[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Krimel]

dmb says: (Exacted from the original garbled post)
One of the reasons people doubt the existence of an historical Jesus is the
way his story is like so many other dying and rising gods. His ordeal is
like a gazillion others. That would be at least one of the things that
attracted followers in the Hellenistic world. They could have recognized
Mithras, Dionysus and Orpheus in Paul's version of Christianity. I imagine
Paul tweaked the story in that direction like a salesman who understands his
customer. Following this story pattern would later help it to fit into just
about any of the European paganisms.But the thing that really ensured its
spread throughout Europe was the Roman Army, beginning with Constantine's
Army in particular. The first symbols of Christianity were shepherds, sheep
and fish but Constantine a vision of the Cross as a sword. (Actually, his
vision included a pile of foreskins in the shape of a squirrel but his
speech-writer insisted that part be altered.) "By this sign you will
conquer", said a voice in a vision on the battlefield. And really, what
could be more  "convincing" than a long sharp edge? And that's why the Pope
needs such a huge stockpile of nukes. I'd guess that Paul's version of the
story fits in with most kinds of European paganism.

[Krimel]
I suspect there are very few who have looked into the matter seriously, that
doubt the historical existence of the man Yeshua ben Joseph. Issues with
respect to the meaning of his story are like the Gadarene demon, Legion. The
first quest for the "historical" Jesus began in the 1800's and culminated in
Albert Schweitzer's, "The Quest for the Historical Jesus". In looking at the
various attempts to capture the historical Jesus, Schweitzer found that
writers of these accounts tended to read the gospels as a kind of Rochart
test. They projected as much of themselves into the story as they read Jesus
out of it. Schweitzer himself did much the same thing and for the most part
the quest was abandoned until about the 1980s when scholars began to combine
archeology, extra canonical and various techniques of textual criticism to
unravel a more "objective" account.

Certainly the Nicene and post Nicene church fathers were a bunch of suck ups
to the Roman emperors. Eucebius in his Church History for example gave a
particularly fawning description and account of Constantine. He later wrote
a lengthy history and biography of the emperor. Going from persecuted
minority to ruling elite has never been easy and the Christians were no
exception. As I mentioned Paul's distortions of the original Christian story
were designed to encourage conversion at the expense of theology and
historical accuracy. The fact that stories of death and rebirth are common
not only to Christianity but a host of other ancient stories is neither
surprising nor coincidental. It is a mythological story that appeals to the
collective unconscious and it has been mined over and over again, before and
since the time of Jesus.