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How do we get the stories we do about Jesus? Well, maybe I can't answer that, but you might enjoy the development of thought amongst a few of the church fathers regarding the origins of the Ebionites, an early group of believers who weren't wanted by orthodoxy. Their name derives from the Hebrew word "ebion", meaning "poor" -- the word is used in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and you'll also remember, "blessed are the poor...".

First, invent a founder, then develop a home town, and a life story.

I'd better be careful, or some Ebionite might harrass me.


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GakuseiDon

Weren't the Ebionites believers in a HJ who became the Son of God at His baptism? I believe that Cerinthus was supposed to be one. I think they are dated around mid to late 1st C CE. At the least, they are evidence against Doherty's thesis that the earliest believers in Christ just believed in a HJ.

CX

According Ehrman, the Ebionites were a group of Jewish Xians scattered throughout the Mediterranean from "at least the 2nd" to the 4th century. They are known largely from a refutation of their main gospel text by Epiphanus of Salamis. I've not read a lot on the Ebionites but I don't think we really know all that much about them. I'm not sure how one gets concretely to the 1st century from the evidence we have. In any event the Ebionites themselves do not appear to have taken there name from a founder figure. This is, I believe, a mistake made by Epiphanus of Salamis or some other church father.

spin

Perhaps my original post was not clear enough in its intent. It is a paradigm for how complex accounts can grow from nothing more than the will to explain some phenomenon. Take for example the existence of a xian "heretical" group called the Ebionites, a name both clear in its relationship to the Hebrew word 'BYWN rendered "ebion", meaning "poor", and the church fathers' descriptions of the group, playing on the word "poor". So, the origin of the name is clear, but by the time the noted church scholar Tertullian was writing around 200 CE, he was led to believe that this group got its name from a certain Ebion, supposed founder of the group. Next from later church fathers we get a place of birth and then events in this hypothesized life. To top it off we even get a few texts by our now existent Ebion.

These are not wilful deceivers of people, but serious writers receiving traditions which they accept as fact and pass on as fact. This could very well reflect at least part of the development of Jesus traditions as well -- without theorizing about fraud or deception on the part of the writers. Though I couldn't rule such deception out, it is not necessary for the transmission of the tradition. (Add to this a healthy theoretical approach to understanding the tradition and we can get a writer who concluded that the longed for messiah must have already come, etc.)

Still Tertullian, Epiphanius, Jerome, etc., all intelligent writers, show how non-existence can be given body and life.


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DrJim

hmmmm,

I might have to revise my manuscript on the eyewitness accounts to the historical Enoch...

And I almost had it finished.

CX

Or perhaps we're just a little slow on the uptake. I know I am.

I understand your point now. I imagine one could find other examples of this phenomenon. It would make for an interesting study.

Attonitus

It is not something so simple, here a serious problem. The docetism also exists and it is one of the oldest heresies (remains in GJohn, GLuke...) and for the docetes Jesus is not born, it doesn't suffer, he doesn't die, he is not a man.

"A heretical sect dating back to Apostolic times. Their name is derived from dokesis, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death"

Docetae