Judging from your username, this won’t be a very effective rebuttal, but here goes anyway:
Trump.
You’re comparing Trump to Jesus?
Well, Jesus’s patsies (cf. gospel according to “mark”) have been fucking up the world for centuries; I doubt Trump’s rubes have anywhere near that much stamina.
Waitaminute. I always was under the impression that the Diaspora was something that happened after (and as a consequence of) the destruction of the Temple and the sacking of Jerusalem.
Was there more than one Diaspora?
Following Dangerosa, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Elvis sightings haven’t broken many physical laws, nor are they widely believed to have done so.
That 500 figure is in from one of Paul’s letters, 1 Corintheans 15. I quote a large section to give a sense of context. [INDENT][INDENT][INDENT] The Resurrection of Christ
15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,** and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
** Peter [/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT] Does that scan like a zombie story to you? Paul’s encounter looks to me like a spiritual one. Some of the earlier ones could conceivably been physical, given the quality of medical knowledge at the time, though it’s more likely that they were spiritual as well.
The vagueness of the description of the Jesus’s encounter with the 500 suggests to me that is was spiritual as well; otherwise the Bible would have gone into more detail about it.
But that’s not what subjects it to the critique that it’s Argument from Authority. That arises from your assertion that these worthies were convinced by the evidence, without your having established that any of them ever even considered the question.
I grant you that. Let’s call it a spiritual awakening, rather than a physical resurrection that breaks all known laws of nature. It’s a better explanation anyway. More plausible. So what we have here is a schism. Bunch of people have been converted to a new religion or faith. In modern day we would call that a cult, not much different than the Branch Davidians. A bunch of illiterate, poor, superstitious bronze age peasants are persuaded by a charismatic cult leader and his apostles to believe that the material world, in which they toil and suffer daily, is irrelevant now and that their reward is in heaven. And the way to get into heaven, is through spreading the word of absolute faith in a spiritually revived charismatic leader whom few if any of them ever met but have heard so much about, i.e. miracles, etc. They are so taken with their new revelations that they write letters and send messengers to harangue anyone who will listen. Better yet, become the new messenger of this pyramid scheme. You tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends… It’s A 2000 year old MLM scheme… a celestial Amway.
After the Babylonian Exile (58C.E.), many of the children and grandchildren of the nobility taken into captivity chose to remain in the land where they had grown up. Form that core group, a group of merchants arose, carrying goods and messages back and forth between Babylon and its successor states and Judea. From that group of merchants, a jewish merchant class grew up establishing centers in Egypt and the Mediterranean, eventually settling in Rome, itself.
That grup is not generally named the diaspora, but they were spread across a couple of empires.
There’s a reason the Snopes website continues to do a brisk business: some stories are compelling (for a variety of reasons) and are spread because of that, regardless of whether they are true or not. The story of Jesus’s death and resurrection is sometimes called The Greatest Story of All and there’s no denying that it is a deeply compelling one in many ways. But like so many other myths and legends (urban or otherwise), being compelling doesn’t mean it’s even slightly true. Indeed, the truth is often complicated, boring, unpleasant or all of the above, which makes it less likely to be promulgated. Pretty lies are nicer to think about.
Almost, but it’s more than that. I’d argue that the big selling point for many was more along the lines of: “Hey you. Yes, you - lowly slave/peon/other poor and insignificant person that everyone looks down on. You know the guy who created the whole universe? The one who outranks all those kings and emperors and landlords and all the other rich and important jerks in the world who are keeping you down? Well, He loves you, He cares about you, He thinks you’re important and after you die He will give you all sorts of cool stuff AND elevate you above all the aforementioned rich jerks who are currently making you miserable. That’s worth a few prayers now and then, no?”
And notice that Paul’s description of how Jesus appeared to him is of exactly the same nature that Jesus appeared to the twelve, and to the 500; and Paul’s encounter was a vision some years after Jesus’s death.
Is that a typo? It’s off by about 600 years.
Not surprisingly, UFOs and alien descriptions are remarkably similar. As are ghost sightings.
If all self-professed Christians were asked to list which events in the New Testament were spiritual, which were factual and which were parables/mythological would it even be possible to get two with matching lists?
Whether “most Christians” use it or not I can’t answer, but I was definitely taught this in sunday school as a youngster. This was a pretty mainline protestant church in So. Cal. in the late 70s/early 80s.
60’s and 70’s, Nazarene, Presbyterian, and various other churches-“God is Love”, “God is omnibenevolent” and a few other variants.
I always interpreted the main 3 omnis to be absolutes, but clearly “omnibenevolent” is not meant to be. As an absolute, it is nonsensical, so it must be a conditional or something. It loves you, but …
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying,
‘O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it
thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits,
in thy mercy.’
And the Lord did grin.
Your accusatory quote didn’t talk about your personal interpretation:
Besides the churches previously mentioned, it isn’t hard to find religious websites that promote the use of the word, like this one.
That’s because religions are really, really good at brainwashing people.
My mistake was in capitalizing diaspora (in Greek “scattering”). Modern sociologists are bringing the term back to that less-exclusive meaning, including people scattered by war, poverty, and, as in the Jewish populations in Rome, Greece, and Turkey, moving someplace to make a sestertius or two, open a branch office, dodge the draft, because one had knocked up a priest’s daughter, or any of the other myriad reason one moves far from home. These people, even today, often bear an affinity for Israel, and back then would travel back to make sacrifices at the Temple. These were not mass migrations, just trickles of individuals and families who would congregate in one part of town and open restaurants, thus attracting more homies to the neighborhood so they could have a minyan. Never underestimate the power of comfort food.
Replace “Serious Historians” with “Self-professed Christian” and you would get the same answer: No. I don’t think that’s much of an attack or even a profound observation.
As an aside, your characterizations aren’t mutually exclusive nor are they comprehensive. You left out moral.
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) listed 4 four meanings of Holy Scripture, historical (or literal), allegorical, tropological (or moral), anagogical (by analogy). The point is biblical literalism is a new development.
Aha! Interpreting scripture as mythology is probably closest to the original intent of said scripture.