911

Seriously I do not understand what you are trying to say here, sorry. Can you please clarify a little?

Diogenes the Cynic

Generally, I would agree with you. Sometimes it can be a tedious distraction for any discussion of a Gospel narrative to be broken up by interjections of "It's all just a MYTH." However, in the context of this particular thread, I think it's relevant because the subject under discussion is "What did Jesus really mean when he said_______?" The question itself presumes HJ and precludes MJ, an assumption I don't think can be made. Unless and until the historicity question is ever settled, I don't think it makes much sense to try to infer psychological intentions from the character of Jesus presented in the Gospels. I think it's usually better to simply ask, "What did the author mean by having Jesus say ____?" because that's really all we have to go on.

For the record, I don't think it would betray the mythicist, or even the non-supernatural historicist positions to say that GJohn's Jesus was claiming personal divinity (though that still leaves some question about the exact nature of how GJohn perceived the Logos). If GJohn's Jesus is fiction then there isn't any point in objecting to apparent claims of divinity any more than objecting to the miracle stories or to the assertion that "Superman can fly." One may ask how Superman is able to fly without having to stipulate that one knows Superman isn't real.

freigeister

What I'm asking is whether or not this board will permit a thread that does assume Christ's historicity for discussion purposes. This could function like the inverse of Eblaforum, where mythicism is restricted to a single thread.

Clarice O'C

Only Christians are "sinners." You should not say that anyone else is. Everyone is allowed to define and describe themselves.

As well, *I* am the way and the truth and the life--it's up to me. Jesus lied, if he lived.

Julian

Well, one could make the point that if Jesus lived and was crucified on some middle platonic plane, then certainly he would have been able to utter sayings under such a condition as well. A case could be made to trace sayings to the original inspiration that also placed his crucifiction in the mythic realm. Of course, it could be easily concluded that both the historical view as well as the mythicist view could be rejected. I suspect that what mythicists are doing is rejecting the historicity and placing the contemporary concept of Jesus in the realm of myth, enabling us to reject that as well being unable to withstand even a cursory glance of skepticism. I certainly belong in this camp despite the rest of my post proceeding in a moderately conciliatory manner.

As such the sayings have validity for mythical christianity as well as the historical bent. Whether they were spoken by a fleshy Jesus, a docetic one or one entirely mythical, a discussion of his sayings is certainly worthwhile in equal measures.

The question of whether he really did say such and such in the same manner that we today expect people to say things is probably secondary to an enlightened christian. And should enable us atheists and mythicists to engage in a progressive dialogue that doesn't regress into a establishment of his bodily origins. I realize that a fundalmentalist would burn me at the stake at this point.

I agree that a statement such as the one specified in the OP does not relate to a physical, historical Jesus but this does not devoid it of meaning, and consequent interpretation, in this, or any other, forum.

Why does it matter where it came from? The issue here is what does it mean and does it have any validity besides the ramblings of the anonymous human being from which it came.

I ramble on but I guess that I am saying that historicity versus mythicism is one thing and the meanings and believability of his sayings quite another. They both are constituent pieces in a larger puzzle but can, even so, be evaluated separately in a meaningful manner.

Hmmm, did somebody just feel me channel Valentinus there...?

Julian

Toto

If you state your assumptions and indicate that they are assumptions for the purposes of that thread, you are free to discuss anything you want.

Mythicism usually comes up on these threads when a historicist insults anyone who thinks mythicism is even an option.

freigeister

This is untrue, even in your own case.

In this thread, we have posts by Freiheit,Avatar,Mountain Man, Diogenes and John A. Broussard all essentially derailing a discussion about what Christ said by claiming that, because he is fictional, he never really said anything.

Diogenes the Cynic

My position is actually a little more nuanced than that. I'm not saying the meaning of the saying can't be discussed, only that I think it has to be framed in terms of what the author meant rather than assuming HJ and then speculating as to his psychology. Asking questions about what Jesus really meant by an attributed statement is kind of hard to do if we don't know that any HJ actually said it. There simply isn't any data from which to do an anaysis. All we can do is, for the purposes of discussion, treat him as a character in a book and speculate as to why the author has him do or say whatever the author has him do or say. It is possible to dicuss the character's psychology rhetorically (just as one might discuss the madness of Hamlet, for instance), but it's not possible to draw a conclusion about a Historical Jesus because we don't know how reliable the report is (and this particular report is especially dubious.

For the record, I am agnostic on historicity. I do not dismiss the possibility of HJ, nor do I argue strongly against it. My personal take on the OP's question is not to say "There was no Jesus, so what does it matter?" but to say that even if there was a Jesus (something which I do not think is impossible), he almost certainly didn't utter that line.

John A. Broussard

I think the board would permit a thread that does assume the IPU's historicity for discussion purposes.

I see nothing wrong with that, though I know there are some skeptics who would still want to challenge the existence of the IPU.

freigeister

Diogenes:

You said that even if Christ is historical, the statement under discussion is inauthentic. When challenged on this point, you said, "I don't have the burden [of proof]." You did redeem yourself by providing a rationale. The impression that all this gives, however, is that any thread will be subverted if it assumes the essential authenticity of any NT statements.

In attacking the authenticity of the statement under discussion, you stated " Claiming to be God was also fundamentally un-Jewish as well as anti Messianic." This is a point worth discussing. As I said above, the answer lies in understanding Christ's language as that of a mystic. We are all familiar with mystical statements about union with the One. This statement by Christ is essentially the same thing. As far as its Jewishness is concerned, this can be discussed at great length. For the moment, I will simply quote Spinoza in defence of Christ's standing at the center of Judaism: