Avinash_Tyagi said:
mrstickball said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
Final-Fan said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
Final-Fan said:
I'm going to sleep now. Avinash_Tyagi, I leave you with this reiteration of an earlier point that may have gotten lost in the shuffle:
What exactly is your alternate theory here? How did his existence get manufactured in such a brief time? Why didn't anyone say anything like "wait a second that never happened, there was no such Jesus"?
To say simply that we aren't OMG 100% ABSOLUTELY sure of the "Jesus was real" view isn't good enough. There has to be a "Jesus wasn't real" view that at least makes some sense. What is it? |
I already answered that question, one prevailing theory is that Jesus is actually an Amalgamation story, drawn from Mithras, Horus, Prometheus and other saviors |
First off, it's not a "prevailing" anything. Your skepticism is very much a fringe belief even among secular historians.
Now, fine, the amalgamation theory. But (1) how did the amalgamation form so quickly? I mean, wouldn't it be awfully suspicious to fabricate the existence of someone who was supposedly around within living memory? Why did no one deny this claim? (2) How could such a blatant falsehood get into the writings of some of the best Roman historians of the day only a few decades later?
Christianity was viciously opposed by Jews as heresy. There were many attacks on an intellectual level as well as physical. (3) Why the hell would there be absolutely no evidence that they didn't completely miss this golden opportunity to discredit the religion?
(4) Looking at the amalgamation itself, that's quite a list. Mithras was from a Roman religion of apparently Persian/Zoroastrian descent; Horus is Egyptian; Prometheus, Greek. Mithras in particular is interesting, because it didn't become popular until the 3rd and 4th centuries and isn't even known to have existed prior to Jesus' lifetime. Very interesting that Christianity could be "drawn" from a religion that seems to be contemporary with it at best.
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With the Mithraic stories, much of which became practiced in the first century through third centuries AD, around the time that many of the stories of christ were being written finalfan, not to mention that the bible underwnet revisions around that time as well, incorporating other pagan myths into it
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Care to explain what revisions were made to the Bible to incorporate more Pagan myths into it?
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Well constantine, after 312 AD, made significant changes to the Christian religion and had many aspects of the religion altered, blending it with Pagan myths at the time, councils were set up to revise the Bible, and decide which books would be considered acepted by the church and which would not
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And how much do you know about what Constantine changed, as well as the 3 councils that determined scriptural cannon?
The Old Testament was already 100% complete by 300BC (Septuigant), so that wasn't modified at all.
Yes, Constantine's influence changed some things, but that resulted in the creation of the Catholic church. However, that doesn't preclude the fact that Catholic doctrine/praxis is different than that of Protestants.
Furthermore, I urge you to actually study the process of the 3 church councils on determining cannon. They were very strict with what was included in the New Testament, and their goals were absolutely counter to your argument of including myths.
The litmus test(s) for NT Cannon were:
- Early documents that were not written far after Jesus' death (many books/letters were canned due to this)
- Letters that were used by a large majority of churches to determine doctrine and praxis (majority rule)
- Letters that were void of mysticism/pagan practices, and false teachings (again, quite a few books/letters were canned)
All 3 points are counter to your arguments of historical accuracy - the church sought to maintain the best litus test(s) for what was defined as cannon.
And if you want - You can always read the Apocrapha, and pseudepigrapha that still exists. There is quite a bit that is intact from the 1st through 2nd centuries. Feel free to read it, but it's going to be either chock full of history (such as the 2 books of Clement, Shepard of Hermas) or very erratic in doctrine or mythos (Gospel of Timothy, Book of Enoch). I'd really love to see what you argue was included that dealt in pagan myths, given how much was written and left out of the NT in the first place.
