Chapter 4 Rising Gods, Legendary Heroes - How do other stories compare to Jesus? #2

Today we are looking at the second example of a legend that is claimed to be just like the story of Jesus. Sabbatai Sevi was a Jewish messianic figure who lived in the seventeenth century. His followers claim he performed miracles and rose from the dead. Some would say that if we claim this man's story was just a legend we must also admit that for the story of Jesus.
There are four problems with this supposed parallel. The miracles of  Sabbatai were highly questionable and even denied by his closest confidant. The miracles of Jesus were not questioned by his followers or anyone at that time. The account of Sabbatai's resurrection went through several stages of development as would be expected with a legend, while the account of Jesus resurrection has remained consistently the same. No one claims to have seen Sabbatai after his resurrection, while there were many who saw Jesus. It also appears that conditions in the seventeenth century were ideal for Sabbatai's claim to be a messiah. (You can read more about this in the Wikipedia article on his life. Here is a quote from Wikipedia,

 The readiness of the Jews of the time to believe the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi may be largely explained by the desperate state of European Jewry in the mid-17th century.

It seems clear that the claim that the stories about Sabbatai Zevi are legends is justified and would not lead us to put the stories of Jesus in the same category.