(March 21, 2018 at 7:50 pm)Grandizer Wrote: I think different bunches of people were asked about Jesus' early life, and then the authors concocted their respective nativity stories based on what they were told.
Asked by whom?
This is the problem with the Eusebian bullshit history of the church. There is no indication that there was any regular contact between scattered groups who later came to be known as xtians. There is no evidence that there was any overarching doctrine. Instead we are asked to believe that all these "heresies" arose in the short period of time between the alleged crucifixion and 185 when Irenaeus wrote a book denouncing them. Epiphanius refers to 80 such heresies. I counted 25 in Book I ( of 5) in Irenaeus before I lost interest.
So, according to the "gospels" a bunch of the disciples went out into the world in the immediate aftermath of the alleged crucifixion to spread the word and they did such a shit job of it that a century later the entire message had fragmented? What did the people they spoke to say to them? "Fuck off?"
Far more likely that jesusism was just another mystery cult, isolated from other devotees, and spreading slowly throughout the Hellenistic East. Later, when they attained the power to do so, the church mucky-mucks said " hey, you're a heretic and if you don't do what I say I'll have the emperor run you through. "
Far more reasonable.
