The historical Jesus predicted a first-century doomsday

IntroductionI am grateful, and I thank my learned fellow debater for taking up the challenge of this debate.The Primary EvidenceThe three earliest extant/reconstructed sources of Christian traditions model Jesus as an apocalypticist. Further, all sources reflect a belief in an imminent deadline for the apocalypse. The New Testament evidences are as follows (per NRSV translation): (1) The authentic epistles of Paul -- 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ("we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died) and 1 Corinthians 15:50-52 ("We will not all die...").(2) The gospel of Q, via Matthew and Luke -- Luke 3:7 ("John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'"), Luke 13:22 ("He said to his disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear...'"), and Luke 13:40 ("You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour").(3) The gospel of Mark -- Mark 8-9:1 ("Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power") and Mark 13 ("Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place").The Two Competing ConclusionsIt does not necessarily follow, at this point in the reasoning, that Jesus was himself a preacher of the imminent apocalypse. But, there are only two conclusions that can be inferred from the unanimity of these multiple early attestations:Conclusion #1: Jesus was a preacher of the imminent apocalypse.Conclusion #2: Jesus was NOT a preacher of the imminent apocalypse, but all of the known immediate or close-to-immediate successors of Jesus were all believers in the imminent apocalypse, and they all spun the teachings of Jesus in that same direction.Methodology: Argument to the Best ExplanationI propose that Conclusion #1 is far more probable than conclusion #2. I admit that Conclusion #2 is possible, as are millions of other imaginable conclusions of ancient history, but I need only to make my case for Conclusion #1 with significantly greater relative certainty, not absolute certainty.The historical methodology of Argument to the Best Explanation (ABE) was developed by C. Behan McCullagh to help make decisions of the relative probabilities of competing explanations for the same evidence. ABE is composed of five essential criteria: explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, less ad hoc and disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs (Source: C. Behan McCullagh, 1984, Justifying Historical Descriptions via http://en.wikipedia.org...). I will make my case for Conclusion #1 with two of those five criteria: plausibility and less ad hoc. Both conclusions as they are stated are approximately equal in the remaining three criteria. PlausibilityThe criterion of "more plausible" states that a hypothesis "must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other..."Jesus was either the intended founder of a doomsday cult or the unintended founder of a doomsday cult. But, it is a sociological pattern that the apocalyptic prophecies of doomsday cults are almost always attributable to the respective cult founders/figureheads. If this pattern holds true, then, without very good reason, we should not believe that it is signifcantly possible that Jesus Christ is an exception.Martha F. Lee, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Windsor, Canada, primarily attributes belief in an imminent apocalypse to the success of a radical organization due to the urgent motivational nature of such beliefs.Some deep ecologists, and many of the original Earth First!ers, took this belief one step further. They also advocated biocentric equality, the belief that all species are intrinsically equal and therefore have an equal right to life. Earth First! transplanted these ideas from the realm of philosophical speculation to the realm of political action, adding to them the urgency of a belief in an imminent apocalypse. It is this millenarian transformation that directly motivated Earth First!'s actions and determined its development.Source: M.F. Lee (1995), "Environmental apocalypse: the millennial ideology of 'Earth first!'", in T. Robbins and S.J. Palmer (eds, 1997) Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, p. 124.This apocalyptic mentality is attributable to Dave Foreman, the primary co-founder of the Earth First! organization. According to Lee, Foreman adopted "a purely apocalyptic belief system" (Source: M.F. Lee, 1995, Earth First!: Environmental Apocalypse, p. 105).This is only one doomsday-cult-like organization, but many well-known doomsday cults follow this pattern, as listed below. Joseph Smith (LDS church) Lyndon LaRouche (LaRouche movement) Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses) Shukri Mustafa (Takfir wal-Hijra) Jim Jones (Jonestown) David Koresh (Branch Davidians) Shoko Asahara (Aum Shinrikyo) Claude Vorilhon (Raëlism) Li Hongzhi (Falun Gong) Dada Lekhraj (Brahma Kumaris) In each case, the founder gained a following seemingly in large part with a doomsday belief. An exception to this pattern is Haile Selassie I, the figurehead of Rastafarianism, who had a special advantage: he gained a following entirely through the position of a powerful state executive office. His followers developed the apocalypticism of the religion most fully, but apocalyptic prophetic language is found in Selassie's most famous speech, to the League of Nations in 1936:Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong government finds it may, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.Source: William Safire (2004), Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, p. 320.Less ad hocIt is a possibility that Jesus was analogous to Haile Selassie I, having his own sayings taken to the apocalyptic extreme. However, a strong case should be made for how Jesus managed to gain a strong following without apocalypticism and how this alternative method of cult control became secondary or nonexistent to the apocalypticism in all succeeding traditions.The criterion of "less ad hoc" states that a hypothesis "must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs." Conclusion #1 is much simpler than Conclusion #2: we have no need for a new alternative primary method of Jesus's cult control (such as Selassie's position as head of state) when the method of doomsday thinking is sufficiently explanatory and central in all of the earliest textual evidence. If we had evidence that speaks to the contrary, then an alternative explanation may be necessary, but no such contrary evidence seemingly exists.ConclusionIn summary, Conclusion #2 fails the criterion of plausibility given the strong historical patterns of doomsday cult founders, and it fails the criterion of less ad hoc given the need for a new supposition that is not strongly implied by existing evidence. This leaves only Conclusion #1: Jesus himself, not merely all of his known successors, preached the imminent doomsday.I await my contenders counterpoints. I have no doubt that I am in for a strong challenge.