(January 31, 2016 at 2:57 pm)Aegon Wrote: Again, it's all just weird to me. It'd make MORE sense that people were duped into believing Christianity if there was an actual prophet figure to base it all on.
The problem with this line of thinking is: There were plenty of people who believed in plenty of others who never existed. What of Zeus and Apollo and Odin? For that matter what of Moses and Abraham? Most Scholars agree both of them were myths. Why did the Hebrews believe in the stories of Moses and Abraham if they didn't exist?
People would often share their stories, and those stories would be compiled, and they'd be accepted as true.
It's certainly possible there never was any Jesus who preached about the apocalypse, and then was hung on a cross and later worshiped. There wouldn't be a lot of evidence for someone like that. (Actually, if Jesus did exist, then he's probably the best argument against Christianity. If such events occurred that he claimed, then they WOULD be written about by contemporary historians)
It all comes down to some questions: Why include the crucifixion in the gospels? Now I'm no expert on the era, but from what I gather crucifixion would have been very shameful, and wouldn't have fit in with the idea of a Jewish Messiah. And it wouldn't have fit better with anyone else. Not just that, but why include Nazareth? Some scholars seem to believe that some the writers of the Gospels (whoever they were) were trying to fit their ideas of a messiah to a specific man. Which is why they included details that wouldn't have conformed to their ideas of the messiah.
Jesus as the gospels tell the story doesn't exist. A man named Jesus who was a doomsday preacher who was hung on a cross? Maybe. Scholars tend to accept his existence. Though so little is known about his existence or lacktherof that I'm not sure it matters that much. If he DID exist though, searching for details about him could reveal some things. I doubt we could ever (failing acquisition of a blue telephone box that travels through time and space) really know for certain.
The whole tone of Church teaching in regard to woman is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading. - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
