Why is Jesus so popular? I mean, how did he become so incredibly well known after his death when up to that point he was a rebel and a heretic? His crucifixion is irrefutable evidence of his singular lack of popularity with the powers that be at the time. It can’t be the miracle thing, as he’d already performed many before they nailed him to the cross. I don’t understand the contrast between his infamy during his life and global superstardom still going strong 2,000 years later. –Alex Fleming, Montreal
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Jesus did found a successful religion, historically a good way to keep your name before the public eye. The real question is why Christianity went over so big. Considering some of the characters who’ve been connected with it over the past couple millennia, you’ve got to figure the only explanation is the hand of providence. This is not a topic that lends itself to scientific inquiry, however, so let’s stick to the human contribution. Most historians give the major credit to Saul of Tarsus, better known as Paul, who converted to Christianity (though it wasn’t called that yet) just a few years after the crucifixion. Paul was instrumental in taking an obscure Jewish sect, stripping away its parochial baggage, and positioning it to become a major world religion. In addition to being a tireless proselytizer, organizer, and propagandist, Paul was a creative theologian who played up the parts of Christianity that had universal appeal, notably the belief in eternal life, popularly understood to mean an individual afterlife. At the Council of Jerusalem in 49 AD he also helped kibosh the idea that Christians needed to observe Jewish ritual, including (urk) circumcision, a major disincentive till then.
Many religions previously had had some notion of an afterlife, but, as in the Greek belief in Hades, it was often thought of as some sort of astral garbage can into which souls were pitched once stripped of flesh. Christianity turned this bleak idea into the positive concept of salvation and resurrection. (In the church’s earliest days it was believed the Second Coming would occur within the lifetimes of those then living, which made acceptance of Jesus all the more urgent.)
