That reminds me of the opening caption to the movie Caveman:
“One billion zillion B.C.
October 9th”
For my money, the year is a leeeeeeetle bit more important than the month and the day. 
Precisely.
Cite?
It was at least ten years before there was any “resurrection” story at all. There was no tomb or body to go check out. All that stuff was made up after the fact. Some apostles may have had visionary experiences after the crucifixion but the whole passion/three days in the tomb/physical resurrection bit was pretty much invented later and patterned on existing Greco-Roman pre-cursers. By the time Paul was literalizing the crucifixion it was impossible to falsify.
Really, this is just Occam’s razor at its finest. What is more likely, that a guy came back from the dead or that some people made up a story about a guy coming back from the dead. No offense, but I’m from Missouri on this one. :dubious:
Well put, Diogenes. This point is nicely illustrated by a scene near the end of Scorcese’s Last Temptation of Christ. After ducking out of his own crucifixion, Jesus meets up with Paul a couple decades later, and Paul explains that Jesus himself isn’t what the people want, that he can give them the philosophy surrounding Christianity, with a Jesus he creates out of whole cloth, add in a dash of hope for the suffering masses, and voila!
I’m no Christian, but I don’t think you need to be to understand what the religion is and how it “got started”, under the OP’s revised question. It really is Paul’s theology and the later benefit of official recognition by Rome that created what we now think of as Christianity. I’d say these are responsible for starting Christianity as we now think of it, an organized religion with a system of thought making both ethical and metaphysical claims about the universe. However if you revised your conception of Christianity, you might find an entirely different event at the source.
I’ve always found it intriguing that Paul never once quoted Jesus or referred to any of his teachings. Paul’s “Christ” seems to be a completely different character than the Jesus of the gospels.
No harder than it would be to convince people that there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet. Or that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel and translated scripture from gold tablets which mysteriously disappeared…
Well, according to Voltaire, Christianity started when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
Give me a break.
Read the New Testament. It was a bodily resurrection, since the individual appeared in bodily form. It was also a specific individual: Jesus Christ. Q.E.D.
Cite?
You claim that there was definitely no tomb. How do you know that? You say that there was no body. Again, what method of archaeology did you use to establish that fact?
You say that the resurrection story did not appear for at least ten years after Christ’s death. Again, on what basis do you make that very specific claim?
Dio, you fight my ignorance daily.
For reasons that I don’t even remember, I have used the term “the Christ” to refer to Jesus’ incarnation as the Divine and the name “Jesus” to refer to the part of him which was human. This may be a very strange question to ask, but do you know the origin of this belief?[/hijack]
I think the Church of Christ – the Protestant denomination – says that they were founded in A.D. 33. Not that I agree with them on that either…
Padmaraga:
Was he fooling around in Silicon Valley when he was twelve? 
I’m sorry to break it to you but the Bible is not a factual cite.
There is no written tradition of a resurrection until Paul in the 40’s and 50’s. The earliest sayings gospels (Q and Thomas) do not mention a resurrection. The first Canonical gospel (Mark) does not mention a resurrection. It is more than remarkable that the most significant event of Jesus’ ministry gets no mention in those documents which have the closest proximity to historical Jesus.
Paul never met Jesus, but he was the one who took this resurrection thing and ran with it. The gentiles bought the story, but now a couple of decades had elapsed before it Paul’s new theology really began to take hold and then BLAM Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. It’s doubtful that any “tomb” had been established by Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (in fact, there’s a pretty good chance that Jesus was never taken off the cross at all, just left there to rot), but after the Roman destruction and the ensuing diaspora any historical markers associated with Jesus were lost from history. The traditional sites of Cavalry and the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre were established somewhat arbitrarily by Constantine in the fourth century.
Mostly, though, the reason we know that there was no literal resurrection is because it’s, frankly, impossible. It is not unreasonable to assume that the impossible is impossible until proven otherwise.
I think it’s a convention that stems from how the terms are used in the New Testament. The gospels describe a living personality named Jesus who says and does certain things. Pauls speaks only of a resurrected “Christ.” He says virtually nothing about the life or teachings of Jesus, only his death and presumed resurrection. Paul’s Christ is pretty much void of any personality or message. He’s almost pure metaphor. Paul is concerned with what Christ was, not who he was.
Anyway, not to get too long winded about this, but the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul are, on the whole, the most read books in liturgical services so it just sort of gets stuck in the head that “Jesus” = living human and “Christ” = resurrected God.
Really? They say the Church of Christ was founded in 33 AD? Do they know that (if the chronology of the gospels is correct) the crucifixion could not have occurred any later than 29 AD?
Anyway, you’re a good Doper, you know the proper responce to an assertion like that is…
“Cite?”
Which is circular reasoning on your part. Moreover, we are talking about whether the tale of Christ’s resurrection is, as I said, “the bodily resurrection of a specific individual.” Regardless of whether you consider the resurrection to be true or not, the point remains that it WAS presented as an actual, physical resurrection of a specific individual – not at all analogous to the pagan “resurrections” that you alluded to.
None of which supports the claim you made, namely,
The written records might not have appeared until later, but that does not mean that 10+ years had elapsed before the story was told… as you specifically and unambiguously claimed.
Moreover, your claim is obviously absurd. If 10+ years had elapsed before the Apostles started spreading news about the Resurrection, then there is no way that they would have been taken seriously… ESPECIALLY by the Jews. As I said, the Jews did not worship the polytheistic pagan gods, and so they had no beliefs which were “awash with resurrected gods,” as you claimed.
But that’s not what you claimed earlier, where you specifically said,
A clear case of backpedalling (wiithout any historical cites, I might add). You went from the specific claim that there was absolutely no tomb or body to saying “Well, maybe there wasn’t a tomb, and maybe the body wasn’t taken down” (again, with absolutely no cites to back that claim up).
Not true. Paul mentioned Christ repeatedly – by my count, at least
[ul]
[li]67 times in the Epistle to the Romans[/li][li]61 times in I Corinthians[/li][li]43 times in II Corinthians[/li][li]38 times in Galatians[/li][li]49 times in Ephesians[/li][li]38 times in Philippians[/li][li]27 times in Colossians[/li][/ul]
and many more references in I and II Timothy, I and II Thessalonians, Titus and Philemon. Additionally, while Paul did not cover everything that Jesus taught (and why should he?), he did discuss matters that Jesus taught as well – topics as diverse as impure thoughts (Galatians 5:19-21), generous giving to charitable causes (II Corinthians 8:1-15), not focusing on worldly treasures (I Corinthians 15:32), rejoicing even in times of suffering (Philippians 2), the second Messianic coming (I Thess 5:2), and the final judgment (II Corinthians 5) – to name just a few.
Diogenes, it’s obvious that you’re spouting mere rumors and hearsay, when it comes to these matters. Your bold claim that Paul never once mentioned Jesus or his teachings demonstrates this amply.
However, you have not replied to the actual statement Diogenes made: while Paul invokes the name of Jesus on repeated occasions, it is rather difficult to find a place where Paul quoted Jesus. Paul frequently refers to the actions of Jesus (most prominently His death by crucifixion and resurrection, of course), but where is a reference to the Lord’s Prayer or the Beatitudes in Paul? Where can we line up a reference by Paul to Jesus with any of the quotations of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels, or in John’s Gospel. Off the top of my head, the only quotation of Jesus by Paul is in 1 Cor 11:23 - 25.
Careful and scrupulously fair investigation will lead intellectually honest people to the probable conclusion that Christianity’s true origins are actually to be found many hundreds of years prior to the reputed time of the legend of Jesus (and continue in different threads well after Jesus’ invention). Consider, for example:
Adad of Assyria
Adonis of Greece
Alcides of Thebes
Attis of Phrygia
Baal and Tuat, “the only Begotten of God,” of Phoenicia
Bali of Afghanistan
Beddru of Japan
Buddha of India
Cadmus of Greece
Crite of Chaldea
Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam
Divine Teacher of Plato
Fohi and Tien of China
Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico
Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids
Hil and Feta of the Mandaites
Holy One of Xaca
Indra of Tibet
Ischy of the island of Formosa
Ixion and Quirinus of Rome
Jao of Nepal
Krishna of India
Mikado of the Sintoos
Odin of the Scandinavians
Osiris and Horus of Egypt
Prometheus of Caucasus
Salivahana of Bermuda
Tammuz of Syria
Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls
Universal Monarch of the Sibyls
Wittoba of the Bilingonese
Xamolxis of Thrace
Zoar of the Bonzes
Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia
Zulis, or Zhule of Egypt
Although I don’t necessarily endorse each of them personally, readers may be interested to peruse the following links that explore these ideas a bit more fully…
Pagan Christs: Attis, Jesus, Krishna, Mithras, Osiris
The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ
Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
Hare Jesus: Christianity’s Hindu Heritage
Krishna and Jesus: Will The Real Savior Please Stand Up?
Shaken Creeds: Part II: The Virgin Birth Story
The Celestial Virgin of Sun Worship…Becomes the Virgin Mary of Christianity
The Virgin Birth Of Jesus Christ As Recorded In The New Testament… Is It A Sun-Myth Retold?
The Krishna and Christian Jesus Parallels
Examining the Crucifixion Of Jesus and Parallels to Crucified Sun-G-Ds
Linkages Between Two God-Men Saviors: Christ and Krishna
Specific Similarities Between The Lives of Jesus and Krishna
Was Jesus’ life a copied from other saviors/god-men/heroes?
Linkage between Jesus and various Pagan saviors: Introduction
Parallels between Christianity and ancient Pagan religions
Life events shared by Yeshua (Jesus) and the “Mythic Hero Archetype”
Parallels between the story of Jesus and Osiris-Dionysus
The list goes on and on showing the remarkable overall degree of similarities between the Jesus Myth and the earlier myths and legends which helped give rise (among several other unrelated elements) to its construction.
You cited a physical resurrection as though that wre a historical fact. I was only ponting out that the Bible is not a reliable source of historical fact. Other resurrections were also believed as physical resurrections of actual people. Jesus wasn’t the first even in that regard.
The fact that the resurrection is not present in the earlist written records is evidence that the resurrection was not present in oral tradition either. A faith which was supposedly founded on that one event, even if only in oral tradition, would not completely ignore it in its writings.
It’s not that clear that apostles did espouse a literal resurrection. None of them left any writings and we know virtually nothing about their missions. All we have is highly mythologized stories about them written long after the fact.
And, in point of fact, the Jews didn’t believe the resurrection story. Only the pagans did.
What I meant was that by the the time the resurrection story had evolved, enough years had passed that no one would have known where to even look for a tomb or a body. There certainly would have been no way to verify whether a particular skeleton belonged to Jesus in any case.
I say it was likely that Jesus was left in the cross because the Romans never took anybody off the cross. Crucifixion victims were always lft up to rot and be eaten by carrion birds as part of the punishment and as a vivid deterrent to others. Out of tens of thousands of Roman crucifixions, the remains of only one victim have ever been recovered. That’s how rare it was to take them off the cross. There was absolutely no reason for them to make an exception for Jesus.
It is probable that nobody ever really knew what had happened to Jesus’ body. His disciples scattered when he was arrested. He was taken away and crucified as a public menace and that was the end of it for while. The teachings of Jesus continued to spread, though, and so did his personal legend. The unknown whereabouts of Jesus’ body probably became symbolized as an “empty tomb” originally as a sign that he had been taken bodily up to Heaven. Paul went further with it and turned it into a literal resurrection. This caught on just fine with the pagans because they already believed in that kind of thing. The Jews never bought it for a second.
Like Tom~ said, I think you misunderstood my comment. I didn’t say that Paul never mentioned Jesus, i said he never quoted him or referred to his specific teachings. Even the quote from Corinthians cited by Tom is very likely from a pagan eucharistic ceremony and not truly a quote from historical Jesus. Paul seems either disinterested in or unaware of any of the parables, beatitudes, the Virgin Birth or even any miracles other than the resurrection. I find that very curious.
The point, JThunder, is that Paul had some concept of a mystical Christ which had been embodied in the historical Jesus but which was something that, e.g., the Church was metaphorically both Body and Bride of, that was a divinity in some way related to the God of the Old Testament (and though we now have formulas relating how, Paul is not explicit on this; don’t read them back into him) – and dealt little with the Man whose life and teachings are described in the (later-written) Gospels.
However, Diogenes is wrong in one minor point – There are a few direct quotations from Jesus in the Epistles, notably the Words of Institution for the Eucharist, in I Corinthians 11:24-25. This does not, however, refute his contention that Paul’s Christ and the Gospels’ Jesus seem to be two quite different figures to the casual reader. And that, I submit, is a problem worth addressing.
There are a few things that I think contradict your argument.
First, in Acts 6, when the disciples chose deacons, they were establishing new practices that are not Jewish. One of those deacons was Stephen, the first Christian martyr; Saul (later Paul) was a witness to his martyrdom.
Then, in Acts 8, we have Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch upon his confession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The eunuch was a Gentile convert, and wasn’t required to convert to Judaism first.
And when Saul goes to Damascus to persecute the believers in Acts 9, they are referred to as “followers of the Way”, not as heretical Jews.
Of course, once Paul was converted, he didn’t consider himself not a Jew any more. But he, as the other believers of the time, believed that Christianity was a continuation of Judaism in light of new revelation. Since the majority of Jews rejected that revelation, I can see how some might view the ensuing split as the “beginning” of Christianity. Maybe it is a semantic issue over the meaning of the word “beginning”.
As to reconciling Paul’s Christ with the Jesus of the gospels: in Acts when Saul is struck to the ground and hears “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” and Saul replies “Who are You, Lord?”, the answer he gets is “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” I take this as evidence that Paul knew that Jesus was the Christ (Greek for Messiah); in fact, Acts 9:22 says “But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.” And later verses (26-30) tell how Barnabas was Paul’s advocate before the disciples, telling them how Paul had “preached boldly in the name of Jesus” and “spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Paul/Saul also, as I mentioned earlier, was a witness to the martyrdom of Stephen and therefore also presumably heard Stephen’s speech that got him killed, so he knew which Jesus this was. The fact that Paul writes in his epistles things about Christ that a reader may not recognize as being the same as Jesus in the gospels seems to me to reveal more about the reader than about who Paul thought the Christ is.
By the way, I couldn’t let this error slip by (I thought someone else would’ve pointed it out first).
In the Old Testament, both Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-22) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:32-35) bring back to life young men who had died. Also, Jesus brought back to life a little girl (Mark 5:35-42).
Lazarus and Jesus are the only two people who came back from the dead after being dead and buried for several days.
As I said, The Jewish followers of Jesus still self-identified as Jews, not “Christians.” It wasn’t until Paul took his mission to the gentiles that it really became a discrete religion from Judaism.
BTW, Acts was written by a Christian gentile around 90 CE. It has a certain agenda, and it’s reading back a greater degree of tension and persecution into that period than probably existed historically. “Followers of the Way” is Luke’s term, a half century after the fact, and in the hindsight of knowing Christianity as a separate religion. In 40 CE they were just a Christian sect. Even if they did call themselves “Followers of the Way,” that would not have meant they didn’t self-identify as Jews, just as the Essenes still self-identified as Jews. Identification with a particular sect or teacher is not an ipso facto exit from Judaism
Yeah, Paul identified his “Christ” with the historical person of Jesus. I didn’t mean literally that it was a different person, only that I found it odd that Paul never talked about what Jesus said and taught, but only about the resurrection. If you only had the letters of Paul to go by, you would learn virtually nothing about the life or message or personality of Jesus of Nazereth, only a metaphysical “Christ,” who is kind of the literary equivelent of a painting on a stained glass window. He’s an icon not a person.