Steven Carr

So an argument from silence combined with simply ignoring clear evidence that , by the time of 2 Peter, Christians were having to protest to other Christians that their stories of a historical Jesus had not been invented.

That makes 2 strikes.....

ApostateAbe

If someone argues that early Christians believed that Jesus was a visitor from the Moon, then I figure that a counterargument from silence counts for something. I don't understand what you mean with strike #2, so I apologize.

gurugeorge

A myth can have fleshly aspects, there's no need for mythicism to posit that the original Christians believed in an entity that had no fleshly aspects at all.

In my version of mythicism, I posit a sect of disappointed-apocalyptics-verging-on-proto-Gnostics, of an ecstatic/mystical flavour, who had revelations from Scriptural exegesis and visionary experience of the Messiah, who they believed (contrary to other prevailing ideas of the Messiah) had existed in a recent-ish past and had already won a spiritual victory sub rosa rather than the expected military victory with attendant brouhaha.

In the earliest writings we have, there's not much biography, just an affirmation that he had existed, had been crucified, the spiritual significance of these purported facts, and some quotes from Scripture purporting to support that. Certainly there are fleshly aspects to the story (after all he was crucified), but there's no need at that stage for a fully filled-in biography.

Later, you get, "but what did Jesus do in the war, daddy?" And people naturally filled in a more detailed biography for this entity (no doubt partly from "prophecy", from ecstatic visionary experience).

Still later, you get attempts to cast the story in the form of a Stoic exemplary biography.

IOW:-

The standard Messiah was a myth - a myth of an entity to come, a kingly victor.

The Christian Messiah was fully as mythical as the standard Messiah - only it was a myth of an entity who had been, a spiritual victor.

Simple values-reversal, reversal of tropes.

But at all stages, of course - they believed he had existed.

What would be needed to substantiate the HJ case would be evidence from the earliest writings to show that any of the people mentioned (e.g. Cephas) had actually known the Messiah they were talking about in person. As I put it a while ago: suppose "Paul" had said something like "Jesus had told Cephas that was not the case". That's the kind of link that modern, rationalist historical research would find convincing: it's a link between the human being who scribbled and a human being who eyeballed another human being. There's nothing like that in any of the earliest stuff.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, Doherty believes that early Christians knew he was a myth, and I can't even understand why anyone would take that seriously. There might be something I am missing.

show_no_mercy

What's more, none of these people had actually seen him. Or if they did, it was more like Bigfoot sightings.

"I heard he exorcised some demons from a man into pigs"

"Yeah? I heard that he walked on water"

"Yeah, I heard that he raised someone from the dead"

"I heard that his followers who were a bunch of fishermen abandoned him when one of them betrayed him" (Josephus, Life)

"I heard that he caused a disturbance in the temple and was brought before the procurator by the Jews" (Josephus, "War of the Jews" 6.5.3)

dog-on

You are looking at ancient beliefs from a modern perspective.

bacht

The first advent was only in visions to the early believers. I don't know if this was the catalyst for belief in a supernatural messiah, or if the belief triggered the visions. The second advent was at to be at the end of the age when Christ was revealed to the whole world.

Or, some Galilean nobody was executed by the Romans and his followers had psychotic hallucinations.

dog-on

To me it is as simple as some mystically minded individual spent a lot of time reading the LXX and eventually believed he had found a hidden mystery.

And yes, he probably really believed it.

aa5874

Are you claiming that there were no Jesus believers who regarded Jesus as only a God or only as spiritual?

Please look at Against Heresies by Irenaeus. There were a multiplicity of beliefs about Jesus.

ApostateAbe

Psychotic hallucinations? My own theory is that Jesus was a cult leader, Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate for posing a threat to the peace, Peter took over the cult, and Peter either invented or strongly supported the myth of the resurrection and other subsequent myths of miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels, which the Christians were glad to believe. Does that seem plausible?