gurugeorge

It's not "why would he", it's "why wouldn't he"? It's up to the person who claims Paul's writings are evidence for the "Jesus" we all know and love to try and suggest why, when there's no mention of the sayings or doings of that "Jesus" in Paul's writings, they still consider those writings evidence of that "Jesus".

On the one hand, I'm relying on nothing more than general psychology. People, generally, get excited about their idols, want to know the details, use their sayings to guide their lives, etc., etc. On the other hand, someone who wants to claims Paul's writings are evidence of the "Jesus" we all know and love, to try and figure out some special psychological (or whatever) reason why Paul doesn't mention that "Jesus"' sayings and doings, contrary to what one would normally expect.

Chris Weimer

But there are - he quotes Jesus twice, and alludes to other sayings that the gospels present as Jesus speaking. He also talks about Jesus' last supper, death, and resurrection. There are some references - now it's up to you to defend your theory of "silence".

Always? Can you show this to be true? Do you have any evidence for this claim?

Again, evidence for what "one would normally expect". Where and why. Back up your claims.

gurugeorge

I don't know what "allusions" you mean Chris, nor do I know what you mean by "talks about" in the above. Can you give some references? I'm sure they're probably contested, and I don't have the time for that kind of back and forth at the moment. (Remember, I was just presenting the outline of the argument from silence as it can be found in Doherty, for example, to try and counter Lee's presentation of the argument from silence as something simplistic.)

Some general stuff:

Seeing by Starlight: Celebrity Obsession

Divine Trash: the Psychology of Celebrity Obsession

And for celebrity in the ancient world:

Review of a an article on the subject

Uhh, it's a point of logic Chris: if Paul's writings are considered to be evidence for the "Jesus" of the Gospels, you want there to be some of that "Jesus"' sayings and doings in Paul's writings. Otherwise, the "Jesus" in Paul looks purely like a kind of mystical thing, and there's even a hint of use of Mystery terminology there too. Doherty goes into this a bit in his article on the Mysteries on his website; but elsewhere on his website you'll see he makes this very point: something is evidence for what it is. Paul is, on the face of it, evidence for a mystical sort of Jesus, not, on the face of it, evidence for a historical Jesus, so if you want to make Paul evidence for a historical Jesus you have to work harder than if you want to make him evidence for a mystical Jesus. So why not take the face value? Otherwise you have to have a good reason to explain the silences. People don't see that this is where the burden of proof lies because they're so used to reading the Gospel Jesus into Paul, hence the silence is puzzling. But if you take the face value reading of a mystical Jesus, there's no silence, and no puzzle - it's the straightforward reading.

(Btw I got a sense of this ages before I read Doherty, in my own totally amateur way. Years ago, in my twenties, I was in a hotel room and there was one of those bibles they have in hotels, and I read the letters. It seemed to me even then that something very peculiar was going on, if the "Jesus" Paul was speaking about was the "Jesus" I was familiar with - they didn't seem like the same entity at all, to me.)

Gooch's dad

Assuming your conclusion as part of your argument?

So far in this thread, when presented with evidence, we have MJ'ers

--saying that the references in Paul are later Christian insertions "because it makes sense".

--confusing Josephus' Ant. 20.9.1 with the TF.

--And here, assuming that any references in Paul to a literal man, "are probably contested", even before the specific passages are given.

What's next? Are those who think that there was likely a historical Jesus once again going to be accused of being closet Christians?

I'm particularly curious why Earl Doherty, who is participating in this thread, has completely ignored my question of why he hasn't published his claims in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, or even whether he has attempted such publication.

Talk about a glaring argument from silence!

gurugeorge

Well, what I meant was, I'm vaguely aware of some such passages, but IIRC Doherty does give arguments against them (I think some are based on them being criticised even by orthodox scholars, but again my memory's vague on that). I'm sure it would be interesting to go through them, but I'm not the best person to do it right now. As an interested layman, I like to see the to- and fro- on this board, so it would be interesting to see what Chris thinks are the "allusions" and "talkings about" he means.

As I said, I was just outlining the form of the kind of "argument from silence" that Doherty uses and how it applies in Paul, or, to be absolutely precise, how Doherty and other mythicists tend to think it applies (to show Lee that it wasn't as simplistic as he was making out).

At the end of the day we all come to these texts with some background assumptions. If you simply assume that the "Jesus" Paul was talking about is the "Jesus" of the Gospels (or some obscure preacher/revolutionary/whatever supposed to be at the root of that "Jesus") then there's a problem with Paul, a problem which seems to have been recognised by scholars for a long time.

OTOH, if you don't have that assumption, and have only the general background assumption I've been talking about (that when somebody is idolised, loved, a celebrity, even in a small circle, then there's bound to be a great interest in the details of that person's life and sayings), then there's no problem with Paul whatsoever - he straightforwardly seems to be talking not about somebody who ever lived, but about a sort of proto-Gnostic, mystical "Christ", with a hint of non-dualism and a maybe a hint of the Mysteries.

The "it's one and the same Jesus" assumption is quite natural for Christians of course, and has been natural in the Christian tradition. But I don't think it's quite the blank slate that a proper historical study would start with - and although that's just my opinion judging from general reading of history, it seems to be a point that's also made by some of the sceptics/agnostics on this board like Spin, Toto, etc.

Plus also, if it's true that this is the earliest writing we have about "Jesus", then it's even more important to read it without importing assumptions coming from later times, to see what kind of "Jesus" Paul presents, in and of itself, and see if it makes sense as being the first kind of "Jesus" there ever was. If it makes sense as a mystical Redeemer figure, then the historical stuff surely must be a later addition somehow? (Or at least, that's highly plausible as an alternative to "obscure preacher immediately deified then given life details and having words put into his mouth". This seems bizarrely convoluted compared to what seem to me the much more straighforward "mystical Redeemer concretised and a lineage to him concocted in order to gain political and psychological ascendancy of one part of the early Church over others." The latter seems more par for the course in world religions - e.g. compare and contrast Lao Zi who has been mentioned before. People do that sort of thing, concretise over time, if there was a lack of concrete detail in the beginning.)

Amaleq13

If you could actually establish that to be the case, I think you would have a stronger argument though I doubt mythicists would consider it a death blow to their position.

Now that, IMO, is a more interesting angle on the issue though probably no more likely to obtain a surrender.

Toto

Please note - you do not have "MJ'ers" - you have particular single participants here.

If you object so much to having your motives attacked, you might avoid doing that to others.

You are confused about the role of publishing in peer reviewed journals. In the scientific field, a publication in a peer reviewed journal is part of the validation process and is a key factor in separating accepted research from research that might be inadequate or even fraudulent. In addition, scientific research proceeds by small incremental steps, suitable for a single paper in a journal which can be abstracted in a paragraph.

In the humanities, there is no comparable agreement on methodology or standards of proof, and scholarly journals cannot not play the same role.

If you look at some of the articles published in scholarly journals in the field of NT studies, they generally confine themselves to small incremental steps in understanding some aspect of textual analysis or interpretation. Doherty could not publish his book in that fashion - he would have to carve out a small area of interpretation, and then another. If he were a young scholar with a long term plan to overturn the field, this would be a good strategy. But he doesn't have that time line. There are probably other factors.

andrewcriddle

IIUC it is difficult to combine Markan priority with the idea of Marcion's version of Luke being original. Marcion's Gospel is further from Mark than our Luke.

The Acta Archelai claim that Basilides commented on the parable of Lazarus.

This passage from the Apocalypse of Peter seems a/ to refer to the Messianic claims of Bar Kochba b/ to be expecting divine intervention against Bar Kochba rather than mere defeat in battle.
Hence Apocalypse of Peter is presumably written c 133 CE
You are not justified in using the Rigveda as evidence for Mithraism within the Roman Empire. (At least you should provide justification.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Most scholars hold that Ovid never wrote the second half of the Fasti, certainly there is no evidence of any ancient writer quoting it (unlike the first half). Given that the writing of the Fasti probably overlapped with Ovid's exile he may have been reluctant to celebrate the Caesars in July and August.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Hippolytus' work was not copied much probably because it is so very rude about Pope Callistus.

Book one survived as a stand alone introduction to Greek philosophy.

A single manuscript of books 4-10 (without 1-3) also survived probably copied by someone uninterested in the prelims and only interested in the core themes.

It is not certain what books 2 and 3 contained, although quite plausibly it was mystery religions. However IMVHO it may have been esoteric information about Egyptian and Babylonian religion.

Andrew Criddle