Didymus

You seem to view the mythmaking process as the purposeful creation of a narrative fiction. I certainly don't think it happened that way. The Jesus story had its origins in oral traditions that developed over considerable time and distance. There was no deliberate attempt to "evolve an origin story," rather there was a slow interactive process of refinement, elaboration and embellishment that finally took written form in a narrative account, e.g., the Gospel of Mark.

Granted that people of the time generally valued the ancient over the merely old. But nothing succeeds like success; at a time when the Empire was replacing the Republic and various cultish beliefs (Mithraism, the Dionysian cults, healers and miracle workers) were sweeping the eastern Mediterranean, there were obviously forces at work that favored novelty, a "new dispensation," if you will. The recency of the Jesus story didn't seem to be a problem for converts, nor was it viewed as a weakness by opponents of the new faith. Of Celsus' hundreds of arguments against Christianity, nowhere did he attack the novelty of the faith, or conversely, its lack of antiquity. (And, as Justin pointed out, for those who insisted on antiquity, there was Christianity's foundation in Judaism.)

Didymus

jjramsey

Not necessarily, but I expect that the myths would reflect the biases of the communities that evolved them.

Actually, as far as I've seen, nowhere does Paul say that he expects the end to come soon because of Jesus' resurrection. He obviously sees Jesus as the firstfruits of the coming general resurrection. However, we would not know that he expected a short time between the firstfruits and the general resurrection based on 1 Corinthians 15ff. It is elsewhere in 1 Corinthians--and on an unrelated topic at that--that he indicates that he sees the time as short. So while it is certainly correct that he considers Jesus' resurrection as of a piece with his apocalyptic expectations, he does use the resurrection as an explanation for why he has them. He really doesn't bother explaining why he has them at all.

If you don't like the word "surprising," we can drop that. In this context, its opposite, "unsurprising," is merely a way of referring to something being a matter of course.

If Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, then

• his association with JtB is a matter of course,
• his own parables that describe a final judgment are a matter of course,
• his own parables that warn to be prepared when the master, bridegroom, etc. comes back are a matter of course,
• his predictions that the Kingdom of God would come within his hearers' lifetimes are a matter of course,
• Paul's apocalypticism would be a matter of course,
• 2 Peter's saying that for the Lord a thousand years is like a day, etc., would be a matter of course.

In short, an apocalyptic Jesus makes a lot of things fall into place, and without strained speculation. This is called convergence of evidence.

TedM

Before I forget..I enjoyed your Barney Fife tribute. Thanks!

I have to admit I am having trouble following your position. You mentioned that Paul was engaged in "name dropping" which normally is done by mentioning people of importance and that are respected by those listening in order to make oneself appear more important. When you say it is a back-handed compliment, I gather now that you mean the Galations didn't respect the nickname. How then is that name-dropping? What is Paul's purpose in using such a nickname. I just don't get your position on this. IF it is to make himself look better in the Galation's eyes then we have the problem of how that could be if they didn't see the nickname as honorable and the problem of how "name dropping" helps raise Paul's status to the level of equality. Under what circumstance are you seeing a title equivalent to "brother of God" as not a threat to his alleged desire to prove himself as having equal authority to the pillars?

I see that you didn't respond to what I said about Mark. I just don't see any reasonable circumstance for Mark to have created both a brother James and a pillar James if he had knowledge of both as the same person, regardless of the meaning of "brother". IF there is no such reasonable circumstance then by default that means that if Mark wrote in both characters it was to reflect the existence of two actual persons.


Not if the risen Jesus was more important to the context of Paul's writings than a human Jesus. For Paul's primary gospel of salvation to all mankind that is exactly what we should expect. And, Paul clearly refers to Jesus' humanity many times. What is missing with a few debatable exceptions are explicit details of teachings and doings--things that aren't particularly relavant to what Paul was writing about.


Until you can show how the "life and teachings of the human Jesus" relate to the contexts better than his revelations from scriptures it doesn't matter how many pages there are.


Yes, the reasons why Paul was writing. It clearly wasn't to talk about the human Jesus, so why should we expect him to? This is what Doherty tries to do with his Top 20 list and his list of 200, and it looks to me like only a handful are legitimate expectations. For example, he claims that we should see mention of a human Jesus in Romans 1, yet it would be terribly out of context chronologically, and Jesus IS mentioned later in the book where the context is appropriate for such an expecation. And, he says that we should expect Paul to refer to the Jesus the Savior and the Gospel of Jesus. The fact is that Paul refers to Jesus as Savior as many times as he does God, and only one time in all of the gospel reference to the Gospel is it called the Gospel of Jesus! The expectations must fit the context of the documents and they must be reasonable.

It definitely IS an account of what Paul believed Jesus did during his lifetime since it has him speaking, eating, and predicting his death the night before he is arrested! If this account wasn't supposed to be of happenings during Jesus' lifetime, then just how many times do you think he was crucified?

ted

Amaleq13

Then call it an inference if you like but you clearly recognize that it is an obvious and easy one to draw. It is, however, entirely misleading to suggest that Paul gives you any reason to think he had or even needed any other "piece" to justify his apocalyptic expectations.

I've never suggested that the later depiction of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher was somehow incompatible with Paul's reaction to his belief in the resurrection or that the evidence can't be arranged so that portions of it appear to follow from it. I've simply pointed out that there is no evidence that Paul believed Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. It is an inference based on later evidence.

Amaleq13

My pleasure.

Paul's "name dropping" provides credibility by proxy while indicating he was not particularly impressed suggests confidence in his claims of equal authority.

The Galatians didn't have to disrespect James' Jewish piety in order to understand a reference to it as connecting him to the teachings and people Paul is preaching against.

I've answered this question too many times already.

There can be no "default" resulting from an argument from personal ignorance but I've already said I think they are two different people in Mark's story.

When you finish Eisenman's book, you might take a look at Robert Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. He apparently liked the book you are reading but, more relevantly, he has a short section on who the brothers of Jesus might be intended to represent that you might find interesting.

jjramsey

Ah, ha! Here's the real problem. Why presume that Jesus' apocalypticism is a later development? The evidence I've seen you produce so far for that is a purported layering of Q in which the apocalyptic layers are later. Yet while Kloppenborg may be a bright NT scholar, the fact remains that if Q exists at all, we only know pieces of it, and these pieces are filtered through the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. This drastically lowers the chances of finding a meaningful linguistic subtlety that could be a sign of a textual "seam." There is also the question of whether those who would become followers of a sage Jesus, or to become followers of those followers, would have been likely to be attracted to apocalypticism. A far simpler explanation is that Christianity started out apocalyptic and over time lost this aspect due to a combination of Hellenistic influence and the dashing of apocalyptic expectations as the waiting for his return got longer and longer.

TedM

IF I"m understanding you, you are basically saying that "brother of God (Lord)" was said in order to provide credibility (ie, I hang out with the top dogs) and was said sarcastically (ie, the so called- "brother of God", yeah, right, whatever ). I guess that's possible, but I would expect something to distinguish it from a simple descriptor in such a case since the point would be for some effect on the readers. As it is, there is no clue that it is to have any effect at all.

The bottom line for me is that I believe if "brother of God" was a title which would clearly imply something about the character of James Paul would have had strong enough feelings about it to comment on it in some way at the point of mention--at least moreso than commenting about a biological relationship which says nothing about the character of James.


I included a qualifier for the default (ie no reasonable circumstance). None has been given so far here IMO.



Thanks. That'll be in about 5 years..

ted

Doug Shaver

I don't believe Paul and the Jerusalem gang were thinking of a man who had lived many years before them. I believe they were thinking of a being who was in some sense living outside of time. They were thinking of a death and resurrection that had happened in a spirit world where the chronology had no necessary connection with human history.

Unless they'd all had the vision at the same time, somebody had to be last. If it happened to be Paul, that could explain why he had to spend so much time convincing everyone that his apostolic credentials were just as good as everyone else's.

It's my understanding that most authorities are agreed that it isn't.

TedM

I see virtually no evidence from Paul that it happened in a spirit world, and not on earth in his mind. Nor, of it being 'outside of time'. That seems a fantasy of Doherty and his followers IMO.

But what I find curious is why somebody else hadn't had the vision in 20 years since the faith was only growing during that time.

I"ve never studied it in depth but it reads very "authentically" to me, though I'm no linguist.

ted

NOGO

Dah!

I wish that you would realize what you are saying here.

1) Paul is a believer
2) He believes that Jesus is the Son of God, who was there with the Father at the begining of the world, that he created the world.
3) He believes that Jesus was sent to earth to save mankind.
4) He dedicated his life to this belief

You want us to believe that Paul knew of the life and teachings of Jesus
BUT
Paul read some scriptures and decided to ignore Jesus' teachings and go with his own interpretation of scriptures.

:banghead:

I am astonished that you can believe this. I can't.

What you are saying is that Paul talks about Jesus in human terms and therefore Jesus was human. But how else can Paul talk about him?
Ezekiel talks about Yahweh as an old man with a beard seated in his throne.
Therefore Ezekiel believed Yahweh to be human right?

This speech is placed in Jesus' mouth in order to inaugurate the Eucharist.
It is very different to what the Didache has to say about the communal meal.
Clearly the idea that the bread is Jesus' body and the cup is Jesus' blood is a later creation.
Paul starts by stating that he received this from the risen Jesus and not from apostolic tradition.
During the Lord's Supper Jesus does not eat.
He speaks but not to his disciples rather he is preaching to all Christians.
He states that his blood is the new covenant.
The purpose of the passage is not to describe a moment in Jesus' life, it is to tell Christians about the new covenant and what they need to do.

The Gospels place this story in an historical context but not Paul.
Paul's version is totally devoid of historical context.