GakuseiDon

There was a thread on this before, but for now, that is not relevant to the point I'm making. For a comparison: Mark appears to be talking about an earthly person crucified in Pilate's time, regardless of whether he was writing a fictional novel or not.

Regardless of whether Paul got the whole thing from revelation or made it up entirely as a prank, I think that if we take Paul's letters (the ones generally considered to be original to him) as we have them now, Paul appears to be talking about (1) an earthly Jesus (2) who was crucified in Jerusalem, and (3) in Paul's near past.

Do you agree with this?

I think it is an important benchmark to establish, so that we can start looking at passages to see which can be removed as interpolations or interpreted differently, and see how that affects the final conclusion.

Toto

I don't think there is general agreement that Paul's letters require a Jesus who was crucified in the near past or in Jerusalem (perhaps in Galatia?)

The only language that would require that Jesus have been crucified in the near past would be the reference to James as the Brother of the Lord, which we have discussed in the past with a general lack of agreement.

Do you want to start a separate thread on this? I'm tired of splitting threads. Where are you going with this and how does it relating to competing hypotheses?

GakuseiDon

I'm proposing that a historical Jesus hypothesis is supported from Paul's letters, and that this is stronger than dog-on's competing hypothesis. Perhaps create a new thread called "dog-on's competing hypothesis", where Elijah and I can discuss points with dog-on? (Though this thread title might be better: "dog-on's competing hypothesis, and please aa____ don't post in this thread and leave us in peace.")

Toto

Paul's letters have been done to death. If you assume that they are uncorrupted, they might support a historical Jesus. If you just assume a few key anti-Marcionite interpolations or edits, they could support anything.

I understand that Gerd Ludemann (a historicist) presented a very persuasive paper to the Jesus Project showing that Paul's letters do not support a historical Jesus. I think we will need to wait for the book to come out to read it.

GakuseiDon

All assumptions are not necessarily equal. I think that if it can be shown that Paul, as he stands (minus anything that is generally considered an interpolation, like his comment that the Jews killed Jesus), supports a historical Jesus as the most likely hypothesis, then that will be a good starting point. We can then start to look at interpretations of the text, to see if they do indeed support a historical Jesus, or whether there might be a better explanation.

But first: can we all agree that Paul, as he stands, supports a historical Jesus as the most likely hypothesis?

From what Richard Carrier wrote in his blog, Ludemann doesn't think that Paul's letters don't support a historical Jesus, but only that they don't provide much in the way of historical detail.

Toto

What's the point? Why start out assuming that Paul's letters are remotely similar to what Paul wrote? This whole field of HJ studies is full of arguments based on arbitrary assumptions and trying to shift the burden of proof to the other side.

Can we agree that Paul's letters were probably interpolated? Can we agree that the gospels are mostly if not completely non-historical? Why not start there?

dog-on

Though I believe that you are, perhaps, 'stacking the deck', regarding Paul. We can use your assumptions as an initial basis for this discussion.

Additionally, as it seems that we both agree on the following assumptions:

1. Paul is the earliest writer
2. Mark is the earliest gospel


We are simply left with trying to determine the core issues. Here are a few, I immediately consider to be relevant. Please feel free to add more, or to explain why the issues below are not, in fact, relevant:

1. Did Paul invent his 'revelation' and:

a.) if so, did he have any resources available to him that could have helped to inspire such a 'revelation'?

b.) if not, what evidence do we have that lends support to the possibility or probability of Divine Revelation?


2. Did Mark believe that he was writing history and:

a.) if not, did he have any resources available to him that could have helped to inspire his story?

b.) if so, what evidence do we have that shows that Mark, indeed, thought he was writing history? :huh:


We can then weight the evidences, probabilities and possibilities.

Please add any additional issues and/or facts, that could further help to falsify, or confirm the "theory".

p.s.

(We'll call this "theory" the 'JGSM', (Jesus, God, Simple Myth), 'Theory', in proper homage to two of my favorite posters on this board, Dr. Gibson and his long missing, but sorely missed side-kick, Solitary Man, the former of which has caused me to ask myself this simple question:

How do I know, what I think I know and how do I know that I know how I know it, especially if I can't read the language? :constern02:

GakuseiDon

Of course, if Paul's letters are not remotely similar to what Paul originally wrote, then any conclusion based on the assumption that most of the letters generally attributed to him are genuine cannot stand.

Still, for those mythicist and historicist positions that start with the assumption that most of Paul in those letters is genuine (except for those passages generally agreed to be interpolations), it would be useful if we can agree that Paul, as he stands, supports a historical Jesus as the most likely hypothesis.

Does Paul, as he stands, support a historical Jesus as the most likely hypothesis?

Sure, those might be interesting starting points as well. But for now, I want to pose the question stated above.

GakuseiDon

Good. So, in your view, if we take Paul's letters (the ones generally considered to be original to him) as we have them now, does Paul appear to be talking about (1) an earthly Jesus (2) who was crucified in Jerusalem, and (3) in Paul's near past?

The core issue for me currently is the hypothesis that Paul, from the letters generally believed to be genuine to him, seems to have been talking about (1) an earthly Jesus (2) who was crucified in Jerusalem, and (3) in Paul's near past.

Can we agree on that first? Then we can start looking at the other issues.

dog-on

(4) Paul claims as his sources, solely, Divine Revelation and the Scriptures (LXX).

Agreed?


If we agree on Paul's sources, per Paul's own claim, then yes.

(Though I do not really believe that points (2) and (3) are actually evident, you can provide the evidence to substantiate them, as they are important in order to begin to falsify the JGSMT. I'll give you (1), for free, for the sake of the discussion. We'll assume that Paul was speaking about a figure that appeared on earth, at some point.)