Historical Jesus

[abaddon]

Correct. In the RCC the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary, not that of jesus. The thinking behind it is that Mary must be a pure vessel for jesus. In typical RCC mysoginist fashion.

That being said, I cannot blame anyone for conflating the two. The whole lot is obfuscated by obscure language.

 

[abaddon]

Lol. Considering that at the moment of her conception she would be just a fertilized egg, i.e., just one cell, I don't think she or anyone else could have possibly already have had sex at that stage. So, yeah, even as attempts to save a wrong claim go, it's still an epic fail anyway.

BUT more importantly, what you ALSO said in the same sentence and now you conveniently cut out is



Now you're trying to leave that part out and claim you totally meant something different. I.e., you're still arguing dishonestly.

Missed the point. At the point of conception, Mary becomes ensouled and thus inherits original sin. That is not a suitable vessel for jesus so Mary must have been concieved differently. This is the origin of the rampant mariolatry in the RCC.

 

[abaddon]

<snip pointless rant>

I do not believe in any god, jesus, anything supernatural or any unevidenced claim.

So let us be clear. I don't care whether the was a jesus, a composite jesus, or no jesus at all.

Is that clear to you yet? I DO NOT CARE.

But you care very, very much. I want to know why?

To me, you seem like a former theist with regrets. No idea if there is any truth to that, but you give every appearance of it.

 

[smartcooky]

No it isn't. That's the virgin birth. The Immaculate conception is the even more preposterously unnecessary notion that the BVM herself was free of original sin from the moment of her conception.

eta I see I was considerably ninjaed on this. Interestingly, this is a common misconception (no pun intended), even among some people who should know better, like people raised Catholic.

See post #777

 

[pgwenthold]

Nitpickery. The Immaculate Conception is RCC dogma which states that the Virgin Mary had not had sex at the time of her conception, .

No

 

[pgwenthold]

No it isn't. That's the virgin birth. The Immaculate conception is the even more preposterously unnecessary notion that the BVM herself was free of original sin from the moment of her conception.

eta I see I was considerably ninjaed on this. Interestingly, this is a common misconception (no pun intended), even among some people who should know better, like people raised Catholic.

When we went to see the show Late Night Catechism, I was the one who got this answer right. I almost even had the wording right ("Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin")

 

[pgwenthold]

This thread inspired me to look it up. The Feast of the Immaxulate Conception is Dec 8, as I remembered. The Annunciation is more like the end of March (9 months before Christmas?). I just remember it was not too long after Christmas.

Went to a lot of masses on the feast of the immaculate conception. But that's what you do in catholic school

 

[smartcooky]

No

See post #777

...and try to keep up

 

[smartcooky]

Missed the point. At the point of conception, Mary becomes ensouled and thus inherits original sin. That is not a suitable vessel for jesus so Mary must have been concieved differently. This is the origin of the rampant mariolatry in the RCC.

And at the core of its misogyny in general

 

[Tassman]

Correct. In the RCC the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary, not that of jesus. The thinking behind it is that Mary must be a pure vessel for jesus. In typical RCC mysoginist fashion.

Yes, Mary had to be immaculately conceived so that at the virgin birth Jesus would not be contaminated by her sin. And, because she was so pure, she was bodily assumed into heaven when she died. So they say - of course we all know how dirty sex is. I don't know how Jesus' siblings are accounted for - half brothers and sisters perhaps. Or cousins. Because, if they were birthed by Mary, one assumes they that she would not have been, well, assumed.

 

[Tassman]

I’ve just had a quick look at the Jesus page on Wikipedia and something immediately stuck out to me “... Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically....” not historians? Why is this?

I think its reasonable to accept that that an itinerant preacher named Jesus lived and that he left behind a group of disciples who came to be called Christians. But not reasonable that he did miracles and got himself resurrected.

 

[Sherman Bay]

My opinion is that the person the NT calls Jesus, was likely made up of a number of different people, and therefore, my opinion is that the Historical Jesus of the NT narrative is unlikely to be a single person. My reasons (NOT evidence) for thinking this is that many of the different gospel writers wrote conflicting things in the narrative about Jesus, that make it difficult for me to believe they were writing about the same person. Additionally, there are also references to things that happened in the narrative that are suspiciously similar to stories from Greek mythology...

My opinion, supported by some scholars, is that the story grew with the telling. The first recorded story (Mark) was sketchy. Later writers filled in what they thought were gaps, and had a pious attitude that was reflected in their writings.

The Jesus story in John (later) has more detail than Mark (early). It's possible that later writers wanted to correct (in a pious sense) what they hoped were errors. This could explain conflicts or contradictions.

Also keep in mind that there were many "fake" gospels floating around in those days. They are only considered fake because the church decided not to include them in the canon, not because they were made up. The church's criterion wasn't from an historical perspective, but a religious one.

 

[Darat]

I think its reasonable to accept that that an itinerant preacher named Jesus lived and that he left behind a group of disciples who came to be called Christians. But not reasonable that he did miracles and got himself resurrected.

Not if you look at how we know religions arise.

 

[Tassman]

Not if you look at how we know religions arise.

Surely religions start with the embellishment of the life of a charismatic figure or minor historic event, which in turn is further embellished via second and third-hand transmission until it receives the status of historical truth.

 

[Darat]

Surely religions start with the embellishment of the life of a charismatic figure or minor historic event, which in turn is further embellished via second and third-hand transmission until it receives the status of historical truth.

That is the general impression most people have but it doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.

When we look at the claimed foundations of a religion we know how it was established (I’ll use Scientology as an example in this post) that is not what happens.

What happens is that someone makes up the foundations of the new religion, for example Dianetics and the presentation of “Sonya Bianca”. (Whether the creator actually believes in those foundations is a different question). They then start to embellish the claims, so we end up with Scientology, and that will then outlast the originator of the foundations of the religion. But the foundations were never true.

With Christianity the foundational elements are the character Jesus, so if we go by how we know religions (can) are created we wouldn’t expect that such a person ever existed, they are the foundations that are made up. Christianity would have to be the exception to the rule. The more likely creator of Christianity would be if it follows the usual path of religions be a Hubbard character, an obvious candidate for Christianity would be “Paul” (Yes I do understand that Paul as a real historical person also has it problems.)

Then of course you have 2000 years of accumulated stories and claims.

So no there isn’t given how we know religions are founded to think there was ever a need for a real Jesus to hang everything off.

 

[smartcooky]

My opinion, supported by some scholars, is that the story grew with the telling. The first recorded story (Mark) was sketchy. Later writers filled in what they thought were gaps, and had a pious attitude that was reflected in their writings.

I agree 100%. The story is like a massive game of Chinese whispers, only in this case, not all of the alterations and additions were inadvertent. I believe there were some deliberate changes made for nefarious reasons. For example, blaming of the Jews for the death of Jesus in the narrative was in all probability an attempt to improve the status of Christians at the expense of the Jews.

The Jesus story in John (later) has more detail than Mark (early). It's possible that later writers wanted to correct (in a pious sense) what they hoped were errors. This could explain conflicts or contradictions.

Embiggening the story to make your religion look better - standard practice in most religions.

Also keep in mind that there were many "fake" gospels floating around in those days. They are only considered fake because the church decided not to include them in the canon, not because they were made up. The church's criterion wasn't from an historical perspective, but a religious one.

Indeed they were, and while I accept that I was mistaken about the Gnostic Gospels having been kicked out at Nicaea (that didn't happen until 367 AD when The Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, defined 27 books of the New Testament) the Creed nonetheless does takes aim at them, and at other diverse parts of the "proto" Christian faith.

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things" is aimed squarely at the Gnostics because that went against their belief that the deity Jesus called God was not the same as the God who they thought created the world.

"And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light" looks very much like a shot across the bows of the Ebionites who were committed to Judaism and Jewish monotheism. They believed that Jesus was divine, but mortal.

"...very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father" more sand in the face of the Gnostics who believed that God and Jesus were not the same.

"by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man". A slap in the face for the Marcionites, who believed that Jesus was fully divine, not human at all.

"he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;". This would have disappointed the Docetics, who believed that Jesus didn’t really die.

Now for sure, the First Council didn't ban any of these Christianities, but they sure as hell did threaten them in the last sentence of the Creed, and in years to come they carried out those threats. Its likely the only reason we know about some of them is because their adherents hid them to protect them from probable destruction by the Church. Gnostic groups such as the Manichaeans, the Cathars, and the Mandaeans were persecuted and many were murdered.

Note: Most scholars consider that the Cathars ere Gnostic, even though they didn't themselves. It didn't help them though - the Church all but wiped them out in 1209 AD.

 

[HansMustermann]

Surely religions start with the embellishment of the life of a charismatic figure or minor historic event, which in turn is further embellished via second and third-hand transmission until it receives the status of historical truth.

Only in the vaguest sense. Often there is a historical figure all right, but it's the author of the story, not the character in the story.

E.g., take Mormonism. There is a historical figure in there all right, but it's the author Joseph Smith, not the characters in his book, such as Alma The Elder. There was no historical Alma The Elder, for example. Joseph Smith just made him up.

For other deities, we may not know the authors and moment when the story was made up, but we can be pretty sure that the characters can't be anything but made up.

E.g., Amaterasu is not just a deity of the sun, not an avatar of the sun, etc, she IS the sun. It's pretty hard to imagine, if you know anything about animism, how the heck at any point in history someone could have mistaken a real person for the sun, and how that wouldn't be a fundamental conflict in animism. The much more likely explanation is that, just like the rest of animism, they just attributed an intelligent 'soul' to a thing.

Additionally some mythological events are clearly allegorical of events that happened millennia after the myth about that deity started, so they couldn't have possibly been done by an actual person, even if you want to believe that the deity was based on one.

E.g., take the Egyptian Hathor and her drunken murderous rampage up and down the Nile.

For a start, Hathor is the sky. No really, even her name says so. It's not with the English "th", it's Hat-Hor: house of Horus (the eagle.) It's pretty damn hard to imagine any point in history where a real person was mistaken for the Sky. Honestly, how tripping balls would you have to be to think that that gal over there is the sky?

But to return to that event, we even know what earthly event it's an allegory for, and when that story was made up. It was about a bloody civil war, and they add the story to the mythos right after it.

So, long story short, turns out that people actually are very capable of making stuff up

 

[abaddon]

That is the general impression most people have but it doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.

When we look at the claimed foundations of a religion we know how it was established (I’ll use Scientology as an example in this post) that is not what happens.

What happens is that someone makes up the foundations of the new religion, for example Dianetics and the presentation of “Sonya Bianca”. (Whether the creator actually believes in those foundations is a different question). They then start to embellish the claims, so we end up with Scientology, and that will then outlast the originator of the foundations of the religion. But the foundations were never true.

With Christianity the foundational elements are the character Jesus, so if we go by how we know religions (can) are created we wouldn’t expect that such a person ever existed, they are the foundations that are made up. Christianity would have to be the exception to the rule. The more likely creator of Christianity would be if it follows the usual path of religions be a Hubbard character, an obvious candidate for Christianity would be “Paul” (Yes I do understand that Paul as a real historical person also has it problems.)

Then of course you have 2000 years of accumulated stories and claims.

So no there isn’t given how we know religions are founded to think there was ever a need for a real Jesus to hang everything off.

Sure, the "Paul"/Hubbard parallel is an obvious one. Same could be said for Nancy Lieder or Applewhite or Joe Smith or any number of cults. All it really takes is some wingnut with the charisma to carry off the big con. After that it snowballs into a kind of insane unstoppable inertia of motion. As for christianity, it could have been Paul, or somebody else, or even a group of somebody else's who set that snowball in motion.

It matters not a whit exactly who set that snowball in motion, it matters that that snowball is in motion right this very minute.

I care not whether there was a real jesus or Paul or any of it. I care because of the effect it has on my daily life and the lives of those around me and how those are experienced.

Now, in truth, I have had that position for a long time, but I mostly kept quiet about it because I have no need to force my atheism on anyone else, and I can easily duck under the radar of any theist I might encounter.

That changed when the scandals started to come to light and when my eldest came out as trans. Then I saw how ugly christianity really is. Then I became an outspoken atheist.

 

[Delvo]

When we look at the claimed foundations of a religion we know how it was established (I’ll use Scientology as an example in this post) that is not what happens.

What happens is that someone makes up the foundations of the new religion, for example Dianetics... They then start to embellish the claims, so we end up with Scientology, and that will then outlast the originator of the foundations of the religion. But the foundations were never true.

Well, they don't necessarily need to be. But I'm not aware of any need for them not to be.

With Christianity the foundational elements are the character Jesus, so if we go by how we know religions (can) are created we wouldn’t expect that such a person ever existed, they are the foundations that are made up. Christianity would have to be the exception to the rule.

Often there is a historical figure all right, but it's the author of the story, not the character in the story.

E.g., take Mormonism. There is a historical figure in there all right, but it's the author Joseph Smith, not the characters in his book, such as Alma The Elder. There was no historical Alma The Elder, for example. Joseph Smith just made him up.

The only way to make this argument is with a bit of careful goal-oriented choosing of where one places one's labels.

CULT || CREATOR || CLAIMS
Scientology || L Ron Hubbard || stuff that Hubbard preached
Mormonism || Joseph Smith || stuff that Smith preached
Christianity, scenario 1 || Jesus || stuff that Jesus preached
Christianity, scenario 2 || somebody else || stuff that whoever that was preached: the Jesus story, plus what Jesus preached

The fact that you can concoct scenario 2 by simply scooting Jesus over from the second column to the third does not constitute an argument that scenario 1 is wrong, any more than people in some later era when Hubbard & Smith are forgotten can make them fictional by making the same alteration for those stories:

CULT || CREATOR || CLAIMS
Scientology as we know it || L Ron Hubbard || stuff that Hubbard preached
Mormonism as we know it || Joseph Smith || stuff that Smith preached
Scientology, alternative scenario || somebody else || stuff that whoever that is would have preached: a Hubbard story, plus what Hubbard preached
Mormonism, alternative scenario || somebody else || stuff that whoever that is would have preached: a Smith story, plus what Smith preached

You can't knock down one idea by just making up another that goes against it, especially when the method by which you made up the alternative is simply Occam's Stapler: starting with the original you want to knock down and adding an extra step into it which is completely unneeded and pointless for any other possible goal.

E.g., Amaterasu is not just a deity of the sun, not an avatar of the sun, etc, she IS the sun. It's pretty hard to imagine, if you know anything about animism, how the heck at any point in history someone could have mistaken a real person for the sun, and how that wouldn't be a fundamental conflict in animism. The much more likely explanation is that, just like the rest of animism, they just attributed an intelligent 'soul' to a thing.

Legendary heroes & leaders get godly attributes or elements of nature attached to them quite routinely. Even just a few centuries ago, France had a ruler nicknamed "the Sun King". And sometimes we can see more than on stage of the process, not just telltale expressions like that; Achilles in some of the oldest tellings of his tale is simpler an excellent fighter, but in later versions he's become a demigod with magic impenetrable skin because his mother dipped him in holy water.

For a start, Hathor is the sky. No really, even her name says so. It's not with the English "th", it's Hat-Hor: house of Horus (the eagle.) It's pretty damn hard to imagine any point in history where a real person was mistaken for the Sky. Honestly, how tripping balls would you have to be to think that that gal over there is the sky?

An even better example! The only god name that can be securely reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European is a form of the word for "sky" or "daylight". In the descendant languages, it can end up taking different forms that either just mean something like "sky" or "daylight", or mean "god" in general, or are used as the name of a specific god. It's still all three in Latin and the Indic languages ("dies", "deus", and the "Ju" in "Jupiter"; Sanskrit "diva", "divasa", and "Dyaus", sometimes known as "Dyaus Pitar", the father of the other gods in the Vedas). It still retains two of those meanings in the Germanic languages ("day" and the god whom Tuesday was named after). And other gods' names are often the same as the thing they were the god of, like Fortuna, and they get depicted as people in art; we even have Lady Liberty from relatively recent times. And other legends about what the elements-of-nature-as-gods did require them to be like people whether their names say so or not, like the "sky" impregnating the "earth" just like a god would do with a goddess and "time" physically eating some of his children. That impenetrable boundary you propose between an element of nature and the person/character who personifies it isn't just penetrable; it's not even a boundary at all.

But that's a bit of a cotangent from Jesus, who isn't a god of a particular thing in nature (at least not yet).

people actually are very capable of making stuff up

But in the case of Jesus, we know there were wandering doom cult guys, and "Jesus" was a common name that we know was sometimes given to religious figures or wandering doom preachers, and the Romans casually killed anybody they thought might stir up trouble, often by crucifying them. To support a claim that the Christian story was simply entirely "made up", one must find something to sever it from all that background information. That separation, between known background information and a work of "pure fiction" that just coincidentally happens to have recreated all of the same stuff, is an unnecessary new element getting added to the story. It's Occam's Stapler again.

 

[acbytesla]

Nitpickery. The Immaculate Conception is RCC dogma which states that the Virgin Mary had not had sex at the time of her conception, i.e. she was a virgin when God banged her up, and unless she put herself about sometime in the next nine month, she was was still a virgin at sonny boy's birth, so a difference with little distinction, and certainly irrelevant to the point I was making - a person who could turn water into wine, who was sacrificed by being crucified in the branches of a tree and who was resurrected three days later, fathered by the Top God.

So her hymen was still in tact after giving birth to Jesus?