stephan huller

Substitute 'UFO' if you need to or 'angel.' That's what we are talking about. A visitation by an alien.

gurugeorge

As I've already pointed out a few times, the question of a historical appearance of the deity in Palestine isn't essential to the mythicist position one way or another. Since looking at this matter as an enthusiastic amateur, several years ago, I've been a mythicist, yes, but at first I wasn't convinced by the "celestial" (i.e. no-earthy-appearance) character of the cult figure as Earl understands it. (I've actually become more convinced of that idea over time, but it was never an essential component of mythicism for me. It has always seemed to me that the simplest and most direct explanation is that Yeshua the Anointed was simply a revision of the very concept of the Messiah, putting him in the past instead of the future.)

OF COURSE ancient peoples thought these events had actually happened, and there are plenty of stories of deities interacting with people, even famous, known people like dateable kings, etc., and even interacting in human form.

WHETHER those events happened "in outer space" (as Carrier cutely puts it) or on earth, they were thought to have happened, they were understood (by believers) to have been "historical" (of course a slightly anachronistic concept in terms of the times).

The real tug of war is between those who believe that something can be found in these fables that points to a human being that WE MODERNS would understand as "historical" (i.e. whose existence is supportable through direct or indirect evidence in texts, and archaeology), and those who don't, but see the evidence as pointing to the cult figure having always been purely fictional (ahistorical, visionary, mythical, whatever) through and through, and not based on, or seeded by, an eponymous human being.

Or to put it another way: here's a bunch of texts, and a religion that's reproduced the texts through time, and also some archaeology. What's the best explanation for the existence of those texts, that cult, that archaeology?

The real distinction between mythicism and historicism is that historicism is a hypothesis that explains the existence of that cult, those texts, that archaeology, as due to an eponymous human founder. Mythicism disagrees and understands those texts, the cult, the archaeology, as coming about without any such eponymous human founder, but through sheer belief in the existence of a divine/human hybrid (varying according to sub-sect flavour), or what we would call an "imaginary friend", etc.

The particular character of the stories about him, how much of a fleshly component he had, how much celestial, whether the stories took place on Earth or in outer space, or perhaps both (microcosm/macrocosm mirroring) etc., etc., etc., all these are fascinating questions in their own right, but not essential, one way or another, to mythicism. The validity of mythicism as an alternative hypothesis to historicism doesn't hang on any of those types of questions.

The issue is solely this: for historicism to be strong, there would have to be some trace, in the earliest writings, of a report somewhere of a human being eyeballing another thing that at least looked like an ordinary human being, and getting teachings from him, etc. Something of that nature. Non-cultic evidence, evidence backed by archaeology would be better, but at least something internal that could reasonably be construed as evidence of the hypothetical preacher/revolutionary, etc., etc., would be a good start.

This has to be the case for historicism because it is a hypothetical explanation.

In the absence of that, but in the positive presence of evidence of visionary reports, Scriptural origins, etc., mythicism as a hypothetical explanation for the existence of Christian texts, archaeology, etc., is highly plausible, and a bit better supported by the actual evidence.

Adam

That's what I've been trying to say and getting ignored. See Post #39 in
The Nature of Scholarship
in which I provide links to my threads Falling Dominoes and Gospel Eyewitnesses.
The earliest writings are quotidian: the Passion Narrative source, Q (both Q1 and Q2), and L.

gurugeorge

But these "sources" are themselves too hypothetical (as philological (?) constructs) to bear the burden of supporting the existence of a hypothetical human being meant to (ultimately) explain their existence.

The best evidence of that hypothetical human being would be a hostile contemporary literary source, or an archaeological find with something set in stone. But we obviously have nothing of that nature to support the existence of this hypothetical human being explanans.

Next best is some kind of "giving the game away" passing mention internal to the cult texts. As I've been saying in my discussion with Stephan, mere fleshly aspects to the cult deity, or mention of earthly doings, won't cut the mustard. They would only BECOME evidentiary in the CONTEXT of the hypothetical human being being established as having actually existed. (i.e. "since we now know there was a human Jesus, NOW we can see that some of the fleshly aspects of the mythical Jesus story may be construed as referring to earthly things that human being did, albeit through a mythical fog"). No, what's needed is something of the logical order of a cult text attestable to someone who looks like he actually was a human being who actually lived, who reports an interaction - such as discipleship, such as receiving teachings, etc. - that can be readily understood as human-on-human, with an entity called Jesus, prior to His supposed crucifixion. My standard example to get the idea across: Paul reports "Cephas told me that Jesus had said to him while in Capernaum x, y, z" Overall, that sort of thing would be pretty clear, and pretty strong, strong enough to make historicism a real contender. You need a chain of human-to-human-to-something-that-at-least-looks-human-and-interacts-with-the-human-in-a-human-way.

Now, last of all, is the type of hypothetical philological construct you're talking about. The problem with all of those is that they arise in a context that takes for granted a hypothetical human Jesus. That's how they are constructed, that's part of the criterion of their construction, in the human/academic "game" of biblical scholarship.

But we are supposed to be digging deeper than that, before, always before ...

Get to that deeper level, the before level. Look at the Paul writings, pretend there are no gospels, pretend that somebody has just dug up the Paul writings in a jar in the desert, pretend there's no such thing as Christianity, and all you have is a rough idea of then-contemporary mores and ways of life and ways of writing.

Looking at the genuine letters of Paul, these (consensus-accepted) earliest Christian writings:- where is there evidence there, of anybody who eyeballed a human Jesus before his supposed crucifixion and resurrection, where is there evidence there of a preaching career, of someone who left a trail of pithy apophthegms? Where is the evidence there of a role of discipleship pertaining to any of the people Paul is talking about?

All you really have is: EXECUTED -> RESURRECTED -> APPEARED. And those to whom this "appearance" occured are called "Apostles", "Pillars", "brothers", etc.

That's where to start. Now of course it's easily possible to psychologize Paul and say "there must be some reason why it's that sketchy - he wasn't interested in Jesus' quotidian existence, etc., etc." But note: that is simply psychologizing, on a prior basis of taking for granted the historicist position.

The fact is, there's no evidence of a human being there, no eyeballing of a human being, nothing like that. There's Scripture and vision, that's all, that's the POSITIVE CONTENT of the early evidence. That positive evidence for Scriptural/Visionary basis fills the hole of the absence of positive evidence for a historical human being. For whatever reason, that's the FACT.

So, given that's the fact of how the evidence lies, why not just go with that flow?

Given that there's no compelling positive evidence for the historicist human Jesus, why not go with what there is positive evidence for? A revision of the Messiah concept, an entity seen in hallucination, etc.

It's only if this hypothesis didn't work, that you'd have to have recourse to Q, etc., as possibly eyeball-evidence for the other, hypothetical human being hypothesis. But the mythicist hypothesis works, it works beautifully, it gives a raison d'etre for everything we know about the history of Christianity in antiquity; it gives a fairly precise timeline for "what really must have happened", using little more than accepted biblical scholarship consensus as to datings and timings of texts, etc. (perhaps at the "liberal" end of biblical scholarship, but that's reasonable).

mountainman

I agree that the case for historicism is strengthened by such positive evidence. I also strongly agree that anyone positing an historical jesus is by necessity and principles in the field of ancient history actually positing a hypothetical historical jesus. History is about hypotheses about the evidence and is at best hypothetical. Start and End of story.

But how do we deal with negative evidence? Consider for a moment that in many instances investigators have detected forgeries and interpolations in the so-called earliest writings. The letter exchange between Jesus H Christ and the famous King Agbar, the letter exchange between Dear Paul and the famous writer Seneca, these are manifest fabrications.

The testimony of Tacitus and Pliny are suddenly "discovered" in the 15th century and at that time were claimed to be forgeries by at least some investigators. These "earliest writings" may have been fabricated for the glory of the Pope, or for other favors at a very late date. Nobody mentions them or appeals to them before this epoch. Are these specific "earliest writings" to be treated as positive evidence or negative evidence, and how do we deal with negative evidence?

Do we just "look the other way"?

What historical accounting principle is used when it gradually becomes known that the organization responsible for the evidence attestations at the basis of the history of their cult has indulged in forgery?


archaeology


And as far as archaeological evidence is concerned I was advised many years ago to read Graydon Snyders "Ante Pacem" and Elsa Gibsons "The Chrestians for Chrestians" inscriptions of Phrygia, which I have since studied. There is no citation in any one of those two source books that represent unambiguous positive archaeological evidence from the epoch "Ante Pacem".

Adam

You're talking here as if you have read some of my posts now or before (thank you if you have), but let me ask you to read just one of them, moving it now to a direct link to my reconstruction of the Passion Narrative source based (mostly) on the admittedly "philological" work of the atheist Howard W. Teeple. (Incidentally, I just read in that The Nature of Scholarship thread Post #51 where I said that everyone who spoke ill of Teeple later commended him. I've since run across D. A. Carson, an Evangelical who bad-mouthed Teeple and who never so far as I know reversed himself.)

If this just got discovered in a jar, wouldn't you think this was most likely a pedestrian account of something that just happened? (Assume part of John 19:40 was later redaction.)

Post #243 of Falling Dominoes?

Chili

Simply because there was no historical Jesus, nor was there a preacher the gosples relate to, regardless of how many self proclaimed Messiah were preaching already then.

The fact of the matter is that the real messiah does not preach!. . . or Paul would be preaching as well.

The real problem is all those heretics were preaching away, just like it is here on Sunday morning popular TV. They have all been touched and got the urge, while in fact they are on fire themselves, and one could never tell them that becasue they are on fire.

But some did know and they wrote the Gospels to make the difference known between right and wrong, and persuaded the Emperor to get it going for real, simply because 'the guy in heaven' just does not preach.

gurugeorge

I did when you first came here, but I have the same problem as many of your interlocutors. I find your casual bandying-about of the world "eyewitnesses" when it comes to gospel material, makes my arse twitch

It just immediately makes me think you haven't even taken the first serious step in all this business, so the rest of what you write looks like a meaningless wall of text.

What makes you think there's any "eyewitnessing" going on anywhere in the gospels? How do you distinguish between "eyewitnessing" and other possibilities like euhemerism, allegory, midrash, pesher, or just sheer made-up crap?

The time for "eyewitnessing" was long before the probable date of the creation of the gospels (which, as I understand it, is based on philological analysis - i.e. forms of language and speech through time, termini a quo based on referenced events, etc., etc.), even on the most generous rational estimate.

I think you're extremely smart, but just too "previous" Forget about the gospels, look at the Paul writings as if you've never seen them before, preferably at the interlinear with Google and lexicon at hand, and a tabbed web browser. Look at the secondary literature about possible interpolations, look at the writings of Bart Ehrman and other "liberal" scholars on the history of these texts, look the higher critical scholars and Dutch radicals (Detering, etc.). Look at Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy (one of the absolute key books to read in all this). There's an absolute mountain of stuff to read. In lieu of being able to read primary sources in the original language, that's my path, and on that path, I haven't found any "eyewitnesses" to a human Jesus.

outhouse

It is far outweighed by the reality and context of the study at hand.


It should be examined, and it has been.



There is a historical core legend with a man who started trouble and was put to death for it. Martyred only after his death, the writers from another culture decided to write about this legend. These writers are what amounts to be mortal enemies of the man in question. Not living in the geographic location and belonging to another culture, these writers knew nothing about the man, because they were following the mythology more then the man. What the man stood for is however what generated the mythology.


Terms like "son of god" and "lord" are all perverted terms in modern times, that mortal men were called.

outhouse

What could Paul say about a man he never knew?. Met, or heard?

He was writing to close to the time of the Jesus charactor, and knew if he misquoted the reality, he would get called on it.

You cant get called on the mythology of a deity, and it's what we see in his writings.

Not only that we see a man who very desperatley wants to be a real apostle, he wants to be one of the real followers in a bad way.