Doug Shaver

To me, the totality of evidence is inconsistent with a historical Jesus. That has a heavy bearing on what ought to be considered the "most natural interpretation" of those four words. It is hardly unnatural to think it could be some kind of honorific bestowed on a man who had earned a reputation for exemplary piety.

Many of its concepts probably were, depending on what date you pick for the beginning of Roman paganism.

Your point would be well taken if (A) they had been aware that what they were doing was invention and (B) they had been thinking logically about how credible their invention would be to other people.

The founders of Mormonism surely knew that their teachings were going to be met with severe hostility. Does that mean that what they believed about their origins must have been true? (Never mind whether Joseph Smith himself believed any of it. I'm assuming that his followers did.)

I have not offered any hypothesis about what the post-Pauline writers did with James. However, Paul mentions only one, and the documents that mention others were not written until long after his time.

As far as who was who in Christianity around the middle of the first century, we have only one primary source, and that is Paul. We have no reason to assume that anything he wrote must be interpreted consistently with documents that were written at the very least an entire generation later.

That is not much help if things that surprise you don't surprise me, and vice versa.

Doug Shaver

I find his argument persuasive. Obviously, you don't, and I don't have the expertise it would take to even try to change your mind.
We have a body of evidence, and it is maddeningly incomplete, but it is all we have to work with. No matter whether we suppose that the gospels are pure fiction, inerrant history, or anything in between, we will be left with a batch of questions that cannot be answered except by pure speculation.

Amaleq13

It is not a presumption but an acknowledgement of the state of the evidence. Jesus is only depicted as an apocalyptic preacher in texts which are generally understood to date later than Paul's letters.

The extant evidence is the basis for my conclusion. That Q may have been layered is an argument against assuming this hypothetical source text can reliably tell us that Jesus really was an apocalyptic preacher despite the extant evidence.

It is my understanding that it is less a question of attraction to apocalypticism than a reaction to rejection of their preaching of the Kingdom of God. It is also my understanding that this is a familiar pattern in Jewish tradition. The prophet calls the people to repent and return to living their lives according to the will of God but the people fail to heed the call and are, as a result, threatened with the wrath of God.

jjramsey

Your contention that Paul believed that "death and resurrection that had happened in a spirit world" is based on a strained reading of his epistles.

My point would also be well-taken if the stories that they create tended to align with their own biases, and this would be even more true if there weren't any facts to get in the way of their mythologizing. Making the immediate origin of their religion look younger than it was would work against their biases in favor of antiquity, and that they admit any newness at all points to them having the facts force their hands. Yes, I am aware that there was innovation then. However, it tended to be justified as a continuation of the old, not a break with it. Even when Paul is trying to break with the Law he does a lot of juggling to justify it as ultimately consistent with God's plan.

Non sequiter. The question is whether the beliefs that they evolved would conflict with their own biases. IIRC, the Book of Mormon's English looks very similar to that of the KJV, which is what would be expected since the KJV was commonplace then. The people creating the Mormon mythology were likely not aware of the archaeological problems, so the facts weren't in their way.

I know. I was responding to Amaleq13.

If you look Google around to look at how the term "surprising" is used when abductive reasoning is discussed, you'll find that the term is used loosely. :huh:

TedM

Where does Paul ignore (ie, not use) Jesus' in passages that are relevant to them?


Careful, you might hurt yourself..



That's easy. Paul could talk about him as a being who lived in a time unknown only to now be revealed to those who find him in scriptures and only scripture. Paul could talk about him as a being who only resembles man but never lived in real flesh. Paul could talk about how he was born of a woman and descended from David and in the flesh only because scriptures said it happened. Paul could talk about him as a being who never lived on earth and did human-like things, but actually lived in some other sphere in which the things happened. Surely if THAT was the kind of Jesus Paul was worshipping, his detractors would have had quite a lot to say about that, and we would expect Paul to have to defend such beliefs.

There is virtually no reason to conclude that Paul BELIEVED Jesus was anything other than a human being who walked this earth. That's one issue. The other is whether Paul knew specifically of that person and the teachings and doings during his life. That's where the context of Paul's writings must be considered. Until you can show WHY Paul should have mentioned Pilate, John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary, 12 disciples, and attributed specific teachings and healings to Jesus your argument is empty. Doherty has at least attempted to do this and in some cases makes good points. In others he doesn't.

Anyone can come up with arguments from silence though in just about anything. Gdon has made some strong arguments regarding 2nd century writings by people who CLEARLY had not just heard stories but actually read the gospel stories but whose writings often sound a lot more like Paul's and sometimes barely even allude to Jesus as a man. That's why context must be considered. Paul wasn't writing a biography. Paul wasn't writing a biography. Paul wasn't writing a biography.


Your opinion.

The Didache doesn't call it a communal meal. It is called the Thanksgiving meal, and Christ is central to it, though I'll agree that it is different. One can't conclude whether that shows an evolution of how the meal was celebrated by Christians or simply a different interpretation of it in competition with those who got it right.

What you are saying is that Paul doesn't KNOW Jesus did this. I'm saying Paul REPRESENTS Jesus as doing it. Did Jesus do it? The Didache can be used to argue against it certainly.

Since the dating of the Didache is all over the map I'd say that can't be used to make such a statement. If Jesus forsaw his death (perhaps he overheard Judas say something), then he surely could have said it. Or, Jesus, who calls himself the Bread of Life elsewhere may have referred to himself many times as a sacrifice--and included the bread/wine association. Nothing is clear.


I'm not going over this again. He does NOT say it was from the risen Jesus. That is what YOU read into it.

It doesn't say one way or the other. Common sense would dictate that he did.

Paul's spin on it is that he is preaching to all Christians, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that he first said it to the people he was eating with.

The purpose is irrelevant to my point, which was that Paul was talking about is an event that he portrays as having happened during Jesus life. What you are arguing for is creation by Paul, instead of a reflection of an actual event. Your points have merit, but there are two sides to everything. I don't believe, for example, that Mark knew Paul's writings, so how did he come up with a similar account? I believe GJohn has some insider info that is better than Mark, and it is missing a Last Supper like theirs, but it still has one with some elements in common-such as the discussion about Judas, and earlier he says that his followers should eat of his flesh..

Sure, but the context in Paul doesn't demand a detailed setting. He does say it happened at night, and it was the night of his arrest. That's not much, but it is something.

ted

Amaleq13

No, rather casually mentioning that he "only" met with two of the Top Dogs establishes both credibility by association (did every apostle-wanna-be meet with them?) and a lack of intimidation establishes the appearance of equality. I'm starting to suspect that the identifying phrase was added as a connection between James and the people Paul is preaching against. This suspicion has only gotten stronger since recently rereading the entire letter with that in mind. It seems to me Paul is directly criticizing the Judaizers who were confusing his Galatians but implicitly criticizing James as the ultimate source. A positive identifier in that context makes no sense.

I understand. That the basis for your decision to do so is personal ignorance of an explanation is the reason I mentioned that fallacy. It is a mistake to consider a conclusion sound when it is based on a lack of information. That we do not have enough information to guess at the reason for a deliberate choice does not, in any way, suggest that it was not a deliberate choice.

If I can find the time, I'll try to copy the relevant paragraphs if the general idea can be conveyed within the confines of IIDB copyright rules.

TedM

Doherty is quite persuasive. But IMO the whole "Jesus in another sphere" argument is almost exclusively a product of his creativity. His evidence for it is incredibly weak, from what I see.

His evidence against Jesus' existence relies heavily on dismissing a lot of documents, focusing only on a few, and then picking apart the contrary evidence in those few to get at the 'true' origins. He MAY have brilliant insight and may be right, but it just seems to me that those methods are the kinds one uses to prove unlikely conspiracy theories like Roswell.

You may find Bernard Muller's work against the mythicist case to be of some interest at http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html

Yes, and that one I find quite interesting..

jjramsey

Yet Paul's letters contain traces of what would be expected if the apocalyptic teaching was not a late addition, but something there from the outset.

Only if you assume that it is probable that apocalypticism is more likely to appear in the later layers than the early ones, and since there is no way of telling what the layers were, Kloppenborg notwithstanding, there is no basis for this assumption.

The kingdom of God, especially the coming of the kingdom of God, is an apocalyptic concept. That becomes clearer if you translate it as the coming of the reign of God, that is, God is going to be reigning Real Soon Now(TM).

This wrath of God tends to come in the form of an imminent judgment, which often takes the form of an earthly consequence, such as the invasion of a foreign power. Apocalypticism takes this idea of an imminent judgment to the extreme.

TedM

I still don't get for what purpose? To be sarcastic? IF so, I repeat my objection that he doesn't give any hint at that place that such was his purpose (of course it could have been edited out--just think how things would be different if he really had written "so called brother of the Lord").

I'm curious as to where you see an implicit criticizing of James.


I know it is a potential mistake, so am open to any reasonable explanation which can influence my current judgement. TIA if you look for the paragraphs that speak to this.

ted

Amaleq13

Expectations based on hypothetical possibilities are not evidence and it is misleading to characterize them as such (ie "traces"). Paul's letters contain apocalyptic expectations that Paul appears to connect to his belief in the resurrection. Paul's letters do not contain any suggestion that his apocalyptic expectations are the result of anything Jesus preached. It is simply irrational to deny this fact and pretend you are doing any except reading later information back into Paul.

It seems obvious to me that sapiential-to-apocalyptic is a more natural progression of development than the reverse and, as I already indicated, it appears to be something of a tradition in Judaism. First the people are taught how to properly think/behavior, then they reject the teachings, then they are threatened.

Not if the kingdom of God is preached as something already present or currently available that one can "enter" simply by changing one's ways. Where is the apocalypticism in the description of the kingdom in Luke 13:18-21?

Yes and it is subsequent to a rejection of the original message.