"To make the story even more obviously a mythical creation, Matthew will tell us later that this Jesus was a carpenter's son (Matt. 13:55). Very few kings in real life will notice the birth of a commoner, much less become involved in a defensive plot of protecting the throne from the threat such a child would bring. These motifs in Matthew's original birth story of Jesus are clearly not history...
"...no reputable biblical scholar today would seriously defend the historicity of these magi. This story, which is told only in Matthew, has about it all the marks of an interpretive sermon, developed rather dramatically from a passage in Isaiah 60..."
Bishop Shelby Spong, Jesus for the Non-Religious (18)
These are the words of Bishop Spong, a well-known and widely respected authority on Christianity who appears on the mainstream media yet is here basically saying the same things I am, except that I go on to apply the same analysis and make the same general conclusions concerning many other aspects of the gospel story, particularly, of course, the supernatural motifs such as the virgin birth, miracles, transfiguration, resurrection and ascension. Essentially the entire basic tale. The rest can be explained by ancient mysteries sayings, as well as elements out of certain individuals' lives. Thus, my basic premise is that the New Testament story of Jesus Christ is a mishmash of Pagan mythical motifs, Old Testament scriptures and various biographical details from a number of individuals.
"The New Testament story of Jesus Christ is a mishmash of Pagan mythical motifs, Old Testament scriptures and various biographical details from a number of individuals."
Naturally, being a former Episcopalian/Anglican bishop, Spong finds a "baby Jesus" somewhere underneath all these mythical layers, whereas I say that if you keep digging down in precisely the same way, with as much data as you can possibly have, you will find no historical core to that mythological onion. Indeed, a composite of 20 people, whether mythical, historical or both, is still no one.
Further Reading
The Christ Conspiracy Articles
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|2011-01-04 01:34:10 AnonymousQuite so ,quite so....i find Christians are very clever at lying , but that's what one would expect ! Who has persecuted the Jews for centuries ?well i found a few lyres in our midst too you know ...it's the nature of scum to lie to cover up their dirty deeds ! Caught behind the toilets ?peeking through the keyhole ?Thats why potato sacks are a must at all times !simply smacking women won't do ...they must not take our minds off Yahweh ! Yahweh counts ,ourway does not !Oh for a silken garb and dirty potato sacks and fine golden streets ! conversations in Yiddish and long black hats ! Jerusalem oh the holy city what yids and kids will wallow in delight in !Bokertov !
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|2011-08-04 18:55:30 Jesse TolerSprong, like Marcus Borg, Dominic Crossan and Robert Price all begin with a metaphyscial naturalism that first of all rejects any notion that miracles can even occur. For a fuller treatment of the historical Jesus, Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig and N.T. Wright should be consulted before any dogmatic position is taken.
For example, N.T Wright notes that the visit of the Magi was not only possible, but likely [see, 'Matthew for Everyone, p. 8ff]. Matthew didn't cast Jesus into the Propehts with an amalgamam of pagan myths, he had possession of personal knowledge or a genuine tradition that reminded him of the Prophetic literature he saw fulfilled in the life and experiences of the historical Jesus.
The only open question is the number of the Magi, not the visiation itself [see, NewAvent.org: Magi].
Hitler wrote: "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." —Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X
Christianity is a big lie.
Orwell provides further material to analyse this question. In 1984 he says: “The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts”. 'Blackwhite' means “To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed...”
The whole orthodox fable of the historical existence of Jesus Christ is a big lie, similar to the cynical Machiavellian description of the big lie by Hitler quoted above from Mein Kampf. There is no evidence for the existence of Christ, and abundant motive and means for the writers of the Bible to invent Him. This big lie of Christ has inserted a perversity into western culture, a gullible and dangerous willingness to accept mass deception, seen most vividly in the tragedy of the rise of Hitler. When Hitler came along, he found a people who were tuned up to accept lies on a grand scale, having been brainwashed for centuries to believe the false historical literal story that Jesus was an actual person, with the whole shebang of absurd dogma that rests on that absurd premise.
Christianity is very seductive, brilliantly targeted to address human emotion through the story of Christ as the perfect man. The construction of Christianity was a central major work of human genius, turning an ultimate spiritual truth into a materialist legend that grew to dominate the world. The fatal flaw in Christianity was that its founders wrongly assumed they could maintain the distinction between public lies and private truth. They failed to foresee how the public lie of literal faith would have the power and momentum to smash the private spiritual truth, once the lie was placed in the hands of unscrupulous bishops. Hitler learned indirectly from this historic lesson that confidence and momentum will overwhelm integrity and honesty any day.
When institutions are built upon shaky foundations, they lack the resilience to resist co-option and overthrow. Because the church believes absurdities, from the obvious such as the virgin birth to the subtle such as the existence of Christ, it makes society vulnerable to demagogues. Voltaire was highly prescient regarding Nazism when he said that belief in absurdity permits atrocity. The only way to be resilient against the cancer of deception is the moral emphasis on evidence as the basis of belief.
The irony is that Hitler's Christianity involved an actual repeat of the historical lesson from the early church that deception is most effective when conducted on massive and systematic scale. We often hear that while the church is corrupt Jesus is perfect. Demolishing this fantasy of Christ as the founder of Christianity is essential to put morality on an evidentiary basis, to inoculate against the risk of new Hitlers who will exploit people's desire to be told what they want to hear.