Jaybees

What is truly amazing is how quickly and thorougly groups of supposedly rational people can accept complete mythologies as irrefutable fact. I'm not speaking of children raised in a particular faith, since early indoctrination is incredibly effective. I am talking about living, breathing adults, supposedly rational, who accept these myths--whether they be Xtianity, Mormonism, Heaven's Gate, Islam or one of the other thousands of supernormal fictions created by humans for human consumption.

Who was it who said that human beings are rational animals?

No Robots

Mythicism is the anti-semitism of atheists.

stephan huller

I think that is an unfortunate statement. While it is true that many - if not most - of the self-described 'mythicists' are atheists and demonstrate themselves to be hostile to the alleged truths of the Christian religion, one could make the case that most of the scholarship that has taken place in the last three hundred years (if not two thousand years) has been an inversion of this same - i.e. is/was apologetic or based on an uncritical absorption of apologetics. Indeed since no one in scholarship takes the mythicists or their arguments seriously at the present moment we are speaking of apples and oranges.

If we were to be fair and balanced it would have to be recognized that there were Christians in antiquity who did not believe that Jesus was a man. These Christians were very early (= Marcion, Valentinus etc) and very influential. These traditions do not get a fair shake when handled by the apologists/historicists. My own take (this week at least) is that just as the Church Fathers make reference to a development of two strata of gospels (Irenaeus, Tertullian = 'the gospel of Peter,' 'the gospel of Paul' and Clement of Alexandria 'the gospel of Peter' 'the (secret) gospel of Mark') there must have been an expansionist development within Christianity in the early years of the tradition with respect to a primitive hypomnema associated with Peter which argued for a historical figure at the heart of Christianity. This text had limited influence as it disappeared rather quickly. The next layer, likely made at the time of Paul (for he is said to have been in possession of it) was completely 'mythicist' (to coin this unfortunate phrase).

While this would seem to favor the argument that Jesus was a real person, I am not sure that the early Semitic tradition that Judas was Jesus's twin allows us to know for certain that Jesus was actually understood to have been crucified as a man on the cross. If for instance - as we see in early Islamic lore and a trend that dates to the time of Irenaeus - Judas was hanged or crucified in Jesus's place - we have a historical Passion narrative with a mythical Jesus. I personally think that something like this was at the heart of Christianity. Look at the early cult of Judas at Edessa as an example.

An interesting side note that I am sure no one at this forum will care to consider. In the Pentateuch special attention is paid to the Hebrew word bad (= alone, unique, separate). God is supposed to woshipped as alone Yahweh lebaddo (Deut 6.13). Adam lebaddo is at the beginning before being separated and all the best Patriarchs who achieve divinity (Jacob, Moses) are similarly described at their moment of glory (Jacob before wrestling with God, Moses before entering the tent). This was clearly understood to be the secret purpose of the religion (i.e. to have man attain or in the Orthodox tradition better the original state of Adam).

It is rarely recognized that bad is also the word for pole in the text. There is a common play on words in Aramaic that things suspended on a pole are bad (only, unique). I have my suspicions that this applied to the crucifixion. Of course the question here would be why if so many thousands of people had been crucified before the Passion narrative, why was this suspension on a pole different? The answer IMO must have something to do with this individual having been made whole, perfect (= the restoration of Adam). Yet by the very fact that the crucifixion takes such a central place in the religion as we know it, it would seem that that interest was based on a Semitic word play. This already suggests to me at least that the people using the text were already detached from the historical significance of the event. Indeed that the religion developed from a play on words suggests some sort of 'mythicism' or clever hermeneutic thus diminishing the argument that the Passion was 'believed' because it was a true historical event.

Sheshbazzar

Really? That must be the reason why for so many years, both in my many years of belief, and in following years of unbelief, I have self-identified as being 'Sheshbazzar the Hebrew'. because I'm anti-semetic? :hysterical: