What precisely makes you think that Jesus and his twelve apostles were illiterate? Why would Jesus go unremarked on despite cuasing a huge fuss in Jerusalem, traveling everywehre with followers at his heels, and being tried by the governor of the province? Not only does he fail to write a damn thing, his followers, the "mulitudes" fail to write anything either, or even impress any chronicler, traveler, poet, politician, solider, or merchant enough to mention them for a generation.
Um, maybe because illiteracy was the norm of the day? Universal literacy is a modern phenomena. So, without any other evidence, I'll assume that if he did exist he was illiterate, as were his followers.
As for the pagan religions, Dionysus is certainly not historical. The historicity of Zoroaster is likewise doubtful. Are you making any claims that Hercules, or Mithra were real?
I'm not making claims for any of them, actually. And read my post again, I didn't say "Pagan Gods" I said "Pagan Religions". They were hugely influential, yet nothing got written about them...weird, huh?
He was learned enough to astound the religous leaders of his town when he was a boy, remember? As for his "class" we know precious little about that. Either he was merely a tradesman for eighteen years, or he learned the oral and scriptural tradition of his people. Or, he turned into a trout for eighteen years. We don't know what learning he was supposed to have had because the four cannonical Gospels make no mention of eighteen years of his life.
You realize that you can be learned and not know how to write, right? That was rather common in that day.
If Joseph was a laborer, then he wasn't a high class at all. There's nothing in the record to indicate that Jesus somehow came into influence, either by a patronage of a Citizen (which would have been recorded, albeit that record may no longer exist) or a huge cash windfall. Therefore it leads me to believe that if he did exist, he'd be of a lower class, you know, like the rest of his followers. The Romans were HUGELY status conscious, and while they were known to train slaves to read and write it they needed a personal secretary, they wouldn't choose the son of a day laborer to do that. Plus, there's no evidence that he was a slave, merely of low social status.
It's reasonable to assume that he worked with Joseph as a laborer throughout his adolescence. Think of Lenin. He was a mid-level bureaucrat before becoming a revolutionary. He saw the crap that the proles were taking and wanted to do something. Maybe Jesus was the same. Being in the lower classes, he'd see a lot of the "violence inherent in the system", and if he was of even moderate intelligence and moral character it would irritate him. Of course, if he was of moderate intelligence he'd also realize that writing "Romanus Ite Domum" 100 times on the wall would only serve to get him captured by a UFO...um, I mean get him thrown in jail the first day he started, he'd go for a more gentile approach.
And, just because we don't know, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Argument from ignorance anyone?
I have no doubt Mohammed was an historical figure, despite doubting some claims about him. He is well documented by sources other than his followers. I have little doubt Apollonius of Tyana existed, though he almost certainly didn't travel to India, and he clearly couldn't walk through walls. The evidence for Jesus's existence is utterly absent. The earliest refernces to Jesus either fail to discuss his life at all, or discuss him as having existed at least a generation earlier. There is no contemporary mention of him anywhere by anyone.
Good, on Mo and Apo we agree.
I seem to remember a saying that covers your comments on Jesus though. It goes something like "absence of evidence..." or some such.
