Jesus could have been an antique meme à la Chuck Norris that got waaaay out of hand
All we have are scriptures and texts that could have been a series of meme that built/improved from eachother but lost the common knowledge between the generations that it was fictional.
Based on my understanding of non-religiously biased history, the character of Jesus Christ is an amalgamation of many Jewish prophets who preached a generally similar message.
One of the interesting things that sticks out to me personally that lends credence to the idea that the Bible is just kind of a bunch of half-remembered stories all mashed together is Barabbas- the guy that Pontius Pilate supposedly pardoned instead of Jesus.
In some versions, Barabbas is given the first name "Jesus"
And "Barabbas" could potentially come from "bar abba" in Hebrew Aramaic (although Hebrew "ben av" or "ben aba" is not far off) meaning "son of the father"
He was imprisoned and sentenced to execution due to taking part in an insurrection against the Roman empire.
The two characters- "Jesus, son of the father, and sentenced to death for sedition" and "Jesus, son of God, sentenced to die for claiming to be king of the Jews" sound a hell of a lot like they're referring to the same dude to me.
That's either one of the biggest coincidences in all of history, or someone heard two different versions of the same story and mashed them together.
Or maybe it's just sort of a 1st century version of the saying that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter."
It is obviously intentionally done to mimic the ritual sacrifice of the two goats on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Two goats were presented to the high priest, one was chosen by casting lots to be sacrificed on the altar and the other was cast into the wilderness, purifying the people of Israel of their sins. In the story, Jesus plays the role of both goats.
I mean, Hitler had an underling named Himmler. Sometimes coincidences happen.
Then if Barabbas really was pardoned, to some of his acquaintances who didn't know the pardon, he was sent off to die, but then showed up later in the weekend.
Man...
What if this whole time the Bible was really just a story about how you need a Malcolm and a Martin to enact meaningful social change, if the ones in power treat both with equal heavy handed violence, the people's only choice is Malcolm?
I mean, yeah...
The Bible wasn't some dude writing stuff down. It's a bunch of dudes over centuries writing stuff down, and doesn't include everything.
It was commone with the pre-christian religions for myths to work like that, and as Christianity co-opted different parts of those earlier religions to make conversion easier, people.kept making up stories about Jesus or saints like people used to make up stories about Zeus or Hercules.
If Jesus's 20s weren't conspicuously absent, it prob would have been pretty close to Chuck Norris. Just because those stories didn't stick around, doesn't mean they never existed.
I always thought of prophets as particularly charismatic mentally ill people. Jesus may not have set out to start a cult, but like, delusions of grandeur and distorted self-image in someone charismatic and intelligent usually ends in a cult. In his lifetime they were basically anarchist hippies (at least as recorded by the bible), but like all cults, today the center has rotted and it's just toxic brainwashing.
This sort of thing happens all the time, good intentions getting twisted over time.
Iirc the reason you’re not allowed to depict Muhammad, for example, was because Muhammad didn’t want pictures of to be used to worship him. He didn’t want to be deified basically.
Cut to today and his followers will literally kill anyone that even tries, even those outside of the religion, due to their worship of Muhammad, something that he clearly never would have wanted. It literally goes against the reason he had the rule in the first place.
The "prophet" Isaiah is a good example:
Isaiah 20:1-4
1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
2 At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
I see the bible as basically schizophrenic, Bronze Age, fan fiction.
It serves a purpose, but it’s unsuitable as the foundation of one’s world view, or to defer one’s morality to.
I think this leaves out human history. Older generations were easily swayed. I don't even think that is Jesus' fault. That's just a byproduct of his environment.
This is actually what i sorta believe. Thats jesus was just a smart guy amongst stupid people.
Like people be all dirty and getting the plague and hes like "bruh go wash youself in the river, you dirty as fuck, thats why you keep getting sick".
Then next minute they get better and theyre all like "omggggg the messiahhhh"
E's not the messiah, e's a very naughty boy!!!
I say he is the messiah! I should know, I've followed a few!
But a narcissistic one. He did believe he was the son of the fucking god lol.
But Jesus didn't write the bible, it was mostly written over a hundred years after the fact. I believe Mathew is the closest at 80 years and John was 300 years later. We have no way of knowing whether Jesus actually did say anything of the sort. The Nicean Council was mostly a political one so Constantine could solidify his power by utilizing the top heavy hierarchy of a fledgling branch of Christianity.
We only have the Nag Hammadi library because of "heretics" preserving it in secret.
The thing is that while Jesus could walk on water, Chuck Norris could swim thru land. Which one is more impressive?
The Chuck Norris meme isn't an antique, it's something we're all ashamed of being part of after finding out he's a crazy person.
Pfft you might be, that just makes it funnier to me. Chuck Norris is an actor and a white guy who knows karate. That's already like the height of unseriousness, add poo-brained conservatism and it's comedy gold. Like have you ever watched an interview with him. He is 100% that guy who talks about his hands being registered weapons but has never been in a fight as an adult. The point of those memes was that he was a washed up joke.
The first person to coin the word meme was Richard Dawkins in his book 'the selfish gene'. He also postulates in the same chapter that religion is a particular form of a meme. So you're one hundred percent correct!
I rather think it's plausible Jesus was a figurehead with the (already by then well established) messianic archetype applied to him who was hyped up by some Judeans as propaganda to incite their people to try to cast off their Roman rule. But then the notion really got out of hand some time after the original context was lost.
Given the prior number of Jewish prophets and messiah claimants (not to mention Apollonius of Tyana who also readily leaps to mind) there were probably several attempts at this, but only one made it to this level of popularity.
A lot of what was written about Jesus was done hundreds of years when he allegedly lived, but done in a way that appears to be written at the same time he was alive. Do he's really more of a shit post that people thought was real.
Chuck has a great shot at becoming the messiah of a new religion then cause the holy book of Norrisism has already been written, it's called Chuck Norris Facts.
A fair bit of the old testament was written the same way. In fact one of the most prolific "oracles" of the old testament got everything right, right up until he was actually making predictions, because he was writing in 400 BCE about a time that covered 800-600 BCE, as though he were writing it in 800 BCE.
ETA: dates made up as I don't remember exactly when he was writing
Jesus could come back from the dead, but could death come back from Chuck Norris?
Skibidi Jesus
I think you have your logic backwards.
When Chuck Norris stepped on the water it knew better than to let him sink.
Chuck Norris yelled at the river and 700 fish came out to feed his friends. Nobody dared ask where the loaves came from.
Chuck Norris was killed by crucifixion. It took him 3 days to kick Satan's ass and break out of hell. Now, he's out for payback!
Chuck Norris said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one cometh to the Father except through me. And if you come back in, I'll hit you with so many rights you'll be begging for a left."
Gospel of Chuck 4:20; “Nikko was easy. Now it's your turn. One night you'll close your eyes, and when they open I'll be there. It'll be time to die.”
Thank you for giving me exactly what I needed.
Probably the most entertaining part of Mortal Engines was a scene from the museum of history where they revealed the Minions to be some kind of revered ancient deity
What if we live in a simulation and all of humanity's historical religions were real, with the key term being "were"?
At some point the simulation owner got rid of them (maybe out of necessity or maybe they just got bored and wanted something new) but kept all the written and verbal history associated with them. Literally just deleted everything we would now consider "mythical" and called it a day.
That's why we don't have skeletons but we do have stories. They just ripped all the assets and scripts out and now reality throws a fuckton of errors whenever a particle interacts with the infinitely small, now-undefined space that used to be a minotaur.
I plan to think about this way too hard next time I get baked.
Religion now throws a null pointer exception?
Yep. It's part of the reason why reality seems so unhinged right now. There are so many of them stacking up at this point that the simulation can't run at full speed anymore, and it's causing dialog and personality bugs due to an unforseen interaction between framerate and player mechanics.
yep, that's actually what I beliefe. People in earlier times weren't stupid, they have the same genes and brains as us. If we could figure out religion is fake, so could they. But they didn't because back then, magic wasn't fake. It was real.
I figure it was an argument of "my legendary tribal chief was SOOO great, he..."
Which led into a conversation of "Which super hero would win?".
My tribes legendary chief was so great, he made bread, wine, and fish, just when everyone needed it... He is so wonderful they tried to kill him, but he came back three days later, not even sick.
It's because he's part super hero, you should hear about his dad. People were so loyal to his dad they'd almost sacrifice their own children to him. He was so great he'll save us, you'll see.
Hanina ben Dosa was a first century Jewish miracle worker from Galilee. He was one of many who supposedly did a lot of the same things as Jesus, miracle healings, casting out demons, made it rain, etc, but wasn't an apocalyptic with a messianic complex.
Anyway.. there was a snake in town that had bit and hurt people. When he heard of it he went to the snakes hole and put his foot over it. The snake bit him and the snake died. The people came up with the first Chuck Norris meme. "Woe to anyone who is bitten by the snake, but woe to the snake that bites Hanina ben Dosa."
John Cena had reached meme status
Finally a shower thought that isn’t just trying to redefine words or concepts! Thank you!
Imagine the miracles today if he has to do it....turns water into 🍷 wine....yeah dude. That's a sweet microbrew! Oh wait, it's just cambucha but very fast!
Jesus was so cool
No wonder there are so many Christians
King missile - jesus was way cool, to whoever did not get the reference.
I've always had this weird thought that religions sprout up when a grifter finds a fictional book buried somewhere that no ones heard off and builds a cult around it with themselves as the center piece.
Isn't that Scientology in a nutshell?
No, that's the Mormons.
That’s a cool thought.
Same with Julius Caesar, Nebuchadnezzar, Christopher Columbus, Henry VIII, Copernicus, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy.
Really anybody famous could have their image embellished back before the widespread ability to read and write. (Some folks listed above may not have lived in a time of illiteracy, but it was hard to think of a list of historical characters lol.)
I mean, it's pretty well documented how awful Christopher Columbus was. Even in the context of the time period: he was arrested in the new world and shipped back to Spain for a trial because he was so ruthless in his treatment of the native peoples. The myths about him being a 'great man' are all only like 100 years old.
I was about to say, a lot of those guys we have letters, manuscripts, diaries and such to tell what happened lol. (Julius Caesar and Napoleon specifically. Alexander the Great I haven't studied as much.)
We know that this is from a series of texts that built on each other - many "facts" and feats attributed to Jesus were earlier attributed to Mithras and others.
The same "miracles" and other stuff get reused and applied to new prophets or supposed gods as they roll in.
Chuck norris could be the second coming of Jesus, and here you are, writing blasphemy
Isn't that how cats inserted themselves into human society?