(August 18, 2021 at 11:19 am)Ahriman Wrote: And yes, belief in Jesus can make sense without a historical Jesus.
That's great news for Christians.
I mean, not so much because a historical Jesus has been conclusively disproven. Maybe there was a historical Jesus. We'll never know. But, as others point out, whatever figure Jesus was has become mingled with legend. Indistinguishable from it. Bart Ehrman's work demonstrates what a tangled web was woven. And that's just in known writings. Who knows what kind of alterations took place when it was passed orally.
(August 18, 2021 at 11:22 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I always wonder which historical jesus a person believes in, and what details of the (then)legendary narrative were based on whomever that was?
As to christ being concept/metaphor/allegory.....any literary device...do we think that the character presented in magic book is the historical jesus, or the mythical christ? Mythicists think that the christ myth retroactively borrowed from reality as narrative detail.
Like I said above, Bart Ehrman. Even the myth of Christ has been altered so much you'll not find an unmolested version of it in any holy book.
