Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dreadnought · 09-24-2007, 09:37 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

Letting the "why a cross" question rest for a while there is still a need for a source for the "suffered and died"-idea. Does the idea that the Messiah suffered and died for someone make sense in a jewish perspective? Isn't it still a novelty?

The Jewish messiah doesn't suffer. He leads the Jewish people to victory.

The servant suffers. The psalmist suffers. The mystery savior suffers and dies. The Greek savior gets packaged in a Jewish context and you get a umm, well, a messiah who suffers and dies.

All side tracks notwithstanding this is the sort of thing I was wondering about. The way you have described the merger of greek and Jewish ideas of a saviour is in the form of a fiction, something "packaged", presumably for mass consumption. To me this suggests that the originator of this thought, be it Paul or someone else, doesn't actually believe this to be the case. And so we're talking about a fictional Christ Jesus as opposed to a mythical or historical one. If you agree so far, though I sincerely doubt that you do, this begs the question of motivation in the originator.

spin · 09-24-2007, 09:43 AM

It seems that we are dealing with a difference in definitions.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnought

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Paul didn't get his information about Jesus from humans, nor did he learn it: it was direct revelation. Hey, he might have got it from god himself (if he exists), but there is no objective way for even Paul to validate the vision.

Is there any need to insinuate myth into this process? There is certainly no sign in the Ebion story, yet Ebion is not historical -- despite Tertullian's belief that he was.

You seem to want to insinuate myth into the Jesus story. Why?

I consider the Jesus stories to be myths according to a standard definition of myth as given here, particularly 2 and 3, but all of them apply to some extent:

Quote:

Originally Posted by american Heritage dictionary

1 A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
B Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.
2 A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.
3 A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
4 A fictitious story, person, or thing: "German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth" (Leon Wolff).

This has nothing to do with what I want or not, but rather what I consider to be the case. If the heart of this is that Jesus is a man then the story of his resurrection and being the son of God etc can safely be labelled as myths. If there never even was a crucified man called Jesus who was thought to be the Christ then the person Jesus is also a myth.

You're implying that this is controversial in some sense. Why?

We tend to use "myth" in a more formal way here. Dictionary definitions try to cover all bases of popular usage. We tend to use what lurks behind definition 1. This is in order to distinguish from "fiction" for example. Fiction usually implies deliberately made up. We throw both terms around and the distinction between them is significant. If someone means fiction, it would be clearer if they used "fiction" rather than "myth", so on that basis we can safely eliminate definitions #3 and #4. Definition #2 doesn't seem to be able to distinguish itself from legend for example.

Someone once said "'myth' is someone else's religion". It is the religious basis that is important to the notion of myth. It may be there with regard to Jesus. You may be happy to maintain your definitions #2 and #3, but they are irrelevant to discussion based on Doherty's and others' work on the subject.

spin

andrewcriddle · 09-24-2007, 10:45 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

I have often asked on this forum about Ebion the eponymous founder of the Ebionite movement, an eponymous founder who apparently never existed, seeing as the name "Ebionite" is derived from the Hebrew word (BYWN, meaning "poor". Was Tertullian being a mythicist when he talked of Ebion, or was he working under the misapprehension that there was such a figure? Did Tertullian believe that Ebion was a mythical figure?? Did Epiphanius, when he reported that Ebion had a hometown in Judea and named it? Obviously, they did not believe that Ebion was a myth (yet the information about this non-existent figure grew from one retelling to the next). There are more options in the field than mythicist and historicist -- unless of course someone can show that my brief presentation of Ebion really does fit into one of these two categories. The adversarial approach to the discussion (ie MJ/HJ antagonism) stultifies discussion. It merely makes it easy to prattle on along well-worn tracks.

Both Jesus-mythicists and Jesus-historicists have to explain the phenomenon of Ebion. The mythicists because they want to reduce to a myth the information about Jesus, when that reduction is not the only "unhistorical" explanation of the data. The historicist because Ebion shows that there is nothing inherently historical about their approach.

spin

One difference between the case of Ebion and that of Christ is that Ebionite came first and then Ebion was produced by back-formation.

In the case of Christ we would IIUC both agree that people were talking about Jesus Christ before the word Christian came into use. IE Christ cannot be a back formation from Christian.

Andrew Criddle

Chris Weimer · 09-24-2007, 10:47 AM

Not only that, but Jesus cannot be a back-formation from Christian, and in our earliest texts (i.e. Paul and his sources) it isn't merely any Christ but Jesus Christ.

spin · 09-24-2007, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

One difference between the case of Ebion and that of Christ is that Ebionite came first and then Ebion was produced by back-formation.

In the case of Christ we would IIUC both agree that people were talking about Jesus Christ before the word Christian came into use. IE Christ cannot be a back formation from Christian.

I'm sorry, Andrew, but this seems simply irrelevant to the point I made that figures don't need to be real to be considered real and treated as real.

spin

andrewcriddle · 09-24-2007, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

One difference between the case of Ebion and that of Christ is that Ebionite came first and then Ebion was produced by back-formation.

In the case of Christ we would IIUC both agree that people were talking about Jesus Christ before the word Christian came into use. IE Christ cannot be a back formation from Christian.

I'm sorry, Andrew, but this seems simply irrelevant to the point I made that figures don't need to be real to be considered real and treated as real.

spin

In the most general sense your point is obviously valid. It is possible for figures that are not real to be considered so.

All I was saying is that the specific mechanism by which Ebion became considered real when he wasn't seems irrelevant to the case of Christ.

(One might also add that Ebion remains an extremely minimal figure. There is IIUC no real biography created for him.)

Andrew Criddle

spin · 09-24-2007, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I'm sorry, Andrew, but this seems simply irrelevant to the point I made that figures don't need to be real to be considered real and treated as real.

spin

In the most general sense your point is obviously valid. It is possible for figures that are not real to be considered so.

All I was saying is that the specific mechanism by which Ebion became considered real when he wasn't seems irrelevant to the case of Christ.

But I never dealt with the issue.

I put Ebion forward as a third way, neither myth nor history. The literary information we have on Jesus may be the result of any of, or any combination of, the three.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

(One might also add that Ebion remains an extremely minimal figure. There is IIUC no real biography created for him.)

There wasn't a big user-base for Ebion in comparison with Jesus, but what does that change, Andrew? And the development of the biography seems to depend on that user-base, doesn't it? Epiphanius tells us where he was born and that he traveled to Rome. Tertullian has some idea of what he wrote. That's all with virtually no user-base whatsoever. How many apocryphal gospels were written about Jesus? Ebion was a literary small fry but indicative of the process.

spin

jjramsey · 09-24-2007, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Ebion was a literary small fry but indicative of the process.

Indicative of what process? The process that we see is that outsiders looking at the Ebionites from a distance misunderstood their beliefs. It isn't as if the Ebionites themselves necessarily believed that Ebion existed, which would have been a much closer analogy to the claims of mythicists.

All you have with the Ebionites is an example of a personage that didn't exist but was thought to have existed by some--and we all agree that such personages can exist. Questions of whether or not purported persons, such as Jesus, really existed in history have to be answered on a case-by-case basis.

09-24-2007, 05:26 PM

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=Chris Are you seriously saying that Paul is unique in using complex metaphors and symbols? I'm dumbstruck.

No,
I am not saying that, (although my wording was very poor.)

Some writers are clear and straightforward, some writers are not so clear - Paul is one of the less clear and straightforward writers.

Iasion

09-24-2007, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

[And congrats on 666 posts!]
spin

Heh, thanks :-)
More later on "cross" etc.

Iasion

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09-24-2007, 10:47 AM	#44
Chris Weimer Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: none Posts: 9,879	Not only that, but Jesus cannot be a back-formation from Christian, and in our earliest texts (i.e. Paul and his sources) it isn't merely any Christ but Jesus Christ.

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