So, did Jesus ever even exist? Please discuss.

[funflower]

[HawkerHurricane]

1. Maybe.

The name Yeshua/Joshua was common during the time period. Josephus mentions two 'prophets' named Yeshua (not counting the forgery).

[Az]

2. I am not convinced

There may have been many philosophers around at the time that were the basis of his creation. But I find the notion of a collectivist approach to story telling to be the most likely explanation for him.

[onager]

3. You might have to look around...

..but there's a LONG thread about this over in R&T. Probably more than one.

Beware of Xers who confidently brag that "many famous historians mentioned Jesus." That's simply not true, and repeating it a million times won't make it any more true.

The plain truth is, there is no evidence of Jesus outside the New Testament. The oft-quoted "Testimonium Flavinium" from Flavius Josephus is a forgery. A famous passage from Tacitus talks about Xians, not Jesus, and has its own problems in the accuracy department.

(Of course, talking about Xians several hundred years after the fact doesn't mean Jesus existed, any more than talking about followers of Isis means she existed.)

[funflower]

4. It's my understanding that Bible scholars (not necessarily Christians) say

that the gospels were probably derived from a collection of the sayings of a real, historical person called Jesus. The collection is known as Gospel Q, and it does not contain miracle stories.

I would not expect that historians (perhaps journalists would be the better term)who were Jesus' contemporaries would write about him, because I doubt he was known outside of a small geographic area that was of little interest to such people. Jesus'(presuming he actually lived)influence was not that great in the early years after his death. He became of interest to historians over a period of centuries.

I guess I'm in the camp that thinks he really lived and died and was later mythologized.

[Az]

5. Two sources actually

Mark is considered to be the oldest of the Gospels. The others copy and borrow from Mark. But there is also a second source they seem to draw from. This is the Gospel of Q. Still looking for this source.

I currently lean towards the theory that Mark was a fictional work based on reworking Homer's works. Perhaps inspired by a contemporary philosopher that advocated peace rather than the violence of Homer's heroes. Mark inverted the story and had a conquoering pacifist instead of warrior. Both Jesus and Odyseus were long suffering carpenters that journeyed and suffered. There are many other parallels in structure and story. And it fits the method of development of the time. Students studying Greek learned by copying the works of Homer and often adapted or modified the story to further their studies.

[funflower]

6. Also, aren't the Nag Hammadi documents believed to have been created

in the first or second century, fairly contemporaneously with the Gospels of the Bible?

[onager]

9. What would that prove?

On some Xian web sites, I've seen the claim that the Nag Hammadi texts "prove" Jesus existed. But to me, they have the same problem as the rest of the Bible. They're just another bunch of stories written long after the fact.

The most interesting thing about Nag Hammadi is that they were the "suppressed" Gnostic gospels. They were thrown out of the Bible when the Official Church wiped out "unorthodox" writings.

Is the Infancy Narrative from Nag Hammadi? That's good writing, especially for Stephen King fans. Deals with the missing childhood of Jesus. IIRC, in one story Jesus accidentally kills a playmate, then resurrects him from the dead.

But as usual, nobody thought this was impressive enough to mention or write down...

[funflower]

11. Geez! I'm not talking about miracles or the idea that the stuff is true!

I'm talking about whether there was an historic person who became the basis for all of these wild stories.

I don't know much about the Nag Hammadi writings, and the sites I get when I google them are all written with some sort of agenda in mind. However, if there were written contemporaneously with or earlier than the Gospel of Mark, they suggest that Mark was not creating fiction but embroidering the biography of an actual person.

One need not "believe" any of the gospels to believe that there may have been real teacher about whom they were (inaccurately) written.

The fact that George Washington didn't really chop down a cherry tree and then confess it to his father doesn't mean George Washington didn't exist. It simply means he has become a quasi-legendary figure about whom a certain number of apocryphal stories have arisen. I don't believe any of the Catholic saints actually performed or were associated with miracles. However, I believe they existed.

[onager]

8. Not "known outside a small geographic area?"

That's another standard Xian response. I think it's a pretty funny claim.

Based on my admittedly prejudiced view...

This is a guy who allegedly raised at least 3 people from the dead. At his own death, according to Matthew, an earthquake struck Jerusalem. The veil of the Holy of Holies in the Temple magically split in two.

The animated corpses of the "saints" got up and walked around, talking to people.

You'd think somebody other than Matthew might have noticed all that.

A "small geographic area?" Jerusalem was the center of Jewish religious learning and a major Roman military/administrative base.
For the times, Jerusalem would have had a lot of literate people: religious scribes, Roman clerks and bureaucrats, etc. Major port cities like Caeserea and Ptolemais weren't far away, which connected Judea to the outside world.

There seems to have been a pretty constant traffic flow, especially of Jewish refugees heading to Alexandria, Egypt. The historian/philospher Philo talked to them and wrote down a bunch of juicy stories about the ruling Herod family, etc. And Philo was a near-contemporary of Jesus.

But no one apparently mentioned him at the time, even people who had just come from his own neighborhood.

[funflower]

10. I'm not talking about a Jesus who supposedly raised people from the dead.

I'm talking about an ordinary mortal who was a teacher with followers, not a miracle worker. Such a person (and of course there were many such people) would not have been known beyond his basic county.

It seems that we're discussing two different people here: I'm talking about an historic, non-magic person whose biography may have been heavily embellished by his followers and, later, by the church, and you're talking about the mythical figure described in the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Of course I can understand your lack of belief in the existence of the immaculately conceived, immortal being described in the Bible. What I don't understand is the confident belief that there was no actual human who formed the basis for the myth.

[funflower]

12. Why would an intinerant teacher who did NOT perform miracles and did NOT

rise from the dead or resurrect anyone else and who, unlike Herod, held no position of prominence and was not from an otherwise well-known family be known outside of his immediate county or small region?

[onager]

17. Uhh..because of all those "multitudes" we heard so much about?

OK, I went off half-cocked on the miracles and stuff. It's just an automatic mode I go into on this subject.

Sorry. I see your point now.

So leaving out the miracles, and the resurrection, we're still left with a guy who was a pretty big draw, attracting crowds of up to 5,000 at a time.

And his entourage allegedly included tax collectors and rich people, who I'd expect to be literate and capable of either writing about him or able to hire secretaries and such.

Now admittedly Messiahs were a dime a dozen in that time and place, but some of them left enough of a mark to be mentioned historically. e.g., Flavius Josephus writes about an itinerant Samaritan preacher who sounds a lot like JC. He attracted crowds and led them to the Samaritan version of Mt. Sinai. He was successful enough to get the attention of Pontius Pilate, who unleashed the army and stopped the movement in its tracks. That happened around 37 CE, according to Josephus.

[Goblinmonger]

45. I distinctly have a memo here somewhere

that tells me if I repeat something enough, it will become true. I seem to have misplaced it, but I was pretty sure it came from Bush. Didn't anyone else get that memo?

[Az]

46. Was it this one?

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

Repitition works.

[Goblinmonger]

47. Yep,

that's it. I found it pretty convincing.

[FM Arouet666]

7. No significant evidence for an historical jesus

Ancient historians are silent regarding the exploits of the wonder water walker. A few references are ballied about on christian sites, many occurring many years after the fact. The most abundant collection of jesus posts, I mean passages, occur in the bible. However, I think sanity requires one to view the bible as a work of propaganda, certainly not an accurate historical text. No archaeological evidence, no historical evidence, just a group of delusional adherents bent on a selfish desire for immortality.

Some say money is the root of all evil, I wonder if the gift of immortality trumps the root. Just a thought....

[funflower]

13. Whether it's an accurate historical text (it's not) is beside the point.

There are a lot of crazy stories about other historic figures, but that doesn't negate their existence.

[FM Arouet666]

14. I am not sure what you mean.

The bible refers to other historical figures which are mentioned by contemporary historians. Some of the more prominent figures have multiple references and archaeological evidence.

The bible, by itself, is insufficient in establishing that jesus existed. The bible is the only text which mentions jesus, many of the books are written years after his supposed life, and those writing the bible cannot be considered unbiased sources for information.

[funflower]

20. Personally, I would not consider them unbiased as to many issues

surrounding the life and religious significance of Jesus of Nazareth. It just seems to me to be unlikely that all of these people just made up the very existence of the guy.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. That's just the problem. He isn't a 'historic' figure.

No other histories mention him. There's more evidence in history for King Arthur than for Jesus. That doesn't mean he ever existed.

[progressoid]

15. "The Jesus Mysteries"

argues fairly well that he's an amalgam of many former pagan myths.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0609807986/qid=1129448035/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1064261-5785451?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Freke (a philospher and author of books on spirituality) and Gandy (who is studying classical civilization) believe that first century Jewish mystics adapted the potent symbolism of the Osiris-Dionysus myths into a myth of their own, the hero of which was the Jewish dying and resurrecting godman Jesus. Therefore, the story of Jesus is a consciously crafted vehicle for encoded spiritual teachings created by Jewish Gnostics. We are unaware of this, they claim, because the Roman Catholic Church destroyed evidence of the connection between Christianity and the pagan mysteries. They make their case by offering an examination of mystery religions, especially Greek, pointing out the many parallels between them and what they see as the Gospels! message about Jesus. Freke and Gandy are familiar with a significant amount of recent biblical scholarship, though they rely mostly on Elaine Pagels!s work on the Gnostics. This book will obviously be controversial, but the authors are quite informed, as demonstrated by their extensive notes and bibliography.

[neebob]

16. Lots of informative posts on this thread

I'm no scholar, but I think - and I'm assuming it's safe to say in this group - that Jesus might have been a pathological narcissist, perhaps the product of some maternal delusion re her pregnancy, who had a lot of charisma and went around telling people he was the son of God. And he developed a following and a group of hangers on who helped him do his thing, not unlike Joseph Smith or some of the modern televangelists. And the stories got bigger and wilder as time went on.

For me it's not a big stretch.

[onager]

18. I tend to agree with that...

...if he existed.

I also suspect that JC was a composite character. Given all the Messiahs roaming around Judea at the time, some sayings/actions of his were probably done by others. But when it came time to write them down, the authors said, "Well, somebody heard Messiah X say this one time, but let's have Our Guy say it..."

e.g., somewhere and I don't remember where, I remember reading that the famous parable of the Good Samaritan probably originated as an ethnic joke directed at the Jews: "Yep, those bastids are so self-righteous and stiff-necked, they wouldn't even stop to help one of their own who had been beaten and robbed. One of us had to help him, and you know how they hate us..."

One of the best things I ever heard about the New Testament was a lecture by the Bible scholar Randal Helms. He said you can't read the NT as biography or history--you have to read it as propaganda, meant to help in starting a new religion.

[Az]

22. On the naughty Jesus theme

There is some conjecture that he may have been a drug user. Plenty of evidence from contemporary Romans claiming the Christian sects were experimenting with ways to commune with god. There are writings of numerous different ways various sects would try to communicate with the deity.

The early Christians may have just been a culmination of various means of altering one's mind or awareness. Drugs can accomplish tis as can fasting or various other practices. Prayer and meditation are even sufficient to alter the mind state.

Eventually the conflicts between the various sects claiming to communicate with god whittled the number of sects down to a few. The surviving sects would of course demonize the practices of the losing sects and champion their own. This gave rise to the typical practices associated with Satanic cults. Sex, drugs, and all manner of practices that were once used by believers trying to commune with god were redefined as evil and communing with evil.

Of course there was a problem the winning side had as well. The thing of having a way for all the members to communicate with god is it doesn't really lend itself to an organized srtucture. See if everyone can talk to god ... well thats the final word then isn't it? So they had to limit access to god.

Thus the practices became muted. The symbols and echoes of the practices remain (wine and waifers). Prayer as a means of trying to find the voice of god remains. But nothing as strong as initially experimented with. Once a dogmatic infrastructure took hold there wasn't really any way they could allow such free access to the mind of god.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. I find it believable that a preacher named Jesus did exist

and that his basic message was, as Douglas Adams, wouldn't it be good if we were all nice to one another for a change? It's not that much of a stretch, and I'm not convinced there would be bound to be Roman records of it.

A lot of it depends on what are the best 'unbiased' estimates of when bits of the New Testament were written, I think. The earlier the gospels were written, the more chance that he actually existed, and even that he was crucified - because otherwise they'd run the risk of someone saying "I was in Jerusalem then, and it's bollocks". If you were inventing the character from scratch, you'd want to avoid that. The same goes for the epistles, but to a lesser extent (I'm not sure if they specify how he died, do they? Anyone scholarly enough to know?)

If he didn't exist, then you have to have a good reason for why it was better for the writers of the NT to invent him, rather than just proclaim the message as their own, or directly dictated to them by God (wouldn't that get you more respect? It worked for Muhammed). I'm not convinced by the "based on the novel by Homer" approach - I just don't see the similarities: Odysseus is a king, returning home, but frustated for years by the gods; Jesus comes from nowhere, preaches, does a few miracles, collects a following, is martyred, and then wins in the end. The idea that he was invented just to be the Jewish Messiah seems unlikely to me too - it's a bit of a let down for them to be told "sorry, he's already been and gone, but you were too stupid to notice". I would have said "yes, he's coming soon, and here's what you need to do to be in his good books".

I think it seems more likely that more than one follower survived long enough after him that they had to agree that the preaching came from him, and started building up the myth from there. The resurrection story might have started as oneupmanship amongst them - "he appeared to me!" - "well, he appeared to me too - and I felt his wound!" etc. And somehow, the "he died for your sins" claim sounds more like an attempt to explain an early death ("only the good die young") rather than something you'd invent from scratch. Or maybe I just don't understand the culture of sacrifice they had. :shrug:

[funflower]

21. You make many interesting comments.

Personally, I think the "he died for you sins" concept comes from Paul, who was apparently an educated Jewish theologian. Under Paul's influence, the story of an historical teacher became the story of the "lamb of God" who serves somewhat symbolically in the place of the traditional sacrificial animal to appease God and save them from His wrath.

[A HERETIC I AM]

23. Nope. Complete and utter mythological figure

There is absolutely no verifiable evidence that supports the notion that a god man named anything like "Jesus that is the Christ" existed in the Levant at the time of his alleged advent.

The things that make up the jesus myth (born of a virgin on or about the winter solstice, visited by 3 astrologers, impressing the elders at 12, beginning a ministry at "Age 30" and dieing at 33, rising from the dead after 3 days, etc etc) are shared by literally dozens of other god men throughout history.

All of those things have astrological significance. The story of a savior god that is born, teaches, dies and is resurrected is an allegorical tale that describes the movement of the sun through the seasons.

Next major religious holiday you hear about, regardless of the religion, look at a calendar that shows moon phases, seasons/solstices and Equinoxes. Without fail, the religious holiday will either begin with, end with or have at it's center a major celestial event, whether it is the harvest moon, the spring equinox, the summer solstice, the rising of a particular star in a particular way, etc. etc.

It is all a way to tell stories about the movements of the planets and the stars. Thats it.

[funflower]

26. OK. I've said this a hundred times. Let's forget the "god man" thing.

What I'm asking is whether there was a non-magic Galilean teacher upon whom the story is based.

I tend to think it's likely there was.

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. no, there wasn't. The story is a rehash of the many ancient myths

of similar men that predate christ by centuries.


Jesus is a mythical figure. If he was real, then so was Apollo, Mithra, Dionysus, Hercules, etc.


And BTW....he IS THOUGHT OF AS A GOD-man.

That CAN'T be forgotten. It is part and parcel of the myth.

[funflower]

36. I don't believe the stories of Apollo and such were set in history, with

reference to real people. The stories of Jesus describe as having lived contemporaneously with Caesar Augustus, two Kings Herods, the governor Pontius Pilate, the Syrian governor Quirinius and various local Jewish leaders who appear to have been real people. In some cases, he is described as having interacted with some of these people. I'm not familiar with stories of Hercules or Apollo having interacted with verifiable historical figures at specific times.

[shrike]

39. Actually

They've found some historical basis for the myths, too. Troy, Jason and the Argonauts, Minos and Minotaur (not a real minotaur, but the kingdom of Minos itself.) I personally think that human beings are not imaginative enough to create things out of whole cloth.

[funflower]

42. I'm not surprised. There are just enough iotas of reality associated with

those legends to wonder whether there is some tiny historic basis for them.

[A HERETIC I AM]

48. Here is a bit more info regarding my statement....

from this website (I have read her book, BTW and it made more sense to me than 10 years of Sunday school and 18 years of sunday church services)
http://www.truthbeknown.com/

snip) "The average Christian minister who has not read outside the pale of accredited Church authorities will impart to any parishioner making the inquiry the information that no event in history iis better attested by witness than the occurences in the Gospel narrative of Christ's life. He will go over the usual citation of the historians who mention Jesus and the letters claiming to have been written about him. When the credulous questioner, putting trust in the intelligence and good faith of his pastor, gets this answer, he goes away assured on the point of the veracity of the Gospel story. The pastor does not qualify his data with the information that the practice of forgery, fictionizing and fable was rampant in the early Church. In the simple interest of truth, then, it is important to examine the body of alleged testimony from secular history and see what credibility and authority it possess.

"First, as to the historians whose works record the existence of Jesus, the list comprises but four. They are Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius and Josephus. There are short paragraphs in the works of each of these, two in Josephus. The total quantity of this material is given by Harry Elmer Barnes in The Twilight of Christianity as some twenty-four lines. It may total a little more, perhaps twice that amount. This meager testimony constitutes the body or mass of the evidence of 'one of the best attested events in history.' Even if it could be accepted as indisputably authentic and reliable, it would be faltering support for an event that has dominated the thought of half the world for eighteen centuries.

"But what is the standing of this witness? Not even Catholic scholars of importance have dissented from a general agreement of academic investigators that these passages, one and all, must by put down as forgeries and interpolations by partisan Christian scribes who wished zealously to array the authority of these historians behind the historicity of the Gospel life of Jesus. A sum total of forty or fifty lines from secular history supporting the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and they completely discredited!"


This along with the evidence that most of the story of Christ is little more than allegory for the sun and it's movements convince me that Jesus was not a real person.

I highly recommend this book to all skeptics, Atheists and other freethinkers. It is well researched and lucid.

[funflower]

51. Thanks. I'll check out the book.

[Az]

28. There is evidence to suggest he was a fiction

It is not enough to be conclusive. But it is not just a matter of guessing. The lack of evidence supporting his existance combined with the means by which legendary figures arose during that time give weight to the fiction argument.

Previous entities attributed with the same traits. Mark, the oldest of the gospels being penned in Greek and showing similarities to Homer's stories and structure. It combines to suggest that the story of Jesus was adapted from older mythes tied to a classic structure and evolved by word of mouth and collective writing.

[shrike]

29. No offense, Az

But I really do not see the similarities between Homer and the Gospels.

You've made this point before and it puzzles me. What am I missing? I see no relation at all between the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Gospels. Though it's been a while since I've read the former ...

[Az]

30. Numerous

Both Jesus and Odyseus were long suffering carpenters. They both journeyed with an entourage who frequently needed the sense of things explained to them. Mark inverted the warlike hero of his works and made his hero a pacifist.

If you are interested in pursuing this notion further you can check it out in the book The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark by Dennis R. MacDonald.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300080123/102-4322019-3849733?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

[Az]

31. Made me go pull the book outa my library

Been too long since I read it. Can't remember the details enough to give a proper defense. Reading it again now. :P

[shrike]

32. Well ...

Odysseus was also a soldier, and on a journey to get back home to his wife, and fighting all kinds of dangers. His entourage also died regularly. He himself didn't die in the end. Jesus wasn't on any particular journey; rather, a mission. I wouldn't consider his wanderings Homeric.

I personally think it's a stretch to compare the two. More difference than similarities, IMO. But when you're dealing with unknowns, one theory is as good as another. And everyone is more than entitled to their opinion.

[Az]

33. Oh I grant I am presenting a poor representation of the theory

As I mentioned above I am rereading it right now to re-aquaint myself with the ideas. It is not required for there to be a one to one correlation between characters.

I cannot consider myself a fair representitive of this theory. Allow me to reread the book and I do recommend perusing it for yourself. It is a worthwhile read. The comparisons do not leap out at you but as you come to understand how the authors of the time did copy other works and how they related to each other it becomes more apparent.

[shrike]

38. Okay

Since I respect your opinions and intelligence, I'll accept your word that this guy makes a decent argument. Maybe I'll pick up the book myself someday.

[Az]

43. Found this interesting collection

Was searching for some info for a new topic over in R&T and came across this site. It's a graphed out inerpretation of some of the issues tying Homer and Mark together. The page linked here is concerned with Jesus and Barabbas but there are links to other connections at the bottom. If you go to the home link provided there is also a review of the book by Richard Carrier.

http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Jesus_and_Barabbas.html

[onager]

40. Odysseus was royalty, too

And a wealthy cattle farmer, when he wasn't busy being king of Ithaca. I just bumped into the old fellow as he was wandering around Charles Freeman's book "The Closing of the Western Mind."

Freeman makes the point that "Homer" was almost certainly, like the Bible, a bundle of myths collected under the name of one author around 500 BCE.

Like the Garden Of Eden and so many other myths, they were nothing more than us humans once again looking back to a time when warriors were braver and life was generally more grand all around. ("Say I lived in the time of Hector! Say I lived in the time of Achilles!")

The grass in the past is always greener to us, isn't it? Or something like that.

FWIW, I'm sitting and typing this just a couple of miles from a place mentioned in The Odyssey: the isle of Pharos off the coast of Egypt. (It hasn't been an "isle" for many centuries, though.)

The mention in Homer is probably what attracted Alexander The Great to "found" a city here. Though in a parallel to that story about Columbus "discovering" America, Egyptians like to point out that there was already a perfectly good Egyptian town named Rakotis sitting on the site of what would become Alexandria.

[shrike]

41. Yes, how could I forget

A very important person in his "time." Been so damn long since I read the Odyssey -- loved it, though. So much more fun than the Iliad -- death and destruction!

Your travels sound fascinating. Enjoy.

[funflower]

54. Wow. I am so jealous. Please give us regular updates on your Egyptian

odyssey!

[funflower]

55. The Bible contains many different types of literature, not just myth.

And, of course, it is attributed to many different authors. I would have to distinguish between the Garden of Eden myth and the story of the Babylonian (Iraqi) exile of the Jews, which has been well-documented to have actually taken place (albeit without Daniel in the lions' den or the handwriting on the wall).

[funflower]

52. I'll have to read that one, too. Thanks.

[funflower]

53. The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark.... Didn't I hear a fundy

preacher talking about that on TV? NOT!!!

[funflower]

37. How is the Gospel of Mark similar to Homer?

The mere fact that the protagonists both did magical deeds and were descended from deities is not enough, in my opinion. The protagonists in Homer are larger-than-life figures. Jesus comes across as ordinary and human, even rather boring.

[Walt Starr]

25. All myth is based upon fact

I'd say the Yeshua ben Yusef character in the Christian Bible is a composite, though.

[reprobate]

35. Not necessarily based on fact. According to Campbell myths are based on

....the inner spiritual needs of Man. That's why so many follow the same themes and can be classified into categories.

He also says that most mythology comes from the seasonality that we all are subject to, that is, the cyclical planting, growing, and sowing that sustains us all. The sacrifice of the plant becomes the sacrifice of the animal that is killed so that we may feed ourselves. We then anthropomophize the animal and it becomes the god-man who dies for us to live.

This has been such a common theme throughout the history of religions that it's surprising that it's not universally recognized.

[reprobate]

34. One small example of the gospels as novels is Barabbas.

Bar Abbas translates as "Son of the Father". Meaning that the character known as Barabbas in the stories is not an actual person, but a fictional character placed in the story as a plot point.

It is clear to me that the story of Yeshua is a fabrication, based on so many of the previous god-men of the mystery cults. When you can match point for point in their stories and they ALL fit the same template, then it becomes so obvious where the story came from that to deny this and cling to the culturally popular beliefs is to close your eyes to the whole story of Mankind.

[goddess40]

44. as much as Paul Bunyan existed

remember the game of "telephone". Where someone whispers a message and it gets "whispered" around the circle and the last person says it out loud and it is never the same as the beginning - mythical figure's are a lot like that.
There may be a real person or persons that are at the beginning of the tale but by the time it gets written down the story has grown. Then you have to look at the motives of those that did the actual writing - they wanted to control masses of people so the story took on another meaning. Next, you have to look at translations, for example virgin went from never having given birth to a son to never having had sex. It's a never ending cycle - one that can never be proved true or false, especially if those that believe it's true do so out of "faith".

[frogmarch]

49. I doubt that even Paul

believed Jesus the man existed. Furthermore, I think the Jesus myth was created by the Roman Catholic church with Paul's help. The Jesus figure was a tool.

It's interesting to note the extent to which Christian beliefs parallel many pagan beliefs, including Mithraism.

Here are a few snippets from an article called "Mithra's Contributions"

http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/mithra.htm

(snip)

The Lord's supper was not invented by Paul, but was borrowed by him from Mithraism, the mystery religion that existed long before Christianity and was Christianity's chief competitor up until the time of Constantine. Paul's "home-town" was Tarsus, from where Mithraism began. In Mithraism, the central figure is the mythical Mithras, who died for the sins of mankind and was resurrected.
Believers in Mithras were rewarded with eternal life. Part of the Mithraic communion liturgy included the words, "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation."

(snip)

However, it would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single fore-runner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Many classical heroic figures, such as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the union of a virgin mother and divine father. Virtually every pagan religious practice and festivity that couldn't be suppressed or driven underground was eventually incorporated into the rites of Gentile Christianity as it spread across Europe and throughout the world.

(snip)

The ceremonies of purification by the sprinkling or drenching of the novice with the blood of bulls or rams were widespread, and were to be found in the rites of Mithra. By this purification a man was "born again" , and the Christian expression "washed in the blood of the Lamb" is undoubtedly a reflection of this idea....

~~

[shrike]

50. Except that RC was not the only church

Christianity predated the Catholic church. Then there are the Orthodox churches. Much of the deity concept of Jesus originated, so I am told, in the east, in the orthodox wing of Christianity.

[funflower]

56. So Paul borrowed some ceremonies. Why would he spend his life preaching

about someone he believed never existed?