From: William Kitchen (bill@iglobal.net)
Date: Wed Jan 05 2000 - 10:53:30 MST
> In one case you've got billions of people believing in an
> absolute fabrication, in the other you've got billions of
> people trying to follow the possible insights of someone
> who may have been either a very wise man or a superior
> evolved life form.
>
> Very very different things. I guess in my mind, the question
> is do you group Jesus with Plato or the individuals who committed
> the Watergate break-ins?
My own guess at this is that Jesus (ignore for the moment that he
probably wasn't actually called that) was a fairly modest
religious philosopher and teacher with a small "cult" following,
who's legend grew all out of proportion to the reality. A very
large and complex myth with a nugget of truth in the middle.
Thomas Jefferson felt that many of the New Testament accounts of
Jesus words and deeds were so at odds with each other that they
could not be describing the same person. I think he was quite
likely right, and that this inconsistency was due to the stories
having been distorted to express the particular author's views
rather than those of Jesus himself.
This is, of course, mere speculation.
---
Peace,
William Kitchen
The future is ours to create.
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