Ktotwf

The best "evidence" that Jesus is a myth is simply the comparison between his supernatural exploits and his dying-resurrecting mangod thing to the common theme found throughout Near East and Mediterranean mythology.

The Historicists have always kind of cheated - we have a being who is said to be God incarnate and work miracles, and yet they have somehow framed the discussion in such a way that unless you can prove he is mythical he must be real.

The burden of proof lies with those who say he was real, not with those who say he wasn't, because all anyone who says he wasn't can ever produce is parallels to well known mythology and at the same time point to a lack of good, uncontroversial evidence. (Both of which, I think, they have been fairly successful at.)

Steven Carr

You have to remember that historicists even think that Judas existed!

spin

Telling me to be serious is no response to pointing out your bald opinions.

Your opinions again aren't terribly constructive for your case. I have pointed to the fact that the gospels have seriously been analyzed as being ancient biographies, which suggests a very different analysis from the one you are suggesting.

In your experience do historical people ever get embellished with non-historical claims?

Neither have I, but that is irrelevant to the request for actual eviednce for a mythical Jesus.

People find parallels in narratives, be they historical or not, all the time.

You need more than superficial appearances to respond to the OP.


spin

spin

I'm sorry, are you trying to respond to the OP or to complain that I shouldn't point out that others aren't succeeding in their responses?

When Padre Pio is attributed with miracles, does that mean that he didn't exist?


spin

dog-on

You do not agree that the Character of Jesus, as portrayed in the gospels, most resembles a mythological character?

Why?

The biography of a mythical character, sure. Show me the Jesus biography, or hell, any evidence at all for the ordinary guy.

Sure, but do we immediately jump to some historical assumption without any additional evidence?

The problem is that all the evidence we have only supports the mythical character. I have found none that supports a normal person named Jesus.

Maybe you can help me out here.

You think the OT midrash found in Mark is simply a case of superficial appearances?

Did I understand you correctly?

spamandham

There are no default positions. We are simply looking for the explanation that requires the fewest and least-stretched contrivances to fit the evidence.

It isn't contrived to say that magical nonsense was attached to a historical person, because that was commonplace at the time (and still is at times, as spin's Padre Pio example illustrates). It was also commonplace to deify people. If that were the extent of the case for a mythical Jesus, there would be no case at all.

However, if we have an independent case for a non-HJ, then the *extent* to which Jesus was deified and magical nonsense attributed to him might add some weight if it exceeds what was typical.

spin

Sorry, but are you trying to provide evidence of something or hide the fact that you haven't produced any?

Indeed.

OK, so you too know what the conclusion is that you want.

I'm merely trying to apprise you of your assumptions. I'm not arguing any position. I expect, if you claim a substantive position (such as Jesus is myth), then you'll try to argue one.

That's nice, but do you have any evidence for Jesus being a myth? No.

I am.

You mean there's no midrash around Hillel?

I don't know. Did you understand that I was asking for something more tangible than your naive reading of ancient narrative?


spin

Solo

I think you are on the right track. The only thing is that Paul's "human point of view" of Jesus (now Christ) was negative: it is paraphrased by 1 Cor 1:23 (Christ crucified) a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles . Paul persecuted the "church" of those who believed in Jesus and his proclaimed kingdom. Now, other Jesus followers evidently believed in this human (point of view) Jesus. When Paul converted - through a mystical experience, he understood that Jesus was indeed God's messenger but he did not change his "flesh" view of Jesus. He came to believe in the revelation that Jesus was set up to fail as prophet. God sacrificed him - his Son - by making him suffer a human fate and death. (What an idea, God sacrificing to men, rather than the other way around !) Paul was sent to proclaim this message.

So, Paul changes from a persecutor of the church to its would-be reformer: He is saying to the believers in earthly Jesus : no - forget that Jesus, do not idolize him ! He was in flesh, and made to look like any other sinner: he was made sin and he was crucified in weakness. Forget about that Jesus (1 Cr 2:2) and those who mislead you about who he was in his sad existence in flesh, a life of suffering and defeat (Galatians). Let's instead embrace the spiritual transformation of him in his risen state, which we experience in the spiritual unio mystica.

Jiri

spin

Your reading of 1 Cor 2:2 does not work. This is another one of those verses that you torture to say whatever you want it to. Note that the conjunction connecting Jesus Christ and him crucified is "and"? There is no denial here of any existence of Jesus. Paul is only going to talk about Jesus Christ and him crucified to his audience and with no lofty words or wisdom. The Greek grammar is fairly apparent in that there is no separation between Jesus and him crucified: they are tied together.


spin

gurugeorge

I don't think the context (the preceding passages) shows any sense of transformation. The divine element is always there (it's "guaranteed" - the same idea is in Galatians, the spirit of Christ is that chip of God in us that is dissatisfied with ordinary life, and senses its kinship with divinity). It's in us, and it was in the earthly manifestation or incarnation of Christ.

This is how it looks to me: Cephas and that lot, and Paul, have a scriptural/visionary revelation. IN THAT REVELATION, the entity that speaks to them says: "Know ye that I lived on earth, clothed in flesh", or something like that. The fleshly, pseudo-historical aspect is PART of the myth given by the deity itself in vision. Paul learns the story from Christ himself, from the horse's mouth, and what Christ tells him is that he was on earth, in the flesh, at one time, and did such-and-such (i.e. came obscurely, like the Suffering Son, got crucified, etc., etc.)

i.e., I don't think there's any need to (as Doherty does) downplay any fleshly element. The divine entity that spoke to (probably) the Jerusalem lot and (certainly) to Paul, gave them his own story (and they probably thought it was also revealed in a sort of qabalistic-ish sense in Scripture, only nobody had noticed before them): and that story includes a human component.

Mythical doesn't necessarily mean the mythical entity doesn't have to have fleshly aspects IN HIS STORY. That's quite alright, but quite beside the point for trying to show that there was a man behind the myth. ESPECIALLY if there's such a strong positive weight on the mystical/visionary aspect, as there is in Paul. That's where all the positive evidence we have is, it tells us that Christ is visionary at least (whether or not the vision is based on a human being someone knew, e.g. some compensatory mass hysteria in response to the failure of a human prophet, for example). But there is no positive evidence (in those early texts) on the other side of the scales, i.e. that anybody knew personally a human being called "Jesus". That's the absolutely crucial point, to my mind.

Now of course if there were some independent evidence, or something that gives the game away (internal in the text), that there was a human being, then your intepretation would be more apt, but in the absence of it, and in the presence of the visionary/mystical aspect, I think my interpretation makes more sense.

Mere mention of a human aspect in the story of the Christ entity isn't something that gives the game away (in a way internal to the texts). The only kind of thing that would give the game away in that sense (so far as I can see) is something like what I mentioned in my 1) above (i.e. something like "Cephas told me that Jesus had said X when he was on earth, when Cephas knew him personally as a man" - of course that's far too strict, but one can conceive of ways in which a sense like that could be teased out. "Cephas said Jesus had taught him while in Capernaum that ...", that kind of thing.

As I say, what's needed to prove the historicist case (absent external evidence) is evidence of the eyeballing of a human being, not just knowledge about a human being's story, because the latter is still too ambiguous to show historicity, could still be myth, or fiction, or whatever.

This is where I see the initial confusion creeping in - in fact, I think what later became orthodoxy may actually have started in this very confusion, i.e. the notion that the Jerusalem people knew Jesus personally.

And of course what may initially have been a confusion that came about as a result of the diaspora, and loss of personal contact between some of the early Christians and the later, eventually became a very handy stick to browbeat other Christians with. (i.e. if you can show lineage connection back to people who supposedly knew Jesus personally, as opposed to Paul who only knew Jesus in vision, you have a leg up, as the Psuedo-Clementines neatly argue).