Regarding Jesus

[Confused Ape]

We do, you've cracked the vampire mystery? I wasn't aware. We actually -don't- know why people started telling vampire stories...even though we do know why this particular vampire story was told the way it was.

I meant we know who wrote the Dracula novel and why he wrote it.

Or some non-existent messiah as a character in a narrative.

Yes, he could have been non-existent but there's still the question of who wrote the narrative and why. We'll never know so we can only speculate.

Since grief hallucinations are not needed to explain either Paul Bunyon or Jesus - I can;t fathom why it gets mentioned again - except out of your insistence to plug it in.

The phenomenon of grief hallucinations is the most mundane explanation I can think of for a story about a dead guy being resurrected to get started. 21st century people believe in all kinds of odd things and here's another one - Dead Celebrities Crazy People Insist Are Still Alive But in Hiding

A related idea to this is that Jesus survived the crucifixion and lived the rest of his life in India or France.

I have to point out here that these explanations that absolutely insist upon some "jesus" - all amount to absolutely shitting on whomever the author of these tales may be individually or collectively.

So why don't you come up with a suggestion as to why somebody decided to start a story about a resurrected messiah in Palestine and why it spread through the Roman Empire? There doesn't have to be a real man behind the Jesus myth but there's still got to be some reason for how the story got started.

Well it's not implausible that there was a cult leader around this time about whom the myths arose.

Implausible? No. But it reeks of special pleading since the jesus freaks will deny with their last breath that there is any historical basis for any other gods created by the human imagination.

I said the cult leader could have been someone that Paul of Tarsus was based on. On the other hand, the new religion could have developed from travellers' tales and Marcion invented Paul.

Why is it special pleading? As I said, there were many people around this time who made apocoloypic prophesies who had cults spring up around them. This is just the one that got lucky.

Because they will insist that Osiris, Horus, Hathor, Ishtar, Zeus, Odin, Quetzlcoatl, Shiva, Tammuz, etc are just myths.

But their JESUS? Fuck NO! He's the real deal.

Possible. Highly improbable. More likely jesus is simply bullshit like the rest of them.

The Jesus as portrayed in the Bible is as much bullshit as all the other deities humans have worshipped. I see that Bart Erhman has written a new book about it.

How Jesus Became God - The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. But how did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus’s transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus’s followers had visions of him after his death—alive again—did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today.

Even if this is true and could be proved the Jesus freaks would still reject it.

PS: BE is talking about followers having visions of Jesus after his death so my idea of grief hallucinations isn't unique.

[Minimalist]

In a book that took eight years to research and write,

Ehrman's problem there is that he spent a career denouncing those same sources he uses. It is akin to shitting in a small pond for 20 years and then saying "it's okay - I found a clean spot over here that you can drink from."

Sorry Bart. You were too successful in exposing the NT as a pile of bullshit.

[Confused Ape]

Ehrman's problem there is that he spent a career denouncing those same sources he uses. It is akin to shitting in a small pond for 20 years and then saying "it's okay - I found a clean spot over here that you can drink from."

Sorry Bart. You were too successful in exposing the NT as a pile of bullshit.

So how did he think the Jesus story got started before he decided to 'prove' that there was a real man instead?

Why did he change his mind? Did he run out of ideas for books disproving Jesus?

[The Grand Nudger]

I meant we know who wrote the Dracula novel and why he wrote it.

Yes, we do...and it had nothing to do with a Vlad or a Dracula.

Yes, he could have been non-existent but there's still the question of who wrote the narrative and why. We'll never know so we can only speculate.

Absolutely, and I'm arguing for "a competent author" rather than "someone suffering from a grief hallucination".

The phenomenon of grief hallucinations is the most mundane explanation I can think of for a story about a dead guy being resurrected to get started.

Jason Vorhees?

A related idea to this is that Jesus survived the crucifixion and lived the rest of his life in India or France.

That would be rough going as far as speculation is concerned - until such time as we can actually establish a "jesus" to have been crucified and lived - anywhere.

So why don't you come up with a suggestion as to why somebody decided to start a story about a resurrected messiah in Palestine and why it spread through the Roman Empire? There doesn't have to be a real man behind the Jesus myth but there's still got to be some reason for how the story got started.

Beyond the themes of purification and vicarious redemption/scapegoating clearly present in the narrative with no need of any speculation - I have no suggestion. But, do I need one.....whats left? That's the story the author(s) wanted to tell. It doesn't matter to the story, whether or not it occurred. All of the stories about jesus serve to establish theology -even in the absence of any jesus-. Sometimes much more easily so. Jesus was narrative shorthand... a rhetorical prop.

[vorlon13]

Is it OK if I swear and affirm Jesus is entirely fictional, but still continue in my efforts to prove he was gay ??

(Just to PO the fundies)

[Jenny A]

Is it OK if I swear and affirm Jesus is entirely fictional, but still continue in my efforts to prove he was gay ??

(Just to PO the fundies)

Sure. Dumbledore is gay and he's fictional. Why can't the fictional Jesus be gay?

But I'd much rather you went after Paul, who was a real man. I'm convinced he was a closet gay in denial.

[The Grand Nudger]

Paul, if we want to speculate about paul...anyway - would most likely not have been "gay" in any way we might imagine it today - even if he did like a little penis. Given the time period, Paul would have just taken what he wanted, not giving a shit - as my sig below, if he were the sort that might be interested. Our sexual mores and classifications wouldn't even register at the time period. We'd get blank stares if we asked the question.

[Minimalist]

Ehrman's problem there is that he spent a career denouncing those same sources he uses. It is akin to shitting in a small pond for 20 years and then saying "it's okay - I found a clean spot over here that you can drink from."

Sorry Bart. You were too successful in exposing the NT as a pile of bullshit.

So how did he think the Jesus story got started before he decided to 'prove' that there was a real man instead?

Why did he change his mind? Did he run out of ideas for books disproving Jesus?

Ultimately I suspect that it is simply a holdover from his fundie days. There "must" have been something to the story because...... just because.

[Jenny A]

Sure he was gay and in denial. Jesus doesn't mention homosexuality but Paul thought it was one of the top sins:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 1:25-27

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

1 Timothy 1:8-10

[The Grand Nudger]

You ever taken a real good look at that? Paul had a problem with bottoms, not tops. Laying with a man like a man is one thing, but laying like a women with a man is entirely another.

He was a giver - not a taker.