spamandham

Paul, by his own admission, was deemed a nut even by others in the Christ movement.

spamandham

This assumes the story was written as a factual account rather than as an allegory. If the latter, then I don't think such a conclusion is justified without a much more in depth analysis of the message the author intended to impart.

Amaleq13

I wouldn't be so quick to rely on Wiki for accurate information. The subject has come up here before (for example, here - specifically spin's post #3) and I don't recall the literal meaning of the name ever being doubted.

Even assuming the information to be correct, the door is still far enough open (ie "may") for mythicists to deny a death blow.

lee_merrill

Um, it's profanity, and if such people are not mature enough to conduct themselves the way they said they would when they signed up here, then I need not read this kind of talk, until they are.

lee_merrill

It was a common name, actually, it's Joshua's name (lots of Joshuas today, even, and note Col. 4:11), and it has the sense of God-salvation, as far as I understand this, which might mean "God is salvation" or "God our salvation" and so on.

jeffevnz

But my point is that the origin and meaning of the name Yeshua would not have been obvious to 1st century Jews. The meaning of the older form Yehoshua might have been obvious to them, but Yeshua is a slurred version of it that obscures the root words.

So if you agree with me on that, we have early Christians referring to their Messiah by a name that, to them, is just a plain old name, like "Steve" or "Phil", without any deep meaning.

Huon

Philippians (NAS)
2:9. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
2:10. so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

In some societies, the name of a god is given to children. Salvador, Salvatore, Sauveur, are possible names for boys. Dennis, Denis, is Dyonysios. Hercules was a possible name. In some other societies, the name(s) of the god(s) are taboo.

From a latin-greek-celtic point of view, the name "Jesus" has no particular meaning. In France, it is not given to a boy. In Spain, yes, very often.

jeffevnz

Sure. I guess I was thinking more of the reverse situation, ie, gods being given names that already existed as human names.

The only examples of that that I can think of are the personal cults of Roman Emperors, Egyptian Pharoahs, etc, and those cults, of course, were based on real, historical people.

gurugeorge

I don't think that's the argument from silence, the argument from silence is: "If the context would lead you to expect X, but there's no X, then that's a good (though not conclusive) reason to believe it was made up".

So: Paul's not using "Jesus"' sayings, tidbits from his life-story, etc., to bolster his arguments in his letters, where it would have been apposite to do so, and indeed quoting Scripture instead, makes it plausible that the familiar Gospel "Jesus" (with all that life-story and all those pithy sayings) is a later invention than Paul, and that Paul's "Jesus" was a "God" like others - e.g. an entity met in visions, possibly embodying a philosophical ideal, possibly a novel kind of Jewish take on the Mysteries.

It's not totally conclusive, but it makes-plausible. The more deathly the silence, the more plausible. (And given the emotional "pull" of the familiar "Jesus" story and sayings, and given the importance of "Jesus" to Paul, his almost completely deathly silence on "Jesus"' life and sayings, is quite baffling, had the familiar "Jesus" story been part of his milieu, and a fairly recent part, at that.)

Again, the silence of independent contemporaries roundabout the time "Jesus" is supposed to have been alive, is odd, were "Jesus" the one mentioned in the Gospels, who apparently made quite a splash on the scene in Palestine at the time. (Although it's not so odd if he were a more obscure sort of preacher.) It's suggestive, at the very least, that that familiar "Jesus" story is a later invention, and possibly even a total fabrication (if there's not even an obscure preacher at the root of it).

Or, let's put this the other way round: for (e.g.) Paul's letters to be evidence of the "Jesus" we all know and love, there would have to be some glimmers of his life story and sayings in Paul's writings. That there's no glimmer, makes his letters non-evidence for that "Jesus".

Chris Weimer

Where would Paul have mentioned any of this and why would he have mentioned it there? Please use other ancient sources to back up your claims, not just "what you think".