Regarding Jesus

[Confused Ape]

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

Stoker wrote the book because he was a writer of Gothic fiction. There are scholarly articles about how Dracula reflects Victorian attitudes about sex etc but this is nothing unusual. Novels often reflect the attitudes of the time that authors lived in.

Historical and Geographical References.

Stoker came across the name Dracula in his reading on Romanian history, and chose this to replace the name (Count Wampyr) originally intended for his villain. Some Dracula scholars, led by Elizabeth Miller, argue that Stoker knew little of the historic Vlad III except for the name "Dracula", whereas in the novel, Stoker mentions the Dracula who fought against the Turks, and was later betrayed by his brother, historical facts which unequivocally point to Vlad III:

Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! (Chapter 3, pp 19)

The Count's identity is later speculated on by Professor Van Helsing:

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, p 145)

So, Stoker did decide to use a real historical person to give a bit of background to his fictional vampire. There's nothing unusual about this kind of thing. For example, Shakespeare wrote a fictional story about the Scottish King, Macbeth.

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

I didn't say that the person who had a grief hallucination wrote the story. The four Gospels contradict each other so there were four authors involved in this particular story. This is why I suggested that the writers of the gospels wrote their stories based on variations of an urban legend. After all, if there was only one competent author, why don't the details of the four gospels match up? (These are just the gospels which made it into the New Testament, of course. There are various other gospels which were rejected.)

I can think of for a story about a dead guy being resurrected to get started.

Jason Vorhees?

Yes, people can get resurrected in fiction. It's also possible that one author wrote the original Jesus story and the other three gospel authors decided to add their own variations.

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.

That's why I related the idea to modern people believing that some dead celebrities faked their own deaths.

Beyond the themes of purification and vicarious redemption/scapegoating clearly present in the narrative with no need of any speculation - I have no suggestion.

OK.

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.

So the authors wrote the story to establish theology. What could the theology have been for? An obscure Jewish sect? A new religion which somebody wanted to start? Maybe somebody who Paul was based on started the story off and the gospel writers based their accounts on what they'd heard he said about Jesus.