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I wonder how quickly one would cage and kill the other? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

This is actually one of the best arguments for the existence of a historical Jesus I've heard - from the late Christopher Hitchens, actually. The only plausible reason someone would feel the need to invent the story of the family traveling to Bethlehem (the imperial decree is most probably completely made up and there are plenty of other plot holes) is because people already knew about a figure known as "Jesus from Nazareth" that needed to somehow be connected to Bethlehem in order to fulfil the messianic prophecies.

If Jesus was a completely made up figure (an idea that is implausible for other reasons) the writers of the gospels could just have made him come from Bethlehem and be done with it. But, since Jesus the Nazarene was already a known figure among their audience, they couldn't do that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The first generation of Christians were Jews and thus wouldn't have had a Messiah coming from Bethlehem prophecy. The King David line was about 6 centuries old at that point, everyone could claim to be from it.

By casting him in Nazareth all evidence of him would be removed. Nazareth was nothing in the first century. Didn't even appear on maps of the area. A total blackhole. No one was from there and no one had ever been there. James could say whatever bullshit he wanted and no one could investigate it.

Now your last argument that the Gospel writers could have just changed the text doesn't work either. Since Paul mentions it.