archibald

Page 2.

Toto

Ted's little list of 92 references is here. At first glance, it includes some double counting, some dubious references, all of the formulaic references to Jesus as "kata sarka" etc. It would take a while to go through these.

It is equally true, of course, that Paul never mentions a clear instance of Jesus' life between his birth and crucifixion. Paul's Jesus might as well have been a stick figure in a drama. These are the sort of references you might find from someone who thinks that Jesus had to be on earth for theological reasons, but had no actual information about Jesus as a person.

archibald

90. 92. Whatever. Let's just say 'a heck of a lot'. List the supposed double counting ones if you need to, otherwize I can't tell how many, if any, are double counted. And you have just done what so many others have done, cited a small handful, and a handful which represent a phrase which is ambiguous, at best, nothing more, and, unless I am mistaken, a phrase which is not used in any other story from the 'world of myth', so what, I ask myself, in all honesty is the huge reason to label it 'mythical' at all? And all the while, ignoring the primary overall observation that such a lengthy list can easily be found in the text, and not one place in which Jesus is said to have been in an upper realm, prior to or during crucifixion, which is surely perplexing. And said list requires so many and varied hypothetical explanations to explain it all away, whereas 'Jesus was a prophet who died' is almost all that is needed to allow them.

I repeat. I have yet to hear a convincing, coherent, parsimonious case which deals with, or gives adequate weight to the mere existence of (a) that extensive list and (b) all the other items I listed as part of the wider pattern.

Well, yes, that is a feature of his writing, but as I already opined.....there's no myth narrative either. It doesn't seem to be a myth story. So, one 'odd silence' (or 'almost silence') cancels the other out, in terms of seeming odd to us, and we are still left to explain why he doesn't do narrative.

I wish I could recall a discussion involving Gakuseidon on another forum, quite a while ago, where he cited examples of other writings which didn't do narrative either. As I recall, one example was, I think, Origen, who, according to Don, wrote two texts in fairly quick succession, one of which had narrative and the other didn't, and if we only had the latter, we might make the mistake of thinking that it had an 'odd silence' too and that Origen was a mythicist. IOW, is there a genre which the epistles fit into (especially given that Paul isn't preaching to a new audience so arguably isn't doing a bio at all) and furthermore, is there a genre of mythical stories which it definitely does not appear to fit into?

In some ways, it's as if the whole 'odd silence' starting premise is just plain faulty.

Toto

Here's a coherent, parsimonious case: Paul's writings were extensively interpolated by catholic or proto-orthodox editors to force his theology to conform to church dogma.

What myth narrative do you need? Real life is messy and full of details. Myths can be simple.

That's GDon's favorite theme. But all he does with it is suggest that "something is going on" which he can't identify. I keep telling him that the "something" is that Jesus is a theological construct with no real history. He has no response. :huh:

archibald

What has that got to do with what I said? It might, I accept, have something to do with 1 Cor 15, but I was talking about the wider picture. You know, the wood for the trees.

And, while I'm at it, another broad observation which puzzles me is the sometimes offered view that NT Scholars are not to be trusted with making reasoned, thorough analyses. So, we get talk of hegemony and bias. What I find odd about this, apart from it being a complete, and therefore useless, Ad Hom argument, and in any case capable of being equally applied to both sides, is that it has been scholars who, using rigorous methodologies, have done by far the most amount of debunking of the NT! :constern01:



Name one.




I find that very unlikely.

EarlDoherty

One of the reasons I don’t spend a lot of time on a regular basis on a DB like this is the frustrating character of the contributions by anti-mythicists. Archibald swore up and down that he had read my material, but now—glory be—he has actually read (at Don’s suggestion, whereas he ignored more than one earlier recommendation and link supplied by me) my rebuttal to Don’s review of my book and is now beginning to realize that there may be a little more to this mythicist nonsense than he had hitherto thought. And maybe even to realize that Don’s presentation of me may be somewhat lacking in full disclosure.

But even there, he balks and hedges, maintaining that, well, there may be pointers to what I am claiming, but it’s never quite enough. Somehow I get the feeling that he is just too reluctant to move to a middle position and really, truly, honestly evaluate the mythicist case. But what does he have on the other side? Constant references to “seeming” (and he even stresses that) references in the epistles to a human figure? It would be one thing if the HJ case had any strength to it, any compelling need to be adopted. But we all know that it’s as flimsy as tissue paper.

Arch also has to be a little more careful in his reading, whether of me or the texts. The Ascension of Isaiah description of a crucifixion in the firmament is contained in chapter 9, not 7.

The other big complaint I have is that, whether with Don or others like Arch, no allowance is ever made for Christianity (or rather, the Pauline type of Christ cult which was one of the precursors to the composite Big C we all know and love) being an innovator, of having a new idea, or a new application of an old idea, with there having been no concrete, exact correspondence in some previous guise or other religion/sect/cult. If we can’t find a perfect parallel existing in some contemporary other expression, then we can’t attribute such a thing to the Christ cult (based on interpreting its own writings, with some wider supportive indicators) and Doherty is all wet.

And please stop making it sound like the only supportive ideas I ever had I took from Richard Carrier. One of the reasons I incorporated his views in my rebuttal to Muller was because I had in my possession a set of e-mails from Carrier (to others besides me) in which he was responding to Muller’s challenges to him, and there was a lot of good material there. It was also a way of showing that I wasn’t standing in some lonely isolation with no one to support me. (And Carrier’s views of Muller’s abilities were also supportive of my own view that Muller's reasoning capacity leaves a lot to be desired.)

And I am completely mystified by Arch’s objection to the word “mystical” in the context of Abraham and the (non-descendant) gentiles having a “mystical relationship”. How does he get from that to me implying that the gentiles themselves are mystical?

(This is a grab-bag response…) Arch and others clamor repeatedly for a “clear placement of Christ and his death/rising in the heavenly realm.” Considering that our first mss come two centuries after the originals, and considering the amount of tinkering we can detect went on in the interim throughout the documentary record, and considering that no text which clearly placed Christ’s death in the heavenly realm could ever be allowed to stand without scribal ‘clarification’ to make Paul be saying what he obviously meant (i.e., how the scribes understood things) even if he didn’t sound like it—consider Origen’s treatment of 1 Cor. 2:8—what should be our reasonable expectations that any extant epistle would make any “clear placement of Christ’s death in the heavenly world”? And yet, several fair to strong indicators still managed to slip through the net, from 1 Cor. 2:8 to the Ascension of Isaiah 9. Which is why there is so much furor over them and why the historicist community has to spend so much time seeking to refute them. Of course, that “refutation” often amounts to no more than “we should take these words to have had their common meaning”—with the common meaning declared to be that of our historicist understanding, which is nothing more than begging the question.

This fantasy list of 90+ earthly-seeming references boils down to maybe half a dozen. Listing several dozen references to Jesus’ “death” is nothing more than padding, and to include references to “flesh” and “blood” when ancient thought saw spiritual equivalences to these things is simply ignorance. Paul even specifies that Jesus’ “body” was spiritual in 1 Cor. 15:44f (with no reference to any previous physical state), and his “body of Christ” made up of the heavenly Jesus and his earthly believers is clearly a—dare I say it—“mystical” concept. All, where necessary, have been dealt with quite adequately by mythicism. Again, the list appeals simply to the principle that we should interpret a term or concept to conform to the way we understand it 2000 years later. What a case! And that boiled-down list is swamped by far many more indicators in the non-Gospel record which indicate that the writers knew of no HJ in their recent past.

(Final grab-bag item) What “myth narrative” is Arch expecting? Paul states he got his gospel from revelation, meaning he extracted it from scripture under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The very existence of Christ the Son and the role he played in salvation was hidden for long ages, now uncovered in scripture because God decided it was time to do so. Christ was killed by the demon spirits, was buried and rose on the third day. Aside from providing a specific location in the heavens (which the epistles do not provide other than by implication in 1 Cor. 2:8, Eph. 3:9-10 and Col. 2:15—unlike the Ascension 9 which specifies the firmament), there wouldn’t be much else to say about it. The very lack of a ‘mythical story’ such as the mystery cult deities possessed going back centuries indicates that there was no human/earthly dimension and life to draw on. The silence on a more substantial heavenly narrative is far outweighed by the silence on any earthly narrative from one end of the epistles to the other.

Earl Doherty

archibald

Ok. That's now at least the 3rd or 4th time, I believe, that you have got it wrong in regard to my reading your stuff. That would annoy anyone. Though admittedly it's not as bad as thick Mick, which I've had in here today too. :] But basically, you are repeatedly calling me a liar. I have made it clear how much of your stuff I have read. And the bit about ignoring your links is just plain weird. I'm not saying I don't miss an occasional link, but this might happen, for a variety of reasons, with any poster, not just you.

And I'm really not sure what gave you the idea that I thought you only cited carrier. Odd.

Add all that to unfounded suggestions of hostility (to the myth idea I mean), and I'm just really wondering about your powers of accurate analysis.

I like the way you describe making a reasonable adjustment to my thinking when it may be reasonably warranted (apparently) by evidence as 'hedging and balking'. :]

Hey Earl, yours is generally agreed to be the most coherent myth hypothesis. But that's not saying much. Get some proper peer review and I'll reassess it in that light. You don't spend much time at DB because of the character of the analysis? That's a laugh, and not just because this place is so 'Earl friendly', but because one wonders where you DO go for proper analysis and discussion.


And, when you do come on, you might consider responding to questions about academic review, or whether any other myth character was described, even figuratively, as being descended from people thought to be human.

Regarding Abe's 'mystical' relationship to the gentiles, I'm still not seeing it.

Oh, and by the way, there are 90 (or thereabouts) items on that list. Thay don't 'boil down' to just a few.

And I see you take my point about the story not being a myth story like Osiris after all.

And just finally, the idea that all the references to actions in an upper realm being taken out/modified, and all the earthly indicators having been added in/modified. You don't think all that sounds like a classic conspiracy theory at all?



The only thing in that post of yours that looked interesting was the A of I citation. Did I get the chapter wrong? My bad in that case. Having read A of I chapter 9, I am still non-plussed. Perhaps you, or somebody else, would clarify the mythicist implications therein.

Toto

I was talking about the wider picture.

I don't know what you are referencing here. There are some issues where NT scholars do not in fact make reasoned thorough analyses, and others where they do. It has something to do with confessional or political biases. But you need to be specific.

The tooth fairy

I don't know what part of that you find unlikely, but I don't know if this is worth continuing.

archibald

Fair enough. Doesn't have much bio. I'll give you that. But comes down to earth.

Next.

Well, for example, E.D. thinks they won't touch him with a barge pole for some reason, which I thought sounded like saying tha it was because they didn't want to address non-HJ theories. And I was wondering if this was fair, and whether it was fair to suggest that they wouldn't address other non-historicists, with a barge pole.

Kapyong

Gday,


Wrong.
Does not say 'direct descendent' at all.
But it COULD be a "flesh and blood human" reference - that's ONE.


Which could mean in the Air Beneath the Moon.
But it COULD be a "flesh and blood human" reference - that's TWO.


So?
Mythical and fictional beings can shed blood too.
Harry Potter was wounded on the forehead - so is he "flesh and blood human"?
Yes - in the STORY he is, but not in reality.


So?
Mythical and fictional beings can die too.
Osiris died - so is he "flesh and blood"?
Yes - in the STORY he is, but not in reality.


So?
Mythical and fictional beings can be men too.
Adam was a man - so is he "flesh and blood human" ?
Yes - in the STORY he is, but not in reality.


So?
Deaths can be mythical or fictional.
Osiris died too - so what?


So?
Deaths can be mythical or fictional.
Osiris was buried too - so what?


So?
Mythical and fictional beings be killed.
Attis cut himself - so what?
Osiris was murdered - so what?


So?
Mythical and fictional beings can have a body.
Osiris had a body - so what?

So?
Mythical and fictional beings can have a body.
Osiris had a body - so what?


So?
Mythical and fictional beings can too.
Adam is considered Jewish, so is Job - neither is historical.


What?
How is a claim about being a 'stumbling block' anything to do with 'flesh and blood' ? Weird.


So?
People 'stumble', (which is about not believing) even in Jerusalem - so what?


He WILL?
A claim of future prophecy?
And you claim that is evidence of a 'flesh and blood human' ?
What nonsense.


Somehow?
Paul TELLS us how - through revelation and his new understanding of scripture. Nothing about a 'flesh and blood human' there at all.


Wrong.
It does NOT say 'live'.
Nor does it say he was reproached by man.
' "For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” '
Nothing about a 'flesh and blood human' Jesus there at all.


So?
A vague religious phrase.


So what?
See - this is the problem.
For some reason there is a view that ONLY a historical person can die - which is obviously proven wrong by the numerous examples of fictional or mythical beings who died too!

Osiris died.
Sherlock Holmes died.
Obiwan Kenobi died.
Hercules died.
Attis died.
Dumbeldore died.

So what?


K.