There’s lots of ambiguous information. There is no firsthand, historically agreed upon data that supports his existence in the form we know him today. In other words, there was no magical guy doing magical things.
There is no Roman record of “nailed 3 prisoners to the posts today; Bill, Roger, and Jesus the magic guy who was a pain in the ass.”
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story. Arthur was possibly just a chieftain of a group who fought a couple of hefty battles and made a name for himself, but he ended up being an almost magical figure with wizards and witches in the story and - guess what, he will “rise again” from the dead when needed. And no, rising from the dead isn’t owned by Christian religious figures, Osiris of Egypt did it, Dionysius of the Greek Pantheon among many others. So maybe some dude, who probably wasn’t named Jesus, caused a stir and got a few people to take note. That grew over hundreds and even thousands of years to what we have now.
Want to know why King Arthur isn’t a competitor to Jesus? He a) doesn’t offer the opportunity to control people in this life for the hope of an afterlife, b) he isn’t profitable.
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century, with the Gospels and Paul's letters being written decades apart, as well as Church Father's writings being very consistent. Main differences has been the Roman Catholic Church developing their own doctrine such as Purgatory over time, while the Orthodox and the Protestants tend to reject such developments.
So if it is just a legend, something must have happened to cause a consistent story to develop fairly quickly in comparison to the likes of other legends.
You mean besides a couple dudes running around telling us to be cool to each other?
You didn’t even read the wiki entry, did you.
I did, and it's already knowledge we know about the early church
You said:
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century
The article says:
Little is fully known of Christianity in its first 150 years; sources are few.
So you’re making a huge, sweeping statement that Christianity as we know it today is based on something…we don’t know much about? There are 6 major Christian denominations, not to mention hundreds of smaller ones. Which one is the “as-is” one? The one that is exactly “as-is” from CE 100?
You're forgetting that denominations aren't actually that different. They all ascribe to the fundamental beliefs in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We do have the Acts of The Apostles as well which documents the early church. The New Testament was written within 100 years of Jesus and all Christians still follow it
Nonetheless they are different. And you skipped past the whole “little is known” part, not to mention all the parts that got tossed out along the way.
But things like church structure, importance of tradition and beauty, exact liturgy formats aren't fundamental to the faith. The fundamentals stayed the same. The only real evolution was Roman Catholicism which adopted additional dogmas over time, but that's it really.
See, now you’re moving the goalposts. You made a sweeping statement that Christianity is as-is compared to the first century CE. Yet here you are breaking it down and excluding things.
Let’s just face it, you don’t mean Christianity as a whole is same as 2kyr ago. It isn’t. They held on to some facets of it, got rid of others, but kept the main themes like resurrection and the like. Heck, there are even some that suggest the resurrection story was added centuries later.
I said it was as-is in the context of your statement. Your claim was that the figure of Jesus had evolved over hundreds of years like King Arthur. I said that no, the doctrine surrounding Jesus was basically as-is. Now you're being pedantic about it. The fact is, 99% of the things believed about Jesus nowadays was believed by first century Christians. We can use the New Testament as a source for that, as they are what our beliefs are based on. There are no early records about a Jesus existing that show him not being a divine miracle worker who rose from the dead. Unlike figures - even Christian figures such as St Patrick who had later attributions of legend like leading snakes out of Ireland, or even the Virgin Mary in the Assumption of Mary, Conceived without sin, perpetual virginity, etc. All of which are found centuries later than the original documents actually surrounding Mary, some of which could have even been written in her lifetime.
That’s not what I said.
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story.
That’s what I said.
I used Arthur as a fellow mythology, along with a conditional “or” he could be an aggregate character.
The moment of resurrection itself is not described in any of the gospels, but all four contain passages in which Jesus is portrayed as predicting his death and resurrection, or contain allusions that "the reader will understand". The New Testament writings do not contain any descriptions of a resurrection but rather accounts of an empty tomb.
So therefore I stand by the premise that changes have been made, and what existed in 100 is not what we have today.
You’ll have to forgive me if I bow out. I do not share your beliefs, nor am I willing to continue to argue over religious texts that are self-referencing to constitute proof.
No.
There’s lots of ambiguous information. There is no firsthand, historically agreed upon data that supports his existence in the form we know him today. In other words, there was no magical guy doing magical things.
There is no Roman record of “nailed 3 prisoners to the posts today; Bill, Roger, and Jesus the magic guy who was a pain in the ass.”
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story. Arthur was possibly just a chieftain of a group who fought a couple of hefty battles and made a name for himself, but he ended up being an almost magical figure with wizards and witches in the story and - guess what, he will “rise again” from the dead when needed. And no, rising from the dead isn’t owned by Christian religious figures, Osiris of Egypt did it, Dionysius of the Greek Pantheon among many others. So maybe some dude, who probably wasn’t named Jesus, caused a stir and got a few people to take note. That grew over hundreds and even thousands of years to what we have now.
Want to know why King Arthur isn’t a competitor to Jesus? He a) doesn’t offer the opportunity to control people in this life for the hope of an afterlife, b) he isn’t profitable.
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century, with the Gospels and Paul's letters being written decades apart, as well as Church Father's writings being very consistent. Main differences has been the Roman Catholic Church developing their own doctrine such as Purgatory over time, while the Orthodox and the Protestants tend to reject such developments.
So if it is just a legend, something must have happened to cause a consistent story to develop fairly quickly in comparison to the likes of other legends.
I think “as-is” is a bit of a stretch.
What exactly changed, then?
You mean besides a couple dudes running around telling us to be cool to each other?
You didn’t even read the wiki entry, did you.
I did, and it's already knowledge we know about the early church
You said:
The article says:
So you’re making a huge, sweeping statement that Christianity as we know it today is based on something…we don’t know much about? There are 6 major Christian denominations, not to mention hundreds of smaller ones. Which one is the “as-is” one? The one that is exactly “as-is” from CE 100?
You're forgetting that denominations aren't actually that different. They all ascribe to the fundamental beliefs in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We do have the Acts of The Apostles as well which documents the early church. The New Testament was written within 100 years of Jesus and all Christians still follow it
Nonetheless they are different. And you skipped past the whole “little is known” part, not to mention all the parts that got tossed out along the way.
But things like church structure, importance of tradition and beauty, exact liturgy formats aren't fundamental to the faith. The fundamentals stayed the same. The only real evolution was Roman Catholicism which adopted additional dogmas over time, but that's it really.
See, now you’re moving the goalposts. You made a sweeping statement that Christianity is as-is compared to the first century CE. Yet here you are breaking it down and excluding things.
Let’s just face it, you don’t mean Christianity as a whole is same as 2kyr ago. It isn’t. They held on to some facets of it, got rid of others, but kept the main themes like resurrection and the like. Heck, there are even some that suggest the resurrection story was added centuries later.
I said it was as-is in the context of your statement. Your claim was that the figure of Jesus had evolved over hundreds of years like King Arthur. I said that no, the doctrine surrounding Jesus was basically as-is. Now you're being pedantic about it. The fact is, 99% of the things believed about Jesus nowadays was believed by first century Christians. We can use the New Testament as a source for that, as they are what our beliefs are based on. There are no early records about a Jesus existing that show him not being a divine miracle worker who rose from the dead. Unlike figures - even Christian figures such as St Patrick who had later attributions of legend like leading snakes out of Ireland, or even the Virgin Mary in the Assumption of Mary, Conceived without sin, perpetual virginity, etc. All of which are found centuries later than the original documents actually surrounding Mary, some of which could have even been written in her lifetime.
That’s not what I said.
That’s what I said.
I used Arthur as a fellow mythology, along with a conditional “or” he could be an aggregate character.
So therefore I stand by the premise that changes have been made, and what existed in 100 is not what we have today.
You’ll have to forgive me if I bow out. I do not share your beliefs, nor am I willing to continue to argue over religious texts that are self-referencing to constitute proof.