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Jesus--Fact or Fiction??

Started by Mike Cl, October 04, 2017, 11:15:17 AM

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Mike Cl

Quote from: Mike Cl on October 04, 2017, 08:04:52 PM
I think the Jesus Seminar was an important step in the search for the historical Jesus that was begun in the 1800's.  And I think that that is an important search.  It seems important that establishing that Jesus was a fiction and how that could be, will make it easier to establish that god is also a fiction.
And I think we are in what is termed as the third quest for the historical Jesus.  The first quest was in the late 1800's; that was met with a flurry of refuting books.  So, it died out.  The second Quest began in the '50's.  And the third quest, which is still ongoing, picked up in the 90's.  Carrier and others, like Robert M. Price, are the torch barer of the current quest.  This means that this research is quite new, less than 200 yrs. old.   This quest is just in it's beginning.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on October 04, 2017, 08:11:44 PM
And I think we are in what is termed as the third quest for the historical Jesus.  The first quest was in the late 1800's; that was met with a flurry of refuting books.  So, it died out.  The second Quest began in the '50's.  And the third quest, which is still ongoing, picked up in the 90's.  Carrier and others, like Robert M. Price, are the torch barer of the current quest.  This means that this research is quite new, less than 200 yrs. old.   This quest is just in it's beginning.

The most recent quest for Muhammad, says that he was created from reading between the lines of the Quran.  The Quran created him, not the other way around.  Try telling a Muslim that!  Of course Orthodox Jews believe in a historical, and even supernatural Moses ... but they are silly people.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on October 04, 2017, 08:10:06 PM
Where we differ is .. you think a fiction is powerless.  I know it to be awesomely powerful.  As a myth, Jesus is far more powerful than as a historical figure.
I have never said that fiction is powerless.  Never.  I do pay attention and appreciate Campbell's research in the power of, and the role myth and legends play in the lives of societies and individuals.  I really like The Hero's Journey and plays a part in every person's life; lessons to be learned if one studies what this is all about.  At times fiction can be as powerful or more powerful, than truth.  That is because symbols are very important in the lives of societies and individuals. 

I think with the establishment of the fact that Jesus is a fiction will help in the decline of the hierarchy of the christian organizations.  It will help deflate the political power of it's leaders.  But I realize that this will take time.  And I will not live to see much of this come to pass.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on October 04, 2017, 08:13:51 PM
The most recent quest for Muhammad, says that he was created from reading between the lines of the Quran.  The Quran created him, not the other way around.  Try telling a Muslim that!  Of course Orthodox Jews believe in a historical, and even supernatural Moses ... but they are silly people.
I know little, to nothing, of the historical underpinnings of the Islam religion.  I'm sure that much of it--if not all of it--is fictional.  Except I have been told Mohammad is a historical person.  But I'm sure much of what he is said to have written and done are fictions.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on October 04, 2017, 08:22:17 PM
I have never said that fiction is powerless.  Never.  I do pay attention and appreciate Campbell's research in the power of, and the role myth and legends play in the lives of societies and individuals.  I really like The Hero's Journey and plays a part in every person's life; lessons to be learned if one studies what this is all about.  At times fiction can be as powerful or more powerful, than truth.  That is because symbols are very important in the lives of societies and individuals. 

I think with the establishment of the fact that Jesus is a fiction will help in the decline of the hierarchy of the christian organizations.  It will help deflate the political power of it's leaders.  But I realize that this will take time.  And I will not live to see much of this come to pass.

The power of the hierarchy depends on the power of the State (or if the Church is a state within the State).  I disagree with you political science.  If Stalin wanted the Georgian Orthodox Church to take over, it would have ... and it would have had the organization to accomplish this ... perhaps as a shadow branch of the KGB.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Element 5:
Even before Christianity arose, some Jews expected one of their messiahs heralding the end times would actually be killed, rather than be immediately victorious, and this would mark the key point of a timetable guaranteeing the end of the world soon thereafter.  Such a concept was therefore not a Christian novelty wholly against the grain of Jewish thinking, but already exactly what some Jews were thinking--or could easily have thought. 

[Carrier provides some examples of the above.]  I believe this amounts to ample evidence that at least some pre-Christian Jews were expecting a dying messiah to presage the end of the world;...............
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

trdsf

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 04, 2017, 01:50:27 PM
I subscribe to astro-theology, which claims that Jesus is just another sun god for the new age that saw the sun leave the sign of Taurus the bull )Mithras), Aries, then the goat (Moses), and enters Pisces, the fish (Jesus). I guess we'll soon need a new sun god, though, as we enter the age of Aquarius. I wonder if that'll happen.
Aquarius?  Well, if it's going to be a water god, I vote Cthulhu.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on October 05, 2017, 09:27:20 AM
Element 5:
Even before Christianity arose, some Jews expected one of their messiahs heralding the end times would actually be killed, rather than be immediately victorious, and this would mark the key point of a timetable guaranteeing the end of the world soon thereafter.  Such a concept was therefore not a Christian novelty wholly against the grain of Jewish thinking, but already exactly what some Jews were thinking--or could easily have thought. 

[Carrier provides some examples of the above.]  I believe this amounts to ample evidence that at least some pre-Christian Jews were expecting a dying messiah to presage the end of the world;...............

Partly true.  Different cults, different messiahs.  One cult expected two messiahs, a priestly one, followed by a kingly one.  I think that is the one you are referring to.  The priestly one might have been expected to be oppressed or killed.  The kingly one would be all powerful.  There was a High Priest Joshua not long after the initial Persian supported Zionism ... and he and Prince Zerubbabel might have been eliminated by the Persian authorities when they showed too much independence.  This is both a part of the background to the Homily to the Hebrews, and the Second Coming of Jesus (in kingly form the second time).  Muslims agree in some cases, to a Second Coming, with Jesus helping the Mahdi, not as the Mahdi.  Specifically the returned Jesus will take revenge on the Jews and Christians.  The Mahdi will exterminate all the non-Book people who aren't Muslim.

A more Maccabeen messiah would be a political and military leader who would magically defeat the Romans.  This was probably the most common version.  A spiritual messiah would bring about the end of human history (this is the only one I would accept).  The latter has never arrived, so all other messiahs are false.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Personally, I find the question of Jesus' historicity almost beside the point, mainly because most Christians are Paulists rather than Jesusists.

Is there independent evidence for the historicity of Paul?
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Quote from: trdsf on October 05, 2017, 12:59:18 PM
Personally, I find the question of Jesus' historicity almost beside the point, mainly because most Christians are Paulists rather than Jesusists.

Is there independent evidence for the historicity of Paul?

If you subtract out the miracles, and the misattribution, and the editing, there is a core left that is plausible.  Of course Paul was wrong about most things ... just as Socrates was.  Most of the wise-guys of that time had Socrates in mind, if they had a death wish.  I am pretty sure the real Paul had a death wish.  In Search Of Paul by Crossan is a good book.  Misses stuff, but is good on the Gentile cultural notes.  Crossan isn't Jewish, he is Roman Catholic, so he misses the Jewish stuff.  He isn't a mystic, so he misses the Gnostic stuff too.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on October 05, 2017, 12:54:21 PM
Partly true.  Different cults, different messiahs.  One cult expected two messiahs, a priestly one, followed by a kingly one.  I think that is the one you are referring to.  The priestly one might have been expected to be oppressed or killed.  The kingly one would be all powerful.  There was a High Priest Joshua not long after the initial Persian supported Zionism ... and he and Prince Zerubbabel might have been eliminated by the Persian authorities when they showed too much independence.  This is both a part of the background to the Homily to the Hebrews, and the Second Coming of Jesus (in kingly form the second time).  Muslims agree in some cases, to a Second Coming, with Jesus helping the Mahdi, not as the Mahdi.  Specifically the returned Jesus will take revenge on the Jews and Christians.  The Mahdi will exterminate all the non-Book people who aren't Muslim.

A more Maccabeen messiah would be a political and military leader who would magically defeat the Romans.  This was probably the most common version.  A spiritual messiah would bring about the end of human history (this is the only one I would accept).  The latter has never arrived, so all other messiahs are false.
Some of these elements are 6 to 20 pages in length.  So, I try to pick out the salient points.  In this case, I'll list the other messiah's Carrier listed. 
--The Talmud explicitly says the suffering-dying servant who dies in Isaiah 53 is the messiah.
--The Talmud likewise has a dying-and-rising 'Christ son of Joseph' idology in it, even saying (Zech 12.10) that this messiah will be 'pierced' to death.
--The seventh century Apocalypse of Zerubbabel prophesies that there will be two messiahs, a Messiah ben David and a Messiah ben Joseph, and that latter messiah would come first and be killed by an evil tyrant named Armilus. 
--Book of Daniel explicitly says a messiah will die shortly before the end of the world.
--In a Dead Sea Scroll, the Melchizedek Scroll (designated 11Q13), which is an apocalyptic pesher (a document attempting to find secret links among disparate and previously unrelated verses, which together communicate God's plan, most commonly his plans for the coming messiah, the defeat of evil and the end of the world.).  There are many such pesherim at Qumran.  But this one tells us about the 'messenger' of Isaiah 52-53.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hijiri Byakuren

I prefer the other fact or fiction show.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

Baruch

"Book of Daniel explicitly says a messiah will die shortly before the end of the world" ... a version of this is probably what Paul was peddling.  It was wrong.

Also people miss symbolic meanings.  Jews technically are sons of Jacob other than Joseph.  Joseph represented, in Hellenistic times, the Diaspora community.  The Jesus movement came out of the Diaspora community, not out of the Zionist community.  So "son of Joseph" says to me ... Diaspora.  Jesus = Joshua ... so those with Jesus will enter a Promised Land (but a burlesque of the Zionist version) ... because you cross vertically into Heaven from the Red Heifer altar on Mt of Olives, not horizontally across the Jordan river.  Of course this is even more mythical than the original Joshua version.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on October 06, 2017, 12:49:11 PM
"Book of Daniel explicitly says a messiah will die shortly before the end of the world" ... a version of this is probably what Paul was peddling.  It was wrong.

Also people miss symbolic meanings.  Jews technically are sons of Jacob other than Joseph.  Joseph represented, in Hellenistic times, the Diaspora community.  The Jesus movement came out of the Diaspora community, not out of the Zionist community.  So "son of Joseph" says to me ... Diaspora.  Jesus = Joshua ... so those with Jesus will enter a Promised Land (but a burlesque of the Zionist version) ... because you cross vertically into Heaven from the Red Heifer altar on Mt of Olives, not horizontally across the Jordan river.  Of course this is even more mythical than the original Joshua version.
Years and years ago, when I realized that Jesus and Joshua were the same names in different languages, and that they both meant 'savior', I linked that to the 'savior' cults in the 60's and 70's, in a hazy sort of way. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on October 06, 2017, 01:42:36 PM
Years and years ago, when I realized that Jesus and Joshua were the same names in different languages, and that they both meant 'savior', I linked that to the 'savior' cults in the 60's and 70's, in a hazy sort of way.

In one version of the story, Jesus ascended from the top of the Mt of Olives.  But there was something already there, the altar of the Red Heifer.  And what is that good for?  The ashes of that perpetual sacrifice, never to be cleaned up, go all the way back ... have magical powers to protect the High Priest, drunk with water, on Yom Kippur, when he utters the secret name of G-d, so he and the Jews aren't destroyed by strange fire from the Temple consuming bad ritual protocol ... now in Semitic languages, name=power=word aka Logos.  See the connection?  Kind of like ... licking an LSD stamp in the 70s.  Who knows what else they put into that magical drink.  Without knowing what is on the Mt of Olives, it looks like Jesus was sightseeing, or getting on a flying saucer.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.