Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Gregg · 01-02-2004, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Do you have some new information from Doherty? There are no updates on his web site.

I would like to get away from criticizing Layman or his style, and stick to the issues. The debate has not progressed recently because a lot of people (including Layman) have been on vacation.

Doherty made an update to his site as recently as December 5.

Toto · 01-02-2004, 12:39 AM

There was a thread discussing that Dec 5 update - it involved Paula Fredriksen's informal notes on Doherty. But there is nothing on Doherty's site responding to Layman's articles.

Ted Hoffman · 01-02-2004, 12:40 AM

Layman: And can you defend Doherty's interpretation of "according to the flesh"?

Amaleq: Have I done the research Carrier suggests is required to support his claim? No. I agree with Carrier that this support is needed.

This is what Carrier states:

Quote:

The actual phrase used, kata sarka, is indeed odd if it is supposed to emphasize an earthly sojourn. The preposition kata with the accusative literally means "down" or "down to" and implies motion, usually over or through its object, hence it literally reads "down through flesh" or "down to flesh" or even "towards flesh." It very frequently, by extension, means "at" or "in the region of," and this is how Doherty reads it. It only takes on the sense "in accordance with" in reference to fitness or conformity (via using kata as "down to" a purpose rather than a place), and thus can also mean "by flesh," "for flesh," "concerning flesh," or "in conformity with flesh." I have only seen it mean "according to" when followed by a cited author (e.g. "according to Euripedes," i.e. "down through, or in the region of Euripedes"), so it is unconventional to translate it as most Bibles do (a point against the usual reading and in favor of Doherty's). Even the "usual reading" is barely intelligible in the orthodox sense, especially since on that theory we should expect en sarki instead. The word kata can also have a comparative meaning, "corresponding with, after the fashion of," in other words "like flesh." In short, all of the common meanings of kata with the accusative support Doherty's reading: Jesus descended to and took on the likeness of flesh. It does not entail that he walked the earth. It could allow that, but many other strange details noted by Doherty are used to argue otherwise. At any rate, he makes a pretty good case for his reading, based on far more than this.

It came to my mind as I went along that Doherty's thesis resembles what we know of ancient Sumerian worship of Ishtar, better known in the Bible as Astarte, Ashtoreth, or Ashera, which had evolved by Jesus' day into the goddess Cybele. Though the texts are over a thousand years prior to the dawn of Christianity, the tradition remained in some form throughout the Ancient Near East, and extant then or not it remains relevant as a "proof of concept." In Sumerian tablets, we learn that the goddess Inanna descended from Heaven, past earth, down into Hell, crossing seven gates there (Samuel Kramer, History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History, rev. ed., 1981: cf. p. 162). Eventually she is killed by a demon in Hell: "The sick woman was turned into a corpse. The corpse was hung from a nail. After three days and three nights had passed," her vizier petitions the gods in heaven to resurrect her. Her Father gives her the "food of life" and the "water of life" and resurrects her, then she ascends back to heaven, sending another God (her lover) to die in her place: "the shepherd Dumuzi" (aka Tammuz, a forerunner of Attis). Doherty argues that Christianity began with a story like this: where all the action takes place in realms beyond earth. Ishtar still had flesh and could be killed, even crucified, and resurrected, then ascend back to heaven, but she was never "on earth." There is a lot more to Doherty's theory than that, of course. I offer this analogy only to show that such an understanding of a dying and rising God actually was, and thus could be held by ancient peoples who were among the ideological ancestors of the Christians.

A contemporary analogy is Plutarch's "higher" reading of the Isis-Osiris myth (On Isis and Osiris, composed between the 80's and 100's, the very same time as the Gospels), where he says, using the vocabulary of mystery religion, that the secret truth held by priests is that Osiris is not really under the earth, but is:

"Far removed from the earth, uncontaminated and unpolluted and pure from all matter that is subject to destruction and death...[where] he becomes the leader and king [of the souls of the dead and where] Isis pursues and is enamored and consorts with Beauty, filling our earth here with all things fair and good that partake of generation (382e-383a). ... For that part of the world which undergoes reproduction and destruction is contained underneath the orb of the moon, and all things in that are subjected to motion and to change (376d)."

It is there, in the "outermost areas" (the "outermost part of matter"), that evil has particular dominion, and where Osiris is continually dismembered and reassembled (375a-b). As Plutarch puts it, "the soul of Osiris is everlasting and imperishable, but Typhon oftentimes dismembers his body and causes it to disappear, and Isis wanders hither and yon in her search for it, and fits it together again" since his body is perishable and thus "driven hither from the upper reaches" (373a-b). In effect, Osiris is "incarnated" in the sublunar heaven and actually dies and resurrects there, later ascending beyond to the imperishable heavens (see also my essay " Osiris and Pagan Resurrection Myths: Assessing the Till-McFall Exchange "). Plato, says Plutarch, "calls this class of beings an interpretive and ministering class, midway between gods and men, in that they convey thither the prayers and petitions of men" (361c) and Isis and Osiris were such, but were later exalted into the heavens as full gods (361e). There are many resemblances here with Doherty's reconstructed Pauline Christology, and it is such schemes as this that prove his theory fits the ancient milieu well.

Gregg · 01-02-2004, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
There was a thread discussing that Dec 5 update - it involved Paula Fredriksen's informal notes on Doherty. But there is nothing on Doherty's site responding to Layman's articles.

Oh. Could you provide a link to that thread? I don't think I saw it. Thanks!

Toto · 01-02-2004, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gregg
Oh. Could you provide a link to that thread? I don't think I saw it. Thanks!

Search on Fredriksen:

Challenging Doherty: Dr. Fredricksen Sinks in Her Teeth While Scholars Tiptoe Around

Several other threads were split from it, which you can locate with the search function

Gregg · 01-02-2004, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Please keep the thread on topic and avoid baiting Layman on an unrelated issue.

Don't criticize Layman for delving into the matter. It's what Doherty has been asking someone to do. I think that a debate between Layman and Doherty might actually be productive.

Not to derail the thread anymore, but I have to chime in here...given his own statements, I just don't understand Layman's obsession with Doherty and the Jesus Myth hypothesis. Since he insists no scholar of any consequence takes the thesis seriously, that only a tiny number of people (nut cases?) believe in it, and that the whole idea is "dead," why does he devote such time and energy to the quest to drive the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, when according to him, poppies are already growing on the grave? It is very confusing to me that he claims to take Doherty seriously while at the same time being so utterly dismissive of the mythicist case.

Ted Hoffman · 01-02-2004, 01:45 AM

Toto, Doherty emailed me personally. My intention was to get him to respond to Vinnie's post.
In Doherty's assesment, Vinnie showed lack of seriousness in how he handled Doherty's work: Vinnie responded before he had barely read it, and voiced objections to early remarks that were addressed later in the post.
When Vinnie reached the later part, he had to backtrack on what he had earlier stated and and change the subject in order to skirt around the point in question.
Specifically, Doherty states that Vinnie asked for the restrictions Justin faced in visiting holy sites. As Vinnie progressed, he realized Doherty had stated that Justin had lived after the second Jewish Revolt when the entire landscape of Jerusalem had changed. Of course Vinnie was not satisfied and invented other objections that sprang to his mind at the moment.

Vinnie admitted he hadn't read the article but pursuant to his dismissive response backed by poor reading of Doherty's work, Doherty found it unworthy of a response.

Vinnie's dismissive attitude was manifest when, on encountering Doherty's quotation of Origen that site veneration at Bethlehem began in the early 3rd century (in response to the argument that even after a HJ was widespread there was no site veneration).

Vinnie dismissed the Origen quotation as just one reference and not ten!

Raising the bar arbitrarily with unreasonable and baseless demands, poorly thought out objections and other lopsided debating practices obliterated the opportunity to get a reasoned response from Doherty.

About Kata Sarka, Layman should respond to the baptism and midrash arguments as demonstrated by Nogo and Amaleq and respond to Carrier's endorsement of Doherty's argument and especially with regard to "according to Euripedes", the descent, death and resurrection of Inanna, Plutarch's "higher" reading of the Isis-Osiris myth.

Since Layman is in a rebutting spree, he might as well rebut Carrier's arguments for why Mythicism holds more water than historicism and for Carriers reasons for ruling out of the Historicist case in favour of Mythicism.
As Carrier states:

Quote:

And it is for these reasons I am forced to rule against the historicist case, even if by a small margin.

Toto · 01-02-2004, 03:40 PM

Hi Jacob Aliet -

Vinnie is not Layman. Vinnie has refused to treat the mythicist argument with any seriousness, because he believes he has his own methodology for demonstrating the existence of a historical Jesus.

Layman is at least playing the game of taking Doherty seriously, perhaps because he knows from experience that there are people who do take Doherty seriously and he wants to engage in dialogue with them. Give him credit for that.

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01-02-2004, 12:39 AM	#72
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	There was a thread discussing that Dec 5 update - it involved Paula Fredriksen's informal notes on Doherty. But there is nothing on Doherty's site responding to Layman's articles.

01-02-2004, 03:40 PM	#78
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Hi Jacob Aliet - Vinnie is not Layman. Vinnie has refused to treat the mythicist argument with any seriousness, because he believes he has his own methodology for demonstrating the existence of a historical Jesus. Layman is at least playing the game of taking Doherty seriously, perhaps because he knows from experience that there are people who do take Doherty seriously and he wants to engage in dialogue with them. Give him credit for that.

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