Ktotwf

One of the things that has fascinated me in the past few weeks is Nietzsche's portrait of Jesus from The Antichrist. Nietzsche despised Christianity, but seemed to have a grudging respect for Jesus as a revaluator of values whose teachings have been warped beyond distortion by the religion that followed in his wake. I chiefly like this particular narrative for its extreme irony.

Nietzsche saw Christianity as the product of Jewish ressentiment against the Romans. The might of the Romans essentially created a need for the previously Nobly proud Jews to salve their own ego by denying the value of the world. (Note that there is no afterlife in Judaism).

Nietzsche views Jesus as a "bringer of glad tidings" who showed an approach to life that was to serve as a model for free spirits. Jesus LITERALLY and COMPLETELY devalues the physical world, and instead preaches constantly of a "Kingdom of Heaven". Preacher Jesus then is COMPLETELY concerned with the spiritual at the expense of the physical. His reaction to a world of Roman domination is to abandon hatred, physical resistance, struggle etc. and focus on the Laws of God.

For Nietzsche, the crucifixion was this attitude taken to the absolute extreme:

This is an intriguing interpretation of the Gospels precisely because it makes crystal clear many of the passages that Christians struggle to awkwardly interpret in modern times:

"Turn the other cheek", "gouge out your eye if it offends thee", "whoever comes to me and does not hate their mother and father" etc etc etc.

Nietzsche seems to be assuming that Jesus was a real man who was interpreted and distorted by his Apostles, who were bitter and unable to understand him. Then, Paul (the great villain of the story) transforms Jesus' death-as-example-of-non-resistance into a revenge fantasy wherein Jesus' death was actually a victory in which sins were forgiven, and in the life to come those responsible for evil here will be punished infinitely. Thus, the great vision of Armageddon where Jesus returns as a warrior to purge the earth of evil.

There is something compelling, and, dare I say it, emotionally true in Nietzsche's Jesus-as-misunderstood-wiseman. Frequently enough you will find people commenting on the difference between what Jesus seemed to be teaching and what Christianity has subsequently become.

All this seems to present some interesting possibilities for the HJ vs. MJ Theory.

I propose something like this (obviously not 100% true, but a theory):

Jesus and/or the Group who authored most of Jesus' famous sayings, probably influenced by Stoicism and Buddhism, propound a PROFOUNDLY world denying point of view, and these stories find their expression in The Gospel of Mark. This philosophy arises from Jewish dissatisfaction from a world dominated by the Romans.

The next part is murkier - while the crucifixtion is meant to be the ultimate example of the free spirit lifestyle, and the Book of Mark is meant to be a gnostic invitation to understand the lifestyle, it is transformed by those "not in the know" so to speak, into a story about Jesus being a Messiah crucified for his sins.

The story becomes watered down, in other words, for broader appeal.

Any thoughts or feelings? I've just been thinking this through lately.

GakuseiDon

The Q community might provide support for that notion. From here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html

Tuckett observes (op. cit., pp. 570-571):

A much discussed feature of Q arises out of Q's version of the mission charge. Here the Q missionaries are told to take absolutely nothing for their journey, not even the basic necessities of life such as food or clothing. Elsewhere, too, Q sayings seem to presuppose an extremely radical break with past personal ties. The Q Christians are told that they must "hate" their own families (Luke 12:46 par.); they are told that they must take up their cross (Luke 14:27 par.). They are not to worry about their daily needs (Luke 12:22-34 par.) since God will provide for them. They are to be followers of the Son of Man, who has nowhere to lay his head; and they are to break with their past in such a radical way that they are not even to go home to bury a member of their own family (Luke 9:57-60 par.). These sayings have led to the plausible theory that behind Q lies a group of Christians who obeyed these instructions to the letter. Hence Q presupposes the existence of wandering prophets or charismatics who made a radical break with their own homes and went about preaching the message of the kingdom...

The first part sounds like typical Cynic philosophy, which was similar to Buddhism in some ways.

aa5874

The Son of Man in gLuke is the Holy Thing of a Holy Ghost. You simply cannot use Non-historical sources for historical purposes.

ALL claims about YOUR Jesus should be accompanied with CREDIBLE historical sources of antiquity.

I am NOT interested in what you BELIEVE.

Let us not waste time.

In gLuke, the Son of Man was NOT human.


Lu 1:35 -

DrZoidberg

Nietzsche is very often criticised for playing fast and loose with sources from antiquity. The conclusion from people that study him is that he just made this up, that he's talking about the present. I like Nietzsche, but this is where he fucked up.

Ktotwf

The question doesn't rest on Nietzsche's correctness in his portrait of Jesus to the letter. It is interesting because Nietzsche is not the only one to have seen the divergence between the teachings of Jesus and Christianity.

Nietzsche provides a window for putting that difference into context.

DrZoidberg

I think Nietzsche is right on the money regarding the current state of Christianity. But when it comes to his analysis of antiquity or Jesus himself he's clearly up a tree.

sharon45

The character of jesus keeps people stupid. It isn't shown in the writtings of whether this was intentional or not, but jesus is never adequately challenged on his clear ignorance and/or foolishness displayed throughout the gospels.

Jedi Mind Trick

I like this theory. It seems to be very similar to some of my own speculations.

Horatio Parker

It sounds as Nietzsche saw the passion as an altruistic act rather than one of atonement.

To my mind, all the other worldly stuff is designed to show the relative importance of the spirit. It's not so much a prescription for leading life as an illustration of what the most important things are, a transcendence, not an escape.

It seems possible that the teachings of a HJ could've been distorted by his followers, but about the crucifixion I'm not so sure because there appears to be an assumption that there was an intrinsic meaning to the crucifixion, and that seems less likely in the HJ scenario you propose. A HJ accepting crucifixion with foreknowledge sounds more like Mark's guy than Nietzsche's. Jesus as Socrates?

While Xtianity may have originated because of Jewish resentment towards the Romans, I doubt it but it's possible, it's popularity among Gentiles must be explained another way. If Xtianity had remained Jewish, history would've turned out differently.