So then what is the relevance of a man that has nothing to do with that?
The Virgin Mary
- Thread starter Humberto
- Start date
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
I think they're all proof that <<something>> made god so it could make all the rest. Who made god though??
PTK
Paul Kegan
Because the man started a cult that very popular today?
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
The thing is he doesn’t have nothing to do with it. The myth built up because of his effect on those around him.
There’s very interesting scholarship that works on whittling down what he might actually have said. It’s not hard science, but it’s rigorous and isn’t making empty claims. (Much of that field is very like the ways we think we know how proto-Indo European was pronounced. Another fascinating field of scholarship).
What he said had effect. It’s still having effect. Sure, a lot of stuff he didn’t say is having effect too. But there’s something very human about it all. All of it. The myth making included.
Humberto
Justice is order
Well it might be that God was the beggining. Or you might ask from what came the universe if we look at the big bang theory. Multiverses and expanding and contracting universes seem to only move the problem one degree further.
A lot of scholars I think would agree that the Gospels probably provide a reasonably accurate description of the crucifixion of a real man. I say this having read exactly one book on the subject. No, I tell a lie, I read A.N. Wilson's book about Jesus many years ago. Two books.
JimW
支那暗杀团
The whole mythos or whatever does strike you (me) as a composite, things like the sermon on the mount which do seem like the record of something one thinker came up with and then the more generic stuff that gets larded on top, perhaps because posterity felt that since he was God he'd best show the signs. But anyway, point being that there are various particularities to the Christian message that do seem like one individual thinker.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Indeed. There are things that can be separated out, and early accounts “reconstructed”. And in very interesting and compelling ways. They can work out when “prophecies coming true” like the destruction of the Temple were inserted not just by historical comparison (70CE, therefore after Jesus’s death), but by comparing the language used, despite existing earliest manuscripts dating to much later. It’s very forensic and intriguing. And the scholars are very careful about their claims.
But it’s just as interesting to see people determined to dismiss that scholarship.
I suppose that although I have an interest in rhetoric and demagoguery, I think there are more reliable and more interesting ways to study it than some hermeneutical search for what a historical figure may or may not have said in reality. Meanwhile, the far more interesting story is how the mythology came to dominate western society.
Idaho
blah blah blah
There isn't much dispute among scholars that Christianity is the creation of Paul, rather than Jesus. There were numerous Jewish apocalyptic cults and figures around at that time. Jesus's followers kept his meme alive whereas the Essenes (dead sea scrolls sect) were around for hundreds of years and very organised, but vanished (nearly) without trace.
Course he did. Course he did.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Well, the origins are surely an interesting part of that study?
(I’m not talking about hermeneutics, by the way, which is something a bit different to the sort of linguistic archaeology and forensic linguistics I referred to above).
However, I just say: I’m interested. Others don’t have to be.
Not really because, as you’ve already noted, the mythology doesn’t have a lot to do with whatever this supposed original bloke actually did.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
No He Didn't, but He had lots of close relatives; perhaps half brothers from Joseph
Jesus had Brothers?
Why do Catholics teach that Mary was a virgin throughout her life when the Bible clearly says that Jesus had brothers? Ever been asked that? Let me offer four r...
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I noted the opposite, as I recall. I’ll check, but I certainly intended to say the mythology grew because of the real impact he must have made.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Yeah, I’m happy with the words I used.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
But those references were saying things like "someone threw an object so there must be someone behind the universe". With your argument it might just as well be that the Universe was the beginning and those arguments for the 'proof' of god are illusory.
But you’re also happy that the bloke didn’t actually do any (or very little) of the things ascribed to him? So the mythology is not actually about him, regardless of who or what he inspired.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
You state that as if it is fact. It is not
I mean, yes it is.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I didn’t say that either. I said we can rule out the fantastical. But he had a message and a lot of it is preserved and remains in the gospels.
That’s not a “so”, because we’re clearly talking about different things at this point.
I don’t believe the supernatural stuff happened. I don’t even believe he was born in Bethlehem. I think that was interested in order to make an OT prophecy “come true”. And I find it fascinating excavating what the original message might have been. Even sayings we can reasonably attribute to the real person.
Will everyone want to go into the minutiae? I’d be surprised. But I find it interesting and significant. Not because he was the Son of God (something that, incidentally, at the time was probably just an idiom meaning “man”), nor that I believe he performed miracles, nor even because I agree with his message, but because he had a message that inspired a cult which went on to become the religion of the Roman Empire, and went on to be a cause and excuse for all sorts thing that happened, much of it not good at all, and continues to do so today.
Humberto
Justice is order
I wasn't really referring to that link, just on the 'who made God then?' thing I've seen a few times. A bit unlear of me.
PTK
Paul Kegan
But that is interpretation, is it not? It is an interpretation of the text.No He Didn't, but He had lots of close relatives; perhaps half brothers from Joseph
Jesus had Brothers?
Why do Catholics teach that Mary was a virgin throughout her life when the Bible clearly says that Jesus had brothers? Ever been asked that? Let me offer four r...www.catholic.com
Now that we are allowed to read the Bible in our own language (a practice which the Church banned for many centuries), are we not supposed to read what is written, rather than put a "spin" on it?
PTK
Paul Kegan
Then, of course, if Jesus was divine, that does not rule out there being a god higher than him/his father.
How would we know?
If people came to Earth from another planet, and said that they were the most powerful beings in the cosmos, how would they know if that claim was true or not?
How would we know?
If people came to Earth from another planet, and said that they were the most powerful beings in the cosmos, how would they know if that claim was true or not?
Richard46
Talking Backwards
Clearly a Medieval painting probably 13th Century.
PTK
Paul Kegan
Why would lower god be mortal? Why could they not be immortal? You cannot prove that there is not a High God above the one that you believe in.
