Horatio Parker

An archetype thesis removes God from the physical universe to the intelligible universe seen only with the eye of the mind.

It is a significant difference.

ApostateAbe

Ever since the idiom was first coined, "scales" falling from one's eyes has been used to denote enlightenment, when in actual fact the phrase typically highlights ideological inculcation. Such a thing mostly happens all of a sudden in a single act, whereas a more accurate understanding of the objective environment tends to be more of a slow evolutionary process. The scales don't fall all at once so much as slowly chip away.

outhouse

The NT contains quite a bit of mythology, and Price and Carrier have made scholarships based on the premise of mythology.

They are close to normal scholarships, "if" unbiased scholarships follow 90% mythology VS the 100% there isnt a huge gap or difference there.

Robert Tulip

And yet, the only "inteliigible universe" is the "physical universe" because no other universe exists. The nonexistent is nonintelligible. Number is intelligible, because it provides the organising structure for matter. Jesus Christ as archetypal saviour is intelligible, because he provides an eternal coherent explanation for the connection between the world and ultimate reality.

Thanks Horatio, it is an interesting question how the intelligible relates to the physical. Christianity places God within the Word or Logos, saying man shall not live by bread alone but by the word of God. The distinction goes back to Plato's divided line, with the intelligible realm of knowledge of ideas comprehended by mind contrasted to the sensible world of belief and appearance and matter apprehended by eye. Plato's ideas have the archetypal eternal quality of pure logic.

Your metaphor 'seen with the eye of the mind' already degrades the intelligible into something merely physical. If Jesus Christ as archetypal metaphor is solely intelligible, as eternal Logos, then all the parables which explain him as something visible are similarly a degradation of the real meaning. Jesus himself explains this at Mark 4:11 where He told them, "The secret about the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything comes in parables." Presumably, 'everything' here includes all the stories of the life of Christ, including birth, preaching and passion. It is all a myth. The initiate understand by intelligence, while the ignorant are deluded by reification of parables.

So I disagree with Horatio that an archetype thesis removes God from the physical. It is more that intelligence underpins and encompasses the physical, as a way of reflecting nature in words as image. Just as words are part of the world, ideas are part of nature.

mountainman

Thanks for taking the time to make the above response in defence of Earl's statement and overall position in the field. I agree with all what you have written about above, including Freddie.


However I find your final statement above about the discussion of questions related to the invention of Jesus, and its relation to human psychology, quite refreshing. This indeed is one of the more critical questions. Because it is a question that by necessity must be guided by further questions about the evidence, it is a question in the field of ancient history.

The approach here seems to imply that Jesus (the canonical Jesus Story Books published in the Greek language [along with the LXX]) had an inventor and a priority date somewhere in antiquity. I am interested in the question that, given that Jesus is a man made invention, which person or organisation was historically responsible for the fabrication.

MrMacSon

I'd propose that the chance of a single inventor, or a single 'priority date', for the canonical Jesus Story Books, is low. It might have been finally collated by a group around the 4th century, but I'd say the stories started around the time of the translation of the LXX into Greek in the 2-300 BCE.
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mountainman

This is certainly one proposition. A gradual scribal collection of 2nd century writings certainly fits the conventional chronology. But the task then resolves to describing the process of accretion for these books, and why they were revered at all if the people of this epoch knew they had been fabricated at least a century after the events that they purportedly describe.


Well we must say that it was certainly collated by a group in the 4th century because Codex Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Sinaticus et al are staring at us in the face from the later 4th century. The evidence supports this.



I hope you are aware that the legendary chronology whereby King Ptolemy organised the Hebrew to Greek translation is quite suspect. For a start it is reliant upon a letter (Aristeas) inserted into the account of Josephus (i.e. from c.100 CE). This should start ringing alarm bells for some people who have studied the testimonium flavianum. When we go and look for evidence for the existence of some authoritative Greek translation of the Hebrew bible in antiquity, there is very very little in the epoch BCE.

See a separate thread In which century does the earliest evidence of the Greek LXX appear?

mountainman

GDon appears to see Jesus historicism as the high moral ground, and Jesus mythicism as the swamp of the ill-informed. You never know, one day he might change his inflexible position. But I wouldn't be holding my breath.

Horatio Parker

I think you're conflicted about the nature of reality.

First you say there is no intelligible universe , then you claim intelligibility for numbers. Unless you can demonstrate physical existence for numbers, you have a problem.

The divided line argues that reality is of a dual nature: physical and intelligible, and that the higher, more profound realities are intelligible only. BTW the "eye of the mind" metaphor is Plato's, not mine.

Then you say that because scripture describes fictional events in the physical world, that somehow removes archetypes from a wholly intelligible existence. Makes no sense to me.

My guess is that you are assuming the supremacy of the physical universe, but that's not classical thought. Classically, there is only chaos without intelligibility. Without intelligibility, you don't even know there is a universe.

I do agree that parables often represent a "degradation" of the reality they attempt to convey. But that's what myths are: dramatic representations of abstract ideas.

gurugeorge

Actually to be fair to GDon, from my chats with him, he's not entirely unsympathetic to mythicism in general, he's quite open to it; he's just criticizing Earl's mythicist arguments as (as he sees them) bad arguments.