Rick Sumner

I'd buy a book to see you defend the notion that Paul's gospel is his "knowledge of the Christ." Especially your use of material in Ephesians 3 since 3.6 makes it clear that you're defining "mystery" incorrectly.

Should I expect that to be in the book?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

EarlDoherty

Well, I guess if Ellingworth has changed his mind on the numbers, I'll have to follow suit, won't I? I never made any secret that my "majority" was based on his statement, as I would never have had the temerity to think that such an authority had gotten a simple statistic wrong! (Regardless of the actual numbers, I have not relied on Ellingworth's statement for my own opinion on what 1 Cor. 2:8 actually means, but rather on my own arguments.)

Now I notice that, as usual, Jeffrey, you are very good at reproducing endless lists. What is lacking in your post (as usual) is providing the actual arguments entailed in such lists. So since you have shown your knowledge of these many scholarly authorities and are willing to base your opinion upon them, one has to assume that a scholar of your integrity would not do so simply on their word (or on wherever you got this list), but that you are quite familiar with the arguments they have used to arrive at that (new) "majority" opinion as to the "rulers" of 1 Cor. 2:8. After all, we want to be sure that this is not simply some 'bandwagon' effect on the part of modern scholars who desperately need to see the meaning you yourself (presumably) want to see in the passage; and we want to be sure that the arguments they use (to the extent that they use any) are actually based on legitimate readings of the texts of Paul and other early documents, rather than on the assumptions they bring to them and their own indulgence in 'reading into' the text things which have no actual support there.

So I am going to suggest that to make a proper argument out of your statement you supply us with a good selection of the cases made by some of the scholars you list, and on what basis they interpret 2:8 as earthly rulers, or as spirits or demons working through earthly rulers. After all, we wouldn't want everyone to think that you are simply appealing to authority and have no idea on what grounds that authority is based. Anyone, professional or amateur, can "believe" that such a text means such-and-such, but in the absence of good argument that doesn't make it so; and NT scholarship is riddled with wishful-thinking analysis and fallacious reasoning. My own writings have pointed out obvious examples of such things, and while I might not be so rude and arrogant as to call them "uninformed and bogus" I can still show them to be misguided.

Hopefully, what you supply us with will have a little more substance than this sort of thing:

Earl Doherty

Rick Sumner

I'll bite. Why are they so desparate to see it? Given that they're scarcely aware that you (or any other mythicist) exist, what difference does it make to them that they "desparately need to see" this meaning? Is the other reading incompatible with some position they hold? What position might that be?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Didymus

There being nothing but conjecture to support the theory that Paul regarded Jesus as having existed in some celestial realm, that's conceivable if Paul was propagating a set of frauds, e.g., that Jesus was a man, was crucified, etc.

But a more charitable and parsimonious explanation is that Paul told his congregations everything he - or anyone else - knew or would ever know about the enigmatic crucified Jesus.

Didymus

youngalexander

Quote:
Originally Posted by youngalexander
Well, if Paul knew ‘virtually nothing’ about Jesus, is it not at least possible that there was nothing to know?
Indeed - ex history!

Solo

That is really a nice work of fiction, Didymus. The real Paul says: 'I decided to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Cr 2:2). So, I can swear on the Bible and say: 'Paul told his congregations nothing of HJ'.

Jiri

ynquirer

We don't need to have immediate evidence of something to believe it be historical. Thus, for instance, the old Indoeuropean language. There is no proof that there was ever such a language. However, it is still the best hypothesis to explain what we know about those languages that are supposed to have stemmed from Indoeuropean.

By the same toke, the HJ is still the best hypothesis - if you insist that nothing reliable has been said of him - to explain what we know of the church in the first decades of its existence.

GakuseiDon

Earl, your arguments start to appear like others I have had with Jesus mythers. I'll give a couple of examples, which I will refer to later on as comparisons to yours.

Example 1: The claim that Mithras was crucified. When I asked the claimant for evidence, he said that ancient people's myths varied, so I couldn't rule out that there hadn't been such a myth, reversing the burden of proof. So all I could do was say that the evidence wasn't there to support him (i.e. no indication of a myth where Mithras was crucified) and in fact the evidence we had was against him (i.e. myths showing Mithras going to heaven in a chariot)

Example 2: Acharya claims that Jesus was the "sun" of God. The sun was "crucified" between two "thieves" (star signs); the sun "walks on water"; the sun enters the Zodiac at 30 degrees, indicating that the "sun of God" starts his ministry at age 30, and so on. When I question these kinds of statements, I'm told that I have a literal mindset and show a failure of imagination.

How would you argue against such claims? You'd have to admit that they are shifting the burden of proof -- yet IMO this is what you are doing below. Let's look at your replies in light of your claim that "For the average pagan and Jew, the bulk of the workings of the universe went on in the vast unseen spiritual realm (the "genuine" part of the universe) which began at the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven. Here a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull, Attis could be castrated...".

That quote WAS my point -- that the area between the earth and the moon was one region. You agreed with the point I raised, even calling it an "irreducible minimum" below. And then you use "dimension or locale", but these are NOT synonymns. The word "dimension" is a MODERN term that means something to us. It's certainly not something you found in the original text, is it?

I raised the point because you appeared to disagree originally that the sublunar realm was one region stretching from earth to the moon. That is, the firmament is literally what you see when you look up. (I gave the example of Theophilus writing about "birds flying in the firmament") You seem to accept it on the one hand ("concede" is the word you used IIRC), but then you question it elsewhere on the other. The vagueness is frustrating. IMO using "dimension" is only confusing the issue, esp since some of your readers come away with the idea that the people of the time thought that their gods actually acted out the myths but in some other reality.

Except that you DO appear to dispute it, at least at times. When Theophilus talks about "birds flying in the firmament", does this suggest that the demons in the firmament could look down and see the people on the earth, and that people could look up and see the demons in the firmament (assuming they had the ability to see demon essenses, and see them through a telescope)?

I agree. Since I wasn't trying to claim that though, your point is irrelevent.

The quote WAS my claim. Demons lived in the sublunar realm, with humans. They didn't live in some separate "dimension".

I agree. Why not use "air"? What is the difference between "aer" and "air"?

I agree.

And there you go again!!! "Dimension" is a MODERN term that means something to us. Why even use it?

But since my mention of Ocellus wasn't to make that contention, again your point is irrelevent. Still, while we are on that topic, can you name any pagan writers who believed that Attis was castrated in the air/firmament, or that Mithras killed a bull in the air/firmament?

Yes, like "Mithras crucified", I can't say that such a view never existed. All I can say is that there is no evidence to support you (i.e. no evidence that any pagan believed in a "world of myth") and that what evidence these is is against you (i.e. they talked about their gods as being either on earth or that the myths were allegorical processes)

Since you have created a strawman argument, right back at ya.

Yes, just as I can't prove that ALL pagans believed that Mithras wasn't crucified. (Anyway, some writings actually placed the gods at particular periods in the past, which I've reproduced elsewhere, e.g. Tacitus placing Moses as being near contemporary of Isis).

I'm claiming that pagans regarded their myths to have taken place either on earth, or they were allegorical, so didn't happen at all. True, I can't prove this, but I haven't seen anything to the contrary. And strangely enough, you appear to agree with me, at least according to your book, as I show below.

In fact, on the pagan side, you don't even do that. I have your book, and turning to Appendix 6, you use Plutarch, Sallustius, Julian and Apuleius, plus refer to writings about Mithras. But do you claim that they are evidence for the "world of myth"? No! You write that Julian and Sallustius and Plutarch saw the myths as "timeless allegories". The myths of Mithras "may have been the product of the Stoics of the period" who were "allegorizing natural forces as the activity of celestial gods". Apuleius doesn't appear to be relevent.

So, you actually seem to be supporting my contention: that pagans regarded the myths to have taken place on earth, or were allegories for natural forces.

Right. Just as I can't envision the "sun" being crucified between two "thieves".

All I can say is that there is no evidence to support such a view (i.e. no "world of myth" or anything that places such a belief of Attis using a knife in a sublunar realm), and the evidence that we do have goes against it (i.e. that spirits were regarded as air or fire, that they lived in the clouds and thus were able to predict rain, and that birds were regarded as flying in the firmament).

Is there any way to refute such an accusation? Should any point that relies on such an accusation be taken seriously? The evidence doesn't support you, and in fact what evidence we have is against you.

No, Didymus is correct. There is no evidence for a "world of myth" belief, and what evidence we do have (i.e. the myths were regarded as either being on earth or were allegorical) is against you, Earl.

Since I am concentrating on the pagan view, I'll leave the comments referring to Paul and AoI to Jeffrey.

What is his warning to Clea other than addressing his concern about the beliefs of the devotee-on-the-street? The good thing about Plutarch is that he gives the views of others, including contemporaries and past writers. He talks about beliefs that the myths actually occurred on earth and beliefs about them being allegorical forces, but no mention at all about any beliefs dealing with a "world of myth".

From a pagan perspective, isn't this what you yourself claim in Appendix 6, as I mentioned earlier?

Can you name any pagan writer who refers to a "world of myth"?

I don't know. What is the correct answer?

What are the answers?

Sure. And the "sun" was crucified between two "thieves".

Can you name any pagan writer who refers to a "world of myth"? Can you back up your claim that the "the average pagan" believed in a "vast unseen spiritual realm" in the air where "a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull" and "Attis could be castrated", and that was not considered allegorical?

Rick Sumner

Since it doesn't seem that Earl wants to field this one, I will. Nothing. They hold no position that this is incompatible with, there is no reason for them to "desparately" want it to be the case.

This goes back to what Kevin Rosero said in a previous post (where a scholar "sees" something as well). What Earl has done here is what Earl quite frequently does--he has read his own context into his sources. That's why he can refer to them as "seeing," "almost seeing," "not wanting to see" and so on. Not because they are doing anything of the sort, but because he is treating them as though they are addressing his argument.

That this is rhetoric is obvious, but the post I picked it out of was full of that. What this is is substantially more dangerous than more garden variety rhetoric, because it allows Earl to treat his sources as though they are rebutting or attempting to pre-empt his view. It creates the very illusion so often espoused on this board--that there exists some sort of "alliance" of "HJ scholars" or some sort of concerted effort to maintain Jesus' historicity. It creates the illusion that the academy at large is struggling mightily though vainly to escape Doherty's conclusion. But that is nothing more than an illusion. Rightly or wrongly, Doherty, or any other mythicist, doesn't even enter their frame of reference.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

jakejonesiv

Far be it for me to defend Acharya S.

But the Solar myth/astrological angle is not as weird as you might think.

According to Mark 15:33 darkness was over the whole land from the sixth to the ninth hour. This could mean nothing other than the sun disappeared.
And immediately with the departure of the sun, Jesus allegedly cries out some unintelligable words which were apparently misunderstood.
Who did Jesus allegedly call out to from the cross?

According to Mark 15:34, he calls for God. We would normaly expect to find Theos. But instead the text jarringly reverts to Aramaic. Eloi Eloi lema sabchthani. (Elwi Elwi lema sabacqani). Even Matthew finds that unacceptable,and changes it to some pidgin Hebrew/Aramaic; Eli Eli lema sabachthani. (hli hli lema sabacqani). Something strange is going on here.

Some of those standing right there, according to Mark 15:35, had an entirely different opinion of what Jesus said. According to the tale, they thought Jesus was calling for Elias. (hlian fwnei). But Elias in Greek is not just the name of the OT prophet Elijah, it is the sun (compare with Helios).

Thus, the sun disappears, and Jesus cries out, "Sun! Sun! Why have you forsaken me?" Are we getting astrological or what?

But we aren't finished yet. On "Easter" morning, what had risen? The sun (anateilantos Mark 16:2) or Jesus (hgerqh Mark 16:6) or both?

Jake Jones IV