tanya

Apologies Dio for asking this, but did you read my post 177, which details the problems associated with employing Tacitus to define an historical Jesus?

Tom Sawyer

The Mormon parallel is a good example. Smith wrote the Book of Mormon as a summary of an earlier work which he claims existed (on golden tablets written by angels) and talked about things which he had not experienced himself. Similarly, Mark is an account of things which the author of the Gospels of Mark had not experienced himself.

We know that the source material that the Book of Mormon is based on is fictional. What is not known is the status of the source material that the Gospel of Mark is based on. It might be that Peter was its source and Mark was one of Peter's disciples and that would be the most direct linkage between Mark and any historical figure which would have been the basis for the Jesus character, but that's a linkage to someone who had never met Jesus but who would have been aware of the basis of the stories about him. Also, gMark could be the end result of a few decades of cobbling together a new religion based on an amalgamation of pre-existing myths.

Using the Gospel of Mark as a marker (heh heh) doesn't actually give any answers in the HJ vs MJ debate.

seeker

Nice.

I think you are right that the gospel story really doesn't shed that much light on the origin of Christianity. I'm not so sure though that Jewish history is as revelatory in that respect as one might think.

All of the major doctrines that Christianity would eventually adopt are widespread and many of them really aren't very Jewish at all. The notion of a spiritual savior and a spiritual kingdom are purely Hellenistic; The Messiah of the OT is an earthly king who establishes a kingdom in the real world. Concepts like virgin birth, resurrection, etc are more in line with a variety of mystery religions that were common in the Hellenistic and Roman eras. Even Judaism ends up adopting concepts like dualism, a concept conspicuously absent from the Pentateuch.

Given the religious milieu I think Christianity would have developed even if Judaism had not existed.

seeker

You have it backwards. Logically speaking the claim being made is that Jesus existed and that claim is what must be proved. Absent proof the logical default would be that he did not exist. Non-existance cannot be falsified.

Practically speaking the evaluation of historicity often has to sacrifice a purely logical approach due to the paucity of available evidence so we might accept the existence of many figures regarded as historic even though the evidence for them is thin. The difference though is that you can strip away the mythology around Julius Caesar or Pythagorus or any number of mythologized figures in history and readily find a believable real person who had a particular historical role. With the Jesus story there is no such underlying character, it is clearly possible for Christianity to have been based on a purely mythical Jesus.

maryhelena

I think perhaps you need to set down exactly what you mean by a "Historical Jesus".

I've nothing against personality cults... They seem to be the lot of our social interaction. People are drawn to certain charismatic personalities. People find inspiration in the life of other people. Biographies sell well. Heroes, even of the every-day hero type, are evidence that we find value in the actions of others. We all differ; some of us have greater gifts that we esteem. (I'm currently so obsessed with a certain tenor's voice that I need to hear it every morning........and now booked a concert 12 months away - in another country...........:blush:..)

So, its theoretically possible that a nobody crucified itinerant preacher/carpenter was able, somehow, to draw people to him. If that was the case - the origin story of christianity can never be recovered. The question would also be what did this nobody crucified itinerant preacher/carpenter actually do? He wrote nothing. All we have would be memories and exaggeration. Yep, that's the normal historicists position. And where has it got research into early christian origins? Nowhere.

That's the choice - stay with the nobody crucified itinerant carpenter/preacher - or lift ones research to where other options might open - Jewish history.

Of course not. The ahistoricist/mythicist position only relates to the gospel JC figure - that gospel JC figure is not historical. Who were the historical figures relevant to the early gospel writers - well, I've put up a number of charts in various posts. Doherty seems reluctant to name any historical figures that, even he admits, could have been relevant to the creation of the gospel JC figure. I've been asking him for well over 10 years - and so far.......

maryhelena

And where did Marcion and his followers end up? Their non-Jewish Jesus idea has hit the dust of history....Cut the branches from the root of the tree - and they will wither and die. What's that old saying - never forget where you've come from....

Sure, lots of stuff added on. But, again, it's where we have come from that we should not be forgetting. And like it or not - for Christianity, it's roots are entwined in Jewish history.
What's that saying - a time and place for everything. And, again, Jewish culture and history is where the christian origin story finds it's home.

Diogenes the Cynic

Who made that claim? I made no such claim.

I don;t think that claim means anything unless and until we decide what "Jesus" actually is.

Mythicists say that Jesus never existed, so they must mean something by "Jesus." What is it. What specifically are they saying did not happen.

In the earliest sources, we have a per se, prima facie claim that the Christian religion originated as a personality cult. This is a claim which not only has multiple, independent attestation in the earliest sources, but which is not contradicted by any other early sources. No other sources claim any other origin for Christianity than a personality cult.

Do mythicists see this claim as impossible, as implausible, as merely unprovable or as irrelevant?


If Christianity started as a personality cult, does that, in itself, falsify mythicism?

Diogenes the Cynic

I don't mean anything at all by it. That definition is exactly what I'm trying to find a consensus about.
See, this is the kind of answer I was looking for. It appears to me that everyone could hypothetically agree (given sufficient evidence) that a "nobody" existed, but we would disagree about whether he was "Historic Jesus."

maryhelena

That just about sums it up................

Toto

Yes. That is how Doherty framed the issue - did Christianity start with a human founder?

The rest of this thread has gone off on a tangent.