Radio Free Mormon: How Jesus Became the Savior

[dastardly stem]

Thanks for the podcast episode. Early Christian history is very interesting to me and I like this comparison for the most part.

RFM I'm struggling to see where you're getting your ideas.

For instance, the idea that there were followers of Jesus after he died who we know felt defeated? Who were they? Vs followers of Jesus who were resolute. Who were they? I suppose it's fair to say I can't see John as a work of history--meaning John's gospel has no source from which it can pull except for the gospels that were written before it (I mention John because you went to John, immediately at this point to say something about Peter's interaction with Jesus). But that assumes Mark's gospel (the beginning of Jesus' biography) is history. I'd say all of that relies heavily on many assumptions, put into the history in the second century. Peter, for instance, was mentioned by Paul a couple of times, not as a disciple of Jesus (Paul never gives that idea or uses that word), but was one who previous to Paul's own vision had experienced Jesus. And since Paul never refers to teachings of Jesus, but somehow these teachings and sayings were important enough to remain in the conversation of believers for Mark to write them down (in greek), or start to (since many a believer and non-believer assume Jesus' teachings were also recorded by Matt, Luke, and John), we have to wonder how Jesus' aramaic words, went from his disciples (whom we have no source for) to a literate Mark who wrote them down in greek. It wasn't through Paul, or doesn't seem to be. And yet, we have evidence to think Mark had access to at least something from Paul's writings, but no evidence, from what I can see, that Mark has any source for a life of Jesus.

In other words, I don't think your theory is bad, it's just assuming too much. There are too many unconnected leaps in the theory. Additionally to complicate the whole story, we have reason to think Paul, Mark and the others were intentionally or not including in the Jewish messiah idea a savior God idea and a dying and rising god idea from the greco-Roman world in which Mark, Paul and the others were heavily drowned in. In other words how the myth of Jesus included an idea of being the Savior, as taught by Paul, was not a development among a jewish cult, but was a myth created by hellenized jews to follow trends of other gods. How would we say that? Because Paul, before Mark, already declared Jesus was the Savior. Your idea of how Jesus became the savior is complicated when we take it back to the context of the 1st and second century wherein other influences outside judaism helped form the beginnings of Christianity.

I don't know that there were early followers of Jesus who felt cognitive dissonance as Jesus died. We don't know he lived. It's a pretty sounding comparison to make as former Mormons or former believing Mormons...rather poetic. I just don't think the jesus story used to make the comparison is well supported.

[dastardly stem]

I would suggest nobody guarded the tomb because it didn’t occur to anyone at the time that the disciples would steal the body.

This aspect, too, was probably written in later in order to make the account more miraculous.

Additionally if there were a public killing it was very unlikely Jesus was put into a tomb. Far more likely his body was thrown into a mass grave, open, unprotected and unhidden. It would have been unheard of to think a crime such as was supposedly put on Jesus would have been respected enough to allow someone to put him in a tomb. That's partly why they think the Joseph of Arimathea was a made up character filling in a story that didn't make much historic sense.

[deacon blues]

I wonder about the historicity of Joseph of Arimathea asking Pilate for Jesus's body. any insight as to Joseph being involved in disappearance of Jesus's body?

[Moksha]

How does all this tie into Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and other sister-wives, visiting the Delmarva Penninsula and speaking at the amphitheater?

[Shulem]

How does all this tie into Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and other sister-wives, visiting the Delmarva Penninsula and speaking at the amphitheater?

Little do the folks in Middletown Delaware know that Mormon Jesus once walked upon their sacred ground. If they dig far enough under the soil they may even find one of the stones used to build the Bountiful Temple. Imagine that!

Perhaps the Church might like to consider holding Resurrected Jesus pageants in Delaware. That would offer fresh perspective into Book of Mormon geography and raise awareness for Mormon Jesus. Everyone wins!

[huckelberry]

Stem, I read Paul as being completely Jewish. I think your desire to import non Jewish Roman ideas is more fantasy than specifics. Consiglieri is correct I think to see Jewish sacrificial and atonement ideas in Paul not Roman ideas.

He has a point I think in seeing how strong religious belief can reconstruct expectations when met with disappointment. In Consiglieri presentation he proposes the idea of a second coming as being logically prior to the idea of a resurrection though the two ideas could take place very close to the same time.That builds the picture of resurrection experiences upon not just emotions and memory but on a strong expectation.(of a messianic kingdom)

[huckelberry]

There is some possibility that Jesus had no plans to conquer Rome. He instead seemed ,on a day to day basis, to be more interested in talking about how people could live to make a messianic kingdom be the Kingdom of God instead of just another tyranny.

Of course it is likely that there were people around him more interested in setting up a political power and calling that the kingdom of god. There have been a good many such aspirations in the past 2000 years.

[Reflexzero]

Is there going to be a follow up regarding how Jehovah became Jesus leading up to the 1900’s Mormonism? Including/coinciding with, but not limited to the decline of the Lectures on Faith, the death of Adam-God, and the rise of Talmage’s Jesus the Christ? How about the fact that Jehovah is not directly referenced to as Jesus in the temple? Or that Jehovah was a god and member of the godhead without meeting any modern requirements for exaltation?

[Moksha]

What about the long-planned journey on the Space Ark to the region of space "where Gods began to be?"

[dastardly stem]

I wonder about the historicity of Joseph of Arimathea asking Pilate for Jesus's body. any insight as to Joseph being involved in disappearance of Jesus's body?

if you become a member of Bart Ehrman's blog you can read this: https://ehrmanblog.org/was-jesus-given- ... r-members/

I don't see much point to him. It doesn't really make sense that they allowed someone to take Jesus' body--a someone no one seems to know.