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> "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was" I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how hi

> "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was" I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how his followers came to believe this? One common response to the general argument is that most of Jesus' disciples were martyred and would have had no motivation to die for a lie.

olavk 12y ago
This is a really interesting question! There is a development through the gospels, where the oldest focus on the actions, saying and prophecies of Jesus, while the newest (John) is much more focused on the divinity of the person Jesus. Paul seem quite uninterested in the words of Jesus and totally focused on the importance of the resurrection. So the transformation from teacher or prophet (a normal human speaking the words of God) into a some kind of divine being happened quite soon. To put is crudely, Jesus start out as a priest talking about the Gods plans, but over time, in the minds of his followers, turns into a God himself. But the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325. Even now there are Christian denomination which do not believe that Jesus is God, most notable Jehovas Witnesses (which holds that Jesus was created by God, and therefore not God himself). An important transformation is that the title of Messiah (or Christ in Greek translation) has a very specific meaning in a Jewish context, as a human king or savior of the Hebrew people. When early Christianity spread beyond Jews, this context disappeared, and the title "son of God" got reinterpreted in a Greek context, where gods could literally have children.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > "the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325." The Nicene Creed is one of the clearest statements of the "Jesus is God" hypothesis, but (as I said elsewhere in this thread) there are plenty of strong claims made in the gospels themselves. There are also similar claims made in many of the earlier writings of the church (if you're honestly interested, there are 10 pre-Nicene volumes at http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html .)
tach4n 12y ago
Study the history of other cults, such as Mormonism. Not how the "witnesses" changed their beliefs and how they talked about what happened over time. Even though some of them came to distrust Joseph Smith or consider him on a wrong path, once they had convinced themselves they had seen something miraculous happen they had a hard time letting go. They later made comments that suggested they had seen the things "in a vision" (yet most people assume an actual witnessing), the important consideration is to them it was real, and just as valid as actually seeing it. In their mind there was no difference - so they had no problem claiming they saw it first hand. Faith is a type of insanity, so naturally you can't use the assumption of faithful people acting rationally (no motivation to die for a lie) to find truth. As to how they came to believe it, again look at other religions, spiritual practices etc. It's quite common for followers/believers to come to believe something the leader is not saying - it has to be so, that's HOW IT WORKS. It's similar to snake oil salespeople today like Deepak Chopra - you just make a lot of hand wavy claims about energy and quantum physics and people inject their own meaning. Put these in a time period when education and access to information was low and et voila.

olavk 12y ago

This is a really interesting question! There is a development through the gospels, where the oldest focus on the actions, saying and prophecies of Jesus, while the newest (John) is much more focused on the divinity of the person Jesus. Paul seem quite uninterested in the words of Jesus and totally focused on the importance of the resurrection. So the transformation from teacher or prophet (a normal human speaking the words of God) into a some kind of divine being happened quite soon. To put is crudely, Jesus start out as a priest talking about the Gods plans, but over time, in the minds of his followers, turns into a God himself. But the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325. Even now there are Christian denomination which do not believe that Jesus is God, most notable Jehovas Witnesses (which holds that Jesus was created by God, and therefore not God himself). An important transformation is that the title of Messiah (or Christ in Greek translation) has a very specific meaning in a Jewish context, as a human king or savior of the Hebrew people. When early Christianity spread beyond Jews, this context disappeared, and the title "son of God" got reinterpreted in a Greek context, where gods could literally have children.

lotharbot 12y ago
> "the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325." The Nicene Creed is one of the clearest statements of the "Jesus is God" hypothesis, but (as I said elsewhere in this thread) there are plenty of strong claims made in the gospels themselves. There are also similar claims made in many of the earlier writings of the church (if you're honestly interested, there are 10 pre-Nicene volumes at http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html .)

tach4n 12y ago

Study the history of other cults, such as Mormonism. Not how the "witnesses" changed their beliefs and how they talked about what happened over time. Even though some of them came to distrust Joseph Smith or consider him on a wrong path, once they had convinced themselves they had seen something miraculous happen they had a hard time letting go. They later made comments that suggested they had seen the things "in a vision" (yet most people assume an actual witnessing), the important consideration is to them it was real, and just as valid as actually seeing it. In their mind there was no difference - so they had no problem claiming they saw it first hand. Faith is a type of insanity, so naturally you can't use the assumption of faithful people acting rationally (no motivation to die for a lie) to find truth. As to how they came to believe it, again look at other religions, spiritual practices etc. It's quite common for followers/believers to come to believe something the leader is not saying - it has to be so, that's HOW IT WORKS. It's similar to snake oil salespeople today like Deepak Chopra - you just make a lot of hand wavy claims about energy and quantum physics and people inject their own meaning. Put these in a time period when education and access to information was low and et voila.