I have a favourite pet theory about Jesus.Maybe Mary got porked by a wandering Scandinavian..never thought of that did you. Mother fucker would have looked like an alien back then.
By the way religion is not a black and white, truth, false deal. For the most part (such as Christianity) religion has morphed, converged, etc based on control of humans. Constantine the Great who moved Rome's capital to Constantinople was a great example of blending Paganism and Christianity. They also had meetings with all the "Christian leaders" to debate what was fact or not.
There is also parts of the bible which actually derived from other philosophies and religions. "Immaculate conception" was originally used as the conception of Buddha.
Anyway carry on these are always fun discussions.
What gets me about the whole Jesus story is this: even the bible says that there were all sorts of prophets and supposed messiahs running around at the time. So then what made Jesus so special that he got a religion formed around him when none of those other guys did?
Ostensibly, it could have just been a case of superior marketing via Paul. But I think there was actually something different about Jesus.
Imagine this scenario: king Herod has an affair with some random peasant woman (as you do when you're king). She's called Mary, and Herod accidentally knocks her up.
Now imagine you're Mary: carrying the son of the king is a pretty good bargaining position to be in, but you can't well publicly claim that this is the case, because that would be a) admitting you cheated on your husband and b) accusing the king of adultery, both of which will get you stoned to death quicker than you can say Jehovah. But you can't say the baby is your husband's either, because this all happened before the two of you boned. So who the fuck's baby is it?
The only way out is the ultimate copout: claim that god did it. Then you and your husband can cash in on that sweet inheritance from the king later. So now you have this mysteriously pregnant woman who claims she's carrying god's child. That kinda gossip gets around, and it's only a matter of time before it gets back to Herod's ear.
Now, we have no historical evidence that Herod actually ordered all the babies in a village to be killed. However, we do know that in his later years, he was super paranoid about people trying to usurp him, and he did have lots of people, including family members, executed. So it's entirely within his character to, say, order that one particular baby that he secretly knows is his bastard son to be killed. And from there, the story can grow in the telling.
- "Omg, did you hear? The king wanted to kill a baby!"
- "Omg, did you hear? The king is killing babies in yonder village now!"
- "Omg, did you hear? The king ordered all the babies in yonder village to be killed!"
Then of course when Jesus grows up, he goes around claiming he's king of the jews, because, well, he's technically the heir to the throne. And him being the weird special "child of god" sets him apart from all the randos with zero mysterious origin story.
It's the perfect soap opera storyline.
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