I am an atheist and I care about the truth. It is very very difficult to get a historical Jesus to fit the data. We have to assume so many people acted in unexpected ways in a precise sequence of events.
You are right however sometimes mythology does have roots in the truth. Judaism already had a story about a man leading a revolt, dying in combat, and his young follower taking over. The Macabees. James the Just would have been able to exploit that story in creating his mythical brother.
Fair. We do have documents from decades within his supposed life, those are the documents I am addressing.
Another fun thing to learn about this stuff: some of documents we have pointed to a Messiah figure of a 100 years prior. If that was the case Paul was dealing with an old cult that had made up a century worth of tales. This might be why Luke’s timeline was so different and why John couldn’t seem to figure out why so many stories happen in Jerusalem.
There really is no way to make a historical Jesus fit the data. We have a very clear idea of what the first half of the first century was like and to accept a historical Jesus means to accept that everything we know there is wrong.
I am an atheist and I care about the truth. It is very very difficult to get a historical Jesus to fit the data. We have to assume so many people acted in unexpected ways in a precise sequence of events.
You are right however sometimes mythology does have roots in the truth. Judaism already had a story about a man leading a revolt, dying in combat, and his young follower taking over. The Macabees. James the Just would have been able to exploit that story in creating his mythical brother.
I won’t be terribly surprised to hear that someone who allegedly lived and died 2000+ years ago might have a less than transparent story.
Fair. We do have documents from decades within his supposed life, those are the documents I am addressing.
Another fun thing to learn about this stuff: some of documents we have pointed to a Messiah figure of a 100 years prior. If that was the case Paul was dealing with an old cult that had made up a century worth of tales. This might be why Luke’s timeline was so different and why John couldn’t seem to figure out why so many stories happen in Jerusalem.
There really is no way to make a historical Jesus fit the data. We have a very clear idea of what the first half of the first century was like and to accept a historical Jesus means to accept that everything we know there is wrong.