Toto

Hello Roo:

Five Stages of Greek Religion by Gilbert Murray is on gutenberg.org as an ebook in various formats.

What exactly will it contribute to this issue?

And welcome to the forum - one more post and you can add links to your posts.

Horatio Parker

They're much older than the medieval period.

The Middle Platonists were writing of them by the 2nd century, but I'm sure they were not new ideas even then.

Proclus, late 5th century, wrote a detailed system. I've only seen references to it, never read it.

Here's a bit I found online. Some of the egg-salad text I'm guessing were Greek or other characters, the rest I dunno, but it does convey an idea(interesting Heraclitean flavor to it I think). These books don't circulate in the NYC library, and they're taking their sweet time making ebooks out of them.

EarlDoherty

I am going to make one final attempt to get across my meanings in this ‘debate’. This is for you and Don, who seem to be the only ones who cannot understand what seems to be pretty clear to anyone else (except, of course, to our new Tim O’Neill type in the person of a fellow Australian Roo). But it is hardly, I think, a coincidence that the three members here who cannot seem to grasp what my case is are the three who demonstrate a pathological and vitriolic animosity toward mythicism and toward me in particular. Just saying.

You say:

Plain enough to show what? If you or Don deny the accuracy of this statement, then you have revealed your ignorance in spades. As I said before, if you deny this basic Platonic principle you join the likes of Bernard Muller who, by the way, was roundly criticized by Richard Carrier for displaying this kind of blatant ignorance in his reviews of my Jesus Puzzle website.

And if you deny this, you’ve only compounded your ignorance. For it denies that the ancients saw any workings of gods and divine entities and spiritual processes in the upper part of the universe above the earth. To deny that would be to deny reams of Jewish and pagan writings about such goings-on, such as I lay out in my Chapter 12 of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man and other places in both books. Note my phrase “the bulk of the workings of the universe”. I am not talking here merely of the particular myths of the savior gods. I am talking about the general spiritual activities of non-humans perceived as taking place in the higher world. THAT is what my chapter 12 in JNGNM is about, though it also includes observations about the specific myths of the savior gods in the same context. If you had actually read the book you wouldn't have made this mistake.

The whole point of my “world of myth” phrase is to point to this general Platonic picture—yes, held by the average pagan and Jew, not just the mystery cult devotees—of a higher world in which “mythical” events took place. “Mythical” does not mean the modern parlance of referring to things which never existed or took place, but things envisioned as happening in a non-earthly dimension. But then, how can we expect someone who steadfastly refuses to read anything on mythicism to understand its terminology?

I dread to think of the hash that GDon is going to make in ‘responding’ to my Chapter 12, since we know from experience that he is going to (deliberately or from ignorance) confuse all sorts of different issues and implications to be drawn from various writings. He showed that in spades in his review of JNGNM, and in his “sublunar” fixations in previous discussions here. But the whole point of my Chapter 12, the whole point of my presentation of a “world of myth”, is to present an ancient thought-world, expressed in many surviving literary works Jewish and pagan, which illustrates belief in an upper dimension to the universe where all sorts of divine activities and spiritual processes took place. Is he going to deny that these documents say what they say? Is he going to deny that their writers believed in the actuality of the pictures they provided of the heavenly realm and what went on there? Is he going to claim that Plutarch—never mind Isis and Osiris—in his “On the Delay of Divine Justice” is only presenting an allegory of Arideus’ vision of the punishments meted out to the guilty in the higher realm of the stars? Is Revelation entirely allegory, with its apocalyptic scenes in heaven including the birth of the Messiah?

Well, maybe he is, because he does have a habit of repeating himself, no matter what I say in response. But if I demonstrate this vast body of thought and literature about the heavenly world existing in contemporary literature of the time, then I have presented an undeniable “world of myth” into which can logically be fitted the interpretations of the savior god myths within the cults themselves. Even these latter have “indicators” in such a direction, which is all I am claiming, which is all that my “world of myth” is designed to do: present a widespread context into which a Platonic reorientation of the Osiris and Mithras and Attis myths can be argued for the period of Christianity’s genesis. Don just can't seem to understand this.

And what will Don do then? Oh, yes all these mythological happenings were envisioned for the upper world, but no no no, not the myths of the savior gods in the cults. That could not possibly be. Just as he at one point in the past, in his sublunar apoplexy, claimed that, well, maybe all sorts of things could go on in the heavens above the moon, but no no no, not in the region below the moon. There was no such thing, and they didn’t have trees and nails in the firmament (despite my world of myth examples containing all sorts of such geomorphic things above the moon). So let’s see what he comes up with this time.

Well, of course, by now you hopefully realize that your “if” is dead wrong. If you had actually read my writings you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into this misrepresentative mess. I am not saying that only the mystery cults believed in a world of myth. I daresay virtually everyone believed in it. What I am saying is a relocation of the specific cultic myths of the savior gods was probably done as well (drawing on the evidence/indicators and the parallel phenomenon of a general concept of a world of myth in the heavens which my chapter 12 presents, both among pagans and Jews). We have to say probably, because we have no direct writings about the interpretation of the myths within the secret rites of the cults, since this was forbidden. But I use my overall picture of a general “world of myth” in the view of the times as corroboration for making the argument that probably the cultic interpretation followed suit, and moved its myths into a heavenly context. And for the latter we also have indicators in the surviving writings, especially in Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris.

All this was designed to provide corroboration—“proof of context”—for my case that the Pauline savior Christ was also regarded as having been sacrificed in the heavens, though the latter was principally demonstrated through the Christian epistolary texts themselves. As I have tried to clarify in the past, I do not claim the pagan and Jewish sectarian writings as “proof” of a Pauline parallel, let alone the primary argument, but as supportive evidence within the thinking and tendencies of the time, an entirely legitimate process.

As I pointed out in an earlier posting, despite misleading language in one paragraph of The Jesus Puzzle (not either of the ones you quoted above), my Appendix 6 on the subject clearly stated that I was speaking of the reorientation of the mystery cult myths within the cults themselves, not in the general thinking of the non-devotee, who no doubt still treated the myth of Osiris or Attis as having ‘taken place’ in a primordial past. In the face of that Appendix which Don steadfastly ignored over the years, Don persisted time after time in appealing to one paragraph in the main text which created an erroneous impression, one corrected in JNGNM.

And I have just done that. I have summarized here what I do in both books, in the Appendix 6 and parts of the main text of The Jesus Puzzle and throughout Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, with a particular focus on Chapter 12 and the presentation of its “world of myth.” It is hardly “an extraordinary position,” given the picture I have supplied of that ancient thought-world in its Platonic expression.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Yes, WE don't believe in alternate realities (though religious people generally do), and so we tend to want to bring everything down to earth, even to within the human brain. (We pretty well know now that religious experience takes place entirely within the human brain.)

But we can hardly attribute that kind of modern enlightenment and knowledge to the ancients. They believed in the reality of the spiritual heavenly world. That's clear from their writings. So I would not agree that much of this dispute is over definitions. Maryhelena, in her insistence on having everything anchored in history, is also seeking to redefine ancient thought in modern directions, which is why I don't accept it. And because there is no proof of her contentions in the texts themselves.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

And I don't use "the descending-ascending god model"??? It was front-row-center in The Jesus Puzzle, as you well know. And considering that Carrier himself, as a result of reading and reviewing TJP in 2002, was eventually persuaded to the mythicist side of the fence, can we not surmise where Carrier might have gotten his "descending-ascending god model" or decided it was applicable in the MJ debate? Give me a break!

In Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, the descending-ascending god and the world of myth are complementary elements of a single if complex picture.

Are you going to be dishing up this kind of confused nonsense in your 'response' to my Chapter 12? No doubt.

Earl Doherty

aa5874

Ehrman's book "Did Jesus Exist?" is extremely disturbing because the author mis-represented himself many times.

Ehrman claims that "the Gospels are among the best attested books from the ancient world"--See Did Jesus Exist?" page 180.

Now, examine page 269 of "Did Jesus Exist?"

Ehrman is NOT credible because he mis-represented his own findings.

The Canonical Gospels are some of the worse attested books from the ancient world.

EarlDoherty

Well, aa certainly has a point. Even I had lost track of what this thread was about. But we all know who derailed it. Don with his constant harping on my “world of myth” concept and seizing yet again on the opportunity to quote that passage in TJP which he has given us countless times before. A broken record indeed.

But I am going to take the opportunity to make one particular comment, which will relate to the OP. Do we all remember the mood and attitudes expressed here by such as Don in the months preceding the publication of Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?? There was a lot of anticipation that Ehrman was going to deal a death blow to mythicism (or at least one rendering it unconscious). Wait and see! they said, even when certain misgivings arose resulting from Ehrman’s pronouncements on radio shows and the HuffPost ahead of time. I was admonished by Don not to show any disrespect to an established scholar, who would undoubtedly clean my clock.

Well, our worst misgivings were realized when the book actually came out. Not only was Ehrman roundly condemned in all quarters, my Vridar series and now the e-book version, thoroughly eviscerated Ehrman’s case and exposed all sorts of defective logic, fallacious reasoning, mindless prejudice in spades. It also strengthened the case in favour of mythicism. And what do those past voices say now? Well, actually, they haven’t changed! Ehrman and his book have been shunted aside as though they never existed. The condemnation of mythicism and me in particular goes on as before, unchanged. I am still the charlatan and graveyard theorist I always was. Not a word of acknowledgment of any change to the relative position between me and Ehrman, between mythicism and historicism, has crossed Don’s or Abe’s lips. (Of course, Abe we know didn’t read my rebuttal to Ehrman, and Don shows no sign of having done so.)

Does that remind you of anything? How about of the diehard fundamentalist who simply closes his or her mind to anything said in disproof of bible inerrancy or anything else in the catalogue of religious dogma? How about the likes of James McGrath whose animosity toward mythicism and his precious appeals to the authority of tradition blind him to anything that even hints at the problems lying in that tradition?

Nothing speaks to the character of Don and Abe in their so-called “debates” with mythicism and myself than this great silent void and the relegation of Bart Ehrman’s book to oblivion.

Earl Doherty

Toto

I have been influenced by a book that might help or not, Margaret Wertheimer's The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The dualistic view of a separate spiritual reality persisted through the middle ages, but is now hard to wrap our minds around.

So G'Don keeps trying to pinpoint the exact physical boundaries of the layers of heaven. What is the latitude and longitude of this "world of myth?" Who issues the passports? I think this misses the point.

andrewcriddle

Proclus is a neoplatonist not a middle platonist.

He was not a particularly original writer and the great majority of his ideas go back a century or so before his time.

However he is not a good guide to Platonism in the New Testament period.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

There may have been an idea of a perfect model/archtype of Jerusalem in heaven of which the earthly Jerusalem is an imperfect imitation.

I don't however think this is what Paul means in Galatians.

Andrew Criddle