From Fiction to "True Story"

[Minimalist]

It's not true.

Neither is jesus coming back from the fucking dead.

[dtango]

A far more modern example of the growth of legend.

William Tell

There is no relation whatever between the legend of William Tell, a simple local legend, (the story of Jesus is not even a popular legend; it is theological fiction) and the hundreds of Flood Myths from all over the world.

Believers were told that God exists and non believers that the myths are fairy tales. Both believers and non believers believe what they were told!

Why is it that I find no difference between the two?

Simple answer: they are both ignoramuses when it comes to myth and history of religion!

[FallentoReason]

Really good post DeistPaladin! I agree with everything you said. What do you think of the 'phase' before the exaggeration of Mark into being literal history? Basically, why do you think Mark was spawned? Was it also rumours that happened to get written down?

[DeistPaladin]

Really good post DeistPaladin! I agree with everything you said. What do you think of the 'phase' before the exaggeration of Mark into being literal history? Basically, why do you think Mark was spawned? Was it also rumours that happened to get written down?

A very good question. My answer would (disclaimer) involve speculation but nonetheless a compelling scenario, one at least more believable that the Christian folklore which doesn't fit the evidence at all.

We do know the ancient Jews at the time were chaffing under Roman occupation. There was one major rebellion during the first century and another early in the second. Previous to Roman occupation, the Judea traded hands between different foreign empires.

We also know from scripture that Yahweh made a promise to David that his empire would reign forever and that his seed would always sit upon the throne. I forget chapter and verse but I can look that up later. If the OT is any indication, the ancient Jews really did think of themselves as the chosen people of Yahweh.

The two above facts should inevitably (here's where my speculation comes in) create a theological conflict. We're Yahweh's chosen and yet living under foreign occupation? What the hell happened to our contract with Yahweh?

Some of the early forms of Christianity, according to what I've read from Ehrman, preached that the higher spiritual realm was good, closer to God, and the physical material realm was corrupted. Something had gone horribly wrong in the material world. In fact, one of the early brands of Christianity, Doceticism, rejected the idea of a physical flesh-and-blood Jesus because they couldn't imagine a holy god having anything to do with an unholy world. Echoes of the struggle of proto-orthodox Christianity against Doceticism are found in the Bible itself in 1John 4:1-3 and 2John 1:7 where the reader is admonished to reject Doceticism on the basis of faith (not on recent history???).

Even today, echoes of this belief about the material world are reflected in how we tend to hear spiritualism/materialism as having positive/negative connotations respectively.

OK, so we've got the theological connundrum, a restless population looking for deliverance and a belief that the material world had gone to pot. My speculation is that some of these ancient Jews began to look for their promised kingdom in a "higher world". This fits with the perception of the messiah reflected in Revelation as being a man born in Heaven who descends upon the earth riding a white horse.

Judea stands at the cross-roads of three continents. It was occupied by various pagans for centuries prior to the birth of Christianity. Many of the core beliefs of Christianity are foreign or even blasphemous to ancient Jewish beliefs found in the OT (the intercessor like Jesus, the concept of an afterlife, Heaven and Hell, etc.). While I'm skeptical of any claim that the early Christians copied a specific alternate religion like Mithraism, I have no doubt that these other faiths did influence early Christians, or else where did these non-Jewish ideas come from?

And so we have a compelling scenario where a sect of Judaism, influenced heavily by pagan ideas, gave up on this world seeing both their promised kingdom and messiah existing in a higher place. Jesus might have gotten his start as a vision of prophets like Paul and was later "brought down to earth" in what might have been intended as parables, parables later taken to be "true stories" and elaborated upon, from Mark to Matt to John.

And the rest is history.

[Faith No More]

In high school there was a story going around that this guy put a sheet of LSD in his sock, and it fucked him up so badly that he will forever think he's a glass of orange juice. It was the truth according to everyone. I even asked my mom about it, and she said it was true.

I've heard that exact one all the way up here in Michigan.

[FallentoReason]

What a juicy post DP! I'll respond to it properly when I get the time tomorrow. I like where this is headed.

[dtango]

I have no doubt that these other faiths did influence early Christians, or else where did these non-Jewish ideas come from?

And so we have a compelling scenario where a sect of Judaism, influenced heavily by pagan ideas, gave up on this world seeing both their promised kingdom and messiah existing in a higher place. Jesus might have gotten his start as a vision of prophets like Paul and was later "brought down to earth" in what might have been intended as parables, parables later taken to be "true stories" and elaborated upon, from Mark to Matt to John.

A sect of Greek speaking Judaism who were so naïve as to have the entire Christian literature written in Greek.
A sect of only-Greek-speaking-scholars who never imagined that to write the story of their imaginative Hebrew hero in a foreign language would eventually amount to an enormous blunder!

What evidence do you have that Paul or any other of the founders of Christianity did speak Hebrew?

I suggest that you read Bauer. To me the Jews had nothing to do with the funny story of Jesus.

[Cinjin]

Well the entire story may very well be fictional but I think we can all agree on one thing for sure:


Jesus is one hell-of-a timepiece ... 2000 years and counting.

Pagan months, Christian Years! Thanks Jesus!!

[FallentoReason]

I couldn't resist waiting until tomorrow to respond. It's rather late here.. but what the hell.

Some of the early forms of Christianity, according to what I've read from Ehrman, preached that the higher spiritual realm was good, closer to God, and the physical material realm was corrupted. Something had gone horribly wrong in the material world. In fact, one of the early brands of Christianity, Doceticism, rejected the idea of a physical flesh-and-blood Jesus because they couldn't imagine a holy god having anything to do with an unholy world. Echoes of the struggle of proto-orthodox Christianity against Doceticism are found in the Bible itself in 1John 4:1-3 and 2John 1:7 where the reader is admonished to reject Doceticism on the basis of faith (not on recent history???).

Yeah, Doceticism was one of the 6 schools of thought on Jesus. I'm compelled to think that these different schools of thought ranging from spiritual Messiah to physical and divine Messiah got their 'inspiration' from other cults. I remember reading something about Plutarch which said he documented the existence of Mithraism in some parts of Greece during his travels. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure Lucius Plutarch gets a mention in Acts which means these cults were definitely polluting the minds of people who would later possibly be involved in writing the scriptures left behind. This is the only explanation that I can see for why there were 6 very different views on who/what Jesus was which sometimes have strong parallels with Mithraism.

Judea stands at the cross-roads of three continents. It was occupied by various pagans for centuries prior to the birth of Christianity. Many of the core beliefs of Christianity are foreign or even blasphemous to ancient Jewish beliefs found in the OT (the intercessor like Jesus, the concept of an afterlife, Heaven and Hell, etc.). While I'm skeptical of any claim that the early Christians copied a specific alternate religion like Mithraism, I have no doubt that these other faiths did influence early Christians, or else where did these non-Jewish ideas come from?

I think the non-Jewish ideas must have come from Greek philosophical minds. Jesus' parables seem oddly philosophical to me.

And so we have a compelling scenario where a sect of Judaism, influenced heavily by pagan ideas, gave up on this world seeing both their promised kingdom and messiah existing in a higher place. Jesus might have gotten his start as a vision of prophets like Paul and was later "brought down to earth" in what might have been intended as parables, parables later taken to be "true stories" and elaborated upon, from Mark to Matt to John.

I'm not convinced that Mark was always intended to turn folklore into 'true story' though. So much of Mark mirrors the OT and even Josephus' works that I think it's more likely that Mark was intended to reflect the history, not of a crucified Messiah, but of the suffering and destruction the Jews had to go through.


That's my two cents anyways. I wish I remembered my initial reaction to reading your post. I had so much more to reply to but I've forgotten some of it... maybe it's time for bed!

[Anomalocaris]

I have no doubt that these other faiths did influence early Christians, or else where did these non-Jewish ideas come from?

And so we have a compelling scenario where a sect of Judaism, influenced heavily by pagan ideas, gave up on this world seeing both their promised kingdom and messiah existing in a higher place. Jesus might have gotten his start as a vision of prophets like Paul and was later "brought down to earth" in what might have been intended as parables, parables later taken to be "true stories" and elaborated upon, from Mark to Matt to John.

A sect of Greek speaking Judaism who were so naïve as to have the entire Christian literature written in Greek.
A sect of only-Greek-speaking-scholars who never imagined that to write the story of their imaginative Hebrew hero in a foreign language would eventually amount to an enormous blunder!

What evidence do you have that Paul or any other of the founders of Christianity did speak Hebrew?

I suggest that you read Bauer. To me the Jews had nothing to do with the funny story of Jesus.

The every day language in Judea was Aramaic, not Hebrew.

There is evidence the origin of portions of Greek chritian bible lies in Aramaic. Due to different double meanings of words in greek and aramaic, alleged sayings of Jesus often make no real sense in Greek, and led to such modern abominations as "born again". But they make as much sense as any unoriginal but overreaching apocolyptic precher might when the sayings were translated back into Aramaic.

So in fact, some of the sillier manifestations of later christainity in Greek and Latin are in themselves evidence Christian bible wasn't first passed down in Greek.