Christianity

[cpmcmahon]

How did Jesus finance his ministry? There was Jesus, 12 disciples, Mary Magdalene, plus sundry hangers-on, all with no obvious income for 3 years. How did they support themselves? There was no social security. I reckon the bill must be at least a million pounds in today's money. Did they have a wealthy backer? Did they charge for sermons and miracles? Did they steal or beg? None of the alternatives seem particularly worthy.

[gazzawazza]

I think they relied on the goodwill of the people who believed in him, and when there were too many to feed He performed miracles to make sure that no-one went hungry.

[cpmcmahon]

If they relied on the goodwill of others, then they took more than they gave. That doesn't sound very Christian to me.

[froggequene]

Well, you've heard of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes haven't you?

[cpmcmahon]

Do any religious people have an answer which doesn't involve miracles?

[cucumbers]

Capital one credit card , looking at their ads !

[gilf]

He was a carpenter, so he did a bit of wood work in the day then went round preaching during the evening and at weekends.

[froggequene]

I never said I was religious, you're asking us to answer a question based on evidence which is thousands of years old and a lot of it wasn't even recorded during his lifetime. Any way, where's your sense of humour?

[Miss Zippy]

Well I guess the drugs theory could well explain the purported 'miracles'. Heretics anonymous.

[cpmcmahon]

Christians presumably think that the evidence is reliable, even though it is thousands of years and a lot of it wasn't recorded during Jesus's lifetime. Otherwise they wouldn't believe. I am not expecting non-Christians to share that perspective.

[froggequene]

I didn't say I wasn't Christian either, we simply can't answer the question, Christians believe that Christ existed that he suffered and died for us but apparently the mundane details of day to day living weren't considered necessary to record. One would assume though that he did have a few wealthy patrons and did depend on contributions from others.

[cpmcmahon]

Jesus told people to give up all their possessions. But did he practise what he preached? If he lived on donations, then he was doing exactly the opposite. Was Jesus a hypocrite?

[cpmcmahon]

If there was any sharing going on, it was all one-way. Jesus expected people to share with him, but he didn't share any of his possessions with anybody else.

[cpmcmahon]

Jesus could have earned his living as a carpenter and supported himself. Instead he choose to survive by scrounging off other people. That doesn't sound particularly admirable to me.

[mikewith]

JC's "costs" would presumably have been limited to food, clothing, shelter and the occasional dental appointment. Not sure how that adds up to a million pounds. There were plenty of religious and cult figures around then who would have lived off their followers (the same thing happens today in religious cultures such as India) without too much fuss being made. Although not all of them have professional staff who to this day continue to live off those self-same followers ;-)

[gazzawazza]

Cpmcmahon, I'm not religious but I have read bits of the gospel which is where we find most of our information about Jesus.

He was a travelling preacher/teacher and people were happy to provide him with a few basics to hear Him teach.

Whether you believe in God or not surely you can acknowledge that there might be someone who had such a belief in what he was doing that he was willing to give up not only everything he owned but also encourage his closest followers to do the same to set an example to others.