Could Christianity have been invented like this?

[Jericho]

If anyone can debunk this one, I might become a Christian.

Out of boredom, I will accept your challenge, although you seem to be a drive-by poster.

People like Adam Green have a theory that Christianity was invented by Jews in order to pacify gentiles ("turn the other cheek", "love your enemy", etc).

If it did, how did that work out? The Romans razed Jersualem and the Second Temple to the ground, causing the diaspora. That theory is flawed considering that Jews were the first converts to Christianity, not gentiles. If it was "invented" to pacify gentiles, it would have been aimed at the gentiles from the start.

Second, if it were an invention, the Jewish leaders wouldn't have been antagonistic toward Jesus. The Sanhedrin is responsible for accusing Jesus of blasphemy and handing him over to the Romans. The Sanhedrin persecuted the apostles and early Christians. If the goal was to spread Christianity to the gentiles, they did the exact opposite. The Jewsish leaders tried to stamp out Christianity.

Third, according to tradition, all the apsotles except John were martyred (and they tried to boil John alive). They would not have been willing to give up their lives for a lie. They would have been given the choice to renounce or die.

Fourth, they wouldn't have picked someone as obscure as Jesus. He was a carpenter by trade. He never held any political office. He wasn't a great military leader. He left behind no heirs. He didn't have any influence beyond his followers. From the outside, he was a nobody.
If it was some kind of deception, it was the most successful deception in history. But the odds of such a deception actually succeeding to become the most prolific religion in history is so astronomically high as to be impossible.

Can this be debunked?

Yes, because it is an argument from silence. You're attempting to make a claim based on the absence of evidence, rather than the presence of evidence. The onus is not on us to prove that it isn't true, it's on you to "prove" that it isn't. And since it's all just speculation, it can never be proven to be true.

 

[BlessedPeace]

Greetings

I am currently non-religious, but in the process of wondering whether Christianity could actually be true. It is not easy to come up with a naturalistic explanation for its origin.

Although, there might be one? If anyone can debunk this one, I might become a Christian.

When it comes to conspiracies, people say that this is something people do for money, power or sex. Aren't they evading another possibility here? Ideology/religion?

People like Adam Green have a theory that Christianity was invented by Jews in order to pacify gentiles ("turn the other cheek", "love your enemy", etc).

Think about it... Rome was militarily superior, right? The warrior messiah didn't come, so the Jews could have been on desperate ground, and attempted one last trick?

Imagine that Jesus was one of many real messiah figures who was indeed executed. The date fulfilling Daniel's 70 week prophecy? Not that wild, if such figures were being executed all the time, and maybe the Sanhedrin also had a certain influence on the execution dates.

Empty tomb? It was owned by a Sanhedrin member, right? Not too hard to sneak the body out somehow, or bribe the guards, etc, if there even were guards there?

The first church? Started in Jerusalem itself. Keep in mind that Jews have a lot of in group loyalty, and were on desperate ground, so if someone came decades later to ask whether Jesus did in fact do these and these miracles, there could be many people willing to say yes?

We also know that Jews are good story tellers, which could explain undesigned coincidences, and all the geographical details they got right and so on, since they lived in the very area described in the gospels?

Audacity is also a virtue in Jewish culture, which they call "chutzpah". Could this explain claims such as the 500 people supposedly seeing Jesus resurrected? Maybe combined with the fact that they had some "actors" ready and willing to confirm this if someone went to check.

In Paul's letter, he often says that he is not lying.* Did the recipients suspect that he was? Could he have been?

Could Peter, and possibly the other alleged apostles, as well as Paul, be in on the conspiracy? Deep religious motivation could explain willingness to be martyred. Another possibility: they didn't know they would be killed, but they were killed by other conspirators to eliminate loose ends? Or their deaths could have been faked, and they went into exile?

Miracles in Acts? Maybe some were magic tricks, some were invented later, maybe they went after gullible people first, etc.

In the Talmud, there seems to be corroboration for Jesus' divinity, with the stories about weird things in the temple, and the lot ending up in the priest's right hand for 40 years in a row before the destruction of the temple, etc. This could have been planted, to make the gentiles notice, and believe.. And for some reason, this one just didn't stick. People don't bring it up too often.

The criticism towards Pharisees in the gospels? Could be deliberate, to throw suspicion off of themselves, etc.

Thoughts? Can this be debunked?

*
(removed. Please read forum rules re: new members and links in posts)

That member hasn't been here since October.

Though there is a new one Agnostic who poses the same type challenge as this one.