the_cave

I've considered writing a review, because I think what might be lacking is a truly neutral viewpoint--the reviews and critiques tend to have been written by standard-bearers of one sort or another for either side (Richard Carrier is perhaps the best exception to this.) Part of this is inspired by Doherty himself--his novel, as I recall, makes it clear that he is on the side of the infidels, as it were. Sadly, I cannot confirm this, because the domain name that the novel resided on appears to have been swiped. I would be happy to be corrected on the matter.

I can say ahead of time that if I were to write a review, I would try to present Doherty's ideas in a manner that makes them fruitful, so to speak, for anyone--atheist, theist, or anything in between. That's probably the fairest presentation I can think of.

jakejonesiv

"Although there is a good deal of Wisdom-inspired legend in this portrait of Jesus (in Q), the specific references to the places and to the relatively recent time of his activities, and the theological orientation which fits the scene of Judaism, make it seem reasonable to accept that the whole is based on the life of an actual itinerant Galilean preacher of the 20's or 30's, although it is surely hazardous to try to decide which details are really authentic." The Jesus Myth, page 103, G. A. Wells, 1999.

Jake Jones

Amaleq13

That appears to me to be an acceptance of a historical figure at the core of Q but not the Gospels. The figure depicted in Q is not crucified or resurrected or even declared the Messiah. IIRC, Wells has always accepted this as a possibility. I have his newest book (Can We Trust the New Testament?) but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

I've seen this forumula before and I wonder why this doesn't require an earth-bound "Jesus" even if we assume that Paul, et al believed the true Jesus existed in a heavenly sphere?

andrewcriddle

Slavonic Enoch (and the Greek version of Levi in XII Patriarchs which also has 7 heavens) may well be basically Christian texts. The idea of 7 angelic heavens appears to develop at the end of the 1st century CE and was probably initially found more in Christian than Jewish circles.

M Knibb is probably right that the references to Christ in AoI 6-11 are interpolations (they are absent from the Latin and Slavonic) but the original form of 6-11 is IMO late 1st century CE at the earliest and almost certainly Christian. (eg for a reference to Father Christ and Holy Spirit in Ehiopic AoI 8 the probably original Latin and Slavonic have 'the Father of all, and his beloved Son and the Holy Spirit')
AoI is IMO highly unorthodox with a Jesus who is not really human at all, but (at least in the present form of AoI) Christ takes on outward human appearance to live among humans on earth. This is probably docetic but not in any way mythical in the sense of Christ suffering only in a spiritual realm.
Certainly the Beloved in the 7th heaven is not initially in merely human form. (For Inanna see below)
Inanna is not incarnated in Hell she simply travels there apparently in the same body (and elaborate 'power-dressing' clothes) she starts off with in Heaven. FWIW she does not immediately ascend back to Heaven she has to travel around Earth to find a substitute to replace her in Hell. (The luckless Dumuzi her mortal sort-of husband probably draws the short straw.) IMO this is not a good parallel at all.
If AoI regarded Christ as dying in angelic form in a spiritual realm, then this would be contrary both to the present form of AoI and AFAIK all other relevant Christian literature. This is IMO unlikely and even if true would make AoI almost useless as a guide to interpreting Paul who certainly didn't believe this.

Andrew Criddle

Killer Mike

It is "The Jesus Myth" Open Court Publishing Company, 1998. The publishers review on the inside cover summarizes it pretty well and states "Professor Wells has become known as the foremost contemporary exponent of the purely legendary or "mythicist" theory. But he has recently come to accept that there is an historical basis for one strand of the composite picture of Jesus: that deriving from the lost Gospel known as Q".

Ted Hoffman

JJ, thanks for that quote. It however fails to address the question I asked. It has Wells allowing for a galilean preacher (*not* Jesus) behind Q.
Besides, Doherty's detailed analysis of CST and Q shows that there is no Jewish voice in Q.

This is what KillerMike wrote:
I am still waiting for evidence for this. Failure to which KillerMike should withdraw it.

ichabod crane

There's too much stuff to jump into here, so I'll start with just one point.

I'm just wondering whether there might be another explanation for this phenomenon, found in II Cor. 5:16. This seems to imply that Paul had a theological motivation for not being concerned with the historical details of Christ's life. It states that although they had known Jesus kata sarka, they had made a conscious decision not to know him that way any longer. It seems clear that knowing someone kata sarka means knowing them as they are seen from an earthly, human perspective. For example, Paul prologues his long description of his own historical circumstances in II Cor. 11 by saying that he is about to glory "kata ten sarka" (verse 18). Perhaps Paul thought that it was inappropriate to mention Christ's historical, earthly person? This could very well be related to the earthly/heavenly distinction that you've mentioned; Christ being now a heavenly figure it was not appropriate to refer to him in earthly terms any more.

This could even be significant in soteriological terms: once a person is resurrected into the new sphere of life, their old life (their life kata sarka) is forgotten and eradicated.

An example would be that amongst many Australian Aboriginals, it is considered sacriligious to speak of someone who has died. So they will not mention the person or say his name. Would it be reasonable to conclude that this person had not existed, because they are never mentioned or spoken of?

Of course, if this is true, it doesn't prove anything much about the historical Jesus. But it does remove some of the conflict between the Christianity of Paul and the Christianity of the gospels. Regardless of how unhistorical or otherwise the gospels are, it seems that a very large gap has to be postulated between the Christianity expressed in the communities from which the gospels emerged, and the Christianity of Paul and his community, on Doherty's thesis. The explanation above narrows the gap, although it doesn't eliminate it entirely.

The remaining difference between the communities could then be reconciled as follows. We hypothesize that there was indeed a historical Jesus. The Palestinian Christian community knows about his historical story and the gospels are an eventual expression of this (perhaps exaggerated, embelished, confused, or whatever). Paul comes along after Jesus' death, and he learns about the historical Jesus from the Palestinian Christian community. However, he has a strong Hellenistic earthly/heavenly dualism and a desire to make Christianity into a religion that includes Gentiles. So he develops Christianity in that direction, and in the process does away with the historical Jesus. Doesn't that fit the data as well as, if not better than, Doherty's thesis? The idea that early Christianity split into a Jewish-Palestinian section and a Pauline-Hellenistic section is not new. I'm just postulating that the Pauline-Hellenistic section abolished the historical Jesus, for reasons related to their basic earthly/heavenly dualistic ideology.

Ted Hoffman

What makes you think that this is inconsistent with Doherty's thesis?

ichabod crane

Doherty's thesis, as I understand it, is that there was no historical Jesus at all; that Christianity began as a kind of synthesis of pagan mystery religion and Hellenistic Judaism, in which a god-figure died and was resurrected in a non-earthly (at least non-human) realm, who was connected with the Messianic expectations of Judaism; and who subsequently was made into a historical figure. I take it that the existence of a historical Christ would be inconsistent with that thesis!

Specifically, the silence of the Pauline corpus on the historical Christ is being explained by us in two different ways. Doherty says it's because there wasn't a historical Christ; I'm saying it's because Paul thought he shouldn't talk about the historical Christ for theological reasons.

Ted Hoffman

Thanks for the clarification. So what is your evidence that a HJ existed and died before Paul entered the scene?

How does your theory account for "the son", an intermediary heavenly figure we find in Shepherd of Hermas and Odes of Solomon. How does it account for Christ as we find in 1 Clement and Epistle to Diognetus?

How does it account for the writing of the Gospels - with Mark as a metaphorical text?

How does it explain for the fact that nobody knows where Jesus was entombed and why Josephus, never heard of him?

Why, according to your theory, did Jesus die? Who was your HJ? an itinerant preacher, a miracle worker? a magician? marginal Jew? cynic preacher?