Jesus - miracles = 0

[Minimalist]

At least shoveling shit is one tradition the preachers have maintained.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Heathen trash can agree with me on this point: Just what the heck is this "historical Jesus" that Bart Ehrman keeps going on about supposed to be?

Take away the miracles and the divinity and you've gutted the entire story.

It's like saying, "historical Superman... but without the super powers ...and without the super villains ...and without all those incredible accomplishments ...but other than that, based on a true story."

[Cyberman]

Or my favourite, the Visible Man.

[Confused Ape]

Heathen trash can agree with me on this point: Just what the heck is this "historical Jesus" that Bart Ehrman keeps going on about supposed to be?

Take away the miracles and the divinity and you've gutted the entire story.

It's like saying, "historical Superman... but without the super powers ...and without the super villains ...and without all those incredible accomplishments ...but other than that, based on a true story."

One of the heathen trash here.

I've just looked Bart Ehrman up. I'm guessing that he doesn't find the claims that there was a never a real man behind all the legends etc particularly enlightening when it comes to how Christianity got started. 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.

[DeistPaladin]

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".

[Confused Ape]

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.

Some people who set out to show that Jesus never existed don't even bother to say they don't know how Christianity got started. They just seem to think the non-existence of Jesus explains everything.

I've started a new topic asking how Christianity could have got started without any historical Jesus so everyone can find it easily. You've come up with a good suggestion so would you like to copy and paste it into the topic?

http://atheistforums.org/thread-17126.html

The topic is meant to be a fun exercise which can include barking mad ideas.

[DeistPaladin]

Will do and hope you don't mind my alter ego calling you "heathen trash". He's an obnoxious True Christian ™ and fancies himself "America's 3rd Best Christian", after Betty Bowers and Pastor Deacon Fred, of course.

[Zone]

The story of the Navity kind of shows that at least they must have had someone historical to work with. Seeing as they had to shoehorn it in to explain how a man from Nazareth was actually born in Bethlehem, due a Roman Census which doesn't seem to have happened to fulfil OT prophecy. If he was entirely fictional they just would have had him in Bethlehem from the start, there would be no need to have him live anywhere else.

[DeistPaladin]

The story of the Navity kind of shows that at least they must have had someone historical to work with. Seeing as they had to shoehorn it in to explain how a man from Nazareth was actually born in Bethlehem, due a Roman Census which doesn't seem to have happened to fulfil OT prophecy. If he was entirely fictional they just would have had him in Bethlehem from the start, there would be no need to have him live anywhere else.

...or they might have misunderstood what the prophecy "He shall be called a Nazarene." (Matt 2:23) meant. A "nazarite" which is the term used in the OT to refer to Sampson, is one who is consecrated. It is possible that someone heard this prophecy of the messiah and assumed it must mean one who dwells in the city of Nazareth.

Also note that Luke and Matt don't have their story straight. Matt says that Nazareth was NOT Mary and Joseph's home town. When they returned from Egypt, they avoided their familiar neighborhood for fear of their lives and settled in Nazareth.

EDIT TO INSERT BIBLE QUOTE:

Matt 2:22-23 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

Luke, on the other hand, has them living in Nazareth and he invents the silly tax scheme requiring them to go to Bethlehem.

The fact that our only two sources, Matt and Luke, directly contradict each other, suggests to me that early theologians were struggling with the contradictory prophecy that the messiah will be born in the City of David and yet be a Nazarite from birth.