The Jesus Myth, and it's failures

[Slowvehicle]

Old testament scripture says the Messiah would be crucified.

The Jews misunderstood Jesus and thought he was there to free them from Roman oppression but in reality he was there to die as a sacrifice of atonement for mankind's sins.

Please provide chapter and verse evidence for the highlighted claim.

 

[lopeyschools]

The Messiah was sent to die on the cross. His resurrection made it a success.

With different authors who lived in different times putting together a coherent set of writings is actually remarkable.

It is not really that surprising when you consider there were various attempts by political and religious leaders to produce a coherent story. Early Christianity was extremely varied and held widely different beliefs (still true today).

 

[Slowvehicle]

Zechariah 12:10 - They shall look on him whom they have pierced.

"Pierced" is not "crucified", even in English. Not to mention, what evidence supports the claim that Zech 12:10, a verse in an oracleabout the restoration of the southern kingdom, is a "prophecy" about Jesus? You should read Ehrman on the OT "messianic" "prophecies", and how they have been redacted and concscripted, as "postdictions", to make the OT seem "Messianic".

John 19:37 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.

Actually, the author of that portion of the book that came to be attributed to "John" said so...half a century after the fact.

Zechariah 13:7- Smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep.

...this verse says nothing about crucifiction. It is, instead, a warning of the trials to be faced by the divided kingdoms.

Matthew 26:31 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.

Actually, one of the authors of the collections of sayings attributed to Jesus claims that Jesus suggested the verese was an analogy of what would happen to the disciples...at least a quarter century after the fact.

Isaiah 53:5-12 - He was cut off out of the land of the living (v8), his soul was made an offering for sin (v10), he poured out his soul unto death (v12). This was fulfilled in Jesus' death according to Acts 8:32-35; Luke 22:37.
[Genesis 12:3 fulfilled per Acts 3:25,26; cf. Genesis 3:15]

More of the same. The "messianic" "prophecies" in the OT are, at best, loose interpretations; more likely they are clumsy retcons. The authors, editors, and the redactors of the NT had the OT "prophecies" available, and were not particularly scholarly, or rigorous, in their application.

So, whereas premillennialism implies that Jesus' death was unexpected and unpredicted, the word of God says that Jesus' death was expected and was predicted.

No. At best, the "word of 'god' " can be twisted to be taken to refer to Jesus. I endorse neither "premillenialism", "postmillenialism", "panmillenialism", "amelenialislm", nor anyother form of swcripture-based superstition, in pointing out that the records of Jesus' supposed "messianic" acts post-date the crucifiction by a significant span.

ETA" Multi-ninja-ed by many. I'll leave it up, anyway...

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The Messiah, or just a Very Naughty Boy?

When looking at Jewish writings on the topic of the Messiah (during that time, and even now), there is no suggestion that the Messiah was meant to die. The Messiah, was supposed to free the Jews from subjugation. That can't be done if the Messiah is dead.

Exactly. Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he didn't free the Jews from subjugation.

So if he wasn't the Messiah, then who was he? A cult leader who pretended to be the Messiah? As has been pointed out there were a lot of messiahs back then, and Jesus was a common name, so who knows how many 'Messiahs' were named Jesus? Christianity may have sprung from one of those pretenders, or it may be a composite of several. But whatever the origin of the myth, the Jesus who is described in the Bible did not exist.

I see Jesus as a Jewish teacher, who some thought was the Messiah, who was crucified because of the message he was preaching,

Fair enough, but what does that have to do with the Jesus myth? Even if this Jewish teacher was names Jesus, and he was the one Christians based their fantasies on, that says nothing about the myth itself. If you reject all the miracles, resurrection, virgin birth etc, what is left? Perhaps some of his teachings have value even when stripped of the supernatural nonsense, but we don't even know if any of it actually came from this Jesus. And even it did, so what?

When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah?

They didn't. As far as the Jews were concerned he was a nobody, just one of many false Messiahs (if they even knew of him at all). Christians created the Jesus myth.

History works on probability. In order to determine whether the probability of an event is likely, it is sometimes useful to consider whether or not it would have been made up.

So you would agree that any passage in the Bible that describes a very unlikely event is probably fiction? If so then that relegates the greater proportion of events involving Jesus to myth.

But what about about events that seem reasonably believable, but are mighty convenient? For example, Jesus didn't have his legs broken on the cross and his side was pierced, conveniently conforming with prophecy (actually stated as such in the Bible itself!). I think we can presume that this is a fiction. If biblical authors were willing to lie about prosaic details like this in order to polish the Jesus myth, how can we know that any of it is true?

some claim that since they are religious, they can't be accepted as being credible.

Yep, religious zealots lie to themselves and others. And the bigger the lie, the more adamant they are that it's the truth. Pathological liars cannot be relied upon to tell the truth about anything.

 

[Navigator]

It is not really that surprising when you consider there were various attempts by political and religious leaders to produce a coherent story. Early Christianity was extremely varied and held widely different beliefs (still true today).

I think Christianity was created by Paul. He used the increasingly popular movement surrounding the figurehead Jesus to inject his own purpose into it.

Paul supported a different and more ancient Meme than the recently new one growing from the expressed ideas of Jesus, and the ancient Meme saw some danger in the newly forming one and sort to eradicate it.

This only made the new Meme stronger.

Infiltration thus became the way to subjugate the new Meme and incorporate it into the agenda of the Ancient Meme.

Thus Christianity was 'born'...only it was more a same old same old thing. It used the name of Jesus in order to accomplish its agenda.

 

[John Jones]

this sprouted from another topic. [...]
i believe those two points are good enough for now.

tl;dr.

 

[tsig]

Old testament scripture says the Messiah would be crucified.

The Jews misunderstood Jesus and thought he was there to free them from Roman oppression but in reality he was there to die as a sacrifice of atonement for mankind's sins.

No.

Zechariah 12:10 - They shall look on him whom they have pierced. John 19:37 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Zechariah 13:7- Smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep. Matthew 26:31 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Isaiah 53:5-12 - He was cut off out of the land of the living (v8), his soul was made an offering for sin (v10), he poured out his soul unto death (v12). This was fulfilled in Jesus' death according to Acts 8:32-35; Luke 22:37.
[Genesis 12:3 fulfilled per Acts 3:25,26; cf. Genesis 3:15]

So, whereas premillennialism implies that Jesus' death was unexpected and unpredicted, the word of God says that Jesus' death was expected and was predicted.

None of those mention crucifixion.

You have to do some mighty creative reading to get crucifixion out of those verses.

 

[tsig]

I don't see how you can say he "won" when the jews were heavily persecuted for much of that 1000 year time period.

He won by throwing the Jews under the bus and declaring the gentiles the children of god.

(well his followers did)

 

[Bikewer]

I've mentioned before that Bart Ehrman covers this rather extensively in his various books.

IF Jesus existed as a discrete person, and IF he was an Apocalyptic, (as many scholars believe), then he was talking about the "Son Of Man" coming down from Heaven to make things right for the Jews... The Jewish Apocalypse, not the Christian one that was invented some 200 years later in Revelations.
This event was to have re-established the Kingdom Of Israel to it's former glory. Kick the Romans out, rebuild the Temple, reestablish the 12 tribes...That sort of thing.
Jesus, in this view, was setting himself up literally to become the "king of the Jews" with the 12 apostles each being assigned the kingship of the re-formed tribes.
A very temporal event.
When none of that happened, the mainstream Jewish establishment shrugged and said, "well, he wasn't the one...." and went on with business.

However, JC had accumulated a rather large group of followers and after his death (as often happens in religions) they decided to carry on variously.

In lots of ways. There were, according to Ehrman and other scholars dozens of "Jesus cults" that rose after the death of Jesus.
All these cults had different ideas about what JC had been all about, what his nature was, what his purpose was, etc, etc.
Some saw themselves as Jewish. Some did not. Some saw Jesus as totally divine. Some as a mere man who had been possessed by God. (from the "Father, why hast though forsaken me?" line.)
Some had other ideas, and the Gnostics had other ideas still.
It took some 300 years for these disparate cults to either die out, meld together, compromise, fight, and eventually form some semblance of an orthodox viewpoint.

They went from good Jews believing they were to be delivered from the Romans to good Christians who saw deliverance as a spiritual event....Not taking place in this life.
Even though Jesus supposedly told them that things would shake out "during the lifetimes of those present".
Check out Ehrman's "Lost Christianities".

 

[Brainache]

Exactly. Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he didn't free the Jews from subjugation.

So if he wasn't the Messiah, then who was he? A cult leader who pretended to be the Messiah? As has been pointed out there were a lot of messiahs back then, and Jesus was a common name, so who knows how many 'Messiahs' were named Jesus? Christianity may have sprung from one of those pretenders, or it may be a composite of several. But whatever the origin of the myth, the Jesus who is described in the Bible did not exist.

Fair enough, but what does that have to do with the Jesus myth? Even if this Jewish teacher was names Jesus, and he was the one Christians based their fantasies on, that says nothing about the myth itself. If you reject all the miracles, resurrection, virgin birth etc, what is left? Perhaps some of his teachings have value even when stripped of the supernatural nonsense, but we don't even know if any of it actually came from this Jesus. And even it did, so what?

They didn't. As far as the Jews were concerned he was a nobody, just one of many false Messiahs (if they even knew of him at all). Christians created the Jesus myth.

So you would agree that any passage in the Bible that describes a very unlikely event is probably fiction? If so then that relegates the greater proportion of events involving Jesus to myth.

But what about about events that seem reasonably believable, but are mighty convenient? For example, Jesus didn't have his legs broken on the cross and his side was pierced, conveniently conforming with prophecy (actually stated as such in the Bible itself!). I think we can presume that this is a fiction. If biblical authors were willing to lie about prosaic details like this in order to polish the Jesus myth, how can we know that any of it is true?

Yep, religious zealots lie to themselves and others. And the bigger the lie, the more adamant they are that it's the truth. Pathological liars cannot be relied upon to tell the truth about anything.

I just heard about this guy: Jesus Son of Sapphias.
http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/autobiog.htm

...So Jesus the son of Sapphias, one of those whom we have already mentioned as the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people, prevented us, and took with him certain Galileans, and set the entire palace on fire, and thought he should get a great deal of money thereby, because he saw some of the roofs gilt with gold. They also plundered a great deal of the furniture, which was done without our approbation; for after we had discoursed with Capellus and the principal men of the city, we departed from Bethmaus, and went into the Upper Galilee. But Jesus and his party slew all the Greeks that were inhabitants of Tiberias, and as many others as were their enemies before the war began. ...

His timeline is a bit late for what we normally think of for Jesus, but lets face it, no one agrees 100% on any of the timelines for Jesus.

He was a leader of the "Galilean Boatmen" and "The Party Of The Poor". He had religious pretensions. He had a brother called "Justus" whose death precipitated the war with Rome... I think I heard about some early Christian saying that Josephus blamed that war on the death of James The Just the brother of Jesus... Which James (Justus?), which Jesus?

It's all rather confusing, really...

 

[HansMustermann]

This sprouted from another topic. Instead of getting off topic there, I have decided to open a new thread. I am aware that there have been other threads on this subject, but I would rather not resurrect an old thread. So I wanted to start a new thread.

Before I go more into detail on the subject though, I do want to define what I mean by Jesus. I do not accept the idea of miracles. I also do not accept that the resurrection or virgin birth are historical. Instead, I see such events in the same way that I see those events when included in other ancient biographies (such as Augustus, who also had a miraculous birth, and was said to have done miracles). Instead, I see Jesus as a Jewish teacher, who some thought was the Messiah, who was crucified because of the message he was preaching, and later his followers believed he was resurrected (which was a common idea in Judaism at that time). As in, he was a mortal man who was later written about in an extravagant fashion, in the same manner that other ancient individuals were written about.

While there is nothing wrong with that idea, the only problem is that invariably it's an axiom, not something supported. Each author postulates a Jesus who had attributes X, Y and Z and then, surprise, one can cherrypick, distort and occasionally outright invent Jesus stuff that is compatible with that.

The problem is that you can do the same for Count Piotr Bezukhov from War and Peace, Clark Kent from the Superman comics, or the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred from Lovecraft. (See, I don't think the Kitab Al Azif was dictated by demons, but I still think Abdul Alhazred was a scholar who died in Damascus.) The problem is that all those are false. So as a method of arriving at the truth, just pulling it out of the ass like that seems to be too fallible.

Now getting to the meat. When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah?

Because it wasn't a failed messiah, and because it was hard to invent a messiah which actually conquered the physical world and put the Jews at the top? You know, because everyone could see that that didn't happen? That wasn't even hard.

And why would they create such a figure when there were other historical individuals that could simply have been followed instead?

None of which qualified as the expected messiah in any sense.

When the story of Jesus is looked at, it is clear that he failed as the Messiah. The fact that he was crucified, and died, would have, for most Jews, been seen as a failure.

For most, maybe, but it's enough that for Paul and his gang it didn't work like that. So that's another BS argument.

It's like saying that Charles Manson couldn't have invented the messages from the Beatles because the rest of the world didn't see it that way. Who cares? Sometimes individuals and groups do different things or have different delusions than the majority.

The Messiah was not suppose to die. For Jews to just make up such a story simply does not make sense. In addition, if they were looking for such an individual (a religious leader who was killed), they had a handful of individuals during that time. Josephus lists a number of individuals who would have fit the bill, including John the Baptist (as well as Jesus).

Again, so what? Charles Manson too could have chosen a better source of messages about racial revolutions than the Beatles, but he didn't.

The second problem with the Jesus myth is the rejection of the New Testament. The defense for such is that it is in the Bible, and thus is biased, or not credible. This is a horrible argument though. The authors of each of the books that compromised the New Testament never thought they were writing scripture. They had no idea that after they died, their writings would be collected into a larger work. Paul himself was even clear that his works were not scripture, as he reserved such a term for the Hebrew Bible. How does it make sense then to reject the New Testament just because they were later collected into a larger work?

Oh, goody, you just need to be delusional enough to think you can read their mind and know exactly what they were thinking, to have an argument. *Yawn* Sorry, wake me up when you have something less silly than simply knowing what some people thought, even though nobody even knows who they were.

Now, some claim that since they are religious, they can't be accepted as being credible. The problem with such an idea is that most ancient biographies also were religious in some manner. We can look at the writings in regards to Augustus, and they also are religious. Augustus is also called the savior, he was the son of a god, he was even worshipped. Religion and politics were intertwined, and thus with many of the emperors we see religious ideas attached to them, including in their biographies. Yet, we don't reject such works. If they were rejected, most ancient biographies would have to be rejected, and we would have very little left to go on. Basically what is happening is special pleading.

I believe those two points are good enough for now.

Yes, but the quality of the sources about those is also better. If Augustus were ONLY known from religious propaganda, and nobody else had heard about him outside his cult, then that too would be suspect.

 

[H'ethetheth]

Old testament scripture says the Messiah would be crucified...

Zechariah 12:10 - They shall look on him whom they have pierced. John 19:37 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Zechariah 13:7- Smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep. Matthew 26:31 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Isaiah 53:5-12 - He was cut off out of the land of the living (v8), his soul was made an offering for sin (v10), he poured out his soul unto death (v12). This was fulfilled in Jesus' death according to Acts 8:32-35; Luke 22:37.
[Genesis 12:3 fulfilled per Acts 3:25,26; cf. Genesis 3:15]

... the word of God says that Jesus' death was expected and was predicted.

You should have said:

"New testament scripture says old testament scripture says the Messiah would be crucified."

and

"Jesus' death was expected and was predicted by people writing about his death after his death."

 

[pakeha]

"Pierced" is not "crucified", even in English. Not to mention, what evidence supports the claim that Zech 12:10, a verse in an oracleabout the restoration of the southern kingdom, is a "prophecy" about Jesus? ...

A good question.
Just why do people think that Zech 12:10 verse refers to Jesus?

...Check out Ehrman's "Lost Christianities".

Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[H'ethetheth]

A good question.
Just why do people think that Zech 12:10 verse refers to Jesus?

Because...

John 19:37 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death

 

[Belz...]

When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah?

Well, he's not failed, you see. He won in the end. Since when do religions make sense ?

The second problem with the Jesus myth is the rejection of the New Testament. The defense for such is that it is in the Bible, and thus is biased, or not credible. This is a horrible argument though.

It's also a strawman, because that's not the argument. The Gospels are rejected because there is so much magic and contradiction and historical inaccuracy in them that it's impossible to tell, especially without corroboration from anywhere, if anything in them is true.

Which leaves us with Paul, who doesn't tell us much of value.

 

[Belz...]

History works on probability.

Yes, but the entire argument on the other thread rests on the point that you can't claim certainty based on probability or lack of imagined or satisfying alternatives. The conclusion is that we don't know.

 

[Apology]

The Jews didn't create a failed Messiah. The Christians did. Aren't the Jews still waiting for the real Messiah to come?

Technically Christ isn't a failed Messiah, if Christians created him and Jews don't accept him. He's only a failure to the Jews. He's a whopping success to the Christians.

 

[pakeha]

A good question.
Just why do people think that Zech 12:10 verse refers to Jesus?

Because...

Something tells me I won't find a better answer out there.

 

[Dinwar]

The Jews didn't create a failed Messiah. The Christians did. Aren't the Jews still waiting for the real Messiah to come?

Depends on which school you're talking about. Jews aren't as homologous as people like to think (to boil down a number of discussions I've had with a Jewish friend on the topic).

 

[JoeMorgue]

Now getting to the meat. When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah?

Oh this is just classic. Jesus had to have existed because he was such a failure.

*Slow clap.*

How does it make sense then to reject the New Testament just because they were later collected into a larger work?

It doesn't.

It does however make absolutely perfect sense to reject the New Testament because it's logically impossible, scientifically ludicrous, morally reprehensible, historically unfounded, and fails to maintain an internal consistency in either information or tone.