EarlDoherty

But isn't this a somewhat self-serving exercise for historicists? I'm sure I could come up with any number of scenarios that, if true would prove that the earth is flat...

1. If reports came in that a ship fell off the edge of the world.

2. If aliens arrived on earth and told us so.

3. If the oceans dried up because they all eventually drained over the edge.

And so on.

(Actually, I suspect the flat-earth society has their own list a lot better than mine.)

The point is, none of your proposed points are demonstrable. Some may be argued (and certainly have been), but none are conclusive and some are downright rejectable (and have been).

But I guess we all need a bit of self-indulgence every now and then.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

gnosis92

I've wondered about the best interpreation of Paul given that
Paul does occassionally refer to Jesus teachings "words of the Lord", does mention details that match with Gospel details "on the night he was betrayed" claims to meet people who knew Jesus "Cephas, James brother of the Lord" speaks of Jesus as "born of a woman, born under the Law" (I've read Doherty's "refutation" that words of the Lord refers to a private revelation rather than what is presumably ssayings of a historical Jesus in oral tradition, and it is not a clear refutation of the null hypothesis)

and that Paul was writing to deal with specific issues (we do not have those letters he was responding to), nor do we know what he presupposed his audience knew, and his theology - there will be a general resurrection of the dead, did not require much gospel Jesus details, or what he may have said orally, and those who did know Paul, such as the author of Acts, and the counterfeiters of the pastoral epistles, presents Paul as understanding Jesus historically.

I do agree Doherty offers a *viable* interpretation, but I'm not convinced it is the best. Nor am I convinced that the spiritual nature of Christ Paul lays out rules out a historical Jesus in mind, I've suggested that Paul saw Jesus both as a figure of history and as a spiritual figure, in an attempt to reconcile Jesus failed mission with his belief in his messiahship (i.e cognitive dissonance).

I've not seen a convincing refutation from Doherty or other Christ-mythicist that even if Paul at times spoke of Jesus as an exalted spiritual figure (much as DOherty explains on Odes of Solomon or Revelation), this does not rule out also seeing him as a historical figure.

Ben C Smith

I was actually hoping for a quick rundown of scores from you on the list I offered (and others have expanded), not a separate list for a flat earth. If you wish to defend the flat earth hypothesis, would you do me the kindness of at least starting another thread for it?

Ben.

Solo

3

pass (not done with the newer Q theories)

0

0 (I assume "experiences" is deliberately used to describe his evidence)

2

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

0 (Paul's epistles and Acts don't agree in crucial details. Under those circumstances the actual relationship does not matter).

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

3

Jiri

Chris Weimer

Ben, every time I get away, you find something else to draw me in. I'm a sucker for this, though I'm probably not what you had in mind when you said "Jesus mythicist".

1. Spin's objection, is still somewhat valid.

1. Only weak support.

2. Assuming by this you mean that he heard Peter preach, and wrote down what he preached in narrative form. Mark certainly isn't preaching material, so a valid objection would be along the lines of Mark taking the preaching out of context and writing his own narrative. The historicity of Jesus, however, would hardly be denied. Cult leader becomes the most likely scenario.

1-3, depending on what part what based on his experience and what part was not.

2. Where is Josephus getting his sources? Any objection would be a weak objection.

0-2, depending on Tacitus' sources.

0-3 depending on when and where Mara bar Serapion wrote.

0-3 depending on who wrote Hebrews when and where.

3 if he actually talked to John and Aristion, and if John explicitly knew Jesus.

1. A valid objection can always be that those who considered themselves descendents did not do so in any historical way. Recent anthropological work on genealogies says that this number doesn't have enough to muster.

0.

0.


3.

3.

1ish-2ish.

1ish-2ish.

1ish-2ish.

0.

1.

1.

Hrm...

Solo

I don't agree that Doherty offers viable interpretation and the problem becomes evident the moment one starts to think outside the box. If Earl's theory of mid-heaven molestation appears the best one, it is only because people cling to the wishful notion that Paul should be able to uphold the gospel Jesus comings and goings and teachings and miracles, and the idea that the Jews did him in lawlessly. Actually, this is how Paul was already viewed by the movement shortly after his death - so much so, that his letters were tampered with and new ones were written up in his name.

The reality was quite different, and it is really so simple that I wonder why is it that noone else gets it. Paul before his conversion hated the Nazarenes and Jesus. He was preoccupied with them (and him) and tried to suppress their (his) influence in the synagogues where he was active. Are you with me ? So, from this stage in his career he would have gotten some information about the HJ, that he was a pathetic Galilean upstart, who thought himself smarter than everyone else, called God his 'father', went around forgiving sins and calling to repentance because the sky was going to fall down and the kingdom was coming where everyone would be free as a bird and do whatever they want. He had no education, had a way with the observances, and acted without any authority. Also, he hated the Pharisees, painting them as hypocrites. He got nabbed in Jerusalem (Lydda ?) and hanged on a tree as an accursed evil-doer. That was Paul's view of HJ before.

Then, as Doherty says, Paul got knocked off his donkey on the road to Damascus. Something happened with Paul's head, something that radically changed his view of what God intended with Jesus. I think there is enough evidence in the letters of Paul to explain this as the classical outbreak of acute bipolarity in mid-life. People become restless, preoccupied with a project or idea, lose sleep, appetite, sex drive, become troubled, brooding, looking for some fulfilment they feel is acutely lacking....and then their mood suddenly inverts into exhilaration and joy, absolute delight, up and up and into third heaven. It is unlikely that Paul associated his peak with Jesus initially. That probably came in later. But what goes up must come down, and the higher they fly the harder they fall. Paul's crash must have been horrendous. To begin with, the persecutory phases of mania are a sheer torture. The German psychiatrist Kreapelin, who first described manic-depression, noted the horrendous suffering of his patients: very commonly it is asserted that the disease is a greater torture than any other, that the patient would far far rather endure any bodily pain than disorder of the mind (Emil Kraepelin, Manic-Depressive Insanity and Paranoia, Edinburgh 1921, p 22.)
Second, it is clear from Paul's letters that he was a pious man and the sense of transgression for entering the forbidden garden of Eden (as he interpreted his high) must have been great. It is likely that during the "reduction" psychosis, he began to associate his torment with the crucified man Jesus, whom he previously despised. He interpreted his "fall" from the third heaven as punishment for questioning God's will. It is then, I believe that he discovered the true spiritual identity of the man Jesus, which was revealed in his own body. It was God's will that his one son would come to earth as a lowly, despised, peasant from Galilee, to show Paul that his pride in his Phariseic righteousness he had before came exactly to nothing. Man's fate is in God's hands, not men's and even though he sent Moses down with the law, men continued to be creatures of sin. Paul discovered in himself the sin of covetuousness - he coveted the grace of the Lord, so the Lord showed it to him, only to kill his fleshy desire for it in the torment of Christ's Cross.

From there, Paul worked out his mystical theology.

It seems a given from Paul's writing that we was laughed at at the beginning when he came out with his theory. He would have been dismissed as an insane crank. But Paul was a resourceful man. He went out and played the fool. Ok, I am insane and Jesus was insane, but that is exactly God's way to fool you, to show you the wisest of this world come to nothing before the stupidest and most despised men that God sends, even if they aren't that at all. .....etc, etc.

So, then what of the original HJ before Paul's conversion ? What could Paul say about the man who actually walked on the earth that everyone knew he previously despised ? He could say nothing about him.

First, Paul's conversion was spiritual and did not touch factual matters.
I have explained previously that the genuine Paul held the crucifixion to be legally correct. Jesus sinned and broke the law, or so it appeared to a rational, law-abiding Jew.

The second reason was I believe tactical. Paul had virtually no contact with the people who knew Jesus personally and could not speak for what Jesus said and did without the risk of being dissed and bested. So he makes virtue out of necessity: do I rely on men ? No, I have a direct line to the Lord.

Third, and perhaps the most substantial one is the theological differences that Paul had with HJ (or the followers of "other (mythical) Jesus"). Most importantly the resurrection: The crowd at Corinth who said there was no "resurrection from the dead" were no gnostics raining from heaven. There is plenty of support in the Christian canon for the view that Jesus believed himself resurrected already, while alive. The parables attributed to Jesus, are more or less witness accounts of a world which operates on different perceptual and cognitive principles. He depicts it imaginatively in simulacra, because their real meaning is hidden from those who are not (with him) in the land of the Messiah. His kingdom is then a way to articulate an obtruding feeling of a separate reality, or otherwordliness. Luke 17:20-21 confronts the Pharisee view of the resurrection:

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for , behold the kingdom of God is within you !

This belief is consistent with Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees in Mark 12:18-27 solving a marital situation in the afterlife where brothers who die in succession each in turn pass along the widow to the next one in line for a marriage followed by a funeral. On the day the dead rise there are seven brothers and one widow. Whose wife shall she be ? And Jesus answers that these things do not matter when they come back, because they are like angels in heaven, who have no earthly desires. For God who spoke to Moses was not the God of the dead but of the living. Luke’s version of the answer to the Saducees proves that Jesus’ reply has a knight’s move in it by saying that those resurrected cannot die any more (20:36), cross-referencing Revelation 2:11 which asserts that he who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death. By implication then there is a first death which does not relate to the final demise. Jesus’ Q saying let the dead bury their dead, also dramatizes the idea that some dead were less dead than others, and indeed quite capable of physical exertion. Ephesians 5:14 exhorts: Awake you that sleeps (cf 1 Th 5:7), and arise from the dead (i.e. spiritual stupor), and Christ will give you light. This would not have been written by Paul, but still the metaphor is consistent with other early Christian beliefs linked to Jesus. 1 Peter would that the gospel be preached also to them that are dead (1 Pt 4:6). Matthew 11:5 (Lk 7:22) places the raising of the dead at the end of a long list of cures by Jesus, just before his preaching the good news to the poor.

It is clear that the semantics of these 'death' and resurrectional sayings bespeak not of real demise but of a cultic lingo which was at loggerheads with Paul's ideas.

Jiri

youngalexander

This is an interesting, if artificial exercise, since the establishment of the 'truth' of these propositions would obviously have a bearing upon their effect. Many are difficult to assess without context or supplementary 'truths' and degree thereof.

That notwithstanding, and entering into the spirit of the exercise, with brief indication of reasons:
2.5 not 3, since Paul may be mistaken.

0 since I presume that this is the case.

2 not 3, since Peter's teaching may have been allegoric and Paul does not know a HJ, which implies that Cephus/Peter(?) did not either.

1-3, there are so many permutations it is difficult to assess without specifics.

1, it is difficult to understand what Josephus would have meant by that.

0, if it is still hearsay.

0, still likely hearsay.

0-2, depending upon when Hebrews was written and when Jesus was supposed to have died.

0.5, another nail.

0.5, another nail.

0, he may have.

0, perhaps he did.

2, that would take a deal of explaining.

3, hurrah! Another question resolved.

0, he may well have.

0, as above.

0, as above.

1, maybe.

1.5, "never known such unanimity upon a point of theology" - aplogies to W.S. Gilbert.

2, rather a large dent in the milieu.

1.5, compounding difficulties.

As for combinations there are obviously many, but 1, 3 and 5 would certainly do it.

Clivedurdle

Solo, I agree with your idea that Paul was bi-polar, but does that not strengthen the mythical case? The three and a half years is a healing phase.

A real living historical Jesus is not required under Occam's razor because the spiritual gnostic one is just as efficacious at saving Paul's - and every one else's - soul.

So Paul is the inventor of xianity. The gospels are later add ons. Mark is a fascinating politicisation of Paul's madness. Everything else is built on Mark.

youngalexander

Ah, yes. There is one more curious matter.

How is it that none of these points is in fact true? :notworthy:

Ben C Smith

No, probably not.

(Would you consider yourself a Jesus minimalist, perhaps?)

Which objection is that? (Spin has so many! )

Ben.