ApostateAbe

I think coming up with "plausible" explanations to suit any conclusion you need is the easy part. The hard part is to compete--that is to come up with explanations that explain the data more fittingly, more plausibly and explaining more of the evidence than the best rival explanation can do. If you have an explanation for the evidence, then you can put it on the table, but that is only a start. It is something that anyone can do for any bizarre hypothesis they have in mind. Just show how your explanation is better. I recommend using well-accepted criteria to make your case, especially "Argument to the Best Explanation," outlined on Wikipedia. If your explanation is bizarre and does not closely fit any of the known historical patterns, and the rival explanation does, then your explanation is in trouble.
What Toto said.

GakuseiDon

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GakuseiDon

According to Doherty (quoting from my review of his new book):

The itinerant prophets [the Q Community] of this new 'counter-culture' expression announced the coming of the kingdom of God and anticipated the arrival of a heavenly figure called the Son of Man who would judge the world. They urged repentance, taught a new ethic and advocated a new society; they claimed the performance of miracles, and they aroused the hostility of the religious establishment...

As for miracles, there is no question that the Q prophets, as preachers of the kingdom, would have claimed the performance of signs and wonders, for every sectarian movement of the time had to possess that facility. These, especially miraculous healings, were the indispensable pointers of the kingdom...

So, rather than just Jesus, Doherty proposes a whole community of miracle-wielding prophets, performing miraculous healings, preaching an apocalyptic coming End Times, etc. Doherty dates this community from the first half of the First Century CE, so they had been around for a while by the time that Mark wrote his Gospel.

Doherty then notes key Q scholar Arnal's observation that in Q Jesus was represented as not qualitatively different from any other teacher in the Q community; rather, he was a “first among equals”. From there, Doherty states:

This is an extremely momentous admission, because it opens a key door. If the Q community does not treat Jesus as an exalted figure (let alone as deified Son of God), if they allot to him no more than what the Q preachers themselves are and do, then there is no impediment to seeing him as merely symbolic of them.

Okay, so this Q community keeps predicting an End Time that is just around the corner for quite a few years, and creates this symbolic Jesus to represent them (possibly out of embarrassment that the End Times hadn't come? You know, something like "Hey I didn't say it, it was 'Jesus'!) Maybe they got this figure from Paul, who had said that the End Times were coming soon, and in fact Christians of his time (50s CE) would still be alive to see it.

So, then forty odd years later, Mark picks up on this Q community symbolic Jesus who had been predicting an imminent End Times for a while, and then writes his fictional novel, setting the symbolic Jesus back in Pilate's day STILL claiming the End Times were near even back then. But fortunately Mark's readers understood that the prophecy was directed to the readers of Mark's generation (which is curiously like the apologetic explanation, coincidently), and so as Doherty said, the "End Times is near!" prophecy needs to start from the point of Mark's writing, around 90 CE. Then Mark's readers kind of forgot it was a symbolic story meant for Mark's generation, and started attributing this "the end is soon!" message to Jesus back in Pilate's day. Easy!

ApostateAbe

Thanks. I am watching it right now, and it does seem to be an especially valuable look at a doomsday cult from the inside. Such cults are really common. Wikipedia actually has a page on doomsday cults.

aa5874

ApostateAbe, how many times must I show you that in the NT that Jesus was NOT, was NOT an apocalyptic preacher?

In gMark, Jesus had a PRIVATE DISCUSSION with FOUR disciples about the end of time.

Before the PRIVATE DISCUSSION with the FOUR Jesus had NO discussion or preached that there would be an apocalypse and in gMark there is NO indication that the other EIGHT disciples even knew of the PRIVATE discussion.

Examine the Mark 13. ApostateAbe, your claim that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher is NOT based on the evidence in gMark but on your IMAGINATION.

The evidence shows in gMark that Jesus preached REPENTANCE and the GOOD NEWS, the Gospel, of the kingdom of God.

Jesus was NOT an apocalyptic preacher but a preacher of GOOD NEWS.

ApostateAbe, EXAMINE the evidence in gMark 1.
Mr 1:14 - The EVIDENCE has been shown to you AGAIN.

Jesus was a GOOD NEWS preacher.

Please deal with the EVIDENCE and NOT your imagination.

Jesus was a GOOD NEWS preacher. In gMarkl Jesus did NOT preach any apocalypse to the Jews.

ApostateAbe, Let us deal with evidence and not what you imagine. I am tired of the propaganda that you seem to be propagating.

Please read gMark before you make anymore UNSUBSTANTIATED claims about gMark's Jesus.

hjalti

Ok. I don't think it's bizarre, if we assume the mythicist case, that the apocalyptic movement would put apocalyptic-sounding stuff in the mouth of Jesus. You probably agree that most of what Jesus says in gJohn originates from the author of the gospel. So attributing sayings to Jesus isn't exactly out of the ordinary.

A doomsday cult leader might be a better explanation of these particular facts, but I really don't think the evidence is decisive.

ApostateAbe

OK, yeah, I do think that the evidence of at least the misquoting and shifting the character of Jesus does reflect at least the possibility of a complete invention from myth, and I wouldn't claim that it is impossible. It is just that the proposition of a complete invention of a mythical human being like Jesus is a proposition that doesn't seem to have a close analogy in history, and the competing explanation that Jesus really was a doomsday cult leader seems to strongly fit both the evidence and the known patterns. I can certainly imagine it happening--doomsday cult members inventing the myth of their own human leader. But, if that would be the only time in history that such a thing has ever happened, the possibility doesn't seem to be worth so much, at least in my opinion. It is encouraging that you at least realize some significant strength of my argument, because, sometimes I think, "The argument looks to me like a slam dunk, and none of these people get it. Am I the one who is nutso?"

Eldarion Lathria

Haile Selassie was not a Rastafarian, not a cult leader. He was a somewhat pious Ethiopian Orthodox Christian who was Emperor of Ethiopia, and hailed by the Rastas as god. I'm told ( I was not acquainted personally with him) that he was privately very embarrassed by Rastafarianism.

Eldarion Lathria

ApostateAbe

So his life story was like "The Life of Brian." What a lucky bastard--having the benefits of being the object of cult devotion without the blame of coming up with the idea or encouraging it.

aa5874

You have ONLY ASSUMED Jesus was a doomsday cult leader you have NOT even began to provide any actual evidence that Jesus did exist.

The NT cannot be TRUSTED for history only BELIEF and MYTHOLOGY.

You are so OBSESSED with your imagination that you believe you can IMAGINE your own history.

You cannot use the NT to claim Jesus was human. As soon as you made reference to Jesus and the NT you are REFERRING to God Incarnate, the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

You are NOT doing history. You are merely Speculating.

In gMark, there were NO followers of Jesus called Christians since Jesus did NOT allow even his disciples to tell any one he was Christ. And further, ONLY PETER PRIVATELY claimed Jesus was Christ and was the first to call Jesus the Christ in gMark.

There is NO indication in gMark that the other 11 disciples considered Jesus as Christ before PETER.

Examine the evidence in Mark 8.

So the evidence in gMark has shown that Jesus NOT a leader of a doomsday cult, Jesus did NOT EVEN ALLOW anyone to call him CHRIST in gMark.

Jesus preached GOOD NEWS to the JEWS not the apocalypse..