Freethought & Rationalism Archive

GakuseiDon · 09-01-2010, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

IF Jesus is fictional, then your question is obviously ridiculous. Whether he is or not, we don't know for certain (until there's a "smoking gun" like a letter from 'Mark' saying "hah, fooled 'em!", euhemerism is still a possibility, and we might just be unlucky not to have any external evidence of the real man), but the point is the evidence, as it stands, is ambiguous between plain fiction (or rather, most likely, a spiritual myth born from the perfervid imaginations of scripture-botherers and mystics, somewhat LIKE a spiritual comic book) and man mythologised.

Is there any evidence that the gospels were plain fiction, though? I'm not aware of any. Self-serving propaganda, yes; but plain fiction? What is the evidence for that?

We have Paul writing about a crucified Jesus Christ, and no-one (AFAIK) considers that he was writing fiction. Then we have Mark writing about a crucified Jesus Christ. That does seem to be confirmation of some sort. Even if we can't know for sure that Mark was writing about historical details, I'm not aware of anything suggesting he was writing plain fiction, like Second Century Lucian's "Golden Ass".

PhilosopherJay · 09-01-2010, 05:38 AM

Hi aa5874,

What I am doing is trying to apply my understanding of the development of popular fiction and fictional genres to the development of the fictional text called the New Testament.

When studying fictional text, we can understand how and why certain genres and character-types become popular. We can take certain features of the current phenomena of romantic vampires in popular movies, television series and books, the creation of "film noir" style movies in the 1940's and 1950's, the development and popularity of comic book superheroes in the 1930's and 1940's, the journalistic style novels of Dickens and Balzac in the 19th century, and the epistolary style novels of the 18th century and come to certain conclusions about their development. We can then take the New Testament and see that certain features of fictional character and story development apply there too. This provides the best explanation for many of the seemingly incomprehensible contradictions we find in narrative and character development throughout the New Testament.

I am not creating fictions, but giving real explanations or at least strong hypotheses of the real historical development of fictional works.

We can, of course, just say that they made it up, but I think that we can go further and say how and why they made it up.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

...Their are many possible reasons that John the Baptist baptizes Jesus. My personal belief is that the character of John the Baptist was originally just a prophet named John who was baptized by God....

Why do you find it necessary to BELIEVE something about John the Baptist?

I only need to show what is written. The extant source for John the Baptist external of the NT and Church writings is Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.5 and there is NO mention of John meeting Jesus or that John was a prophet.

The NT and Church writings are uncorroborated with respect to the baptism by John the Baptist of Jesus.

There is no need to INVENT stories about Jesus and John the Baptist. Leave inventions and fabrications to the JESUS BELIEVERS.

Let them continue to re-invent their FICTION characters like Jesus, Peter and Paul.

At least some credible external source wrote about a character called John the Baptist.

PhilosopherJay · 09-01-2010, 06:24 AM

Hi JustSteve,

I should have been clearer in how my examples relate to the criteria of embarrassment. When he first made Pamela Andrews to speak as an uneducated serving girl in his 1740 novel, Richardson did not regard it as an embarrassment. He felt that he was being realistic and was quite proud of the fact that he had captured the ordinary language of the lower classes. it was soon pointed out to him that this realistic style item made the narrative unrealistic; in that most critics felt a rich, educated man of the upper classes would be a fool to fall madly in love with a common and stupid lower class girl when he could have an educated wife from the upper class and simply pay as many pretty, uneducated girls to have sex with him that he wanted. Apparently, Richardson had not considered this and only later became embarrassed that his plot was considered unrealistic, ironically because he had made Pamela too typical and realistic. In his revisions he sought to correct this by making Pamela into a rather brilliant autodidact.

In the case of Superman, Jerry Siegel, wanted Superman to be based on science rather than magic. "Flying" was something that happened in stories involving magic, like the genii and flying carpet or flying witches on broomstick stories. Thus it made sense for him to have Superman leap rather than fly. It was only later when other non-magical super-heroes who could fly appeared that he became embarrassed that his superhero was weaker than the other flying superheroes that he dropped the leaping bit and gave him the power to fly in order to equal them.

Siegel could not go back and change the early issues of Superman. Today, when every two bit Superhero can fly, we feel a little embarassed that Siegel's archtypical Superhero could only leap like a super bull frog. By the criteria of embarrassment this would point to the fact that Superman was an historical character who developed from leaping to flying.

In fact, instead of saying that Superman was not fictional, we can simply say that the writer did not find it an embarrassment when he wrote it. In fact, it is a clue that there were not non-magical superheroes around at the time who could fly.

This suggests that we should ask ourselves, when confronted with narrative aspects in the New Testament that are embarrassing, why did the author/s not considering this embarrassing. The answer will likely be that the conditions that made this embarrassing did not exist at the time (no other flying superheroes) or the author/s did not see its effect on other aspects of the narrative (realism in one area can create unrealism in another part of the narrative).

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi JustSteve,

The answer to all your questions is the same and it is known by every body who has written or studied fictional works. Characters change and develop over time in response to a variety of changes including the whims of the author/s the changing sensibilities of the author/s and the author/s response/s to criticism and events in his/her life and the world.

For example Samuel Richardson made numerous revisions in some 16 editions of his novel "Pamela". At first Pamela talked as a poor uneducated 15 year old girl. People apparently objected to this, so he changed a great deal of the dialogue from edition to edition. Now one may ask why Pamela sounds so uneducated in some scenes and well educated in many others, if she was not an historical person. The answer is that Richardson was trying to please some of his literary critics who objected that the educated hero would not fall in love with such an uneducated girl.

In the beginning, Superman could not fly, but only made great leaps into the air ("able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," as the introduction to the first cartoons, radio and television shows stated). Other Superheroes were invented in the 40's who could fly like Green Lantern, Hawkman, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. In response Superman started flying. If one didn't know this, one might ask the question, if Superman was not historical how come he couldn't fly at first, when the original idea was that Superman could fly?

Their are many possible reasons that John the Baptist baptizes Jesus. My personal belief is that the character of John the Baptist was originally just a prophet named John who was baptized by God. The character was renamed Jesus at some point. There was a rivalry between the two groups which was settled when the two characters were brought together and John baptised Jesus. Yet we are still seeing the original John story baptism with the dove descending into Jesus, not John. This new story settled the dispute over whether the name of the prophet was John or Jesus. It suggests that there were two prophets and Jesus was a disciple of John. Later some John followers decided that John was more than a prophet, he was the messiah. Those who favored the Jesus character simply copied the John character and made Jesus into the Messiah. Rewriting the story again, they had John declare that he was not the Messiah and declare that Jesus was the Messiah. At this point, they had no idea that later writer/editors would declare Jesus a son of God, and these writers had no idea that later writers would declare him "The son of God." These writers had no idea that later writers would elevate him to a position of equality to God.
In fiction, characters change a lot over a hundred years.

Your other questions have similar simple answers that involve the slow evolution of the story and characters within the stories.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay (AKA Jay Raskin)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

I suggest that we think about the CoE with reference to a certain subset of what Toto wants me to refer to as “Historical Jesus Skeptics” The subset to which I refer are those who hold that there was no historical person who formed the basis of the legendary Jesus who we know about today. According to them the original Jesus was a wholly fictional character invented to form the basis of a new religion.

It is this claim that should be examined in light of the CoE. It is for those who assert that the original Jesus was a fictional character to explain why the original author created him with fictional details which argue against his exalted status. For example why would the Jesus who is co-equal with God submit to baptism by John? Why would he issues prophesies which were already known to have been falsified. Why have him rejected by his own village and his own family?. Why have him declare himself to be less than God?

I invite someone who holds the fictional Jesus position to explain these details. In what way did these details advance the thesis of the original inventor of Jesus?

Steve

Doug Shaver · 09-01-2010, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Self-serving propaganda, yes; but plain fiction? What is the evidence for that?

That would be the evidence outside the gospels for Jesus' nonexistence. If you are convinced that he did not exist, then you must conclude that the gospel authors were either lying or writing fiction. Absent evidence of deceitful intent, they must have been writing fiction.

Error is a third possibility, of course. It is conceivable that they believed, mistakenly, that they were writing about a real person, but I don't know anybody whose opinion I care about who thinks that. I find the fiction hypothesis much more parsimonious than erroneous history.

Obviously, none of this will make any sense to anyone still convinced that there must have been a real Jesus.

bacht · 09-01-2010, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

I suggest that we think about the CoE with reference to a certain subset of what Toto wants me to refer to as “Historical Jesus Skeptics” The subset to which I refer are those who hold that there was no historical person who formed the basis of the legendary Jesus who we know about today. According to them the original Jesus was a wholly fictional character invented to form the basis of a new religion.

It is this claim that should be examined in light of the CoE. It is for those who assert that the original Jesus was a fictional character to explain why the original author created him with fictional details which argue against his exalted status. For example why would the Jesus who is co-equal with God submit to baptism by John? Why would he issues prophesies which were already known to have been falsified. Why have him rejected by his own village and his own family?. Why have him declare himself to be less than God?

I invite someone who holds the fictional Jesus position to explain these details. In what way did these details advance the thesis of the original inventor of Jesus?

Steve

Many Western people probably believe that Buddha or Confucius were fictional characters. If the Jesus story were only discovered now I doubt there would be many historians who would take it seriously.

The gospels filled out biographical details from an originally spiritual Christ (this is one version of mythicism) in order to refute rival gnostics. Many of the details seem to come directly from scripture.

The criterion of embarassment, if applicable at all, manifested in the embarassment of later Catholics at the wholly incorporeal nature of Christ for 1st C believers. This was not good enough to withstand various heretical interpretations that arose from the 2nd C onwards. A flesh and blood Jesus, combined with the retention of the Jewish scriptures, gave proto-Catholics the edge in the competition for hearts and minds among anti-pagan sectarians.

Juststeve · 09-01-2010, 07:01 AM

Doug:

I would be inclined to agree with you were it not for the fact that I know legendary material often attaches itself to historical figures. Constantine in his life time was credited with bringing a dead Roman soldier back to life with his touch. Mohamed I think exited even though there is legendary material about him that is surely not accurate. George Washington is an historical figure who didn’t really chop down a cherry tree, throw a silver dollar over the Delaware, and probably did tell a lie. When I was a boy growing up in New York we all knew to a certainty that Babe Ruth called a home run shot even though the best evidence now suggests that he didn’t. Go to the internet today and find legendary material with regard to almost any celebrity you can name ,and many I have never heard of. There is I submit nothing unparsimonious in suggesting that legendary material could have attached to a real historical Jesus.

I do acknowledge that once you discard all of the written evidence for an historical Jesus that does exist, you are left with no evidence for the historical Jesus. On my hypothesis, that the historical Jesus was one of a number of rather insignificant 1st Century Jewish preachers, I wouldn’t expect there to have been much written about him except by his devotees. I see the task then as trying to determine what if anything his devotees wrote is credible. It’s a matter of separating the plausible from the implausible. Is there something in the early writings about which you say, that could have happened. If so on what basis do we discard the plausible?

Steve.

spamandham · 09-01-2010, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Is there any evidence that the gospels were plain fiction, though? I'm not aware of any. Self-serving propaganda, yes; but plain fiction? What is the evidence for that?

The evidence is that they are in the same form as the biographies written for gods, which are necessarily pure fiction. That said, it is a category of fiction with a purpose other than just entertainment. It's allegorical religious fiction whose purpose is to act as a guidebook for revelation of deeper mysteries, and to answer questions of origins.

Why do we baptize? Because Jesus was baptized.
Why do we partake in a ritual meal? Because Jesus commanded it.

Jesus crucifixion is not a story of a roman crucifixion. It's allegorical. You must totally destroy (crucify) the ego to attain spiritual enlightenment (enter the kingdom of god). The crucifixion story in the gospels is derived from Jewish scriptures, and everyone reading /listening to it would have recognized as much. It's purpose is myth, not history.

Do you really think Jesus told people to eat bread and drink wine because they were his body and blood? Obviously not. This is symbolism. That *aught* to be patently obvious to anyone. Did Jesus really whither a fig tree? Well, no, that's magic and impossible. Ok, so why did the author include such a story...is it to show that Jesus is magic? No. Again, it's symbolism. Some of the stories are political symbolism, such as the story of the suicidal pigs, some are rehashed preexisting myth, such as John's catch of 153 fish. The gospels are a bit of a hodegpodge, but nonetheless, their primary purpose is allegorical religious myth.

Quote:

We have Paul writing about a crucified Jesus Christ, and no-one (AFAIK) considers that he was writing fiction. Then we have Mark writing about a crucified Jesus Christ. That does seem to be confirmation of some sort.

Paul speaks of himself being crucified too. No-one thinks Paul was dictating from the dead. We *all* recognize that he is using the term 'crucify' allegorically in that case. I say he was using it allegorically in all cases, and *that* is why the passion story had to be constructed from Jewish scripture....because it was not a historical event, but rather an intentional myth designed to drive home the importance of self denial at a deeper level.

show_no_mercy · 09-01-2010, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

Doug:

I would be inclined to agree with you were it not for the fact that I know legendary material often attaches itself to historical figures. Constantine in his life time was credited with bringing a dead Roman soldier back to life with his touch. Mohamed I think exited even though there is legendary material about him that is surely not accurate. George Washington is an historical figure who didn’t really chop down a cherry tree, throw a silver dollar over the Delaware, and probably did tell a lie. When I was a boy growing up in New York we all knew to a certainty that Babe Ruth called a home run shot even though the best evidence now suggests that he didn’t. Go to the internet today and find legendary material with regard to almost any celebrity you can name ,and many I have never heard of. There is I submit nothing unparsimonious in suggesting that legendary material could have attached to a real historical Jesus.

I do acknowledge that once you discard all of the written evidence for an historical Jesus that does exist, you are left with no evidence for the historical Jesus. On my hypothesis, that the historical Jesus was one of a number of rather insignificant 1st Century Jewish preachers, I wouldn’t expect there to have been much written about him except by his devotees. I see the task then as trying to determine what if anything his devotees wrote is credible. It’s a matter of separating the plausible from the implausible. Is there something in the early writings about which you say, that could have happened. If so on what basis do we discard the plausible?

This is where I'm at as well in regards to the whole Jesus thing. But once you remove all of the legendary, allegorical, and the supernatural, what are you left with? Like you say, this leaves you with a number of rather insignificant 1st century Jewish preachers. In other words, there's no one historical Jesus - there are thousands.

If we find a Jesus that predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, caused a disturbance in the temple, was arrested, flogged, and the Jews brought him to the procurator of Judea and at his trial he refuses to say a word in his defence, would this be the historical Jesus?

What if we find a Jesus that gathered a bunch of fishermen and poor people (for an insurrection); when one of his entourage betrays him, his group of fishermen and poor people abandon him - would this be the historical Jesus?

What if we find a Jesus that calls himself "son of the father" who was almost crucified? Is that the historical Jesus?

It seems as though there's too much myth surrounding the "historical Jesus" to pinpoint "him" to one non-trivially identifiable person. Popeye is based on a real person, but no one would analyze early Popeye cartoons using criteriology like embarassment to try to find the "historical" Popeye.

Juststeve · 09-01-2010, 08:06 AM

Show no Mercy:

If you are suggesting that it would be very difficult to recover the real historical Jesus from amidst the legend then we are in total agreement. That the recovery is difficult is no argument that the historical fellow didn’t exist. Whether recovering the historical Jesus is worth the effort is yet another matter.

Steve

EarlDoherty · 09-01-2010, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa

Well, I can modify my statement.

"Q" is an assumption based theory.

It must FIRST be assumed that the common material in gMatthew and gLuke is from some other common source.

Surely the fact that gLuke has material common to gMatthew may mean that the author of gLuke SIMPLY copied those material from gMatthew just as it is theorised by some that gMatthew used almost all of gMark.

Good grief! Where do you get reasoning like this?

The adoption of a possible explanation for a phenomenon is not an "assumption". It is a theory that must be tested. The existence of common material in Matthew and Luke is a phenomenon from which a possible explanation has been offered: namely, that they both drew on a common document. Such a theory is then investigated and tested in various ways, to decide how supportable and compelling it may be.

If there are competing theories, other possible explanations, those are investigated as well. The theory that Luke copied Matthew is the main competitor to a Q. As far as I (and many others) are concerned, that theory has too many flaws and difficulties which have not been resolved, neither by Farrer, Goulder or Goodacre--or anyone on this board (more often than not they are simply not addressed, let alone countered).

Are you even aware of those difficulties? I doubt it. Your argument against Q seems to be, well, isn't it a simple matter of Luke copying Matthew, such a simple matter it's virtually self-evident? Anything that simple must be true, right? Unfortunately, that seems to be too common a basis on which many opt for the no-Q position.

Primitive humanity looked up at the sky and saw the sun and stars move from east to west. One theory (probably the first and natural one, and the simplest) was that the sun and stars moved around the earth. After all, we don't feel like we're on a moving body, do we? The theory that the mudball we stood on moved around the sun, well, that would have involved a lot more complex thought and calculation. What a crazy assumption! Never mind that when more closely examined, it explains a lot of things that the geocentric theory has to scramble to deal with, using a lot of forced and even fallacious argument to counter.

I've spent almost an entire chapter in my new book (Jesus: Neither God Nor Man) defending the Q theory and discrediting the Luke-used-Matthew proposition. When you're ready to engage with that sort of presentation, perhaps you can defend your position with a little more acuity than you have hitherto shown.

Earl Doherty

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09-01-2010, 07:01 AM	#166
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	Doug: I would be inclined to agree with you were it not for the fact that I know legendary material often attaches itself to historical figures. Constantine in his life time was credited with bringing a dead Roman soldier back to life with his touch. Mohamed I think exited even though there is legendary material about him that is surely not accurate. George Washington is an historical figure who didn’t really chop down a cherry tree, throw a silver dollar over the Delaware, and probably did tell a lie. When I was a boy growing up in New York we all knew to a certainty that Babe Ruth called a home run shot even though the best evidence now suggests that he didn’t. Go to the internet today and find legendary material with regard to almost any celebrity you can name ,and many I have never heard of. There is I submit nothing unparsimonious in suggesting that legendary material could have attached to a real historical Jesus. I do acknowledge that once you discard all of the written evidence for an historical Jesus that does exist, you are left with no evidence for the historical Jesus. On my hypothesis, that the historical Jesus was one of a number of rather insignificant 1st Century Jewish preachers, I wouldn’t expect there to have been much written about him except by his devotees. I see the task then as trying to determine what if anything his devotees wrote is credible. It’s a matter of separating the plausible from the implausible. Is there something in the early writings about which you say, that could have happened. If so on what basis do we discard the plausible? Steve.

09-01-2010, 08:06 AM	#169
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	Show no Mercy: If you are suggesting that it would be very difficult to recover the real historical Jesus from amidst the legend then we are in total agreement. That the recovery is difficult is no argument that the historical fellow didn’t exist. Whether recovering the historical Jesus is worth the effort is yet another matter. Steve

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