Is 'Historical Jesus' Fictional As Well?

[sophie]

The three major eastern religions got their start in the same place and time as the Jewish captivity. The link is there, whether people accept it or not.

Nothing about any part of this statement makes any sense whatsoever. Which religions could you possibly be referring to?

Buddhism? Daosim? Hinduism? Shintoism? Jainism? Islam? What?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's tough to say. Maybe it's just a case of the right type of person at the right place at the right time? How was Mohammed able to convince so many people to follow him in such a short amount of time - leading to over a billion followers today? How was Buddha able to kickstart a religion and get people away from Hinduism? How was Joseph Smith able to convince a bunch of Christians that he's a prophet - and kickstart yet another religion?

I don't think it makes sense to think that all these people were able to get these religions started because their religiously inspired background stories are for the most part true.

What about L. Ron Hubbard? He decided to invent a religion and get rich. It worked.

Back in the '60s, after Dune came out and got popular on university campuses, Frank Herbert was asked if his intention was to start a new religion. He was shocked and emphatically denied it.

OK, I think I'm going at this wrong - here's another angle. I assume it's fair enough to say that you believe in Flying Pig, and that you believe that he's an English bloke, who used to be a soldier, who posts on CFC and has an interest in history. If you got a PM from someone on this site who had dug up the secrets of my past and found that I'd actually been a ballet dancer, you might say something like 'Flying Pig wasn't a soldier; he was a ballet dancer', but you wouldn't doubt my 'existence'. If, on the other hand, you found out that the person writing my posts was actually an author creating a fictional character, you might say 'Flying Pig doesn't exist'. What, though, if the author was actually writing an autobiographical character? You might fairly give either response - either 'Flying Pig doesn't exist, but John Smith the author does, who is like him', or 'Flying Pig exists, but he's actually an author called John Smith'.

So do we say 'Jesus existed, but he was actually not as we're told', or 'Jesus didn't exist - the person who really did is a separate entity'?

Okay, I get your point now. Yes, I accord everyone else here except the spambots the courtesy of assuming that they are real live people, and I realize that not everyone tells the complete truth about him/herself, whether they hold something back or change some detail.

I've been called a liar myself because I've denied being an author who someone met in Toronto at a literary symposium, and no amount of me explaining that my RL name and that author's name happen to be the same (first & last; no idea about middle) but I am not that person and have never been east of Alberta, would convince her. She refused to believe me and demanded to know why I was lying to her.

My take on Jesus is that historically he could have existed as a normal man and the details of his life were wildly exaggerated by other people. But there's no actual proof that he existed at all. Yes, it's unlikely that the apostles just decided to make up a story based on nothing but their own imaginations... but then look at modern people who make the decision to do exactly that.

 

[timtofly]

Really? On what are you basing that claim?

Jewish captivity in Babylon? Eastern religions? I would like to hear details as well.

Nothing about any part of this statement makes any sense whatsoever. Which religions could you possibly be referring to?

Buddhism? Daosim? Hinduism? Shintoism? Jainism? Islam? What?

The shakeup in the control of the ME including Persia and the Indus Valley around 500 BCE, put an end to vague religious mythology, and made way for the realization of the current forms of major world religions. Historians have not come up with a consensus on what actually happened. Neither am I trying to declare what actually happened. Perhaps it was similar to the Renaissance and a shift in the way humans thought. I don't really know. There was a crossover somehow between the religious views of European and Hindu people groups for 2000 years previous to that time, but now was coming to an end. My theory was that human leaders were convincing the masses that they were the divine controllers instead of nature or unexplainable forces. Human philosophy was coming into play, and you get human leaders like Buddha and Mahāvīra who change and define a religion giving it specific characteristics.

I apologize for derailing the thread to this point. Perhaps it has nothing to do with humans inventing religions. Unless inventing religion is the same as taking known material and demanding that it be viewed as dogmatic and a way to bring humans together into a cohesive society.

 

[Domen]

Link to video.

Oh, I forgot to mention - the main part about Jesus starts after 17:00 of that video.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's tough to say. Maybe it's just a case of the right type of person at the right place at the right time? How was Mohammed able to convince so many people to follow him in such a short amount of time - leading to over a billion followers today? How was Buddha able to kickstart a religion and get people away from Hinduism? How was Joseph Smith able to convince a bunch of Christians that he's a prophet - and kickstart yet another religion?

I don't think it makes sense to think that all these people were able to get these religions started because their religiously inspired background stories are for the most part true.

Joseph Smith is an interesting case. He did have one advantage over Christianity: his book explained the existence of Indians in the new world. The Bible had no explanation for their existence. Now I am not a Mormon and do not think that Joseph Smith had a divine revelation, but in his day he did present a new world view that was more complete than the Bible. Such a new explanation might well appeal to Christians who had doubts.

There are lots of examples of living people inspiring millions, but in the three you mentioned, they continue to inspire centuries after they died.

**There is some basic flaw in the human brain that allows it to be strongly swayed under particular circumstances
**Their message (not exact words) are particularly in tune with the human brain and resonate in it.
**Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha had extraordinary powers to influence both their message and the people they had contact with to increase the staying power of their ideas.
**In every generation, new "salesmen" emerge to push the message along.

 

[warpus]

There are also non-religious examples of this, such as entertainers, poets, authors, directors, political figures, emperors, etc.

In the case of religion I think it just in some cases the perfect vehicle for that sort of "meme" to spread in a more of an amplified way. Religion is in many cases the ultimate answer to a lot of questions - and so you end up with prophets who travel the land and spread a message of truth to the rest of the world. For that to work well you need somebody who is very charismatic, convincing, has a good message that people are actually willing to listen to, and a whole bunch of other items that need to be checked off before you have a decent chance of that being the start of a new religion.. Some other random things that could help: the circumstances, being good at slight of hand would for sure help I'm sure, having an understanding of chemistry or biology, to happen to be a person who discovered some sort of property of something first.. Or who knows what. Like I said - the right person at the right time at the right place (in the right set of circumstances).

Here's what I'm trying to say - Becoming an influential historical figure is not a formulaic thing. It is very often an accident of history. Certain character traits help - being a strong leader, charisma, intelligence, other things that I've randomly started listing in the last paragraph.. luck.. things I can't think of.. things nobody else has thought of.. In the end you can't really predict this stuff. And I think with historical figures who are also religious figures it's the same sort of thing - but amplified in a religious direction.

 

[Evie]

Joseph Smith is an interesting case. He did have one advantage over Christianity: his book explained the existence of Indians in the new world. The Bible had no explanation for their existence. Now I am not a Mormon and do not think that Joseph Smith had a divine revelation, but in his day he did present a new world view that was more complete than the Bible. Such a new explanation might well appeal to Christians who had doubts.

Well, unless you made the amazing leaf of faith of "Hey, maybe they migrated here!" A guess that's been around since 1590 at least, and that was one of (several) well-known theories about the natives by the nineteenth century.

In which case the bible didn't really need an explanation for the natives. It just needed to explain Asian people, which I don't recall the Bible ever having a problem with.

 

[onejayhawk]

The Bible explains native Americans the same way it explains the Chinese, through a diaspora. Joseph Smith held that a portion of the natives were Hebrew, from the ten lost tribes of Israel. Another group, of indeterminate oriental origin, were there to meet the boats. Lots of fighting ensued.

J