Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:48 pm Ryuho Okawa is a more recent and living example. Kinda doing this breakaway by merging bits and pieces of various religions, started the "Happy Science" movement after having basically just done economic business trading stuff. He is the reincarnation of their "god" essentially.

There is currently this guy called Lord Rayel who has started his own movement, proclaiming himself God, it is basically an offshoot of Christianity believing him the second coming of Christ.

Gerald Gardner, the founder of the modern Wicca movement, may also apply. He has been semi-mythologized, and came from just a middle-class background as a random amateur anthropologist (who were a dime a dozen in England in the early-mid 20th century). Not really a breakaway group though.

I'll add these to my list for study, too. We only have the myth of Jesus for comparison so the underpinnings of mythical claims in these sorts of examples will be key.

Why not mention of Theudas?

He was considered as one "boasting himself to be somebody" (Acts 5:36), contra factum , as at least Josephus wants us believe, that he was a total nobody.

Is there some macabre irony in the fact that Josephus reports that the head of Theudas was carried to Jerusalem? Afterall, the dream of the messianists was to reach Jerusalem, so Theudas realized his goal in a grotesque way.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:21 pm Why not mention of Theudas?

He was considered as one "boasting himself to be somebody" (Acts 5:36), contra factum , as at least Josephus wants us believe, that he was a total nobody.

Is there some macabre irony in the fact that Josephus reports that the head of Theudas was carried to Jerusalem? Afterall, the dream of the messianists was to reach Jerusalem, so Theudas realized his goal in a grotesque way.

We have so little information about Theudas that can be considered historically useful. We only have a brief comment by a later historian and we have no way of verifying his claims, brief as they are.

I am particularly interested in some of the more recent figures who have attained some sort of divinized status among their followers. Among my first questions to put to these case studies is what conditions or factors appear to have been necessary for them to have become divinized.

Jakob Frank

schillingklaus wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 12:01 am Jakob Frank

And his predecessor Sabbatai Sevi (Zevi).

Andrew Criddle

Edward Irving
Mary Baker Eddy

Andrew Criddle

Emanuel Swedenborg may be helpful. He is exquisitely well documented as a scientist and political figure in modern times (1688-1772). He left extensive writings about his dreamt revelations.

He personally did not found the breakaway denomination, but rather his surviving admirers did. His own parent religion was Swedish Lutheran (although the denomination founders might have been anything or nothing in particular). He had to maintain his communion with the established Lutheran church to hold his government positions. He was tried for heresy, probably as a political maneuver. The ecclesiastical court adjourned sine die without having reached a verdict, thus he was exonerated. He is buried in consecrated ground.

So far as I know, his distinction within the church that grew up after him is that of "prophet," altogether human and not a celestial being, but his writings function as the supplementary and defining canon of his church. Well, churches, since there have been one or more schisms within the tiny original church.

Ann Lee (Shakers)
Jacob Amman (Amish)

andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2022 6:18 pm Edward Irving
Mary Baker Eddy

Andrew Criddle

Andrew Criddle??? I'd never have thought it

Does Q count?