jakejonesiv

It is invalid to read the gospel back into the Pauline material, whether it be Marcion or anyone else. However, I don't agree that Marcion expurgated the canonical gospel of Luke.

I am pointing out the opposite. Even if an entity is deemd to be made of flesh, or is even believed to be human, or was supposed to have appeared on earth does not make that entity historical. No, it takes something more to establish historicity or Babe the Blue Ox would be historical.

You will have to ask ED about that one.

Are you suggesting that non-human docetic phantoms really existed?

Allow me ask your opinion on a related shubject. According to Gospel of John, chapter 19, Jesus is said to have appeared to his disciples behind locked doors, and showed them his hands and side. But Thomas was not there and said he would not believe "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." John 19:24 NIV.

Then a week later, Jesus is said again to have appeared IMO in a decidely docetic manner, and invites Thomas "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side." But Thomas is never said to touch him! Thomas believes based on what he apparently sees, and those who believe without seeing are blessed (v. 29).

So Jesus appears on Earth, ambigously but with apparent flesh, before alleged witnesses. It seems to have everything and more that people beg for in the Pauline epistles.

The question then is, Is this narrative (John 20:19-29) historical? Did it relate something that really happened? Why or why not?

Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

Does GDon's basic assertion allow for the evolution of myths? Could something that was originly believed to have occured on earth subsequently become to be believed to happened in the heavens?
Or vice versa,, is it possible that something that was first believed to happen in the heavens later become transfered to earth?

My apologies if GDon has already addresses this point.

Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

Brother Daniel,

I agree. Doherty's case does not fail if Jesus was deemed to have descended to the earth (Eph. 4:9-10). IMO, Earl has set the bar for himself artificially high. Myths can be alleged to have occured anywhere, and having the location being imagined to be the earth does not equate to historicity.

But I wonder if any of Earl's opponents think that if they cast doubt on one point, Earl is refuted totally, and therfore the entire case of mythicism is refuted. If so, nothing could be further from the truth.

Jake Jones IV

Amaleq13

Does it establish that the individual professing such beliefs considered the entity to have been historical?

What if the individual also claimed that the entity interacted with known historical figures?

Ben C Smith

You have misconstrued his point from the start, AFAICT. He is not making an assertion; he is issuing a denial (pending further evidence, which he has vainly requested from all takers). He is not even arguing against mythicism. Nor is he arguing for historicism. He is arguing against the particular strain of mythicism that asserts that the earliest Christians on record never thought of Jesus as having been a man on earth. That is all.

You have noted several times that his arguments do not really affect mythicism (that, for example, one can mistakenly believe in an earthly Jesus). You are correct. GDon is in dialogue with Doherty; in that spirit, GDon (at least provisionally) accepts most of the postulates that Doherty accepts (that Paul wrote in the middle of century I, for example, and that the gospels postdate Paul). Therefore, his arguments are powerless both against your less extreme docetic position and against your more extreme position that all Christian literature started in the middle of century II.

He has, in fact, mentioned this (or things along these lines) several times. For example, I have personally read a number of instances where he asserts that his arguments do not touch Wells mythicism (since Wells knows that Paul, or pseudo-Paul if you prefer, thought of Jesus as a man on earth). I can with great confidence also aver that his arguments do not touch Jake Jones IV mythicism. Your kind is not what GDon is arguing against.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

In Huckleberry Finn, Huck obviously believed that old Jim was a real person. But did Mark Twain?

jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

Oh my, sorry for the confusion!
:redface:

Jake

Ben C Smith

Sorry, Jake. My tone sounded harsher than I intended.

I do think that your own version of the Jesus myth is immune to the comments that GDon levels at that of Doherty, all of which have to do with a strange sublunar realm where earthly activities can occur, but not on earth. Your version does not rely on such a realm, IIUC. You are free to have your myths occur on earth, or in heaven, or even to change places occasionally. Doherty is not; he has (over?)committed himself to a particular mindset that he says existed in antiquity, but which seems hard to draw out evidence for.

Ben.

GakuseiDon

Doherty's case -- in so far as his use of "a non-earthly dimension in the sphere of flesh" -- DOES fail if Jesus was deemed to have descended to earth. Doherty uses his "dimension" to support his claim that Paul's usage of "in the flesh", etc, can be explained without having a Jesus who descended to earth.

I agree.

I'm not aware of anyone even hinting that. Just to be clear, I'll repeat my earlier comments, on this very page. This is to you, in post #176, on your comment that I seem to believe that legends on earth must have some historical core. My reply:

"No. It might be just a legend. My objections to Doherty doesn't rule out Wells mythicism, for example"

This is to you, in post #179, on your comment that I was trying to make a larger point than merely opposing Earl. My response:

"Nope. I'm looking at whether evidence from pagan writings supports Doherty's "dimension in the sphere of flesh" concept for Paul. I can't rule out that other types of mythicism are valid, so even if Doherty is wrong that doesn't mean there was a historical Jesus."

This is to Brother Daniel, in post #184. My comment:

"As I said, Doherty being wrong doesn't rule out that some other mythicism is correct."

jgibson000

Why is asking what Marcion states/assumes/implies in his edition of the Gospel of Luke vis a vis the question of the historicity of Jesus he (however envisioned vis a vis the question of Jesus having a material body) "invalid" when trying to determine whether or not Marcion believed that Jesus was actually taught and preached and was arrested, etc. in Palestine at a particular time in Jewish Roman history? Did he hold one view on this matter in his edition of the Epistles and another in his edition of Luke's Gospel.?

But he did know and use a version of the Gospel of Luke, did he not?

But it does show that those who deemed an entity to have appeared on earth fully believed that entity to have appeared on earth. And the question at hand is what Docetists believed, not whether what they believed is/was true.

Even if I were to do so, it would be entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand. And I remind you that this issue is whether being a Docetist --i.e. accepting a particular view about the humanity of the figure called Jesus -- means, or ever was thought B]by Docetists[/B] to entail, the belief that this figure did not engage, as the gospels or the (proto) orthodox say he did, in teaching and preaching to, and argument with, particular historical human beings, and was not arrested and tried and condemned to death on earth and at a particular point in the world's history.

So to get back to that issue: Isn't the promulgation of the view that the Jesus whose story is told in the gospels was/is an entity who "fooled" people, including his crucifiers, into thinking that he was a man of flesh and blood who had a material body (and that's what Docetism did promulgate) an full scale assertion that this entity was "historical", i.e., did his "appearing to be human" on earth at a particular point in history?

I'd be glad for a straightforward answer from you.

JG