5 ms·

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

by 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.)
  - geoduck14 4y ago
    >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. I think you really touched on it here. Jesus was born. He is man and God. Jesus was crucified. Jesus was resurrected. Jesus ascended into heaven. Those miracles/events are the core events that are necessary.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      How can you say that the authors of the bible made up 99 miracles but were honest about a few of them? If you don't think miracles are real then men have fathers even in hypothetical laboratory scenarios and nobody comes back from the dead. If you do think someone can ascend into heaven, what are some fish and a few loaves of bread? How is the biggest objection to the plausibility of Jesus making bread and fish out of nothing that he did it twice?! I feel like you are simultaneously violating the scientific perspective (where a small numbers of impossibilities is just as bad as a large number although it feels more plausible - fake psychics exploit this discrepancy by only moving light objects short distances as if that was any easier) and the religious one (where you're making the accusation that all of the early church fathers were pathological liars, and that Jesus was at best misinformed when he referred to bronze age myths in his sermons) in an attempt to sit on the fence and appease the mental habits taught by two deeply conflicting cultures. There is even a bible verse about this: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:16)
      - skissane 4y ago
        What argument are we having here? A secular historical argument about what is the most likely account of the history of early Christianity? Or a theological argument about whether one ought to believe the miraculous claims of Christianity? > How can you say that the authors of the bible made up 99 miracles but were honest about a few of them? Personally, I doubt the Gospel authors consciously invented stories intending to deceive people. I suspect a lot of what happened, is people constructed tales which were meant as metaphors rather than literally true, but at some point in the retelling their metaphorical nature was forgotten. In other cases, such as healings – people actually did have the subjective experience of being miraculously healed, whatever objectively may have been going on – something which still happens today, whether at Lourdes or at Pentecostal churches. Similarly, many cases of demonic possession were likely culture-bound syndromes, and exorcists actually can heal culture-bound syndromes. Even someone with a mental illness which is less culture-bound in nature, convince them a miracle worker has cured them, and they may actually experience a respite in symptoms, even if sometimes only a temporary one. Added to that, stories about healings and exorcisms tend to grow in the retelling, so elements of the stories which seem medically impossible may be later embellishments, and the core may involve a medically plausible story of a faith healer who uses the placebo effect, the psychosomatic nature of some illnesses, the ability of mental state to influence the odds and rate of recovery from actual physical illness or injury, the actual non-zero efficacy of faith healing in treating mental illness in populations predisposed to believe in its effectiveness, etc, etc.
coliveira 4y ago
The christians NEVER got the disparate factions to join, until centuries later. The first years of christianity had lots of sects saying different things, and this is attested by Paul himself. There was no unified command of this new religion as the early writings show.
- bnralt 4y ago
  Right, that's my point. These disparate factions disagree on almost everything. You're claim is that the sole exception is that they unanimously agreed with the creation of a fake founding figure, and everyone was willing to keep it completely hidden. No only is there zero evidence for this, it runs directly counter to all of the evidence we have (and further, counter to how we see religions develop in general).
  - coliveira 4y ago
    No, that's not my point. Some people in that early sect didn't care about the Jesus preached by Paul. Even the new testament tells about people who were preaching the gospel of Apollo, some baptized in the name of John Baptist alone (Acts 19:3), and as in 1st Cor 1: "What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”" In 2nd Cor 11 Paul confirms that other people were preaching another savior, completely different from his own. These people were all competing for the same ideas and followers (mostly descendants or sympathizers of Jews in Asia Minor). It was the success of Paul's version of Christianity that made everyone follow his "revealed Jesus" point of view, which later was embellished in the "gospel of Mark" as a person living in Israel, and reedited several times by different anonymous writers.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > In 2nd Cor 11 Paul confirms that other people were preaching another savior, completely different from his own. I think you are interpreting Paul's words here in an overly literalistic fashion. He isn't claiming that people preaching "another Christ" are preaching a different historical figure as their saviour – as in "my Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, your Christ is Menachem of Jericho". Rather, he is claiming their theology or morals are so wrong that the "Christ" they preach is no longer the "real one" even if it still claims the same historical figure as its foundation. Today, you can walk into a fundamentalist Protestant church, and hear a preacher complaining that Catholics follow "another Christ and another Gospel". The preacher isn't claiming Catholicism is based on a different historical figure; rather, he is claiming that their theology and morals are so radically wrong it might as well be. You don't have to have any sympathy at all for the preacher's views, to understand that Paul was making the same kind of claim, just in a very different time and place, and against rather different targets. > It was the success of Paul's version of Christianity that made everyone follow his "revealed Jesus" point of view, which later was embellished in the "gospel of Mark" as a person living in Israel, That's a hypothesis. How strong is the evidence for that hypothesis? Most scholars think it is quite weak – even among non-Christian scholars (such as atheists and Jews) who don't have any theological motivation for rejecting it. The alternative hypothesis–that Paul joined a pre-existing Jewish sect based in Jerusalem, centred on the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, but transformed it into a rather different religion by refocusing it away from Jews and towards recruiting Gentiles–is considered the more probable one by mainstream scholarship.

by bnralt 4y ago

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.)
- geoduck14 4y ago
  >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. I think you really touched on it here. Jesus was born. He is man and God. Jesus was crucified. Jesus was resurrected. Jesus ascended into heaven. Those miracles/events are the core events that are necessary.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    How can you say that the authors of the bible made up 99 miracles but were honest about a few of them? If you don't think miracles are real then men have fathers even in hypothetical laboratory scenarios and nobody comes back from the dead. If you do think someone can ascend into heaven, what are some fish and a few loaves of bread? How is the biggest objection to the plausibility of Jesus making bread and fish out of nothing that he did it twice?! I feel like you are simultaneously violating the scientific perspective (where a small numbers of impossibilities is just as bad as a large number although it feels more plausible - fake psychics exploit this discrepancy by only moving light objects short distances as if that was any easier) and the religious one (where you're making the accusation that all of the early church fathers were pathological liars, and that Jesus was at best misinformed when he referred to bronze age myths in his sermons) in an attempt to sit on the fence and appease the mental habits taught by two deeply conflicting cultures. There is even a bible verse about this: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:16)
    - skissane 4y ago
      What argument are we having here? A secular historical argument about what is the most likely account of the history of early Christianity? Or a theological argument about whether one ought to believe the miraculous claims of Christianity? > How can you say that the authors of the bible made up 99 miracles but were honest about a few of them? Personally, I doubt the Gospel authors consciously invented stories intending to deceive people. I suspect a lot of what happened, is people constructed tales which were meant as metaphors rather than literally true, but at some point in the retelling their metaphorical nature was forgotten. In other cases, such as healings – people actually did have the subjective experience of being miraculously healed, whatever objectively may have been going on – something which still happens today, whether at Lourdes or at Pentecostal churches. Similarly, many cases of demonic possession were likely culture-bound syndromes, and exorcists actually can heal culture-bound syndromes. Even someone with a mental illness which is less culture-bound in nature, convince them a miracle worker has cured them, and they may actually experience a respite in symptoms, even if sometimes only a temporary one. Added to that, stories about healings and exorcisms tend to grow in the retelling, so elements of the stories which seem medically impossible may be later embellishments, and the core may involve a medically plausible story of a faith healer who uses the placebo effect, the psychosomatic nature of some illnesses, the ability of mental state to influence the odds and rate of recovery from actual physical illness or injury, the actual non-zero efficacy of faith healing in treating mental illness in populations predisposed to believe in its effectiveness, etc, etc.

coliveira 4y ago

The christians NEVER got the disparate factions to join, until centuries later. The first years of christianity had lots of sects saying different things, and this is attested by Paul himself. There was no unified command of this new religion as the early writings show.

bnralt 4y ago
Right, that's my point. These disparate factions disagree on almost everything. You're claim is that the sole exception is that they unanimously agreed with the creation of a fake founding figure, and everyone was willing to keep it completely hidden. No only is there zero evidence for this, it runs directly counter to all of the evidence we have (and further, counter to how we see religions develop in general).
- coliveira 4y ago
  No, that's not my point. Some people in that early sect didn't care about the Jesus preached by Paul. Even the new testament tells about people who were preaching the gospel of Apollo, some baptized in the name of John Baptist alone (Acts 19:3), and as in 1st Cor 1: "What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”" In 2nd Cor 11 Paul confirms that other people were preaching another savior, completely different from his own. These people were all competing for the same ideas and followers (mostly descendants or sympathizers of Jews in Asia Minor). It was the success of Paul's version of Christianity that made everyone follow his "revealed Jesus" point of view, which later was embellished in the "gospel of Mark" as a person living in Israel, and reedited several times by different anonymous writers.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > In 2nd Cor 11 Paul confirms that other people were preaching another savior, completely different from his own. I think you are interpreting Paul's words here in an overly literalistic fashion. He isn't claiming that people preaching "another Christ" are preaching a different historical figure as their saviour – as in "my Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, your Christ is Menachem of Jericho". Rather, he is claiming their theology or morals are so wrong that the "Christ" they preach is no longer the "real one" even if it still claims the same historical figure as its foundation. Today, you can walk into a fundamentalist Protestant church, and hear a preacher complaining that Catholics follow "another Christ and another Gospel". The preacher isn't claiming Catholicism is based on a different historical figure; rather, he is claiming that their theology and morals are so radically wrong it might as well be. You don't have to have any sympathy at all for the preacher's views, to understand that Paul was making the same kind of claim, just in a very different time and place, and against rather different targets. > It was the success of Paul's version of Christianity that made everyone follow his "revealed Jesus" point of view, which later was embellished in the "gospel of Mark" as a person living in Israel, That's a hypothesis. How strong is the evidence for that hypothesis? Most scholars think it is quite weak – even among non-Christian scholars (such as atheists and Jews) who don't have any theological motivation for rejecting it. The alternative hypothesis–that Paul joined a pre-existing Jewish sect based in Jerusalem, centred on the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, but transformed it into a rather different religion by refocusing it away from Jews and towards recruiting Gentiles–is considered the more probable one by mainstream scholarship.