I might have misunderstood something here, but I don't see any treatment of the motivation of the disciples to make up that legend.
Alexander was a conquering ruler. Such people are lionized. Flattery is a desirable act, and highly encouraged by the subject of such flattery. Greek and Roman cultures are rife with superhuman heroes; it's literally part of their cultural expectation.
But Jesus? A member of a conquered people, whose skeletons heroes are David and Sampson, dead for centuries. They don't expect the supernatural; it's been 400 years since the last prophet spoke. They're looking for a Messiah, but all they have are two-bit revolutionaries who come and go.
Bodily resurrection isn't part of their mindset, either. The disciples are, in the words of Elrond, "divided, scattered, leaderless". Jews believed in a final, universal resurrection at judgement. Not before. Yet the whole raft of them come busting out of hiding within a couple of days, yelling that Jesus is alive. Where the heck did that come from? They didn't even get that from the Greeks! It completely comes out of left field. And what's their end game? Overthrowing Rome, which is all they really want, right? Nope,. They manage to tick off almost everyone by ignoring Rome and talking about stuff like loving your neighbor. And now that not only are the Romans laughing at them, the Jews are "bilin'" as well. So they're not getting any props, congratulations, encouragement. They're getting beaten, stoned, imprisoned and laughed at.
Jesus' brother quits laughing and becomes a leader of the new religion. Paul, after three full years of killing these weirdos, suddenly reverses course and alternates between getting mobbed, beaten, stoned, starved, thrown in prison, shipwrecked and all the other fun stuff, and telling everyone who will listen that yeah, that Jesus guy actually did rise from the dead, and he's using the Jewish texts to prove it.
So Alexander is the guy everyone wants to flatter, and Alexander isn't complaining.
The earliest church doesn't have the cultural mythology, the expectation of a superhero, and nobody likes them saying good things about the guy that got killed by the Romans and make it abundantly clear. But they persist. To the death.
Where's the parallel? Simply saying "it could have happened" is not sufficient to prove it actually did.
I might have misunderstood something here, but I don't see any treatment of the motivation of the disciples to make up that legend.
Alexander was a conquering ruler. Such people are lionized. Flattery is a desirable act, and highly encouraged by the subject of such flattery. Greek and Roman cultures are rife with superhuman heroes; it's literally part of their cultural expectation.
But Jesus? A member of a conquered people, whose skeletons heroes are David and Sampson, dead for centuries. They don't expect the supernatural; it's been 400 years since the last prophet spoke. They're looking for a Messiah, but all they have are two-bit revolutionaries who come and go.
Bodily resurrection isn't part of their mindset, either. The disciples are, in the words of Elrond, "divided, scattered, leaderless". Jews believed in a final, universal resurrection at judgement. Not before. Yet the whole raft of them come busting out of hiding within a couple of days, yelling that Jesus is alive. Where the heck did that come from? They didn't even get that from the Greeks! It completely comes out of left field. And what's their end game? Overthrowing Rome, which is all they really want, right? Nope,. They manage to tick off almost everyone by ignoring Rome and talking about stuff like loving your neighbor. And now that not only are the Romans laughing at them, the Jews are "bilin'" as well. So they're not getting any props, congratulations, encouragement. They're getting beaten, stoned, imprisoned and laughed at.
Jesus' brother quits laughing and becomes a leader of the new religion. Paul, after three full years of killing these weirdos, suddenly reverses course and alternates between getting mobbed, beaten, stoned, starved, thrown in prison, shipwrecked and all the other fun stuff, and telling everyone who will listen that yeah, that Jesus guy actually did rise from the dead, and he's using the Jewish texts to prove it.
So Alexander is the guy everyone wants to flatter, and Alexander isn't complaining.
The earliest church doesn't have the cultural mythology, the expectation of a superhero, and nobody likes them saying good things about the guy that got killed by the Romans and make it abundantly clear. But they persist. To the death.
Where's the parallel? Simply saying "it could have happened" is not sufficient to prove it actually did.