stephan huller

As many people here know, I have been working on a thesis which I hope will present the most reasonable and respectable argument for 'mythicism' - i.e. that one of the oldest Christian traditions = Marcionitism thought of Jesus as a god descended from heaven without any physical humanity. I have in recent months focused on the idea that the nomen sacrum ΙΣ in the oldest manuscripts were misidentified by the Orthodox as Ἰησοῦς when in fact they originated as a transliteration of the Hebrew term איש (= man) which is used specifically wherever anthropomorphic theophany's of god are referenced in the Pentateuch.

There will be many components to the thesis. I think I have the linguistic arguments down pat (namely that ΙΣ = איש). Not only do I have list of transliterations in Jastrow but I remembered that Philo's identification of Israel meaning a 'man seeing god' assumes this (I will also follow up the identification of this angel 'Israel' with the Christian god in Clement and other sources). But for the moment it is enough to note that Ἰσραὴλ = 'ish ra'ah [or ro'eh] 'El, "a man seeing God" was very influential in early Christianity. I think that it clearly shows that Greeks saw that the phoneme Ἰσ = אִישׁ (even though the rest of the Hebrew etymology is exceedingly silly).

For the moment I will only provide links to one part of that argument - written rather hastily over the last two days without any proofing - namely the idea that Marcionites denied the name Ἰησοῦς preferring and assumed that Ἰησοῦς emerged in the world as part of a demonic conspiracy as testified in the gospel. Any constructive criticisms (aa please refrain from talking about 'myth' or the non-existence of Paul as this off topic) would be welcomed recognizing that this is something less than a first draft of an article I hope to publish by the end of the year in an academic journal.

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...cation-of.html [Part One] written yesterday
http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...tion-of_2.html [Part Two] written five minutes ago

Tenorikuma

Stephan, do you use Reddit by any chance?

stephan huller

I was once a major Reddit story by accident, and during certain news events I will follow along using this service. Please tell me how this might be of assistance to me. Really interested.

Tenorikuma

Well, there is a small but active subreddit (a sub-forum of sorts) devoted to higher criticism: http://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/

The tone is more secular than, say, an SBL conference, but more mainstream than this cozy place, where almost any wacky theory goes. You could probably get a few people with actual Biblical Studies or history degrees to critique your research.

aa5874

How in the world can you claim you are making "the most reasonable and respectable argument for 'mythicism" yet state that I must NOT talk about "myth"?

It is clear to me that your suggestion is most unreasonable and without a shred of respect.

One cannot present an argument for mythicism without using the word "myth" as you did in your OP

Mythicism is a word whose root is "MYTH".

Do you not even understand what the OP is entitled??

"Imagine There was No Jesus"

In other words, imagine Jesus was Myth.

That is precisely what you have done and is illogically suggesting that I must not make any argument to show that There was NO REAL Jesus--just a Jesus of Faith--just Myth Jesus.

stephan huller

FWIW here is part three of the series

http://www.stephanhuller.blogspot.co...tion-of_3.html

stephan huller

I think I am going to change the focus of the essay to the idea that the original nomen sacrum ΙΣ was rooted or shaped in Genesis 32. No one gives a ---- about the Marcionites. They will be a prominent part of the argument. But the popular (but incorrect) etymology Ἰσραὴλ = 'ish ra'ah [or ro'eh] 'El, "a man seeing God" drawing upon the shared phoneme Ἰσ = אִישׁ will be at the heart of the paper.

MrMacSon

I think that is a reasonable proposition about the evolution of Christianity - other "Gnosticisms" such as Docetism, Montanism, even Arianism, seem to follow a similar 'creed' (a character "as a god descended from heaven without any physical humanity"), yes?

MrMacSon

aa5874, pls be constructive and specifically address Stephan's proposition, rather than 'argue' around generalities.

You have, in many previous post, provides some much reasonable commentary that seems to support Stephan's thesis/hypothesis.

Grog

Yes, in answer to your rhetorical question at the start. Very interesting. It will take some time to digest and go over it though. I hope there's interest in discussing it here.