All we have are scriptures and texts that could have been a series of meme that built/improved from eachother but lost the common knowledge between the generations that it was fictional.
All we have are scriptures and texts that could have been a series of meme that built/improved from eachother but lost the common knowledge between the generations that it was fictional.
I always thought of prophets as particularly charismatic mentally ill people. Jesus may not have set out to start a cult, but like, delusions of grandeur and distorted self-image in someone charismatic and intelligent usually ends in a cult. In his lifetime they were basically anarchist hippies (at least as recorded by the bible), but like all cults, today the center has rotted and it’s just toxic brainwashing.
The “prophet” Isaiah is a good example:
Isaiah 20:1-4
1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
2 At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
This sort of thing happens all the time, good intentions getting twisted over time.
Iirc the reason you’re not allowed to depict Muhammad, for example, was because Muhammad didn’t want pictures of to be used to worship him. He didn’t want to be deified basically.
Cut to today and his followers will literally kill anyone that even tries, even those outside of the religion, due to their worship of Muhammad, something that he clearly never would have wanted. It literally goes against the reason he had the rule in the first place.
I see the bible as basically schizophrenic, Bronze Age, fan fiction.
It serves a purpose, but it’s unsuitable as the foundation of one’s world view, or to defer one’s morality to.
I think this leaves out human history. Older generations were easily swayed. I don’t even think that is Jesus’ fault. That’s just a byproduct of his environment.