Didymus

To the contrary, I was describing docetism, a christology with roots in a dualistic view of the universe. Docetism envisioned Jesus as spirit in the form of flesh, rather than a true flesh-and-blood human being. The Catholic Encyclopedia puts it thusly: "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."

Marcion was certainly a docetist, but I don't think there's consensus on whether he was a gnostic. Turtullian, who wrote the book ("Against Marcion") on Marcion, thought he was a gnostic. And that was the view until the 20th century. More recently, with the discovery of a wide range of gnostic works at Nag Hammadi, there's less agreement on the definition of gnosticism and how well the label fits Marcion.

But that's a subject for another thread.

Didymus

Awmte

This is probably the "sub-lunar" realm I've read so much about...
The numerous discussions I've perused at IIDB (all the threads on κατα σα�?κα) appear to treat this as a fundamental building block of the JM position. I just wanted to confirm if this general perception was true. Anyone with a brief synopsis, if its not too much trouble?
Thanks, all.

Toto

The κατα σα�?κα issue is not the building block of the JM position. There is a lot of discussion on it here because the historicists think that it is a weak point in Doherty's argument, and that the phrase κατα σα�?κα is an indication that early Christians thought that Jesus was a real person, not a spiritual entity.

Doherty could have taken the easy way out and claimed that all references to κατα σα�?κα were later interpolations or forged, but he has tried to deal with the text as it stands.

Awmte

So what are the fundamental bases for the JM position? Does it solely rely on an anlaysis of Paul's christology, or does Doherty adduce non-canonical sources as well?
If anyone could run me through a list, as in Reasons:
1. ...
2. ...
etc.
I'd be very grateful.
(Ps. I know I should go to the source text, but I'd like a brief precis before I know what depth I'm getting into...)

Thanks.

Amaleq13

There really is no "JM position" except the general notion that there is no single historical figure behind the Gospel stories. You seem to be primarily interested in Doherty's thesis on this notion and the best summary is his website:

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/jesus.html

You can also run a search for threads with "Doherty" in the title and be overwhelmed with the results.

Didymus

(Where did "JM" come from? - just when we've become accustomed to using "HJ" for "Historical Jesus" and "MJ" for "Mythical Jesus"!)

Doherty isn't the only proponent of Mythical Jesus theory. Of course, even Doherty would be hard pressed to "adduce non-canonical sources" for Jesus' non-existence. The idea of a historical Jesus wasn't in widespread circulation until the 2nd century, by which time there wasn't any way of refuting the Christian belief in Jesus' historicity.

As Ameleq13 said, there's no mythical Jesus position per se, except to reject the historicity of the Jesus of the Christian gospels, but within that loose framework there are many critiques of historical Jesus doctrines. And many theories about how the writers of the gospels came to write about him as though he were an actual historical figure.

For a rigorously condensed summary of the leading Jesus theories, historicist and mythicist alike, see Peter Kirby's webpage "Historical Jesus Theories" at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html.

Of course, he left out a theory that insists that Julius Caesar was Jesus and one that says that Jesus was really Apollonius of Tyana and and one that says Jesus was the invention of the ubiquitous Piso family of Roman aristocrats and one that has Simon of Cyrene substituting himself for Jesus and dying on the cross, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Didymus

Chili

Of course there is but there is no evidence for a historical Jesus except in the myth.

Jn.5:39-40 should tell you this: You search the scriptures wherein you think you have eternal life--they testify on my behalf. Yet you fail to come to me and get that life.

This means that there is no salvation in history or the bible but there is in real life.

Awmte

Thanks all for the links. Time for me to do some heavy reading I guess...