For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Minimalist]

What gets even weirder is that Christianity is supposed to have developed from an original Jewish sect in Judea.

Perhaps that is where the story goes off the tracks? Maybe the premise is wrong.

After all, aside from the fucking gospels which are what is in dispute, where does that story come from?

[EGross]

It doesn't sound weirder than some of the other ideas I have heard! Let's say that you are a modern Christian and someone is trying to sell you on the idea that Jesus not only did not exist, but is unnecessary for the true Christ is God. Most educated Christians who know their religion and Scripture would dismiss such a thing, while a majority might think it's a cool idea, but it would be a sect outside of mainstream Christianity.

So too with the Jerusalem Jews of 6-68CE. If you told them that the Moshiach was a deity or the son of a deity and if you submit to him you will have eternal life, the concept is so foreign that if you survived the attacks, anyone who accepted it would be outside of Judaism. So Hellenized Jews who accepted the Greek ideas of theology would be a good target.

[Confused Ape]

So too with the Jerusalem Jews of 6-68CE. If you told them that the Moshiach was a deity or the son of a deity and if you submit to him you will have eternal life, the concept is so foreign that if you survived the attacks, anyone who accepted it would be outside of Judaism. So Hellenized Jews who accepted the Greek ideas of theology would be a good target.

Who told them, though? Could it have been Paul starting a new cult? Did he then fall out with his original group so took his new religion elsewhere?

Perhaps that is where the story goes off the tracks? Maybe the premise is wrong.

After all, aside from the fucking gospels which are what is in dispute, where does that story come from?

I've been trying to find alternative suggestions but it appears that everyone takes the story for granted. I've also tried Judaism but even here, Jesus's existence as a preacher who wasn't the Messiah seems to be taken for granted. I'm guessing everyone thinks that the first Christian group started in Jerusalem because Paul said he went there a few times and met apostles.

I've been doing some arithmetic with dates just for fun. Paul's last visit to Jerusalem was supposed to be in AD 57. I'm 63 so anyone of my age in this mysterious Jewish sect would have been born in 6 BC. Quirinius's census was AD 6/7. If Paul had told us that all males had had to return to their town of birth to register for this census everyone would have known he was talking rhubarb. Even younger people would know it didn't happen because it's the kind of thing that parents would have mentioned to their children. "Poor old Mr and Mrs X who lived next door to us had to go to Jericho. What with her being deaf and him having bunions it's a wonder they ever got there and came back."

If Paul had gone to Bethlehem and told them about the massacre of the innocents he'd have had replies on the lines of "My uncle/father/brother wasn't killed by Herod's soldiers." He might even have got "And neither was I". People might have believed stories about miracles but nobody would have believed that their father had been killed when he was under two years old.

I know the average life expectancy was much lower in those days but there would always be a few old people around.

[Minimalist]

I've been trying to find alternative suggestions but it appears that everyone takes the story for granted.

Yeah - that could well be the problem. BTW, "Paul" seems as phony as all the rest of it. There are holes in the Paul story big enough to drive a truck through.

[Confused Ape]

Yeah - that could well be the problem. BTW, "Paul" seems as phony as all the rest of it. There are holes in the Paul story big enough to drive a truck through.

There had to be somebody like Paul to take this new cult to the Gentiles. Cult leaders often lie about their backgrounds so this could explain some things about Paul's story not adding up. The rest is likely to be due to later Christian writers altering things.

[EGross]

Too much of Paul's story sounds bogus. For example, he says he was a zealot, wanting to go after Christians, and his zeal is repeated. The zealots were part of Beit Shammai. He says he was a student of Gamliel (who died in 50CE), but Gamliel was from Beit Hillel and was estranged from beit Shammai, who would not learn from him. Now in 50CE, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel will support the zealot cause and religious zeal will be the rule of law. THIS would have been the time for Paul to do his thing against the Christians, when there was an anti-gentile sentiment growing, not before. But it had to be outside of Jerusalem, because the great Sanhedrin had already left the Temple decades earlierl, which was the only spot where capital crimes could be judged in that city.

Now, had Paul been preaching in Jerusalem, he would have been a dead man in minutes. The Sicarii were slicing and dicing anyone who would have been preaching avodah zerah (praying to an image of any kind), and Paul said that to follow a Christ, you needed to trat anything Jewish as dung, a disgusting thing to be rid of. yeah, THAT would have gone over well with the Jews!

I like the conspiracy theory that Rabban Gamliel sent Paul, who was really a Hillel guy, to the non-Jews to sell them on a new religion in order to distinguish it from Judaism, so that the messianists in their midst would either be absorbed by one group or the other.

Makes about as much sense as anything else.

[Minimalist]

[EGross]

Yeah, it would seem that there was already similar stuff going on. You see an opportunity and fill it. Whoever filled it, and got Constantine's mom to buy it, did a good job, or just got lucky.

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]