rlogan

Yes, GD. That's true. 21 in Josephus.

All else the same, when you introduce the name as a title and observe the Epistle treatment, it points towards myth.

In Josephus, the references read Jesus, son of so-and so or Jesus of such-and such place. It's special pleading to have this Jesus not be so named in the epistles, isn't it? On the other hand, in the gospel accounts we do see that, don't we?

Or am I mistaken about the Epistle treatment?

Amaleq13

I think Llyricist is correct. Doherty is not expecting all of this information to be conveyed by every early epistle author. He is expecting some of it to be included in at least one early letter. Tertullian clearly does provide enough information that we can safely assume he believed that Jesus existed in a specific point in history.

No more than we can envision pagan preachers feeling compelled to provide "more details" about Dionysus than is provided by the tenets of the faith.

Yes, Paul's focus is on the crucifixion forward but the point is that this requires us to assume he is completely ignoring the amazing man described in the Gospels. In addition, in the minimal description of the pre-crucifixion Jesus, he doesn't seem to be describing the Gospel Jesus at all.

Apparently, the source of this information (i.e. divine revelation according to Paul), did not provide a complete guest list. I get the impression that this vision portrays Jesus as addressing the "Christian" community. In other words, Paul is claiming that the Jewish thanksgiving meal tradition should now be understood as giving thanks for the sacrifice. In the Didache, for example, the eucharist is portrayed as a time to give thanks for the revelation that Jesus was the Messiah and for the knowledge obtained. There is no hint of any atoning sacrifice or that the meal was connected to it. Paul is appealing to his divine revelation to support his teachings to them about the new meaning of the thanksgiving meal.

The demonic powers believed to control the earth. You can find a similar belief expressed in the Gospel account of the Temptations. There, Satan is depicted as offering Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the world. This is not identified as a false offer so the author clearly believed that Satan had ownership of the earth. These folks believed that evil powers ruled the earth.

This reference seems to be just as apparently problematic for HJ proponents but, first, here's part of Doherty's explanation:

"The International Critical Commentary (Burton, Galatians, p.216f), points out that the way the verb and participle tenses are used in the Greek, the birth and subjection to the law are presented as simple facts, with no necessary temporal relation to the main verb “sent.” In other words, the conditions of being “born of woman” and being “made subject to the law” (Burton's preferred meaning) do not have to be seen as things that have occurred in the present. Paul has simply enumerated two of the characteristics of the spiritual Christ which are revelant to the issues under discussion."

He goes on to point out that Paul has not chosen the most unambiguous form of the verb but, instead, uses a form that means "becoming" or "comes into existence". An odd choice if we assume he is describing a literal birth.

Let's set aside Doherty for a moment and just consider what Paul is saying here. First, he explicitly tells us in this same letter than his gospel was obtained directly from the Risen Christ and just as explicitly denies it came from any man. Later, in this same letter, he describes finally visiting the "pillars" so that men "of reputation" could approve or disapprove of his gospel to the Gentiles. Paul claims that they had no problem with it given the specific audience but he also asserts that they added nothing to his existing gospel! Apologists somehow forget or ignore this claim when they assert that Paul "must" have obtained some information from the pillars. Read Paul's claims again but keep in mind that every single assertion he makes was obtained directly from the Risen Christ and not by any alleged former disciple.

Still avoiding any reference to Doherty, Paul asserts that Jesus was "born of a woman". He doesn't use the unambiguous, clearly literal version of the verb and he doesn't provide any supporting evidence (e.g. mom's name). Let's even set that aside and assume the phrase to be a rather generic claim that "Jesus was human". That would seem to put a final end to any claim that Paul's Jesus was more of a spiritual concept than a literal man but that ignores the bizarre nature of such an assertion in the first place. The question this assertion suggests to me is: Has any other author in the history of mankind felt compelled to assert that his subject was human? I had thought that Layman had provided an answer to this question when he referenced a similar phrase associated with JBap in the Gospels. I conceded the point but I should have checked the reference first. It turns out the reference doesn't actually fit the requirement of the question. JBap is not asserted as "born of a woman", he is called greater than anyone "born of women". In other words, JBap is called greater than any human. With that reference removed as another example of an author feeling compelled to assert the humanity of his subject, we are still left with Paul's as apparently unique. Why would Paul feel it necessary to assert that Jesus had "come into existence" like a human? If we, again, consider the context of the letter to the Galatians, we find that Paul is complaining that some of his converts there have been lead astray by a "false gospel" of Christ.

It would appear that Paul's assertion is intended to counter a specific claim from this "false gospel" that Jesus was not human and, therefore, could not be considered the Messiah.

That means either the "false apostles" were claiming Jesus to have never really been human or they were claiming that Paul's Jesus was never really human.

Either way, it seems relevant that Paul does not choose to deny this claim by mentioning that the "pillars" knew the guy and hung around with him before he was killed. He also doesn't ask the Galatians who they think the Romans crucified. What he does is remind them that his information came straight from the Risen Christ and, according to that information, Jesus "came into existence" like a human.

If this was a belief included in the "false gospel", we would have belief in a non-human Jesus contemporary with Paul. How would that be possible given living former disciples?

When considered in this context, Doherty's notion of all this taking place in some mythical, spirit-realm seems more credible to me than Paul knowing about a real guy who existed at a specific point in history. I would still like more support for his "heavenly spheres" thesis but I certainly can't see this assertion from Paul as pointing in the direction of the Gospel Jesus.