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Pantagathus

The 'Idea' of Jesus in Plato?

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While reading the exchange about the veracity of Jesus in the Christmas thread, something Jud posted joggled me a bit...

Historian Durant draws the conclusion:

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And don't forget that the Judeans had been developing the concept of their Messiah/Christ for several centuries. It doesn't seem that large a step from "He is coming" to "He is here!" especially in a world where comparatively no one will be an eyewitness and news is almost exclusively word-of-mouth (remember, the group of "eyewitnesses" was limited to a dozen or fewer individuals).

 

Besides, developing an entire religion from scratch isn't all that difficult; L. Ron Hubbard came up with Scientology almost overnight, supposedly on a bet. Then, there's Mohammed, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Anton Levay, Ayn Rand... That's just off the top of my head; give me some time and I'm sure I can come up with a much larger list.

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I also subscribe to the Caesar's Clementia/Jesus' "Turn the other cheek", and the Augustan Divus filius/Son of God theory. Early christianity did an excellent job of erradicating the obvious.

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Perhaps examining a student of Plato would be good, and what better than Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and the idea of the high-minded man. If Aristotle had a version of Jesus, this kind of Christ sure as heck did not care for the poor but rather his own upper society. Though Aristotle differed from Plato in the idea of eudaimonia and telos, I would assume that they were much more similar philosates.

Edited by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

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Zeus is similar to the Christian God in other ways. In the old myths, he is more agressive and thunderous, a god which orders Prometheus to be punished for helping mankind. A bit similar to the God of the old Testament, who orders others to kill on his behalf.

 

Yet in the new Testament, God is kind and benevolent towards others who disagree with him. His son preaches forgiveness etc. In this way he is similar to Zeus as described in the passage posted by Pantagathus.

 

I am not saying that they are both the same or that one was based on the other. Yet, there are strange similarities in their attitudes. Once angry and judgemental in the old descriptions, then benevolent in the newer ones.

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Christianity was never followed by its founder, christ, and yet it is based on his teachings, so you must draw the conclusion that it came from previous religions (jewdaism). The core of the religion is the bible, and that is half Jewish, and the new testiment was not completed within a life-time of christ.

In the original quote the word "invented" is used to describe a personality (i can only understand this as the personality of Jesus, correct me if i'm wrong) but as i undersatnd and belive (although im no christian), Jesus existed and even if he didnt perform miracles, he did have a "winning" personality. Christianity was Judaeism changed by Jesus, and changed again by the writers of the bible, not something invented in a lifetime.

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...but as i undersatnd and belive (although im no christian), Jesus existed

 

That is your understanding and belief, but are they based up by any evidence, whatsoever?

Edited by Marcus Caelius

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That is your understanding and belief, but are they based up by any evidence, whatsoever?

 

That's the same as asking did Moses exist, or does the bible exist. Of course they do. No Christian wrote about Jesus only Jews and Romans did. So I don't know where the conspiracy theory is, unless someone here wants to explain it to me? Or argue with my History book.

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No Christian wrote about Jesus only Jews and Romans did.

 

What Jews and/or Romans wrote about Jesus?

 

BTW, it means absolutely nothing that someone "wrote about Jesus." If that is the extent of your evidence and reasoning, then by that same criteria we have also just established the historical existence of Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. It is possible to see "Jesus" as nothing more than a personification of collected folklore that gained an international audience.

Edited by Marcus Caelius

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What Jews and/or Romans wrote about Jesus?

 

BTW, it means absolutely nothing that someone "wrote about Jesus." If that is the extent of your evidence and reasoning, then by that same criteria we have also just established the historical existence of Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. It is possible to see "Jesus" as nothing more than a personification of collected folklore that gained an international audience.

 

I can't believe I've come into this thread, but here goes...

 

I write from memory here, Marcus, but Josephus is the ancient author who has a couple of lines about the actual person later known as Jesus in his History. However, I am certain that scholars have since proved this to be an interpolation. So, we do not, as you say, have an actual contemporary reference for his existence at all. (I am prepared to be shot down in flames on such an emotive topic - especially if someone else knows about this debate of the scholars over the Josephus reference)

 

As for me, I am not sure if he existed at all, and it is not something I spend many hours contemplating; but I would have sympathy with your idea of his being a creation of sorts. But if we accept this, we have to ask how Christianity did begin. Something or someone, or some group began it. Examining 'why' it began would, to my way of thinking, be far more interesting as a topic.

 

Just my two penn'orth.

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Pliny mentions the followers of Christus in his letters. Certainly not the man himself though who would have been dead some 100 years earlier. I can understand questioning his exsistance, but as Augusta states, something or someone or some group began Christianity, I don't doubt this was begun by an individual, as in the case of a number of mainstream religions.

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The educated Christians I have met from the High Churches all seem more or less aware of how early Christianity was immersed in the language of Greco-Roman philosophy, especially Platonism and Stoicism. What interests me about the current Pope is that he is an extremely well educated, thoughtful individual who explicitly grounds the Christian experience in the traditions of Rome and Byzantium. Like his politics or not, he is a Traditionalist with keen historical understandings.

 

Now I live in a rather rural area. Some of the less educated Protestant cults around here probably haven

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Protestant do not have anything to do with the early beginnings of the church. It branched out of the Catholic church taking out the alter and mass having only 2 of the 7 sacrements. Catholicism and Orthodoxy are the apostolic churches. That is why a lot of Protestants like to attack us a lot of the time. Anything not part of the apostolic church is a sect also known as a cult.

 

Orthodoxy-Byzantine Greek

Catholicism-Roman Latin

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The Western experience aside, can we not find a variety of

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