Freethought & Rationalism Archive

maryhelena · 02-12-2010, 05:11 AM

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

GDon, the "prima facie" 'evidence' from Paul is, as recorded in the book of Acts, that Paul had a vision from heaven, a vision about Jesus of Nazareth. That's it, that's the 'evidence'.

But Acts is about Paul's vision of the resurrected Jesus. What has this to do with Paul's Jesus being a descendent of the Israelites?

There is a consistency in Paul, where the pre-resurrected Jesus appears to be in the flesh, while the resurrected Jesus becomes a "quickening spirit". Paul actually says that, in the reference I give above. Act's Jesus was seen by Act's Paul as a spirit rather than in the flesh.

At the least, we could say that that person seemed convinced that person X was historical. Can we say that Paul -- despite his psychological issues -- at least appears to have believed that Jesus was historical (regardless of the source of information)?

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

You cannot use Paul's vision as 'evidence' for a historical Jesus - you just cannot do that. And if you cannot, logically, do that - then you cannot, logically, take anything else that Paul might say, regarding his subsequent interpretation of his vision, to have reference to a flesh and blood historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Sure, according to the dating of the gospel storyline, Paul is a late arrival on the Jesus scene - but that storyline itself, the gospel storyline re Jesus of Nazareth - or wherever - is itself a storyline that cannot be demonstrated to be historical. What we have is a mythological gospel storyline, a figurative or symbolic or allegorical account of Jesus - and then we have Paul and his vision of Jesus speaking to him from beyond the dead. And the historicist want to take all of this literally??? - or at least attempt some type of salvage operation and try and extract a human Jesus from the mythological wreck......This salvage attempt is just a last ditch effort to rescue, to resuscitate, an aging idea that is long past its glory days.

So, as I said earlier - take a trip with Paul by all means - enjoy the theological side-show - but don't expect that the theological highroad will take you to a historical core to the gospel storyline. That journey follows the low road...

So, Paul's comments about Jesus being of the Israelites according to the flesh, was information coming from a vision?

Interpretation of that vision - taking that vision for a ride - adding whatever that suited his fancy - perhaps Paul was of a similar frame of mind to Josephus - and used lots of "shrewd conjectures and interpretations"

Failing that, perhaps he joined the anti-Marcion fraction and decided Marcion needed a kick in the pants and so came up with lots of in your face Jewish colouring...

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Josephus: War Book 111 ch.V111 sect. 3

"...he called to mind the dreams which he had dreamed in the night-time,
whereby God had signified to him beforehand both the future calamities of
the Jews, and the event that concerned the Roman Emperors. Now Josephus was able to give shrewd conjectures about the interpretations of such dreams as have been ambiguously delivered by God. Moreover, he was not unacquainted with the prophecies contained in the sacred books, as being a priest himself, and of the posterity of priests; and just then he is in ecstasy; and setting before him the tremendous images of the dreams he had lately had, ......he put up a secret prayer to God..........”

(my bolding)

GakuseiDon · 02-12-2010, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

So, Paul's comments about Jesus being of the Israelites according to the flesh, was information coming from a vision?

Interpretation of that vision - taking that vision for a ride - adding whatever that suited his fancy - perhaps Paul was of a similar frame of mind to Josephus - and used lots of "shrewd conjectures and interpretations"

Perhaps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Failing that, perhaps he joined the anti-Marcion fraction and decided Marcion needed a kick in the pants and so came up with lots of in your face Jewish colouring...

I suppose it is possible.

aa5874 · 02-12-2010, 05:47 AM

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

.......For crying out aloud - what would a historicist do today if someone came along and said their vision about a figure X was actually about a historical person X who was crucified a few years ago but was raised from the dead and is now speaking, via a vision, to them. Just what would you do? Would you not suggest that a visit to a psychiatrist might be in order...

At the least, we could say that that person seemed convinced that person X was historical. Can we say that Paul -- despite his psychological issues -- at least appears to have believed that Jesus was historical (regardless of the source of information)?

Well, exactly. The HJ is a case based on people with psychological issues. It is a well established practise NOT to accept information as valid from people with known psychological issues.

It is most disturbing when one has to rely on the supposed belief of an apparent madman.People with psychological issues are at times regarded as having no veracity or chronological value

These are some of the psychological issues raised when dealing with the HJ, the human only Jesus.

1. If Saul/Paul knew Jesus was just a man, why did he worship him as a God?

2. If the Pauline writers knew that Jesus was just a man, why did they subject themselves to be beaten to pulp, almost stoned to death and also incarcerated while they were trying to convince people Jesus was a God?

3. If people in Galilee knew Jesus was just a man for thirty years then they would have known that the disciples and Saul/Paul had pyschological issues as soon as they claimed Jesus was the Creator or the Son of God.

The HJ will go nowhere until the psychological issues are first resolved.

It is one thing to believe a man is mad but extremely frightening when one believes the very mad-man.

maryhelena · 02-12-2010, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

At the least, we could say that that person seemed convinced that person X was historical. Can we say that Paul -- despite his psychological issues -- at least appears to have believed that Jesus was historical (regardless of the source of information)?

The simple answer to that is - if Paul believed that some dead person was speaking to him from beyond the grave - he was a nut case. We can of course say what we want regarding Paul - but no magic wand, no intellectual gymnastics, are going to be able to save a nut case from the mad house.

I have more respect for the NT than to label Paul a nut case. That respect stops me from pursuing any line of argument that would be demeaning to a rational mind. Whatever it was that Paul was about - it most certainly was not about thinking his vision of a dead man speaking related to a historical Jesus.

The gospel storyline re Jesus, and Acts, with its Damascus road conversion of Paul - that is all part and parcel of a Christian origin story. To take it at face value is to sell oneself short. And, of course, such a shortsighted approach is to do those early Christians a considerable injustice - to think they were so feeble minded that they could not tell the difference between history and an interpretation of that history...a reflection upon history through a prophetic and theological lens. All a literal reading does is to see the prophetic and theological reflection - it fails to see the historical core from which that reflection is generated.

arnoldo · 02-12-2010, 08:34 AM

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Originally Posted by Toto

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Originally Posted by arnoldo

Depending on the context drinking blood would correlate to the english example of "working one's fingers to the bone". In a different context it would correlate to "eat, live, sleep and breathe" a truth. The point still stands that "drinking blood/eating flesh" was an aramaic idiom which in no way supports a mythicist case. For more info see below.

Read what comes before that:

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Originally Posted by NIV

John 6:48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

There is more here than a simple metaphor that only means to work hard. There are probably several layers of meaning, even if one layer is an Aramaic idiom. And the whole passage does support a mythicist interpretation of the narrative.

The passage does support a mythicist interpretation if one holds the position of dogmatic materialism-i.e, nothing exists in reality that is not a body, elementary or composite, or waves, or fields of energy (Adler).

ApostateAbe · 02-12-2010, 09:34 AM

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Originally Posted by spamandham

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I am not trying to poison the well, disparage or psychoanalyze. The reason I keep bringing up creationism is because, like with creationists, I cannot easily change minds with just the evidence.

But the same could be said of you. I have made numerous points which you ignored (intentionally or not?). I went to great length to discuss Jesus' family members disappearing off the face of history into the abyss, only to have you totally ignore it, for example.

I went through Paul's use of variants of 'crucify', which you did not ignore, but nonetheless gave short shrift to...as if your mind were already made up and inflexible. In contrast, I have had a months worth of discussion on the minutia of Galatians vs 1 Corinthians with other HJ advocates here.

I discussed how the passion is derived from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. You ignored that as well.

I discussed the similarities between Abraham and Jesus as foundational characters and the similarities between the OT and the gospels regarding origins stories...I don't think you even responded. Surely you don't think there is a historical Abraham!? Yet the exact same religious cult that produced this fictional foundational character could not possibly produce another.

Not once have I seen you quantify probabilities. You are greatly abusing the term to loosely mean "it's easier for me to swallow...". This is the vernacular usage of the term, but not the professional usage. You are calling to task people with formal educations on the topic, when you appear to have none at all.

"A" theory? I suppose...if you simplify the world to HJ vs MJ, then anything that isn't HJ is thus MJ. There are dozens (hundreds?) of HJ theories. There are at least ~half a dozen well known MJ theories. Are you completely oblivious of the radicals - formally educated scholars who reject not only the historicity of Jesus, but even Paul?

All Jesus theories are ad hoc, because it is impossible that the evidence is prima facie historical. Nor is Jesus a character with a bit of magical fluff attached like so many others. The magical fluff is central to his character. HJers must decide what they will keep/reject just as MJers must.

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By pointing out that creationists also do this to keep their unlikely beliefs consistent--they explain the geologic column as the expectation that animals would scurry uphill to escape the rising flood waters--

....there is nothing particularly unlikely with the idea that a hero figure is not historical. There are hundreds...if not thousands of such characters we could both agree are not historical - many of which were once regarded as historical by some society of the past.

spamandham, my only intent was to explain why I use the analogy of creationism. I didn't mean to open a can of worms inside a barrel of monkeys. I don't know how to illustrate the same point about fundamental methodology without it.

Rick Sumner · 02-12-2010, 09:40 AM

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well, if Paul has been significantly interpolated, then isn't it possible that Paul met Jesus, stayed with him for a few years, and married his sister? But it was all removed for some reason?

This is exactly the problem with the argument. If we're going to appeal to lost texts I can suggest that there's a lost text a Philo that says he loved to kick it with Jam Master J and his 12 man band, because the wine never ran out at his parties just as well.

Doug Shaver · 02-12-2010, 10:51 AM

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Can we say that Paul -- despite his psychological issues -- at least appears to have believed that Jesus was historical (regardless of the source of information)?

No, I don't think we can. Not if we read everything that we're pretty sure Paul actually wrote. Taken as a whole, the Pauline corpus is not consistent with the supposition that he was talking about some man like the one who was the central figure of the canonical gospels.

A handful of cherry-picked proof texts subject to multiple plausible interpretations do not constitute evidence to the contrary.

show_no_mercy · 02-12-2010, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well, if Paul has been significantly interpolated, then isn't it possible that Paul met Jesus, stayed with him for a few years, and married his sister? But it was all removed for some reason?

This is exactly the problem with the argument. If we're going to appeal to lost texts I can suggest that there's a lost text a Philo that says he loved to kick it with Jam Master J and his 12 man band, because the wine never ran out at his parties just as well.

But isn't it a naive assumption that Paul's letters weren't tampered with?

We have "heretical" Christians who only appealed to Paul as an authority. But Paul's current letters are incompatible with the beliefs of these "heretical" Christians. So someone did some tampering somewhere...

Toto · 02-12-2010, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well, if Paul has been significantly interpolated, then isn't it possible that Paul met Jesus, stayed with him for a few years, and married his sister? But it was all removed for some reason?

This is exactly the problem with the argument. If we're going to appeal to lost texts I can suggest that there's a lost text a Philo that says he loved to kick it with Jam Master J and his 12 man band, because the wine never ran out at his parties just as well.

The argument for interpolation is not based on an arbitrary desire to fit the letters to a preconceived theory. It is based on observations of the theological disputes at the time and the obvious motives of the custodians of the letters to conform Paul to their theological doctrines.

That's why you find formulaic references to "born of a woman" and such, which establish that Jesus had a human nature and birth.

The interpolator did not foresee the 20th century debates, so did not think to add details about Jesus' mothers name, or make sure that Paul taked to Peter about what Jesus actually said. Those were not the issues that 2nd century Christians cared about.

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