I haven’t really heard that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist as an argument against Christianity, just that he wasn’t God and didn’t to miracles/resurrection. There is a ton of exaggeration in all mythology texts, and some are just stories to illustrate a point. But of those that did have factual events, they are rarely a true telling.
Maybe some Israelites left Egypt during a particularly shitty time in Egypt. It is so easy to take a story of a smallish group of Israelites escaping slavery during a plague and being chased by some guards who gave up, and repeatedly embellish that story until God both hardened Pharaoh’s heart and punished him for not doing right by His people (which number far more than could possibly have been living in Egypt at that time) by giving a series of plagues, and then wiping Pharaoh and his army out with a magical sea passage that closed on them. It’s such a trope of all human storytelling it’s been a joke for centuries.
Apply that to literally every story, think of the motivations behind those writing it, and you can get an amazing moral teacher becoming God.
But to the point of the meme, from the perspective of people in the future, there may have been a Peter Parker, but there’s no reason to believe there was a Spider-man without more to go on than the comics. Likewise, religious texts.
I haven’t really heard that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist as an argument against Christianity, just that he wasn’t God and didn’t to miracles/resurrection. There is a ton of exaggeration in all mythology texts, and some are just stories to illustrate a point. But of those that did have factual events, they are rarely a true telling.
Can you be more specific here? What are factual events? Are you referring to the Bible? Which events specifically?
Because my understanding is that the consensus among historians is that there’s only like one or two references to a “Jesus of Nazarath” outside of the Bible (Josephus being the main one, and even that is super vague).
The honus is on your to prove that he existed, not the other way around.
There are an unfortunate contingent of atheists that think “Jesus existed” = “support for Christianity.” I’ve had this argument on this very website. (Very common on the internet for someone to assume that a non-mythicist must be a Christian - uh, no, that’s following for that CS Lewis “lunatic or lord” false dichotomy.)
It’s clear that there was a real, vagrant preacher that had a following. Q and the Sayings source were likely compiled quickly after his death - it’s likely that many of the words attributed to him were the words of the real man.
At first, I don’t think he was understood as literally divine, just a messenger of god or prophet. There’s a clear escalation across the gospels if you read them in the order they were written - it’s really John that presents Jesus as the logos, and John was written last.
The most likely explanation was that he was an apocalyptic Messiah figure, who was supposed to lead to the overthrowing of the Romans. When he was killed, the cope became that he was resurrected. They negotiated with the text of the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible, and constructed the fully human/fully divine figure that eventually became the theological party line.
Which story will you remember the most: the boring and mundane, or the fantastical and exciting?
Most stories back then were also passed around by word of mouth, so each retelling will be slightly different (possibly also more exciting than the last). By the time someone decides to write it down it has already been distorted. Probably not much is left of the original story.
Maybe the story of Noah’s ark started out as a real story of a man who managed to save a few of his livestock from a stormy day, and then it somehow got so distorted it became a story about a man surviving a world encompassing extinction level event.
I haven’t really heard that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist as an argument against Christianity, just that he wasn’t God and didn’t to miracles/resurrection.
I’ve seen quite a few folks float the full blown “Jesus was invented by the Romans to trick the occupied state of Palestine into accepting Roman rule” theory.
Apply that to literally every story, think of the motivations behind those writing it, and you can get an amazing moral teacher becoming God.
Sure. Siddhartha (the Buddha), Mohammad, even Confucius to come extent.
But like with most of these, the divinity of a figure is decided on well after they’ve been dead and buried. What I’m stuck on in the denialist “You can’t prove Ancient Historical Figure X existed now that I’ve arbitrarily rejected the veracity of all the existing materials.”
But to the point of the meme, from the perspective of people in the future, there may have been a Peter Parker, but there’s no reason to believe there was a Spider-man
The point of the meme is that religious texts are fictional, because fictional texts exist.
The point of the religion is that society should organize itself around certain traditions and taboos, because it will lead to a utopian future of peace and plenty.
There difference between Jesus and Spider-Man isn’t their magical powers, its their activist base of enthusiastic followers.
I haven’t really heard that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist as an argument against Christianity, just that he wasn’t God and didn’t to miracles/resurrection. There is a ton of exaggeration in all mythology texts, and some are just stories to illustrate a point. But of those that did have factual events, they are rarely a true telling.
Maybe some Israelites left Egypt during a particularly shitty time in Egypt. It is so easy to take a story of a smallish group of Israelites escaping slavery during a plague and being chased by some guards who gave up, and repeatedly embellish that story until God both hardened Pharaoh’s heart and punished him for not doing right by His people (which number far more than could possibly have been living in Egypt at that time) by giving a series of plagues, and then wiping Pharaoh and his army out with a magical sea passage that closed on them. It’s such a trope of all human storytelling it’s been a joke for centuries.
Apply that to literally every story, think of the motivations behind those writing it, and you can get an amazing moral teacher becoming God.
But to the point of the meme, from the perspective of people in the future, there may have been a Peter Parker, but there’s no reason to believe there was a Spider-man without more to go on than the comics. Likewise, religious texts.
Can you be more specific here? What are factual events? Are you referring to the Bible? Which events specifically?
Because my understanding is that the consensus among historians is that there’s only like one or two references to a “Jesus of Nazarath” outside of the Bible (Josephus being the main one, and even that is super vague).
The honus is on your to prove that he existed, not the other way around.
There are an unfortunate contingent of atheists that think “Jesus existed” = “support for Christianity.” I’ve had this argument on this very website. (Very common on the internet for someone to assume that a non-mythicist must be a Christian - uh, no, that’s following for that CS Lewis “lunatic or lord” false dichotomy.)
It’s clear that there was a real, vagrant preacher that had a following. Q and the Sayings source were likely compiled quickly after his death - it’s likely that many of the words attributed to him were the words of the real man.
At first, I don’t think he was understood as literally divine, just a messenger of god or prophet. There’s a clear escalation across the gospels if you read them in the order they were written - it’s really John that presents Jesus as the logos, and John was written last.
The most likely explanation was that he was an apocalyptic Messiah figure, who was supposed to lead to the overthrowing of the Romans. When he was killed, the cope became that he was resurrected. They negotiated with the text of the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible, and constructed the fully human/fully divine figure that eventually became the theological party line.
Which story will you remember the most: the boring and mundane, or the fantastical and exciting?
Most stories back then were also passed around by word of mouth, so each retelling will be slightly different (possibly also more exciting than the last). By the time someone decides to write it down it has already been distorted. Probably not much is left of the original story.
Maybe the story of Noah’s ark started out as a real story of a man who managed to save a few of his livestock from a stormy day, and then it somehow got so distorted it became a story about a man surviving a world encompassing extinction level event.
The big reason for this is that the name Jesus is interpreted and thousands of men came to and from Nazareth.
Can anyone disprove one of them wasn’t “Jesus of Nazareth”?
Tap
No more than anyone can prove one of them was.
I’ve seen quite a few folks float the full blown “Jesus was invented by the Romans to trick the occupied state of Palestine into accepting Roman rule” theory.
Sure. Siddhartha (the Buddha), Mohammad, even Confucius to come extent.
But like with most of these, the divinity of a figure is decided on well after they’ve been dead and buried. What I’m stuck on in the denialist “You can’t prove Ancient Historical Figure X existed now that I’ve arbitrarily rejected the veracity of all the existing materials.”
The point of the meme is that religious texts are fictional, because fictional texts exist.
The point of the religion is that society should organize itself around certain traditions and taboos, because it will lead to a utopian future of peace and plenty.
There difference between Jesus and Spider-Man isn’t their magical powers, its their activist base of enthusiastic followers.