Earl:
What is the difference if the details of Jesus' life were taken from the OT rather than pagan traditions?

SWL: That's like asking 'What is the difference between blue and red?' The difference would be what the difference is.

Earl: In both cases Jesus turns out mythical.

SWL: Not really. Most NT scholarship dismisses stuff that is too heavily typological (i.e., Jesus excursion into Egypt, slaughter of the infants, various miracle pericopes, etc.) as unhistorical (usually not just due to the inherent typology but for historical or methodological reasons anyway), but still proceeds to reconstruct the "historical Jesus", for the reason that typological thinking amongst Jews was a way of talking about events/people that actually occured/existed, but seen through the lense of, and in continuity with the sacred past. It does not entail that there is nothing historical about the character being portrayed. We see Josephus doing the same with Theudas and the Egyptian - recounting their actions as an anti-type of Joshua's conquest in the OT even to the extent of employing verbal parallels. Are the heavier typologies - in which there's no way the similarities are due to chance or potential conscious fulfillment on the part of Jesus - a problem? Only for the non-believer. For the Christian who sees the entirety of Jesus' life/ministry/death/resurrection as God's plan, the pattern is expected (as it is in discussion of the Messiah in the Rabbinic literature - Midrash Rabbah, Ecclesiastes I. 9, 1; Midrash Ruth Rabbath 5:6 ) and appreciated.

So it just further polarizes the two camps in certain areas but isn't determinative of anything or evidence over against the opposing view.

Earl: Christians want to keep Jesus within the confines of Judaism at all costs, because the early Church demonized paganism so thoroughly that any pagan connection with Jesus would be embarrassing and incoherent.

SWL: I don't tend to take generalizations like this seriously. They cut both ways. I could say the same thing as concerns "skeptics" and their many desperate and failed attempts to draw parallels to paganism.

Earl: Mind you, the Catholic Church has also demonized the Jews over and over again. All non-Christians are necessarily in league with Satan, according to most Christians who ever lived.

SWL: Yeah yeah...

Earl: So what does it matter where the NT writers got their information for the details of Jesus' life? So long as their information came from authoritative texts rather than oral tradition stemming from historical events, mythicism becomes a plausible account of Christian origins.

SWL: Not at all IMO, for reasons stated above, and because there is PLENTY in the Gospels and Paul that is not typological. But of course you could buy into Earl D's platonic nonsense as accounting for Paul. And go ahead if that's what you'd like to do. Maybe Richard Carrier will side with Earl D. in his forthcoming review and that should give you even more confidence to step out of Robert Price's 'agnostic' stance and into the full-blown Christ-myth camp. You just have a grand old time fudging around ...Tell yourself you're being brave. Hey, what does it really matter anyway? There's really nothing at stake. So you cut yourself off from some close-minded academically inclined Christians who see it as nonsense and the few freethinkers who do as well? You're a philosopher, Earl. You're just testing out a hypothesis, trying to articulate a paradigm, right? Hell, the brilliant Michael Martin is a Christ-myther, isn't he? Stop waiting for Christians, NT scholars, historians, your own common sense, and Jimminy Cricket to tell you that the mythicist position is "plausible". I doubt that day will ever come, and you're free to speculate about all the hidden psychological reasons for that. When you're ready to present your arguments, just post them up top and I'll be sure to give my opinions...

SecWebLurker

...gone surfin' for the weekend...be back on Monday...

[This message has been edited by SecWebLurker (edited June 01, 2001).]

SWL,

Not all the borrowed NT passages from the OT are in the form of classic Messianic categories. Much of the NT borrowing is personal midrashic, even idiosyncratic interpretation--see the non-prophecies of Mark 1:2; Matt.2:23, and Matt.27:9-10--by the NT writers. For example, Mark says Jesus cried out on the cross "My God, why have you forsaken me?" That's from Psalm 22, but this Psalm isn't an explicit outline of messianic expectations. Was there a general belief among the Jews that the Messiah would literally cry out at some point in his lifetime, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Of course not. Mark simply liked the Psalm, saw some hidden meaning in it and fleshed out his narrative with the detail supplied by the NT. No Christian is justified in seeing such details from Jesus' life and death recorded in the gospels as based on any well-established OT messianic pattern. There is no established OT pattern regarding the shameful death and resurrection of the Messiah. And although virtually any idea can be pulled out of a complex enough library such as the OT, especially given the appeal to double, hidden and poetic meanings, Jesus' passion is indeed a more pagan than Jewish concept.

But even putting that aside, many of the details from Jesus' life found in the NT are taken not from clearly messianic OT passages but just from the NT writers' favourite bits, the passages they personally interpreted as applying to Jesus' unexpected Messiahship. As Paul admitted, the gospel was hidden to all past generations and was only just then revealed to Paul and the early Christians (Rom.16:25; Eph. 3:5; Col. 1:26). There would be no need for midrashic interpretation, an appeal to double or hidden meanings, or Paul's revealing of God's "mystery" if the OT had clearly predicted that the Messiah would die a shameful death, be resurrected and then have to return a third time (his time on Earth after the resurrection was his "second coming") to do what he was expected to do the first time around.

Those were some good thoughts about the virgin birth of Christ but what if it was this way?

The "conception" of Jesus was in the mind of the old prophets who predicted a messiah king, a hero, who would make Israel victorious over all enemies and supply her with riches beyond compare. Materialism and greed was at the heart of desire wherein a messiah was concerned and certainly not a man who merely preached responsible behavior. Responsible behavior, otherwise known as obedience, the people of Israel just could not envision as their redeemer King to be. It would never be what they expected from their God. They were, after all, "God's chosen people", and special and spoiled in this their belief. So what did Jesus have to offer? Nothing! But Herod was doing pretty good in the Temple building department as they hailed him as "a god" and not a man.

Anyways, the virgin birth is the storyline theme of the "conception" after the first destruction of the temple. The Israelites remembered the good ol days of Solomon and expected a like mannered restoration. The Messiah which would come would be expected to fulfill their wildest dreams. So they "conceived" how their Messiah should be. The virgin was the city and people who had not worshipped other gods. This city pained to be delivered and brought forth Christ. Mary delivered Jesus through natural childbirth, and as such Jesus was the son of man. He was the son of God through obedience. He learned the things he knew from those who taught him those things. He was "raised up" from the dead in knowledge and wisdom of the things concerning the law and the prophet sayings. The "dead" were those brethren who were lost to the truth of law and prophetic sayings. Jesus revealed and clarified both the law and the sayings. As example, Jesus said "you have heard that it hath been said, but I say unto you.."


As a teacher and sometimes called a rabbi, Jesus probably came through the same lineage as John the Baptist, the Levitical Priesthood Order. Jesus told John that "it hath come unto us to fulfill these things". Thus was Jesus "sent" to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. No supernatural intercourse between God and Mary occured.

The Priesthood Covenant was with Levi and ordained to be forever. In the days of Jesus the Pharisees "sat in Moses seat". They had changed the law of commandment given at Sinai. For the Levites were God's chosen people out of all the tribes of Israel to hold the office of priesthood forever. They were also termed the "elect" of God. Other positions of office were given such as judges , crafters etc., in order to ease the burden of governance within the newly formed commonwealth of Israel. Moses was having a heck of a time trying to maintain civil order among those children of Israel. Jethro made the suggestion of diversification to ease the burden for Moses.

What was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the word and the word came out of the mind and mouth of men. Thus the idea or concept came forth from years before until it was time to show cause for it's fulfillment. That fulfillment was shown in the days of Mary and Joseph. The signs and sayings attested to the event from recorded or oral history of the Jews.

When the High Priest asked Jesus if he were the messiah, Jesus responded "ye say that I am"..

Now that I have fractured the fairy tales even more.. I'm outta here..

Of course it was "hidden" who could know that those veg statements were talking about. but the remarkable thing is that Rabbincal authorites had formed cerain expectations about them and those are fulfilled by Jesus.

1) Ps 22
2)Is 53
3) Zch. 10
4) Zch 4
5) lit at Qumran.

METACROCK: There doesn't have to be a specific beleif that he would actually cry out at some poit and say those words, the point of that is that they expected him to suffer. And that is well documented by Edersheim, there are many such verses. In fact both Messiahs were expectd to suffer.Daid and Aaron.

EARL: Is it supposed to be miraculous to predict beforehand than a particular human being will "suffer"? Why wouldn't the Jews have thought the Messiah will suffer? Name a human being who doesn't suffer some time in his life. Such "fulfillment" of "prophecy" is non-miraculous.

You ignored my point to SWL. SWL claims that the NT contains classically Messianic stories about Jesus, but I pointed out that the NT also contains stories about Jesus that have nothing to do with any distinctively messianic expectations. Anyone was free to go into the OT and pull out Messianic significance. That's the advantage of dealing with poetic language and the potential of hidden divine meanings. But no one today need consider miraculous any such "fulfillment" of ambiguous predictions.

Regarding Edersheim, I seem to remember that he discovered that a whole lot of the OT was regarded at some point and by some Jews as Messianic. What percentage of the OT did Edersheim discover was never used by Jews as Messianic prophecy? Once again, I'm not interested in whether a certain part of the OT once was or can conceivably be regarded at least as ambiguous or hidden Messianic prophecy. What matters is whether those who reject such "fulfillment" as non-miraculous due to the equivocal and poetic nature of the OT texts can be regarded as culpably wrong and unfair. Jews were desperate for a Messiah at many points in their history. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they saw Messianic meaning in many parts of their Scriptures. The early Christians, too, were desperate to find an explanation in the OT for Jesus' death, so their exegesis is unsurprising as well. But while I can understand these uses of the OT, I see no reason now to agree that such uses are clearly justified by the text such that nonbelief is culpable.

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Earl:
METACROCK: There doesn't have to be a specific beleif that he would actually cry out at some poit and say those words, the point of that is that they expected him to suffer. And that is well documented by Edersheim, there are many such verses. In fact both Messiahs were expectd to suffer.Daid and Aaron.

Quote:

EARL: Is it supposed to be miraculous to predict beforehand than a particular human being will "suffer"? Why wouldn't the Jews have thought the Messiah will suffer? Name a human being who doesn't suffer some time in his life. Such "fulfillment" of "prophecy" is non-miraculous.</font>

Meta =&gt;The prophetic fulfillment is not in crying "why have you forsaken me" and not merely in suffering, it is in the similarities in the passage to the sitaution on the cross; preiced hands and feet, wounded side, heart melting like wax, amid mockers and those taunting him.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2"> You ignored my point to SWL. SWL claims that the NT contains classically Messianic stories about Jesus, but I pointed out that the NT also contains stories about Jesus that have nothing to do with any distinctively messianic expectations. Anyone was free to go into the OT and pull out Messianic significance. That's the advantage of dealing with poetic language and the potential of hidden divine meanings. But no one today need consider miraculous any such "fulfillment" of ambiguous predictions.</font>

Meta =&gt;the point is that Jesus fits the overall expectations, the whole story of what the Messiah was to do and to be, completley and no one else in history every has. right down to the name. Zach 4 shows his name would be Yeshua.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2"> Regarding Edersheim, I seem to remember that he discovered that a whole lot of the OT was regarded at some point and by some Jews as Messianic. What percentage of the OT did Edersheim discover was never used by Jews as Messianic prophecy? Once again, I'm not interested in whether a certain part of the OT once was or can conceivably be regarded at least as ambiguous or hidden Messianic prophecy. What matters is whether those who reject such "fulfillment" as non-miraculous due to the equivocal and poetic nature of the OT texts can be regarded as culpably wrong and unfair. Jews were desperate for a Messiah at many points in their history. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they saw Messianic meaning in many parts of their Scriptures. The early Christians, too, were desperate to find an explanation in the OT for Jesus' death, so their exegesis is unsurprising as well. But while I can understand these uses of the OT, I see no reason now to agree that such uses are clearly justified by the text such that nonbelief is culpable.

MEta =&gt;That's a distortion of Edersheim and also a fallacy. He did not callculate some percentage of Messianich content. and it's not as though he just thorew up a bunch of genral O this is messianic. The list he made was 450 verses I think and he never said they all applied to jesus,He was just showing which ones were Messianich. the point is not how many apply but that the speicific ones apply exactly. that is the point and it's the only fair way to look at it. to just say x% is about the Messiah and here's a guy claiming to be messiah doens't prove anything. But it say Messiah will be named Jesus, be born in bethlehem, an unsual star will appear, he will be impriosned and executed by his pepole hands periced scourged ect ect than that is the only way to make a case for it.

Ps Earl, don't misunderstand me now. My argument has never been that the fulfillments are so amazing that they prove the case for Christianity. I argue only that Jesus did fulfill the expectations that first century Palestinian Jews had of Messiah, not that that proves anything. It's just that it disproves the arguments people sometimes make that he didnt' fulfill them. It prove he is in the running for MEssiah it doesnt'necessarily prove he is Messiah.