For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

This is meant to be a fun exercise. The object of the exercise is to explain how Christianity started when it did and why when there wasn't a real man who was obscured by all the Christian myths and legends. Any ideas from rational to barking mad are allowed.

Permitted resources if people think these could provide clues -

1: New Testament material plus Gospels and other early Christian texts which weren't included in the New Testament.

2: References to Christians by real people who lived not too long after the events which were supposed to have taken place - for example, Pliny.

3: Rabbinic literature.

I'm going to use Tacitus's report as a way of showing the kind of questions which need to be answered. (Most scholars agree that Tacitus's report of what Christians believed in during his lifetime is genuine.) Nero's fastening guilt on Christians refers to the great fire of Rome.

Tacitus On Christ

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

Tacitus was born in 56 AD and the Annals were written in 116 AD. Nero was emperor between 54 AD to 68 AD and the fire took place in 64 AD when Tacitus was child. Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea between AD 26–36

Questions -

1: Christus means anointed and it was the first Christian's translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah. Why did Christians in 64 AD believe that someone they referred to as Christus had been executed by Pontius Pilate?

2: What did Tacitus mean by - "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa the first source of the evil,, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular"? What was this superstition in Judea and why did Tacitus think it had been checked for the moment after somebody had been executed"?

3: Tacitus believed that Christianity started in Judea. Everything points to it being a Jewish cult because the central character, a fictitious man called Yeshua, was supposed to be the real Jewish Messiah. Why would members of a Jewish cult want to tell Greek speaking Gentiles about it?

4: Early Diaspora Populations

As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke (the author of the Acts of the Apostles), Cicero, and Josephus, all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin.

Could Christianity have started as a Jewish cult outside Judea and everyone just thought it started in Judea because that's where the characters were said to have lived?

[Drich]

I can't make heads or tails of this, your references are just bits and peices of information with nothing tying them together. At best your efforts call Christianity orgins into question, but does not provide an alternitive orgin model. Or is that the purpose? You wish to dispute established/accepted History without a follow up hypothsis.. Heck why not just call Christianity's entire history and current existance into Question? Why not simply say it never existed?

[catfish]

Imma gunna pull the Richard Dawkins card and suggest that aliens seeded the start of Christianity...
.

[Confused Ape]

I can't make heads or tails of this, your references are just bits and peices of information with nothing tying them together. At best your efforts call Christianity orgins into question, but does not provide an alternitive orgin model. Or is that the purpose? You wish to dispute established/accepted History without a follow up hypothsis.. Heck why not just call Christianity's entire history and current existance into Question? Why not simply say it never existed?

This topic isn't for Christians who believe that Jesus is a supernatural being or for people who think that there might have been an historical Jesus who was obscured by myths and legends. The exercise is to come up with an explanation for Christianity starting when it did if there wasn't a real man who was believed to be the Messiah by some people. I haven't provided an alternative origin model myself because I'm curious to see what other people suggest in answer to my questions.

My bits and pieces of information are there for people to take into account when making suggestions. In 64 AD Christians were saying that their Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate - as PP was prefect between AD 26–36, the crucifixion they believed in could only have taken place between 38 years to 28 years ago from their perspective. Either way it was within living memory for people living in 64 AD.

Everything suggests that Christianity began as some kind of Jewish movement. After all, why would Greek speaking Gentiles start a new religion about a Jewish Messiah who spent all his life in Judea? This leads to the question of how and why Christianity spread to Greek speaking Gentiles. I'm curious to hear what suggestions people come up with when there's no concrete evidence that Paul existed.

PS @catfish

Imma gunna pull the Richard Dawkins card and suggest that aliens seeded the start of Christianity....

You haven't explained why aliens would want to do such a thing, though.

[Zone]

It spread to the Greek speaking gentiles because of St Pauls missionary work. Originally it was just a heretical sect of Judiasm, which St Paul was involved with perrsecuting until he had his visionary experience.

[Drich]

Imma gunna pull the Richard Dawkins card and suggest that aliens seeded the start of Christianity...
.

If you think about it the God of the bible falls under the catagory of an 'alien' or transdeminsional being.

[catfish]

I dunno, Mr. Dawkins never explained why aliens would have wanted to seed life on earth...
(ignore facetious me, lol)

[Zone]

Raelians believe Christianity was started by aliens called the Elohim who are 100,000 years more advanced than us. Mary was inseminated onboard an alien spaceship, which I suppose would have been the Star of Bethlehem the Magi followed. Raelians are technically still technically atheists it's just they believe in some shit.

[DeistPaladin]

Reposted from another thread:

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".

***Will respond to new thread shortly***

[Drich]

I can't make heads or tails of this, your references are just bits and peices of information with nothing tying them together. At best your efforts call Christianity orgins into question, but does not provide an alternitive orgin model. Or is that the purpose? You wish to dispute established/accepted History without a follow up hypothsis.. Heck why not just call Christianity's entire history and current existance into Question? Why not simply say it never existed?

This topic isn't for Christians who believe that Jesus is a supernatural being or for people who think that there might have been an historical Jesus who was obscured by myths and legends. The exercise is to come up with an explanation for Christianity starting when it did if there wasn't a real man who was believed to be the Messiah by some people. I haven't provided an alternative origin model myself because I'm curious to see what other people suggest in answer to my questions.

My bits and pieces of information are there for people to take into account when making suggestions. In 64 AD Christians were saying that their Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate - as PP was prefect between AD 26–36, the crucifixion they believed in could only have taken place between 38 years to 28 years ago from their perspective. Either way it was within living memory for people living in 64 AD.

Everything suggests that Christianity began as some kind of Jewish movement. After all, why would Greek speaking Gentiles start a new religion about a Jewish Messiah who spent all his life in Judea? This leads to the question of how and why Christianity spread to Greek speaking Gentiles. I'm curious to hear what suggestions people come up with when there's no concrete evidence that Paul existed.

PS @catfish

Imma gunna pull the Richard Dawkins card and suggest that aliens seeded the start of Christianity....

You haven't explained why aliens would want to do such a thing, though.

So your putting together an arguement, and you need help filling in the holes.