Tammuz

I've understood that according to the mythicist scenario, Paul didn't believe in an Earthly Jesus. So what exactly did the believe about Jesus, excepted that he was crucified and rose from the dead? When did it happen? Who caused it to happen? I guess there was no Pilate is the mythical realm as well, or was it?

And when did they start to believe that it actually happened here on Earth? According to Richard Carrier, the author of the Gospel of Mark probably did not believe he was writing actual history. How can he know that?

Also, was the common beliefs of the other saviors that they lived, died and rose again on Earth, or in a mythical realm? Or was the case there that originally they lived in mythical realms, and were then placed on Earth?

Toto

Paul does not say that Pilate crucified Jesus (except in a verse that is commonly held to be a later interpolation.) He says that the archons, or the [spiritual] rulers of this world, crucified Jesus. This might have happened in a symbolic realm or the archons might have acted through human agents. There is no clue in Paul's writings as to when this happened, unless you assume that James was a biological brother of Jesus.

Sometime in the second century, most likely.

No one can "know" that, but it is a reasonable conclusion from reading the gospel of Mark that the author was writing something other than actual history, whether or not there is a historical core to the gospel. The gospel was written too long after the presumed life of Jesus, the gospel lists no sources or alternate points of view, as most histories do. There are literary antecedents for almost all of the stories in the gospels in the Hebrew Scriptures.

It is hard to translate what ancient people believed into modern terminology. The other saviors seem to have operated on earth, but possibly in a mythic dimension, and at an indeterminate time that doesn't seem to have been important. The important thing was the ritual and the psychological effect on the believer.

Clivedurdle

Post enlightenment?

Chili

:notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:

although literalism has always been a snare. This is why Latin is the prefered language, censorship a must and non-literal visual aids are the best educater/indoctrinator.

Oh, and I forgot the need for an inquisitor because I think that the enlightenment period followed the Great Reformation.

DCHindley

Tammuz,

I think the key to what you ask is 2 Corinthians 5:16

"16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer."

Whether Paul said this, or an editor of his writings, is immaterial. By saying "we once regarded Christ from a human point of view" the writer is admitting Christ once existed as a person. Whatever Christian group published these letters, they seemed to have passed by whatever "Christ" was and now considered him in another way, one in which "he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." [2 Corinthians 5:15] To them, this was far far better than any human Christ (Messiah) could ever be.

DCH

badger3k

The writer is admitting that they thought the Christ was a real person. That's all that can be related from the given text.

Or, reading that again, it could be that they viewed him in human terms, but then changed that, perhaps from a human messiah-type figure to that of an actual god.

patcleaver

There is no indication anywhere in the NT that Jesus was crucified. The phrase "tau pole" in the Epistle of Barnabas, is not evidence of early belief that Jesus was crucified because we do not know when that word “tau” was added to the Epistle of Barnabas.

There are lots of mythicist scenarios, even if you think that an historical Jesus was mythicized then you’re a Jesus mythicist. The claim that “Jesus is a myth” just means that the gospel stories are not verifiable history.

Are you asking about Earl Doherty’s beliefs or are you asking about Richard Carrier’s beliefs or are you asking about some genre of beliefs that there was no historical Jesus?

Earl Doherty in the Jesus Puzzle claims that Jesus was not historical, that the Jesus myth is not based on any historical individual but that it began as a myth as described by Paul.

I do not agree with Earl Doherty because I think that there is no reasonable evidence that Mark is based on Paul. There is no reasonable evidence to believe that the Jesus Christ of Paul is even related to the Jesus of Nazareth of Mark. More likely the Jesus Christ of Paul was some ancient pagan god man since we know that there were dozens of those, but no evidence of Jesus of Nazareth before the 4th century.

I think its more likely that Mark was writing original religious fiction that he and his audience knew was fiction (e.g. like the Screwtape Letters). I also do not think that Mark is based on Paul, although he may have been aware of Paul as well as dozens of other traditions.

Some people today believe the screw tape letters are real. Some people believe that Harry Potter is real. There are always a few who believe in almost anything you can name. We know that the gospel of Judas existed by around 280, but no evidence that anyone believed it. We know there was a gospel of Thomas by 350, but the Gnostics believed that truth was conveyed by fictional stories.

Another possibility is that the stories of Yeshua are simply based on legends about the Yeshua ben Nun of the OT that never made it into the Scriptures. Several people were resurrected in the OT. It is possible that there were rumors of the resurrection of Yeshua ben Nun from many centuries before Pilate was even born. Beliefs about a resurrected Yeshua might be extremely ancient.

The Nicene creed of 325 did not state that Jesus Christ was a real person who was really on earth in recorded history. It does not mention Pilot or anything else that indicates when or where Jesus was killed. The Nicene-Constantinople creed adopted at the Constantinople counsel of 381 CE was the first official Church creed to profess that Jesus was an historical person on earth or the belief in the trinity. Thus, the historicity of Jesus was not a consensus of Christian belief until 381.

Amaleq13

Given what has already been explained to you elsewhere, this assertion is entirely disingenuous.

Shouldn't one first offer some reason to suspect it was added before asking when it was added?

patcleaver

The Greek NT uses the word stauros or stauroo which means an upright pole or stake; and never uses "tau stauros" or "tau stauroo" which would mean a T-shaped cross. This proves that Jesus did not die on a cross, but a simple upright pole.

The only evidence that I know before the 5th century that anyone believed that Jesus was killed on a T-shaped cross is single mention of "tau stauros" in the Epistle of Barnabus.

This is probably an interpolation because it contradicts all another Christian writing before the 5th century which uniformly claims that Jesus died on a simple upright pole or stake (stauros or stauroo )

“The Epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew, who most probably lived in this [the second] century, and whose mean abilities and superstitious attachment to Jewish fables, show, notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, that he must have been a very different person from the true Barnabas who was St. Paul’s companion.” Eusebius, Church History, Vol. 1, p. 113, Maclaine’s Trans.

patcleaver

Documents are hearsay. They are not evidence of anything until you have proven that they are reliable. It is up to the proponent of any document to show that they are not fiction and not forgery and not tampered-with.

If a document has been in the possession of an organization of forgers, who have motivation to tamper with it, then it is almost impossible to prove that it is reliable.

If someone claims that the phrase "tau stauros" in the Epistle of Barnabas is evidence that second century Christians believed that Jesus was killed on a cross, then they have to prove that the phrase "tau stauros" was actually in the Epistle of Barnabas during the second century, and that the Epistle of Barnabas actually reflected Christian beliefs during the second century.