Doug Shaver

The gospels for the most part are not myth at all -- in the technical sense of "myth." If they are not simply fiction, then they are ostensible history -- embellished, obviously, but nonetheless a simple reporting of alleged facts about the founder of Christianity. Furthermore, they all postdate Paul by at least several decades, but Paul's Jesus is practically nothing but myth. Now, when myth attaches to historical people, the process is cumulative. Stories that start out as mostly factual acquire more mythology over time. You don't start out with stories that are pure fantasy and then see them evolve into more pedestrian biographies.

James Brown

Have you seen Alex Ross' graphic novel about the life and adventures of Uncle Sam?

Doug Shaver

Sort of. It's a reductio argument. You assume the contrary of your actual position and demonstrate that this entails a proposition so improbable as to render the assumption unjustified.

So, we have these stories, in these books called gospels, about one Jesus of Nazareth, reputed founder of the religion called Christianity. The issue is: Did that man really exist?

One possible response: (a) Yes, Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, but (b) nothing that the gospels say about him is true. To me, that seems incoherent. Any man living in that place at that time who did nothing and said that the gospels attribute to Jesus cannot have been, in any useful sense, the historical Jesus.

If the term "historical Jesus" is to mean anything worth discussing, it must refer to someone bearing at least a minimal resemblance to the central character of the gospels -- which is to say that if there was a historical Jesus, then the gospels contain some residue of factual history.

The argument from Paul's silence, then, is simply this. We should expect some of that residue to appear in Paul's writings, but there is none. The historicist assumption entails that Paul's Jesus was the same man about whom the gospel authors wrote, and that this Jesus was a contemporary of Paul, and that Paul was personally acquainted with a few men who had been among Jesus' disciples prior to Jesus' death. We should in that case expect Paul to be familiar with some of the facts of Jesus' life and teachings and to mention some of those facts at least occasionally in his writings. But there are no such mentions. Since this is highly improbable on the historian assumption, we are justified in thinking the assumption is probably false.

I would expect Paul to know, among other things:

• Where Jesus was originally from;
• Approximately when his ministry began and how long it lasted;
• Where that ministry was conducted;
• The content of his preaching and the significance of that content;
• The general reception or reaction to his preaching;
• His reputation as a healer and exorcist;
• The time and place of his execution;
• The perpetrators of the execution and their ostensible motivation for wanting him dead; and
  
• The relationship between Jesus and the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church.

The extent to which Paul's knowledge of these things matched the gospel stories would not matter much. What would matter would be that he had information of some kind, accurate or otherwise, about these things, if the Jesus about whom he wrote bore any connection at all with the gospel Jesus.

Doug Shaver

Considering the overall drift of Paul's view of human nature, it's inconsistent with the supposition that he was referring to someone who was just another man. He had to have believed that Jesus was in some way unique, a single exception among all the men who had ever lived in this world, the only man in all of history who had managed to live a sinless life.

That Paul could have believed such a thing about a recently martyred charismatic rabbi is not prima facie improbable. What is improbable, almost beyond any credibility, is his failure to expound on whatever reason he thought he had for believing it.

ApostateAbe

I am with you completely.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, I really know only a few of Doherty's arguments, and that is the basis of my critical judgments. It is possible that Doherty has a few brilliant arguments that I just don't know about because I haven't read enough of his work.

EarlDoherty

The principle is certainly a valid one. But if you have some other way or source of ascertaining what a writer's arguments are--in sufficient detail to be able to understand and engage with them--then buying a book may not be necessary. As for cutting Don some slack, a few months ago, after receiving a purchased copy of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, he informed the board that he had given it a preliminary skim and declared that I had included "nothing new" over The Jesus Puzzle. Hmmm, the new book is 814 pages, over the former's 390. I wonder what it was that I included in the extra 424 pages? The Kalamazoo phone book? This outrageous statement showed me pretty clearly what was in Don's mind, and it was not an intention to review the book in any substantive fashion. Of course, if I am wrong, I will be pleasantly surprised.

If anyone would like a sample of Don's style in debate, I can refer them to an exchange of articles which took place several years ago on our respective websites (actually, I think I recall that Don posted his on Bede's site). Here are two URL to rebuttal articles on my website, addressing critiques of one particular chapter in The Jesus Puzzle. They contain links to Don's articles to which I was responding.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesGDon.htm
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesGDon-2.htm

Don't get me wrong. Don does read the material he is critiquing, and does engage with it. To that extent, he is miles ahead of Abe. But that does not make his critiques entirely cogent, and he has a habit of ignoring counter arguments. And as I say, his remarks about his upcoming review of my new book give me cause for some concern.

Incidentally, Michael Turton has also acquired a copy of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, and recently announced on another discussion board that he has read it three times and is working on his own review. Considering that he has called it "powerful" and referred in particular to the chapter on Tacitus as "awesome", I think it's safe to say that he will be giving it a sympathetic review. Still, I am sure it will be illuminating to compare the approach of both when they are published.

Earl Dohety

ApostateAbe

I am mostly with you. My technical sense of "myth" is a set of information that is passed from person to person, evolving in branching uncentralized successions. The information contained in the gospels seems to meet that criteria. They must be myth, because they differ from one another in many of the details, though they all share common themes, which is the pattern for almost all myths. I used to enjoy reading Snopes.com. There are almost always many variations of the same story, and some of them originated as honest and true accounts.

You say that Paul's Jesus is much more mythical than the gospel's Jesuses, and I think that is a legitimate argument. We would expect, at least most of the time, that the spiritual stuff comes later in the timeline of the myths and the human stuff is sooner, but I suppose my model requires an exception to that rule and it is a disadvantage. I have held that Paul's model of Jesus was seemingly designed to suit his own purpose, of competing with the apostles who focused on a human Jesus. Paul never met Jesus and didn't have the authority to preach the human Jesus, so he instead preached a spiritual Jesus.

bacht

That's possible, but then why would the early church retain Paul's material if it contradicted the "official" story of the other apostles? Proto-catholics must have seen something valid beyond personal aggrandizement, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about him now.

And this all assumes a unified linear development of Christianity. As Doherty and others have suggested, there may have been more than one christianity before the late 2nd C apologists tried to tie it all together in one package.

ApostateAbe

I don't think Paul's Jesus conflicted with the stories of the other apostles so much as it placed a different emphasis--the spirituality instead of the humanity. The later proto-orthodoxy was later happy to accept both versions, because there was little or no conflict. Before Jesus rose to heaven, he was primarily a human being, and that was the focus of the disciples. After Jesus rose to heaven, he was a spiritual being, and that was the focus of Paul.
There most certainly was more than one Christianity at the time of Paul and afterward, but I think Doug Shaver's point still stands. Within the diverse strands of Christianity, we would still sort of expect the humanity to be sooner and the spirituality to be later.