For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

Now - lets see - how did xtianity get started without a real "jesus"
That is supposed to mean something - there had to be a jesus because xtianity mentions him.

No there doesn't have to be Jesus. Here is a list of new religious movements, most of which were founded in the 20th century. Due to their being recent it's possible to know who founded them and when. So, somebody must have founded Christianity. The point of this topic is to suggest how Christianity got started if there wasn't a real man who preached something which got turned into a religion.

Analyze that statement -

How did Hinduism get started if there is not a real Shiva?

An ordinary human started the religion about Shiva but it's too far back in the past to know who he was.

How did Islam get started without a real Allah?

Mohammed, who lived in 7th Century Arabia started Islam. His followers didn't end up believing that he was a god, though.

How did the Greek religion get started without a real Zeus?

Somebody founded Zeus worship.

Sorry - but the claim that the religion proves the god is something YOU do not agree with - so why should we? According to YOU - most religions were started without real gods - why should we believe that yours was NOT?

I'm an atheist - I don't believe in any gods or follow a religion.

Especially when it is easy to prove that the god of your religion - as defined by ALL the claims of the religion - cannot actually be true.

If there was an ordinary, human guy who got obscured by myths and legends, he wouldn't have been a god. Do you honestly think Richard Dawkins was referring to a divine being when he said -

“It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, among others Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist? Although Jesus probably existed.” – Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion,

So, can you come up with a suggestion for how Christianity got started when it did?

---

Ok, I am obviously a lot older than you!

I just think Kevin Sorbo's Hercules is sexier than a cartoon.

[Minimalist]

Insisting that there wasn't a Jesus in any shape or form is an optional point of view where atheists are concerned.

Don't put words in my mouth. On other threads hereabout I have opined that there could well have been 100 jesus bar josephs walking around loose in first century Palestine. The names were that common. So what?
Forgive me for shouting but THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER for any lesser jesus. The only evidence are the rather silly gospel stories but they do not speak of these lesser jesuses. This is exactly the problem with every attempt to find "the historical" jesus. They don't like the miracles so they write them out of the story. But there is no evidence at all for any other jesus. And the one that the gospels talk about is flat-out fucking ridiculous.

[Confused Ape]

Don't put words in my mouth. On other threads hereabout I have opined that there could well have been 100 jesus bar josephs walking around loose in first century Palestine. The names were that common. So what?

Yes, there probably were a lot of them but not all of them got associated with Christianity.

Forgive me for shouting but THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER for any lesser jesus.

You're entitled to your opinion the same as Richard Dawkins is entitled to his opinion.

[EGross]

Well, this whole "Jesus bar Joseph" thing is hard since any name that Christians fine with a yud-shin-ayin root they go "THAT is Jesus!!!". because even the Church fathers struggled with a name/ While the most likely would be "Yeshua" (not Yashua, please), it was a corrupt form of the Joshua that appears in the Book of Ezra, so it was probably not such an uncommon name. But I have seen peope go "ga ga" over "Yohushua", "Hoshea" and other variants.

But the fact is that not a single person who lived at the time seems to have noticed the dead rising from their graves and interacting with the townspeople, or the curtain of the Temple tearing itself in half, and all of the other things. Nobody. Nada. They write that Pontius Pilate was a jerk and tried to sack the Temple treasury, but don't mention thousands of babies massacred by Herod, while speaking a lot about herod doing other atrocities.

It's a story, people! Voldemort is not real! No matter how many wands you keep looking for, you won't find his!

[Zen Badger]

Indeed, even if there was some itinerant jewish rabbi wandering around annoying people it means nothing when you take away all of the miracles that validate the claim for divinity.

This is the REAL Hercules......

[KichigaiNeko]

+1 and more kudos

[EGross]

As an aside, there is, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, a religious leader named יודה which is probably a corruption form of יהודע (Judah/Yehudah), who was the grandson of R'Yehudah haNasi (aka "Rebbi"). He was strong in spirit.

Yes, the force was strong in Yoda.

He lived in the 3rd century in Israel (first amoraic period) and tried to rally his students against the dark force, that was Christianity.

That's right, there is written evidence that Yoda and his rebel fighters existed almost 2000 years ago!

And while the force was strong within them, we know that the followers of the dark force were many. And while he is listed 622 times in the Jerusalem Talmud, his end is not known. But there are those who believe that he and his rebels escaped to a galaxy far, far, away (since it happened long ago).

After all, who could make up such a story?

---

Now - lets see - how did xtianity get started without a real "jesus"
That is supposed to mean something - there had to be a jesus because xtianity mentions him.

No there doesn't have to be Jesus. Here is a list of new religious movements, most of which were founded in the 20th century. Due to their being recent it's possible to know who founded them and when. So, somebody must have founded Christianity. The point of this topic is to suggest how Christianity got started if there wasn't a real man who preached something which got turned into a religion.

After WWII, Rabbi Birnbaum wrote the Siddur HaShalem prayerbook. What made it unique is that he removed most of the messianic references and was quite popular. (Not too many people use it these days). He said that he did so because in jewish history, when there is a great disaster, the Jews think that it is the "birthpangs of the moshiach" and some fraud always comes forth and misleads people. Shabbatei Tzvi immediately comes to mind, and of course Bar Kochba, that when things go bad, the people look for a savior.

If you look at the period when Paul was supposed to have lived, the Jews were in a walled city, the Romans had them locked down and would destroy the Temple that had been taken over by the Sadducees. The primary religious party had been infiltrated by the Zealots and Biryonim (Think of the Tea Party taking over the Republicans, but they are allowwed to kill whoever disagrees with them. Zealots were slashers and Biryonim were burners). While in lock down, the psychos burnt all of the food to force them to fight. And any religious leader who spoke against it was killed (the students of Hillel were massacred and the students of Shammai took over).

There were no religious leaders to turn to. There was no functioning Temple service that was considered valid, the Romans were crushing them through a lockdown (there was one rebellion before the destruction that failed as well), and if God wasn't answering, then these must be the days of the Messiah!

You end up with a series of leaders with a messianic vision just before the fall of the Temple. Shimon ben Giora (69CE), Yehonatan ben Levi (68CE), Eleazer ben Shimon (66CE), Menachem ben Yehuda (70CE), and probably a lot more. And after the destruction you had leaders, such as Joshua ben Levi who was a big advocate of messianism and gained followers.

And all of them had a message and believed that they could lead the people to redemption.

Some people forget how messianic that time was, especially after the destruction of the Temple. If that was not a sign of the birthpangs of the Moshiach, what could be?!

There were no praybooks then. There was no formal prayer. And without a Temple, most Jews felt spirtually lost and were willing to grab onto anything. No sacrifices. Yom Kippur was but a shadow of itself.

Here is one possibility. In the middle of this, a charismatic preacher comes to town and say "Hey, folks. Why so glum? Don't you know that these were the birthpangs of the Messiah?! And he already was here, but he will return any day now. What? You missed him? How could you have missed him? Didn't you see the Temple curtain rip in half when he died? No? Come closer one and all, and let me tell you his story..."

I am not saying Paul did exactly that. I am saying it only would take someone with a bit of ambition to take advantage of the feelings of that day, and to bring a messiah that they could buy. And if the Jews would not come in droves, or felt really weird about some of the miracles, well, the other downtrodden are just waiting.

What I am suggesting is that when there is a disaster or a series of disasters, some people become very vulnerable to con artists. And that there were a number of messiahs that you get to pick from during that period, or messiah wannabes, and maybe make a character that reflects the hopes of that time.

There didn't need to be a real Jesus to start a religion, just a bunch of real suckers.

As I said, Rabbi Birnbaum knew that, which is why he worked on removing any reference of the Messiah from his prayerbook.

Suckers!

[Confused Ape]

But the fact is that not a single person who lived at the time seems to have noticed the dead rising from their graves and interacting with the townspeople, or the curtain of the Temple tearing itself in half, and all of the other things. Nobody. Nada.

Nobody would have noticed these things because they didn't happen but humans have a tendency to attach myths and legends to people and places. Humans also have a tendency to turn other humans into gods.

Antinous was a deified human and his cult shows how pagans in the ancient world would have shaped Christianity. They appear to have been very fond of Bacchus/Dionysus and Osiris which would explain how aspects of these deities got added to a new Jesus cult.

Antinous (Ancient Greek: Ἀντίνοος, Antinoös) (27 November, c. 111 – before 30 October 130[1]) was a Bithynian youth and a favourite of the Roman emperor Hadrian.[2] He was deified after his death, although his exact status in the Roman pantheon was uncertain.[3]

After deification, Antinous was associated with and depicted as the Ancient Egyptian god Osiris, associated with the rebirth of the Nile. Antinous was also depicted as the Roman Bacchus, a god related to fertility, cutting vine leaves. Antinous's was the only non-imperial head ever to appear on the coinage.[8]

There's something else interesting about him.

Thorsten Opper in Hadrian: Empire and Conflict notes: "Hardly anything is known of Antinous' life, and the fact that our sources get more detailed the later they are does not inspire confidence."[4]

Antinous's death is even more interesting.

In AD 130 Hadrian visited Egypt with the imperial entourage, including his wife Sabina and Antinous. After an extended stay in Alexandria, they embarked on a voyage up the River Nile. On 24 October Antinous drowned in the river, on the same day the locals were commemorating the death, by drowning in the Nile, of the Egyptian god Osiris. Although Hadrian maintained Antinous’ death was an accident, malicious rumours soon spread. Some thought he had committed suicide or that he had been sacrificed. Others claimed Antinous sacrificed himself to prolong the life of the emperor.

If Theodosius had made Antinous's cult the official Roman religion it's likely that all kinds of fanciful tales would have been added to his biography over the centuries. The sacrifice rumour could also have been turned into him being sacrificed to benefit humans in some way.

The Romans had a habit of deifying humans because there was the Imperial Cult. Ancient Egypt went in for the Divine Pharoah.

Alexander the Great had a lot of legends attached to him, including a divine father.

2: His mother dreamed on the night before her wedding, that she was penetrated by a thunderbolt. Fire spread out in all directions.
Plutarch writes: "The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished."

Is this supposed to mean that she was impregnated by Zeus in the form of a thunderbolt? If so, she was regarded as being a virgin when it happened.

3: Alexander's father Philip looked inside his wife's bedroom and saw her in the embrace of a snake. This was interpreted to be the god Zeus-Ammon, who was considered by some to have been Alexander's father.

Legends didn't stop there because they developed into the Alexander Romance. His supposed father in these stories wasn't Zeus but nobody made an official religion about him so people weren't told what the orthodox belief should be.

It portrayed Alexander as a national messianic hero, the natural son of an Egyptian wizard-king by the wife of Philip II of Macedon. Magic and marvels played a subsidiary part in the epic—in the story of Alexander’s birth, for example, and in his meeting with the Amazons in India. In later romances, however, marvels and exotic anecdotes predominated and gradually eclipsed the historical personality. Minor episodes in the original were filled out, often through “letters” supposedly written by or to Alexander, and an independent legend about his capture of the wild peoples of Gog and Magog was incorporated into several texts of many vernacular versions. An account of the Alexander legends was included in a 9th-century Old English translation of Orosius’ history of the world.

Meanwhile, in the Twenty First century we have Mother Meera.

Devotees throughout the world consider Mother Meera an avatar of the Divine Mother, who has previously incarnated in other forms, such as KALI and the Virgin Mary.

Here's a recently deified human.

Chairman Mao Becomes Local God

There are many signs to suggest that the temple was built by local people with little or no education. Mao was referred to as a “son of heaven,” a term for Chinese emperors that the Communists claimed to have deposed. Mao was put side by side with a Taoist deity. The writing on the door flouts common rules of couplet composition in Chinese language.

Cult Of The Chairman

Chairman Mao managed to perform a weather miracle when his statue was unveiled.

A miracle happened in Shaoshan, birthplace of Mao Zedong, on December 20, 1993. President Jiang Zemin had come with an entourage of party grandees to unveil a 6 metre-high bronze statue of the late Chairman Mao, looking, as the guidebook has it, "firm and steady, and glowing with health".

The freezing winds won't let up until the spring. But on that miraculous occasion, just as President Jiang was pulling the sheet off Mao's shining face, the sun came blazing through the clouds and, even stranger, the moon shone brightly.

I was shown photographs of the miracle when I visited Shaoshan recently, on a typically bleak, rainy day. You could buy the picture in all sizes, the most expensive ones framed in gold.

Turning Chairman Mao into a god isn't unusual for China.

Mao Zedong has clearly entered the pantheon of Chinese folk deities, along with the Yellow Emperor and other legendary sages and heroes in Chinese history. And Shaoshan, visited by millions over the years, is the Lourdes of his cult.

This is not so strange. Humans have been worshipped as gods for thousands of years in China, and the point of Mao, in the eyes of the believers, is no longer whether he was good or bad; such categories do not apply to godmen.

Indeed, even if there was some itinerant jewish rabbi wandering around annoying people it means nothing when you take away all of the miracles that validate the claim for divinity.

Who would want to remember the truth about some itinerant Jewish rabbi who annoyed the establishment if he was deified and associated with Bacchus/Dionysus and Osiris? This doesn't prove that a real man who got obscured by myths and legends did exist, of course.

[EGross]

As a side point about Antoninus, the Talmud has him as a great person because he was best friend with Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (Rebbi), and it is written that neither of them were in want of fresh fruits and vegetables (while others starved). And that Antoninus would secretly visit Rebbi, bringing a slave to accompamy him, and then slashing his throat before going in to visit (he didn't want his friendship to be known). Or that he would lay down and let Rebbi use him for a footstool. Lots of weird stories like that which don't make a lot of sense until you come to the one item that they credit him for.

It is written that Antoninus spoke with Rebbi and told him that if he wanted to keep Judaism going, he needed to produced a systematic organized collection of rules for all to live by. (Jews had attempted this a number of times). Under Antoninus' watch, Rebbi created the Mishna, the "Oral Law", that became the foundation for Jewish law, upon which the Talmud would stand.

Antoninus appears behind the scenes a number of times that makes one wonder if the Jews were not a sort of a pet project of his. He is honored for having encouraged Rebbi to put exiting ideas into a coherent order, but I wonder how much he actually did alone. Perhaps that was the purpose of these secret visits. Not to keep them secret from the Romans, but from the Jews as well, and his being a footstool was a metaphor for his participation of this project, without which, rabbinical Judaism would have died.

[ThomM]

There didn't need to be a real Jesus to start a religion, just a bunch of real suckers.

------

I agree with your statement in principle - however I cannot go as far as calling them suckers - as calling them easily deluded.

Once must remember that today - we are educated and can actually read the bible and see the nonsense.

Back then - most people could not.