kennethamy

Shakespeare's Macbeth did not exist. The reason is that there was no person who was Thane of Cawdor, who killed Duncan, and who uttered the words, "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and, Tomorrow, creeps on this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time...." etc.

Newfie

Sure, publicists are always working hard to downplay the presence of their clients because their actual gloriousness is just too powerful for the average person to withstand.

Perhaps this guy

wears his hair this way to protect us from being blinded by his halo. What do you think? Is he doing a good enough job of toning down his radiance?

Seriously though, for your theory to work, wouldn't written tales of Jesus as full blown, God-on-earth have had to come first, and as soon as he manifested himself, not decades later? Where, in all of the ancient writings, is the reportage of this event? Surely it would have been like a comet striking the area, and obvious to everyone living there, right? Seeing the Christ glowing as He walked past in all his Godly radiance certainly would have prompted at least one person seeing Him to write something like "Today I saw God in the form of a man" that very day. Wouldn't you agree?

bacht

Well, it's not my theory. I've been reading the work of Earl Doherty, one of the contemporary scholars who proposes a mythic Jesus at the beginning of the Christian movement. In other words, there was no man to see: the revelation of Christ was through visions and scriptural revelation.

The idea of a living person came with the gospels, likely after the first generation of witnesses were gone. I agree that if such an amazing being had actually walked among us he would have left more traces of impact. This is one of the keys points in the mythicist argument.

aa5874

Now, where can I find an autobiography of Sherlock Holmes, Macbeth or Jesus of the NT?

It should be evident by now that rumors, lies, embellishments and legendary tales are always being told about real famous people.

On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes, Macbeth and other fictional characters are fabricated for entertainment purposes, even though at times, theses fictional characters mimic real living people and real situations.

And further, historicity is not confirmed by lies, rumors, embellishments or legendary fables.

Historicity is a direct function of CREDIBILTY.

Why would a rabbi whisper such a thing when the Temple was still standing during the reign of Tiberius?

Do you think a rabbi would worship a blasphemer as God while the Most Holy Temple of the Jewish God was still functioning at around the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius?

I don't think a rabbi would whispher such a thing at such a time.

Newfie

And the writings we have from Paul are still interpretations of Jesus' significance decades after he presumably died. Plenty of time for Paul to have created his understanding of Jesus as the cosmic Christ, and to teach this view to the members of his churches. Remember, he was very preoccupied with countering ideas and practices that were different than his, essentially defending his brand of Christianity against competing brands. In the end (hundreds of years later) his letters were popular enough to be accepted as canon where all opposing ideas were thrown out and suppressed.

Had everyone been so dazzled by Jesus' glory from the very first that Paul was just assuming people all understood him to be the cosmic Christ as he did, only for the radiance of Jesus to be ever more downplayed with each new gospel, why weren't the canonical gospels written in reverse order, with John being first? Instead of seeing a gradual de-emphasizing of Jesus' divinity over the years we see an increase, cumulating in the destroyer figure of the fully blown Christ of Revelations. Looks more like the building up of a myth than the tearing down of one IMHO.

Newfie

Not what I meant at all. I was referring to how a modern, devout rabbi would feel personally if they were told by someone that they were going to someday convince a big chunk of the world that they were God. If you are having trouble getting into the Jewish mindset try this: Imagine a devout Christian being told on their deathbed that the most influential religious voice of their generation was going to make it their mission to convince everyone that you were the second coming of Jesus. That's how I sometimes imagine a fully Jewish HJ, if he existed, might feel if he could only see how people view him today.

aa5874

Do you see the obvious problem by relying on a single source to confirm the very same source?

There is actually no confirmation or credible source external of apologetics to verify that anyone named Saul/Paul had written letters that were popular enough to be accepted as canon.

The letters may have been fabricated just to be canonised.

bacht

Actually, Paul's own chronology in Galatians suggests that his conversion took place within only a few years of Jesus' supposed crucifixion (ca 30 C.E.) He tells us he spent time in Syria, possibly absorbing the basic message of Christ from them, rather than inventing much of it himself. Yes, he had competitors, but his focus was on the Gentiles, a much bigger and more challenging "mission field" than the Jewish community.

I agree that the gospel of John seems the closest to the high christology of the epistles, and may echo Alexandrian ideas like Philo's. I'm not a scholar, so I don't know the technical arguments re dating the four canonical gospels.

I don't know that Revelation is datable after the gospels. It's often placed in the 90s, with Mark's gospel possibly shortly before or after. This apocalypse isn't very different in tone from previous Jewish apocalypses, with the exception of the Christ figure added.

Toto

The written references to Jesus as a full blown God are in Paul's epistles, and presumably happened soon after Paul received his vision of Jesus.

The idea that this was "decades later" is a construct from reading the gospels back into Paul. Once later Christians constructed an earthly biography for the Savior, they retrojected him back to the time of Pilate, based on the book of Daniel. But there is no evidence that he was ever there.

Newfie

Sure, half of the epistles with Paul's name on them were probably written by someone else, but I actually find it a bit of a stretch to claim that he didn't write any of them. I think that scholarship would have picked up on their having originated at the time of the canonization process, hundreds of years later than they are usually seen as having been written. Nope, I'd need to see some serious scholarly work before I start believing that Paul himself is a total fabrication. The life of Paul detailed in Acts, however ... That's another can of worms.