The 500

[Wertbag]

A topic I stumbled upon was a Christian scholar talking about how little we know about Paul's claimed 500 witnesses to Jesus's resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:6 "Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep."

 

I've heard apologists try to say with so many witnesses it couldn't be fake, which is obviously a ridiculous claim.  Written by Paul thousands of miles away from the claimed location, with no details about who these people were, so no one has any chance of checking his claim.  Plus, would anyone dare to doubt Paul?  If God's chosen messenger says it is so, why would you lack faith enough to check his words?

 

What was pointed out is just how little detail this line gives us.  Not only does it not say where, when or who, but importantly how did he appear to any of these people?  Was it a vision, in person, floating in the sky or some other option?  It does say it was at one time, so did they have him up on a pedestal so the people at the back could see him?

It also says to five hundred brothers, so theoretically there were women and children as well, so exactly how large was this crowd?

Did he speak to the crowd?  Did he perform miracles or show his wounds?  

 

For argument let's say it actually happened, how many of those hundreds of people had met Jesus before and knew him well enough to know that the person they were now seeing was the same guy?

 

The one thing it may point to is that Christianity was already a decent size before Jesus was executed.  If the claim that hundreds of believers were around to have seen him was at least plausible, and those would have only been the believers in that particular area, then potentially Christianity had thousands of followers prior to Jesus dying.  The claim that Christianity starts with the resurrection is obviously false if the religion was already thousands strong by that time.  The crucifixion was the unexpected execution of their cult leader, and the resurrection was their sunk cost fallacy attempt to make the disaster make sense and keep their religion together.  They could have lost hundreds of followers and still had thousands keeping the faith.  Perhaps that is why we hear nothing of many of the disciples after the crucifixion, as maybe some of them were disillusioned and moved back to being Jewish or to other religions.

[mwc]

19 hours ago, Wertbag said:

For argument let's say it actually happened, how many of those hundreds of people had met Jesus before and knew him well enough to know that the person they were now seeing was the same guy?

 

The one thing it may point to is that Christianity was already a decent size before Jesus was executed.  If the claim that hundreds of believers were around to have seen him was at least plausible, and those would have only been the believers in that particular area, then potentially Christianity had thousands of followers prior to Jesus dying.  The claim that Christianity starts with the resurrection is obviously false if the religion was already thousands strong by that time.  The crucifixion was the unexpected execution of their cult leader, and the resurrection was their sunk cost fallacy attempt to make the disaster make sense and keep their religion together.  They could have lost hundreds of followers and still had thousands keeping the faith.  Perhaps that is why we hear nothing of many of the disciples after the crucifixion, as maybe some of them were disillusioned and moved back to being Jewish or to other religions.

     Well, wouldn't what was happening prior to the resurrection not be xianity but some form of Judaism?  What I mean is jesus wasn't preaching xianity per se.  He would have been preaching some form of Judaism.  Xianity is the belief that jesus is himself also god and that this same jesus died and was resurrected.  These core tenets simply did not exist if jesus is alive.  At best you have a prophet, maybe a messiah, maybe something more but that's debatable, and if he just dies of old age then xianity really is never born.

 

     So, if we accept some of what is said the stories, lots of folks converted before jesus died but to whatever he was teaching.  So Judaism version X (one of at least several floating around and a lateral move is no big deal even then).  After death we have some Judaizers going around with their own form a xianity apparently (so not single form of this either).  There's no reason to assume that once dead folks just went back to doing their old thing while others created something new (which took on a number of variants...more Greek...more Jewish...etc.).

 

     In essence xianity couldn't exist until he died since it relies on the death and resurrection motif.  Some other religion may well have ultimately branched out had this event not happened but but it wouldn't be the same.

 

          mwc

 

[Wertbag]

4 hours ago, mwc said:

     Well, wouldn't what was happening prior to the resurrection not be xianity but some form of Judaism?  What I mean is jesus wasn't preaching xianity per se.  He would have been preaching some form of Judaism.  Xianity is the belief that jesus is himself also god and that this same jesus died and was resurrected.  These core tenets simply did not exist if jesus is alive.  At best you have a prophet, maybe a messiah, maybe something more but that's debatable, and if he just dies of old age then xianity really is never born.

 

     So, if we accept some of what is said the stories, lots of folks converted before jesus died but to whatever he was teaching.  So Judaism version X (one of at least several floating around and a lateral move is no big deal even then).  After death we have some Judaizers going around with their own form a xianity apparently (so not single form of this either).  There's no reason to assume that once dead folks just went back to doing their old thing while others created something new (which took on a number of variants...more Greek...more Jewish...etc.).

 

     In essence xianity couldn't exist until he died since it relies on the death and resurrection motif.  Some other religion may well have ultimately branched out had this event not happened but but it wouldn't be the same.

 

          mwc

 

It does get to the question of what is a Christian, with some using the trinitarian view you mention, but many simply saying "a follower of Christ".  I know trinitarians try to say Mormons, JWs and other unitarian Christians are not real Christians, but that is hand waving away tens of millions of people for a single facet of the religion.  If someone says they follow the bible, believe Jesus is the Messiah, follow the Abrahamic God and declare themselves a Christian, then I'm happy to accept them at their word.

 

If Jesus had died of old age, then his followers could have still be called Christians, but as you say it would be a Jewish sect rather than its own religion, or perhaps they would have generated the divine traits of Jesus anyway.  He may well have died of old age and his followers still label him God incarnate, and hence begin worshipping him as a new religion.  Might be an inevitable outcome.

[mwc]

11 hours ago, Wertbag said:

It does get to the question of what is a Christian, with some using the trinitarian view you mention, but many simply saying "a follower of Christ".  I know trinitarians try to say Mormons, JWs and other unitarian Christians are not real Christians, but that is hand waving away tens of millions of people for a single facet of the religion.  If someone says they follow the bible, believe Jesus is the Messiah, follow the Abrahamic God and declare themselves a Christian, then I'm happy to accept them at their word.

 

If Jesus had died of old age, then his followers could have still be called Christians, but as you say it would be a Jewish sect rather than its own religion, or perhaps they would have generated the divine traits of Jesus anyway.  He may well have died of old age and his followers still label him God incarnate, and hence begin worshipping him as a new religion.  Might be an inevitable outcome.

     Right, it does raise some questions.

 

     Realistically, xianity had to offer something in order to grow as opposed to be re-absorbed or just die away.  Right off the top of my head the things that it did offer as opposed to the other religions of the day were that it largely altered the transactional nature of religion, it offered a better social contract as well as the possibility of a better after-life.

 

     However, are all these things dependent on jesus alone?  It's hard to say.  Given the gospels alone I would say no.  They do tell us of the transactional changes.  Instead of having to offer something to god, an actual item as an offering, for something in return all you now need to do is offer belief.  This is a major change in all religions of the day.  The idea that god is doing something because he cares as opposed to doing something because it is a part of a transaction and this transaction is a part of increasing his personal renown is not how society worked at the time.  All parts of Roman society (as well as others for that matter) was transactional this way.  Quid pro quo was how life worked at all levels including gods.

 

     The social contract xianity introduced is left unclear in the gospels.  The idea of taking care of the poorest is present but not developed.  On one hand we have the idea that these are the people that should be helped but on the other hand we are also told we'll always have the poor.  Nonetheless, religions (and society as a whole), being transactional, didn't really give thought to caring for this underclass.  That xianity gave it any thought at all, as a part of its institution, was fairly novel.  Even more so that they apparently adopted and practiced it (to what extent I can't say).

 

     Lastly, even the best afterlife in other religions were pretty lousy.  But xianity really offers nothing in the gospels unless we're talking about the resurrection which is really just Jewish.  However, this is head and shoulders above what most people could expect so it's no surprise they were taken with it.

 

          mwc

 

[Wertbag]

6 hours ago, mwc said:

     Right, it does raise some questions.

 

     Realistically, xianity had to offer something in order to grow as opposed to be re-absorbed or just die away.  Right off the top of my head the things that it did offer as opposed to the other religions of the day were that it largely altered the transactional nature of religion, it offered a better social contract as well as the possibility of a better after-life.

 

     However, are all these things dependent on jesus alone?  It's hard to say.  Given the gospels alone I would say no.  They do tell us of the transactional changes.  Instead of having to offer something to god, an actual item as an offering, for something in return all you now need to do is offer belief.  This is a major change in all religions of the day.  The idea that god is doing something because he cares as opposed to doing something because it is a part of a transaction and this transaction is a part of increasing his personal renown is not how society worked at the time.  All parts of Roman society (as well as others for that matter) was transactional this way.  Quid pro quo was how life worked at all levels including gods.

 

     The social contract xianity introduced is left unclear in the gospels.  The idea of taking care of the poorest is present but not developed.  On one hand we have the idea that these are the people that should be helped but on the other hand we are also told we'll always have the poor.  Nonetheless, religions (and society as a whole), being transactional, didn't really give thought to caring for this underclass.  That xianity gave it any thought at all, as a part of its institution, was fairly novel.  Even more so that they apparently adopted and practiced it (to what extent I can't say).

 

     Lastly, even the best afterlife in other religions were pretty lousy.  But xianity really offers nothing in the gospels unless we're talking about the resurrection which is really just Jewish.  However, this is head and shoulders above what most people could expect so it's no surprise they were taken with it.

 

          mwc

 

It is hard to point to any one facet of religion as the thing that pulls people in, we see such vast differences between the claims and yet all of them are able to pull in thousands of followers.  I have no doubt that those who believed in the Norse, Egyptian or Greek Gods were any less devout than modern religions.  We also have examples of religions growing in modern times, such as Mormons, Scientology or any of the UFO cults.  All that it seems to need is a charismatic preacher and enough gullible people to accept blindly whatever message is being spouted.  Once you have a group of believers then they can either breed new followers or evangelize to the unbelievers and slowly grow the group.

We also see other religions like Mormonism, Scientology and Islam surviving pass the death of their founder.  Some add stories of angels, ascension or prophecy being fulfilled.  Mohammad miraculously survived deadly poison until his God given mission to conquer Mecca was completed, then he finally passed from it.  This matched some prophecy, so even his death became confirmation of their faith. 

In Christianity's case you already have hundreds or even thousands of followers, so Jesus dying is happening after that base of believers has been built.  I would expect at that point that regardless of what happened to Jesus, the "followers of Christ" would incorporate that event into their lore and continue believing.  Say he had been stoned to death for blasphemy, you'd likely still end up with them saying he died telling the truth, ascended and belief in his sacrifice is the key to heaven.  They would probably wear rocks on chains as symbols of their faith.  The exact design of the religion may change, but I think the basis was already well entrenched by the time he died.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

16 hours ago, Wertbag said:

Once you have a group of believers

I think that is the biggest factor for religion surviving. There will still be outliers without the social reinforcement, but the system won't stick around long that way. Group experiences and belonging are among the most powerful motivators. Was Christianity popular in Israel before Paul took it to the Gentiles? I don't think we have much information about that from history. But clearly it was a group by the time Paul got involved.

 

As far as Paul's claim about the 500, Bart Ehrman says there are a whole list of odd things about how he worded it. Like Jesus first appearing to Cephas rather than the women at the tomb. Does Paul not know that story? The gospels were written by Gentiles in Greek long after Paul's writings. There were lots of oral stories since the early Aramaic disciples were mostly illiterate.  Do the women at the tomb not count if they only saw an angel or angels at the tomb? Were women not worth mentioning to him? Paul also says Jesus appeared to "the twelve", but that would imply Judas also who was dead before the resurrection. Paul includes himself as seeing Jesus, but it is clear that was a vision. Does that mean the others had a vision as well or that Jesus physically appeared to them? Paul seems to draw no distinction. His later concept of "spiritual body" blends the two. Even the burning bush of Moses could be called a vision. 

 

Did Paul get this 500 claim from Peter or James, or was it just a popular tale like the Blessed Virgin visions popular in Catholic circles? Do the believers in these latter experiences think that Mary really appeared? Yes, they are convinced of it and they view these group experiences as evidence of their beliefs being true. But that doesn't mean she really did appear. Did Paul have a solo vision, did he have a stroke, did he fall off his horse on the road to Damascus and hit his head? He underwent a personality change according to Luke. Was his conversion part of his strong ego and desire to be chosen by God and to be seen as an authority? Psychology and mental/emotional issues are a huge part of why people do things.

 

I had some amazing group experiences during worship services, with feelings like electricity zipping through my body and hands shaking. The experiences were real and others there had the same sensations. But it wasn't the god of the Bible doing it to us or likely any other being but us. (I don't know what it is, but do know what it isn't.) But at the time, it sure seemed like confirmation that it was all true. This is how "revivals" happen (ongoing overwhelming group sense of God's presence), though we aren't sure yet about what causes them to happen.

 

 

[Wertbag]

3 hours ago, Fuego said:

Paul also says Jesus appeared to "the twelve", but that would imply Judas also who was dead before the resurrection.

I'm not sure on the timeline, they say that Mattias replaced Judas, but was that pre or post resurrection?

[♦ Fuego ♦]

On 10/7/2023 at 11:46 AM, Wertbag said:

was that pre or post resurrection?

Acts 2 has it about 40 days after the death of Jesus.

 

Bart Ehrman just released a video on YouTube called "Did Paul Accept The Teachings Of Jesus" and starts right off the bat with the question of what did Paul even know about the teachings of Jesus, since the gospels we all assumed were written by disciples were written after Paul by Greek speaking people. He rarely even mentions what Jesus taught. That said, what do we really know about what Jesus said (for the same reasons)?

[mwc]

On 10/6/2023 at 2:46 PM, Wertbag said:

It is hard to point to any one facet of religion as the thing that pulls people in, we see such vast differences between the claims and yet all of them are able to pull in thousands of followers.  I have no doubt that those who believed in the Norse, Egyptian or Greek Gods were any less devout than modern religions.  We also have examples of religions growing in modern times, such as Mormons, Scientology or any of the UFO cults.  All that it seems to need is a charismatic preacher and enough gullible people to accept blindly whatever message is being spouted.  Once you have a group of believers then they can either breed new followers or evangelize to the unbelievers and slowly grow the group.

We also see other religions like Mormonism, Scientology and Islam surviving pass the death of their founder.  Some add stories of angels, ascension or prophecy being fulfilled.  Mohammad miraculously survived deadly poison until his God given mission to conquer Mecca was completed, then he finally passed from it.  This matched some prophecy, so even his death became confirmation of their faith. 

     I guess I have to ask at this point then what would be the incentive for someone like Paul to actually join?  From what we know he did not know the original charismatic leader nor the original teachings.  He says little to nothing about these things.  He would have known some people who came after the fact regardless of who they were and he would be told what they were now offering.  Given all he says we are able to see that he gets a lot of what he says from personal visions as well which we assume come wholly from himself.

 

On 10/6/2023 at 2:46 PM, Wertbag said:

In Christianity's case you already have hundreds or even thousands of followers, so Jesus dying is happening after that base of believers has been built.  I would expect at that point that regardless of what happened to Jesus, the "followers of Christ" would incorporate that event into their lore and continue believing.  Say he had been stoned to death for blasphemy, you'd likely still end up with them saying he died telling the truth, ascended and belief in his sacrifice is the key to heaven.  They would probably wear rocks on chains as symbols of their faith.  The exact design of the religion may change, but I think the basis was already well entrenched by the time he died.

     It's easy to say that once the ball gets rolling then certainly it just snowballs into something greater but that's definitely not always so.  That is why I offered in my post several things that made xianity (not so much the jesus movement) different from the other religions of the day.  For example, a number of mentions are given of other messianic figures of the day who managed to gather large groups around themselves.  Where are they today?  Should they also not have snowballed into major movements?  If any one discovered the whole secret to longevity was to 'pivot' on the death of their leader, flipping it on its head, so death was victory, then more would have figured that out in order to endure, they could just copy the recipe, since it cannot be that only this one group was the only ones who were truly invested in their leader or cause.  You even suggest as much with Islam but I am then asking was there no one else even though we're made aware of others?  It seems like there's more to the formula.

 

     All the symbolism for crosses appears a hundred years later.  Early symbolism is tied to other things like fish.  It's hard to tie down what is going on if we're lumping all these time periods together.

 

          mwc

[Wertbag]

3 hours ago, mwc said:

 I guess I have to ask at this point then what would be the incentive for someone like Paul to actually join?

Always hard to guess at people's motives, we have little to go on so it's all speculation.  It has been suggested that Paul had grief hallucinations, which propelled him to belief.  For that to have been so you would have expected that he knew the person well enough to have a dream of them, so not sure that one follows. But it could well have been the case that Paul was a Christian long before the visions on the road.  He was educated in Jerusalem, so it is quite plausible that he encountered any number of the followers of Jesus prior to his story.  Could well be a case of what was written down was made to sound special when in fact he had been a believer for years at that point.  If so, any one of the charismatic preachers passing on Jesus's message could have convinced him of the validity of the religion.

 

There is the idea of gaining power and fame, going from some relative nobody to the big name in the religion.  Certainly, was elevated to new heights based on his claims, so can't rule out such motives, but we know too little to confirm such thoughts.

 

We can be fairly certain that Paul was already a very religious man, so it's not picking up a belief from zero but taking an already accepted religious structure and adding on new information to it.  The religious are more likely to accept supernatural claims as such things already match their worldview.

 

3 hours ago, mwc said:

For example, a number of mentions are given of other messianic figures of the day who managed to gather large groups around themselves.  Where are they today?  Should they also not have snowballed into major movements?

 

Absolutely right, there is a heaping of luck, a requirement that people in power start to believe, that it out grows any believers switching away and that it is widespread enough that attacks against its members fail to destroy the whole structure.  It needs wealth, it needs dedicated people working to grow it and it needs enough gullible people to join.  There was no guarantee that Christianity would survive with the choices made, but a lot of those foundational properties would exist (charismatic preachers, wealth, people in positions of control, large numbers of followers etc) prior to Jesus's death, so living or dead the structure was in place to give it the best chance of success.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Those letters were written years after Jesus was on earth.  Numbers can really get exaggerated over the years where "heros" are concerned.  And look at how Trump views crowd size at his speeches.  When people are super excited about something, or perhaps even manic, or grandiose, things can get really exaggerated.  I take all numbers in the Bible with a grain of salt.  Over 2 million people leaving Egypt in the Exodus was virtually impossible.

 

I believe the extreme numbers of christians came later.  The church/Roman government killed off as much of the competition as they could for centuries.   People were mostly uneducated and couldn't read at the time, and had no communication to know anything other than what the church/government told them.  If all that was heard for hundreds of years was the corrupt churchs version of christianity, and knowing you could get killed for not "believing", You can get a HECK of a lot of followeres.  In that society, over centuries of time, all other religions were almost wiped out.  

[mwc]

15 hours ago, Wertbag said:

Always hard to guess at people's motives, we have little to go on so it's all speculation.  It has been suggested that Paul had grief hallucinations, which propelled him to belief.  For that to have been so you would have expected that he knew the person well enough to have a dream of them, so not sure that one follows. But it could well have been the case that Paul was a Christian long before the visions on the road.  He was educated in Jerusalem, so it is quite plausible that he encountered any number of the followers of Jesus prior to his story.  Could well be a case of what was written down was made to sound special when in fact he had been a believer for years at that point.  If so, any one of the charismatic preachers passing on Jesus's message could have convinced him of the validity of the religion.

 

There is the idea of gaining power and fame, going from some relative nobody to the big name in the religion.  Certainly, was elevated to new heights based on his claims, so can't rule out such motives, but we know too little to confirm such thoughts.

 

We can be fairly certain that Paul was already a very religious man, so it's not picking up a belief from zero but taking an already accepted religious structure and adding on new information to it.  The religious are more likely to accept supernatural claims as such things already match their worldview.

     Okay, we're dancing around the issue here.  I said someone like Paul since we're this thread started with Paul.  And I'm asking the why because I'm trying to get to the meat of the thing which is this why.  At this point you have a person who is converting but there is *no* charismatic leader.  So why do they convert now?  Simply having a few hundred or thousand people running around is meaningless if you're already in a belief system otherwise people would just convert whenever their doorbell rings and they get a pamphlet handed to them.  To convert you need a *reason* so what is being offered by these people so these others convert?

 

     So, if I look over your list the reasons people would join would be they encountered a charismatic missionary, they were seeking to be important in the new religion or they saw it as a lateral move since they did not differentiate one supernatural claim from another.

 

15 hours ago, Wertbag said:

 

Absolutely right, there is a heaping of luck, a requirement that people in power start to believe, that it out grows any believers switching away and that it is widespread enough that attacks against its members fail to destroy the whole structure.  It needs wealth, it needs dedicated people working to grow it and it needs enough gullible people to join.  There was no guarantee that Christianity would survive with the choices made, but a lot of those foundational properties would exist (charismatic preachers, wealth, people in positions of control, large numbers of followers etc) prior to Jesus's death, so living or dead the structure was in place to give it the best chance of success.

     What structure?  How did it get these things and why?  You mention thousands of people.  You mention structure.  You mention all these things but then speak like nothing but power and control were offered to them while the religion itself was simply an aside.  A means to an end.  Is this actually the case?  Not everyone who joined was given power or control.  Also, what ultimately happened in the fourth century is of no interest to those in the first.

 

     So, to speak to the jesus movement, we're told missionaries were sent out two-by-two.  We're told they preached the gospel but clearly not the same gospel of the later religion (since the later, and current, gospel is of jesus with the death and resurrection).  But since the religion, the message, seems an aside, should we assume that they were particularly charismatic?  Should we assume they were preaching a power and control structure?  Should we assume they were demonstrating something supernatural that we'll just say the people were commonly used to in the daily lives?

 

          mwc

 

[Wertbag]

2 hours ago, mwc said:

At this point you have a person who is converting but there is *no* charismatic leader.

Who says there was no charismatic leader prior to Paul?  The claim is that Paul converted a few years after Jesus's death, but it's plausible it was earlier too.  In that time frame you had numerous Christian preachers, including the 12.  The Christians of the time would have gathered for services, prayed together, and had a community based on their beliefs, just like any other sect.  The evangelising didn't start after the resurrection, but for years prior to that.  The gospels tell us of 3-4 years of Jesus preaching prior to the execution, so Jesus himself could have met thousands of people in that time, building the followers into a religious structure with many prayer group leaders, missionaries and converts from other sects.  After Jesus dies you would have had numerous people in positions of leadership who could step up, Paul was the most famous to do so, but there were undoubtedly many who did all over the world.

 

2 hours ago, mwc said:

To convert you need a *reason* so what is being offered by these people so these others convert?

You need to be convinced by the person you are talking to that they are telling the truth, whatever that truth may be.  The message seems less important, as we see Christians convert to Islam, JW's to Mormon, Catholics to Judaism etc.  Switching is common and is driven by people convinced by these charismatic preachers.  We see people convinced by UFO cults, death cults, doomsday cults, jihadist hate groups etc, people can be convinced of practically any ridiculous idea.  It's not all one-way traffic of people heading towards a certain teaching or a certain claim.  We see tens of thousands of Scientologists and the message given by that group differ dramatically from the Abrahamic religions, but they still gather people easily to their cause.  A more modern example was the Indian guru Sai Baba, who gathered millions of followers who were convinced he could perform miracles.  Upon his death his followers setup shrines to him and continue praying to him as a spiritual entity.  Convincing people of claims seems the easy part.

 

2 hours ago, mwc said:

You mention all these things but then speak like nothing but power and control were offered to them while the religion itself was simply an aside.  A means to an end.

No, the power and control point was purely in regard to why Paul specifically may have made his claims.  Making his claims gained him power within the existing religious structure, it is a potential motive for him to lie or exaggerate.  Of course, I'm not saying every single Christian had this as a reason, the majority are convinced of the religion's ideals, which prior to the resurrection was likely that Jesus was the Messiah, after the execution it changed to a more spiritual message.

 

2 hours ago, mwc said:

But since the religion, the message, seems an aside, should we assume that they were particularly charismatic?

For the uneducated, the superstitious and the already religious, they are already primed to believe.  They meet a person who is devout, speaking with absolute sincerity and passionate belief, it is easy to be caught up in their words and their conviction.  Maybe their message is that Allah is God and Mo is his prophet, perhaps the message is Yahwah is God and Jesus is his prophet, or after the execution maybe the message changes to Jesus is God and the prophet.  They then attend the local religious gathering, prayer meetings or scripture readings and have those ideas reinforced and group buy in.

[mwc]

10 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

Who says there was no charismatic leader prior to Paul?  The claim is that Paul converted a few years after Jesus's death, but it's plausible it was earlier too.

     I'm trying to discover this information.  At this point is just seems like I'm being told to assume there could possibly be someone that fits this description instead of there being an actual someone. 

 

10 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

In that time frame you had numerous Christian preachers, including the 12.  The Christians of the time would have gathered for services, prayed together, and had a community based on their beliefs, just like any other sect.  The evangelising didn't start after the resurrection, but for years prior to that.  The gospels tell us of 3-4 years of Jesus preaching prior to the execution, so Jesus himself could have met thousands of people in that time, building the followers into a religious structure with many prayer group leaders, missionaries and converts from other sects.  After Jesus dies you would have had numerous people in positions of leadership who could step up, Paul was the most famous to do so, but there were undoubtedly many who did all over the world.

     You keep using the term "Christians" but in this context it is anachronistic which is very confusing to me.  I'm doing my best to stay with you though.

 

     Only John really lends itself to a 3 year timeframe.  The synoptics are generally seen as a 1 year timeframe.

 

     Having said that there is little structure actually developed in the stories.  There is the "inner circle" which tends to be 3-4 disciples (generally the original 4).  And this inner circle is informal given we're the ones who recognize it given the stories include these particular people as opposed to jesus actually creating various offices and placing them there.  Others in the group just sort of exist in their orbit.  The only real role we're given is Judas as the treasurer.

 

     About the only description we have of this comes from Pliny the Younger decades after the fact.  He mentions: 'They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food.'

 

     This is all different from what is described in the gospels where we have some descriptions of following the Jewish tradition when meeting in synagogues, or some ad-hoc meetings in a random house where it is depicted as later in the day (not before dawn), there is no mention of hymns (no singing is ever mentioned), and which simply leaves the food which does get a mention in several places (such as the feeding of the 5000 and the last supper).  All in all there is a lack of similarity between these given the information we have.

 

10 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

You need to be convinced by the person you are talking to that they are telling the truth, whatever that truth may be.  The message seems less important, as we see Christians convert to Islam, JW's to Mormon, Catholics to Judaism etc.  Switching is common and is driven by people convinced by these charismatic preachers.  We see people convinced by UFO cults, death cults, doomsday cults, jihadist hate groups etc, people can be convinced of practically any ridiculous idea.  It's not all one-way traffic of people heading towards a certain teaching or a certain claim.  We see tens of thousands of Scientologists and the message given by that group differ dramatically from the Abrahamic religions, but they still gather people easily to their cause.  A more modern example was the Indian guru Sai Baba, who gathered millions of followers who were convinced he could perform miracles.  Upon his death his followers setup shrines to him and continue praying to him as a spiritual entity.  Convincing people of claims seems the easy part.

     I think you're overlooking a part of the puzzle when you're writing all of this.  I see you mention "truth," "ridiculous idea," "certain teaching" or "certain claim" but simply move past it as if they do not matter instead choosing to focus on the delivery method instead.  So what are all of these when it came to the jesus movement?  Or day 1 after death xianity?  What are these truths, ideas, teachings or claims?  These must matter.

 

10 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

No, the power and control point was purely in regard to why Paul specifically may have made his claims.  Making his claims gained him power within the existing religious structure, it is a potential motive for him to lie or exaggerate.  Of course, I'm not saying every single Christian had this as a reason, the majority are convinced of the religion's ideals, which prior to the resurrection was likely that Jesus was the Messiah, after the execution it changed to a more spiritual message.

     Now we're getting somewhere.  So we have a messiah.  This gets us some Jews.  None of which actually have to change religions or really alter their lives.  Given what we're told when jesus says he didn't come to change a jot or tittle this starts to fall in with something plausible.  At this point it doesn't even seem like we have a splinter sect though it could head that way.  I say this because we were told a number of similar folks appeared and history indicates that they were not splinter sects.  So messianic claimant does not mean splinter sect.  It also means those who follow that person pretty much return to their lives once the claimant turns out to be false since there's no indication of their followers lingering for any length of time.  There must be something more.  You mention the spiritual message?  Was that enough to flip polytheists?

 

10 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

For the uneducated, the superstitious and the already religious, they are already primed to believe.  They meet a person who is devout, speaking with absolute sincerity and passionate belief, it is easy to be caught up in their words and their conviction.  Maybe their message is that Allah is God and Mo is his prophet, perhaps the message is Yahwah is God and Jesus is his prophet, or after the execution maybe the message changes to Jesus is God and the prophet.  They then attend the local religious gathering, prayer meetings or scripture readings and have those ideas reinforced and group buy in.

     You're offering a lot of maybe's here.  I'm saying given what we know about the world in the first century what is the motivation to switch?  So far I've heard charismatic leader.  Now, I'm hearing they're primed to hear a message.  So what is that message?  What is the message that people of that day heard in xianity, not the jesus movement, that they were not hearing in their own contemporary religions?

 

          mwc