archibald

A lot, as far as I know. But I'm not an expert. Are there any for whom there are accounts which tell us very little other than that they died? No backstory? No narrative? I'm comparing to the epistles here. Obviously, there appears to be later mythologizing.

Yes, it is, though, to be honest, we must be at cross purposes here...

unless....do you mean a nonhistorical amazing figure?

If you do, then no, I'm not sure it's that common. I can't think of too many.

Sometimes, I believe, when supposedly special religious figures goof up or die, some of the followers rationalize it, and/or relocate the goalposts again, and others disperse.

My imaginary Bob was a gentile. I Thought Paul converted non-Jews? Anyhows, the circumcision thing isn't important. I was only trying to riff humourously on DCHindley's scenario.

I don't think you're missing anything, that I can see.


My main point, in my previous reply to you, was to wonder whether myths do, in fact, start like this. Like the epistles, I mean.

Btw, my general position is agnostic with slight HJ leanings, that is to say, of the two, I'd opt for HJ on most (though not all) days, but not by a lot. Agnostic is probably the most rational position, IMO, but true agnosticism is, I think, hard to achieve. I always find myself leaning slightly one way, mainly because I think it's inconsistent not to. IOW, if I were to be truly agnostic about Jesus, I might have to be truly agnostic about a lot of other minor figures from ancient history. So, I tend to think maybe there was one particular guy at the core of that cult, just as there usually are in eschatological cults (unless thay follow some figure from the dim and distant past), and just as there were other blokes running around Israel (apparently) at the time acting somewhat similarly.

My take on it is that the extant epistles appear as if they were written by someone not very long after some preacher man supposedly got executed in Israel. Reasonable, 'best guess' dating of Paul might even put the start of his mission only a few years (maybe as few as 2 or 3) after the death. And the epistles refer to previous followers of the dead guy. It is this apparent short distance to events which strikes me as unmythlike. The dates and timings are uncertain, of course. Just like everything else about this hot topic.

Everything else, after those basics (male, preacher, Israel, dead) is not somewhere I like to go, because it becomes too muddy. The guy's name might not have been Jesus. He might not have died at passover. etc. but I might stick with thinking that Paul and the previous followers were possibly following the same guy.

Regarding the lack of backstory in the epistles, this does seem a little odd to us now, and is probably the main reason I don't stray too far from MJ, but perhaps we are expecting an historical account when the writer had no intentions of writing one, at the time of writing those.

Going back to my first point (in this post, above), it strikes me that if it's odd there's no backstory in these letters 'Paul' later wrote to various places, it's just as odd for MJ as for HJ.

aa5874

Your post shows that you are really confused.

First time I am hearing that On some days you are HJ and other days you are agnostic.

aa5874

You have ZERO legs to stand on when you place the Pauline writings in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple.

You are aware that the physical evidence P 46 is dated by paleography at least ONE HUNDRED later than you propose.

It makes very little sense to continue to make statements about Paul WITHOUT any external corroboration.

There is ZERO corroboration from external sources, and the physical evidence, P 46, for Paul in the 1st century before the Fall of the Jewish IS ZERO.

Based on gMark, Jesus did NOT even start any new religion under the name of Christ, and there were NO such thing as Christians who followed Jesus. The very disciples and Peter had abandoned and Denied Jesus.

How is it possible that there was a Christian group in Jerusalem when it was a CRIME punishable by death to preach and teach Jesus was the Son of God.

Jesus was EXECUTED in a matter of hours after he was found guilty of death for Blasphemy when he declared publicly for the first time that he was the Son of God and Christ.

It is extremely improbable that Christianity started in Judea in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple. Jesus and his disciples would have been ERADICATED and SLAIN like the Egyptian False prophet in Josephus.

Doug Shaver

It's up to anyone who argues for either position to define their terms, but I think it's gratuitously confusing to define them so that nobody can lose this argument.

No one but hyper-orthodox Christians is denying that there is mythology in the stories about Jesus. That is just to say that if there was a historical Jesus, then a lot of what could well be called mythology was added to the stories that the earliest Christians told about him. The historicity debate is about whether the stories include any historical fact at all. If they do not, then there was no historical Jesus.

By "any historical fact," I am not including anything so trivial as to be practically guaranteed true just by predictable coincidence. Chances are, there was some preacher by the name of Jesus somewhere in Palestine during the early first century. But he was not the historical Jesus unless (a) he was crucified by Pontius Pilate and (b) he had some disciples who played a role in the founding of the religion we now know as Christianity.

fatpie42

Really? Because honestly I can think of tons. Just to mention a few I've already named in this thread: Theseus, Perseus, Heracles, King Arthur....

archibald

And are there stories about any of these in which there is virtually no biography or narrative other than that they died? I thought that was the analogy we were looking for?

fatpie42

Okay, feel free to clarify it for me.

That was what I said. I don't see how I was gratuitously confusing things when we're saying the exact same thing.

Even (b) is a bit of a predictable coincidence unless we can show that the founders of Christianity weren't simply disciples in the sense of "followers", but were people who actually met a historical figure and were taught by him. This all looks pretty tough to demonstrate.

My point in framing the MJ argument as I did was actually to point out the problems with this ambiguity. Just to clear this up, everyone already accepts that the account of Jesus contains an awful lot that is mythical. That means that the mythical Jesus account needs to somehow demonstrate that there couldn't be an historical figure at the core. Which is also tricky.

Personally I think the thing that is most problematic for both sides is Pilate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him being mentioned in Paul. The account of him in the gospels is ludicrous. Yet if Jesus was crucified, it seems that a Roman authority would need to be asked for permission and the account in the gospels seems to be to allow the Roman authorities to wash their hands of the issue and to encourage Roman followers.

On the other hand, if the early myth claimed that Jesus was crucified then who else could you blame for it other than the Romans anyway? Even if you make your mythical figure symbolically crucified it seems pretty clear who the villain of the piece is.

fatpie42

You want me to find someone who is exactly the same as Jesus? I'm not going to fall into the "Zeitgeist" trap. I'm not claiming that Jesus is a copy of other pre-existing figures and so my argument does not require that there is another figure who is exactly like Jesus in every respect. Even mythical figures are allowed to have unique elements.

While as far as I know his historicity isn't contested, I can't help but think about the figure of the Buddha. The central thing about the Buddha is his principles on non-attachment and the ending of dukkha. Many stories arose about Buddha, not least about his previous lives. The central focus for these stories was the Buddha's teachings.

The central focus for Paul when discussing Jesus does not seem to be so much teachings as the symbolic significance of Jesus' death. That forms the central basis for any stories about him (and I'm not denying that there were stories around when Paul was writing). I suppose rather like wine and alcoholic delerium appears to be the central focus for Dionysus, so is a self-sacrificial death the central focus for Jesus.

archibald

It's not a trap. Really. I don't think I asked for or would expect an exact replica. We're just doing comparisons. It's just my view that the epistles do not resemble what we normally think of as myth, partly because there is no backstory for the main figure and, as I said before, because they appear to have been written about a recent figure.

Well, I think Buddha's historicity is questioned, even by many Buddhists, as I understand it.

I would say yes, a sacrificial death is the focus of the epistles that have come down to us.

fatpie42

I asked you what other scholars agree with your dating and you seemed to be saying that it's just you. If you'd like to specify who else in the field accepts this much later dating I'd actually really appreciate it. I'm not going to just take your word for it.

The idea that the myth of a human sacrificed by the Romans cropped up after the Romans destroyed the Temple where sacrifices would usually be made is actually really interesting. So don't think that I'm dismissing this later dating thing out of hand. I just don't think I should just take for granted what people say on the internet. Especially people who spend half the time writing with CAPS LOCK on.