Reply #157: Nice cut to the chase. [View All]

[ironbark]

In the absence of any historical evidence for Jesus we are left with a narrative and the-

“story involves a politically powerless homeless person who was railroaded to quick execution after offending the local establishment, which is not the sort of story contemporary historians were likely to record for posterity, since the historians were inevitably upper-class in a highly pyramidal society depending heavily on violently oppressive exploitation of the lower tiers
The interesting historical question that could be asked is -- Why would anyone in such a society adopt the point-of-view "My God is that man who was executed as a common criminal" -- especially since adopting the view was likely to be personally hazardous”

Thank you, the passage and the question deserved to be repeated.

Why would anyone embrace such a story, why would anyone risk persecution/death for such a story,
why would anyone go on to sacrifice their lives to and for such a story, why would others buy into such a story?

Possibly people were convinced to the point of being mesmerised by a ripping yarn that was more captivating and hypnotic than anything Shakespeare could produce.

The probability is that peoples lives were transformed by the story and that, seeing this, others sought similar transformation.