5 ms·

> However, most of the time, the founder is a real person. Yes, the founder has necessarily to be a real person. But not the one from which the tales are made.

> However, most of the time, the founder is a real person. Yes, the founder has necessarily to be a real person. But not the one from which the tales are made. For example, all greek mysteries purported to come from a real teacher, but in most cases these were gods, i.e., not real people. There is really no evidence of a christian sect forming in Jerusalem at the time of the supposed death of Jesus. Christianity appeared for all purposes in the Greek Asian Minor, pushed by someone who called himself Paul, and all the writings we have are from Greek-speaking composers. The idea that Christianity goes back to a Jesus and his followers in Judea seems to be a romantic idea used by the real founders of the movement to make it older than it really was.

skissane 4y ago
> For example, all greek mysteries purported to come from a real teacher, but in most cases these were gods, i.e., not real people. None of the ancient Greek mystery religions claimed a recent human founder as their central figure. Their central figures were almost all deities, not humans; even when they occasionally centred on a human, it was a hero who lived in the distant uncertain past, not someone who lived at a defined recent historical moment. By contrast, the four canonical Gospels all agree that Jesus was executed while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea (between 26/27 and 36/37 CE), and it seems likely those Gospels were composed within a century of that date. > There is really no evidence of a christian sect forming in Jerusalem at the time of the supposed death of Jesus. The New Testament is evidence. To be clear, a historical text claiming X is evidence for X. Now, we can argue about how whether it is strong evidence or weak evidence, but either way it is still evidence. And of course, accepting the text as evidence, doesn't mean we have to accept all of its claims as equal in evidential weight, especially those of a miraculous or supernatural nature. If a text makes a mixture of claims, some historically plausible, and others which are (from a purely secular perspective) extraordinarily improbable, it is reasonable to judge its evidential strength as being much higher with respect to the former claims than with respect to the later. > Christianity appeared for all purposes in the Greek Asian Minor, pushed by someone who called himself Paul, and all the writings we have are from Greek-speaking composers. The vast majority of scholars accept Galatians as an authentic work of Paul. In Galatians 1-2, he claims the "Jesus Christ" movement which he propagates pre-existed his conversion to it, and he reports visiting its leadership in Jerusalem. So this is evidence that a "Jesus Christ" movement existed in Jerusalem prior to Paul's conversion to it. > The idea that Christianity goes back to a Jesus and his followers in Judea seems to be a romantic idea used by the real founders of the movement to make it older than it really was. In order for that to be true, either (1) Galatians is not an authentic letter of Paul, (2) Galatians has been tampered with to insert material claiming Paul visited the pre-existing proto-Christian community at Jerusalem, (3) Paul was lying. While none of that is impossible, it seems less likely than that Paul really did join a pre-existing religious sect headquartered in Jerusalem. In particular, while I'm no expert at biblical Greek, scholars argue that there is no textual evidence in support of (1) or (2). Saying that Pauline Christianity had its origins in a pre-existing proto-Christian sect headquartered in Jerusalem, is not denying that Paul took it in some innovative theological directions, such that it ended up with significant differences from that starting point. One obvious difference–apparent from Paul's own writings–is a much greater distance from Judaism, moving beyond being a sect of Judaism and towards becoming an entirely distinct religion.
- coliveira 4y ago
  > a historical text claiming X is evidence for X Gospels are not historical texts. They are religious literature. They present zero evidence of the facts they narrate.
  - skissane 4y ago
    When I said "historical text", I meant "text from history", not "text of history". And, a text (religious or not) which makes factual claims, is itself evidence for those factual claims, although how strong evidence it is depends on factors such as the inherent plausibility of those claims, whether they contradict any other evidence we may have, etc. Religious literature is a form of historical evidence. The LDS scriptures (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) is historical evidence for the thinking of Joseph Smith and the early Mormons. The Quran and Hadith are historical evidence for early Islam and the life of Muhammad. The Scientology scriptures are historical evidence for L. Ron Hubbard. And, in the exact same way, Christian religious literature is historical evidence for the history of Christianity. Accepting all of this as historical evidence, doesn't mean we have to uncritically accept all of their claims – we can compare them to other sources (when they exist, they don't always do); we can judge the inherent plausibility of each claim, and justifiably be open to accepting the more historically probable claims of these texts while rejecting the miraculous elements of them. Of course, if one has a faith commitment to one of these religions, that might predispose one to accept rather than reject some of those miraculous claims, but then one isn't playing the language-game (Sprachspiel) of "secular history of religions" any more, one is playing a different language-game instead.
bnralt 4y ago
Eh? The crucifixion is supposed to have happened circa 30 AD, the Pauline letters (where Christianity is already fairly established) are from circa 50 AD. Even if we pretend it spread very rapidly and was only 10 years old in 50 AD, that'd still have the start date be about 40 AD. So early Christians made up a fake founder, and somehow got all of the disparate feuding factions to join in on the conspiracy, just so they could say that their movement was a decade older than it actually was?
- whatshisface 4y ago
  How'd they get the separate feuding factions to agree about which miracles happened and in what order? You still have to have some kind of coordination if you want to avoid the miracles actually having happened.
  - skissane 4y ago
    Who says they agree about which miracles happened and in what order? The four canonical Gospels don't all report the same miracles, and even when they do, they disagree on the order, and the details. It is impossible to harmonise them into a consistent narrative without engaging in such historical implausibilities as insisting that two very similar miracles happened twice, simply because that's the only way of avoiding the contradictions in two different accounts of the same event. But the reality is, most Christians never cared much about this problem. Exactly which miracles Jesus of Nazareth did or didn't do, and exactly which order he did them in, was never seen as particularly important by most Christians. Sure, there have always been some who have wanted to "smooth things over" by constructing Gospel harmonies (most famously Tatian's Diatessaron), but it has always been a minority concern. Ultimately, in Christianity, there is only one miracle which really counts (the Resurrection), with the virgin birth following close behind–the rest pale in significance. And, it is worth noting, that the numerous factional disputes which consumed early Christianity ("heresies"), almost none of them were concerned with questions of which miracles happened or which order they happened in, most of them were about more abstract theological questions, or else more practical matters (e.g. can sinful clergy perform valid sacraments, which was the central dispute motivating Donatism and Novatianism.)

skissane 4y ago

> For example, all greek mysteries purported to come from a real teacher, but in most cases these were gods, i.e., not real people. None of the ancient Greek mystery religions claimed a recent human founder as their central figure. Their central figures were almost all deities, not humans; even when they occasionally centred on a human, it was a hero who lived in the distant uncertain past, not someone who lived at a defined recent historical moment. By contrast, the four canonical Gospels all agree that Jesus was executed while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea (between 26/27 and 36/37 CE), and it seems likely those Gospels were composed within a century of that date. > There is really no evidence of a christian sect forming in Jerusalem at the time of the supposed death of Jesus. The New Testament is evidence. To be clear, a historical text claiming X is evidence for X. Now, we can argue about how whether it is strong evidence or weak evidence, but either way it is still evidence. And of course, accepting the text as evidence, doesn't mean we have to accept all of its claims as equal in evidential weight, especially those of a miraculous or supernatural nature. If a text makes a mixture of claims, some historically plausible, and others which are (from a purely secular perspective) extraordinarily improbable, it is reasonable to judge its evidential strength as being much higher with respect to the former claims than with respect to the later. > Christianity appeared for all purposes in the Greek Asian Minor, pushed by someone who called himself Paul, and all the writings we have are from Greek-speaking composers. The vast majority of scholars accept Galatians as an authentic work of Paul. In Galatians 1-2, he claims the "Jesus Christ" movement which he propagates pre-existed his conversion to it, and he reports visiting its leadership in Jerusalem. So this is evidence that a "Jesus Christ" movement existed in Jerusalem prior to Paul's conversion to it. > The idea that Christianity goes back to a Jesus and his followers in Judea seems to be a romantic idea used by the real founders of the movement to make it older than it really was. In order for that to be true, either (1) Galatians is not an authentic letter of Paul, (2) Galatians has been tampered with to insert material claiming Paul visited the pre-existing proto-Christian community at Jerusalem, (3) Paul was lying. While none of that is impossible, it seems less likely than that Paul really did join a pre-existing religious sect headquartered in Jerusalem. In particular, while I'm no expert at biblical Greek, scholars argue that there is no textual evidence in support of (1) or (2). Saying that Pauline Christianity had its origins in a pre-existing proto-Christian sect headquartered in Jerusalem, is not denying that Paul took it in some innovative theological directions, such that it ended up with significant differences from that starting point. One obvious difference–apparent from Paul's own writings–is a much greater distance from Judaism, moving beyond being a sect of Judaism and towards becoming an entirely distinct religion.

coliveira 4y ago
> a historical text claiming X is evidence for X Gospels are not historical texts. They are religious literature. They present zero evidence of the facts they narrate.
- skissane 4y ago
  When I said "historical text", I meant "text from history", not "text of history". And, a text (religious or not) which makes factual claims, is itself evidence for those factual claims, although how strong evidence it is depends on factors such as the inherent plausibility of those claims, whether they contradict any other evidence we may have, etc. Religious literature is a form of historical evidence. The LDS scriptures (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) is historical evidence for the thinking of Joseph Smith and the early Mormons. The Quran and Hadith are historical evidence for early Islam and the life of Muhammad. The Scientology scriptures are historical evidence for L. Ron Hubbard. And, in the exact same way, Christian religious literature is historical evidence for the history of Christianity. Accepting all of this as historical evidence, doesn't mean we have to uncritically accept all of their claims – we can compare them to other sources (when they exist, they don't always do); we can judge the inherent plausibility of each claim, and justifiably be open to accepting the more historically probable claims of these texts while rejecting the miraculous elements of them. Of course, if one has a faith commitment to one of these religions, that might predispose one to accept rather than reject some of those miraculous claims, but then one isn't playing the language-game (Sprachspiel) of "secular history of religions" any more, one is playing a different language-game instead.

bnralt 4y ago

Eh? The crucifixion is supposed to have happened circa 30 AD, the Pauline letters (where Christianity is already fairly established) are from circa 50 AD. Even if we pretend it spread very rapidly and was only 10 years old in 50 AD, that'd still have the start date be about 40 AD. So early Christians made up a fake founder, and somehow got all of the disparate feuding factions to join in on the conspiracy, just so they could say that their movement was a decade older than it actually was?

whatshisface 4y ago
How'd they get the separate feuding factions to agree about which miracles happened and in what order? You still have to have some kind of coordination if you want to avoid the miracles actually having happened.
- skissane 4y ago
  Who says they agree about which miracles happened and in what order? The four canonical Gospels don't all report the same miracles, and even when they do, they disagree on the order, and the details. It is impossible to harmonise them into a consistent narrative without engaging in such historical implausibilities as insisting that two very similar miracles happened twice, simply because that's the only way of avoiding the contradictions in two different accounts of the same event. But the reality is, most Christians never cared much about this problem. Exactly which miracles Jesus of Nazareth did or didn't do, and exactly which order he did them in, was never seen as particularly important by most Christians. Sure, there have always been some who have wanted to "smooth things over" by constructing Gospel harmonies (most famously Tatian's Diatessaron), but it has always been a minority concern. Ultimately, in Christianity, there is only one miracle which really counts (the Resurrection), with the virgin birth following close behind–the rest pale in significance. And, it is worth noting, that the numerous factional disputes which consumed early Christianity ("heresies"), almost none of them were concerned with questions of which miracles happened or which order they happened in, most of them were about more abstract theological questions, or else more practical matters (e.g. can sinful clergy perform valid sacraments, which was the central dispute motivating Donatism and Novatianism.)