Originally Posted by Karen Armstrong, pp 105-107

[...]Judaism continued to inspire more myths. One of these was Christianity. Jesus and his first disciples were Jewish and strongly rooted in Jewish spirituality, as was St Paul, who can be said to have transformed Jesus into a mythical figure. This is not intended to be pejorative. Jesus was a real historical human being, who was executed in about 30 CE by the Romans, and his first disciples certainly thought that he had--in some sense--risen from the dead. But unless a historical event is mythologised, it cannot become a source of religious inspiration. A myth, it will be recalled, is an event that--in some sense--happened once, but which also happens all the time. An occurrence needs to be liberated, as it were, from the confines of a specific period and brought into the lives of contemporary worshippers, or it will remain a unique, unrepeatable incident, or even a historical freak that cannot really touch the lives of others. We do not know what actually happened when the people of Israel escaped from Egypt and crossed the Sea of Reeds, because the story has been written as a myth. The rituals of Passover have for centuries made this tale central to the spiritual lives of Jews, who are told that each one of them must consider himself to be of the generation that escaped from Egypt. A myth cannot be correctly understood without a transformative ritual, which brings it into the lives and hearts of generations of worshippers. A myth demands action: the myth of the Exodus demands that Jews cultivate an appreciation of freedom as a sacred value, and refuse either to be enslaved themselves or to oppress others. By ritual practice and ethical response, the story has ceased to be an event in the distant past, and has become a living reality.
St Paul did the same with Jesus. He was not much interested in Jesus's teachings, which he rarely quotes, or in the events of his earthly life. [...] Paul had transformed Jesus into the timeless, mythical hero who dies and is raised to new life.

Originally Posted by gstafleu

In A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong makes some interesting remarks about the Historical/Mythical Jesus:
The interesting bit here is that Armstrong sees Jesus as both historical and mythical. I find this interesting, because I have argued before that the whole HJ/MJ debate as often found on this forum is, to a large extent, irrelevant. Irrelevant, that is, to the mythological/religious/philosophical aspects of Christianity. What is relevant is the myth, including the fact that the myth--at least in its later instances--presents Jesus as historical. Whether he actually was historical is secondary.

Armstrong clearly sees Jesus as a having started out as a historical figure. Personally, I see neither the necessity nor the evidence for that, so I let Occam's razor cut out that hypothesis. But she may be right--it doesn't really make much of a difference. The only people to whom it could make a real difference are the people who "really believe" in the myth. We thus have the interesting paradox that in order for you to think that Jesus' historicity is important, you first have to believe in his myth.

We could of course now launch a debate about whether Armstrong is an HJer or an MJer. I suggest we don't do that. I don't think it would serve much purpose beyond giving vent to our always present in-group--out-group tendencies, and that vent is better of closed.
Gerard Stafleu

Originally Posted by Toto

Karen Armstrong writes about philosophy and theology. She is not a historian, and I think that her judgment that Jesus certainly existed is just a reflection of the conventional wisdom.

She is also very sympathetic to Islam. I think she has called herself a free lance monotheist.

Originally Posted by Toto

It does matter for your theory of history - is history a story of great men who sacrifice themselves for the common good? Or does history advance by impersonal social forces that are set in motion as people pursue their own self-interest as they define it?

Originally Posted by Zeichman

I don't think any critically-minded HJ advocate would deny that the figure of Jesus accrued a lot of mythology over time (hence the quest for the historical Jesus).

Originally Posted by gstafleu

But aren't we pretty much at a point now where we can say that if there was an HJ, he was rather far removed from (a) how the gospels paint him, and, hence, (b) from what Christianity "needs"? IOW, he is rather similar to King Arthur or David.

Arthur apparently may have been a general sometime in the 6th century, who became famous after the battle of Mount Badon. But no Guinevere, sword, Avalon, you name it. David, going by how Finkelstein and Silbermann present it, may have been a minor leader in Judah, but no united kingdom, no temple building, no generalized glory.

So in all three cases it seems one cannot say much more than "Well, that may be where they got the name." Is that really sufficient to designate such entities as the historical so-and-so?

Gerard Stafleu

Originally Posted by gstafleu

But aren't we pretty much at a point now where we can say that if there was an HJ, he was rather far removed from (a) how the gospels paint him, and, hence, (b) from what Christianity "needs"? IOW, he is rather similar to King Arthur or David.

Arthur apparently may have been a general sometime in the 6th century, who became famous after the battle of Mount Badon. But no Guinevere, sword, Avalon, you name it. David, going by how Finkelstein and Silbermann present it, may have been a minor leader in Judah, but no united kingdom, no temple building, no generalized glory.

So in all three cases it seems one cannot say much more than "Well, that may be where they got the name." Is that really sufficient to designate such entities as the historical so-and-so?

Gerard Stafleu