(February 11, 2013 at 6:54 am)Confused Ape Wrote: I can appreciate this because most people who claim there was no real man anywhere never bother to give an alternate explanation for how Christianity got started when it did.
Well, let's just put aside how "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer and that filling in the blanks with "well, there MUST have been some man behind the legend" is an appeal to ignorance, no more logically acceptable than the Creationist analog.
If suddenly I have to account for how Christianity got started, here's how it would go:
The ancient Jews were living under Roman oppression. They started wondering what the hell happened to the covenant that Yahweh had made. After all, wasn't the seed of David supposed to rule for all time? Why were the chosen people abandoned? This is no small theological crisis.
Judea also stands at the crossroads of three continents. Having been recently part of empires of all three (Rome, Persian and Egyptian), they'd been exposed to pagan ideas of an intercessor deity, something wholly blasphemous to the Jewish faith, and an afterlife featuring Heaven and Hell type analogs, something wholly unknown to the Jewish faith.
Religion, like art or culture, evolves overtime. One need only read the Bible cover-to-cover to see how religious ideas change over time, even in a strict faith. As a culture is exposed to the outside, it picks up and adopts aspects of other cultures. So too it is with religion, especially in times of theological crisis.
A new sect of Judaism began to emerge. Some of the ancient Jews solved their crisis by deciding that their promised kingdom existed in a higher place, not of this world. Those who followed the celestial messiah would be taken to it.
This messiah, given the name of Yeshua (derivative of "Yahweh saves"), at first was a being that was born in Heaven and destined to rule on earth (as portrayed in the first book written for what would be the NT, Revelation). Later, parables would be told about him. Parables were taken to be true stories. True stories were cast in history. Such things happen with urban legends.
Read the NT in the order in which the books were written and you can see how the story of JC got reworked over time. Revelation has him as the Jews often saw their coming messiah, as a glorious warlord who had little in common with his later meek and mild version. Paul's letters speak vaguely of a Christ who existed since the beginning of time and had little to say of his earthly existence. Mark has nothing about his childhood but brings the celestial Jesus down to earth and places him in history. Matthew corrects Marks theological mistakes and reworks Jesus in terms of Jewish theology. John makes Jesus one with his father and portrays a Jesus consistent with modern Trinitarian ideas. The tale got better with the telling.
Personally, I find the urban legend idea much more compelling than a vague idea of "some guy named Yeshua who was some kind of religious preacher or something but we don't know much else about him".
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
