Regarding Jesus

[Minimalist]

I bet ole paul had his asshole stretched a few times.

[Confused Ape]

Yes, we do...and it had nothing to do with a Vlad or a Dracula.

Stoker wrote the book because he was a writer of Gothic fiction. There are scholarly articles about how Dracula reflects Victorian attitudes about sex etc but this is nothing unusual. Novels often reflect the attitudes of the time that authors lived in.

Historical and Geographical References.

Stoker came across the name Dracula in his reading on Romanian history, and chose this to replace the name (Count Wampyr) originally intended for his villain. Some Dracula scholars, led by Elizabeth Miller, argue that Stoker knew little of the historic Vlad III except for the name "Dracula", whereas in the novel, Stoker mentions the Dracula who fought against the Turks, and was later betrayed by his brother, historical facts which unequivocally point to Vlad III:

Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! (Chapter 3, pp 19)

The Count's identity is later speculated on by Professor Van Helsing:

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, p 145)

So, Stoker did decide to use a real historical person to give a bit of background to his fictional vampire. There's nothing unusual about this kind of thing. For example, Shakespeare wrote a fictional story about the Scottish King, Macbeth.

Absolutely, and I'm arguing for "a competent author" rather than "someone suffering from a grief hallucination".

I didn't say that the person who had a grief hallucination wrote the story. The four Gospels contradict each other so there were four authors involved in this particular story. This is why I suggested that the writers of the gospels wrote their stories based on variations of an urban legend. After all, if there was only one competent author, why don't the details of the four gospels match up? (These are just the gospels which made it into the New Testament, of course. There are various other gospels which were rejected.)

I can think of for a story about a dead guy being resurrected to get started.

Jason Vorhees?

Yes, people can get resurrected in fiction. It's also possible that one author wrote the original Jesus story and the other three gospel authors decided to add their own variations.

That would be rough going as far as speculation is concerned - until such time as we can actually establish a "jesus" to have been crucified and lived - anywhere.

That's why I related the idea to modern people believing that some dead celebrities faked their own deaths.

Beyond the themes of purification and vicarious redemption/scapegoating clearly present in the narrative with no need of any speculation - I have no suggestion.

OK.

But, do I need one.....whats left? That's the story the author(s) wanted to tell. It doesn't matter to the story, whether or not it occurred. All of the stories about jesus serve to establish theology -even in the absence of any jesus-. Sometimes much more easily so. Jesus was narrative shorthand... a rhetorical prop.

So the authors wrote the story to establish theology. What could the theology have been for? An obscure Jewish sect? A new religion which somebody wanted to start? Maybe somebody who Paul was based on started the story off and the gospel writers based their accounts on what they'd heard he said about Jesus.

[Confused Ape]

Christopher Hitchens had an interesting idea - Christ Myth Theory - Christopher Hitchens

Although he repeated in his writings and public appearances that there is no reason to believe that Jesus of Nazareth existed as we understand him in the Bible, he did concede the possibility that a charismatic rabbi in Palestine who believed he was the son of God may have become the inspiration for gospel stories written many decades later. To Hitchens, the best argument for the "highly questionable existence of Jesus" are the biblical inconsistencies themselves, explaining the "very attempts to bend and stretch the story may be inverse proof that someone of later significance was indeed born. [164] In other words, the Bible may have been more consistent if the writers had created a fictional character from scratch. At a 2008 debate in Las Vegas,[166] he used the same logic when he said, "It’s impressive to me that the evidence is so thin and ... so obviously, strenuously cobbled together because it suggests that there was something going on, there was some character." Hitchens used Jesus' birth legend as an example of biblical inaccuracy, stating, "None of the story of the nativity is true in any detail and not one of the gospels agrees with each other on this fabrication." Explaining he did not want to be so profane as to tell believers that there was nothing there, Hitchens concluded that the attempted fraud of the gospels "may have worked on stupefied peasants in the Greater Jerusalem area, but really should have no power to influence anyone in this room." [166]

There's also this short video where he explains his idea starting at 2.43.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Ref. Post #42: Paul based his religion on the Pharisee idea of resurrection and he preached that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. That's the whole basis for Christianity. Paul's disciples then wrote the back story about how Jesus came to be crucified.

Paul's stories came first then the Gospels.

[The Grand Nudger]

There was a time that I shared Hitch's opinion on that until, as Min pointed out, I realized that it was "just because".

[Confused Ape]

Ref. Post #42: Paul based his religion on the Pharisee idea of resurrection and he preached that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. That's the whole basis for Christianity. Paul's disciples then wrote the back story about how Jesus came to be crucified.

Paul's stories came first then the Gospels.

This is assuming that Paul really existed, of course. Jesus Never Existed Com has a section devoted to showing that the Paul portrayed in the Bible is very unlikely. St Paul The Apostle -– Could it all be a fabrication?

There might have been somebody but we'll never know what he really said. Marcion, who promoted Paul as the greatest apostle, could have forged some epistles or altered them to suit his agenda. Later on, Tertullian wrote his books against the Marcion heresy where he accused Marcion of altering texts. Everything suggests that Tertullian and his faction rewrote stuff to suit their own agenda under the pretext that they were restoring everything to the original versions.

There was a time that I shared Hitch's opinion on that until, as Min pointed out, I realized that it was "just because".

It's impossible to find out what, if anything, really happened without a time machine. The Gnostics had various views of Jesus which differed from the 'orthodox opinion' so where did they get their ideas from?

[The Grand Nudger]

-and further, if all of these views somehow arose from a single - actual man, or even a collection of them...then what, if anything, could be said about such a man, or group of men - that wouldn't apply to anyone? We could go no further than generalities. I don't require a time machine, and I certainly don't think it's necessary....(I think, that this sort of thinking, is a crutch.) We wouldn't say "Well shit, L Ron could be right, nobody will ever know why Xenu did what he did, if he did what he did, without a time machine". Would we?

[Confused Ape]

-and further, if all of these views somehow arose from a single - actual man, or even a collection of them...then what, if anything, could be said about such a man, or group of men - that wouldn't apply to anyone? We could go no further than generalities. I don't require a time machine, and I certainly don't think it's necessary....(I think, that this sort of thinking, is a crutch.) We wouldn't say "Well shit, L Ron could be right, nobody will ever know why Xenu did what he did, if he did what he did, without a time machine". Would we?

There are mysteries of history which can't be solved unless somebody invents time travel. This doesn't stop people being interested in them. I'm very interested in history so wish there was a way of finding out exactly how Christianity got started but historians can only speculate.

[The Grand Nudger]

Does Xenu qualify as one of those mysteries requiring a time machine, in your estimation? I suppose it bears mentioning again, I don't think that between Xenu or Jesus we're actually dealing with any "mystery of history" - but even if we were - I wouldn't be willing to invoke the HG Wells defense.

(on an unrelated note - if you did have a time machine...how might that effect your perceptions of time and causality, what did or did not happen in ones own timeline. I don't think a time machine could actually be used to establish truth to any degree greater than what we already possess...just food for thought)

[Confused Ape]

Does Xenu qualify as one of those mysteries requiring a time machine, in your estimation?

We don't need a time machine in order to know how Xenu originated. We also know that L. Ron Hubbard really existed and how Scientology was founded so there's no mystery there. If it had happened 2,000 years ago and the 'official history' had been rewritten umpteen times to suit various agendas people would be wondering if Hubbard had really existed.

I suppose it bears mentioning again, I don;t think that between Xenu opr Jesus we're actually dealing with any "mystery of history" - but even if we were - I wouldn't be willing to invoke the HG Wells defense.

The mystery is the exact details of how Christianity got started. We'll never know because the texts which are supposed to explain it are fabrications. This still doesn't alter the fact that the religion did get started. Historians can speculate about it until the proverbial cows come home but speculation is all there is because there are no concrete facts to go on.

There are other mysteries of history which historians love to speculate about such as what happened to the Princes in the Tower. There are various ideas but again, nobody will ever know the truth unless somebody invents a time machine.

(on an unrelated note - if you did have a time machine...how might that effect your perceptions of time and causality, what did or did not happen in ones own timeline. I don't think a time machine could actually be used to establish truth to any degree greater than what we already possess...just food for thought)

As time travel is highly unlikely I don't think we need to worry about that. The need for a time machine is just a way of saying that nobody will ever know.