Spanky

I thought you were an expert in deciphering ancient texts. . .or something like that?

gurugeorge

Ambiguous, equally applicable to a mythical Jesus.

In context, it seems that when some people were baptized, they sometimes took themselves to be baptized "in the name of" the "apostle" (? - who were those other guys anyway? It doesn't at all sound like people who knew a living person - in fact it sounds, as Doherty suggest, more like a broad movement) who baptized them rather than "Christ". Then he launches into some stuff about folly and wisdom. Rather murky altogether, but it doesn't unambiguously point to a historical Jesus, at any rate.

This and the other passage in Corinthians (1:15 etc.) are the biggies. To my mind these are the only passages in Paul that seem more to be talking about a historical person. However, although hey're less ambiguous than the other passages, they're still not completely clear. (e.g. in view of the "according to Scriptures" in 1:15, it's still possible Paul could be talking about a mythical entity).

Again, could equally well apply to someone preaching a mythical entity.

Archons have been mulled over here on IIDB a fair bit. There's too much strangeness here for it to be obvious that it should be taken literally as opposed to mythically.

Again, could equally apply to a myth.

No historical detail here really. No apriori reason to concieve of it as historical.

Again, not a clear historical reference: since the Galatians clearly could not have observed the actual crucifixion, the reference could be metaphorical (referring to preaching) or mythical.

I don't know why you think there's anything clearly historical here at all..

Again, nothing really historical here - it actually sounds (like a fair bit of Paul) quite mystical (in the sense of non-dual mysticism, abeyance of the ordinary sense of self and its replacement by a sense of being, as we materialists would say, the Universe).

And to counter this paucity of possible (i.e. ambiguous) references (and you could add the Ehrman references Chris Weimer posted aeons ago on this thread, that aren't already cited above - similar comments would apply) we have acres and acres of either formalistic religious gobbledeygook, boring parochial twaddle (but that's ok, since they are after all letters to a "flock") or quite mystical sounding stuff that could very easily refer to a mythical Jesus understood mystically, celebrated (apparently) in a rather lively fasion, somewhat similar to some of the evangelical churches today.

Chris Weimer

Thanks Toto for fixing it.

An excellent text, but not quite right either. Far too different of a genre to make the right parallels. But I'll work with it.

As an atheist, I automatically strike out the divine - do we agree on this?

No one can know what was in their minds, no, but I don't think we have to. You see, I never claimed that the gospel writers, or the Iliad, were "gospel truth". The fact that Homer's Iliad is based on something shows that some history can make it through a poeticized epic tale. If even the Iliad, a document about which we have no corresponding sources from that time, save scant archaeological evidence, then we have a pretty good chance that when something happens in a more literate society with it being tracked down mere decades after the alleged incident took place, I think we can say assuredly that there is something in that which was passed down (tradition).

Well, if you start with that assumption, than of course your conclusion will end the same. :huh:

Did Jewish authors often write fiction like this? Is there anything like the gospels in ancient times? Most Jewish works from the time period were either religious doctrine, current events usually recast in prophetic light, such as the pesharim, or tales spun around ancient myths - Abraham, Moses, Adam, Enoch, etc... Where do the gospels fit in? If it can't as fiction like Gone with the Wind, then doesn't that make your hypothesis anachronistic? Aren't you placing your modern views on a text that doesn't share the same literary heritage you do?

This is also a misunderstanding of the context. First of all, the birth narratives are later in date - Mark, the earliest one written, doesn't have a birth narrative, nor does John, the last one written (but unaware of Matthew or Luke). We've seen in later 2nd century gospels that gospel writers tended to fill in information about Jesus' life where it didn't already exist - and we see the same thing in Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke's sources didn't have a birth for Jesus, so they added one. Luke went one step further and added a detail about his childhood. All of it was apocryphal. It didn't really happen.

I'm sorry, I don't follow you here. You were talking about people who think that every word of the Bible is literally true. I said I have those people on ignore, as I don't work with apologists. What does textual criticism have to do with anything? :huh:

And so archaeology has also confirmed that surrounding the Jesus story - how can you differentiate between what is history and what is made up if you only look at the "bigger picture"?

Ignoring it and disregarding it are too similar in character to differentiate here. I asked if Mark really did ignore it, you said you consider the possibility that he disregarded it...what if he just didn't know it? What if Jesus' birth was ordinary, and so Matthew and Luke retrojected theological ideas back onto the early narrative of Jesus?

So, in your opinion, Caesar never existed? You see, when we have some problems with Caesar's story, we just call those problems fiction, but when there are some problems to the Jesus story, we relegate his whole life to myth. I sense hypocrisy here. Unless, of course, you are fair and equally relegate Caesar himself to the realm of myth.

However, some problems does not mean that the whole story is myth. Do the problems in what Caesar said reflect on the historicity of his assassination? Or on his life? So why do you use the problems in the Jesus narrative to reflect on the historicity of his crucifixion, his life?

Chris Weimer

Color me lazy.

Spanky

Happens to the best of us.

Gamera

I think you missed the point. The epistles aren't gospels, so of course he doesn't go into the narrative. What he does is reference the fact that he preached the gospel, which is a NARRATIVE about Jesus.

Tradition also supports the fact that Paul preached a narrative. He didn't stand in the market place and dispute theology.

So that isn't really in dispute.

Thus, we know Paul preached a gospel narrative about Jesus life. We know that narrative involved crucifixion. We know that the gospels place Jesus' narrative in history and that it involves a crucifixion.

Personally, I see a pattern forming.

Gamera

You miscontrue my point.

The verses support the claim that Paul preached a NARRATIVE about Jesus, and that narrative involved crucifixion. Tradition supports that.

So it is really beyond dispute that Paul preached a narrative about Jesus that involved crucifixion.

Next step: was that narrative set in history. Well, luckily we have some other narratives about Jesus. The gospels. They involve a crucifixion and they are set in history.

I personally see a pattern forming.

spamandham

Paul states his gospel explicitly in 1 Corinthians 15, and it seems to be a creed, not a narrative.

GakuseiDon

I honestly don't see how you can say there are differences between Paul and the Gospels without reading the Gospels into Paul. Surely it cuts both ways. That's why you seem to be in a "Gospel mindset". If you looked at Paul by himself, I don't think you can come to any other conclusion that he believed in a historical Jesus. Though of course if any historicist statement is regarded as non-genuine to Paul (or whoever you regard the original author to be) then you can avoid that conclusion. I would like to see how both these statements can be true: "Paul as we have him today isn't evidence for historicity" and "There were lots of interpolations into Paul to make him line up with Orthodoxy". I'm not saying they are necessarily mutually exclusive, depending on how you define "Orthodoxy" and its beliefs over the first few centuries, but I'm interested in how you can make the case. Doherty's version is simpler and more attractive on this score.

One of my criticisms of Doherty is that he floats the idea of a "fleshly sublunar realm", for which there is no evidence whatsoever AFAICS. Are you saying that there is evidence of a belief by Christians at some time of a "non-historical fleshly being" who was able to be crucified in a non-earthly location? If so, do you have evidence for this? Not even the gnostics believed this, AFAIK.

Well, the problem with logic is that it is dependent on the premises being true. Doherty's case is perfectly logical assuming that people believed in a "fleshly sublunar realm". But the logic isn't the problem.

Gamera

Since a gospel by definition is a narrative, this is unlikely. Moreover, I disagree with you about 1 Cor 15. I reach the opposite conclusion. He says he preached a narrative about Jesus' life and death. He summarize it. But how you claim the following are not purported to be historical events:

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9"

Paul says explicitly that as part of the narrative Jesus dies and comes back and "appeared" to various historical personages, presumably doing more than appearing, but engaging in some interaction, like talking.

And of course, that's exactly what we have in the written gospels themselves, and the Synoptics characterize an historical Jesus. I don't know. I see a definite pattern forming.

My understanding is that most JMers try to avoid this problem by claiming 1 Cor 15 is an interpolation. That's fine. But I gave numerous verses below that show a similar representation by authentic Pauline verses in which Paul claimed to preach Jesus's "biography" -- i.e., his mission, his crucifixion and his resurrection.