Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Jesus's bloodline mystery and two different Jesus's was (I'm God.)
From: kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 16 Oct 92 00:33:18 EDT
Organization: Wesleyan University

In article <1992Oct15.165610.16413@digi.lonestar.org>, gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:
> In article <1992Oct15.000818.1@eagle.wesleyan.edu> kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Oct14.175552.13136@digi.lonestar.org>, gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:
>>
>>   BTW, which "archetypal myths" are you talking about?
> 
> Dionysus, for example, and the god-hero stories like
> Gilgamesh and Oedipus. 
>
>   [etc.]

   It's interesting to note that two of those are Greek and 
one Babylonian, both cultures with which Palestine had close
cultural contacts in the centuries before Jesus.  It would be
hardly surprising if they rubbed off some on the Jews.  There
are other examples of gods taking human form in other religions
around the world, but as far as my limited knowledge of them 
goes few if any are similar in any way to the gospel accounts
of Jesus.  

   I also find it hard to comprehend how you can even associate
Jesus fulfilling archetypes with the examples above.  I don't 
recall Oedipus ever rising from the dead or, for that matter, 
being a god-man.  And I don't see how you can mention Dionysius
with anything related to Christianity in the same post, unless
to say they are complete opposites.  If you want to make comparisons
to the Greeks Jesus was much closer to Heracles; a wandering 
philosopher-demigod who arranged his own death and ascended 
directly to heaven.

   Even if one assumes the parts of your arguments I've addressed 
up to this point to be correct, it still leaves you with the 
question of who is right.  If you're saying that there were 
numerous accounts of god-heros in human history that are told
in great detail as if they were real, it makes your argument
with regard to Jesus to be weaker than if I have been wrong 
above.  It means that Jesus is just another one in the crowd,
(and one with about a dozen conflicting stories about him at 
that) and you have absolutely no way of telling which one is 
right.

> No one had ever suggested that they might
> be based on concrete supersensible realities.

   I'm sorry, but even if they are for some reason right
they are most certainly *not* supersensible.  Is it super-
sensible that someone should walk on water and rise from the
dead? 

> As for the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled, this would 
> take another longer posting.  But I agree that trying to
> prove the divinity or messiahship of Christ by mapping Old
> Testament prophecies to passages in the gospels is not a
> very good approach for most people, especially when most people
> today don't even take the original prophecies seriously let
> alone any claim of their fulfilment. 

   And especially when virtually all of the ones cited are 
done by twisting the words, taking them out of context, or
blatantly misinterpreting them.  A common one is the Suffering
Servant verse in Isaiah, which is often used by Christians as 
a prophesy of Christ's suffering when it is quite obvious if one
reads the whole verse that it is refering to the nation of Israel,
not the Messiah.  Over the summer I got a pamphlet from a 
fundamentalist group in my newspaper box (an illegal use of it, 
but that's another issue) that contained about two dozen Biblical
quotes that it claimed were refering to Jesus.  I went through 
a Bible and found that I could refute all but two of them as being
patently false interpretations.  I wrote a letter to them outlining
all this, but for some strange reason they never wrote back.

> I don't think the accusation that the stories were made up to
> prove the claims for the divinity of Christ holds up under careful 
> examination.  For one thing, most of what they relate is so contrary
> in overall characteristics to what people were expecting in the Messiah
> that they could have done a better job of fabricating it out of whole
> cloth if that were their aim. 

   You're partly right.  But they could only go so far in writing
a story of Jesus' life; they could put in rumors about walking on 
water and feeding five thousand, but they couldn't make him into 
a triumphant figure who would wipe out all the enemies of Israel.
Christianity would not exist if he were described as that when it
was clear that the Romans still existed, and it probably also 
wouldn't be around if there were not quotes in the gospels to 
attest to his fulfillment of OT prophesies despite his not appearing
as the Messiah was expected to be.

> In my opinion,
> they are somewhat debased when they are used as a club in logical debate to 
> persuade unbelievers and can be as much of a stumbling block as a stepping
> stone (to mix metaphors).

   Not the least because of the inconsistencies and contradictions
in them.

Karl