Den, we would (and probably will) founder on the rocks of detail in history, but it's a striking improvement (in my eyes) to emphasize the love you see in the example of Jesus' life, and in his teaching, rather than the sorting-through of who among
us is saved or damned.
Today is my last day at a job, with a lot yet left to do, so it wouldn't do to get into the depths of religious debate on this forum this morning.
Let me go now outside both Catholic and Protestant dogma, however, and suggest the following points:
1) To get to historical truth -- which departs from this theological conversation -- we are forced to observe the uses, styles, and historical context (
sitz em leben) of various bits of the greek bible.
2) Even sticking with the notion that the greek bible is an accurate document written without purpose or bias, and trusting it to the letter, it is obvious that Jesus did almost all of his preaching to fellow Jews. (personally, I think it was all of it -- but again, that's another conversation.) He has chance encounters with, for example, a Samaritan (that is, someone who worshipped the same God and followed the same commandments of the early Jews, but without ascribing canonical status to writings from the times of the divided monarchy onward)
3) That being the case, and the Jews of the first century remaining
un-converted, by and large, it is evident to me that Jesus did not, in fact, succeed in his mission.
4) Paul, on the other hand -- who centered the lion's share of his efforts on gentiles rather than Jews -- was enormously successful in his grassroots efforts. Likewise the church in the time of Paul.
5) In the time of Jesus, the outsider would observe his obsession with the end-times, and his radicalization of preexistent Jewish content. This becomes the nut of the idea of being "saved". Working from a preexistent apocalyptic tradition, Jesus stipulates that Judgement is coming
within the lifetimes of his followers. Jesus also observes the letter of the law, and insists his audience go beyond the letter of the law and make their lives testaments to the spirit of the law. For example, he says to love not just your neighbor, but your enemy. He is not saying "instead of," he is saying "in addition to." Whatever the law says, try to see the next step and enact it.
6) Whether or not you believe the works of early Christians who wanted their faith to survive, the Jesus of the bible makes references such as "none come to the father save through the son."
7) From the outside, given the motives of the chroniclers of Jesus' life, there is a great deal of motive to ascribe such sayings to him regardless of historicity. We know that Q - the source from which the synoptic gospel writers worked - probably wrote mere years after Jesus death, certainly fewer than four decades after (probably in the 50s, in fact.) It would be interesting to determine in which sources such sayings do and do not appear. If they appear in all the synoptics, we can say "Jesus = Salvation" was a set policy by the 50s. If we find them in Mark and Matthew but not Luke (just as an example,) that may be an aspect of the retelling introduced later.
8) Regardless, it is evident that Jesus' teaching about Judaism, to Jews, was unsuccessful. Paul et al's teachings to gentiles, about Judaism, was successful. Whatever the merits of first century Judaism -- which indeed enjoyed some prestige around the Roman world at the time in its own right -- the most appealing differences the Christians provided might well have had nothing to do with martyrdom and everything to do with conveniences (such as the lack of a need to do anything particularly foreign, like circumcising children or observing dietary or other laws.)
9) Jesus taught that the entirety of the preexisting Jewish law must be preserved. Paul taught that they should be jettisoned on the strength of various dreams and other subjective evidence.
10) Paul's subjective opinions bore objective fruit, judging by the success of the rebranded faith among the gentiles.
But Jesus would never have lived like that, would he?
Finally: is it not possible that right up there with the convenience of Pauline Christianity, we should list the devolution of the faith into saved/unsaved linedrawing, in a way that never really applied in Judaism? That is to say, the innovation of "convert or face eternal torment" is an expansion of the theme that eternal torment awaits the wicked -- but prior to that time, apocalyptic salvation scenarios were essentially a theologically underdeveloped goad for people to be good, or face being thrown in with the oppressor on the day of judgement.
The apocalyptic goad reaches further exagerration when one brings into play the vivid afterlife beliefs the Christians developed. There is a day of judgement, which is no longer imminent; but now there is also a
separate mechanics in an otherworldly realm. You might be cast on the wrong side of the final judgement, but now you might also be subject to a repeat of Nero on earth as well. You might be in an uncorporeal afterlife, but now you also might have to answer to a quite corporeal second coming... etc. Suffice it to say, the post-death world opened up wide and varied vistas in the Christian faith -- and there was a great deal of room for conversations about the state of the "eternal". Waiting forever for a guy to come back, at the same time supposedly believing that we have the mechanics to bypass judgement, can create fertile ground for such discussions.
Whatever the historical origin of this dual salvation system, and the historical patches that make them work together, and the dogmatic text-fitting that justifies these patches, Christianity had a much more robust system of post-death punishments and rewards than first of second century Judaism. Christianity was built with marketing in mind, whereas Judaism was puritanical in its adherence to its central teachings. Beyond that, the actual moral teachings of the religions are very similar.
So there is little reason to believe that the appeal of Christianity to the ancient world is due solely to the remarkable selflessness of Jesus, any more than one could ascribe such success to another faith based on the life of another martyr.
There is too much evidence to the contrary.
Regarding Chesterton's trilemma, it's of mind-bending importance if you're already a convert, but of no interest whatsoever to those who believe that one can be mistaken without being a madman, or who believe that one's words may not always be 100% correctly recorded, particularly after an intervening span of decades, when the recorder has overriding motives to have your words fit a commonly remembered narrative.
Thanks,
PFnV