(February 3, 2016 at 5:02 pm)Vicki Q Wrote:(February 3, 2016 at 3:51 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: This is just special pleading.
That's nearly the point.
We agree that it is entirely possible for a religious movement to suffer serious failure, and for that movement to continue, possibly in a modified form.
However, for reasons I have outlined repeatedly, a C1 messainic claimant who died without inaugurating the Kingdom was by definition a fraud. Therefore their movement ended without hope of continuing. That's where C1 Judaism is different from many other religious movements.
What is utterly astonishing is that Jesus' followers could somehow still think he had inaugurated the Kingdom, and were willing to die for the claim. The best explanation is that what they said they saw, they saw.
What is utterly astonishing is that you continue to plead that the Jesus movement was somehow different, more prone to failure than modern examples of cults, just so you can turn around and declare how astonishing it is that it survived. You're playing both ends off against the middle.