this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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We think Mary and one or two others hallucinated and saw Jesus after he died. It's actually not totally unheard of for people to hallucinate recently dead loved ones. Exactly why that kind of thing happens is an open debate, but the hallucination have a few things in common, like being more likely with people you were strongly attached to, and the hallucinated person basically assuring you things will be alright.
Anyway, so a hallucinated dead mini-cult leader could totally inspire a few key people to start a religion. Without those two key things, he probably would have been forgotten to history.
Just weakening the claims to slide it within the possible instead of following the evidence to where it leads. Mary could not have just been someone James hired to ramble. No? Couldn't just go with the simplest possible explanation for the data. Have to invent this whole sequence of events that just so happen to wipe out all supporting evidence along the way.
Name one. Name a single time in history that a cult leader for six months produced a religion that was remotely successful. Joseph Smith 14 years, Buddha supposedly 50, Mohammed 22, Huysan 29 years.
You can't. Religions survive their founder when they build institutions. Which takes time. The simple explanation is that James made it all up and Paul took it seriously. Those two men spent about 4 decades building up Christianity on two supports. If Jesus had really existed and died after a few months James would have not continued the mission.
It's my understanding most estimates put his preaching days between 1 and 3 years, but for the purposes of both our arguments, it's immaterial.
I'm struggling to understand why Jesus being completely made up is more plausible than even just James seizing the opportunity to deify a dead preacher? Like, why is it that James and Paul being the practical founders of Christianity can't coexist with the existence of Jesus? While I believe James was earnest in his faith, I don't see why that matters?
Regardless of their faith, everyone agrees that Paul and James are the biggest reasons for Christianity's early success. Wouldn't it be easier to use an unknown dead religious figure as your central theme than to make one up? You'd have ready-baked independent witnesses to say "yeah that guy really did exist" and then all you have to add in is the part where he comes back to life for a few days and then conveniently disappears into heaven.
Yeah because they are copying John who was writing a century later. Mark has it at 6 months and he was "only" writing 40 years later. Given the silence of Paul problem a minimum historical Jesus is going to preach on the lower end. Hence six months. Kinda strange how despite preaching for supposedly 1 to 3 years the only Jewish holiday mentioned is Passover. Almost as if all the Gospel writers didn't know anything.
It isn't that it isn't possible it is that it doesn't arise naturally from the data. I was late to work today. Is it possible it is because that Liam Neason had a tense hostage situation on my block? Sure it is a possible. Is it likely? I would say no.
This is the problem with apologetics, Christian or otherwise, they can't advance evidence for what they believe so they lower the claim to try to sneak it in.
If there were a historical Jesus
you have to explain why Pilot let James and co open operate right under his nose. So step 1 is to figure out why Pilot acted contrary to his nature.
You have to explain why the Pharisees didn't do anything either. They operated a secret police for heresy by their own records. Step 2 is to figure out why they acted contrary to their nature
You have to explain the total lack of relics and known holy sites, in the 1st century. Unlike every other religion.
You have to explain why no one else in the Jesus family came forward
You have to explain why Paul can't decide if James is a biological brother or not
You have to explain how so many movements and context movements popped up in nearly no time.
Sure it is possible this crazy sequence of events, with multiple people acting out of character happened, but the data we have doesnt make it the simplest explaination. The simplest explaination was James was running a mystery cult about his heavenly brother and Paul took it seriously. That's why Paul didn't know anything, there was nothing to know.