>
>BTW, very few people who know the languages and the texts and the
>scholarship, faith-based or non-, think that it's all just made up out
>of whole cloth. Everybody, apart from fundies, agrees that there are
>mythological and urban-legend elements there, but also that the point of
>departure for this elaboration of texts is a series of events that
>really happened. Backwoods Hasid from Galilee goes wandering around,
>attracting crowds, stirring people up, gets iced by the Romans, maybe
>with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Temple authorities, or maybe
>not -- this is a much-ground ax -- that's the arc, and there's a pretty
>good consensus that something like that is what started it all.
>
>
Yeah, actually, I think Life of Brian summed it up pretty good.
"Did he say 'Blessed are the cheesemakers!'?"
Joanna