(February 3, 2016 at 6:47 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: 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.
Firstly, it's a pity that you seem unable to grasp that different religions have very different characteristics. The clue is in the different names.
You may not believe any of them, but that doesn't make them all the same.
Here's the thing.
Like many movements before and after, Xianity was for a couple of days declared to be a fraud.
Whether you like it or not, ancient historians, the C1 Jewish narrative and the Gospels all triangulate in saying that there was no coming back from yer Messiah being dead. Make no mistake about it; no Kingdom = game over.
But they came back. And unlike the other examples we've discussed, it wasn't a reaction to something that didn't happen where failure needed explaining. It was a reaction something that did happen, to a complete and utterly unexpected success that no-one saw coming.