gurugeorge

I actually believe this is exactly what the trend that became proto-orthdoxy and later orthodoxy was trying to do - it's clear from the Church Fathers that they were rather proud of their historical anomaly Jesus.

But I think it more likely that the earliest form was more "normal" as religions go. (I guess I'm somewhere inbetween you and Earl - I believe the Jerusalem crowd had a new idea about the Messiah having already come and done his work, with earthly and spiritual aspects, the spiritual aspects predominant, and the earthly aspects reversed in their values (not an earthly victor but an earthly loser), who they thought they "saw" in Scripture, and that some of them no doubt had visions of - and the most famous visionary of this Messiah Past/Everyman Messiah - Joshua Messiah - was of course Paul.)

Of course later on, once orthodoxy was established, people would be having visions of HJ, just as they do now. But in the early days, it was an "HJ", who hadn't been known as a human being to any of the very first Christians.

gurugeorge

Yes, I've been following Persinger's stuff, it looks really interesting. There's an ex-associate of his who's been selling portable versions of the devices Persinger uses for some while now.

Sleep paralysis I've had - very strong and very scary sense of entity present at foot of bed. I think there's something in this idea when it comes to experience of the "numinous" as a separate entity too. It's like a "template" for "experience of an independent entity" (i.e. the subjective "lock" to what would normally be the "key" of the presence of an actual independent entity, the two together producing a veridical experience, only with that "lock" being stimulated on its own, without any actual external presence) is aroused by these experiments, and something similar may be going on in visionary experience.

But I think "astral" or visionary experience in general is a broader phenomenon from from what Persinger's talking about - no doubt the same parts of the brain are being "tickled", especially in terms of the the "template" or "lock" thing being aroused; but the "astral" realm of visionary experience is richer in content, and more related to whatever part of the brain it is that produces seemings of things in general (especially in dreams), and hallucinations, as well as proprioception (for the OOBE side of it).

What has to be considered in visionary experience is the coherence of the visions - their intricacy and coherence, as well as the mere weirdness of the same kind you get in dreams. Dreams are incoherent, and one persons' dream is different from another's. Visions are coherent, and different people can have what seems to be (more or less) the same vision; even across cultures, some kinds of visionary experience can be seen to be analogous (e.g. the angelologies of Gnosticism, the heirarchies of enlightened beings in Vajrayana Buddhism and the "celestial bureacracies" of Daoism).

This suggests the possibility that something about the structure of the mind itself is being revealed here - i.e. it's like the heirarchy of the mind is being externalised as a heirarchy of external beings (aided in the impression of externality by some combination of Persinger's mechanisms and dream mechanisms). This mental heirarchy itself also mirrors in microcosm the heirarchy of the small bands we lived in as we evolved in our ancestral environment. Put simply: the "cosiness" of (say) the typical RPG group of Mage, Ranger, Fighter, Healer, Rogue, reflects internal "locks" that expect there to be a certain structure to human society (think of "castes"); and these structures are themselves repeated in the celestial and heirarchical bureacracies of visionary experience (so that earth "echoes" heaven), and inside the mind itself (in terms of the way it's structured at a fairly high level of sub-personalities - e.g. one's "inner boss", "inner critic", "inner child", etc., etc.)

That's my stab at an over-arching theory anyway.

gstafleu

Actually, there already is an "over-arching" theory. It combines Jung's idea of archetypes (which stem from something he called the "collective unconscious") with evolutionary psychology. Anthony Stevens is a proponent of this. The nutshell version is that, given our evolutionary development, our brain is predisposed to seeing things a certain way. So the "collective unconscious" is just the way our brain (mind) has been shaped by evolution. Archetypes are then simply images/concepts that our brain is predisposed to perceive because they represent things that were evolutionarily important to the survival of the species: The Mother, The Child, The Lover, The Terror, ...

Myth, in its turn, is an attempt to say something about these archetypes. Because they are so "low level" they are hard to perceive (although it sounds that in your sleep paralysis maybe that is what you experience). Hence they are hard to describe in every-day terms, so metaphor is usually employed. Poets, artists, visionaries have better access to the archetypes, are better able to describe them, than the rest of us.

Gerard Stafleu

James Madison

Well, I think the Gospels, which were written, read, and believed by some early christians, is evidence which undermines your contention above. Of course, I am assuming the Gospels were written within the time frame you describe as the "early days." I think the Gospels certainly qualify as coming into existence during the "early days" since Mark is estimated to have been written around 70 a.d., Matthew 70-100 a.d., Luke and John 90-100 a.d. If those dates do not qualify as the "early days" of christianity, then nothing does. The Gospels were read and believed in by some of the early christians and consequently, those early christians, in the early days, it was a historical Jesus who had been known as a human being. The very Gospel of John concludes with remarks making this claim.

Toto

We don't have evidence of the gospels being in circulation until the middle of the second century. The earliest Christians who wrote in their own words did not clearly rely on the gospels (notably Paul), and we don't know how they read them, as liturgy or allegory or history.

James Madison

Well, if I recall correctly, the Gospels may not have been in circulation until the middle of the second century but they were nothing more than a compilation of the oral stories early christian segments were espousing in regards to Jesus. In other words, the account of Jesus as an historical figure, as depicted in the Gospels, first began as oral tradition in and around Jerusalem among early christians and were later recorded into the Gospels.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Dog-on,

I do not want to ennoble anybody, but distinguishing the original mystical vision writings from the writers who just "made things up" can have important methodological consequences.

For example: Take this text from Hebrews that Earl discusses in part III of his expostion http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp14Three.htm

11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place
by the high priest as an offering for sin,
are burned outside the camp.
12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood,
suffered outside the gate.
13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp,
bearing His reproach [i.e., suffering the same disgrace],
14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Earl rightly sees that the earthly "outside the camp" is being compared to the heavenly thing that happened to Jesus "outside the gate". But he ends up saying, "Thus, we may presume the strong possibility that in the writer’s mind the “gate” refers to the gate of heaven."

But the author of Hebrews is not being a visionary mystic here, he is making stuff up/changing stuff. We have to go to the mystical text to understand what he making up/changing.

What is outside the gate, where the Hebrews' author places the suffering of Jesus? The author must be referring to something well known in his community. It is in the very important ending of Revelation (22) (which constitutes a separate and earliest part of the work) that we get the answer. The author in Revelation is talking about the heavenly city of Jerusalem. He writes

1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations...
14"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

It is outside the gates of the heavenly city of Jerusalem where we find the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. It is there that the "Jesus" of the writer of Hebrews suffered, no doubt at the hands of these "dogs".

Nobody really just makes stuff up. One is always operating within a framework. We have to understand the changes that writers make to that framework. Today scientists and theoreticians generally make up the framework. In ancient times it was mainly mystics, poets and philosophers.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Those "oral stories" are merely an apologetic device to create a link between a historical person and the writings that appeared much later. We have no evidence of these stories, and a lot of indications that the gospels were cobbled together from Septuagint references.

mountainman

Where is the military and the political in this assessment?
How does the discipline of the army and its commander
figure in this abstraction?

Where is ancient history in your list of disciplines?

Theories of a MYTHICAL JESUS are inter-disciplinary.
This much is known. They are extending the field of
Biblical Criticism and History into a new arena.

Having said this however, as soon as you wander away into
scenarios that 1) do not have any ancient historical context,
and 2) refuse to countenance the reality of political history
(as might be defined by the likes of Arnaldo Momigliano eg.)
you may as well be describing the Pythagorean "counter-earth".

Early christianity existed in Rome before Nicaea.
But only for about a dozen years IMO.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Student of Sophia

Gurugeorge I agree with much of what you said. But let me try to clarify something.

Are you saying that in your view, the gods either live

or they are

Is this an either/or situation?