graymouser

This is mostly here to ask a few questions that are fairly specific, and relate to how Christ is depicted in the New Testament. I think that the Christology of the Gospels and the Christology of the authentic Pauline epistles draw distinct, interesting pictures, and each is something that needs to be handled better than I've seen so far.

The current accepted order of the Gospels is Mark first, John last, and Matthew and Luke between them, with Matthew and Luke having known the material currently in Mark. I don't think there is a better textual explanation of the four Gospels. What's interesting is that they produce a picture of what you might call a "rising" Christology. Mark is very bare, with no birth or resurrection narrative, and could virtually have an adoptionist Christology. Matthew and Luke have the virgin birth and detailed resurrection narratives, while John goes further out on the limb of proclaiming that Christ was God at the beginning of time. So I think "rising Christology" is a fair description of what's going on in the chronological Gospels.

Paul, on the other hand, seems to have a very high Christology all along. Christ in Paul is only lightly humanized, through being man (which mythicists have their own discussions of, and which I'm not interested in here). Christ's position is never really in flux in Paul the way it is in the Gospels, and I think it could be fairly considered higher than in Mark.

I think that's a fairly big topic that theories of Christian origins need to deal with, and I don't think mythicism takes it as seriously as it should. I see an argument for a historic figure being mythologized in the rising Christology of the Gospels, but it seems problematic for this argument that Paul does not have the same movement. On the converse side, Paul is probably earlier than all of the Gospels - so his relatively high Christology seems to argue against a mythicization. So I think historicism has to establish why Paul doesn't display the same pattern, while mythicism has to find an explanation for the rising Christology.

I don't mean for this to be a generic thread about the relative merits of mythicism and historicism. I'm fairly agnostic on the question; my feeling is that there may or may not have been a real person, but we can know very little about him based on the Gospels. But I think the Christology question is a good one for shedding some light on the subject.

GakuseiDon

I'm not sure how you will be able to avoid the whole mythicism/historicism debate, so good luck!

I think that we see two traditions: a "Galilean" tradition, which is Jesus emerging from a Q community that is preaching about a coming "kingdom of God". This is the Jesus of Mark and some of the Ebionites: Jesus is an important prophet, but no high Christology is evident.

Then there is a "Jerusalem" tradition. This is the Jesus who goes to Jerusalem, is crucified, and the body disappears. Visions lead early believers to the idea that Christ had risen, as the first-fruits of the general resurrection to come, heralding in the end of the Age, the culmination of Judaism basically. God was about to descend, the world was about to be remade. To explain all this though you would need a high Christology. Whether that explains what we see in Paul or not is perhaps another question, but I think it isn't so much about the Risen Christ, but the implications of it to the world, that drives Paul's high Christology.

graymouser

I mean that I'd like to focus on the question of Christology, I've seen too many of these debates go way far off track.

Where are you deriving these two traditions from? Is this mostly driven by textual analysis? (If so I'm okay with that but would appreciate pointers to said analysis.) Where do you see the later synoptics as coming from? Also, I thought that Q was related to the shared similar material from Matthew and Luke that are missing in Mark - are you using it to stand for all the proto-synoptic sayings material?

Toto

Earl Doherty sees Christianity as a synthesis of an early Q tradition, based around a Galilean preacher (who was not crucified, so would not be the historical Jesus) and the mythical Christ worship in Paul.

The Q tradition would be the sayings, with no history connected to them.

This differs from the standard historicist model in that historicists think that the origin of the Q sayings was in fact Jesus, and that he was crucified and his followers started the Christian religion, which later attracted Paul. But then everyone sort of forgot most of the details about Jesus' life, although glimmers of it can be detected in the gospels which were written several generations later.

GakuseiDon

I'm purely an amateur, so I don't claim any great knowledge on the subject. It's just what I've read in Crossan, etc. A summary can be found here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

Crossan also explores the development of two different traditions from the historical Jesus, the Jerusalem tradition in which Jesus is believed to be the resurrected Christ, and the Q Gospel tradition in which Jesus is remembered as the founder of a way of life. For the former, Crossan reconstructs a group in the city of Jerusalem who shared everything in common and awaited the coming of Christ in power. For the latter, Crossan identifies Q, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Didache in which itinerants preach the teachings of Jesus and are supported by sometimes-critical communities. Both traditions are connected in their practice of share-meals and their origins in the historical Jesus.

Yes, coming from an itinerant "Q community", where Jesus was regarded as Son of God because of his virtue. The Passion comes from the Jerusalem tradition, which is focused on the death of Jesus and how it fulfils the Law. We can see both traditions represented in references to the Ebionites by Christian writers later on. From here:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ebioni...Church_Fathers

The Ebionaeans, however, acknowledge that the world was made by Him Who is in reality God, but they propound legends concerning the Christ similarly with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified. according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Saviour) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus, since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family).

—Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies 7.22

They say that the Christ is the True Prophet and that the Christ is son of God by spiritual progress and a union which came to him by a lifting up from above; but they say that the prophets are prophets through their own intelligence and not from truth. Him alone they wish to be both prophet and man, and son of God and Christ, and mere man, as we have mentioned before, but because of excellence of life he came to be called the Son of God.

—Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 30.18.5-9

If you read the beliefs expressed above -- like Paul, they called Jesus "Christ" and "Son of God" -- are they expressing a High Christology? Because they also believed that Jesus was a man like any other, and it was through his virtue and spiritual progress that he was declared "Son of God".

I think the question of "High Christology" is an anachronism. I think if we view Paul in terms of how he would have been understood at the time, it might not be as high as many think today. IMHO the change came when Paul's terms were interpreted through the mindset of the wider pagan community, where "Son of God" took on a more literal meaning. Thus the development of virgin birth via God, to give Jesus a more plausible claim to the title of "Son of God", more in line with the births of demi-gods and semi-divine Roman Emperors.

aa5874

Galatians 4.4 does NOT support a man made into a God, but a God who sent his own Son.

God's OWN SON Jesus became FLESH. Jesus had no FLESH he was only of SPIRIT or of God before he was made of a woman.


Ro 8:3 - Ro 8:32 -

mountainman

Hi graymouser,

Then your man is Cyril of Alexandria, emminent Doctor of the Church of the late 4th, early 5th century, who from what some people have written is supposed to represent the pinnacle of "Christology". Dont let the fact that Cyril was a murderering thug, terrorist boss, professional anathemetizer and official church history CENSOR, interrupt your reveries over "Christology".

Best wishes,


Pete

maryhelena

Christology is inherently unable to get one anywhere regarding historical events.
All a study of Christology can do is perhaps give one a history of Christology developments - but the question is - developments from what? Someone's ideas? Ideas are two a penny. If Paul's ideas are simply his own wishful thinking, then whatever his Christology is, it has no relevance for an investigation into early christian origins. Ideas are one thing - and, obviously, can be interesting on their own merits. But to imagine that one can gain an understand of how early christianity go it's start by trying to fathom out Paul's Christology is bizarre. Back to front, I'm afraid. History first - and Paul's musing on it, his flights of fantasy that have been kick-started by real historical events, might then prove to be relevant in understanding early christian thinking.

maryhelena

So, then, two traditions - which according to Wells, have been fused together! Not one Jesus but two Jesus figures. In other words, two historical figures have been used as models for the gospel JC construct. One historical figure that was not crucified and the other historical figure that was crucified.

Really simple - I can't for the life of me fathom out the problems here.....

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....53#post6736253

graymouser

It's been quite a while since I read the Jesus Puzzle, but I don't remember this quite being the picture drawn there - is it more clear in Jesus: Neither God nor Man?

In the whole, the picture drawn seems more or less sensible to me, although it's not quite clear what your slant on the rising Christology would be. Is it that the Galilean element was more clearly expressed in Mark and then subsequently overtaken by the mythical Christ of Paul? Does that mean that Mark is more of a window into the real-preacher-but-not-historical-Jesus figure that you posit?