Chris Weimer

Here I'm not referring to the sorry form of mythicism, led by those who wish to deny history, but merely Doherty's brand of mythicism, the one that interprets the early Christians as having believed Jesus existed only on a spiritual plane.

Echoing Andrew Criddle, how does Doherty's brand of Mythicism explain apocalypticism in Paul and Mark?

Ray Moscow

Perhaps JTB or similar preachers brought this "end time" urgency to the public, and this tradition became attached to Jesus?

I was just reading over the JTB references in Josephus, and Josephus doesn't mention this aspect of his teaching. So I suppose this leaves us with just the gospel's portrayal of JTB's end-time preaching.

Magdlyn

Robert Price goes into this subject quite a bit, even if Doherty doesn't. Just how prevalent was the eschatological focus in that era? Who preached it? How did later writers explain why the end had not come yet? Did "Jesus" (either a man or a myth), a wandering Cynic, (or even John the Baptist) really preach it or was it added in to the story?

You might want to refer to The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (or via: amazon.co.uk) for more in depth exploration of this topic.

Chris Weimer

Are you saying that Jesus was a wandering Cynic? That's not representative of mainstream opinion, and more and more scholars everyday reject that hypothesis. But even discounting the gospels, Paul is apocalyptic.

Ray Moscow

There are a lot of similarities between the Jesus gospel traditions and the wandering Cynics -- but as far as I can tell, the Cynics didn't warn about the coming "end times".

So I think this emphasis has to come from someone else.

Is JTB our best candidate? Or are there other contemporaries who also preached about the soon-to-be end times?

Ray

Ted Hoffman

Specify the apocalyptic passages you regard as posing difficulty to mythicism and why.

Chili

Mythicism would argue that the apocalypse takes place in the mind of man wherein only the world can be conceived to exist. To end this world the transition must be made from earth to heaven so we can look at our world as a thing of the past from heaven that at one time was a lofty ideal for the future.

Magdlyn

Every day? Really? First of all, I don't believe Jesus existed. But yes, he was made to speak often as a Cynic, and a Stoic.

Depends on if you think he was "orthodox" or "proto-gnostic." "The kingdom is here now," "Christ is within" seems to be a gnostic/Buddhist/mystery religion take on where salvation lies, as opposed to "It's the end of the world, motherfucker!"

Chris Weimer

O RLY? What makes you say that?

Yes, and "it's the end of the world, motherfucker" is exactly how an apocalyptic Paul would have phrased it. What do you think I Thessalonians 4.13-18 is? Lovey dovey environmentalism?

gurugeorge

How about a psychological tactic to encourage people to behave morally?

I've been discussing this topic on another thread with Andrew C but I just noticed this thread specifically about the subject.

One of the things that most impressed me in Ehrman's "Lost Christianities (or via: amazon.co.uk)" which I read recently was his little summary of recent scholarly thought about how Jewish proto-Gnosticism might have arisen from disappointed apocalypticism. (From a mythicist point of view it's interesting because it relieves the strain on having to posit a too-early Hellenistic influence; it also has the neat tying-up-loose-ends side-benefit of making sense of Sethian Gnosticism as a similar movement along a different path of Jewish Gnosticism, with a different "savior" entity.)

If that analysis is correct, then if (taking the Gnostic-sounding aspect of Paul seriously) he was a proto-Gnostic, who took his proto-Gnosticism from a Jewish-Samaritan disappointed-apocalyptic milieu, then you might expect to find elements of apocalyptic discourse in Paul, but they wouldn't have the older, properly apocalyptic meaning. He would use them in a proto-Gnostic sense, in a spiritualised sense. (Compare the function of the "exterior preliminaries" in Mahayana Buddhism, one of which is to always bear in mind that you might die at any moment. These kinds of preliminary practices are supposed to have the effect of electrifying you, making you do the cultic practices with passion and energy.)

I would maintain that if one takes Paul as apocalyptic in the ordinary sense, his mysticism sits uneasily with that; whereas if you read him as proto-Gnostic, then the apocalyptic discourse interpreted as above (i.e. as spiritualised) sits quite happily with his mysticism, and with the genesis of proto-Gnosticism from failed Jewish apocalypticism - it's all a coherent whole.

It even fits in with the idea that there was indeed an exoteric and esoteric side to his teaching (which seems to be sustained by the hints of stuff he doesn't expand on, like the "Third Heaven", and the Christian worship scenario involving "prophecy", "knowledge", etc.): the apocalyptic scenario might have been interpreted quite literally by the dimbulbs, maybe even including people like "Mark" (but it would get them into the right frame of mind), while those in the know would understand it was only meant as a tool.

Of course he might just have been a raving looney with all sorts of contradictory teachings, but if one tries to interpret him charitably, then this way of looking at him makes sense of him as someone who could have been a great spiritual teacher who who could have done a lot to spread a religion in its early stages.