re: #257 KGxvi

The story of Jesus fits a lot of ancient traditions. Some from the Old Testament (Herod ordering the murder of baby boys parallels the story of Moses), some from Greek and Roman traditions - in particular Dionysus (and several other demigods, for that matter).

true, the jesus story closely resembles the vegetable god pattern: consort of a female deity, dies and comes back to life, like the story of isis and osiris & etc & etc

my question is different: the writers of the gospel not only added on a lot of ready made mythology from the O.T. and pagan traditions, but also conveyed a convincing portrait of a charismatic jewish rabbi who eloquently preached a revolutionary doctrine. somehow many people accepted him from the get-go as a real person

four (minimum) authors produce similar but differing accounts of a totally fictional person who many people believe to have been real. how does this come about? why is the scenario that the jesus personage is totally fictional more plausible than that a real person’s biography was decorated with well known mythical attributes? who wrote the eloquent soliloquies attributed to “jesus”?