Amaleq13

You are trying to argue against the claim that Jesus isn't called god "until John" by quoting where John's Gospel appears to claim Jesus was god?

:banghead:

With every post, you make it more difficult to believe that your apparently perpetual confusion is genuine.

Brother Daniel

You may, of course, be right (in the latter statement) regardless of whether I'm right or not about the existence of a double standard.
True, and fair enough. But then your "another creationist tactic" analogy fails, since you were not (by your own admission) responding to a general statement about the existence of lots of evidence for an MJ. It seems that I lost sight of the fact that Toto had made a claim, and I went out on an inappropriate tangent, for which I apologize.
No, I was pointing out that creationists often ask for very specific forms of evidence for evolution that the scientists can't provide, and blow the significance of that missing evidence way out of proportion. For example, creationists seem to want the fossil record to be far more complete than it is. If you point out that not every dead thing turns into a fossil -- that fossils can only form under certain conditions, and we just have to take what we can get -- a creationist will say you're just making excuses. Similarly in history: We have to be careful not to attach too much significance to a missing bit of evidence; we have to do our best to work with the evidence that is there.

Brother Daniel

As I’ve already acknowledged.
Labelling Paul’s Jesus as a “numen” is an interesting idea, but I don’t see how that would bring us any closer to an HJ.
Agreed. But I wasn’t talking about Jesus being “God”; I was talking about Jesus being “a god”.

If Paul pictured Jesus in a way that is functionally equivalent to what we would naturally call “a god” (and it appears to me that he did, though again I’m not expecting you to agree), then it would not be surprising, given the Jewish context, that he would avoid that explicit terminology.
Yes, according to the assumptions being challenged. We’re discussing whether there is any evidence for such “adding” in Paul’s own writings.
One thing I have no clue about is what you’re trying to say here. (How can a “relationship” between sources be “nearly identical” with another “source”? That doesn’t make any sense.)

But indeed, there are a great many things about which I have no clue. So your efforts to straighten me out are much appreciated.
This ignorance is freely acknowledged. But a few problems stand out here.

First, your phrase “in the Greek days” obscures the fact that then, as now, the world was culturally heterogeneous. Yes, the NT was written in Greek, but could there not be some other cultures that influenced the key players in early Christianity, including James and whoever may have nicknamed him? (Let’s see now…. How about the Jewish culture?) Of course, I don’t know anything about Jewish nicknames, either. But if you point to a single set of cultural “rules” for how nicknames work, in order to dismiss a possible nickname applied to a leader of a cross-cultural group, you’re not making a convincing argument.

Second, many humans are innovative, especially where naming is concerned. (I strongly doubt the existence of Greek nickname-police, of whom James’s friends could have run afoul.)

Third, any appeal to “rules about nicknames” can only be an argument about improbability, not an argument about impossibility. And here we run again into the usual HJ/MJ double standard. On the one hand, the suggestion that “the Lord’s brother” may have been a mere nickname is dismissed because such a nickname would be atypical (“in the Greek days”, whatever the hell that means). But on the other hand, the quick elevation to divinity of a wandering preacher and faith-healer who suffered a criminal’s death is treated as unsurprising, in spite of not one whit of evidence that such elevation is culturally typical or psychologically natural.

Let’s face it, something happened that was very unlikely (i.e., improbable a priori), else Christianity wouldn’t exist. No matter what theory of Christian origins you favour, some elements of that theory will be unlikely. Pointing out the unlikely elements in opposing theories is all very well and good -- unless you strain out the gnats and then swallow a camel.
You may be right. I cannot read Greek, so I cannot challenge your exegesis. But this raises the question of how to account for the apparent conspiracy among English translators to make it look as if Paul is saying something completely different.

Those conspirators (drat them!) would have me believe that Paul’s opposition to Peter is about Peter’s behaviour, not his message; that Paul considers his gospel to be equivalent to that of Peter and James; and that Paul does not accuse Peter and James of having a merely fleshly tradition. Rather, when Paul contrasts his own position (from direct revelation) with merely fleshly traditions, he does so in the context of his “anathema” upon those who preach a different gospel – a curse that he never pronounces upon the Pillars.
“Knowledge of Christianity” can mean many different things. And we were talking about knowledge about Jesus.

So what about those very early Christians whom Paul previously persecuted? How did they learn about Jesus? If you think it was through direct acquaintance, then presumably you have evidence. As far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong), we don’t have Christian writings that pre-date Paul. That’s why I’m focusing on Paul’s sources of information.
I try to do that.
ok.
ok.
He was annoyed by Peter’s two-faced behaviour. If he differed from Peter on a deeper level, or differed from James at all, he doesn’t tell us so, AFAICT.
Nothing beyond the “brother of the Lord” label, which I’ve already commented on.
Already dealt with.
That you have nothing beyond the “brother of the Lord” label, which (granted) is significant, but by itself is inadequate to overcome the numerous difficulties that any HJ hypothesis runs into throughout Paul’s writings.
Maybe that’s the problem.

I’m curious to see whether you have any comments on my post #32.

aa5874

Well, your statement does not make much sense. You claim that Jesus is not called a god until John. Now, I quote passages from John to show Jesus was indeed called a god, you now, absurdly, claim that the term 'son of God' does not imply diety.

You are not making any sense. You have contradicted your own claim.

Brother Daniel

<comment withdrawn>

Julian

He does make sense in this case, you are simply inexplicably confused. First, if you are the/a 'son of god' it doesn't mean that you are god or, even, a god, just that your father was. It was common in anitquity to believe in mortal or semi-mortal beings having a deity for a parent. Now, that's it for that argument. Done. It has nothing to do directly with your quote of GJohn and the 'son of' issue. John says directly that the word was god and it was made flesh. There. Done. Whether it manifests here as a son or not has nothing to do with its status as [a] god. The two facts are incidental in this case.

Julian

aa5874

Jesus is refered to as a god in gJohn, that is a fact. That is a fundamental claim of gJohn. Jesus is called the son of God, Saviour, and Lord in John.

Within the context of gJohn, 'son of God' implies a god, that is undeniable.

Chris Weimer

Is that your belief?

Chris Weimer

No, I didn't label Paul's Jesus as such. I merely gave an example of where divinity to us if explicitly differentiated in other cultures.

Are you familiar with Metatron?

Oh, so you're a JW?

Quite rightly - look at Metatron, called a Second YHWH, but still could be punished because he is not actually God. God cannot die, yet Jesus could. That was from the earliest the most important difference. Remember, according to Paul, Jesus was crucified, and conquered death - flesh being conquered by the spirit. Important concepts for Pauline thought.

Perhaps that the Synoptics, John, and some other early Christian writings don't reflect Pauline thought?

Reread what I said. Parse the sentence if you still have trouble.

Hrm...how to set this straight - nicknames? How can you tell the difference between an appellation and a nickname?

Is it a double standard or have you just failed to educate yourself? Do you have evidence that Brother of the Lord is a nickname, because many books have been written on the psychological study of the elevation of Jesus suffering a criminal's death to Godhood. Crossley's book has many nice titles in the bibliography.

I never acknowledged that a mere criminal being elevated to Godhood was likely - it's disproportionately likely. But then you've failed to take things into account - the messianic hope during the times, the onslaught of Romanity, the brutal Roman governors, perhaps the criminal's own self-delusion, or perhaps some vision by man named Paul who deluded himself into believing that Jesus was something much more than others thought he was.

Conspiracy? Please. Perhaps the problem lies with you. Paul's corpus is not light reading.

And why would he? James and Peter are respectable. But why did Peter act in such a way? What was it about James being there than forced Peter to eat with the Jews and not the Gentiles? Remember, by Paul's own admission he's a late comer - he was "visited" by the resurrected Jesus "like one untimely born". He wasn't part of the early church.

How could he have had a revelation of Jesus without knowing who he was? Your scenario would automatically imply the supernatural power of Jesus.

No, I don't think that. Presumably, most were taught by disciples, or those who were taught by disciples. Jesus never traveled to Greece.

Eh, some would date Q to that era, some later. Most would date the early traditions to that era, presumably to even Jesus himself. I doubt that Paul knew those traditions - he probably did what Pliny did - inquire from Christians before he proceeded to persecute them. What fit he had that changed his mind is beyond me (I'm not doctor), but something happened.

Why does Paul then go on? Read all of Gal. 2.11-16. What exactly is Paul saying.

I think James Tabor covers this nicely:

from the Jesus Dynasty Blog.

But dealt with wrongly.

You're mischaracterizing the position. You left off quite a bit of what I said.

If I get around to it...

Chris Weimer

What were the Dionysian mystery rites? What were the teachings? How did these rites really get started?

There are many theories, but no consensus. However, there is a consensus on some things - for example, that aliens didn't give the Greeks the Dionysian mystery rites, and that God did not physically create the earth in 6 days as Genesis describes, and that Jesus was not merely a composite figure of Horus, Osiris, Dionysus, Apollo, Krishna, Tammuz, etc... It's as much bullshit as is creationism or the alien theories. It's no surprise that the people who espouse this stuff can't actually read the stories they pretend to know. Those above are convoluted fantasies - but the HJ theory is not. Doherty's twisting of Greek and making up ancient beliefs is a convoluted fantasy. Heck, I'll even give it to you that the whole "Jesus was a wondering cynic" is pretty fantastical as well, though it's far simpler than Doherty.

This is equivocation. The MJ theory fails because it's improbable, not because it was an unlikely event, the latter of which uses statistical numbers in relation to universal events, while the former uses statistical numbers in relation to certain conjectures.

Are you kidding me? If that's not a caricature, then you really have some reading to do.

Why didn't Christians do it in the third century, at least one hundred years after the gospels have been circulating? Let me recommend you a beginners books, since you seem to have trouble actually understanding the standard HJ position - Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium by Bart Erhman.

It's not that they don't have traction - it's that they have no substance. Even Doherty refuses to publish in respectable journals, rather publishing in journals sympathetic to his beliefs.

Arguing that MJ is improved because there are problems with HJ is exactly identical to arguing that the Divine Jesus of the Gospels theory is improved because there are problems with HJ, or that Jesus was an alien theory is improved because there are problems with the HJ, or that Last Tuesdayism is improved because there are problems with the HJ.

[/quote]
This is coming from a guy who can't correctly compare probabilities? I sure hope you're merely an undergrad in physics, or else I bemoan the state of mathematical education in your institution.