Most people are unknown to history. We know very few names of women in the ancient world for example. Most myths have a grain of truth behind them. We know that Pontius Pilatus (Pilate) was a historical person. Jesus most likely was as well. But that's not really important now. What is important is how the myth of the divine Jesus as an avatar of god was created and why.


I read a really good article on the evolution of the Superman story. It wasn't all thought up at once. It evolved over time into the version we know today.


When Jesus was born there was someone else more important calling himself the "son of (a) god." That someone else was Augustus Caesar, adopted nephew of the "god" Julius Caesar who had been deified by the Senate before his death. At the same time there were people who wanted a new form of Judaism that wasn't so strict that anyone could join. People were superstitious. All kinds people were going around supposedly performing miracles and rasing the dead. Back then all of this went by word of mouth and got told and retold. Eventually the Jesus followers, ancient prophecies, the religious reformers, the mystics and the Roman emperor cult iconography all came together in a mix to create the story we know today.


Sounds implausible? Perhaps. This version of the story is as good any other. Just look at how a Romano-British military commander of the late fifth or sixth century got turned into the legend of King Arthur.


Unless you believe in the supernatural.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2016 06:58AM by anybody.

If you are interested in the actual topic of the historicity of Jesus or lack thereof, read "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt" by Richard Carrier and "How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee" by Bart Ehrman. I don't care what conclusion you come to, as long as your strongest argument isn't a Superman analogy.

The Superman myth was made up. The Jesus myth was made up. The Trojan War (or wars) really happened but the story that is based on it is just that -- a story. As I said, it doesn't matter now if a person named Jesus lived or not. The myth is what lives on and that's what people believe.


Try this version:

The Man From Earth
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=be7_LMZaOik



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2016 08:12AM by anybody.

The problem is that for every analogy you come up with, someone else can come up with 2 analogies that say the opposite. The discussion ends up revolving around the analogies and nobody gets anywhere.

The other problem is discussing second or third best arguments in favor of a position, instead of discussing the very best arguments. Even after discounting in inferior argument, you can't conclude that the position is false. That is why I recommend reading Carrier for the best mythicist arguments, and Ehrman for the best historicist arguments. Neither of them mention superman.

Both are myths that are made up.

In your opinion, which is fine. In someone else's opinion, Jesus was a real person like Julius Caesar. Do you see the problem?

If you follow Carrier's approach, instead of using an analogy you classify Jesus into a class of person with similar characteristics. Carrier uses the "Rank-Raglan hero-type", but you could use the "super hero type" if you wanted to. Based on all known cases of real person in the class, you can then calculate the "prior probability" of Jesus being a real person. The prior probability is not the final probability but it is a step in the right direction.

In my opinion Ehrman is completely tripped up by Carrier's approach. Ehrman wants to simultaneously classify Jesus as a "deified Roman Emperor" and an "ordinary Jew". Jesus needed to be a great person, or at the very least a person of note, otherwise he would not have become the target of a deification myth. At the same time, Jesus had to be a nobody in order to evade becoming the topic of a legitimate entry in the writings of Josephus. You can't have it both ways.

If you want to have a meaningful discussion then read the books I suggested and start a new thread. If you want to endlessly discuss analogies then keep going as you are.

That should clear things up a bit.

That makes it clear that you don't understand the basics of biblical scholarship. Biblical scholars do NOT say that Jesus was not the Son of God. They say that they have no way to tell whether Jesus was the Son of God or whether he was an ordinary man. The divinity of Jesus is a theological question, not a historical question.

Secondly, does it matter where exactly Jesus was from? If it could be shown that Jesus was from Jerusalem, would that disprove a historical Jesus? If you are going to use a minimalist historical Jesus then define him properly.

The (fictional) story of Jesus the Christ is what has outlived the human being Jesus of Nazareth.

This has nothing to do with Biblical scholarship.

Today, Christians believe the supernatural parts of Jesus' story -- the virgin birth, avatar of God in human form, rising
from the dead, etc.

Siddhartha Gautama was a real person who lived and died. According to Buddhism, after meditating under a fig tree his eyes were opened and he found the path to Nirvana and became the Buddha. Unless you are a Buddhist who believes in supernatural things outside of the observable universe you know this isn't possible.

Joseph Smith was a real person who lived and died. He was a con man, charlatan and grifter who claimed to have had a theophanic vision of "Heavenly Father"(Elohim) and Jesus. Unless you are a Mormon who believes in the supernatural you know this story is made up.


All of these men were real people. The fictional parts of the legends that were created after them are what people now believe and these stories have changed and evolved over time into the form we know them today.

Get it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2016 12:06PM by anybody.

Whether Jesus was the Son of God or not is not something that can be proved by history or science. It is a matter of faith. Biblical scholars and historians have various views on the subject. They are not all believers. Some are atheist,some agnostic,some are various forms of Christian, aome Jewish or Muslim.

the 'man-god' myth has been around since the time of at least the egyptians and probably before; pharoah was horus, living son of the god osiris who his earthly father became when he died. Each pharoah, upon death, became 'an osiris' and his heir became a 'living god'.

The japanese eventually thought this way about their emperor, as the chinese did. In greek myth we have achillles, hercules, perseus and many more who were half man half god, or the human offspring of a divine being.

The greek mysteries schools were all about the divine spark that makes those in the know (the illuminated ones, or ones with knowledge) realise they are a literal 'son of god' since they share the creative spark that originally came from the creator/source/all father/whatever.

Julius caesar was deified (had an apotheosis like george washington did) upon his death since in life he was Pontiff Maximus, aka chief priest of rome, and was obviously party to the mystery schools of his time as he would have to have risen through the ranks to reach his exalted position in life (chief priest of the roman mystery schools) like a freemason does now to eventually become grand master (Duke of windsor at the moment).

There is a theory that there were 2 historical people who were merged together into one 'man-god saviour'. One a rabbi preaching against the romans and another who was not from nazareth but was a 'nazerene', a member of a small sect that rejected worldly possessions and preached love and forgiveness. One was crucifed and another lived his life peacefully preaching love for all.

Some go further and say the nazarene was teaching ordinary people the mysteries of the greek/roman cults.This is what is mostly debated now, who was jesus and what did he teach? This we will never be sure as it has been debated since the unknown person named as jesus christ died.

According to the established roman church he was a man-god who gave them the authority to speak in his name and receive worship in his stead. According to heretics (every other christian apart from roman catholic) he was a man who taught we are all divine and equal and so should be less ego driven and love one another.

Someone lived and threatened the authorities, someone was crucified and a lot of writings were attributed to the sayings of someone. Who he is/was, if he ever existed, if he was even one person or an amalgamation of more than one individual will only ever be a matter of faith one way or the other: believing there is no factual evidence to endorse such a faith, or believing there is enough circumstancial evidence to endorse such a faith.

I myself vote that knowing as much as we can about the facts in our past serves us well even if it is difficult and time consuming to decipher fact from fiction. I believe the claim that Jesus died on a cross and was resurrected to save mankind is an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence. Why? Because many claims have followed this claim....claims that have impacted lives in both very positive and very deadly, negative ways.

To ignore history, to say that we cannot learn from it, to say that is is not important is a careless and foolish path to take.

well said

Also, if we don't know our history, we can't know what we're doomed to repeat!!

To you, extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence.

For many, the bar is a bit lower. P. T. Barnum lower.

This should tell us something about raising children. They need to be taught to think critically and not take answers as gospel. The system that produces mindless followers creates fertile ground for mind control "social clubs" aka cults.

Exactly.History is important. I get crazy when people say otherwise

so is the easter bunny .......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2a9yleyvU

The Easter Bunny may actually be the closest thing to Christ, since in ancient Sumerian Christ literally means "mushroom covered in God's semen".

You failed to make a connection between the Easter bunny and the sperm covered mushroom that you mention. However, Christianity being a mushroom cult, just as John Allegro said, Is far more likely than Jesus being any one real person and certainly far more plausible than some Jesus attaining standing in history because Jesus made the transition from live person to dead person back to live person. ........and then permanently disappearing, which really does not do any good at all for the inhabitants of earth.

The bigger question is how a bohemian hipster philosopher's run in with Judean authorities became a worldwide religion. The ruling powers transformed this rebel into a diviner of higher truth, which truth so happened to promote domestic tranquility and deference to the state. It was a brilliant move. Forgiveness covers a lot of holes in the legal system.

Everything you need to know about this religion you can get from studying Columbus's dealings with the Tainos.

"Most myths have a grain of truth behind them."

Perhaps.
That doesn't, however, provide any evidence that "Jesus of Nazareth was a real person."

The supernatural-son of god-resurrected stuff is clearly myth. One that, sadly, caught on, was spread by evangelism and the sword, and has been used to promote human out-group hatred for millenia.

I don't care one way or another if there was an actual person somewhere, sometime, who might have been the "grain of truth" behind the clearly made-up myth. I only want to *know,* not guess or believe. And with no evidence available that could let me know (or anyone else), I'll refrain from saying "yes, there probably was a real Jesus" or "No, there probably wasn't." Since there's not enough evidence for either statement.

The (legend, myth, faith, whatever) of Jesus has outlived the man.

Jesus as a myth discounts any of the writers who wrote about his life and post life influence. They, presumably, would be part of some vast conspiracy and would have to be discounted also. We accept as factual accounts of numerous historical figured based on far less written material. Opinions?

kentish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jesus as a myth discounts any of the writers who
> wrote about his life and post life influence.
> They, presumably, would be part of some vast
> conspiracy and would have to be discounted also.

Not so. They could have sincerely believed the stuff they heard about from others happened, without being part of any "conspiracy."

You do know that we don't have *any* first-hand accounts of "Jesus," from anyone who actually saw or met the supposed guy, right?

> We accept as factual accounts of numerous
> historical figured based on far less written
> material. Opinions?

Do we?
Let's take Socrates; like a supposed "Jesus," we don't have any writings *by* Socrates. We do, however, have writings from someone (Plato) who claimed to have met him and known him personally (and a few others). That's not the case with Jesus. Additionally, nothing supernatural or magical or divine is ascribed to Socrates, which right off the bat makes Plato's accounts of him more likely to be historical than the accounts of Jesus.
But even so, historians will happily tell you that we don't know for a fact Socrates existed (though they consider it likely), and that having accounts of him from Plato that contradict other accounts is problematic. Most historians also freely admit that it's not possible for us to know if Socrates actually existed or not.

Do we see that kind of honesty regarding the accounts of Jesus from "most bible scholars?" Nope. I wonder why...

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2016 11:58AM by ificouldhietokolob.

Why did it take 70 years for Jesus to become a topic of not just one writing but multiple books? I say follow the money. Somebody paid those guys to write those books.

If they're writing so long after the fact, and the point of the stories are indoctrination rather than historical accuracy, I would expect more than a little myth making.

So, I respect the authors of the gospel myths a lot just for creating something that has lasted 2000 years.

Complex God and savior myths are found throughout the world, many predating Christianity and some presaging Judaism.
It's kinda like the BoM. We don't have a proven indisputable chain to its origin, but there are plenty of themes and text in it that predate it.
A common theme in religion is that it was revealed, not recycled.

What do we make of the fact that no one is killing anyone in the name of Socrates?

Killing other humans by divine guidance, or to curry divine goodwill, certainly seems to have gotten a bit out of hand.

Kim Jung-un.

Jeshua Bin Joseph.

Joseph Smith.

L. Ron Hubbard.


Real people, mythical lie-ves.