What is a Plausible Naturalistic Explanation for the Origin of Christianity?

by leavingwt 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  dgp

  I am yet to read the link you posted, Leaving, but I can tell you this much. In my opinion, some Jew may have been speaking up against the authorities of his time. That guy had a bunch of friends. Apparently he said he would return from the dead. He may have been crucified, or not, and after his death his buddies started telling people about the things they claimed he had done. The message got distorted along the way and over the years, and then got written down. Some other people wrote more things, and after so many years someone had the idea that some of all the books circulating had been inspired by the heavenly father of the man who may have died in the cross. Receiving this new light took them some centuries, but then it came and, voila, the Word of God was created. The writings were distorted again, only this time in writing, and all the Christian factions were fighting each other tooth and nail over things they never saw, until Constantine gave official power to one of those factions, which promptly sent every other Christian to Hell.

  The man need not have been divine. It may have all been the human mind at its worst.
• 

  leavingwt

  Pistoff -- Thank you. I'll check out those authors.

  Slimboyfat -- That sounds like an interesting book. I hadn't heard of it until now. Thank you.

  dgp -- Thank you. Very interesting.
• 

  dgp

  For what it's worth, the Passover Plot is in line with my hunch of what really happened.
• 

  dgp

  By the way, Amazon is selling The Passover Plot:

  http://www.amazon.com/Passover-Plot-Special-40th-Anniversary/dp/1932857095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277251224&sr=8-1

  Ehrman has a website: http://www.bartdehrman.com
• 

  leavingwt

  FYI, Reppert's entire comment is here:

  http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-are-all-naturalistic-explanations.html#c8973832938771156935

  Here's a little bit of info about Reppert:

  Dr. Victor Reppert (born 1953) is an American philosopher best known for his development of the Argument from Reason. He is the author of C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea (2003) and numerous academic papers in journals such as Christian Scholars' Review, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Philo and Philosophia Christi. He is also a philosophy blogger, with two blogs. [1]

  Dr. Reppert is an adjunct professor of philosophy at Glendale Community College in Arizona. [2] He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy (1989) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

  Below is most of Loftus' response to Reppert, including the reading list I mentioned above.

  I think this is the challenge for the skeptical community, a challenge that deserves a book length response. Something on the lines of what I wrote here, expanded.
  
  So let me offer several key books that help to do this, okay?
  
  On the Bible as a whole:
  
  The Secret Origins of the Bible
  
  On the Old Testament in general:
  
  Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
  
  Who Wrote the Bible?
  
  Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmologies:
  
  Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Mesopotamian Civilizations, 8)
  
  On Hell:
  
  The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds
  
  On Satan:
  
  The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots
  
  On the New Testament:
  
  Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth
  
  On the Gospels:
  
  Who Wrote the Gospels?
  
  The Christian Faith:
  
  Not the Impossible Faith
  
  Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium
  
  The Resurrection of Jesus:
  
  The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave
  
  Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?
  
  On Early Christianities:
  
  Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
  
  Early History of Church Doctrine:
  
  When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome
  
  Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 years
  
  There are other books, many others. Just look at the many SBL publications, or Fortress Press, SCM Press, Cambridge Press, Anchor Press.
• 

  VoidEater

  I think tracing the Redeemer motif and the Resurrected Man archtype has been done by Jung and Campbell. Leolaia has probably at least commented on the subject here. It's really just a matter of belief accretion.
• 

  dgp

  Thank you very much, Leaving.
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  leavingwt

  VoidEater -- I had to Google "accretion". Thank you. (Defined as, "increase by external addition or accumulation".)
• 

  Damocles

  William McNeil in his history of the world suggests it may have much to do with the changing nature of disease in the centuries before and after Jesus. He argues that common childhood diseases of our day hit the ancient world in Jesus time much the same way the diseases hit native americans with the coming of the europeans - it decimated them. As disease struck nearly everyone, and the group religions of the day had little answer to the problem, then personal religions began to dominate. He gives a number of examples that I forget exactly. He also ascribes much of the fall of the roman empire to the same basis of disease.

  In essence, as roman influence spread through the eurasian continent, diseases formerly isolated to certain regions began to sweep through the empire. New religions, like christianity, were formed in response and emphasized the personal nature of religion and relationship with god as well as the reward after death.

  But why christianity in particular? That goes to the nature of Jesus. In my opinion, he was a skilled poet. Compare his writings with Shakespeare's. Much the same emphasis on beautiful language and comfort with little in the way of practical advice. His followers then supplied the theology and religous trappings to the beautiful language, metaphors and parables.

  At least thats how I think of it.

  Damocles
• 

  XJW4EVR

  What is a Plausible Naturalistic Explanation for the Origin of Christianity?

  I have yet to hear one. However, if someone would simply produce the body of Jesus, I would have serious grounds to dismiss Christianity and join the atheists.