spin

If Paul believed his divinely revealed Jesus was real, there was no mythical Jesus prior to the revelation. Ebion merely a clear example of the fact that the reification of non-real people does happen and that it happens without any underhandedness.

George Washington had mythical elements attached to him, but that doesn't change the status of Washington as having started as a real person. Jesus may have been real yet the birth narratives may have been mythical. The mythical, as related by your interest, is not necessarily an issue in the possible reification of Jesus.

Myth may have kicked in at any stage. The topic we are dealing with is whether Jesus was a real person or not based on the evidence. Let's do what the HJers do and strip away the stuff you might wanna call mythological -- well some of it, as you might want to go further than another might accept. A lot of analysts feel that there is still something left and they want to know where that came from. Myth per se doesn't help, unless one argues that Jesus cannot be separated from the content of the myth and then I'd say the HJers have shown that to be an inconclusive argument, as they think you can make the separation.


spin

gstafleu

Isn't MJ theory more that the Jesus story started as a myth, like Herakles e.g., but then was "bent" by historicizing?

Gerard Stafleu

jjramsey

I'm not self-defining anything. I'm just going by the usual usage of "MJ."

If forum members were in the habit of talking about "historical Ebion" and "mythical Ebion," I certainly would.

As a myth resulting from the confusion of those outside the Ebionite movement hearing about the movement from bits of rumor.

Yes, they do. The question is whether treating Jesus as "non-real" makes sense of the evidence. When you try to explain away the "brother of Jesus called Christ" phrase in Josephus by saying it came from Origen when the only places that Origen uses the phrase are when he is making reference to Josephus on James, or claim that a Jew who wasn't particularly devout in the first place would have compunctions about using "called Christ" in a context that wasn't even that reverent, that is a sign that one has to go through quite a few more loop-de-loops to justifying Jesus' non-existence than Ebion's.

spin

If that is as either Doherty or GakDon does then it is more specific than the loose usage of "mythical". It would not include a fictional Jesus nor a Jesus straight from a revelatory experience (as what happened to Paul in Gal 1:11-12, if veracious).

That's the point, they wouldn't be. Ebion was neither.

That's just sad. You missed the point. There was nothing either mythical or historical about the figure itself. He was almost certainly based on a false assumption about reality. Myth in the technical sense as it tends to be used in MJ/HJ discussion has a practical theological explanatory purpose. For example, the myth of Adam's rib explains beautifully the relationship between a betrothed couple and their coming together makes them whole as a single entity once again. Mythical here is not a synonym for fictional or false.

As Paul claims that his gospel came from a divine revelation and it was not taught to him by humans, we have a simple, direct means for the non-real to be perceived as real. And that is after all the earliest evidence we have, isn't it?

As it was the ancient equivalent of copying and pasting, I don't think you'll convince too many people with such quibbling.

And now you're shooting Josephus to try to squirm out of justifying his use of the term when he avoids it everywhere else. None of the 40 uses of xristos are found in Josephus's works, nor do any messianic figure get the title. You just want him to be not so devout that he might use it for Jesus. But you know, it's simply irrelevant in the task of bringing Jesus into history. Josephus was writing 60-70 years after the fact so he's not directly relevant historically and his text was preserved by christians, so any christian content must be held in suspicion from the start.

As you've seen with Paul's divine revelation of Jesus we need nothing more. It's that simple. It is a much simpler explanation than a real Jesus who wasn't experienced by Paul, yet Paul preached his divinely revealed Jesus anyway, regardless of a real Jesus.


spin

Solitary Man

Earliest evidence? No. Paul talks about an existing group. There were anti-Pauline groups around. The Gospels did not come out wholly from Paul. Your theory doesn't explain all the evidence.

What's even simpler is that God created the whole world in what we think to be year 1889. Why, your theory is so simple that it doesn't even explain all the evidence! It must be right!

youngalexander

Yet that 'extra' evidence comes from Paul?

Solitary Man

Why is that problematic?

youngalexander

It is problematic because it has no corroboration, it is singular, we only have Paul's account.

Solitary Man

No, that's not quite true. We have the gospels, we have more than one gospels, and we have a presumed tradition in Paul. On what basis do you suggest that the Jerusalem group is made up by Paul? If Paul didn't make it up, then it came from somewhere.

jjramsey

Doherty has a particular MJ to push, but I doubt that GakuseiDon would have any problem describing a "fictional Jesus" or a "Jesus straight from a revelatory experience" as a kind of MJ.

Correction: You are not using "mythical" here as a synonym for fictional or false. Yet it gets used that way, anyway.

Paul also claims to have been a persecutor of Christians. If you are using Paul's words as evidence that Jesus was somehow the brainchild of Paul, then you'll have to explain why according to Paul, others had believed in a historical Jesus before he did--which takes us right back into the need for fancy loop-de-loops to account for an MJ. (And yes, I am using "mythical" here as a synonym for "fictitious." Deal with it. )

Well, yes, a trivial explanation would be that Origen "copied and pasted" the phrase "brother of Jesus called Christ" into his work, but I don't think that's what you meant.

Which makes it much easier for Josephus to use Xristos in a way that doesn't imply that he thinks Jesus is the messiah. Indeed, if Xristos had long been thought of by the Romans as a name of a founder of a small religious sect, using Xristos to refer to a messiah or messianic pretender would be a bit confusing, now, wouldn't it?

He was a traitor under the patronage of Romans. The case for him not being that devout isn't that hard.

Ah, the old "not a contemporary source" argument. Never mind that an explanation for how "brother of Jesus called Christ" got into Josephus' work at all is going to have to be a part of any MJer's case.

True, but technically all texts are supposed to be treated with suspicion, and suspicion is not guilt. If it is more of a mess to account for "brother of Jesus called Christ" as an interpolation than it is to account for it as genuine, than "not guilty" is a more reasonable conclusion.