Probably like many people here I identify as an atheist who thinks it is highly improbable that Jesus was invented whole cloth and thus was a real person who became deified over time. Thus both mythicism is a fringe conspiracy position, and Christianity is a simply an incorrect metaphysic of the world is true.
Lately I have been pondering that position and how if you really look at it it is just as extraordinary a position as that he was a myth or a god. It means that Jesus was just a man. He might have been a ne’er-do-well kicking around ancient Palestine doing odd jobs, trying to find a wife, and getting interested in radical politics. Mary and Joseph may have worried that he was getting involved with the wrong crowd and might come to a bad end. Perhaps he was exceptionally bright or spiritual, but he was fundamentally no different than any other human who ever lived.
And yet for the last two thousand years billions of people have been willing to die and kill for the idea that he was identical to the Omni creator of the universe. They will tell you that it is completely impossible for them to be wrong about this because they have directly felt his presence, power, and grace in their life. In fact if this individual WASN’T who he claimed to be then the entire structure of existence would and could not make any sense. This is essentially the equivalent of if you were put it cryogenic suspension and woke up 2000 years from now to find out that the guy you sat next to in high school. who was preoccupied with YouTube conspiracy videos, Jennifer Lawrence, and wanting to be a oil well firefighter, was now the seminal figure in most of the world’s religious and political life, and people thought he was synonymous with reality itself.
So the question is, was there anything really special or unique about Jesus? Does he in any way, even as a man, merit a special place in history? Or does the Jesus story say much more about huIf manity’s Life Of Brianesque ways of interpreting the world and creating our stories? Certainly even in today’s world figures like Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, and Michel, considered nutty cult leaders by most, had followers attesting to their divine presence. If Christianity had not become the West’s religion would we remember Jesus for what he was or would he be a figure only for a few scholars of the first century Near East of Rome?
My position is that there is nothing unique about Jesus’ doctrines and ethics. He was fully understandable within a First Century Jewish apocalyptic context. The fact that eventually later generations of followers created a world religion is an accident of history. The irony is that the only way they could do that is by distorting his message. Such that the groups that most closely resembled Jesus’ own views and practice were eventually declared heretics.
So is Socrates an accident of history too? No writings, Greece was crammed to the gills with philosophers who had comparable things to say. He was reportedly executed for his beliefs, but we really only know about him from self-serving dramatizations of his life by two followers (and a play that makes him into a clownish con man). We have no direct evidence he was literate. He certainly was not educated in the modern sense. Thucydides doesn’t even bother to mention him. It’s pretty clear nobody in Athens expected to ever hear about him again.
Is every person from ancient times who wasn’t a king, but everybody remembers, just the result of good PR? (Not that we remember most kings.) Or was Jesus the only undeserving beneficiary?
It’s very hard for anyone to be remembered very long, though Lord only knows, millions have tried. Lasting fame has been the goal of so many, and look what happened to poor Irene Cara after she recorded that song about living forever.
Most people whose names were known to everyone in their own time get completely forgotten by everyone other than historians afterwards. The trick to writing history about Jesus is that you literally cannot find a single person on the planet who hasn’t heard of him. But what we think we know, and what we really do–two different things.
And that goes just as much for you, Stephen.
I don’t think fame was his goal, in any event.
If there’s anything history is more fraught with than accidents, it’s irony.
Rageforthemachine said
Probably like many people here I identify as an atheist who thinks it is highly improbable that Jesus was invented whole cloth and thus was a real person who became deified over time.
Steefen
I certainly do NOT identify as atheist (or agnostic).
Second, Jesus was NOT invented whole cloth.
Third, it does not follow that Jesus must be a real person. Jesus is a composite character of historical fiction.
godspell said
Less than yours, though. The fantasy Jesus who doesn’t matter, even though you spend every single day of your life ranting about him.🙂
“My” Jesus is the only one that can be said to really exist. But if you really think that in any thing I’ve said that Jesus “doesn’t matter” then your comprehension skills are even less than I already thought. The “Stephen” you’ve created for yourself is a fantasy too.
Well, aren’t we all? That’s the problem, and you keep missing it. Any personality assessment is partial–by nature. No human can ever fully understand each other. I doubt you even understand yourself.
And you saying ‘your Jesus is the only one who exists proves that, better than I ever could. Did not even see how pompous that came across as, did you? Or how–fundamentalist. The apple didn’t fall that far at all.
I’ve sized you up pretty well. Not perfectly, no. Perfect doesn’t exist. Any more than ‘original’ does. 😉
I’ve sized you up pretty well.
Yes I know you think you have. The disturbing part is that you seem to think you have to size me up at all. Do you do this with everyone you meet? Have you ever tried to investigate this impulse? But I’m sure you understand why your psychological health can’t really be an issue for me. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Neither of us know Jesus. Why pretend otherwise?
Mark was original when he reinvented the concept of the Jewish Messiah to explain Jesus’ crucifixion to himself and his community.
Paul was original when he transformed the image of the crucifixion from a sign of debasement to a symbol of cosmic salvation.
The historical Jesus merely preached the apocalypticism he learned from John and the ethics he inherited from his Jewish tradition. And even if he thought he was the Messiah, well he wasn’t the only one who has ever done that either.
Well that’s all I got. Next?
I’ve sized you up pretty well.
Yes I know you think you have. The disturbing part is that you seem to think you have to size me up at all. Do you do this with everyone you meet? Have you ever tried to investigate this impulse? But I’m sure you understand why your psychological health can’t really be an issue for me. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Neither of us know Jesus. Why pretend otherwise?
Mark was original when he reinvented the concept of the Jewish Messiah to explain Jesus’ crucifixion to himself and his community.
Paul was original when he transformed the image of the crucifixion from a sign of debasement to a symbol of cosmic salvation.
The historical Jesus merely preached the apocalypticism he learned from John and the ethics he inherited from his Jewish tradition. And even if he thought he was the Messiah, well he wasn’t the only one who has ever done that either.
Well that’s all I got. Next?
On the outside probably nothing special. In fact, his own town really never liked him and it didn’t take much for them to get fed up and want to evict him from the village. The disciples never really got it either and were just as confused as everyone else. John and Mary were about the only ones. What made him special wasn’t the miracles alone if they even did happen like that. He was laying tracks down and those parables are like time bombs that will blow up the churches that have been pulling crap in his name. He wasn’t god and never claimed it but he knew he was fulfilling prophecy. He also believed in reincarnation and much of what he taught had to do with a very different version of salvation. No one would have noticed and he would have gone out with barely a whimper. Did he resurrect? Something happened and Mary is both telling the story but later the whistleblower. He rose and fulfilled the prophecy that came later in Rev as the first Witness. But he didn’t ascend. That was where Christianity began crafting their golden calf. Mary knew but she was silenced. He was alive for some time but died a normal death and was buried in a box with the rest of the family including Mary Magdalene. He was special for sure but not god. Just a normal man but born with the spirit in a deeper way and able to traverse both worlds. He was the Job of the world and the test was for that Jew only to go through his whole life, and many others, each time waking up and finding his way without cursing his god. It pleased the Father to actually lay on his son the same struggles we face only even worse. According to Rev, when that lamb has finally overcome, only then will that book be unsealed and the earth find redemption. Maybe then we might think he’s special without having to call him a god. A normal man incredibly loved.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. That’s obvious unless you assume a heaven like place of waiting. That wasn’t the concept then though. And specially if Lazarus who was the one resurrected was sitting in the room when this was taught. He also didn’t correct their assumption that John was a reincarnated person. I believe also that he actually was saying he not only existed before Abraham, but that he was Abraham himself. The term Son of Man means he was son of Adam or God as he is called in one of those genealogies. I’d also have to look a bit more closely to what he exactly meant by being ‘born again’ but that’s not part of my argument.
I agree he was a normal man, in that he had a digestive system and like that. There’s almost seven billion normal people on earth now. How many will be remembered two thousand years from now? I mean, assuming there’s anyone left to remember by then.
“Nobody in his hometown liked him” is way overreaching. They didn’t accept him as a holy man and teacher, and that is an enduring truth of human society–no matter what you achieve in life, you’ll just be that snotnosed kid to the people you grew up around. They didn’t attack him (as happened in some other places). They just didn’t believe in him, and without that, he coudn’t use his charisma or whatever it was to do faith healings.
Bart doesnt think the story of Lazarus and Dives came from Jesus, at least not in the form we have it.
The term Son of Man is still being debated by scholars, so congratulations for figuring out out so easily.
This is an increasingly silly thread, and I think I’ll abandon it as well.
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