Mistaken identity regarding Jesus sightings

[excreationist]

This might be an original theory.... in the "Mythical Jesus Vs Historical Jesus" group no-one had heard of this theory before...


Mark 6:14-16

King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”​

Others said, “He is Elijah.”​

And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”​

But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”


​

So the existence of Jesus was seen as proof of John the Baptist being raised from the dead.... so someone seeing an ordinary man could be seen as proof that Jesus was raised from the dead....


1 Corinthians 15:6 talks about Jesus appearing to 500 people.... mythicists sometimes say that that just involved a mass hallucination... I think the following event is relevant:


V: Jesus in Nairobi, Kenya, 1988


It involves an apparent sighting of Jesus by 6000 people in 1988... you might think the photo doesn't look like Jesus but with the 500 they didn't have any photos to go by.


The man on the road to Emmaus in Luke 20 and the gardener in John 20 looked like ordinary men then they were thought to be Jesus. I thought Jesus had a glorified body... Mark 6 shows that the person doesn't need to look like the person to be considered that person. So even if the gardener looked nothing like Jesus he could be seen as being Jesus by people of that era.


So there are many reasons to believe in the mistaken identity theory... though these reasons are normally just ignored and skeptics usually prefer the "mass hallucination" theory.

 

[atrib]

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[excreationist]

About twins/lookalikes of Jesus...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_hypothesis

".....The substitution hypothesis or twin hypothesis states that the sightings of a risen Jesus are explained not by physical resurrection, but by the existence of a different person, a twin or lookalike...."

Apparently the Acts of Thomas also says Thomas was a twin of Jesus...

I think it is a more modern idea that for someone to be mistaken for Jesus they needed to look the same...

BTW in Matthew 24:5 Jesus says "For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many"

Maybe the author wrote that because a lot of people were being mistaken as being Jesus.... for the early ones Christians would say those WERE Jesus....

 

[DBT]

It's almost as if his followers were looking for signs of manifestation, that the spirit of Jesus was manifesting through the mortal body of another person.

 

[excreationist]

It's almost as if his followers were looking for signs of manifestation, that the spirit of Jesus was manifesting through the mortal body of another person.

The same is true for King Herod:

Mark 6:16
"John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!" (in Jesus' body)

 

[DBT]

They believed that evil spirits, Satan, etc, could occupy or manifest through people's bodies, so why not the spirit of John the Baptist, Jesus, Moses.....?

 

[excreationist]

They believed that evil spirits, Satan, etc, could occupy or manifest through people's bodies, so why not the spirit of John the Baptist, Jesus, Moses.....?

Good point.

 

[DBT]

So they may have been searching for Jesus communicating in spirit through people....''that is Jesus speaking to us.''

 

[excreationist]

So they may have been searching for Jesus communicating in spirit through people....''that is Jesus speaking to us.''

But they've got to be careful:

Matthew 24:5 Jesus says "For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many"

It's a bit like:

2 Corinthians 11:14 "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light."

 

[DBT]

However careful they may be, it remains that it is they who decide what does or does not 'come from God.'

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

People see their Blessed Virgin in peeling paint, the shadow cast by a street light and in a potato chip. Are they really seeing their Blessed Virgin or are they just seeing shadows and potato chips?

People are superstitious. I've talked to people who sincerely believed Elvis was present in the person of a performer on stage. People still see ghost ships on the ocean. It can feel good to pretend these things, even have survival value, which is why our brains do it.

 

[ideologyhunter]

My personal favorite found images of Jesus are in shower mold (to which a blogger responded, "Clean your fucking shower!") and bird poop (several examples of this, including a big splash of bird poop on a truck window in Kentucky and one that a driver found in my home state, Ohio; the Ohio Jesus poop looks more like the head of a timber wolf to me.) Thank God & bird poop for google images.

 

[skepticalbip]

My favorite:

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I'm 100% certain that people a couple thousand years ago were just as superstitious about their religious stories and images and so saw them everywhere. That's what religion is, those moments of connection to one's favorite woo, and reading stories about other people's "religious" experiences. You just have to be slightly more emotionally than rationally inclined to believe in the magic. And if a person doesn't have the knowledge and experiences to know any better it's quite normal.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I don't know anyone personally who claims to have made a miraculous Jesus or Mary sighting. But the stuff one does hear from believers follows a few well-worn courses in wish fulfillment and the ascription of miracles.
1) I told a born-again relative that I'd read a piece on the progress made against childhood leukemia, and that with some kinds there is a better than 90% cure rate. Her response: "Are you serious? Praise God!" She repeated the "Praise God!" as if inviting me to join in, while all I could think was, 'I'm sure there are plenty of researchers who spent laborious years working on treatments whom you might want to praise'...left unsaid, because, why not.
2) News coverage of the aftermath of a natural or manmade catastrophe typically shows a survivor speaking some variant of "God was watching out for me" or "I put myself in the arms of God" with no mention of the reason others weren't spared.
3) Almost anything that's odd can be seen as a mysterious sign from the supernatural world, even if it doesn't make a coherent message. Here's one that made me suppress my laughter in a crowded faculty meeting: a pious local citizen had died, not long after donating money to the school system for a nice set of flag poles at the football field. On the night he died, our superintendent got a call that there had been a major lightning strike on that end of the field. The lightning had hit a utility pole next to the flag poles, which were higher and therefore more of a target. But there stood the flag poles, intact, with their banners unharmed. He told this little tale, and a low murmur went through the group. Wow!! Must be a sign!! Of somethn'....I suppressed a snort of hilarity, but only with effort.

 

[hyzer]

2) News coverage of the aftermath of a natural or manmade catastrophe typically shows a survivor speaking some variant of "God was watching out for me" or "I put myself in the arms of God" with no mention of the reason others weren't spared.

This reminds me of the concept of luck. I played in a lot of frisbee golf tournaments (during my 20's and 30's) and you would hear a lot of comments such as "wow, you got lucky" when a disc made a particularly good (for the thrower) bounce off a tree toward the basket. Until a good and thoughtful friend of mine observed that luck is just random chance but viewed from a particular vantage point. Of course my lucky bounce is my competitors' bad fortune. So, yeah, God is watching out for you . . . you got lucky . . . its just random but you are one that survived so viewed from your vantage point . . . .

 

[excreationist]

Mistaken Identity and Jesus - doesn't require a look-a-like - and is compatible with a mythical Jesus

a) Thinking Jesus was someone else (according to some people)

Matthew 16:14 – Jesus is believed to be John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets

Mark 6:14-16 – Jesus is believed to be John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet. King Herod says “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” (as Jesus)

Mark 8:28 – Jesus is believed to be John the Baptist, Elijah or a prophet

Luke 9:18-19 – Jesus is believed to be John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet

John 1:21 – Jesus is asked if he is Elijah or a prophet

This shows that mistaken identity doesn’t require an identical twin. Most people would just ignore these verses and maybe are puzzled by them.

b) Brief appearances – sometimes they think it isn’t Jesus

Note that in all of the stories that could involve mistaken identity, Jesus is only there for a fairly short amount of time.

1 Corinthians 15:6 – the appearance to the “more than 500” – Richard Carrier says this could have involved a mass hallucination like in the Fatima story.

Then He Appeared to Over Five Hundred Brethren at Once! • Richard Carrier Blogs

Christian apologists will often throw a tantrum and kick up hay over the notion of “mass hallucination.” That’s impossible! Never documented! Absurd on its face! And they’ll especially bring up “the more than five hundred brethren” Paul says the resurrected Jesus “appeared” to (1 Corinthians...

www.richardcarrier.info

...but in modern times there was an event involving 6000 people (according to a newspaper but based on photos it looks like at least hundreds) believing they saw Jesus (mistaken identity).

(Includes a newspaper article, colour photos, other material)

V: Jesus in Nairobi, Kenya, 1988

________________________________________________________________________ Compare the photos of Jesus and me to see the resemblance! My previous self, Jesus, was briefly sent to Earth in 1988 &#8211…

stigdragholm.wordpress.com

Since that happened then the 500+ could also easily have been an historical event.

Matthew 28:10 – Jesus tells women that he will see the disciples in Galilee. The disciples saw Jesus there. The end.

Mark 16:14-19 – appeared when the disciples were eating then ascended to heaven.

Luke 24:13 – On the road to Emmaus Jesus appeared to two disciples, in verse 31 they recognised Jesus, eats a broiled fish with the disciples, near Bethany he ascended into heaven.

John 20:14 – Mary Magdalene saw Jesus but did not recognise him. She thought he was a gardener. Jesus appears to the disciples. Verse 26 – Jesus appeared a week later.
John 21 – Jesus appeared again by the Sea of Galilee. Verse 4 – they didn’t recognise Jesus. Verse 14 – the third time Jesus had appeared to the disciples. No mention of ascension.

Acts 1:3 – Jesus appeared to them over 40 days then ascended into heaven.

Not recognising “Jesus” is consistent with the mistaken identity theory. So is the appearances being brief. Some Christians say that Jesus could have had a glorified body but that doesn’t explain why Mary thought he was a common gardener. In other stories they did recognise it was Jesus.

Other examples involving mistaken identity include:

Mark 13:6 – “Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and will mislead many.”

 

[excreationist]

Is The Bible True? White vs Price 5/6/2010

16:58 - Robert Price said:

Skeptics have suggested that on Easter morning, the disciples did not see Jesus himself, but only chance passersby, whom, in their desperation, they later inferred must have been Jesus alive again--even though it did not look like him! In other words, a false belief in resurrection stemmed from cases of mistaken identity abetted by wishful thinking. Is this scenario some contrived, modern fabrication, alien to the gospels? Maybe not. According to Mark 6:16 and 8:28, there are joyful reports among the disciples of the martyred John the Baptist that their master has been raised from the dead and seen by many witnesses! But Mark says it was all a case of mistaken identity: it was really Jesus these people were seeing. They only thought it was their much-missed master. Keep this in mind when you read the Easter stories where Mary or Peter or the Emmaus disciples first think they are seeing someone else and later “realize” that it must have been Jesus.