GakuseiDon

How does an MJ explain 2, 4 and 5? In fact, it doesn't AFAICS. Any time-line for transition from MJ to HJ has to start around 150 CE by the latest. But this part of the MJ theory is largely ignored by mythicists, since the focus is mainly on Paul and early Christianity.

So, how does "MJ is the answer" fit into points 2, 4 and 5? In the MJ scheme, when would you have expected such representations of a HJ to start appearing?

gurugeorge

The scenario is of the gradual take-over of a loose movement with a bunch of varied ideas by a well-connected, rich and influential sub-sect of that broad movement with its own fixed idea, that eventually turns the loose movement into a unified religion.

It's not really till the political establishment of the creed (300 onwards) that the fixed idea is really fixed and becomes representative of the movement.

The earlier date (I'd say slightly earlier than 150 actually, probably between 70-130) is when the fixed idea starts to coalesce in and of itself, but at that point it's still a minority taste.

GakuseiDon

I think such dates would present their own problems for the MJ theory, but that is an argument for another thread. Still, a date between 70-130 doesn't really solve the question of points 2, 4 and 5. Why so late if HJ ideas began around 70-130?

If Mark was written around 70 CE anyway for MJers, why no earlier representations about the GMark Jesus from mythicists, along the lines of representations of, say, Mithras and Hercules? Are we assuming that pagan mythicists wouldn't have made similar representations? If so, why? If not, then why doesn't the same question apply to mythicists?

gurugeorge

Well, as I just said, because that 70-130 date is a date for the beginnings of the appearance of the idea of a strongly historical Jesus in a sub-sect of Christianity. It takes another few hundred years for that idea to percolate through to become representative of the whole of Christianity (the struggle of orthodoxy against a "heresy" that was initially in the majority).

When you read "Christian", read it as "large, loose religious movement composed of a bunch of partly related but sometimes quite different ideas", then you won't see any problem with 2, 4 and 5.

The proto-orthodox sub-sect gradually takes over the movement and turns it into a unified, organised, heirarchical, centralised religion.

Of course from its own propaganda point of view, it's the "true" form of Christianity, and the other forms are wilful deviance from the true path, so many annoying gnats that have to be swatted; but you mustn't take its own propaganda seriously. As W Bauer pointed out, its very own whingeing propaganda gives the game away by complaining that it always encounters already established forms of "heretical" Christianity wherever it goes.

GakuseiDon

But why are there no representations of the mythical Jesus from near the start?

gurugeorge

How would you be able to tell the difference even when there are representations?

How do you know some of the later Christian representations are definitely of the proto-orthodox historical Jesus and not of some variety of Gnostic/mythical Jesus? (Probably only from surrounding details - which is part of the point that was made, the "traditional" trappings seem to creep in later.)

All things being equal (e.g. early representations being considered heretical and destroyed) it may just be that representation wasn't that important to believers in a spiritual Christ.

Remember, on my MJ hypothesis, for instance (and that of Freke & Gandy) "Christ" represents a spiritual principle that's directly experienced that's allegorically represented by a cute story that gradually coalesces. If the entity is merely a myth standing for that kind of spiritual principle, then there wouldn't be much interest in depicting the "story".

GakuseiDon

Possibly you wouldn't, but that isn't the question. Should we expect that early Christian mythicists would have made representations?

Magdlyn

afaik, the first representation of Jesus was of a short-haired man in a short tunic, raising a paralytic with a magic wand. 235 CE.

Oopsie!

http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/i...ra_europos.htm

gurugeorge

See above. I doubt it. The kinds of artefacts that survive are likely to be properly-made representations, but those would require the kind of money that's likely to be scarce until the forms of Christianity get a bit better established.

I mean, if you think about "the Church at Antioch" in 100 CE it sounds very grand if we look at it in terms of how we understand "church" (both the building and social formation) today. But at the time? Would it have been anything more impressive than a large adobe hut, or a slightly richer Christian's house given over to worship? What would you expect a group that was more or less like the kind of circle given over to spiritual discussion and practice today (a small group of perhaps 100 or so people at most, perhaps centred around a teacher of some kind, who might have been absent a lot of the time, like Paul, or like groups today who follow an Eastern guru who only visits once a year) to have had in the way of representations?

GakuseiDon

Yes, I think that's reasonable. It would have cost money and resources, and if Christianity was frowned upon, it would have been unlikely to have been a lot of art produced until it started to become mainstream.

So, if there WERE early representations, can we assume that it probably wouldn't have been by mythicists?