Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Eikonoklast · 06-04-2006, 09:43 AM

I think that Jesus was a mythical figure. The thing that I like about the mythical explanation is that it not only helps explain the following of Jesus during his "life" and subsequent development of Christianity, but it also integrates nicely with the past, drawing on the culture of the time to produce an explanation that seamlessly connects the past with the present, and is in my estimate more likely than an unknown preacher who taught a banal morality becoming exhalted to the point of deification.

jjramsey · 06-04-2006, 10:05 AM

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

Like Jim Jones or David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite (Heavens Gate). Are you trying to convince us that Jesus was a Looney Tune?

Actually, I was focused more on the followers' relationship to their Looney Tune leaders. These leaders collected a small following of people who thought the world of them, even though the outside world thought otherwise.

Offhand, I'd say that while Jesus wasn't nearly as dangerous as the aforementioned cult leaders, it would hardly be unlikely that he had their kind of megalomania and that his followers had the fanatical devotion seen in members of modern-day cults.

jjramsey · 06-04-2006, 10:13 AM

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Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Remarkable sure, but remarkable enough to be God - especially in a Jewish setting? No. It just doesn't make sense to me I'm afraid. I can accept a famous person who'd done notable things in the ancient world being deified by their followers, maybe even a famous Jewish person being deified by gentiles. I just can't get an obscure person who made no impact on the bigger world being deified by his Jewish followers only shortly after their death.

But it isn't too clear that the Jewish followers did per se deify him after his death. As I noted before, Paul exalted Jesus, but 1 Cor 15:28 implies that he nonetheless saw Jesus as second-in-command.

Amaleq13 · 06-04-2006, 10:32 AM

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Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Well a lot depends on what is meant by "inspiration" and "staying power". An obscure preacher might have started an obscure movement, but it's unlikely that an obscure preacher would have been (e.g.) deified within 50 years of his death (which is of course absolutely contrary to what one might expect in Jewish milieu) without some good reason - can you supply such a good reason?

IMO your statement of probability (ie "unlikely") seriously underestimates the self-deluding capabilities of your fellow humans. It is my understanding that there are still members of the Heaven's Gate cult propogating whatever bizarre nonsense it is they teach and it is also my understanding that there continue to be Branch Davidians waiting for David Koresh's return from the dead.

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

Like Jim Jones or David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite (Heavens Gate). Are you trying to convince us that Jesus was a Looney Tune?

That Jones, Koresh, and Applewhite were total nutjobs is entirely independent of the fact that they obtained incredibly devoted followers who mythologized them to the point of deity while they lived and, for the last two at least, that this process continued after their deaths.

Clivedurdle · 06-04-2006, 11:11 AM

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Originally Posted by J-D

It doesn't take rule by a single empire to enable the spread of ideas. The conditions permitting the spread of ideas around the Mediterranean existed before the whole area came under Roman control. And in those conditions, some ideas did spread. And others didn't. The conditions existed for the ideas of the Essenes to spread to the Diaspora. But is there any actual evidence for the existence of Essene groups in the Diaspora, or are you just making assumptions?

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As an underlying plank in his thesis, Prof. Ellegard must first address the general question of the Essenes and their status in the world of the Roman empire. For he sees Christianity as a movement growing out of an Essene "church of God" which is widely established in the Diaspora Jewish community, founded on traditions about the Teacher of Righteousness who appears in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. While allowing that an important community of such a church would have existed in Jerusalem (the Pauline "pillars"), Ellegard locates the origins of Christianity essentially in the Diaspora, for here is where the documentary record must be placed, not only in regard to its writers, like Paul, but the audiences to whom these documents are addressed. The picture of a Palestinian Jesus, working in Galilee and Judea, is a second century product of the Gospels, one that is not detectable in the earlier record. Nor does the Aramaic language surface in any way within that record, a significant anomaly in the context of a presumed Palestinian origin.

While he makes a bow to more recent theories (notably of Norman Golb) that the Dead Sea Scrolls are the mirror of "a much wider spectrum of Jewish religious thought than we could expect from a small and isolated sectarian community" (p.97), and that the Scrolls placed in the Qumran caves may have come from Essene libraries in Jerusalem, Ellegard maintains, and one must concur, that some of their content relates to a sectarian mentality which cannot simply be equated with current "Palestinian Judaism as a whole." An essential feature of the Scrolls is that at least some of the writings were produced by a group which has disowned and broken away from the established observance of the Temple cult. And some scrolls are undoubtedly to be identified in some way with the Essene movement, even if it is no longer certain that they proceeded from a monastic community located at Qumran in the area where the Scrolls were found.

How widespread was the Essene movement? Josephus makes it one of the three major "philosophies" of the Jewish world in the first century. Philo (in That Every Good Man is Free) describes them as a "pious" group, and deals extensively (in On the Contemplative Life) with a sect called the Therapeutae, which are judged by modern scholars to be a branch of the Essenes. While focusing on their community in Alexandria, Philo makes it clear that "they were an empire-wide movement" (p.83, n.21). Ellegard also enlists (as part of his equation of early Christianity with the Essenes) Pliny the Younger as a witness to a widespread Essene movement, for his description of the Christians of Bithynia as having strong Essene characteristics. He effectively addresses the apparent contradiction between the relatively 'harmless' impression of the Essenes as created by Josephus and Philo, and the picture of greater militancy and messianism along with a strong dualistic philosophy (dichotomies between Light and Darkness), as presented in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As always, motives for such 'spin-doctoring' were probably political and personal. Ellegard concludes that the Scrolls may indeed give a truer picture of the Essenes, which would, in the context of his argument, bring them into line with the messianism and End-time apocalypticism of the early Christian movement.

http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/BkrvEll.htm

Clivedurdle · 06-04-2006, 11:15 AM

Is it legitimate to translate "christians' as for example used by Pliny, more generally as "messianists"?

Didymus · 06-04-2006, 07:28 PM

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Originally Posted by jjramsey

Basically, you are assuming that letters sent to churches addressing their particular problems should necessarily mention details about Jesus of dubious relevance to them. How is it relevant that Jesus was a Galilean Jew from Nazareth? If Paul happens to mention a historical detail or two, that is lucky for us, but it is hardly required by his circumstances.

Well then, shitcan the gospels! If Jesus' authority, his teachings, his historical context, and the story of his life and crucifixion weren't relevant then, why did they suddenly become relevant in 70? And why are they relevant now?

BTW, what historical "details" about Jesus does Paul mention? Name just one, please.

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There are certainly plenty of Old Testament allusions, and legends like the 40 days temptation are certainly inspired by the Old Testament. However, nothing from the Old Testament--when read without the Christian story already in mind--would suggest Nazareth, or Pilate, or crucifixion.

Plenty is a huge understatement.

Nobody said that EVERYTHING in the gospels is lifted from the Old Testament! There are a few exceptions, and two of the elements you've named are in that category. Each of the three has major problems. Pilate is historical, of course, and people were crucified in the first century, but nearly all fiction takes place in a "real" context. To learn about those problems, and just how much of Mark is reconstructed from the OT, invest some time in reading Michael Turton's exhaustive "Commentary on the Gospel of Mark," at http://users2.ev1.net/%7Eturton/GMark/GMark01.html.

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Someone looking for an Old Testament justification for Jesus' crucifixion could easily find Psalm 22:16 and from there, embellish the Passion account accordingly. Reading Psalm 22 with no such preconceptions would not suggest crucifixion, however, since the verses surrounding the bit "they pierced my hands and my feet" don't suggest an execution by crucifixion.

That's been much discussed on this forum. What would have strongly suggested "Aha! He was crucified!" to a messianic Jew in the first century would not necessarily suggest the same thing to JJRamsey in 2006.

"Plenty" is a serious understatement. The crucifixion example of an "OT derivative" is just a drop in a very large bucket. Again, see Turton.

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This presumes that Jesus was important.

Better than that. I actually SAID that Jesus (whether mythical or real) was important, as he would have been to 1st and 2nd century Jews who even went so far as to include a curse of heretics in their services. The new religion was a factor in their lives, whether or not its purported founder had actually preached and been crucified in their homeland decades before.

But my mention of Palestinian Jews was in the context of a comparison of the scale of evidence for and against a historical Jesus. Not only did Palestinian Jews not accept his divinity, there's no evidence that they even knew who he was supposed to be! To the contrary, as we see in the ben Pandera legend about Jesus being the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. That, among other things, suggests to me that neither the founders of Christianity nor the first Christians lived in Palestine.

Didymus

jjramsey · 06-04-2006, 07:57 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Quote:

Basically, you are assuming that letters sent to churches addressing their particular problems should necessarily mention details about Jesus of dubious relevance to them. How is it relevant that Jesus was a Galilean Jew from Nazareth? If Paul happens to mention a historical detail or two, that is lucky for us, but it is hardly required by his circumstances.

If Jesus' authority, his teachings, his historical context, and the story of his life and crucifixion weren't relevant then, why did they suddenly become relevant in 70?

There is a vast difference between the details of Jesus' life not being important in the context of a letter addressing local church problems and the details of Jesus' life not being important to Christians in general. Paul's letters are by their nature an incomplete window on early Christianity.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

BTW, what historical "details" about Jesus does Paul mention? Name just one, please.

The obvious ones that comes to mind are the references to "brother(s) of the Lord." Of course, that one has been discussed ad nauseum.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Better than that. I actually SAID that Jesus (whether mythical or real) was important, as he would have been to 1st and 2nd century Jews who even went so far as to include a curse of heretics in their services.

Jesus was important to the extent that Christianity impacted on the lives of the Jews, which was several years after his death. That hardly implies that Palestinian Jews would have been greatly aware of him during his lifetime.

Didymus · 06-04-2006, 08:03 PM

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Originally Posted by jjramsey

This explanation has a couple problems. One problem is why Mark would comb through the letters of Paul for incidental details such as names, rather than use a more accessible oral tradition for his characters.

For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter where Mark learned of the Pillars. They were already famous. Why not parlay their fame by having them accompany Jesus?

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Also, Paul writes as if the Pillars were well-known, so if the Pillars had not been following around an itinerant Jesus (since this Jesus was supposedly in the mythical distant past), this should have been well-known.

Would it have been "well-known" that the Pillars had been following around a non-existent Jesus?

Those leaders were already famous in Christian circles; it would come as no surprise that they followed the master on his journeys.

Paul makes no mention of ANY disciples following around an intinerant Jesus. He doesn't even mention Galilee. And all we know of the Pillars is that they were church leaders, that Peter argued with Paul, and that they supposedly saw the Risen Christ. That's it. End of story, until Mark comes along.

I didn't say that Paul necessarily believed Jesus to have lived in a distant past, although that is possible. I recall using the phrase "misty" past. In any event, the "good news" of the gospels was that Jesus had been incarnated, crucified and resurrected in recent history, and that he had actually preached in Galilee, and that his actual words were available for all to hear.

Until Mark wrote his gospel, we don't know WHAT was believed about Jesus' life as a man. If Paul's epistles are any indication, there couldn't have been much.

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Yet Mark has the temerity to totally rewrite the Pillars' background and disseminate it to an audience that would have a rough outline of that background.

(Wait. I thought you said that that sort of thing was irrelevant to early Christians?)

"Rewrite"? What earlier writing are you referring to that was re-written by Mark?

What sort of "background" did Paul give his congregations about the Pillars?

Your speculations greatly outweigh your facts.

Didymus

jjramsey · 06-04-2006, 08:42 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Would it have been "well-known" that the Pillars had been following around a non-existent Jesus?

If Jesus were understood by the early Christians to have been in the distant or misty past, then it would have been well-known that the Pillars had not followed Jesus around.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

(Wait. I thought you said that that sort of thing was irrelevant to early Christians?)

You thought wrong. See my previous post.

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06-04-2006, 09:43 AM	#561
Eikonoklast Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: US Posts: 628	I think that Jesus was a mythical figure. The thing that I like about the mythical explanation is that it not only helps explain the following of Jesus during his "life" and subsequent development of Christianity, but it also integrates nicely with the past, drawing on the culture of the time to produce an explanation that seamlessly connects the past with the present, and is in my estimate more likely than an unknown preacher who taught a banal morality becoming exhalted to the point of deification.

06-04-2006, 11:15 AM	#566
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Is it legitimate to translate "christians' as for example used by Pliny, more generally as "messianists"?

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