Beginning of Christianity

[Mendacious]

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After Jesus died, Jesus's followers (none of whom was previously impressive in the slightest) by all rights should have disbanded, lucky to have their skins intact, as Jesus at this point was not a popular guy. Instead, they claim he was resurrected, and at great cost to themselves and without any financial backing or incentive became absolutely devoted zealots with his ressurection as the foundation of their belief. His conclusion was that the only explanation was the disciples truly believed in the resurrection.


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This professor has obviously never heard of cognitive dissonance. Classic psychology study by Leon Festinger:

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In the course of his investigations Festinger, a trained psychologist, actually infiltrated the cult himself and was thus a first hand witness to the groups behaviour in the wake of the non-fulfilment of their doomsday prophecy.

Given the reality of Earth's survival the dissonance of the thought between prior belief and failed fulfillment was typically rationalised by the cult members not so much through dismissal of the original prophecy as through modification of that prophecy. That is to say that the cult members tended to accept that the aliens had actually saved the entire world as their route to ensuring the survival of the cult.


Festinger suggested that to rationalize, or change beliefs and asttitudes, was an easier route to resolve the stress associated with cogitive dissonance than a complete dismissal of their individual acceptance of the original prophecy.

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That is an interesting explanation, but I think it suffers somewhat because the disciples entire course of action seems to flow from actually witnessing a resurrected Christ, rather than just some rationalizing paradigm shift. It was the resurrection itself and not Jesus's teachings which seemed to spur them on. Secondly, it is not clear at all that they had any agenda prior to the death of Jesus other than that they were followers of Jesus. Something about his death (or ressurection) seemed to inspire them and set them on a new level. Moreover-- and admittedly I think this is a lot less "historically" established, but I do not believe that either Jesus or his disciples went around proclaiming he was the son of God for any length of time prior to his execution. I think this largely came after. I don't think being the son of God was at all essential to Jesus ministry during his life.

[Taraz]

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That is an interesting explanation, but I think it suffers somewhat because the disciples entire course of action seems to flow from actually witnessing a resurrected Christ, rather than just some rationalizing paradigm shift. It was the resurrection itself and not Jesus's teachings which seemed to spur them on.

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What evidence do you have in claiming this? Couldn't a resurrected Christ be a vision in a dream or something similar? How would their actions be any different if it was actually his teachings that spurred them on?


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Secondly, it is not clear at all that they had any agenda prior to the death of Jesus other than that they were followers of Jesus. Something about his death (or ressurection) seemed to inspire them and set them on a new level.

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What agenda did I mention? If they believed in his cause and it seemed to come to an end, it would make sense that they would experience cognitive dissonance. They "knew" that his cause was righteous and the way to God, but he was killed. If his cause were true, it shouldn't be able to die away. So, in their minds, there must be some way for his message to carry on.

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Moreover-- and admittedly I think this is a lot less "historically" established, but I do not believe that either Jesus or his disciples went around proclaiming he was the son of God for any length of time prior to his execution. I think this largely came after. I don't think being the son of God was at all essential to Jesus ministry during his life.

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I don't think I mentioned anything about this. How does this connect?

[madnak]

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That is an interesting explanation, but I think it suffers somewhat because the disciples entire course of action seems to flow from actually witnessing a resurrected Christ, rather than just some rationalizing paradigm shift. It was the resurrection itself and not Jesus's teachings which seemed to spur them on. Secondly, it is not clear at all that they had any agenda prior to the death of Jesus other than that they were followers of Jesus. Something about his death (or ressurection) seemed to inspire them and set them on a new level. Moreover-- and admittedly I think this is a lot less "historically" established, but I do not believe that either Jesus or his disciples went around proclaiming he was the son of God for any length of time prior to his execution. I think this largely came after. I don't think being the son of God was at all essential to Jesus ministry during his life.

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You speculate about the motivations and actions of the followers of Jesus. On what basis? That of the Bible? If we accept that as evidence then why are we rejecting the part where Jesus claims to be the son of God and where that claim is an important part of his position?

[Mendacious]

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That is an interesting explanation, but I think it suffers somewhat because the disciples entire course of action seems to flow from actually witnessing a resurrected Christ, rather than just some rationalizing paradigm shift. It was the resurrection itself and not Jesus's teachings which seemed to spur them on. Secondly, it is not clear at all that they had any agenda prior to the death of Jesus other than that they were followers of Jesus. Something about his death (or ressurection) seemed to inspire them and set them on a new level. Moreover-- and admittedly I think this is a lot less "historically" established, but I do not believe that either Jesus or his disciples went around proclaiming he was the son of God for any length of time prior to his execution. I think this largely came after. I don't think being the son of God was at all essential to Jesus ministry during his life.

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You speculate about the motivations and actions of the followers of Jesus. On what basis? That of the Bible? If we accept that as evidence then why are we rejecting the part where Jesus claims to be the son of God and where that claim is an important part of his position?

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I'm sorry to cop out like this, but I am not a bible scholar and I am going by memory, but my recollection was that Jesus predominantly claims he is the "son of man". It is only at the very end that he starts to say differently.

I don't consider the bible to necessarily be an accurate historical record of Jesus life. Far from it. I don't mean to presume too much about the motivations of the disciples, if anything, I am trying to understand their actions after Jesus cruxifiction. Obviously this is a puzzle with very incomplete information. I'm mostly interested in plausible explanations for what we do know historically. Phil made a nice stab at in in the post he linked to. But I don't think any of his scenarios really explain the metamorphisis of the disciples.

I guess the bottom line is I can't really dismiss as implausible the hypothesis that the Disciples genuinely believed that Jesus was resurrected and spoke to them after his death.

[madnak]

But the Bible is also the only source you have for the actions of those disciples (I'm including the apocrypha when I say "Bible"). And it's second-hand.

It's a plausible hypothesis, but it's not very testable and it doesn't indicate much.

Personally I'm in the "Jesus led a cult" camp. I find it much less surprising that his followers remained loyal after his death than that (for example) the followers of Jim Jones killed themselves at his command.

Psychology also established that certain factors (authority and conformity in particular) can cause people to doubt their own memories and factual evidence. I think there's significant evidence that false memories can arise in certain situations (but I'm not too familiar with it). So it's certainly possible that some of his disciples really believed that they saw him after he died. I think one of two things is more likely, though - either someone in Jesus' group had some power they didn't want to give up (and perhaps they even used the name of Jesus to increase their power over his followers) and so fabricated the resurrection story, or it's a matter of cumulative embellishment as in the game of "telephone."

The gospels were written decades after Jesus died. And even in the gospels themselves, the description of the resurrection is inconsistent - earlier gospels describe it as a straightforward event, but later gospels add angels and earthquakes and other fireworks. My guess is that the whole story of Jesus as we know it is the product of oral transmissions that became more and more exaggerated over time. The original story of the resurrection? People very often have experiences of being "contacted" by loved ones after their death, and Jesus almost certainly had some very devoted followers. I'm guessing that some of those followers had similar experiences of Jesus and believe he wss communicating with them after his death - perhaps even "telling them" that he was alive. These people could easily have ended up being eyewitnesses to a physical resurrection later on - particular given the vague and surreal quality of the supposed experiences.

But the information really is limited, so everything is speculation.

[Mendacious]

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But the Bible is also the only source you have for the actions of those disciples (I'm including the apocrypha when I say "Bible"). And it's second-hand.

It's a plausible hypothesis, but it's not very testable and it doesn't indicate much.

Personally I'm in the "Jesus led a cult" camp. I find it much less surprising that his followers remained loyal after his death than that (for example) the followers of Jim Jones killed themselves at his command.

Psychology also established that certain factors (authority and conformity in particular) can cause people to doubt their own memories and factual evidence. I think there's significant evidence that false memories can arise in certain situations (but I'm not too familiar with it). So it's certainly possible that some of his disciples really believed that they saw him after he died. I think one of two things is more likely, though - either someone in Jesus' group had some power they didn't want to give up (and perhaps they even used the name of Jesus to increase their power over his followers) and so fabricated the resurrection story, or it's a matter of cumulative embellishment as in the game of "telephone."

The gospels were written decades after Jesus died. And even in the gospels themselves, the description of the resurrection is inconsistent - earlier gospels describe it as a straightforward event, but later gospels add angels and earthquakes and other fireworks. My guess is that the whole story of Jesus as we know it is the product of oral transmissions that became more and more exaggerated over time. The original story of the resurrection? People very often have experiences of being "contacted" by loved ones after their death, and Jesus almost certainly had some very devoted followers. I'm guessing that some of those followers had similar experiences of Jesus and believe he wss communicating with them after his death - perhaps even "telling them" that he was alive. These people could easily have ended up being eyewitnesses to a physical resurrection later on - particular given the vague and surreal quality of the supposed experiences.

But the information really is limited, so everything is speculation.

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I agree that this is fairly plausible. I think what makes Jesus different then most "cult-like" situations is that typically in those situations you are dealing with a leader with an almost hypnotic hold over his followers-- which Jesus may have had-- but in this case the link was clearly severed in that Jesus was executed. This is usually where cult's disband etc. If Jesus' followers had all killed themselves shortly after his death, or simultaneously or some such, I would think that was a much more natural explanation.

I can't deny that substantial filtering has obviously gone on in the retelling of the story. But it does seem from very early on, the ressurection BECAME the message, and it certainly wasn't a message that people wanted at the time. They wanted a bonafide HERO messiah, not some afterlife abstraction.

Clearly there are many plausible theories, I just find the theory that the disciple believed they had witnessed a ressurection to be very difficult to discredit.

I appreciate the discourse and ideas about this, and the fact that many of the "skeptics?" are VERY well informed on the relevant history.

[Brad1970]

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I'm sorry to cop out like this, but I am not a bible scholar and I am going by memory, but my recollection was that Jesus predominantly claims he is the "son of man". It is only at the very end that he starts to say differently.

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Jesus meant that he was born of biological parents (i.e. man) just like you & me but is God in human form. Towards the end of his life, before he was crucified, he told them that he was the Christ & would be seated at the right hand of God.

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I guess the bottom line is I can't really dismiss as implausible the hypothesis that the Disciples genuinely believed that Jesus was resurrected and spoke to them after his death.

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What happened to his body then? Not only did he speak to them but he appeared before them & walked among them. He even appeared before a crowd of over 500 people.

[luckyme]

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What happened to his body then? Not only did he speak to them but he appeared before them & walked among them. He even appeared before a crowd of over 500 people.

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link to the Utube clip please.

luckyme

[RoundGuy]

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Not only did he speak to them but he appeared before them & walked among them. He even appeared before a crowd of over 500 people.

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It is not possible for a dead man to walk, talk, or appear alive to a crowd of 500 people. What possible reason would I have to believe this?

[Brad1970]

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Not only did he speak to them but he appeared before them & walked among them. He even appeared before a crowd of over 500 people.

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It is not possible for a dead man to walk, talk, or appear alive to a crowd of 500 people. What possible reason would I have to believe this?

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For a mortal man...you're right...not possible.