Why did only the Jesus miracle legend get published and all the others thrown into the trash heap?
Barbarian: Are you really surprised Christians preferentially copied Christian material?
-- and that stalwarts of all the other messiah cults did NOT copy theirs likewise -- yes, it's surprising that ONLY ONE cult group got their miracle legend recorded and copied and copied and finally published in permanent form to be passed on to future generations.
Why did all the other cults or hero-worshipers or guru-followers think their guru was not worth writing about or making up miracle stories about or deifying into a miracle-working god? or, if something was written, why didn't those devotees see fit to copy it and create a permanent record for the future?
Why didn't those others also "preferentially" write their accounts of their gurus and miracle events? Isn't it surprising that there are no other "gospels" than the Christ gospels?
Isn't it surprising that all the gospels that were "banned" or excluded from the New Testament were also about this same Jesus Christ person and about no other acclaimed messiah figure? Isn't it surprising that there is no John the Baptist "gospel" or Simon Magus "gospel" or Apollonius of Tyana "gospel" -- OK, for this character we have one "gospel," one source only, written 150 years later than the alleged events.
But isn't it surprising that we have all these "gospels" (canonical and non-canonical) and epistles etc. all focused on this one messiah figure, and virtually nothing about any of the many other assorted messiahs and saviors and gurus and miracle-workers? Why did all the messiah-crusaders converge on this one Jesus figure only?
And all this absence of other "gospels" long before any Council of Nicea or any alleged Constantine book-burning squads or library-burnings at Alexandria and other imagined events. 100 AD, 200 AD, 300 AD -- virtually no other messiahs, no "gospels" of this or that miracle-worker. Where were all the others hiding?
I've addressed this very point several times. There were literally thousands of religions in practice in the ancient world; of that there is no doubt. Most of the ones we know about today have been discovered through tedious excavation of artifacts, not through written documentation.
Assuming that's correct, the only reason there's no (or little) documentation of them is that they were not taken seriously enough and did not last long enough. And/or, they had no real urgent message that had a strong impact such that there was any need to write something down. If they worshiped a miracle-working messiah, hardly anyone really believed it, and no one saw any need to write anything down, because there was nothing there to write or nothing to report to people seeking a messiah or savior or means to salvation or Way to God.
Whereas in the case of Jesus many saw him as a connector to a superhuman power source offering the possibility of salvation or eternal life, and it was important to record what happened and let people know of him. I.e., there was "good news" to report in this case, but not in all the other cases of assorted religious beliefs and messiah cults and itinerant gurus.
Scripture-based religions were extremely rare in those times, probably because literacy was so rare.
No, not because literacy was rare, but because most religions/cults had nothing important enough to write down and pass on to future generations. Any religion/cult which did have something important to announce to the world BECAME "scripture-based" and put it in writing so there would be a record to pass on. It's not that being "scripture-based" was a clever means to promote the cult and make it popular, but rather, having an important truth to promote made it imperative to create a written record of the belief.
Any cult which did not put its beliefs into writing or provide any written record was one which had no serious message to communicate to the future. All of them had access to writing and did put it into writing if they had anything important to pass on to the future. That some did not do this indicates that they had nothing serious to pass on, not that they were illiterate or didn't think to write anything down. Obviously 90% of the population, including the Jewish and Christian population, were illiterate. But those religious groups or cults which had an important message did write it down one way or another and made sure their teachings were preserved.
The religions that have managed to survive for thousands of years are the ones that were scripture-based.
Yes, but the reason they became "scripture-based" is that they had something to say, or teachings of importance and worthy to be preserved and to survive. Those that disappeared with little or no trace did so because they had nothing to say to the world, nothing to propagate, no message, nothing important which ought to survive, and so they wrote down little or nothing, because they lacked the seriousness or urgency of concern and attentiveness to their teachings as something needing to be passed on and responded to by future generations. There was not the impact or sense of need for their teaching to be propagated and adopted by more believers.
It's not because they were illiterate. It's that they really had nothing important enough to write about.
The use of scripture helped propagate the religion.
Yes, but more fundamentally,
They had something to propagate, which is what made the difference, not that they were literate. ALL the religions and cults had the wherewithal to record their teachings in writing if they had anything worth recording. Those which had something important to propagate put it into writing, whereas those which put nothing into writing -- or did not copy what they wrote -- had nothing important to propagate, nothing important to say, nothing important to communicate to the world. It's not that they were dumb illiterates. There were always those who could put it into writing if there was something important to say and to communicate.
Even the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman religions weren't scripture based.
Yes they were. Your term "scripture based" is arbitrary. There is no essential difference between the Bible writings and the epic poetry of the Greeks, Romans, and others. The earliest was the Gilgamesh epic, which is also essentially "scripture based." All these cultures were "scripture-based."
You could nitpick about some nuance of difference between them, and yet, the Hebrew religious literature actually was far less in quantity than the Greek and Roman and Hindu religious literature. (Maybe you could argue that the Roman "religious" literature had less of the religious element in it than the Hindu and Hebrew literature, or that the Romans borrowed most of theirs from the Greeks. But all these cultures were "scripture-based.")
The few things written about their gods were stories of the god's exploits, not blueprints for following the religion.
They contained all the same basic elements, the most important of which are the descriptions of heroic superhuman deeds, and tales of creation and the beginning of life and of human history. Even if there are some nuanced differences between the Greek/Roman stories and the Hebrew stories, they are all "scripture-based" cultures which should have produced hundreds of Jesus-like miracle-worker legends appearing in writing less than 100 years from the alleged miracle events, if it was possible for such fictions to appear abruptly instead of over centuries.
The Jewish religion was a big standout in that area, as was the Hindu religion, Buddhism and perhaps one or two others.
Are you supposed to be explaining why there was no other Jesus-like miracle-worker myth which got published so shortly after the alleged events happened? You're implying that these original Christ-belief cults were somehow part of a "scripture-based" culture while all the other miracle cults were not? How do you figure that?
You're recognizing the Hindu and Buddhist cultures as being "scripture-based" and yet those have no such Jesus-like miracle-worker legend which appeared in writing only a few decades after the reputed miracle events.
And it makes no sense to say the Romans, Hellenists, and others of the 1st-century environment which produced the new Christ cults were NOT "scripture-based" whereas these new Christ cults somehow were "scripture-based."
And also the Jewish culture produced no "instant miracle-worker" messiah figure other than this one single case, which requires an explanation, as there were easily hundreds of "messiahs" of one kind or another here and there from 100 BC to 100 AD (probably thousands over 4 or 5 centuries), and yet none of them is recognized in any written record, other than very few cases which appeared in writing centuries after the reputed miracle events, and in one source only.
So why didn't this "scripture-based" culture produce any more than only one such legend which stands out like this, and why didn't the other "scripture-based" cultures produce any similar figure?
So what is the point of your "scripture-based" religion explanation? It explains nothing. It doesn't answer why we don't have hundreds of other Jesus-like cults, throughout the ancient world, up to 1000 AD or so, of miracle-worker heroes whose deeds were published in their own respective "gospel" accounts within decades after the events.
In more recent times (and I use that term in a relative sort of way) so is/was Christianity, Islam and Mormonism.
Islam is an example of a "scripture-based" religion? Then why didn't it produce an equally-credible miracle-worker legend? The Mohammed miracle stories don't appear in the written record until 200 years after the Prophet lived. Why did they wait so long? Why didn't the early believers make up miracle stories to promote their prophet just like the Christ-believers made up their stories?
There's only one answer: Any early miracle stories made up by believers were NOT believed and were rejected as nonsense by virtually everyone and never got published. The only early miracle stories that got recorded and published were the ones that were TRUE because the miracle events really did happen. That explains why we have the early Jesus miracle stories recorded in writing less than 50 years from the events, whereas the other various messiah cults have no such accounts because no one took their stories seriously -- because they were fictional and everyone knew it.
I think it goes without saying that people like Mohammad and Joseph Smith recognized this fact and used the power of written scripture to ensure that their new religions got off the ground successfully.
No, all the others used "written scripture" also -- this was not some secret formula to success that only a few recognized.
Many religions "got off the ground successfully" and made a smash hit for one reason or another. This is not about finding a key to a successful religion. This is about a record of miracle acts which has vastly greater credibility than any other in the ancient world before the age of mass publishing.
It is silly to keep bringing up Joseph Smith -- there are easily thousands of equal examples in modern times of gurus getting published and promoted by the modern publishing industry and becoming notorious celebrities who attracted a following with their charisma during a colorful career of preaching and publishing and using a centuries-old religious tradition as a springboard to start a new offshoot sect, basing their miracle stories on the already-established miracle hero from centuries earlier.
There are many explanations why one such charismatic figure succeeds and another fails, and it has nothing to do with their use of a written language to publish something -- they all do that. Some succeed at their publishing effort, while others fail. They ALL use publishing as much as possible, and so did the hundreds of cults in the 1st century AD -- but most failed because no one believed their fictional claims to miracle power.
Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination to think perhaps Paul understood the same principle?
EVERYONE understood it. Paul had a real message to sell and it got published way beyond anything he did. The others simply had no message, no true claims to make based on anything factual, and so they were rejected, not because they did not publish, but because what they were trying to sell was rejected, and no one saw fit to write it down, or if the inventors of it wrote something, no one read it or took it seriously or copied it.
It's not enough that Paul wrote some epistles. SOMEONE HAD TO BELIEVE it and copy it -- that's the key to success, not just writing something down.
No, just writing something down does not guarantee your fictional miracle legend will sell. People are not the meathead brainless idiots your theory presupposes. They do NOT believe just anything, but usually reject miracle claims when there is no evidence.
If people generally were such meatheads, then we'd have hundreds of Jesus-like miracle legends, from 2000 or so years ago, all supported by their respective "gospel" accounts appearing within decades of the alleged miracle events.
Christianity, being originally an offshoot of Judaism, had access to scribes.
And so did thousands of other Jewish cults, including the Essenes and Zealots and the writers of the Book of Enoch and hundreds of writings within that culture, also the John the Baptizer followers and hundreds of other similar charismatics. So why didn't any of them also produce a Jesus-like miracle legend appearing in the written record in only a few decades after the alleged miracle events?
Scribes were people whose only job in life was to make handwritten copies of scripture.
Then why did they make copies of ONLY ONE miracle-worker, over centuries, appearing in only 50 years from when the alleged miracles happened? With all those scribes copying every "scripture" claiming a miracle happened, why is there ONLY ONE record of a miracle-worker for whom we have multiple accounts attesting to his acts within decades of the events?
Why are there no copies of any others?
That explains how the Christian story got propagated and others fell into the dust of history.
What are you smoking? All those "others" could just as easily have been copied.
What happened to all the other Jewish-offshoot miracle-cults who also had access to those same scribes? What prevented the John the Baptist cult from getting their "gospels" copied by those same scribes? or the hundreds of other cults promoting their own Jewish messiah miracle legends?
Where do you get the idea that Jewish scribes had a mandate to copy ONLY Christ-cult scriptures and no others? They copied non-Christ scrolls also, both Jewish and pagan.
We can know this happened because otherwise those early christian scriptures (Paul's epistles) wouldn't have made it out of the first century.
There were plenty of other epistles and writings NOT from the Christians which also should have been copied and should have made it out of the first century. Why did they not get copied and preserved for us just as the Jesus writings were? Why did Paul and his gang have this magic access to the scribes which others did not have?
Why were all the other "scriptures" about the other messiahs forbidden to be copied? Why were ALL Jews rejected by these Jewish scribes except those of the Christ cults? This is not making any sense. You're presupposing that Jewish scribes were under some secret order to discriminate against all the other messianic cults and to copy ONLY the Christ scrolls.
They had to have had access to a supply of scribes.
ALL Jewish cults, and pagan cults too, had access to those scribes. It's nutty to suggest that only the Christ cult(s) had access to the scribes, and that all others, or competing cults, were barred from such access.
Similarly, we don't know who wrote GMark but we do know it was well written.
Nothing else was well-written? All the other messiah cults had only trashy writings and so were rejected? No, most of the others also wrote something, and some of it was well written -- there's no reason to say that only the Christ-believers wrote something, or that only they were able to write something well.
The best explanation why we have no other messiah-cults which got published is that they had nothing to publish. They had their charismatic gurus, but none of these had any power that drew any attention, so what little was written about them was not worth copying and preserving for the future, and so they got left out of the record, or a very tiny few got noted briefly, like Simon Magus, but there was too little there to warrant any serious attention, and so only the Christ cult(s) got published.
It's incorrect to suggest that nothing at all was written about these others, or nothing written well, as if only the Mark author knew how to write well. It is an insult and put-down of everyone in the 1st century to imply that only these few Christ-believers knew how to write well.
It quickly became part of the primitive canon and . . .
But what about all the others? Why didn't they become part of some canon of their own, written about their respective messiah heroes, of which there were many? and which were just as important as the Jesus hero? Why was there no "canon" taking shape for any of the many other Jewish charismatic messiah prophets who were also being promoted as miracle-workers?
. . . became part of the primitive canon and inspired copycats which also got included (even though some of them added thoroughly ridiculous elements).
But what about all the other miracle hero legends? Why didn't they also get copied? Why didn't they also inspire copycats who added ridiculous elements? Why did only the Christ believers do all these things which all the other guru-worshipers were equally capable of doing but did not? Why were the Christ writers the only ones who got copied? And why did all the copycats flock only to the Jesus legend to add their ridiculous elements and not to any of the other assorted prophets and messiahs and gurus who were equally seeking followers and being promoted by myth-makers?
We don't know who wrote some of the later pseudonymous Pauline letters but they, too, were well written and started getting copied.
So, only Christ-believers knew how to write well? only those who wanted to promote the Jesus legend, the miracle-worker from Capernaum who went to Jerusalem and got crucified -- no one with any other legend to promote knew how to write? or knew how to write well?
Where did these Jesus promoters come from such that only they could write and no one else? Were they like a guild which banded together into a cartel to exclude anyone from learning how to write? or how to write well? so that everyone else's writings would be thrown out as trash and only the Jesus writings would meet the standards set by this Jesus cartel?
Ditto the epistles of "Peter" and others.
Yes, for another 200 years -- before Nicea and Constantine -- more "gospels" were produced, "gnostic" gospels and epistles and others, and virtually all of them about this same Jesus messiah and about no one else. Why? No one knew how to write except those promoting this one legend? even though there were dozens or even hundreds of similar miracle legends to promote, all of them of equal validity to this one?
Without a good supply of Jewish scribes none of this would have happened.
But why is this one Jesus legend the ONLY one that happened? You haven't explained why this legend happened and was published and not the hundreds of other legends, all of which had equal access to those Jewish scribes to copy their epistles and gospels.
With all those other messiah legends which were equal to the Jesus legend, it is inexplicable that we don't have ONE SINGLE case of another one which got copied by these scribes and published.
This "supply of Jewish scribes" explains nothing. You're not explaining why they copied ONLY THE JESUS STORIES and no others.
