The fabrication of Jesus.

[Elijah John]

Some go beyond the theory that a real, human Jesus existed and was later mythologized into the Divine person of "Christ".

Some hold that Jesus of Nazareth never existed at all, even as a completely human person.

For debate:

-Why would anyone have invented the tale that Jesus existed?

-Who "invented" Jesus, and why?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

Why Jesus (and Christianity) was invented can be seen in exactly what he preached, and who benefited from it.

He preached that is was OK to pay Imperial taxes: Despite the coins being graven images of other gods, whose worship, by decrees was their tribute.
- I know I know, but the Jews didn't believe Caesar was a god so it was OK: So Yahweh only minds if you put REAL gods before him, fake gods are OK?

Rome learned in 300 BCE that religion was a powerful persuasive and pacifying agent. They began developing it. Saying ours god are your gods, and they say we should rule, so obey us (the pre-Christian divine right of kings). Developed reached good enough to fool most of the people most of the time status around 0 CE.

Christianity preaches obeying government, an being passive when wronged, great tools for a government.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

-Why would anyone have invented the tale that Jesus existed?

I counter this question with the question of
"Why would anyone invent a tale?" There are all sorts of reasons for anyone to make something up.

-Who "invented" Jesus, and why?

Off-hand, I remember Saul/Paul as being our earliest source of documentation, so he would have to, by default, be the first suspect.
Of course, one can dismiss him by pointing to the existence of the early Christian communities that Saul persecuted and would have had to pre-exist him...but I have to point out that if one wants to dismiss these communities because they are un-named...so too must one dismiss them when trying raise up Paul and the other authors of the New Testament as somehow not telling falsehoods of some kind.
After all...neither the Gospel authors, nor Paul, actually name their sources.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

-Why would anyone have invented the tale that Jesus existed?

Jesus may have been invented in response to the Roman occupation of Israel. First-century Palestine was a pressure cooker ready to explode, and many Jews were looking to the promised Messiah to save them and usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was that Messiah sent by God from heaven. He was just what many Jews were looking for in fulfillment of the scriptures not to mention his having all the best that the pagan saviors had to offer. So Jesus might have been invented to become the Jewish version of the mythic-hero archetype.

-Who "invented" Jesus, and why?

One of the most likely inventors of Jesus is Paul of Tarsus. His epistles are some of the earliest writings of the New Testament, and he wrote that his Jesus was a result of a revelation to him. (Galatians 1:12) So Paul either made up Jesus or hallucinated him.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 4 by Jagella]

First-century Palestine was a pressure cooker ready to explode, and many Jews were looking to the promised Messiah to save them and usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was that Messiah sent by God from heaven. He was just what many Jews were looking for in fulfillment of the scriptures not to mention his having all the best that the pagan saviors had to offer.

As an aside, it never fails to amuse me that whenever a Christian promotes Jesus as having fulfilled scripture, of being the Jewish Messiah, they are inevitably ignoring the fact that the Jewish Messiah, as said in the very texts that the Christian points to, was supposed to be a warrior-king who would drive out the foreign invaders.
Several times on this website, I have debated such Christians. They will cite Bible scriptures, I will look them up...and those scriptures describe the so-called Messiah as repelling the invaders through military means; which obviously Jesus never did.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 4 by Jagella]

First-century Palestine was a pressure cooker ready to explode, and many Jews were looking to the promised Messiah to save them and usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was that Messiah sent by God from heaven. He was just what many Jews were looking for in fulfillment of the scriptures not to mention his having all the best that the pagan saviors had to offer.

As an aside, it never fails to amuse me that whenever a Christian promotes Jesus as having fulfilled scripture, of being the Jewish Messiah, they are inevitably ignoring the fact that the Jewish Messiah, as said in the very texts that the Christian points to, was supposed to be a warrior-king who would drive out the foreign invaders.
Several times on this website, I have debated such Christians. They will cite Bible scriptures, I will look them up...and those scriptures describe the so-called Messiah as repelling the invaders through military means; which obviously Jesus never did.

That's why the 2nd coming was invented. He didn't bring deliverance the first time around, but the 2nd time around, Jesus was supposed to have fulfilled all those Scriptures which promised defeat of the Roman occupiers.

Yes, the Romans no longer occupy Israel, but there is NT evidence that early Christians expected Jesus to return in their own lifetimes. (Mt. 16.28 and many other passages) That return was supposed to have happened in time for Jesus himself (and the Father's angels) to oust the Romans.

[Willum]

[Replying to rikuoamero]

For the sake of conversation; Isnt the greatest warrior the one who wins without bloodshed? Wouldnt that make Jesus a great warrior?
Lets face it,his passive victories are some of the greatest in the world. And then we can consider all the wars fought in his name...
That makes them his, right?

[bjs]

[Replying to Willum]

The passage about paying taxes to Caesar takes up 8 verses in Matthew, 5 verses in Mark, and 7 verses in Luke. It is not found in Johns gospel. We can also throw in Pauls comments about submission to authorities from Paul in Romans (7 verses) and Peters comments about submitting to rulers in First Peter (5 verses). That is a total of 32 verses.

There are 7,957 verses in the New Testament. So 0.4% of the New Testament deals with paying taxes to Rome or submitting to Roman authority.

Is your theory that the other 99.6% of the New Testament was made up to justify that 0.4% that was beneficial to Rome?

Do you consider it at all possible that the 0.4% is not the central message, but a small part of much larger message; a message that affects the Roman Empire only to the point that a civil government affects the lives of all of its citizens?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to rikuoamero]

For the sake of conversation; Isnt the greatest warrior the one who wins without bloodshed? Wouldnt that make Jesus a great warrior?
Lets face it,his passive victories are some of the greatest in the world. And then we can consider all the wars fought in his name...
That makes them his, right?

Even so...Jesus did not expel the invaders, whether with military might or without. Even the Jewish uprising a few decades after his death failed to do that.
I know you're only joking, but pretending for a moment you're being serious, this then means that Jesus is to be considered as having fulfilled prophecy, as long as the actual acts in question were done by other people but in his name.
This removes any requirement of the man Jesus son(?) of Joseph of having done anything noteworthy himself. Jesus healed the sick! Actually, it was healers performing rudimentary medicine at his orders and it still somehow counts.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 7 by bjs]

Is your theory that the other 99.6% of the New Testament was made up to justify that 0.4% that was beneficial to Rome?

Hey...don't underestimate a good conspiracy! Maybe they did! Maybe they thought something like (and I'm only thinking of how I'd do it), that if they make it a small part (percentile wise) of the overall work, that believers will accept the whole thing, including submission to Rome as an after-thought and not think much of it. After all, as you yourself pointed out...submission to Rome makes up only a tiny fraction of a fraction of the works produced. Why labour on debating that, when we've got a god man dropping miracles left right and center?
After all, Rome evidently wanted their subjects paying taxes, they more than likely didn't care how much importance their subjects gave it in terms of thought. As long as Jews paid taxes, Rome's happy. If it's just one teaching out of many in a corpus...meh. Rome still gets the tax.

Besides...doesn't this happen in modern politics? Something gets stabled (sometimes quite literally) to a different bill on debate, thus making it a much smaller piece of a whole, but is rather the whole point of what its authors really want.