A careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that Jesus is just another one of several similar myths.
That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.
by Island Man 74 Replies latest watchtower bible
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CalebInFloroda
As a Jew I would have to say that such claims are often problematic.
While Jews don't embrace Jesus as the Messiah, the reality is that a large amount of Jewish Responsa due to Jesus of Nazareth existence suggests that it is not likely that the Gospels are completely mythical.
Responsa of such intricacy does not come of itself, nor was it composed by Christians. Jews have no such Responsa toward any mythology or person(s) who never existed. While not stating that the miracles were genuine, Judaism (both religious and secular Jewry) does not deny the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth or the college of Apostles.
If Jesus and the Gospels are purely mythical, how and why did the Responsa develop? Why would the Jews as a national group reject a mythical person as the Messiah (what other mythical figure has ever been presented as Messiah and created such a reaction from Jews)? Why would many Jewish writings make mention of a mythical figure and his supposedly mythical history?
While highly intellectual, Carrier's argument comes from an atheism that knows little about Jewish culture and history. This happens sometimes with Western atheists. Not that their arguments aren't good and that many Jews would agree with many of the points (and some might embrace all that Carrier states), it is just that they tend to forget about other facets.
The effect that Jesus of Nazareth had even affected Islam, and their equivalent to the Jewish Responsa is also not easily explained by Carrier's theories (valuable though they might be). It is too simple to dismiss something that never existed, and apparently because the way other cultures and religious paradigms were affected we obviously are not dealing with a simple myth.
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Saintbertholdt
That a man called Jesus existed that roamed in Palestine and that claimed to be a Messiah is actually not a stretch at all. That he garnered disciples is also not a stretch.
In the 20th century there was a similar type of fellow. Charles Manson was not allowed to testify in front of a jury for fear that he would unduly influence the jury members. If you have ever watched an uncut interview with the man (where Manson hasn't been doped up with tranquilizers), you'll notice he's very convincing, charismatic, crazy but also has a coherent original philosophy even though he is a lay person. He has claimed to be Jesus (sometimes) but more a human incarnation of Abraxis. To this day he still receives thousands of letters a year from followers and admirers.
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Witness My Fury
I believe in Bender, he's more entertaining and there more evidence for him as I've seen him on TV.
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Saintbertholdt
I pray to Joe Pesci
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CalebInFloroda
I too believe in Bender and am praying for his second coming...
...or is it the third or fourth? Dang, how many times has Futurama been canceled and revived?
Whatever, I just hope Bender's return does not turn out to be invisible and remain sadly so for over 100 years.
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Vidiot
CalebInFlorida - "Dang, how many times has Futurama been canceled and revived?"
There's supposed to be a Simpsons / Futurama crossover in the works...
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Half banana
Bender does not tax the brain like Jesus and is much more fun. However...my argument would accord with Carrier's; if the stories of the saviour figures preceded Jesus with details exactly the same for those attributed to Jesus; an original Jesus in the first century is a fraud. It is true that real people can become fictionalised but think on this; no one can live the life of a mosaic of historically earlier stories.
As Carrier mentions the accounts in the gospels are a syncretism or fusion of many old saviour heroes brought together under one roof.This is clearly a political move for the purpose of being attractive to a mass audience; something miraculous for everyone, the ideas being drawn from many saviour cults. When you read the nativity for example this story pre-dates the first century and all of its features features, the three Persian astrologers led by a star, a virgin birth, the animals in the stall, the death of first born, trip to Egypt, shepherds in the fields...all these and many more are pure ancient pagan tales inserted into the "gospel". They have no basis in history... they are fact-free myths.
So here is the crunch point: when did any fictional character jump off the page and become a real breathing person?
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Vidiot
Island Man - "The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious."
Hell, I think a pretty compelling argument could be made that the whole fricking Bible can be most reasonably explained as myth.
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Know what's really funny?
Back in my teens, there was a WT study article specifically written to bolster confidence in the Bible's non-mythological status.
Interestingly, the piece actually detailed some of the reasoning that Biblical critics used to cast doubt on its historicity... and a lot of that reasoning actually sounded pretty damn compelling to me.
I couldn't help but wonder, "why the hell did the writers include this???"
