Regarding Jesus

[Minimalist]

The basis for the religion is that he "saved" us all.

That's an even bigger turd than the "resurrection."

[vorlon13]

And since it was mentioned, an interesting little bit about Scientology;

L. Ron Hubbard seems to have spelled "Xenu" as "Xemu" on at least a few occasions, and while the recordings are perhaps not as clear as we could wish, he seems to have pronounced it both ways too.

Maybe Xenu/Xemu oscillated in his existence between the two 'poles' of his identity, somewhat similar in how neutrinos are believed to oscillate ?

If this conjecture is disavowed by today's mainline Scientologist community, perhaps it is time to form a new religion based upon this new truth ?

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And we cannot rule out that some of the perceived inconsistencies in the Jesus saga might be explained by an oscillation of his being, as it were, in two differing directions.

Jesus may have existed in a superposition of two states of being!

[Minimalist]

The earliest Roman writers ( Suetonius and Pliny ) never heard of anyone named "jesus." The did hear of "christos" or more probably "chrestos." The Tacitus reference which is probably a later forgery still does not mention "jesus."

[Tonus]

It's remotely possible that the Biblical Jesus was inspired by a real man. He could have been one of the many Messiah claimants of the time. As he didn't cause enough disturbance to get the Roman legions involved he wouldn't have been recorded in history.

Not, in any way shape or form, jesus, or even worth calling jesus

Abe Lincoln hunted vampires, bro. They made a documentary!

[Minimalist]

And George Washington sold cars.

[Confused Ape]

Interesting discussion but as H. L. Mencken noted:

Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense.

The only way he could have risen from the dead was if people thought he was dead and he wasn't. Three days dead is nothing compared to -

Zombie gran: 95-year-old Chinese woman terrifies neighbours by climbing out of her coffin six days after she 'died'

The ‘dead’ woman was laid in her coffin on February 19, two days after she was discovered.

However, Mr Qingwang chose not to nail the coffin shut ahead of the planned burial on February 24.

The day before the funeral, Mr Qingwang arrived at his neighbour’s house to find the coffin empty and the corpse gone.

"We were so terrified, and immediately asked the neighbours to come for help," he said.

After searching for the missing body, the villagers were stunned to find Mrs Xiufeng sitting on a stool in her kitchen cooking.

Eat your heart out Biblical Jesus - somebody is twice as miraculous as you were. Meanwhile, Angelo Hays

(born ca 1918) was a French celebrity and inventor. He is best known for having survived a premature burial for two days.

These people aren't the only examples of this kind of thing. If there was a real Jesus who was thought to be dead when he wasn't it's likely that his followers would have thought his waking up as miraculous. This still wouldn't make the Christian religion plausible, though, because coming back from the dead like this doesn't require a virgin mother and a divine father.

All the apologetic attempts to find a "historical" jesus miss the point that unless he did what Mencken says it doesn't matter in the least. Xtians do not worship the man - they worship the magic tricks. And without the tricks "jesus" is a nobody.

Why does everything have to hinge on what Christians believe in before it's relevant? If there ever was a real man who was obscured by myths and legends he would have been an ordinary human. People might have believed he performed miracles because people still believe in faith healers in the 21st century. If he rose from the dead it would have been because he was never dead in the first place. Even myths and legends being attached to him doesn't make him unique because thousands of humans have had myths and legends attached to them.

A real Jesus isn't required for the Christian religion to get started, of course. The reason will still be ordinary, though, because that's reality for you.

And all this sets aside the issue that once you strip out all the supernatural from the Gospel biography, you've gutted 90% of the story.

This is what Judaism has done and the 10% that's left is far more interesting than the myths and legends from an historical point of view. This still doesn't mean there actually was a real Jesus, of course.

If you were to tell the story of a mortal Jesus, it would similarly bare little resemblance to the story in the Gospels.

So what? Jews write articles about an ordinary human Jesus where his life bears little resemblance to the story in the Gospels. According to Judaism he was a failed messiah who had some followers and got executed like a lot of other nuisances from a Roman point of view.

The story of Jesus IS about the miracles and the divinity.

That's like saying the story of Alexander the Great is about the myths and legends that grew up about him.

Alexander As Myth

The legend of Alexander started spreading right after Alexander's death and overshadowed his real life. Alexander became a mythical figure, a theme for folk-songs, epics and anecdotes. Even his name was modified or distorted.

The legend had little in common with the true story of Alexander: The Byzantines made of Alexander a Saint while the Mohammedans include his deeds in the Koran, to mention only two extremes.

Wondrous Signs Before the Birth of Alexander the Great

His mother dreamed on the night before her wedding, that she was penetrated by a thunderbolt. Fire spread out in all directions.

Plutarch writes: "The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished."

Alexander's father Philip looked inside his wife's bedroom and saw her in the embrace of a snake. This was interpreted to be the god Zeus-Ammon, who was considered by some to have been Alexander's father.

The fact that Alexander the Great really existed doesn't prove that there was a real man who ended up as the Jesus in the Bible, though.

[DeistPaladin]

That's like saying the story of Alexander the Great is about the myths and legends that grew up about him.

There is an important difference between these two things:

• A story about the supernatural
  
• A story with supernatural embellishments
  

This is a really important difference often lost in discussions about The Historical Jesus as examples like the one you offer are thrown into the mix.

To explain the difference between the two, let me reference a movie that came out about 10 years ago:




The movie was based on Homer's Iliad, with a lot of liberties taken, including the survival of Paris. What was most interesting is it took out all of the supernatural elements. There were no gods, no magic and no mystical protection that Achilles enjoyed.

The movie related what might have been the real story of the Trojan War (disclaimer: we don't actually know that; I'm just saying for the sake of argument, let's assume it is). It's easy to see that once you rip out all the woo, the story is largely intact with the same characters and the same events.

Hence, the Iliad would be a story with supernatural embellishments. Take the embellishments away and you have roughly the same story.

Now, let's compare this with a hypothetical TV Series called "Clark Kent".

This TV series would feature this story:

• Clark Kent is discovered as a foundling by a childless farming couple in Nebraska.
  
• He is raised in a small town.
  
• After he grows up, he moves to New York City and begins his career as a reporter.
  
• In his capacity as a reporter, he becomes a classic muckraker, exposing crime and corruption.
  
• His partner at the newspaper where he works, and later love interest, is a woman named Lois Lane.
  
• At one point, he exposes Lex Luther, CEO of a pharmaceutical company for something something unsafe something fraudulent claims something something.
  
• At one point, Lex Luther tries to poison our intrepid reporter with a concoction called "Kryptonite"
  
• At one point, the editor of his newspaper called him a "super man".
  
• At another point, someone says his sleuthing is "out of this world"
  
• After uncovering some important information on a story, one of his colleagues remarks, "wow, you're faster than a speeding bullet."
  
• Clark Kent is a human being, not an alien.
  
• No super powers.
  
• No costume.
  
• No flying through the sky or leaping tall buildings, etc.
  
• Just a guy who's a reporter.
  

As you can see, I've done my best to create a hypothetical story that ties in as many elements of the classic DC hero as I can while keeping it all down to earth, natural, without any alien aspects or super powers. I've even suggested many tip-of-the-hat references in character dialogue.

Now compare my hypothetical TV series with the DC comic story.

It's a different story about a different character.

The story of Superman isn't a story with fantastic embellishments. The story IS all about the fantastic elements. Take them away and you have an empty shell.

The story of Jesus without the miracles and the divinity is the story of "some guy". Like the hypothetical TV series I suggested, the story ends up being about a different character and having little or no resemblance to the Gospel tale.

[Minimalist]

Why does everything have to hinge on what Christians believe in before it's relevant?

Because all they have is belief and that is what they insist is real. One cannot dispel delusion without dealing with the delusion.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

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Ref. Post #42: Paul based his religion on the Pharisee idea of resurrection and he preached that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. That's the whole basis for Christianity. Paul's disciples then wrote the back story about how Jesus came to be crucified.

Paul's stories came first then the Gospels.

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This is assuming that Paul really existed, of course. Jesus Never Existed Com has a section devoted to showing that the Paul portrayed in the Bible is very unlikely. St Paul The Apostle -– Could it all be a fabrication?

There might have been somebody but we'll never know what he really said. Marcion, who promoted Paul as the greatest apostle, could have forged some epistles or altered them to suit his agenda. Later on, Tertullian wrote his books against the Marcion heresy where he accused Marcion of altering texts. Everything suggests that Tertullian and his faction rewrote stuff to suit their own agenda under the pretext that they were restoring everything to the original versions.

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There was a time that I shared Hitch's opinion on that until, as Min pointed out, I realized that it was "just because".

It's impossible to find out what, if anything, really happened without a time machine. The Gnostics had various views of Jesus which differed from the 'orthodox opinion' so where did they get their ideas from?

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[Confused Ape]

The story of Jesus without the miracles and the divinity is the story of "some guy". Like the hypothetical TV series I suggested, the story ends up being about a different character and having little or no resemblance to the Gospel tale.

If there was somebody buried underneath all the myths and legends what else would he be but just some guy? The Jewish view of Jesus is that he was another failed messiah wannabe who preached, had some followers and got executed. If you take all the miracles and divinity out of the Gospel stories you're left with some guy who preached, had some followers and got executed. Judaism rejects Jesus as a messiah because he didn't fulfil the messiah requirements. If there ever was a real man who ended up as mythical Jesus, the majority of Jews in his day would have rejected him for the same reason.

The only thing anyone can say for certain is that Jewish beliefs about a messiah got mixed up with other mythology. How did it happen? Nobody knows so it's all down to speculation. Whatever the real reason was, though, it would be mundane. For example, somebody deciding to start a cult about a divine messiah would be a mundane reason because umpteen people throughout history have decided to start a cult about something.

Why does everything have to hinge on what Christians believe in before it's relevant?

Because all they have is belief and that is what they insist is real. One cannot dispel delusion without dealing with the delusion.

There are mundane explanations for how the story of the resurrection could have got started and a real Jesus isn't required here. If somebody, somewhere was thought to be dead when they weren't and their revival went into folklore as a miracle it would be an ideal event to add the the stories of Inanna, Osiris and Jesus. Judaism, meanwhile, has a mundane explanation for a real life of Jesus if he ever existed.

Christians determined to hang onto their beliefs won't consider mundane explanations any more than Young Earth Creationists accept scientific facts which contradict what they want to believe.

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The story is still an ethnocentric religious fairy tale with a cast of imaginary characters and no basis in reality. When the English got their hands on it they wrote it as an elaborate joke that still goes over most people's heads even today.

Can you provide links to reputable sources explaining this elaborate joke? It sounds fascinating so I'd like to read about it.