No Robots

I guess it depends on what you understand to be of consequence. For some of us, the consequential thing is the model for self-emancipation from one's family, religion, nation and ultimately even species.

bacht

Well, that's basically the Cynic idea, but how can a society function if everyone is doing this? An atomized collection of radical individuals is the opposite of a community isn't it? Maybe such people simply die out when the birth rate drops below replacement levels.

"Rugged individualism" is as much a myth as communitarianism. No human can live completely independently of others without going mad. Even the Zen teachers recognized that, after meditation and enlightenment, the Buddhist continues to live within their community. That is, as a temporary discipline it can be instructive, but not as a permanent lifestyle.

No Robots

For those of us who do want to emancipate ourselves from our social environment, atomization truly is a gigantic problem. But the impulse toward emancipation is in some of us extremely powerful. The attraction that Christ has is that he legitimizes the impulse toward emancipation. But he doesn't really deal with the problem of praxis, other than to say that everyone should group around him. But how does one do that exactly? We need to look elsewhere for a programme. That's what led me to investigate philosophical approaches to the question of Christ, which is how I found Our Christ by Constantin Brunner. Brunner calls for the establishment of a Christ-centered community for those who have committed to self-emancipation, and who want to overcome the consequent state of atomization.

Sheshbazzar

Now Jay, that sounds just -so- reasonable.
And you should know better'n that! 'cause er h'aint no -reasonable- reason'nin allowed 'roun here!

bacht

This all belongs in another thread I'm sure. But I don't like the model of Jesus because it's based in apocalyptic ideas about the end of the world. I would think more useful models could be found from biographies of ordinary people, like the pillar-sitters or early monastics or maybe the pre-exilic companies of the prophets from the OT.

No Robots

There is a Constantin Brunner thread, if you want to pursue this.

Apocalyptic imagery is a commonplace of prophetic speech. Defining Christ by his use of this imagery is a gross distortion. The end of the world has been greatly exaggerated.

No one else struck such hammer blows against intellectual/spiritual oppression, or made such intransigeant demands for self-emancipation.

Clivedurdle

Except the Jews in Babylon had a similar idea.

This communal individual tension is very ancient. The battle of Marathon was one example - free priesthood of all believers Greeks banding together to fight the heirarchical priest king Persians

bacht

Either Jesus was the spiritual Christ of the epistles, overcomer of death itself, or he was the anti-messiah of the gospels, declaring the imminent end of the world in John's footsteps. He wasn't was any ordinary prophet or teacher.

The prophets of the OT monarchical period focused on rebuking kings and priests for contemporary abuses. Apocalyptic imagery becomes more prevalent after the Babylonian exile. The intertestamental lit is filled with it, following Daniel.

The rise of eschatology seems inversely proportional to Jewish hopes for peace and justice in the land. As hope for political solutions waned, other-worldly hopes rose. Jesus is contemporary with the last desperate self-destructive struggle of the Jews to survive politically and socially.

PhilosopherJay

Hi GakuseiDon,

Thank you for bringing up this interesting passage from Tatian. Notice the argument that Tatian is making. He first asks the Greeks to grant an equal legendary status to his own tales of Jesus in relationship to their mythology. "Wherefore, looking at your own memorials, vouchsafe us your approval, [b]though it were only as dealing in legends similar to your own. We, however, do not deal in folly, but your legends are only idle tales."

He is asking that the Greeks at least grant a legendary status to Jesus. He then rejects the Greek myths totally as inventions ("idle tales"). Of course, he is just reversing the position of the Greeks who see the Jesus tales as inventions, and there own mythological tales as legends.

The position of Metrodorus, a fifth centuy B.C.E. philosopher that Greek mythology is allegorical was the position only of a small group of intellectual philosophers and was not the common position of most people of this time.

As far as being able to show that the legendary Jesus existed given the scant historical sources of the period, that is the problem.

I am thinking analogously about two old western television series that started in September of 1955, "Gunsmoke" and "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp". In both, the lead characters were Marshalls and for a time they were even Marshalls in the same real town "Dodge City," in Kansas. The sheriff Matt Dillon of "Gunsmoke" was not an historical person, while Wyatt Earp was a real Marshall of Dodge City from 1875-1878.

Now the plots of both shows were pretty similar, usually involving several fistfights and a shootout in the end. Only a few episodes of the 226 Wyatt Earp shows (filmed over 6 years) were based on historical events that the historical Earp took part in, while the Dillon character's 635 shows (filmed over 20 years) were all totally fictional, as the characters never existed.

Is the Jesus character of the gospels more like the legendary adventures of Wyatt Earp in the television series or more like the purely mythological adventures of Matt Dillon?

Now, let us say that the history of the nineteenth century was erased or had not been recorded to any great degree. Would it be possible to know from just watching the two television series that Marshall Wyatt Earp was an historical figure and Marshall Matt Dillon was not?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

mountainman

Dear PhilosopherJay,

This is a very good analogy by which readers might differentiate the two distinctions of a "Legendary Jesus" and what you are terming "Mythological Jesus" as separate again, from an "Historical Jesus". The way the analogy is constructed leads us to contemplate the possibility that the evidence available is telling us that behind the new testament literature is possibly a "myth", possibly not a "legend", and possibly certainly not a history.

Under such restrictions we would aimlessly march around and around the mulberry bush for centuries: and such is the state of the current field of biblical criticism and history according to Hector Avalos. The task is to try and obtain "external corroborations" and "external perspectives" outside of the celluloid of these two different television series, something which will not be obtained by watching them over and over. We need things like tombstones, inscriptions on guns, colts, rifles and knives, independent articles, newpaper reports, mentions, and referencesm etc --- all external to the two television programs) to move the character from the "mythical status" to the "legendary status" before the "historical status" might be entertained (ie: leave it out of the picture for the preliminary assessment between "myth" and "legend").

Hence the fundamental importance of the archaeologists and new technologies, such as C14 dating and image enhancement, etc. The problem will not be solved within BC&H - we cannot rise above the problem just by watching the reruns over and over and over. We need to get out into the fresh air of new evidence.

Best wishes,



Pete