Was There A Historical Jesus?

[dagnarus]

It's like how JK Rowling can make Harry Potter fit the prophecies about him perfectly because she was just making the whole story up as purely fictional.

Yeah but JK Rowling's also made up the initial prophecies, and wasn't writing about somebody who was supposed to be real.

Even if some Jews believed in a suffering messiah, I thought in Judaism Jesus' sacrifice would have been illegitimate because it was a human sacrifice or something? And then there's all those glaringly obvious errors where Matthew makes up prophecies that don't even exist in the OT. Even if there was no historical Jesus, it seems obvious to me that the gospel authors at the very least were writing under the impression Jesus was real and were meshing together already existing oral traditions about him instead of making the whole story up from total scratch.

 

Yes but you've got to remember that one of the groups which was adamant that Jesus never actually existed (at least in the material sense) were the gnostics, who thought of him as being merely a spiritual being. I believe the mythycists are not suggesting that the traditional stories were written from scratch but were rather adapted from the early gnostic traditions about him, to give legitimacy to his having actually come in the flesh.

[Neon Genesis]

 

Yeah but JK Rowling's also made up the initial prophecies, and wasn't writing about somebody who was supposed to be real.

But that's my point. If the gospel writers were just making everything about Jesus up from scratch, why didn't they make the character of Jesus fit the prophecies neater? Why did Matthew make up prophecies that didn't even exist in the OT? What about how in one gospel Jesus is riding on one donkey but another gospel bizarrely has Jesus ride on a donkey and a colt at the same time in order to make Jesus fit a prophecy he clearly didn't fit? If they were making the stories up purely from scratch, surely they would have caught these blunders? But it makes sense to me why they wouldn't catch an obvious error if they're trying to come up with rationalizations to explain why someone they at least thought was a historical figure didn't really fail to fulfill a prophecy. While I don't think the gospel authors were writing from the perspective that the gospels are literal, I think they are at the least trying to make someone they thought was historical fit failed prophecies and they were clearly trying to combine oral traditions about Jesus that had already existed before they wrote them down.

 

Yes but you've got to remember that one of the groups which was adamant that Jesus never actually existed (at least in the material sense) were the gnostics, who thought of him as being merely a spiritual being. I believe the mythycists are not suggesting that the traditional stories were written from scratch but were rather adapted from the early gnostic traditions about him, to give legitimacy to his having actually come in the flesh.

I thought the consensus among biblical scholars was that the writings of Paul are the earliest Christian writings and the gospel of Mark is the first gospel and the Gnostic writings were later? Although some scholars like Marcus Borg think the Gospel of Thomas contains authentic sayings of Jesus the consensus among biblical scholars is that the earliest followers of Jesus were Jews, not Gnostics.

[qadeshet]

There is not one single contemporary reference to Jesus. Paul seems to be aware only of the spiritual being he met in his visions. No one knows who wrote the Gospels or when they were written. Bishop Irenaeus was the first to mention the Gospels by name, around 180 AD. The early church itself was a forgery mill. I trust none of it. Anyone who wants to believe that there was a flesh and blood man behind the Christ myth is welcome to do so. It really makes no difference to me one way or the other. I left Xianity for other reasons.

[dagnarus]

 

Yeah but JK Rowling's also made up the initial prophecies, and wasn't writing about somebody who was supposed to be real.

But that's my point. If the gospel writers were just making everything about Jesus up from scratch, why didn't they make the character of Jesus fit the prophecies neater?

Because that would require them to actually rid Israel of the Romans, That would probably be pretty hard.

 

Why did Matthew make up prophecies that didn't even exist in the OT? What about how in one gospel Jesus is riding on one donkey but another gospel bizarrely has Jesus ride on a donkey and a colt at the same time in order to make Jesus fit a prophecy he clearly didn't fit? If they were making the stories up purely from scratch, surely they would have caught these blunders?

Um, that's evidence of them making things up in order that they would fit the prophecies, Matthew misinterpreted the Zechariah(?) verse and then proceeded to have his Jesus figure fulfill his misinterpretation, does that mean that Jesus never existed, no. But I wouldn't take it as evidence that Matthew had to be writing about a real person.

 

But it makes sense to me why they wouldn't catch an obvious error if they're trying to come up with rationalizations to explain why someone they at least thought was a historical figure didn't really fail to fulfill a prophecy.

 

Are you suggesting that an historical Jesus actually stunt rode into Jerusalem on a colt and a donkey? If not then what you just gave is evidence of Matthew thinking he caught an error in Mark, and fixing it.

 

While I don't think the gospel authors were writing from the perspective that the gospels are literal, I think they are at the least trying to make someone they thought was historical fit failed prophecies and they were clearly trying to combine oral traditions about Jesus that had already existed before they wrote them down.

 

Fair enough.

 

I thought the consensus among biblical scholars was that the writings of Paul are the earliest Christian writings and the gospel of Mark is the first gospel and the Gnostic writings were later? Although some scholars like Marcus Borg think the Gospel of Thomas contains authentic sayings of Jesus the consensus among biblical scholars is that the earliest followers of Jesus were Jews, not Gnostics.

 

Does, Paul reference a flesh and blood Jesus? From the Wikipedia page at least some scholars argue that Paul was a Gnostic.

[Neon Genesis]

I feel somewhat more justified to cite expert consensus on the historical existence of Socrates than of Jesus because virtually every Western historian has been indoctrinated from birth with christian (or muslim) religious beliefs, and not defending the conclusion that Jesus existed would tend to pose a great threat to our core cultural beliefs, and probably, in most cases, to those individuals' core personal beliefs. No such situation exists when discussing the historicity of Socrates.

Why would the scholars care about defending western culture's core personal beliefs? Secular scholars are typically hated by most Christians anyway and most scholars' beliefs as to who the historical Jesus was is radically different than the Jesus presented in the gospels, so it's not like they're not already destroying the core personal beliefs of Christians. And it's not as if the Jesus mythers are entirely without bias, either. Most of the Jesus mythers I've encountered are anti-theistic atheists, like the documentary The God Who Wasn't There is clearly motivated by an anti-Christian bias or the Jesus mythers are promoting some sort of conspiracy theory like how Zeitgeist also promotes crazy one-world government conspiracy plots and truther conspiracy theories. Zeitgeist is hardly the world's most unbiased scholarly work ever.

 

Um, that's evidence of them making things up in order that they would fit the prophecies, Matthew misinterpreted the Zechariah(?) verse and then proceeded to have his Jesus figure fulfill his misinterpretation, does that mean that Jesus never existed, no. But I wouldn't take it as evidence that Matthew had to be writing about a real person.

No, my point is that they're working from the presumption that there's a historical Jesus and are trying to make him fit biblical prophecies he doesn't. If you were writing the story of Jesus purely from your own imagination, wouldn't you think you could do a better job of making Jesus fit the prophecies than the biblical authors do? Even putting aside if Jesus would have had to destroy Rome to do this completely, some of the gospel writers mistakes are clearly too embarrassing to have been fabricated out of thin air.

 

Does, Paul reference a flesh and blood Jesus? From the Wikipedia page at least some scholars argue that Paul was a Gnostic.

Expect that Paul was a monotheist and the Gnostics were polytheists and Paul does reference a flesh and blood Jesus and he even "quotes" Jesus in 1 Cor 11:23-24.

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

[dagnarus]

No, my point is that they're working from the presumption that there's a historical Jesus and are trying to make him fit biblical prophecies he doesn't. If you were writing the story of Jesus purely from your own imagination, wouldn't you think you could do a better job of making Jesus fit the prophecies than the biblical authors do? Even putting aside if Jesus would have had to destroy Rome to do this completely, some of the gospel writers mistakes are clearly too embarrassing to have been fabricated out of thin air.

I think a better example of this sort of thing would be birth accounts of Jesus in Matthew and Luke trying to take account of the fact that Jesus was a Galilean, but was supposed to be born in Bethlehem, it would probably make more sense just to stick him in Bethlehem from the outset, although Galilee could conceivably be chosen specifically to fit a suffering messiah motif. Other than that I can't really think of many Messianic prophecies which Jesus could reasonably be written as fulfilling, and which the biblical authors didn't attempt to cover.

 

 

Expect that Paul was a monotheist and the Gnostics were polytheists and Paul does reference a flesh and blood Jesus and he even "quotes" Jesus in 1 Cor 11:23-24.

Can we be certain of that? We know that many of Paul's epistles are likely forgeries, we also know that his authentic epistles have likely been redacted, further we also know that the first person to reference Paul was Marcion, who of course believed in the demiurge and everything else, it seems strange that Marcion would choose the epistles of Paul for his canon when they seem to be quite clear on the fact that the creator and the christian God are one. It could have been that what we have today are cleaned up version of Paul, designed to counter Marcion.

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

This is an excellent quote, especially as it flows so perfectly from what Paul was speaking about previously, so based upon my limited knowledge of how this is done, I wouldn't expect that it could be a redaction. That said there would still seem to be a problem that Paul seems to quote Jesus extremely sparingly, which given that there is supposed to be this oral tradition of his teachings and what have you, seems, strange. Maybe he was just attempting to hijack the movement, who knows?

[mwc]

But as Mcgrath points out in the video, why would the early followers of Jesus purposely make up a story about a Jewish messiah who does not remotely even come close to fitting the Jewish prophecies? If Jesus was made up entirely from scratch, wouldn't they have made him fit the prophecies more easily? It seems more likely to me they're trying to make a real figure who clearly does not fit the Jewish prophecies fit into the prophecies or else it would fit more neatly.

I've tried to talk about this before. We don't know what this group's messianic expectations were. It doesn't matter if all of the Jews were expecting a giant robot from space. If this group expected a pink bunny then that's what they would write about and try to convince all the robot watchers they should really be on the lookout for.

 

There's really no way to even know the makeup of the original group. The 12 apostles seem symbolic since they're usually mentioned along with some number of disciples (70? I should look) which goes back to the OT. So the best we have are 3 "pillars" (mentioned in both the gospels and Paul...so really 3 guys are at the source of all this) and miscellaneous others. And it's really hard to know if they were the "originals" or not. There's just nothing to say they weren't (but they'd be just some Jews instead of some stand-out sect or another religion before that so who knows?).

 

mwc

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

 

 

Can we be certain of that? We know that many of Paul's epistles are likely forgeries, we also know that his authentic epistles have likely been redacted, further we also know that the first person to reference Paul was Marcion, who of course believed in the demiurge and everything else, it seems strange that Marcion would choose the epistles of Paul for his canon when they seem to be quite clear on the fact that the creator and the christian God are one. It could have been that what we have today are cleaned up version of Paul, designed to counter Marcion.

But all our references to Marcion come from his critics, so if we're going to take Jesus mythicism as far as to question the historicity of Paul, then how do we know that Marcion was real and wasn't invented by the early church to demonize heretics?

 

This is an excellent quote, especially as it flows so perfectly from what Paul was speaking about previously, so based upon my limited knowledge of how this is done, I wouldn't expect that it could be a redaction. That said there would still seem to be a problem that Paul seems to quote Jesus extremely sparingly, which given that there is supposed to be this oral tradition of his teachings and what have you, seems, strange. Maybe he was just attempting to hijack the movement, who knows?

The NKJV mentions that the NU-text omits the words take, eat, and broken but says nothing about the rest of the passage being omitted and as far as I'm aware, I'm not aware of any evidence in favor of it being a redaction. There's also this passage in Galations chapter four where Paul mentions Jesus being born of a woman although it mentions nothing of Jesus' birth being miraculous:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

[dagnarus]

But all our references to Marcion come from his critics, so if we're going to take Jesus mythicism as far as to question the historicity of Paul, then how do we know that Marcion was real and wasn't invented by the early church to demonize heretics?

I wasn't questioning the historicity of Paul, I was suggesting that he might have been a gnostic who's writings were later cleaned up to fit in with orthodox theology. As to whether or not Marcion was in fact real, Generally speaking, I don't think that Tertullian or other's like him would be willing to write 5 book treatise's upon why Marcion was a heretic, if they didn't think he was real and an actual threat to their orthodoxy, after all their were many real actual heretics which he could critique.

 

This is an excellent quote, especially as it flows so perfectly from what Paul was speaking about previously, so based upon my limited knowledge of how this is done, I wouldn't expect that it could be a redaction. That said there would still seem to be a problem that Paul seems to quote Jesus extremely sparingly, which given that there is supposed to be this oral tradition of his teachings and what have you, seems, strange. Maybe he was just attempting to hijack the movement, who knows?

The NKJV mentions that the NU-text omits the words take, eat, and broken but says nothing about the rest of the passage being omitted and as far as I'm aware, I'm not aware of any evidence in favor of it being a redaction.

 

I already said that I didn't think it was a redaction.

 

There's also this passage in Galations chapter four where Paul mentions Jesus being born of a woman although it mentions nothing of Jesus' birth being miraculous:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

 

Didn't the Gnostics think all of these happens, just on some spiritual plane? The fact still remains, Paul's epistles have very little in the way of any actual saying and doing of a physichal Jesus, It would seem like they're are little to no quotes of what he actually said and what have you. Is this just because he was the new guy who was trying to take over the movement so he didn't want to use teachings received from the actual apostles? If so, why aren't there early writings from Peter, and John, and other disciples which do quote Jesus's actual teachings? Were these later destroyed by the orthodox church? Why don't we have any actual quotes of what a historical Jesus may have taught, even from the early church father's writings, until after the gospels were written?

[Neon Genesis]

If Jesus was from the peasant class, would Jesus have been able to have write at all? At least one explanation I've heard as to why Jesus never wrote anything down is because he may have been illiterate and according to Acts, Peter and the apostles were uneducated, so it's unlikely they would have written anything down themselves if they were uneducated fishermen. Also, didn't the Gnostics believe that sex of any kind was a sin, including sex within marriage and believed in absolute celibacy? Although Paul preferred it if Christians were celibate and never got married at all and condemned premarital sex, I don't recall Paul ever saying that sex within marriage in itself was sinful. Also, in Gnosticism, salvation comes from understanding the secret teachings of Jesus which he supposedly didn't reveal to the general public according to the Gnostics, whereas in Pauline Christianity, salvation comes from believing in the resurrection.

[Ouroboros]

If Jesus was from the peasant class, would Jesus have been able to have write at all? At least one explanation I've heard as to why Jesus never wrote anything down is because he may have been illiterate ...

The Gospels claim that he could read at least. He read from the Torah at one occasion. Just a sidenote.

[Neon Genesis]

 

The Gospels claim that he could read at least. He read from the Torah at one occasion. Just a sidenote.

But wasn't it not always the case in the ancient world that someone could both read and write? That some people may have been able to read but unable to write. Like Ehrman mentions in his book Misquoting Jesus that there were people in the ancient world who were able to read and not write but were hired just for reading because they could read even if they could barely write or something like that. It's been awhile since I've read that book. Another possible reason why Paul never mentions the details of Jesus' life is that's not what his letters are about. Paul's letters seem to be primarily concerned with addressing church politics and the personal issues of the members at his churches. Perhaps the people Paul is writing to already know the story of Jesus and so there's no reason for him to expand on the details when he has more present issues to deal with. If we're applying Occam's Razor, this seems more likely to me than if Paul was a secret Gnostic.

[dagnarus]

If Jesus was from the peasant class, would Jesus have been able to have write at all? At least one explanation I've heard as to why Jesus never wrote anything down is because he may have been illiterate and according to Acts, Peter and the apostles were uneducated, so it's unlikely they would have written anything down themselves if they were uneducated fishermen.

All they would have needed was a single person who did know how to write, then they could tell him what they needed written down. Also this doesn't explain why earlier church father's didn't quote Jesus. They knew how to write, as they wrote things down, yet they didn't quote Jesus, even though they would have had access to any oral tradition which existed at the time.

 

Also, didn't the Gnostics believe that sex of any kind was a sin, including sex within marriage and believed in absolute celibacy? Although Paul preferred it if Christians were celibate and never got married at all and condemned premarital sex, I don't recall Paul ever saying that sex within marriage in itself was sinful.

 

I think it depends on the branch of Gnosticism, I heard that some of them were hedonists, thinking that because the spirit was completely seperate from the body or something like that, it didn't matter what they did with their body, it didn't matter because it didn't affect the spirit part which was the important part.

 

Also, in Gnosticism, salvation comes from understanding the secret teachings of Jesus which he supposedly didn't reveal to the general public according to the Gnostics, whereas in Pauline Christianity, salvation comes from believing in the resurrection.

 

Here is something from philipians 3

 

9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

 

Here it seems that he needed to more than know about Christ's resurrection, he had to know Christ's resurrection, so that he could attain to the resurrection from the dead, i.e. salvation. Perhaps, having faith in Christ's resurrection was considered something deeper than just believing it happened?

[ShackledNoMore]

I feel somewhat more justified to cite expert consensus on the historical existence of Socrates than of Jesus because virtually every Western historian has been indoctrinated from birth with christian (or muslim) religious beliefs, and not defending the conclusion that Jesus existed would tend to pose a great threat to our core cultural beliefs, and probably, in most cases, to those individuals' core personal beliefs. No such situation exists when discussing the historicity of Socrates.

Why would the scholars care about defending western culture's core personal beliefs? Secular scholars are typically hated by most Christians anyway and most scholars' beliefs as to who the historical Jesus was is radically different than the Jesus presented in the gospels, so it's not like they're not already destroying the core personal beliefs of Christians. And it's not as if the Jesus mythers are entirely without bias, either. Most of the Jesus mythers I've encountered are anti-theistic atheists, like the documentary The God Who Wasn't There is clearly motivated by an anti-Christian bias or the Jesus mythers are promoting some sort of conspiracy theory like how Zeitgeist also promotes crazy one-world government conspiracy plots and truther conspiracy theories. Zeitgeist is hardly the world's most unbiased scholarly work ever.

Let me rephrase that:

 

I feel somewhat more justified to cite expert consensus on the historical existence of Socrates than of Jesus because virtually every Western historian has been indoctrinated from birth with christian (or muslim) religious beliefs, and not defending the conclusion that Jesus existed would tend to pose a great threat to our the core cultural beliefs they had been indoctrinated with and influenced by, and probably, in most cases, to those individuals' core personal beliefs. <--the last part of that sentence may be a bit redundant now No such situation exists when discussing the historicity of Socrates.

 

That is to say, scholars are not motivated to defend the cultures beliefs, but they are still products of their own culture. On the other hand, scholars are not supposed to try to confirm unproven assumptions based on their own bias. Reputable scientists do a good job of this. I do not have a feel as to whether historians do as good a job or not.

 

As for Jesus mythers, are you sure that most are anti-theistic or merely atheist? If you are right, then one has to ask why anti-theistic atheists are more likely to be Jesus mythers than non-anti-theistic atheists and consider that their conclusions may indeed be influenced by bias. However, I would not expect any christians or muslims with any sort of traditional beliefs to be Jesus mythers. Their bias prohibits them from being Jesus mythers without abandoning their beliefs. Atheists are free to reach whatever conclusion they believe the evidence supports. Although humans in general tend to interpret evidence to support their beliefs, which anti-theistic atheists are probably doing if you are correct, an atheist can still remain as anti-theistic as ever and still be fully convinced that a historical Jesus existed.

 

As you probably see, I am still unconvinced one way or the other, and interested in the arguments of both camps.

[Neon Genesis]

 

As for Jesus mythers, are you sure that most are anti-theistic or merely atheist?

 

As you probably see, I am still unconvinced one way or the other, and interested in the arguments of both camps.

I haven't seen any specific polling to determine if most Jesus mythers were anti-theistic atheists. I was mostly using hyperbole with my response to the claim that historians and scholars were being biased by their Christian culture that anti-theistic atheists can be just as biased by their anti-religious motivations. I'm a member of The Center For Progressive Christianity forums and I did post a thread there asking the Christians there if they would still be a Christian if it was somehow proven Jesus was a mythological character and not historical and the majority of responses I've gotten from my question answered they would still be Christian even if Jesus was just made up. http://tcpc.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/1685-if-jesus-never-existed/ Of course the Christians at TCPC are ultra liberal Spongian Christians and not your typical western Christian. But to me Jesus mythers documentaries like The God Who Wasn't There and Zeitgeist are obviously biased. Over half of The God Who Wasn't There is a rant about Christianity and less about the Jesus myth hypothesis and it's hard for me to take Zeitgeist seriously when they're also promoting truther and one world conspiracies.

[Mriana]

Late to the party, but after going over various other religions and myths, I am convinced there was no historical Jesus. I am pretty sure of this. If there was a man who was considered "The Anointed Saviour" then he is too buried in myth to find.

[Neon Genesis]

For anyone interested, in the most recent episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast, they had an interview with the religion editor of Skeptic Magazine, Tim Callahn, in which he debunks the Jesus myth section of the documentary, Zeitgeist that I highly recommend listening to: http://www.doubtcast.org/podcast/rd63_zeitgeist_debunked.mp3 Tim Callahan also wrote an article on the debunking of Zeitgeist that's also a really good read: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/02/tim-callahans-critique-of-movie.html

[Mriana]

I really don't think anyone has debunked it at all, but that is my opinion. It is also silly to think that the JC story isn't rewritten mythology when the same motifs are there within the story.

 

BTW, I have listened to that podcast and to others that have tried to debunk it and I simply do not agree.

[Neon Genesis]

At the same time, I think it's also silly when films like Zeitgeist over-exaggerate similarities between myths while at the same time ignoring genuine similarities in the myths that are actually there. I think there's a stronger case to be that the mythology of the NT is borrowing more from Jewish mythology than from Greek mythology. For example, the virgin birth myths are obvious Jewish midrash on the Exodus myth. Jesus is obviously the new Moses, John the baptist is the new Elijah, the slaughter of the innocents is borrowed from Exodus, and Herod is the new Pharaoh. Oddly, films like Zeitgeist and the God Who Wasn't There ignore these similarities in favor of exaggerating comparisons between Jesus and Dionysus and can someone point out to these people that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th? It's already pretty much common knowledge in Christendom that the Catholics stole December 25th from the pagans and that the date of Jesus' birth is never mentioned in the bible.

[Mriana]

At the same time, I think it's also silly when films like Zeitgeist over-exaggerate similarities between myths while at the same time ignoring genuine similarities in the myths that are actually there. I think there's a stronger case to be that the mythology of the NT is borrowing more from Jewish mythology than from Greek mythology. For example, the virgin birth myths are obvious Jewish midrash on the Exodus myth. Jesus is obviously the new Moses, John the baptist is the new Elijah, the slaughter of the innocents is borrowed from Exodus, and Herod is the new Pharaoh. Oddly, films like Zeitgeist and the God Who Wasn't There ignore these similarities in favor of exaggerating comparisons between Jesus and Dionysus and can someone point out to these people that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th? It's already pretty much common knowledge in Christendom that the Catholics stole December 25th from the pagans and that the date of Jesus' birth is never mentioned in the bible.

 

And the Hebrew mythology came from the Egyptian mythology.

[ShackledNoMore]

For anyone interested, in the most recent episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast, they had an interview with the religion editor of Skeptic Magazine, Tim Callahn, in which he debunks the Jesus myth section of the documentary, Zeitgeist that I highly recommend listening to: http://www.doubtcast.org/podcast/rd63_zeitgeist_debunked.mp3 Tim Callahan also wrote an article on the debunking of Zeitgeist that's also a really good read: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/02/tim-callahans-critique-of-movie.html

I listened to the podcast. I haven't seen Zeitgeist, but based on the discussion it sounds like the movie is based on Acharya S's book, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. That book basically throws everything including the kitchen sink in to try to show that xianity is stolen and hacked together from every tradition imaginable, and that all have universally common elements based on a solar-astrological-astronomical based religion/science/mythology that helped guide the ancients in their understanding of navigation and the world.

 

It was oddly like reading an apologetics book when I was deconverting: it made a lot of claims, but just didn't manage to be convincing. I just couldn't, didn't have time, or was too lazy to check out all the stuff she threw out there: the ram, the fish, Aquarius, the sun gods, the zodiac, the numbers, the number 12, the seemingly endless line of resurrected sun-god-men with the same stories. Sure, I've seen the parallels drawn between Jesus and other gods, particularly with Mithra and a couple of others, but with this I was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer volume of claims that I could only entertain provisionally at best. I will watch Zeitgeist when I get a chance but it sounds like it had to be lifted straight from this book.

 

Then... as I listened to Callahan... well, he was claiming that some of the same things that I read in that book, that were apparently the same things from the movie Zeitgeist, the same things that smelled like they were overstated, were a real reach or more or less just made up in some cases. I guess I'd really need to directly read material on Zoroastrianism and other mythologies (Egyptian, etc.), but in the mean time Callahan did seem more credible than Acharya.

 

I think it's safe to say that other mythologies did feed into xian mythology. While it helps illustrate that xianity is not the original, sacred, Ultimate Truth handed down directly from the God and Creator of the Universe, in itself it doesn't make a strong case that a historical Jesus did not exist. It doesn't hurt the case against a historical Jesus either. If Zeitgeist makes a bad argument, then shame on Peter Joesph. Acharya/Joseph's dubious case aside, I'm still left with a lot of interesting arguments from both camps on the question of a historical Jesus.

[dB-Paradox]

I don't really know if there was a historical Jesus or not, but if there was, I'm putting my money on him being an ordinary guy with great stories attched. Since deconverting, I can't help but feel that sending one man to a remote part of the world is the least effective way to convince the entire world that God wants a personal relationship with us. This is not good proof for God or for Jesus. It's poor 'engineering' on behalf of an omnipotent being.

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

And the Hebrew mythology came from the Egyptian mythology.

It actually came from the Canaanite mythology as Abraham was a pagan from Canaan and even the bible says that Abraham built a shrine to El, which was a pagan god from the Canaanite pantheon and the early Isrealites were originally polytheists.

[dB-Paradox]

In fact, the Israelites used to be Canaanites.

[dagnarus]

 

 

And the Hebrew mythology came from the Egyptian mythology.

It actually came from the Canaanite mythology as Abraham was a pagan from Canaan and even the bible says that Abraham built a shrine to El, which was a pagan god from the Canaanite pantheon and the early Isrealites were originally polytheists.

 

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their wasn't a lot of Egyptian mythology in there. After all Egypt controlled Canaan for at least a few centuries.