Toto

Please cite some evidence that there were people who believed that meals between gods and humans happened in history, as we understand history.

Then we can discuss whether these beliefs have any relevance to the necessary inference of a human behind Paul's letters.

jgibson000

Shouldn't it be "as the ancients understood history" since it's their beliefs, about the occasions of events, not ours, that we are talking about?

May I ask you what you think the ancients thought was declared in Hesiod's tale of Prometheus and in Works and Days, or in books one and three of the Odyssey, let alone what went on in the mysteries? Or at any cult altar?

JG

Steven Avery

Hi Solo,

Perhaps Matthew did not know both Mark and Luke. Perhaps, as Goulder suggests, Matthew's account had a distinct dual emphasis where the blindfold aspect did not need to be stated. Perhaps Matthew expected that most of his readers were familar with Luke. Perhaps Matthew was being consistent to his sources. Lots of possibilities and I may well have omitted a few.

As for prophesying, the misplaced spiritual overlay is very substantive to understanding the confusion and hearts in bondage of those involved in mocking and striking Jesus. So no, I do not see anything trivial involved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr Richard Bauckham in 'Jesus and the Eyewitnesses' argues that details would be added if they were familiar to readers, and ommitted if readers were not familiar with them... So, as there is no methodologyfor historical Jesus study which works, it is up to you if you prefer the no-details=familiarity arguments or the details=familiarity arguments.

And I tend to agree that a consistent and sensible methodology for 'historical Jesus study' is lacking. However there may be cases and issues where some sense can be made. And I consider the issue of Luke writing to the high priest Theophilus to be quite fascinating and potentially foundational to historic Jesus study, yet various barriers make that simple understanding very difficult to be received in the 'historical Jesus study' realm.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Toto

No it shouldn't. We are talking about the quest for a historical Jesus, with historical defined on modern terms, because this is a modern quest. We are asking if a historical Jesus (on modern terms) is necessarily implied by Paul's writings.

I do not think that they thought history was involved, unless you want to redefine history to mean mythic legend, moral instruction, or psychodrama. Do you have any evidence that they did?

Do you even have any evidence that they really cared about historical accuracy the same way moderns do?

Gawen

Ok. I'm confused. The responses of the OP didn't clear anything up for me.
Let me ask these few questions.

gnosis92 says: Is this what most scholars have arrived at (other than Doherty)? If so, how can anyone say: Isn't this a contradiction? And if it isn't a contradiction, can someone reasonably explain how it isn't?

S.C.Carlson

No, but, to be fair to the OP, gnosis92 attributed that position to Doherty, not most scholars.

Malachi151

There is too much emphasis on whether Paul thought Jesus was purely spiritual or not. That has nothing to do with it. If that were so then it would certainly make things easier, but it certainly isn't necessary to argue that Jesus never existed.

No one thought that Abraham was purely spiritual, yet we acknowledge that he never existed, same with Moses, and tons of other Jewish figures.

There were tons of fictitious Jewish stories written about "human beings" that were totally false and never happened, yet they were believed as totally true by the Jews and later Christians. Take the Martyrdom of Isaiah for example. That's a story about human beings that takes place on earth, in which Isaiah is a person, which is nevertheless totally fiction, and which was also totally believed as true. The writer of the Book of Hebrews perhaps even alludes to this story, citing Isaiah's being sawn in half as one of the prophets that suffered before Jesus, yet, the account is nothing more than a fairy tale.

We wouldn't say that this story is real simply because Isaiah was portrayed as a person.

Cege

Paul writes that Jesus was a historical figure (born of a woman, raised from the dead) although Paul did not encounter Jesus as a living man. Paul's encounter with Jesus, so he said, was in a vision of some sort with Jesus in a form something other than a physical being.

I don't read anything by Paul that indicates Paul believed Jesus was only a spiritual being rather than a physical man who died, was raised from the dead, and then existed in a spiritual form that was able to communicate with Paul by way of a vision.

Gawen

ok
Ok.
Ok

With this being said, how much of Paul's writings of a historical Jesus are attributed to Paul and how much are not Paul's?

Malachi151

Paul does not give ANY historical details about Jesus, nor does he give any indication that he considers him an historical figure.

#1) The whole "born of a woman" thing is an allegory, as Paul himself says. The "woman" is "the Jerusalem in heaven".

#2) Saying that someone is human, or that they were born of a woman, is not historical. It may mean he described him as a flesh and blood person, but this does not equal history.

If I say "Zeus came to earth in human form" is that historical? Hell no.

I'd have to say, "Zeus came to earth in human form during the reign of Alexander the Great, and he met with Aristotle to discuss philosophy, etc."

That is a historical statement. Just saying that some figure was human isn't historical, and indeed pointing out that someone is human is all the more a sign of myth, you there is no need to point out that real people are people.