JonA

For mythicists who argue that Jesus is a character based on pagan 'dying-rising' gods later historicized in the gospel stories, what is your evidence of this evolution from mythical Christ to historical Christ?

I have not been able to find any indication of an evolution of belief regarding the historicity of Jesus. It appears that in all of the earliest writings on Jesus he is always viewed as having physically existed. (Even if we accept that Paul's references are not to a physical being, it is very difficult to view them as references to a solely mythical being—from 'not necessarily physical' to 'most certainly and only mythical'; it's a pretty big leap.)

How do mythicists address this issue? There is plenty of talk about the silence of early historians regarding the existence of Jesus as an historical being; and that talk is rather spot on. There appear to be no incontestable references to an historical Jesus from early historians living and writing around the time Jesus was supposed to have lived. But if this silence of attestation to Jesus' historicity is a damning nail in the historical Jesus coffin, then certainly the silence of attestation to Jesus' existence as a solely mythical character must be seen as equally damning against the case of a 'myth-first' evolution of the Jesus character.

One would think that, if the Jesus character began his life as a myth that was later historicized, there would be some evidence of the process in the writings of those people who believed in him. Wouldn't they have clearly written about Jesus in this other realm? Why would their references to a mythical Jesus be so elusive that only careful and highly-interpretive readings of a few early texts could divine it if indeed they believed in Jesus as a mythical character in a mythical realm?

Yes, we must ask, 'where is all the evidence for an historical Jesus?'. But we ,must also ask, 'where is all the evidence for a mythical Jesus?'.

So... where is it?

Jon

EmmaZunz

Hi Jon.

There are a number of mythical Jesus texts: Ascension of Isaiah, Revelation, Epistle to the Hebrews all talk about a spiritual Christ figure with no historical description.

Just to take those texts alone, they make out Jesus respectively to be a descending-ascending sacrificial spirit, a seven-horned sacrificial lamb, and a heavenly high priest.

Those should be enough to get us going on working out what the mythical Jesus was!


There are plenty of early Xian texts which as you say do not describe a historical Jesus, e.g. Didache, Epistle to Diognetus, 1 Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, and almost certainly the Pauline Epistles.

There are early texts where historicist details have been interpolated by later scribes, e.g. Ascension of Isaiah.

There are early texts where the historical Jesus idea is only little known or developed, e.g. Epistle of Barnabus, Ignatian Epistles (Trallians 9).


Given the state of the evidence, the onus should really be on the historicists to show us some genuine early corroboration for their historical Jesus.

If Xianity really began with the Jesus of the Gospels then where on earth is he in the rest of the documentary record?

outhouse

they dont.


for the most part their just like creationist. No single replacement hypothesis.


their are very few that break this mold and do the real work, unfortunately. these people are far and few between and most well known. Not these armchair mythers in public forums.

maryhelena

Great OP....:thumbs:

I'm not the type of mythicist your OP is referencing - so will leave it to those who uphold the historicizing of 'Paul's' cosmic/spiritual JC crucifixion to lay the evidence on the table.....

For myself, I find the idea of historicizing 'Paul's' JC myth to be extraordinary: JC crucified in the heavenly spirit realm - and later, according to that type of mythicism, crucified again in the historicizing procedure.... - ah, but the historicizing of 'Paul's' heavenly JC crucifixion is backdated prior to 'Paul's' time - thus only one crucifixion of JC and not two - or something like that......but JC gets back to heaven again - and another spiritual crucifixion - sounds like a real circus to me....But perhaps one of those mythicists that you referenced in your OP will be able to clarify how this historicizing of 'Paul's' spiritual JC actually works.....

EarlDoherty

You sound like a creationist demanding where is all the evidence for evolution, who hasn't even read the popularizing books of Richard Dawkins on the subject.

You also sound like an anti-mythicist demanding where is all the evidence for mythicism, who hasn't even read the books of Earl Doherty.

Or are you just taking the word of Bart Ehrman or James McGrath, with their vast misrepresentation and egregious errors about what those books actually say? (See Neil Godfrey's "Vridar" blog for a whole series of postings about that very thing.)

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

What do you make of the Epistle of Barnabus and the Ignatian Epistles, where the historical Jesus idea is little known or developed? Are they evidence for early Christians who believed in a historical Jesus but had little interest in his earthly life?

EmmaZunz

@GakuseiDon

I guess they might be Xians who are aware of traditions about a historical Jesus, but don't have much detail because Mark's Gospel is not widely available in written form yet? I think most likely Mark invented the historical tradition, and people spread those details orally once they knew of them. Hence an echo starts to reach some writers before the full Gospel writings were spread and everybody knew them well. As soon as Xians had Gospels available, they referenced them copiously.

MrMacSon

Besides the texts mentioned in the first few responses, JonA, there is the various sects present at the time - Docetism, Montanism, Arianism, Marcionism, Zoroastrianism, & others that appear to be early competing Christianities based on a mythical Jesus-like messiah.

Some early writers like Tertullianus, who helped evolve the notion of the Trinity and wrote favorably about early Christianity, switched his own following from the then early Christianity 9he wrote about) to Montanism, before his writings became "orthodox"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian

smeat75

"If Xianity really began with the Jesus of the Gospels then where on earth is he in the rest of the documentary record?"

What documentary record do you imagine that there might be? There is no documentary record. People who have not made a study of antiquity do not realise what a different world we are discussing than the one they are used to.It has been estimated that what remains from antiquity is 1% of the books that were notable enough to be talked about in the books that survive from antiquity. The early Christian Emperors had libraries burnt down, deliberately. The books that survive had to be copied over and over and over through the ages.
The fact that Josephus refers to "James, the brother of Jesus who is called the Christ" and that Tacitus confirms that Jesus was put to death by Pontius Pilate is actually better evidence than we have for many figures from pagan antiquity. It really makes me angry that the ONLY ONE THING in the whole farrago of lies, superstition and nonsense that is the Christian religion and the New Testament that is PROVEN, ie that there was a person called Jesus and he was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate, is the one thing that people choose to challenge the historical basis of the Christian religion on!
It is an extreme, cranky, discredited, worthless fringe theory.

EmmaZunz

@MrMacSon

This is something I want to get more into: the origins and genealogy of the different Xianities.

In particular, what role the historical Jesus tradition played in the development of Gnosticism.

It seems to me (from brief study - I have a book called "Gnosis" coming in the post from which I hope to learn more!) that there was Gnosticism before Xianity, and Xian Gnosticism, and finally historical-Jesus Gnosticism.

What I suspect happened is that Gnosticisms were developed before the historical Jesus traditions emerged, but the HJ traditions were so appealing (such a good meme!) that many forms of Gnosticism took them on board.

Only, the Gnostics seem to have taken HJ on board only half-heartedly. For example, HJ-Gnostics might believe Jesus was incarnated and crucified -- but not in a real body, say.

Now what seems interesting about that to me, is that that sort of Gnosticism would be very unlikely to have begun with a HJ. If it had, then why would its believers find the historical incarnation and crucifixion embarrassing, and have to minimise it and make it unreal? That would amount to minimising the very centre of the focus of their faith - the experience and witness of the God-man Jesus.

No, it seems more likely to me that Gnosticism adopted HJ late, but had to adapt the new Gospel traditions to make them fit the old spirit-Christ faith they began with. So they took HJ on board, but minimised him and accepted him only in a way that fitted their preconceptions.

All of which goes to suggest that Gnostic Xianity did not stem at first from HJ.