The Jesus Myth, and it's failures

[HansMustermann]

I would agree with Eight Bits that Paul's superhero Jesus hasn't failed at all, and add again that neither has the Gospels' superhero Jesus.

And it's not just some anomaly for Jesus. Dying and rising again was not seen as a failure in a god. In fact an invented god (and I think even the most die-hard Christians will agree that the others I'll mention are invented) being able to come back from the dead or otherwise show power over death, was a GOOD thing for over 3000 years at that point. It pretty much provided the answer to "yeah, but can he raise MY spirit from the dead?" And, "sure, he even raised himself" was an easy "right" way to answer that.

E.g., Osiris was tricked in pretty much the most retarded way, dismembered, and lost his penis in the process too, which, you know, would be a pretty big a failure if it stopped there. I mean, come on, who'd make up a guy that failed like that. But it didn't stop there, and that's the point. The fact that Osiris himself could be resurrected in spirit and even become ruler of the afterlife was actually a GOOD thing for his worshippers, because it meant they too could go to the netherworld.

E.g., Inanna descended to the netherworld (afterlife), where she was tricked into giving away her magical jewellery and thus stripped of her godly powers, then killed, and her corpse hung on meat hooks for a couple of days. (How's that for a sorta crucifixion, oh, 3000 years or so before Jesus?) And again, if the story were to stop there, it would be a failed wannabe goddess and, come on, nobody would invent a failure like that. But again, the point is that it didn't stop there. Then she (with a little help) comes back again.

Etc.

Basically, yes, nobody would invent a failed Jesus, but then no Christian sect told the story of a failed Jesus.

 

[ludin]

The old testament doesn't mention crucifixtion it does however foretell the death of Christ.

yes the jews were looking for a conquering messiah. They totally forgot about the suffering messiah.

Isaiah 53 is probably the best source for this.

Christ did rebuild the church, and he did restore the temple. As the new church and new temple gained ground.

Christ death fulfilled the old convenant and made a new one.

as for the gospels they were all written by peope that knew christ personally or were followers of Christ.

Matthew was a tax collector that Jesus entertained a party in he was also called Levi.

Mark was a follower and a translator for Peter who was a follower of Christ. his mother was a huge supporter of Christ and according to scriptures allow him to hold meetings and or stay in her home.

Luke wrote the books of Luke and the book of Acts. he was a follower and a friend of Paul. He knew the other apostles and would have surely gotten there account on things.

The reason that the styles are different on occasions is that some of the books were interprited from hebrew to greek. On other events they had different people writing them.

Paul had poor vision and what would be considered blind.
John's torture left him crippled and he could barely write. So they had other peope write it down for them.

The books of thomas and recently Judas are not included because their authors could not be verified. Nor was the information in them consistant with the other books that had been verified and listed in cannon.

Historically the bible is very accurate in the details of places and cities. huge discoveries have been found by archeologist actually trying to disprove the bible only finding out that it was actually correct.

As for inconsistancies there are none. the bible is consistant from beginning to end. so i am not sure what inconsistancies they are refering to.

The conquering messiah doesn't come till the book of revelation. The Jewish people at the time mostly due to the fault of the priests didn't interprit the events correctly.

 

[Brian-M]

The old testament doesn't mention crucifixtion it does however foretell the death of Christ.

yes the jews were looking for a conquering messiah. They totally forgot about the suffering messiah.

Isaiah 53 is probably the best source for this.

The suffering servant in Isaiah 53 is supposed to be Jesus?

Isaiah 52:13 describes the servant as: "his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness".

And Isaiah 53:2-3 says: "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."

So Jesus was supposed to have been a hideously disfigured person who lived a harsh life full of pain and was despised by everybody?

 

[pakeha]

...For me, the issue of how the NT came to be written by people separated in time, distance, language and probably culture from the hypothetical HJ is one of the big questions about all this. There is very little evidence of the connection between the NT writers and the people that they wrote about and without that it is hard to see what is the evidence that supports strong conclusions about the nature of the HJ.

Your post gave me a lot to think about, davefoc, especially in light of the Sayings of Jesus (yes, the hypothetical Q source).
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html

How on Earth do we get from a preacher to the Redemptor?




Welcome to the forum, ludin.

...Historically the bible is very accurate in the details of places and cities. huge discoveries have been found by archeologist actually trying to disprove the bible only finding out that it was actually correct.

As for inconsistancies there are none. the bible is consistant from beginning to end. so i am not sure what inconsistancies they are refering to.

The conquering messiah doesn't come till the book of revelation. The Jewish people at the time mostly due to the fault of the priests didn't interprit the events correctly.

Do you remember the prophecy that not a stone would remain upon stone of Jerusalem's buildings?

Mark 13:2
And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Did you know the Romans deliberately left several towers standing when they razed Jerusalem in 70?

"Titus orders the whole city and Temple to be razed to the ground, leaving only the tallest towers and a small portion of the wall on the west. The Xth legion is left to garrison Jerusalem."
http://www.josephus.org/FlJosephus2/warChronology7Fall.html

Reading Josephus' account of the seige and fall of Jerusalem is a most interesting experience.
But not for the delicately nurtured.

 

[ludin]

So Jesus was supposed to have been a hideously disfigured person who lived a harsh life full of pain and was despised by everybody?

I wouldn't say disfigured in that way but i doubt he was handsome man. He would have been average or less than average looking.

If you have ever read the gospels he was despised. There were many times he was ousted out of town usually by the temple priests that managed to rally a mob.

if you notice in the bible every time that he started togather a large following he would say something that would either make them leave or he would just walk off.

He was constantly on the move. The old testament fortold of the suffering and conquering messiah's. the jews of the day expected the conquering messiah they totally forgot about the suffering messiah that would come first.

3 days later Christ became the conquering messiah. They thought it was to save them from the Romans. they were wrong. Christs job as the conquering messiah was to reclaim what was God's from the beginning.

Welcome to the forum, ludin.

Thanks i am hoping to have better discussions than i have seen elsewhere.

And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

this is one thing that irks me. people cite one verse and go see. taking it completely out of context with the rest of the chapter. if you read the entire chapter of Mark 13 Christ is talking about the book of revelation that John has yet to write.

he is giving them a prophecy of the future.

It not only speaks of the forecoming persecution by the Romans but also some of the book of revelation.

Also the fact that the Romans did destroy the temple. In the end time the world government will try to destroy the church.

Reading Josephus' account of the seige and fall of Jerusalem is a most interesting experience.
But not for the delicately nurtured.

i wouldn't expect it to be. warefare back then was brutal and savage. it had to be it was a protection method. of course also not much could stop the roman army at that time either.

 

[Manopolus]

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.

The fact that some of them were copied verbatim from the others has nothing to do with it?

 

[Akhenaten]

How on Earth do we get from a preacher to the Redemptor?

1. Create a canon which states that Jesus is a third of God.
   
   
2. Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
   
   
3. ???
   
   
4. Profit.

 

[HansMustermann]

Regarding the prophecies including Issaiah... well, here's a brief introduction in how to think like a schizophrenic. Because that's all there is to it. There are no prophecies in the OT that refer to Jesus at all, but you can take phrases out of context and, if you have delusions of reference (or are a Christian and were trained to think like a schizophrenic with delusions of reference about the subject) you can take them as totally being cryptic references to you about your messiah, nevermind what the next and previous verses say.

Basically, let's say I went off the deep end and founded the Seven Dwarf Adventists, a cult where we worship our saviour Snow White, who choked on the apple and died for our sins, and then rose again according to the (Brothers Grimm) scripture.

So now I scour ancient texts for prophecies about her.

And I read, say, Genesis. A book which, if you're thinking like a sane person, you'd think "WTH does THAT have to do with Snow White?" But you'd be wrong.

So I read Genesis 2:18: "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”"

Again, if you're sane you'll think it's clear that this line refers to Adam and God is about to make Eve for him. But welcome to my world where innocent phrases are cryptic references to whatever I'm thinking about. In this case, clearly the line was put there to give me a hint that God intended from the beginning of time that Snow White marries Prince Charming, because it's not good for him to be alone.

Now let's go to the next page.

3. but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

4. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”​

Well, come on, now that's clearly a prophecy about Snow White. Sure, you may think the story still is about Adam and Eve, but, remember, you must try to think like a schizophrenic.

She died by eating the apple, as God foretold in Genesis 3:3, but in doing so set the stage for the triumphant rising from death later, a power usually considered divine, so she did become like a goddess, fulfilling what was foretold in Genesis 3:5. So clearly it's about her.

Etc.

What does that have to do with the bible and Jesus? Well, that's how Paul and the gospel writers used the OT. Paul finds references to him and his church in stuff like Sarah's talking about the slave woman's child, or God's promise to Abraham, etc.

And sure, if you read the text as what it literally says, you'd think the previous and next paragraphs are plainly talking about the physical kid Abraham had with the slave concubine, and surely that verse just fits that context. But welcome to the world of reference delusions, where random phrases and sentences are in a completely different context, namely about you and whatever you're thinking about.

So are some verses in the middle of a text about a maimed servant, or in the middle of a prayer about being a sinner and getting a disease, actually about Jesus? If you're schizophrenic, they might just be.

 

[davefoc]

Your post gave me a lot to think about, davefoc, especially in light of the Sayings of Jesus (yes, the hypothetical Q source).
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html

How on Earth do we get from a preacher to the Redemptor?

...

I certainly don't know the answer to that question. The theory that I think is most likely to be correct is that a sect that focused on the notion that a Messiah was coming morphed into a sect that the Messiah had come. This theory doesn't require the existence of a preacher to be correct, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that one existed either.

One thing, that might be of interest to you if you aren't aware of it is that the Q hypothesis is not universally accepted. This site makes a case that the Q document doesn't exist:
http://markgoodacre.org/Q/ten.htm

Carrier linked to the site in one of his articles and expressed agreement with the views of the author.

When I held a stronger belief in the existence of an HJ, what I thought was the probable existence of a Q document and the possibility that it represented an independent source about the HJ was an argument that I thought supported historicity. Arguments that the author of the site that I linked to above renders historicity arguments based on Q as very weak, at best, I think.

 

[ludin]

well, here's a brief introduction in how to think like a schizophrenic. Because that's all there is to it. There are no prophecies in the OT that refer to Jesus at all, but you can take phrases out of context and, if you have delusions of reference (or are a Christian and were trained to think like a schizophrenic with delusions of reference about the subject) you can take them as totally being cryptic references to you about your messiah, nevermind what the next and previous verses say.

This is simply your theory which is quite wrong. pretty much all theologians agree that the prophicies more so in Isaiah and in Daniel are confirmed as the foretelling of the death of Christ. There is no schizophrenia anywhere. unless you want to call some of the brightest theologians of our day schizophrenics. where did you get your psych degree at again?

Again, if you're sane you'll think it's clear that this line refers to Adam and God is about to make Eve for him.

actually study after study shows that people that are in good solid relationships are happier and live longer than single people.

Well, come on, now that's clearly a prophecy about Snow White. Sure, you may think the story still is about Adam and Eve, but, remember, you must try to think like a schizophrenic.

She died by eating the apple, as God foretold in Genesis 3:3, but in doing so set the stage for the triumphant rising from death later, a power usually considered divine, so she did become like a goddess, fulfilling what was foretold in Genesis 3:5. So clearly it's about her.

This tells me you have no clue about Snow White let alone the bible in general.

Well, that's how Paul and the gospel writers used the OT.

Paul was part of the Sanhedrin he knew all about the torah and most of the books for the OT.

He was a high ranking official in the church.
actually it isn't how they used the old testament. it is just wishful thinking on your part.

The death of christ is foretold many many times in the OT.

So are some verses in the middle of a text about a maimed servant, or in the middle of a prayer about being a sinner and getting a disease, actually about Jesus? If you're schizophrenic, they might just be.

again since you don't even know the story of snow white i find it equally hard to trust anything you would say on the bible.

 

[poblob14]

This is simply your theory which is quite wrong. pretty much all theologians agree that the prophicies more so in Isaiah and in Daniel are confirmed as the foretelling of the death of Christ.

Well, "pretty much all" Jewish theologians agree that the Suffering Servant is Israel itself. One reason for this is, according to the site I linked (I'm not going to dig through all of Isaiah for confirmation), every time (nine times total) Isaiah uses the word "servant," he's specifically referring to Israel.

You do know there are four Servant Songs in Isaiah, right?

In the first, God says, "I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations" (Is 42:1). That sound like Jesus? Jesus needed to have the spirit put on him? When did he bring justice?

In the second, it is claimed that: "Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you” (Is 49:7). Jesus was "chosen"? What princes bowed to him? (Special bonus hint: what society has called itself "The Chosen People" for a few thousand years?)

In the third, the Servant speaks for himself: "By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth its covering” (Is 50:2-3). I must have missed that in the Gospels; was that in the Synoptics, or John?

I'm just not seeing a whole lot of Jesus there.

 

[tsig]

Well, "pretty much all" Jewish theologians agree that the Suffering Servant is Israel itself. One reason for this is, according to the site I linked (I'm not going to dig through all of Isaiah for confirmation), every time (nine times total) Isaiah uses the word "servant," he's specifically referring to Israel.

You do know there are four Servant Songs in Isaiah, right?

In the first, God says, "I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations" (Is 42:1). That sound like Jesus? Jesus needed to have the spirit put on him? When did he bring justice?

In the second, it is claimed that: "Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you” (Is 49:7). Jesus was "chosen"? What princes bowed to him? (Special bonus hint: what society has called itself "The Chosen People" for a few thousand years?)

In the third, the Servant speaks for himself: "By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth its covering” (Is 50:2-3). I must have missed that in the Gospels; was that in the Synoptics, or John?

I'm just not seeing a whole lot of Jesus there.

Once you give your soul to Jesus the eye follows.

 

[Akhenaten]

Once you give your soul to Jesus the eye follows.

 

[tsig]

A myth, in other words. Created, it seems, by yet another mythical creature.

Is there anything at all that humans won't believe?

That they're responsible for creating a purpose and meaning in their own lives without the help of an invisible friend seems to be a problem for a majority of humans.

 

[Akhenaten]

That they're responsible for creating a purpose and meaning in their own lives without the help of an invisible friend seems to be a problem for a majority of humans.

​

 

[ludin]

That sound like Jesus? Jesus needed to have the spirit put on him? When did he bring justice?

He did actually when John the baptist baptized him. It was really the beginning of his ministry. The spirit did decend on Christ. If you read any of the stories of Christ he did bring justice to those in that days society.

Stoning of the women. healer of the leaper, healing of the blind and other sick.

In the second, it is claimed that:

singling out and distorting bible verses does not an arguement make. i don't know why people do this but ol well. unfortuantly you continue this misconception. i named a specific chapter and verse. you go on to single out verses that have absolutly nothing to do with what we are talking about
and try and use it as evidence of some kind.

i am not sure why people do this. probably out of ignorance of the bible.

That they're responsible for creating a purpose and meaning in their own lives without the help of an invisible friend seems to be a problem for a majority of humans.

Not really just most Christians i know are happier compared to a lot of non-christians i know.

 

[calebprime]

Ludin, would you please use standard English spelling and punctuation?

Also, when quoting more than one person, use the multiquote feature, so the person you're quoting is identified.

Also, if you're claiming that theologians -- Christian or other -- believe something, can you find a quote that supports this or any other such assertion?

Also, pblob14's answer quoted the relevant Servant Songs in Isaiah, did it not?

His/her answer did not quote them in a way that "[singled] them out or distorted them", as far as I can tell. If we are discussing that prophecy, how else are we to discuss it other than quoting it? Would more context help?

If that wasn't the right quote from Isaiah, or it was distorted, can you provide the correct quote or one that is not distorted?

All these things will help you make your case more clearly, and make it less of a chore to read.

 

[pakeha]

...
this is one thing that irks me. people cite one verse and go see. taking it completely out of context with the rest of the chapter. if you read the entire chapter of Mark 13 Christ is talking about the book of revelation that John has yet to write.

he is giving them a prophecy of the future.

It not only speaks of the forecoming persecution by the Romans but also some of the book of revelation.

Also the fact that the Romans did destroy the temple. In the end time the world government will try to destroy the church. ...

Really, ludin.
Are you claiming psychic powers to know I'm taking a prophecy Jesus is reported to have made out of context?

Are you denying that prophecy I quoted failed?
Shall I quote it again for you?

1. Create a canon which states that Jesus is a third of God.
   
   
2. Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
   
   
3. ???
   
   
4. Profit.

Pharaoh reads the hearts of the reed-cutters as easily as the sun dissipates a river mist.

...One thing, that might be of interest to you if you aren't aware of it is that the Q hypothesis is not universally accepted. This site makes a case that the Q document doesn't exist:
http://markgoodacre.org/Q/ten.htm

Carrier linked to the site in one of his articles and expressed agreement with the views of the author.

When I held a stronger belief in the existence of an HJ, what I thought was the probable existence of a Q document and the possibility that it represented an independent source about the HJ was an argument that I thought supported historicity. Arguments that the author of the site that I linked to above renders historicity arguments based on Q as very weak, at best, I think.

Thanks for the link, davefoc.
As you know, I love learning about subjects that interest me.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I think whether Q existed or not as a separate document is a moot point, actually.

The problem is that even if it existed, we don't know who wrote it, when, and have no more reason to believe that the author is a witness (or uses actual witnesses) than if it's just Matthew anyway.

The thing is, we have a lot of different sources of parables about Jesus even without Q. Both Matthew and Luke have pieces unique to them (the so called M and L material), and John has a lot of it. Then there are the non-canonical gospels. Thomas is by and large unique material about Jesus for example. Then there are sources we no longer have, but are quoted by others, like the parables Papias quotes and aren't anywhere in our gospels. And then there's stuff like the infancy gospels, which are unique material since they cover a completely different period in Jesus's supposed life than our gospels. Etc.

But we know that most of that is just made up, if nothing else, because they're incompatible with each other. Also there's the more important part that they don't actually corroborate each other: a source that has a DIFFERENT story, is just that, making a different claim, not corroborating someone else's claim. And that goes for Q too. The DIFFERENT parables in Q don't corroborate any of those in the rest of the canon gospels, because they're, you know, talking about different events.

And we know that Christians were good at making up lots and lots of stories or put stuff in Jesus's mouth. They did that even with the canon gospels. (See the four endings to Mark, the adulteress story in John, some miracles we know were inserted in John, etc.)

But at any rate nobody would come tell you, basically, 'oh yes, Jesus was totally real, because we have the Gospel Of Thomas, man. And that one is totally written by an eyewitness.' In fact, if you read it, it's clear it's just another collection of disjointed sayings that you really have no reason to take as more or less authentic than any other.

Q is usually artificially mis-represented by bare postulate to be somehow more authoritative, but there is no actual reason to take it as that, even IF it existed. It's a document that nobody even saw, whose author we don't know, and IF it existed we don't even have more than disjointed stories from it and not enough to even figure out the overall story or the author's bias. Making it some authoritative source by a witness is just an ass-pull.

Moreover you usually hear stuff about it like "Q doesn't have a resurrection narrative" or other such. But that's actually unsupportable too. We just know that both Matthew and Luke pretty much copied and embellished the end of Mark. We don't know if that's because Q had none, or copied the end of Mark too, or had some gnostic twist they didn't like, or just, you know, there was no reason for them to copy a SECOND resurrection into their story.

So basically even if it was written by some guy, let's call him Ananus, instead of being just Matthew... so what? It would be another text out of dozens that made up stories about Jesus. It's puffed up to be this ultimate source for Jesus, but there is no way to actually logically support that.

 

[davefoc]

...

My current view is that everything you said with regard to Q is correct.