gstafleu

The recent thread about Jesus ben Ananias has made me wonder about the following. Jesus ben Ananias is a pretty good candidate for a "Historical Core," i.e. someone on whom Mark loosely based the historical part of his narrative. But the timing is wrong with respect to Paul, if we assume that Paul wrote around 50 CE: JbA was present around the time of the fall of Jerusalem (he was killed by a stone from a Roman siege engine).

But this is only a problem if we assume that Paul's Jesus was the gospel Jesus. Jesus was a common name, and it means "God saves," which is convenient for a figure with religious aspects, plus it has good OT roots in Joshua: Paul could easily have come up with "Jesus" as a name.

So how about the following scenario. We follow Doherty in saying that Paul (and those following in his tradition) wrote about a mythical, non-earthly Jesus. However, literal and historical religion is easier on the stomach than pure myth and mysticism, so there was a tendency to historialize the mythic Jesus. This is what Mark did, and he used JbA (or someone else suitable) as a historical core for his leading character.

In this way we can both have our Doherty and eat our gospel cake. Paul does indeed not write about an HJ, his later followers may or may not have heard about Mark's HJ, but even if they did hear about him they literally were not interested in him. The gospel writers meanwhile had added a historic layer to their stories, and much as James Bond was based on Sidney Reilly, so the gospel writers used someone like JbA as a base for their historical Jesus.

An interesting consequence of this would be that both Doherty would be right in claiming a lack, and sometimes contraindication, of an HJ in Paul (and later writers in the same or a similar tradition), and the HJers would be right in claiming a historical core for the gospels. The two, in other words, are not mutually exclusive.

Gerard Stafleu

Malachi151

This doesn't fly. All the gods of the time were "mythical". People believed that they were as real as people. Zeus, Dionysus, Mithras, Adonis, angels, centaurs, Satan, Belair, God himself, etc., none of these things are or were real, they are all "mythical". That doesn't mean that the people who believed in them considered them mythical.

There were an estimated over 30,000 gods and demigods in the Greek pantheon at the time, all of whom were considered REAL. Adding one more figure whom people treated as real but who in fact was not is nothing.

Niall Armstrong

Somehow this combines the theories of Weedon, Burton Mack (by a long shot), Doherty and our own Malachi151. It makes it impossible to prove, but even harder to disprove. A fascinating idea, that is difficult to consider the merits of.

In one sense this makes it easier to imagine the author of Mark. He definitely is writing fiction, in this scenario, as he makes the apostles of Christ into the disciples of YbA. But he also has stories about a prophet forecasting the woes of Jerusalem (yet the Lament of Jerusalem is in Q, not Mark…). YbA’s prophesy must have been still ringing in people’s ears after the fall of Jerusalem, and the coincidence of the similarity of the name must have been inspiring in itself. Would it be surprising if some Jewish exile, well-read in scripture, inquisitive about YbA’s background, and meeting the Pauline churches outside of Judea, didn’t come up with the Gospel of Mark?

The fun really starts when one tries to fit Q into this equation. Now I haven’t forgotten that YbA according to Josephus was virtually monosyllabic, but I don’t see why we should trust that stuck-up little Messiah-hater when it comes to prophets of doom. So is there anything in Q that couldn’t have been tought by YbA?

Solo

How did the Nazarenes come up with "Yeshu" ? Who was the "other Jesus" that others preached and Paul rejected- if not Yeshu ? Who was the crucified fool and blasphemer whom Paul badmouthed before God's revelation that he was Paul's and mankind's redeemer ? Pray, tell !

Jiri

gstafleu

I'm not so sure if that's true. If indeed Paul was not writing about the gospel Jesus, as Doherty has it, and Mark's Jesus did have an historical core, then separating the two should provide a clearer picture. It should be easier to (dis)prove in the sense that we won't get constantly tangled in a mess of links that aren't there.

It is not at all necessary to trace back Q to JbA, just as it isn't necessary to trace back Blofelt (the arch villain in the Bond stories) to Sidney Reilly. Having said that, Robert Price makes a good argument that just about everything in Q was part of then extant thought, so clearly it was available to JbA.

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

That, I think, just shows the easy availability of Jesuses at the time. Also, don't forget I'm just talking about the screening myth here. A historical core does not have any relevance to the mystery layer.

Gerard Stafleu

Solo

Yeah, sure if you start throwing in all Jesuses that you know about within a couple of centuries. But Paul addresses himself to his Church of God (at Corinth), which had one Jesus, the Nazarene, on whom there were differing opinions. This almost always happens with a movement in which a clear line of succession is not established. The fable of Jesus appointing Peter to lead his church was obviously fixed in the books later to remove that weakness.

I am not sure how you mean that. If you are saying that the level or intensity of confabulation in the gospels has no bearing on the determination whether there is a historical person behind them, then I agree. I am sure I don't agree that the historical core did not set certain perimeter and base content to the tales. Jesus earthly mission was defeated. It was a dud, a glitch on a history screen that no-one noticed (Unlike Juhayman al-Utaybi who took over al-Haram, the holiest shrine of Islam in Mecca for a day in 1979, JC did not even get his 15 minutes of news fame). That historical defeat "controls" the tales around Jesus. No matter what Jesus does, how much excellent work for Israel, how many breathtaking miracles he performs and verities he utters, in the end he gets to die as a criminal.

He restores a stinking corpse to life. Too bad. Some people see it and report him to the Sanhedrin as a sorcerer. But this completely defies human psychology. A feat like the raising of Lazarus would have filled its witnesses with great awe, amazement and fear. People would have been transfixed, paralyzed, regardless what they had thought about Jesus before. If they believed they saw a miracle, that is. Where would any Jew, who witnessed a spectacle in which a family's faith in the power of God was rewarded by Jesus in raising their loved one from the dead, get the idea the man was an 'evil-doer' ? And even if they did, would they want to mess with a guy who could do that ? And the Sanhedrin, hearing this and believing it was a miracle, would not want to talk to him first ? Maybe make a deal ? See if Jesus could not help by any chance and turn the Roman legions into heaps of stones ? Provide the final solution to the Roman Question ? .....See what I am saying ?

No, Jesus did do something that deeply offended the sensibilities of the time and place, and was executed for it. The reality controls the structure of the myth.

Jiri

Malachi151

That was a nice digression into fantasy and purely speculation....

Gregg

This is part of the problem ... it's so hard to get people to consider the MJ thesis in the context of the environment in which Christianity emerged. And the problem is compounded by the fact that history has been artificially distorted by 1,600 years of Christian domination. We are trying to view the past through a pinhole. Not Christians in general, but one sect of Christians gained control of the Empire, determined what was orthodox belief, and wiped out all pagan and heretical beliefs.

I have to admit, though, the absence of any "orthodox" Christian works explicitly attacking heresies that are clearly MJ in nature ("Those who believe in a Jesus that was crucified in the firmament and was never on Earth will burn in hell!") is an interesting challenge to the MJ thesis. This is definitely an area that needs more attention from MJers.

gstafleu

Let us as an example assume (doesn't matter whether you agree with the interpretation or not, I'm just using it as an example of the process) that in John 3, when Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he has to be born again (or from above) from the spirit, that Jesus is talking about some form of inner enlightenment that is achieved without any external deity. IOW, when "the Son of Man must be lifted up" it is man (human being) who is lifting himself up.

The screening myth here consists of two parts. First that there was a real Jesus literally saying this, and second that the spirit is provided by the external deity, so that Jesus is talking about belief in that external deity rather than belief in oneself: you have to belief in the literal god before you can go to his literal heaven. The Jesus of that screening myth (real person chatting about external God) can have been based on some real Jesus, or not: that does not affect the mystery layer (believe in yourself an go to your own internal heaven) of this passage. (And again, whether I interpreted the mystery layer correctly is irrelevant to the example.)

So: "screening myth" = myth told to the great unwashed (or uninitiated, depending on circumstances) to hide the "real" message. This way the great unwashed still feel they are part of things, even though they haven't been given (for whatever reason, among Australian aborigines because they are women or prepubescent boys e.g.) the full story.

Gerard Stafleu