Didymus

I don't mind if you contradict me flatly, nor do I care much what you call those events. We have only one source for information about that so-called "post-resurrection" period, and that's Acts, which was written for pietistic purposes at least 70 years later.

Then why don't the gospels reflect historicity, instead of being concocted from the LXX? The Christian theory is that Jesus' story was accurately transmitted from Jesus' followers, through various unknown parties, to the anonymous gospel writers, who finally transcribed them, many years after the time of Pilate. If that is true, why are we dealing with stories that can be traced, verse by verse, to the Old Testament?

And, if the Christian explanation is correct, why didn't Paul get the message from Peter and James? Why the Pauline silences? Why do none of Paul's epistles refer to the events in Jesus' life that those followers supposedly witnessed? Why did Paul quote Jesus but one time?

All that is explained by MJ, and it's also explained by VMJ, but the Christian explanation for those problems goes all the way from non-existent to pathetic.

Didymus

jjramsey

You keep saying that the Gospels are concocted from the LXX, but this simply isn't entirely true. Nazareth isn't from the LXX, nor is Pilate or John the Baptist. Most of the parts that have a strong LXX component are also the parts that are the least credible: the 40 days in the wilderness, the birth narratives, various miracle stories, etc. Further, there is also the matter of the LXX likely being used as an after-the-fact proof text. In some cases, such as the triumphal entry, it's a toss-up as to whether the accounts were constructed from the OT or whether Jesus intentionally evoked the prophesies himself. So we have the LXX used to create unhistorical stories, but we also have uses of the LXX that imply a historical backdrop to start with, and still other places where the LXX isn't a source.

J-D

You are still obscuring the fact that the Christian explanation for the origins of the Jesus movement begins with events before the supposed resurrection, not after it. Please note that I am not saying that the Christian account is accurate, I am saying that you are mischaracterising what the Christian account is.Firstly, as jjramsey has already pointed out, the Gospel accounts don’t derive entirely from the Septuagint. Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, and the Herods (both ‘the Great’ and Antipas) are real historical figures, and the Gospel compilers did not get their names from the Septuagint. On the other hand, I don’t dispute that the Gospels contain much unhistorical material. You have an explanation for this lack of historicity, and I’m not saying that your explanation is impossible. What I am saying is that there are alternative explanations. One of these is that the original account has been corrupted and overlaid with fabrications for doctrinal and polemical reasons. I don’t see why you would say that explanation is impossible.All this seems to me to be consistent with the possible explanation just referred to, if Paul was trying to promote, within the Jesus movement, doctrines alien to its founder and his original followers. The Christian’s own accounts do contain possible traces of just such a conflict, and it would also explain the Nazarene-Ebionite tradition as the more faithful presevation of the original teachings.The suggestions I have canvassed are not Christian explanations. Do they look like Christian explanations to you? How? I am not now and never have been a Christian. OK?

Solo

Don't worry, you'll be accused of being a fellow traveller....I am ok with what you are saying except I don't believe the Nazarene/Ebionite tradition had much to do with Jesus original teachings.

Let me throw this out for all it's worth: There seem to be in the early Christianity, not two, but three, quite distinct strands. The N/E tradition is austere, contemplative, apocalyptic but quite orthodox in its Judaism. The Galilean gnostic tradition, or roughly the Petrine camp is happy-go-lucky, into magic, peasant and rebellious in nature. And there is the Paul mission. It is clear that Peter (Cephas) is a regular member of the Jerusalem Church, in fact one of its "pillars" while Paul stands apart, and there is no evidence he ever was accepted into its inner sanctum. His reliance on reputation in identifying the leaders of the Church shows he remained an outsider. But we know from a quite reliable historical source in the NT, the epistle to the Galatians, that there were significant differences in observation between Peter and his party and James. Both by the evidence of Paul, and the gospel traditions, Peter was quite relaxed in observations, friendly to gentiles and married, while James was living under spartan Nazarite vows and presumably not much, if at all, interested in the gentile mission. Remember that Paul when he first visits the church stays with Peter most of the time, and sees James only shortly.

There are some interesting and tantalizing historical possibilities coming of this. Why, given that Peter had his own following did he stay with James with whom it appears he was at loggerheads doctrinally ? Is it possible that the Church could have stayed together, had it been founded after Yeshu was executed ? Why does Jesus of the Thomas Gospel mention James in such exalted terms ?

What seems strangest of all is that noone has come up with the most natural explanation of all this (or at any rate I am ignorant of this). James' church existed before Jesus' mission. James knew about Jesus' apocalyptic message and considered him a prophet martyred in the opening of the last days (depite his peasant ways). When Jesus' company returns to Jerusalem James adopts them into his church. This scenario explains,

1) James' primacy in the church and Cephas' acceptance of him.
2) James' polished image (recorded outside) as a sectarian community leader, standing on his own as a Nazarite saint
3) the large doctrinal differences as to observations and the differences in lifestyle between James and Jesus of Q.
4) the existence of a well-oganized and functioning church immediately after Jesus' death
5) the attraction of the Hellenists to the church (obviously its Petrine faction) and their purge.
6) Peter's fear of James in Antioch
7) the dissimilarity between asceticism and wild liberality in the pronouncements of gospel Jesus

So, in short, I do not believe that Jesus was preaching orthodox Judaic doctrines and practices as a way to enter the Messianic kingdom. I believe that was James' mission. Given, that Jesus came from Galilee which was a "multicultural" Judaic frontier and the pronouncements in the gospels attributed to him and definitely not traceable to Paul, I would say he was pretty unorthodox in his ways. (Incidentally, I believe, on the strength of the Lazarus and Gadarene incidents, he instituted baptismal rituals, which were deeply offensive to Jewish pieties.)

JS

Mythra

The expertise I admittedly do not have. The willingness to seek it out is why I'm here.

And IIDB appears to be an abundant source.

Didymus

Do you really think I could "obscure" the fact that Christians think Christianity began with Jesus? Or that Jesus sent out his disciples to preach the gospel?

Note where Luke's gospel stops and Acts begins, J-D.

I, not unlike Luke, was using "the day when Jesus was taken up" as a point of departure. I don't accept the gospel accounts of Jesus life as factual, and in turn don't think we have sufficient evidence that Jesus preached any doctrine, let alone the doctrines attributed to him by the gospels. I think Christianity began when Jesus was crucified, not before.

So the Luke/Acts dividing line is one that I find useful. You may not find it so. But it's nothing to quibble over.

Well, jjRamsey was not the first person to make that point.

Like most authors of fiction, the gospel authors did their best to place their main character in a plausible historical context. I actually think that Paul's "Christ crucified" did live in that period. I do not, however, think that the gospels are the least bit informative about his life.

Where did I say that? I certainly don't recall making any such statement. I don't deny that scripture has been corrupted, nor do I see how stipulating to the corruption of scripture constitutes an "explanation" for the origin of Christianity.

Sorry, but that's not my area of interest. Regardless, I haven't seen any post from you that presents an alternative explanation for the origins of Christianity.

Nor am I Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Such disaffirmations are unnecessary.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you do seem to accept the historicity of Jesus. And the "Ebionite-Nazarene Tradition" that you seem to endorse sounds suspiciously Christian. So there is a resemblance, whether you like it or not. However, that similarity does not make you a Christian. Happy now?

Didymus

J-D

The form of words you chose to use would have obscured those facts from somebody who didn’t already know them. I admit that in this context that would be a tiny group of people.Why should I note this? How is it of relevance to me, or to what we’re discussing here?Why would you do that? Why choose to be ‘not unlike’ (in English, we say ‘like’) Luke?I don’t accept the Gospel accounts as reliable either. But the way I see it, there are three possibilities: (1) Jesus never existed; (2) Jesus existed, but never preached any doctrine; (3) Jesus existed, and did preach some doctrine. Disregarding the Gospels entirely, it still seems to me from first principles that (3) is more likely than (2), for reasons which I have tried to indicate already on this thread and am happy to resummarise. You seem to feel that (2) is more likely than (3), but I don’t see why.Why?How?I don’t follow. Are you suggesting that I was quibbling over it?Then we have to assume authors who knew of Pilate, Herod the Great (Matthew), Herod Antipas (Luke), Caiaphas (Matthew, John, and Acts), and (forgot to mention this one before) Annas (John and Acts)—and who thought it was worth incorporating them into their narrative—facts which seem to me most easily explained by the assumption that they were drawing in part on a tradition preserved orally or in writing from the time of the events. If we don’t assume that, then what kind of authors do you think we are talking about, and where do you think they were drawing these names from, and why? Where else would the author of John get the names of Annas and Caiaphas, and the fact that they were father-in-law and son-in-law, perhaps sixty or seventy years later, and why would he even bother?If you double-check what I actually wrote, I didn’t say it was an explanation for the origin of Christianity. I said it was an explanation for absences of historical information from scripture (I believe the expression ‘Pauline silence’ was used, although perhaps not by you). And what you seemed to me to be implying was that the only explanation for those absences was the non-existence of the historical information, so I was suggesting that although it was an explanation, it was not the only explanation.Why not? Don’t you think it’s potentially relevant evidence? Why not?I think you have, but I don’t mind saying it again. The possible explanation for the origins of Christianity which I have been canvassing all through this thread is that it began with the followers of a preacher called Jesus.Your next paragraph seems to belie these words.If ‘Jesus’ means ‘the preacher of whom the first Christians were followers’ and ‘the historicity of Jesus’ means ‘the assertion that such a person existed historically’, then at present I am inclined to regard it as more likely than not.Of course it’s a version of Christianity, and as such I don’t believe in it in a religious sense. However, when another poster to this thread reminded me of its existence, it occurred to me that its existence is a part of the historical dataset that a good theory should explain. Why think otherwise?Oh, sure. There are resemblances between Christians and Muslims, too. They both believe in the historicity of Jesus, for one thing.And it doesn’t make me a Muslim, either. In fact, my opinions resemble accepted Christian doctrine and accepted Muslim doctrine less than they resemble each other. It is possible that my opinions resemble accepted Christian doctrine marginally more than yours do, but this seems to me to be about as relevant as discussing which of the two of us, here on the Earth, is closer to Alpha Centauri.

Didymus

It's a non-issue that you inflated into a dispute by accusing me of "obscuring" facts.

I have addressed that. It's a convenient dividing line between the purported life of Jesus and the beginnings of the church. (In American English, "not unlike" is a perfectly acceptable usage. I didn't realize that the Queen's English differed in that respect. But in general, we think it rude to correct the grammar and spelling of others. Your manners may vary.)

Once again, it's a non-issue. I don't understand why you can't let go of it.

You left out MJ! Or is it a subset of one of the three? Or of all three?

I think (2) is the most likely for the reasons I stated in the "A One Trick Jesus?" OP. I'll be pleased to expand on that if I'm asked specific questions or presented with specific objections or counter-arguments.

As I have said, the Pauline silences can be explained by a dearth of information about the life of Jesus, i.e., he was an obscure figure who was unknown until he was crucified. Correspondences between the circumstances of that crucifixion and scriptural texts (Isaiah 53.5, Psalm 22.16, and others) led hearers of the story to believe that he was the Messiah. Paul became a believer at an early stage in the development of the Jesus tradition, so he included only a few key elements: Jesus' Jewish ethnicity ("Seed of David"), that he was a human being and not a spirit (born of a woman), that he was crucified, that he was buried, and that he rose from the dead. Oh, and that he ate and drank. At least that can be assumed from his attendence at "The Lord's Supper."

If Jesus had disciples and they passed along everything they knew about Jesus' life, Paul would have mentioned something (more than the eucharist, anyway) about Jesus' life and teachings. After all, he is said to have met with two of those "disciples" at least twice. (For reasons that are obvious to MJ proponents, and to me, he doesn't call them disciples, or mention their association with Jesus.) But Paul said virtually nothing about those things.

If Jesus had disciples and they passed along everything they knew about Jesus' life, the gospels would contain much original, non-derivative material. But, aside from a few historical names and places and "bare" facts (like the crucifixion), they are wholly derivative. If you omit the impossible miracle stories and the messianic traditions and the derivatives from scripture and other ancient sources, you end up with virtually nothing.

Those two facts tell me that (a) Paul said nothing about Jesus' life because he knew nothing about Jesus' life, and (b) the gospels were not biographies of a real man, not even altered biographies, but out-and-out fabrications based mainly on the LXX.

That's not necessarily a valid assumption. They may have been simply drawing on their general knowledge of history. There's nothing remarkable or unique about authors of fiction giving roles to well-known historical figures from the past.

1. Pious storytellers who used scripture-based ersatz biography (midrash) to help others correctly understand God's plan and achieve eternal life. There were various subtexts as well, but I think those were the main objectives.

2. History.

3. Versimilitude. And to fill in the gaps left by Paul. And to counter gnosticism by explicating the humanity of Jesus, a key belief in what was to become Christian orthodoxy. And to otherwise keep the Christian "community" on the right theological path and to give voice to its social, economic and political perspectives.

"It" being corruption of scripture? Do you really believe that the corruption of scripture is some sort of explanation for the Pauline silences? Even a partial one? Do you think the scribes actually excised biographical information about Jesus from Paul's epistles? Or what?

You still haven't presented any explanation for the Pauline silences. Not even a partial one. Merely citing the "Ebionite-Nazarene Tradition" does not constitute an explanation. The purported role of that tradition in Paul's omissions is a mystery to me; perhaps you can enlighten us.

I "implied" no such thing. There are many explanations for the silences. Some are more plausible and parsimonious than others. Before adducing your own, you might consider doing some rudimentary research on the subject. I'm not inclined to brief you further; the subject has been discussed at great length here at IIDB and elsewhere, most effectively by Earl Doherty in "The Jesus Puzzle."

"Non-existence of historical information"? I assume you mean a lack of biographical information about Jesus.

Over time and distance, a body of Jesus beliefs - most extrapolated from scripture - grew with the telling and eventually became Mark's gospel.

Some of the legends may have contained elements of truth. For example, Pilate may indeed have had a role in his crucifixion. And some people, upon hearing the story, may have had dreams/visions about the "Risen Christ." These dreams/visions would have confirmed their belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

Some of the Infidels might already be familiar with that theory.

Well, I didn't bring up the issue of your religious beliefs. You did.

Didymus

J-D

It was never an accusation. It was an expression of irritation.That’s question-begging. Precisely the point at issue is whether the ‘church’ began in the lifetime of Jesus or not. I am putting in question your assumption about this, and you don’t settle the question by just reiterating your assumption.May I most respectfully refer your attention to the way you yourself made an issue on this very thread about the way another poster’s misspelling of ‘crucifixion’ was driving you crazy? ‘Not un-’ has the same effect on me. It’s not a question of grammar, incidentally, and it’s not a question of differences between US English and other national varieties, either. The ‘not un-’ formation is, to my regret, a widespread usage in all national varieties of English, but it’s not good expression, as I’m sure any professional editor (US or not) will confirm.If that’s really the way you feel, then I don’t understand why you don’t let go of it.It’s ‘(1) Jesus never existed’, or a subset. Is that really not clear?Please note that I said above that I thought (3) more likely than (2) from first principles and disregarding the Gospel accounts. Your arguments for the superior plausibility of (2), which I will get to in a moment, do not disregard the Gospel accounts: they attempt to explain odd facts about the Gospel accounts. When I talked about arguing from first principles, what I meant was this: suppose I told you that there is a religion on a Pacific island that reveres a man called John Frum as its founding prophet. Given that information and nothing else, which would you consider the more likely: that John Frum was a religious leader in his own lifetime, or that he wasn’t?
Of course, we do have more information in the present case, but as I said, I’ll get to that in a moment.Yes, that is an explanation.No, not necessarily. You are not entitled to assume that, because it would not necessarily be true if Paul were a charlatan and a scam artist, a hypothesis which cannot be ruled out.Again, making perfect sense if Paul was a bitter rival of those people for authority in the new religious movement.There is a missing step in your chain of inference there. If Jesus had disciples, and if they passed along everything they knew about his life, and if the traditional accounts of the disciples were incorporated in the gospels, then the gospels would contain much original, non-derivative material. But if Jesus had disciples, and if they passed along everything they knew about his life, and if the writers or editors of the canonical gospel texts we now possess were Paulinist antagonists of the original church leaders and the original church doctrine, then it seems to me that we would have a plausible explanation of the character of the gospel texts different from the one you are championing and consistent with a different interpretation of history from yours.Here I admit my ignorance. Are you asserting, for example, that the parables attributed to Jesus all derive from earlier sources? That’s the sort of thing I could easily believe is true, but I’d like to be sure that it is what you are asserting. Do you know of an earlier source for the Parable of the Pounds, for example? (I have a particular reason for selecting that example, if you’re interested.)They don’t tell me the same thing with certainty because, as I said, I can see at least one possible alternative explanation, as outlined above. But were Annas, Caiaphas, and Herod Antipas well-known figures at the time Luke, John, and Acts were written? I doubt it. Of course, writers of fiction do sometimes give roles to obscure historical figures as well, but I think we are entitled in such cases to expect a special reason of some kind. And I think it’s reasonable to ask what historical sources the writers could have had access to that would have given them those names.It seems perfectly possible to me that Paul deliberately omitted accurate historical information from his epistles, and that Paulinists deliberately excised details from traditional accounts which served as partial sources for the canonical gospels. Why not?The Nazarenes and the Ebionites existed. They adhered to a tradition which differed from the ‘orthodox’ Christian one. It is at least possible that one of these two traditions, even if not fully historically accurate, was closer to the historical truth, and closer to the doctrine of the first Christians. And in that case, it is at least possible that it was the Nazarene-Ebionite tradition that was the most faithful one. Given that I had already hypothesised on this thread, before the first reference to the Nazarenes and Ebionites, that the ‘orthodox’ account might have been constructed partly by Paul and Paulinists suppressing elements of the original account, it seemed reasonable to me when attention was drawn to them to canvass the possibility that they had preserved some elements of the original account dropped from the ‘orthodox’ version.
Go back to post#630, click on the link that driver8 posted, read what it says about the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, and then tell me where and how you think those groups arose, given your hypothesis about the origin of Christianity. Because they must have come from somewhere.I didn’t claim to have originated it. I never meant that it was an alternative to every other theory conceived so far, only that it was an alternative to the hypothesis you were canvassing.Only in response to what seemed to me to be an association you were drawing between my position and the Christian one.

Clivedurdle

I wonder if this minimal HJ works.

John the Baptist - I prepare a way.
The massive hero elements in the gospels.
The purpose of the death and resurrection - to save all mankind, to create a new heaven and earth. The greatest story ever told - (De Milne).

A minimalist HJ makes no sense! I would agree with the catholics here - that hj is a heresy, you are stuck with the fully god fully man of the creeds.

And the point is if any species is part supernatural it is therefore by definition mythical!

QED?

The reason Paul does not say much about Jesus is very simple - this spiritual beastie had not yet had much flesh and life put on him - he did still see as in a glass darkly, he was working out his salvation in fear and trembling because his visions - like all visions - were not that clear. He had a few OT ideas to form his thinking, which were later developed by others by a oh yes he must be Immanuel process.