Doug Shaver

I don't think so. I am reading what Paul himself wrote, and I'm making what looks to me like a reasonable inference from those same writings that it didn't start with him.

Doug Shaver

(Sigh) Oh, very well. Let me rephrase the question.

What can we reasonably believe Jesus actually did, besides get himself crucified, that made a few people think he was God incarnate?

gstafleu

But doesn't that go in the direction of what Earl is saying: Paul doesn't mention a Jesus, mythical or otherwise, because he doesn't need him (at least not in the instances you are referring to)? Paul has his knowledge (about JC and other things) directly from God via revelation. Hence he doesn't need JC to explain his having the knowledge. Hence the idea that Paul knew about an HJ is unsubstantiated and unnecessary (unless there is some other evidence Paul knew about an HJ). Not only that, an HJ is excluded from the communications chain by the direct-revelation mechanism. Of course you can still assume that an HJ is hanging around somewhere in the background, but that is just wishful thinking.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

After he got crucified, it is reasonable to suppose that he himself did nothing much.

However, some who knew him saw visions or such that they interpreted as meaning that he was alive from the grave. (I myself am very tempted to say that his tomb was found empty, as well; an empty tomb plus visions would explain nearly every detail in the development of Christianity thereafter).

Paul comes right out and tells us what made him think that Jesus was the son of God in Romans 1.4: Jesus was declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

Note that this is no run-of-the-mill resuscitation of the kind Elijah and Elisha were supposed to have performed (after which the raised subject eventually dies again). This resurrection, for Paul, was one unto eternal life, which meant that it was the first instance of the general resurrection expected at the end time (1 Corinthians 15), which meant that the end times had begun.

Ben.

Amaleq13

What detail requires an empty tomb?

It seems to me that visions do the job all on their own and that includes the subsequent addition of an empty tomb to the story.

Paul didn't need one.

TedM

Yes, you are right--he doesn't have to mention a HJ. That makes the argument from silence a weak one. The AFS is only strong if the support for an expectation for non-silence is strong. As for wishful thinking, Paul mentions Jesus as man many times, it's just that he doesn't provide very much in the way of gospel corroberating details. The ones he does provide DO agree with the gospels to a high degree.

ted

EarlDoherty

There has been quite a bit of response to my postings on this thread, but since I will be occupied later in the day, I just want to correct a few impressions before too much more gets said unnecessarily.

I have never said that in Paul’s mythical interpretation of Christ he specifically located the crucifixion in the heavenly realm at any point relative to earthly history. Thus the contention that he would have to explain “when” it happened has no basis. How, in fact, would he do that? What would he relate it to? There is hardly an equivalency between that sort of “when” and the “time, place and circumstances” of an historical crucifixion. And there is certainly no equivalency between an historical crucifixion and a mythical one for the expectation to make that sort of reference.

In fact, we can’t even be sure to what extent Paul (or early Christ belief in general) applied his concept in a purely Platonic manner. Was the crucifixion “timeless” in that it could not be ‘located’ in any equivalent fashion to a ‘period’? He doesn’t tell us enough. Is he like the philosophers who would have found the concept of ‘when’ meaningless, or was he like the Ascension author (apparently) who seems to imply that the descent of the Son was to be regarded as taking place after the time of Isaiah, who was given a prophetic vision of the Son’s actions?

TedM asks why Paul didn’t insert some reference to the “celestial” life and death of Jesus, at the hands of the “demon spirits”. As for life and death, that is his constant topic, crucifixion and resurrection. That’s all that was known of the mythical Christ’s activities in that regard, all that Paul could have given, unlike the wealth of detail about an earthly life that should have been known and talked about all through the early record. And Paul does tell us that he was crucified by the demon spirits: in 1 Corinthians 2:8. (But we’ve been through all that…)

As well, Hebrews spends several chapters telling us about Christ’s sacrifice. Where? In heaven. Many passages in the epistles also tell us about the roles the pre-existent Christ has filled: creation, sustaining the universe, reunifying heaven and earth, overthrowing the cosmic powers and authorities, receiving the obeisance of angels, etc. If all this mythological activity could be detailed, why not some of the earthly activities? As for all the other things Paul says about Christ and his relationship to the world and believers, they too are all in the mystical category (head and limbs, and “body of the church”, the “curtain of his flesh” and so on). Not only that, and not only in Paul, everything said of Christ is related to, and apparently derived from, scripture (Romans 1:2-4, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 Clement 16, Hebrews’ “sayings” and the things Christ did “in the days of his flesh”—and, dare I say it, Galatians 4:4, if it’s not a corruption). If Christ could be spoken of in these terms, why not in earthly, historical terms as well? And why never? (On this point, I have to disagree with Ted’s latest contention, that the above few things are derived from the Gospels or Gospel tradition. Paul and the other writers offer them as dependent on scripture.) [Oops, I better edit that before someone jumps on me: Paul does not intimate in Gal. 4:4 that the "born of woman" phrase is dependent on scripture, though a suitable candidate is certainly available: Isaiah 7:14.)

So I must reject the contention that Paul’s silence on explaining the time of a mythical crucifixion is anywhere near the same problem (or any problem at all) as his silence on the time and place of an historical crucifixion. I have to disagree that the hammer has fallen on Paul’s nail.

As for Kevin’s suggestion that my “positive silence” expression is a misnomer, to some extent he is correct, but the phrase arose as a rebuttal to the constant accusation that I was misusing what was claimed to be the standard Argument from Silence, as though Paul and other writers were simply “silent” on an historical Jesus. I wanted to point out that those “silences” I was referring to, (and that dissenters were restricting the meaning), had a very different dimension than simple silence, and thus was born the phrase “positive silence”. I am loath to give it up because, even though it may contain something of a contradiction, that in a way is deliberate, to illustrate my point. I want to retain the basic demonstration that the “silences” in the epistles have both negative and positive aspects, and it is the latter that is constantly being overlooked. But yes, essentially the “positive silence” is the picture the epistolary side of things presents to the reader, which is sufficient in itself to explain and lay out what the early cultic movement was, and it has no need of an historical Jesus and even excludes one. One can call that “positive evidence”, but such a phrase encompasses much more in the total mythicist case, and to switch to that would then invite further misuse of the accusation that I am relying solely on the standard Argument from Silence.

As to Kevin’s analogy with Alexander and my “silence” arguments, it is invalid and misses the most essential point. The invasion of America before India is not something anyone would propose, because it is impossible and nonsensical. This idea is not what is at stake here, and certainly not the equivalent to what I am saying. The invasion of America is not something that is required before an invasion of India; but in the context of historicism, the mention of an historical Jesus is a natural and virtually required insertion before a reference to God’s activity in the present, as in Titus 1:3. And his statement: “The truth must be that any document focused on one fact will be in some kind of tension with the absent fact,” begs the question, in a way. My point is that the document relating the one fact (God’s activity in the present), should not have an absent fact. Absenting that fact cannot be explained by the claim that it is “focused on one fact”. The “one fact” itself should have been the career of the historical Jesus.

Suppose I say, “When my wife and I got married, we promised ourselves we would enrich our family by having children, and now we have acted on our promise this year by giving birth to little Jeffrey, the apple of our eye (even though he has proven a bit of a handful and stubbornly loquacious).” Then you learn that we already have an older child. Does my statement any longer make sense? Can I be said to be “focused on Jeffrey’s birth” and this is why I don’t mention his elder brother? In the context of my statement, the acting on the promise to have children, the “focus” should have been on Jeffrey’s brother, since that is the fulfillment of the promise we made ourselves at the time of marriage. The author of Titus, when speaking of the fulfillment of God’s promise should have been compelled to find that fulfillment in the life of Jesus. Nothing else makes any sense. There shouldn’t have been any “tension” with an absent fact, since it should not have been absent.

Of course, it isn’t just Titus which shows this glaring anomaly. There are all sorts of other passages in the epistles which are virtually identical. Such as:

Romans 16:25-26 – “…according to the Gospel I brought you and the proclamation of [i.e., about] Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of that divine secret kept in silence for long ages but now disclosed, and through prophetic scriptures…” [NEB]

Ephesians 3:5 – “…you may perceive that I understand the secret of Christ. In former generations this was not disclosed to the human race: but now it has been revealed by inspiration to his dedicated apostles and prophets, that through the gospel the gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body, sharers together in the promise made in Christ Jesus.” [NEB]

In the second of these, dissenters argue, well, it’s just the inclusion of the gentiles that is revealed. First of all, in the first one, and in a passage like Colossians 2:22, no such limitation is specified. And in any case, is a writer like this going to say that even such a ‘secret’ would in no way have been revealed or acted upon by Jesus himself? Are we going to accept that in passage after passage, no place is given in any of this “long generations of silence and ignorance….followed by the revelation of such secrets and the banishment of such silence,” no role whatsoever, no mention whatsoever, to Jesus’ life, not even a glance his way? The concept is absurd.

2 Corinthians 5:5 – “God has shaped us for life immortal, and as a guarantee of this he has given us the Spirit.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, as I say in The Jesus Puzzle (p.45-6), “It is Paul who has received from God ‘the ministry of reconciliation’; it is he whom God has qualified ‘to dispense his new covenant’ (2 Cor. 3:5). Paul’s disregard for Jesus’ own ministry of reconciliation or dispensation of the new covenant is astonishing. The parallel to Moses’ splendor in the giving of the old covenant is not Jesus’ recent ministry, it is the splendor of Paul’s ministry through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:7-11).”

Paul places no HJ (Romans 8:22) between the “universe groaning in the pangs of childbirth…while we wait for God to make us his sons and set our whole body free.” In that hiatus, he once again speaks of “we, to whom the Spirit is given as firstfruits of the harvest to come”. As I continually point out in regard to Romans 1, the gospel of God in the prophets pre-announced Paul’s gospel, not the life of Jesus. In 2 Timothy 1:9, the Savior has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light…through the gospel, not through his own life and death in recent history! (See TJP 117-118 for a full discussion of this important passage.)

And on and on. It is indeed “overwhelming” if one will simply open one’s eyes to it.

Now, Ben has asked me if I think that the Pastorals are not by Paul (which I have stated) and that all three are by the same author. Well, I can see what’s coming (not having just fallen off a frankincense truck). Yes, it may well be that they are all by the same author, though I’m not sure to what extent critical scholarship is in agreement about that. But let’s say they are. I anticipate Ben will then point to 1 Timothy 6:13 with its reference to Pilate. He will say, if the writer could say something like Titus 1:3 and yet still be aware of the historical crucifixion by Pilate, this compromises my point about the Titus passage and others like it. If he does, then he is simply throwing up a red herring, because this in no way deals with the plain implications of that passage and the others. In the light of those implications, what would be an (at least) equally sensible approach to such an alleged anomaly? To question whether the 1 Timothy 6:13 phrase is an insertion. Not only have several commentators found problems with that phrase in its context (though they do not go so far as to opt for interpolation), I have advanced good arguments for it in fact being an insertion, which you will find both on my website, in the Appendix to Article No. 3: Who Crucified Jesus? and in Appendix No. 1 of The Jesus Puzzle (both detail those ‘problems’ discussed by commentators).

A passing note: The above is a good example of legitimately accepting scholars’ comments and interpretations about a given passage, and using them to make a further interpretation myself which they do not do, as in our endless arguments over Barrett and Burton. If Houlden and Kelly find the Pilate reference is a problematic ‘fit’ with the context in 1 Timothy 6:13, I can hardly be faulted for (partly) basing my suggestion that the passage could be an insertion upon their observations.

(And thanks to Gerard for clarifying his name. It looked more indecipherable in his username form than it actually is, I see now.)

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

You must be psychic.

IMVHO, the plain implication of the passage in no way requires, demands, or even politely requests the kind of reference you seek.

Yes, I poked around your site and found that discussion in the interim. An interpolation. Who would have guessed?

I also read quite a few of your listed silences (thanks for the link). What is now clear to me is that you and I are living in different conceptual universes. You could have listed a thousand of the kinds of silences you offer and it would not have made any difference to me. I do not find any that I have read so far convincing. Some I even find downright counter-intuitive. The entire enterprise stands as a monument to why I abandoned mythicism (of the Wells variety) a number of years ago.

I have neither the time nor the inclination at this point to argue Titus 1.2-3 or any of the other silences. I do not think it would do either of us any good. I respectfully decline this debate; I am working rather feverishly on my website right now, and that, I think, is time well spent.

I do not mean any of this insultingly. There are just debates in which the disagreements go back much further than what is actually on the table. In this case, two mutually exclusive philosophies of historical inquiry are in collision. I just cannot inspire in myself any amazement or wonder at these silences of yours.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

That is a good question, and one that I am not yet prepared to answer. Some thoughts are still fermenting in my mind, and I am not sure what will come of any of them.

Possibly, and I am prepared to walk that road if need be, but visions by themselves do not ordinarily inspire theories of resurrection. There was plenty of visionary fodder in the Jewish and Hellenistic milieus, and thus no need to posit resurrection just because one has seen the dead in a vision (think of Samuel and the witch of Endor; the transfiguration; various apocalypses). Vision plus empty tomb would answer that question thoroughly.

Ben.

krosero

Now this could be the wisest statement of the thread thus far.

That's enough for now. Thanks, Earl, for your answers.