this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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I probably would have existed since I'm pretty sure the Jesus everyone talks about is pretty much a myth (probable) or an amalgamation of traits from other real people (possible).
there were probably a lot of cool Judean resistance fighters that we'll probably never know anything about
And other myths (probable).
Didn’t non biblical/christian romans attested to Jesus’ crucifixion? He was real, but he was Joseph Smith/L Ron Hubbard plus 3000 years to obfuscate his activities
I don't know nearly enough to wade into the discussion but I've definitely seen credible scholars say that he was certainly a real guy and other credible scholars say that he was certainly not a real guy sooo
As a true centrist I think half of Jesus existed. The crucifixion must've looked real weird
I mean there were thousands of guys calling himself the messiah back then. Thousands of guys getting crucified for the same thing. Jesus being one of the thousands isn’t far fetched. I’m just curious how he managed to be more charismatic than the others. There’s more evidence to suggest he’s just a guy than there is evidence to suggest his existence is purely fictional
i know little myself but "certainly not a real guy" does not seem like a serious position (nor does "Certainly a real guy" for that matter but less so)
what i've heard is that if jesus were any other guy, the level of information we have about him would be considered enough to assume he very likely existed in some form. but since he's the guy people get real weird about proving or disproving
From what I've read (and it's been a while) I don't recall ever reading non biblical accounts of Jesus from the time of his supposed life. We know that a church that appears in the bible during the time of Jesus was built some time after he allegedly died so that's already... problematic. Some scholars have pointed out that Jesus got a lot of juice in the years after he was shooting bushes with laser eyes and raising the dead and then resurrected by his dad who is also himself - but to me that's like saying since I see a lot of Garfield movies, comics and coffee mugs in 2024 that therefore Garfield is or was a real cat because no one was pimping Garfield before he entered the zeitgeist as a character beloved by the commonfolk.
I dunno. Just my opinion.
About his life, I don’t think there are any independent, contemporary records of it. But I believe there were politicians or historians briefly citing Jesus’ death shortly after it happened but before it became a worldwide phenomenon.
There were no churches when Christ was around, do you mean the temple in Jerusalem? Anyway the difference between Jesus and Garfield is that Garfield is borrowing from cultural concepts of a cat in a comedic context, more likely than not fake. Jesus is part of the miracle worker, messiah, and religious reformer/restorer movements at that time. Although he could be an amalgam, it makes more sense for him to be at heart at least one guy that inspired all that followed.
In my head, temples and churches are interchangeable. So yes, probably the temple.
But to your overall point, I suppose it's possible to be a single person. But if I were trying to start a religion (which I tend to think is all bullshit anyway) I think the invention of a person like Jesus along with his story, and then punching up a script to send out to the masses - all of it is just too perfect and fantastical. Which I guess those of us who aren't believers would all nominally agree to. I dunno. I'm rambling about something I honestly almost never think about.
But yeah. I suppose there could have been one dude they retrofitted the narrative to.
Thanks for responding!
Miracle workers then and now are a dime a dozen. For example, here's the pagan version of Jesus who was a little younger than him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana. He's similar enough to Jesus that various pagans had written polemics on how he had cooler miracles than Jesus.
Every historical epoch will have their version of Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard. It just seems ahistorical that for this particular case of a miracle worker, people just made him up instead of doing the usual thing of attributing miracles to themselves. We all laugh about Joseph Smith sticking his head in a fucking hat to read a bunch of text. Imagine if Joseph Smith made up a guy who stuck his head in the fucking hat instead. Why would anyone bother listening to Joseph Smith instead of trying to chase after the imaginary dude?