Probably not; he didn’t try to start a religion.
A better question would be around Moses.
Paul of Tarsus had a lot to say about appearing to be mentally ill because of what he believed, though.
Paul m, if I recall my Sunday school lessons, had a vision; mentally stable people don’t have visions without substances or fevers or the like. Also he was a bit of a bastard before that too.
he didn’t try to start a religion.
Uhhh. He definitely did.
Really? Looking at it from one angle, he was a Jewish Rabbi, teaching a continuance of the existing religious teachings, but rejecting tradition for tradition’s sake.
Looking at it from another angle, he claimed to have always been the God people were already worshipping.
At no point did he call people to new religious practices. Everything he taught came straight out of the Tanakh, with bits from the Talmud (but mostly repudiating the Gemara portion of the Talmud in favour of stricter interpretations of the Tanakh).
The only point at which you could argue he was starting a new religion would be after his death and resurrection — at which point the main order to his disciples was still, according to the bible, to share the core truths of the Jewish teachings and religion with the rest of the world.
Christianity becoming a distinct religion happened over time between a time 50 years later and Constantine decreeing it the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately, we know so little about the person whom the biblical Jesus is based on that it would be really hard to say. Keep in mind that the myths about him in the Christian bible were written well after he was claimed to have died.
The earliest written of the Gospels is likely Mark. And it may have been written by someone with either first or second hand knowledge of Jesus, around 70 CE. Which would be a few decades after the claimed death of Jesus. So, the author (or authors) were dealing with memories at least a few decades old. And they were likely an adherent to this messianic cult, which means they were not exactly objective in their writing.
I really think the only difference between a religion and a cult is wether the founder is alive or not.
Iirc is defined by size.
If the biggest religions were only believed by a few hundred/thousand people they’d be treated like nothing more than the cults they are.
I had a religious studies professor who reckons that Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad had midlife crises that spurred them to start their ministries. I think they were all around 30 years old and life expectancy was shorter back then
I have never heard anyone say Jones, Koresh or Hubbard were mentally ill. They were very talented con artists.
They go hand in hand. Narcissistic personality disorder plus antisocial personality disorder is what makes them so charismatic.
lol maybe you’re not listening very hard then because they get called nuts all the time and for good reason
mass suicide isn’t a con and neither is sending a fleet of ships crewed by rank amateurs around the mediterranean in search of gold you claimed to have buried in your past lives a la hubbard. whether he genuinely believes in the existence of the gold or doesn’t, it reveals something deeply wrong about him.
Oh I was listening and maybe you are cluleless about what mental illness.
You see, little pimple, nothing you posted is mental illness.
yeah there’s nothing sick about the guy killing himself and all his followers in the chase of collective narcissist delusion. dumbfuck. stay out of my replies.
Mental illness is a social construct anyway. There was a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. The point being there is no objective way to call someone who lived 2000 years ago mentally ill without defining what is meant by the term in the context of the time.
I’d bet it’s safe to say the sumbitch doesn’t even exist!
Yup people hear a story of this fucker doing magic and his mother being a “virgin” yet people think he was real.
He’s as real as Gandalf is.
Fictional characters are whatever authors write them to be.
The Christos is whatever you want the Christos to be, just craft one to your preferences.
Marcion’s Christ different from gPhilip’s Christ, different from Qur’an Christ which is different from St Ignatias’ Christ and on it goes.
I’d avoid the novel mundane Markan derived Christology from peeps like Ernest Renan that’s gone viral in the US, Ehrmanism I think…the most pointless of all the Christos’ to choose from, better with Netflix Christology.
Add to the list Joseph Smith. But I think he was possibly a merely a pedophilic sociopath rather than having eg schizophrenia.
I guess people are extremely uninformed still even when this could all be cleared up by a quick NT refresher and a 5-min Wikipedia dive, lol, but: he didn’t “start” anything more than something close to a revivalist movement, as he was just a very vocal, very driven, very well-read and deep Jew. Then the Romans killed him and used his image for their own imperialistic objectives, establishing a new polytheistic religion with a “man-god” at its core (Jesus didn’t even want to be called “good”! All men of understanding know only the Father is truly good, everyone else has a bit of darkness and light in them), basically culturally appropriating Judaism and turning it into something bizarre and nonsensical (sorry to all my Trinitarian homies here). And the US, the new Rome, and every other Western empire in between has done the same.
Jesus was not even real.
See the work of Presinger. He researched magnetic brain stimulation and could get people to see religious imagery. His historical research showed a correlation between saints with visions and events that suggest traumatic brain injury. At a higher level, he suggested humans developed a region of the brain that can do this with deal with the anxiety of mortality while evolving more intelligence.
Or just was right person happen to be in right time in right place if you believe in simulation theory.
From what I recall there were multiple fairly popular prophecies about what a diety or sign from the heavens were supposed to look like and Jesus recreated a number of them in the form of miracles. Doesn’t really speak to his mental status, he coulda been delusional in his insistance of his diety status or he could have been a grifter, or it could all be legit or whatever.
