The historical Jesus Christ was a doomsday cult leader

Thanks again, ApostateAbe. == Too many arguments == My opponent only seems to respond to the arguments that I draw his attention to. As such, I'm not going to extend my best arguments until the last round, since it's not my job to tell my opponent which of my arguments he needs to respond to. == Apocalyptic Asceticism == Pro keeps saying I need to source everything (to the Nth degree), yet he doesn't source any of his claims about Jesus here for me to review (to see if more confusion is occurring with John the Baptist). As requested, I cited Biblical passages to prove my point. In Mark 2:18, someone asks Jesus why John the Baptist's followers are fasting but Jesus' followers are not. Clear contrast. Crossan also cited Matthew 11:18-19 and Luke 7:33-34. In this passage, Jesus is speaking to John's followers: "For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine . . . The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'" This passage comes right after Jesus has performed a number of miracles and convinced John's followers that he is the Son of Man (the Messiah). Jesus' point is this (paraphrased): "you rejected me because I did not share your asceticism, yet I have proven to you, through miracles, that I am in fact the Messiah." Lastly, Crossan cites Luke 7:27, where Jesus says, "John is the one about whom Scripture says, 'I am sending my messenger ahead of you to prepare the way.'" [1] Jesus isn't saying that he believes John is the Messiah, rather he is reminding John's followers in this passage about what JOHN has claimed: that he is the Messiah sent to teach and "prepare the way" for the apocalypse. In Luke 7:28, immediately thereafter, Jesus rejects John and says that although John is revered now as a great prophet, when we achieve the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, every single person will be better than John. This is why Crossan concludes that John the Baptist is marked by an "apocalyptic asceticism," whereas Jesus comes to reject everything that John stands for. My opponent cites Luke 5:33, but this is exactly the same as Mark 2:18, where someone is asking Jesus why his followers don't fast but John's do. Let's examine more of my opponent's claims: 1. My opponent claims that Jesus didn't marry and was thus not an ascetic. The Da Vinci Code explains why the 4th Century Vatican would want to purge any mention of Jesus' marriage or sexual relations from the gospels, since it did not square with their image of Jesus. At least this part of the Da Vinci Code is backed by textual evidence. The "rejected" Gnostic gospel, the Gospel of Philip, says that Jesus was Mary Magdalene's lover. [2] The early Church had obvious reasons to not want people to believe that Jesus may have had children, since there were political forces at the time within Christendom that were asserting that Jesus was ONLY a man, not a God. Kids would have reinforced this belief. Even if Jesus didn't marry, this doesn't mean he was an ascetic. All of the Biblical passages I cite above prove that he did NOT deny himself the other pleasures of the flesh, such as wine and food. The Essenes from the Dead Sea Scrolls mimicked John's beliefs: baptism, asceticism, and immanent doomsday. However, they managed to survive for quite awhile, so clearly they allowed procreation in their asceticism. There is no reason to believe that the asceticism of the time involved "no sex." In fact, most historians attribute the idea of celibacy to the later Christian Church. 2. My opponent claims that asceticism is a spectrum. All the passages I cite show that John and his followers were strictly ascetic, and Jesus and his followers were not. This spectrum argument is irrelevant, as are examples of modern monks. John would NOT have let his followers indulge in alcohol, as is clear from the passages above. 3. My opponent claims that Jesus did a 180 and then his followers did a 180 again back to asceticism. However, we saw in Mark 2:18 and Luke 5:33 that Jesus' followers were eating and drinking, but John's were not. Luke 7:27-28 shows that Jesus DID come to reject John's beliefs, although he was initially baptized by John. It is not that far-fetched to believe that Jesus became enthralled by John initially, but quickly came to reject him. 4. Bart Ehrman So far, there is no textual evidence that the followers of Jesus, after his death, were apocalyptic ascetics. Even if they were, it's not Jesus' fault they didn't listen to his preaching. The History Channel explains, in a special on the historical Jesus, that whoever he was (if he existed), he was probably only recognized as a minor preacher at the time. He may have wielded little to no influence. The romanticization of Jesus took quite awhile, which is why none of the gospels are primary sources and are all written well after his death. == King Arthur == Honestly, this is just a Red Herring, since it has nothing directly to do with the historical Jesus. I only brought it up as an interesting tidbit. Besides, MANY historians have argued that the Arthur we know today is merely an amalgamation of different stories from different cultures, combining oral tales of both real and mythical people from various different peoples across England. Although Arthur was undoubtedly Welsh, the Scotts have their own oral traditions claiming that Arthur was Scottish. The one thing Cornwell says VERY explicitly is that the MOST historically inaccurate portrayals of Arthur only arose once he was co-opted by Christian authors. The grail stories, for example, are bastardizations of the Celtic cauldron stories. If anything, this proves to us that early Christian "historians" had no love of the truth. == Jesus is a copycat of pagan Sun gods == Once again, my opponent cherry picks the one argument he thinks he CAN answer, and leaves untouched all the other similarities, such as each God dying for three days (which represents the Winter Solstice), Bethlehem referring to the constellation Virgo (The Virgin) from whence the Sun is born on Dec 25, Horus resurrecting Lazarus, etc. My opponent only takes issue with the crucifixion of Horus. There are plenty of primary source to prove this. For example, the book "The Christ Conspiracy" asserts Horus was crucified and says, "The list of sources cited in the chapter "Was Horus 'Crucified?'" includes: ancient Egyptian primary sources such as the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead and other artifacts; the writings of the ancient historians Herodotus and Plutarch," etc. [3] Another book, "Christ in Egypt," contains 120 footnotes to prove this claim about Horus. [3] All of the claims about the ancient gods are based on textual evidence. They aren't "made up by Youtube," as my opponent suggests. Historians obviously have the means to know the basic beliefs regarding ancient deities. The implication of this argument, once again, is that the unknown authors of the "true" gospels copied heavily from pagan religions and are thus not to be trusted. Obviously, the "historical" Jesus did not come back to life, so this is a blatant lie. The two genealogies are utter fabrication. If Mark, Luke, Paul, and John are liars, why should we trust anything they say? How do we know Jesus isn't a complete fabrication? == 3 Kings == If arguments A, B, and C each prove Y separately, it doesn't matter if you refute C. There are so many similarities between Jesus and the other Sun gods that this one piece of evidence is unnecessary. But the Christian artwork depicting the 3 Kings and Jesus with a halo (i.e. the sun), were obvious attempts to woo the pagans into Christianity. If the early Church was concerned with wooing pagans, why not fabricate the entire Jesus story to read like a pagan Sun god myth? [1] http://www.biblestudytools.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://stellarhousepublishing.com...