None of the cults invent a new mythic hero that exists only in the private revelations of a nobody charismatic who is believed by a herd of mindless cattle such as these people would have to have been. There is no evidence of any cult development doing anything similar to this that you can identify in history.
You are basically assuming that people who believe any religious cult are total mindless idiots who will just believe anything at all for no reason whatever. They are not the brain-dead zombies you're pretending. They look for longstanding symbols and mythic heroes that have tradition behind them, or they are impressed with a guru's performance over decades of teaching. They do show some critical judgment and do not just suddenly convert impulsively and buy whatever suddenly pops up out of nowhere at a lucky moment or place.
This seems to say that if the miracles really happened as described, then the response of the crowd or the disciples would have been more emphatic or not so casual.
But there's no indication of what the response was to most of the miracles. When there is a response, it's very emphatic. E.g., the calming of the storm: "They were filled with great awe and said to one another, 'Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?'" (Mk 4:41). Or the healing of Jairus's daughter: "At that they were utterly astounded." (Mk 5:42). Or the curing of a deaf mute: "All the crowd was astounded, and said, 'Could this perhaps be the Son of David?'" (Mt 12:23).
You might say that the "faith" of these onlookers was shallow, or not deep-rooted, or superficial in a way that it might dissipate quickly. This might be implied in some of the gospel description of the followers. But this in no way distracts from the truth of the actual miracle act performed. Maybe you could demand that Jesus do something different that would leave a deeper impact or express a message on a higher plane.
But even so, the acts described do in fact bring the kind of response from the onlookers that we should expect. These reported miracle acts are not undermined somehow by a perceived superficiality about them and about the gawky response from the crowd. You can criticize them as to the superficiality, but not as to the authenticity of the described response from the onlookers. This described response has the ring of truth about it, even if one perceives a superficiality to it or a shallow-mindedness of the observers.
I'm not sure there's anything wrong about this form of communicating with a large number of ordinary people. Sometimes a little simplicity or superficiality might be the correct way to communicate. Maybe there's an important point to it. It might be more effective than preaching sermons out of Isaiah or expounding upon the Neo-Platonists or on Epicureanism vs. atomism or determinism etc. Showing the crowd miracles might get across to them better.
At this point it might have been several days or weeks since his last miracle act. Maybe the initial impact on the disciples had become dulled over that time lapse. This also has the ring of truth to it. Jesus probably did no miracles in Jerusalem, because there are none reported in the synoptic gospels (other than the resurrection).
Not if you mean unbelief was stronger in these towns. Nothing suggests that.
Where he denounces Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, it says these towns had not repented, but that's not a comparison to other towns he had visited less or not at all. This condemning of the towns is better explained as words coming from his disciples years later who remembered his miracles there and were angry at those townspeople whose memories were so short. The condemnation makes more sense if it came years later, long after he was gone from the scene. The words, "For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they long ago would have repented . . . ," fit much better if spoken many years after those deeds, after Jesus was gone, rather than by Jesus referring to deeds he did only a few days earlier.
These words are from the Q document, and so reflect a relatively early tradition. Don't they sound like words his direct disciples would say to unresponsive people of these towns where Jesus had performed many miracle acts years earlier?
If on the other hand they are the words of Jesus himself who had just recently performed miracles in these towns, and no one believed him and just scorned him, then it's a legitimate question why they didn't believe and respond favorably following such convincing proofs of his power. But the words do not seem to be from the time of the "mighty deeds" referred to, but to a more distant time in the future from those deeds.
Perhaps they could be words Jesus himself spoke several months later after the deeds he performed. In that case the time lapse could explain the falling away of those people and their decreasing faith, even if the "mighty deeds" were very impressive and had had a strong impact at the time they happened. So this condemning of the towns for nonbelief or nonrepentance does not indicate that the "mighty deeds" never really happened, but that there was a significant time lapse since they happened and those people had a "short memory" for which they are criticized.
Even this passage, from the Q document, implies that Jesus was a miracle-worker, and this is of early origin. So the notion that the miracles are much later additions is contradicted here.
Yes, this could be such an "escape clause" for later evangelists who could not perform the same miracle acts. If so, it in no way contradicts the miracle accounts about Jesus, but only shows that his later followers could not produce such miracles. This is no indication of any "hooey" or "gimmick (lie)," but only that the disciples or evangelists later were unable to produce any miracles, even though people were demanding this from them. So the evangelists attributed to Jesus the retort that they are not entitled to such signs.
It would have been more honest to tell them that the signs had already been provided by Jesus, and that this evidence ought to be sufficient.
You may be right that this passage belittles the miraculous. It shows that there was a general disdain for miracles, or some forms of miracles. This would be very consistent with the reality that Jesus actually did perform miracle acts but that his later followers could not. And thus later Christian evangelists played down the miraculous. It would also explain why St. Paul would disdain the miraculous, other than the resurrection of Jesus, and would make no mention of other miracles or suggest anything that would cause some to demand a "sign" from him.
So this pattern to belittle the miraculous in no way casts doubt on the miracles of Jesus as actual historical events, but even supports these miracle accounts, explaining why people were demanding miracles but had to be told it was "evil" to demand a sign. It was because of the reports of the earlier Jesus miracles that they were making these demands.
If you want an argument against this interpretation -- why they demanded a "sign" -- you should look for them making such demands BEFORE Jesus, or there being a hunger for such miracles and lots of such stories circulating in the region in the period prior -- from 100 BC up to about 30 or 40 AD. You won't find much there.
The fascination with miracle stories and the demand for them explodes in the period AFTER Jesus, from 50 or 100 AD and afterward. This is where a rash of new miracle stories comes on the scene. Prior to this, all you have is Zeus and Apollo and Asclepius and Osiris etc. and Moses and Elijah. It's really not true that there was some fertile ground for miracle stories leading into the Jesus miracle stories. There was no such groundwork being laid. Rather, the Jesus miracle stories pop up from nowhere, and then there is an explosion of new miracle stories afterward going on for 2 or 3 centuries.
All this is best explained by the fact that the miracle acts of Jesus are real events, and then this set off the new explosion of miracle stories we see subsequently.
But they DID have evidence. They just didn't see Jesus directly, so had to believe in his power based on the reports rather than direct observation. Isn't it appropriate to believe if there is good evidence, even if you don't see directly what it is you believe? There are abundant examples of such believing based on evidence.
There's plenty of substance. The reports of his miracles are substance, just like what we believe happened in history comes from substance in the form of reports of it rather than from direct observation. Where would we be if we could only believe that which we directly observe ourselves? Why can't we have knowledge, or reasonable belief, true belief, based on probability from evidence? Isn't it good to seek the truth even if we can't get to it directly and have the absolute certainty of direct contact?
The phrase "god behaves today exactly like he would if he didn't exist" is self-contradictory. But rather than picking it apart and trying to salvage something from it, it's better to look at the term "escape clause," because this seems to mean just any argument someone gives in reply to an objection from the other side.
So, e.g., an environmentalist answers a global warming denier who argues that some place he knows of is actually colder today than it used to be, and so global warming must be a hoax; and the environmentalist's counterargument is that the global warming theory itself provides that there would be some places where it would get colder rather than warmer, because of the climate conditions, so that the overall temperature rises even though in certain places it would get colder. And the denier then charges that this is an "escape clause" resorted to by the environmentalist in order to wiggle out of this obvious refutation of his belief in global warming.
And so any argument a believer in something makes to save his theory is condemned as an "escape clause" contrived in desperation to save the belief. Every belief in anything, even the heliocentric theory, could be refuted by just saying all its arguments are only "escape clauses" to try to prop up the theory in the face of some contrary evidence.
You can plainly see that the earth is flat by just walking a mile or 2 and seeing that it stays level overall, with the ups and downs offsetting each other, and the sphericalist who tries to explain the truth is ridiculed for using "escape clauses" to deny the reality that should be apparent to anyone who just looks with their own eyes.
So no matter how scientific or logical you are in your reasoning, and no matter what your belief is -- that the earth is round, that humans evolved, that the moon landing really happened and was not staged -- all your reasons can be dismissed as "escape clauses" you are fabricating in order to save your belief which is obviously contrary to the plain truth anyone can see.
So the "escape clause" argument is a convenient universal refutation of any belief you dislike. And presumably whichever side uses this "escape clause" argument first is the winner of the debate. So you can win any debate in your opening statement by saying everything the other side says are just "escape clauses," and so the other side is immediately refuted and you win. All you have to do is win the coin toss to determine which side speaks first.
Christ-bashing and Bible-bashing are also big business that rake in the profits. There are people who make a living at it.
So then, the fact that someone today makes a profit proves that Jesus Christ did not do any miracle acts 2000 years ago? These profiteers today must have planted the evidence in the gospel documents telling of those events? Oh those bastards'll stop at nothing! -- even reach back over the centuries to plant false evidence in order to mislead us and maintain their grip on power today.
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Atheos
Veteran Member
Wow. Plenty of red herring arguments and bluster, nothing of substance. I presented you a scenario that is plausible, fits all available evidence and does not require one to resort to believing a man living 2000 years ago could heal blindness, cure paralysis, walk on water or float off into the sky. You respond wish such ridiculous and baseless assertions as:
Well, I could go on for a long time but I'd end up enumerating just about everything you said, because it was all unsupported assertion.
I'll give you these few and offer your the opportunity to defend them:
Why can't someone invent a mythic hero and convince people to believe he existed? Even if I couldn't find another example in history of the exact same scenario you point out what of it? Combining things we know happen into a specific set of circumstances is all that is necessary to establish a more likely sequence of events. By parallel, every murder mystery may have some particular twist of plot that distinguishes it from every other one, but inevitably they turn out to be rearrangements of plot twists that have happened before. The Jesus myth is a lot like the myth of Perseus in that the hero is a person who is placed in a historical setting yet never actually lived. Paul's private revelations about Jesus are no different from the millions upon millions of palm readers, fortune tellers and other mediums claiming to be able to receive information from the spirit world that others can't hear. Their ability to convince others of their messages is key to their fortune. You are more than welcome to provide the evidence that Paul was not such an individual.
You spend a great deal of your post appealing to things documented by "Q". Please produce an extant copy of that original document so we can examine this evidence ourselves and I'll gladly re-evaluate my scenario to fit this new discovery.
Please explain why "you can't just start from a fictional entity."
Finally, I ask you: Are you so unversed in the gullibility of even modern, educated people with access to the Internet that you really believe thousands of people could not possibly be convinced to believe a hoax in a pre-technology era? Paul's early Jesus was a spirit being talking directly to Paul with a message for him to share with others. People fall for that sort of thing all the time even today. The evidence of this sort of thing is so abundant as to be overwhelming. On the other hand, actual people who can cure blindness and paralysis with a mere touch, who can walk on storm-tossed water unassisted, who can levitate unassisted into the clouds are -- non existent. Just like your Jesus.
- You can't win followers to a nobody mythic hero you invented yourself.
- This is why your scenario is ludicrous. No one would fall for this. You can't name any other example from history of a hero myth getting started this way, i.e., where one charismatic figure claims to have private revelation about a mythic hero no one recognizes, who has no history, no recognized existence, no tradition -- nothing but the private claims of one weird fanatic with alleged visions that no one else has access to.
- Details were being added long before the 40 years you imagine. The Q Document definitely puts Jesus in Galilee, in Capernaum, naming the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. It reports an encounter between Jesus and some disciples of John the Baptist when the latter was in prison. This clearly puts Jesus in Galilee, or somewhere near the area ruled by Herod Antipas, so he has a geographical location, which is possible only about a physical person, not an imaginary invention of Paul who gave him no biographical details. These details were current at about the same time that Paul was writing.
- No, it was not and never would be viable nor would sell. It couldn't even get started in the first place. There has to be something at the beginning that is real. You can't start from a totally fictional entity.
- But you're insisting that a unique group of 1st-century idiots swallowed Paul's nonsense hook, line and sinker, which is nuttier than the far more plausible explanation that Jesus actually had power to do the miracle acts.
Well, I could go on for a long time but I'd end up enumerating just about everything you said, because it was all unsupported assertion.
I'll give you these few and offer your the opportunity to defend them:
Why can't someone invent a mythic hero and convince people to believe he existed? Even if I couldn't find another example in history of the exact same scenario you point out what of it? Combining things we know happen into a specific set of circumstances is all that is necessary to establish a more likely sequence of events. By parallel, every murder mystery may have some particular twist of plot that distinguishes it from every other one, but inevitably they turn out to be rearrangements of plot twists that have happened before. The Jesus myth is a lot like the myth of Perseus in that the hero is a person who is placed in a historical setting yet never actually lived. Paul's private revelations about Jesus are no different from the millions upon millions of palm readers, fortune tellers and other mediums claiming to be able to receive information from the spirit world that others can't hear. Their ability to convince others of their messages is key to their fortune. You are more than welcome to provide the evidence that Paul was not such an individual.
You spend a great deal of your post appealing to things documented by "Q". Please produce an extant copy of that original document so we can examine this evidence ourselves and I'll gladly re-evaluate my scenario to fit this new discovery.
Please explain why "you can't just start from a fictional entity."
Finally, I ask you: Are you so unversed in the gullibility of even modern, educated people with access to the Internet that you really believe thousands of people could not possibly be convinced to believe a hoax in a pre-technology era? Paul's early Jesus was a spirit being talking directly to Paul with a message for him to share with others. People fall for that sort of thing all the time even today. The evidence of this sort of thing is so abundant as to be overwhelming. On the other hand, actual people who can cure blindness and paralysis with a mere touch, who can walk on storm-tossed water unassisted, who can levitate unassisted into the clouds are -- non existent. Just like your Jesus.