(1) That’s not literally true (Trump is not imagined as actually Jesus, but as a new messianic figure in service to Jesus).

(2) What is the relevance of that observation here?

I don’t see too much difference between Jesus being a savior and Trump being the modern day one. In fact, millions of Christians claim Trump is the modern day Jesus.

Well, whenever you hear the word “mosaic” and “Christian” in the same sentence, you should immediately assume you are being told about a medieval artifact, not an ancient one. There are a scant few exceptions, but odds are, these turn out to be medieval. And this is a typical case: it dates to the 500s AD. Which makes it completely useless as evidence pertaining to the origins of Christianity, or even early Christianity.

That mosaic was literally commissioned by the Catholic Church (through a private donor). It’s thus not going to contain any revealing secret alternative Christianity. It’s going to promote standard public-facing Catholicism. And it won’t have any connection to the history of Christianity (this isn’t a mosaic in some apostle’s house). It’s just ordinary, late-era propaganda. Indeed, selling it as “Peter’s House” was a medieval gimmick, typical of abundant Catholic pilgrim-scamming of the era. It has no such connection.

There is a full image of the “inscription” here. But I can’t make out all the letters. The article is behind an outrageous pay wall and it is embargoed on all other databases (so I can’t access it through my usual channels).

But my suspicion is that this doesn’t say what you think. When it was constructed (centuries after the fact), all the Apostles were heavenly, i.e. Saints living in Heaven awaiting the Resurrection. After all, they’d been dead a long time. And this is a Catholic church, big on deifying (er, em, honoring?) Saints. Which all the Apostles were by then.

As for Peter, some recent (2022) archaeological work regarding Bethsaida (which now looks to be a site called Al-Araj near the place where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Galilee. They found a a large mosaic with an actual written inscription that invokes St. Peter as “the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles”. Note, HEAVENLY apostles. Not worldly apostles. I don’t think that inscription even refers to a worldly Peter, much less a Jesus of this world. This has all been updated to the Bethsaida Wikipedia article, where I found it. I wish they quoted the entire inscription, but I’m certain you have access to such things. Please forgive me if this is old news for you. I haven’t seen you reference it, but I’m not fully caught up with your writing since 2022. And btw, good work. Over the last week you’ve taken me from 60% Historical Jesus to around 80% No Such Thing.

No one does that.

Authors don’t write detailed, panicked letters warning people to shun opponents who don’t exist. Much less elabotately describe the specific things those opponents have challenged, and altering the entire movement’s creed to head it off.

If no Christians were saying these things, there would be no need to warn against them. Much less to completely change the creed. It wouldn’t even occur to an author that they have to pre-emptively warn Christians about non-existent opposition sects, much less have to change their creed to do this.

And even if for some very bizarre reason they did that, they would say that’s what they were doing. Because otherwise their readers would wonder what the fuck they are talking about, and why they are taking such an extreme step to address it. Who are these people we are supposed to be afraid of? Why are they saying these weird specific things? And why are they so alarming that we have to elaborately alter our traditional creed for this?

To the contrary, the author assumes his readers already know what he is talking about.

Which means he isn’t making it up.

What we are left with is a creed (in fact several quoted by Paul) that never references any historical detail placing any of Jesus’ activity on earth, then a blackout of fifty some years, during which the Gospels get written, and suddenly, a lifetime after the Gospels began circulating, the creed has been retooled to include details that only first appear in them—Mary, Pilate, a human birth with Davidic ancestors, dinner parties, earthly witnesses to the Crucifixion. Not only do they suddenly get added to the creed, they become essential to the creed: we are told we must condemn any Christians who reject them. Which means…there were Christians who rejected them. And we don’t get to hear from them.

Concerning this specific assertion:

[W]e are told we must condemn any Christians who reject them. Which means…there were Christians who rejected them.

I’m not so sure I agree with your logic (conclusion) here. It seems to me that the fact
we are told any Christians who reject them must be condemned, isn’t in of itsef actual proof that any Christians had (already) rejected them.

Isn’t it possible that the authors of the creed were simply concerned about that as a real possibility and thus PROACTIVELY added that stipulation to the creed out of their mere CONCERN that MIGHT happen?

A perusal through ancient tales, will shed light on the nature of much of the early christian “miracle” tales, for the tall tales they are. See for example; Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation by Stephen M. Trzaskoma. Also, a serious study through the Pseudepigraphal writings such as the collection by Charlesworth, will do the same. If only more “christians” would spend real time in these writings, they might begin to pull their heads out of their butts and see the new testament tales for what they are: a product of their time full of tall tales.

Completing my backlog:

Why balk at this, but not at the fact that the exact same thing happened to the risen Jesus: he started out in private internal visions, and became a physical weeks-long dinner guest. It’s the same process. You can’t balk at one and not the other.

And if you are a Christian who insist the risen Jesus really was a physical dinner guest for several weeks, all mainstream scholars the world over disagree with you. You might want to ask why that is. See my comment recommending you are looking in the wrong literature here. You need NIF, WNC, and SAG, not OHJ.

As to evidence, there actually is quite a bit of that. The opposite of “none.” OHJ surveys examples in chs. 9 and 11 (and for required background assumptions, chs. 4 and 5).

Continuing with my backlog:

Yes.

Actually, not “most plausible,” but “most probable.” That is, if you want to discuss what happened rather than merely what could have.

And that is the entire function of OHJ. I meticulously compare the probabilities of both theories on all available evidence. If you want to come to a different conclusion than me, you have to find where you’d change the probabilities in those assessments (cf. chs. 6-11 as summarized and charted in ch. 12)—and, most importantly, why. See ch. 12 for a detailed explanation of why you need to do this, and how.

While I might take issue with one or two particular things you assert in this article, overall, I do have to agree that what you are proposing IS “plausible”.

But, isn’t the question one of which is “MOST plausible”?

When considering the views of the historicists vs your view, to me it seems “MORE plausible” that there was an earthly Jesus (even if he wasn’t the “Jesus of the Gospels”). But, that’s just me.

Again, though, isn’t it a matter of which hypothesis is MOST plausible? (and not merely “plausible”?)