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Ignorance bothers me a lot . . . but it seems to be an inherent feature of humanity. There are those who do not believe the holocaust or the moon landings for pete's sake . . . voluminous records notwithstanding. What you have to ask yourself is what is there in the DNA template for the brain that allows some things to resonate so strongly within the human psyche that they retain such cognitive power for millennia . . . despite lack of voluminous records. Why are the myriad versions so similar in structure and message?
Because somebody promised to answer their prayers forgive them for whatever they might do wrong, and save then from dying.
And maybe, if they are lucky or were very very good, they might even get one of those miracles they got told about
"Also, most of the early Christians were the down-and-out types, the fishermen are the first example, but slaves and other rejects of society. Most people were not literate at the time, even wealthy ones, and this group especially not. Plus, Christians weren't really well-known as a group outside a small area until Paul started zipping around the Mediterranean by boat."
How do you know? You weren't around at the time.
Same as any history. People who were around at the time wrote down the history of the early church, or those who were around afterward but knew the stories wrote it down based on what they had been told.
Henry of Huntington wasn't around for everything he wrote in the Historia Anglorum, either.
Naturally, second-hand history always has to be read keeping in mind that errors are likely. Even firsthand information has to be read keeping in mind that perspectives and opinions of the writers could skew the information.
Humbug! Do you really think that if this Jesus had really existed and done everything attributed to him in the Bible, there wouldn't have been a historian or two to record it? Someone wandering around walking on water, raising the dead, performing miracles the like of which had never been seen before or since....and nobody noticed. You surely jest?
Why the nastiness? I gave an honest answer.
Christianity began as a small breakout Jewish sect, probably one of thousands of similar religious communities that existed all over the Roman empire at the time. There wasn't this league of Roman historians traveling around writing down the claims of every one. Some survived, some did not, some were written about eventually, some are lost to history. They were hardly the focus of the equivalent of the mainstream media at the time. Some are lost to history. Others, such as the group that kept the Dead Sea Scrolls, were barely remembered until their writings were discovered, although Josephus mentions them.
Compare it to 19th-century America, when there was a surge of "end-of-days" cults popping up all over, predicting the end of the world, each putting their own twist on the idea and gathering followers. The Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists are all sects that began that way and survived to morph into mainsteam religious bodies. The rest of them died out. As the surviving cults grew and developed, the followers subsequent to the original members wrote down their histories and like all religions, embellished the stories to make them sound better.
I suspect you weren't really looking for a logical answer to your question, though, were you--just a reason to slam a particular religion? Go ahead, have a party, if that's what blows your skirt up.
Christianity began as a small breakout Jewish sect, probably one of thousands of similar religious communities that existed all over the Roman empire at the time. There wasn't this league of Roman historians traveling around writing down the claims of every one. Some survived, some did not, some were written about eventually, some are lost to history. They were hardly the focus of the equivalent of the mainstream media at the time. Some are lost to history.
We are talking about someone who allegedly raised people from the dead, walked on water and preached to 'multitudes'...and you don't think it odd that not one historian, ordinary person, travelling merchant or Roman soldier/official wrote a single word about this miracle man??
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I suspect you weren't really looking for a logical answer to your question, though, were you--just a reason to slam a particular religion? Go ahead, have a party, if that's what blows your skirt up.
Why do you people do this?? Because someone won't accept the 'hearsay evidence' for your man god then they get the kind of response that you have just written. And you have the utter gall to accuse me of "nastiness". Sheesh!!!
We are talking about someone who allegedly raised people from the dead, walked on water and preached to 'multitudes'...and you don't think it odd that not one historian, ordinary person, travelling merchant or Roman soldier/official wrote a single word about this miracle man??
Why do you people do this?? Because someone won't accept the 'hearsay evidence' for your man god then they get the kind of response that you have just written. And you have the utter gall to accuse me of "nastiness". Sheesh!!!
Your "surely you jest" and "humbug" response to what I posted in good faith was kind of nasty. Doesn't matter. I'm not easily hurt by Internet posters.
Re pp 2 - I thought I explained that pretty clearly. Not everything that occurred in those days was written down, and just like we see every day on the Internet, stories change and become embellished over time. It wasn't exactly a hugely literate society.
"Multitudes" isn't a defined term. Are we talking about a few hundred or a few thousand people here? If such a group of people gathered together in an obscure corner of the Roman empire that was under oppression and undergoing unrest, why would you assume there necessarily should have been an embedded reporter on hand to take it all down? Jesus of Nazareth's followers were really the only ones who would have told the story, and apparently they did, although it may not have been written down until much later.
Re the "walking on water"--there was an even smaller group--the apostles--who would have witnessed that. However, it's a story about having faith when things don't seem possible, not necessarily a literal event. There were other such stories, such as that Jesus could fly, that didn't make the cut when the scriptures were finalized, probably because they had no point to make like the walking on water story does. Maybe Jesus just knew where the subsurface rocks were located.
I don't know what group of "you people" you're assuming I belong to. This question was addressed to Christians. If you wanted to address fundamentalist Christians who believe the bible is completely literal, you could have stated that. Not all do, you know.
Even Billy Graham believes that non-Christians can get to heaven. This video contradicts EVERYTHING that is written in the bible about Christ. It also contradicts EVERYTHING that Billy Graham has taught (in the past) about Christ.
Makes you wonder what Billy Graham has learned about Christ huh? Maybe he knows something that his sheeple doesn't know? Maybe he knows that Christ was not real? Could this be his reasons for teaching "wide acceptance" to all people:
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whether they come from the Muslim world, the Buddhist world, the Christian world, or the non-believing world.
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They may not even know the name of Jesus.
^^^Yet the Rev. Graham now thinks these people are "saved" too without claiming Christ as their personal lord and savior. Interesting!!! IMHO, this video shows that Rev. Graham no longer believes in Jesus Christ (the actual person). As a result, he is now trying to redefine the word "Christ" to mean "good people". In this video, he basically says that "good people" are going to heaven no matter what they believe in (even if they believe in nothing: ie, the atheists).
Last edited by urbancharlotte; 08-15-2010 at 12:14 PM..
You need to read the writings of Rudolf Bultmann [google it]. He was a Christian theologian that extensively wrote answering similar questions like the one you used to open this thread.
His work on miracles and mythology is excellent. Of course, he was not the most popular Christian theologian, because he was one of the few who had the balls to admit that in reality, the miracle stories were not factual reality. Rather, they had symbolic meaning that Christians have used for centuries.
And he just didn't come to that conclusion by wishful thinking. He did extensive research in the literary forms used around first century. He analyzed the literary and structural forms of miracle stories before coming to any conclusions.
Yes, Bultman is the same Christian theologian that openly claimed the resurrection, virgin birth, and many other miracles were simply myths not unique to Christianity to begin with - but that influenced the way miracle stories were eventually recorded.
And yes, he was a Christian. Did I mention that before? .....perhaps the least defensive Christian theologian in the history of christianity
And he just didn't come to that conclusion by wishful thinking. He did extensive research in the literary forms used around first century. He analyzed the literary and structural forms of miracle stories before coming to any conclusions.
Yes, Bultman is the same Christian theologian that openly claimed the resurrection, virgin birth, and many other miracles were simply myths not unique to Christianity to begin with - but that influenced the way miracle stories were eventually recorded.
I'd go out on an artificial limb and say that is a good point. No where in history is any indication of Jesus existing as anything other than as a folk (mythic) hero feasable. But, myth does definitely exist and evolve with time and value.
Could he have been based on an actual person, like Davy Crockett? You remember Davy Crockett don't you? The coon-skin cap wearing hero from Tennessee who died bravely defending the Alamo? The one who according to the song killed a bear when he was jsut three years old?
(Never mind the facts that Crockett never wore a coonskin cap and did not die defending the Alamo, but was rather captured and executed outside the Alamo following a failedd attempt by the Texans to defend it)
Or was Jesus more like Paul Bunyon, who was a massive individual eight feet tall it is said.? He wielded a Giant Ax and could chop more trees working as a lumberjack than anyone else ever. Of course in the original writings (Folk tales) written by MacGillivray in 1910 the man is NOT a giant.... see what a little time and mythic alteration can do to a story ?
Or is he more mysterious, kind of like the Sasquatch? People claim to have seen him, have casts of footprints they say are his but as of yet, no one has any solid proof that one exists. Still many believers maintian such a creature exists..........
The fact is , time adds much to legends, and mixed with mythology (Such as the virigin birth story taken from Mirthaism) we have no way of knowing
BUT armed with knowledge, such as how mythology evolves and perseveres, we can safely say that the story is most positively a folk story (hero myth) and not a literal account.
Also, 2000 some years alter, we have probably more interpretations of who/What Jesus is/was. In the first century, there were already hundreds of "Brands" of Christianity. Today it is around 38,000 according to Christianity Today, many claiming that their brand is exclusively the "Right" or only valid One .
The fact is , time adds much to legends, and mixed with mythology (Such as the virigin birth story taken from Mirthaism) we have no way of knowing
BUT armed with knowledge, such as how mythology evolves and perseveres, we can safely say that the story is most positively a folk story (hero myth) and not a literal account.
Also, 2000 some years alter, we have probably more interpretations of who/What Jesus is/was. In the first century, there were already hundreds of "Brands" of Christianity. Today it is around 38,000 according to Christianity Today, many claiming that their brand is exclusively the "Right" or only valid One .
Excellent response.
The farther and farther we get into the origin of the myth, the more complex the process becomes. And as you said, with so many brands of Christianity all claiming different versions of the same story, well go figure.
Re pp 2 - I thought I explained that pretty clearly. Not everything that occurred in those days was written down, .....
Of course "everything" wasn't written down but people performing amazing miracles WOULD have been written about and recorded somewhere. Of THAT there can be no doubt.
There is no historical Jesus at the core of the Gospels. From what I have researched, the Gospels are fabricated, consisting of scripture, legends, bits of oral tradition, anecdotes, stories, and mystical beliefs of existing Jewish cults. There also appears to be no evidence of a belief in an historical Jesus that effected Christianity as a whole until near the end of the second century. Until then, Christians expressed a belief in a spiritual Son of God, influenced more by the theological groundwork laid down by Philo, which pre-dated the supposed time of a Jesus ministry. The mythical view seems also to fit in well with the historical record, or rather the lack of historical record as the case may be since no one wrote of a Jesus during his supposed lifetime.
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....and just like we see every day on the Internet, stories change and become embellished over time. It wasn't exactly a hugely literate society.
So we can safety throw the Bible out of the window then....as it can be relied upon for accuracy?
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"Multitudes" isn't a defined term. Are we talking about a few hundred or a few thousand people here? If such a group of people gathered together in an obscure corner of the Roman empire that was under oppression and undergoing unrest, why would you assume there necessarily should have been an embedded reporter on hand to take it all down?
Because "multitudes" of people gathering to hear a miracle-man speak would have caused interest. What about the time this Jesus entered Jerusalem and "the whole city" turned out to greet him, yet no-one but the Gospel authors appear to have noticed this event. There is no independent contemporary historian around the age of the supposed time of Jesus that even mentions the man. The very few references to a Christ by Josephus are considered to be forgeries added much later in time by Eusebius. The many similarities between the Jesus tale and other man-god characters make it very likely it was just another of the many god-myths that came along at that time.
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Jesus of Nazareth's followers were really the only ones who would have told the story, and apparently they did, although it may not have been written down until much later.
Your claim that only those who followed Jesus had any interest in the events is preposterous.
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Re the "walking on water"--there was an even smaller group--the apostles--who would have witnessed that. However, it's a story about having faith when things don't seem possible, not necessarily a literal event. There were other such stories, such as that Jesus could fly, that didn't make the cut when the scriptures were finalized, probably because they had no point to make like the walking on water story does. Maybe Jesus just knew where the subsurface rocks were located.
...or maybe it's all BS. There is not one proof - not one - that Jesus was more historical than, say, Hercules or Apollo. The authors of the four canonical gospels are anonymous. Where is the proof that they provide serious and historically reliable testimony? There is none! That Matthew, Mark and Luke tell more or less the same story about Jesus proves nothing about their historical credibility. Why should they not have made it all up?
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I don't know what group of "you people" you're assuming I belong to.
The "you people" who who, when their claims are challenged, immediately refer to the challenger as 'close minded' or 'not wanting to learn' or 'just wanting to bash Christianity.'
Last edited by Rafius; 08-16-2010 at 07:41 AM..
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]. He was a Christian theologian that extensively wrote answering similar questions like the one you used to open this thread.
