maryhelena wrote:Ah - but a 'historical person' does not necessary mean someone going by the name of 'Jesus'. i.e. Jesus could simply be the 'meaning' that has been ascribed to a historical person.
True. I'm sure that was implied. It all depends on how much you believe our extant texts have been tampered with. If you think that the tampering was limited, a historical background is simply the easiest explanation. Of course, if you think the tampering was a bit more involved, things become less clear.
maryhelena wrote:And that, of course, is where the Carrier mythicists fall down. It is far more probable that the tradition of the Jesus story, stories, developed from meaning given to a historical person, or persons, than the tradition came about through a cosmic Christ figure being historicized. Invisible spirits might well be the 'thing' for some people - but inspiration for upping the game plan for living on terra-firma comes from those who shared the experiences of flesh and blood.
The sheer existence of the Mormon faith proves you wrong in this regard. Mormonism is a polytheistic faith where the believer's goal is to become the god of his own planet (modern interpretation transforms this somewhat). It's a revelation by an angel named Moroni, if we go by the book ("proven" by "eyewitness" accounts). The book of Mormon tells us lots of detail about the history of the Americas, their civilizations and about Jesus' visits there. Mormon scholars go on archeological digs to find Nephite remains. Most Mormons I talked to think that those archeological proofs have simply not been found yet because the Americas are big, the jungle covers everything, searches are done at the wrong place, etc.
The LDS relationship to history is a truly interesting one. My suggestion is this Ph.D. thesis from 2011:
History through Seer Stones: Mormon Historical Thought
The relevant "history" Mormon faith is based on is summarized in pp. 1-9 of the original document (= pp. 8-16 of the pdf). It gives a wonderful insight into how the human mind processes history, or what it thinks history is.
By the way, it's also a good example how, when a faith grows, it tries to polish the harsh edges somewhat. Old mainstays of faith become allegorized and the whole community gets pushed into more mainstream waters.
There are even more parallels: the family of the founder has been marginalized and represents a very small community with quite different tenets of faith from what most people know as Mormonism. They are much closer to standard Christianity and seem to be in the process of merging back into the mainstream. The bulk of the faithful had been taken over by a charismatic leader who put his own stamp on the faith. Well, even that looks somewhat familiar.
I think studying the history of the LDS and Mormonism should be on the schedule of everyone who dives into the relationship of history and religion.