Solo

No, Ted, these statements - except for the crucifixion - relate not to actual historical events but to probable historical background.

The account of Jesus resurrection appearances in Mark was added later. The gospels certainly had utility for the earliest communities. I can imagine scenarios (and I have given one) in which historicity - again whatever that meant then - would not have been any more important than at the early stages in the Pauline churches.

You are reading things into my statement. I am simply stating that as fact, the same way I would say that the science and technology of the 19th century did not possess enough theoretical physics and manufacturing skills to produce a television set.

No, I think you are making analytical distinctions where none would have existed in Luke's mind. Accept for a second that Luke was reporting on paranormal phenomena - which he had experienced himself, and chose for the template provided by Mark and Q (and/or Matthew). Now if you accept that then the first four verses of Luke take on an esoteric meaning.
The servants (huperetes) of the word (1:2) are ambiguous to begin with, coupled with eyewitnessing the events Luke is about to report on. Why is eyewitnessing not good enough a credential ? So, obviously, there is some problem with transmitting the word (logos) here, if the function has to be covered separately. It makes sense however if the eyewitnesses (autoptes) are meant to be witnesses of Jesus through the Spirit, which is what I think Luke means. It's the mind's eye Luke is referencing. The word must be supervised, so to speak, because the testimony of God may not be arriving in lofty words of wisdom (1 Cr 2:1)

A beautiful example of it is the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. This story appears only in Luke. Jesus joins up with two male disciples (only one is identified by name, Cleopas). They do not recognize him because 'their eyes were held'. It is only later when they invite the stranger into the house and he blesses the bread they give him that their eyes are open and they recognize him. In that moment he vanishes from "their sight". There is a further Moebius strip in the narration when they ask each other if their hearts burned within when he opened up the scriptures for them on the road - the reference being to the strange man interpreting the meaning of his own death as one foretold by the prophets. The psychologist's question here is - who is telling the story ? Is the eyewitnesses whose sight is - alas - manipulated, or is the the writer who uses a narrative technique to convey to the reader that it is not by ordinary perception that these truths are made available ?

Well, you'll just have to pick up the book and tell me what I have not stated or misstated.

No, an eyewitness relates what happened and what was said. If what John wrote Jesus said was truthful and came from a human being, that human being would be considered mentally challenged (temporarily or with poor prognosis). That human being's (and possibly the eyewitness') belief the subject was a relation to God would be a sure sign of cognitive impairment - to a responsible psychiatrist/psychologist.

I am not sure where you perceive internal inconsistency. What I was saying is that if someone "on this earth" who actually wasn't a ruler would claim powers to raise dead from graves he received direct from the Almighty, he would likely have been seen as a charlatan and a blasphemer.

Who was obsessed with "messiah" ? The Jewish people generally ? Or the Pharisees ? The Saducees ? The sectaries ?

If it was not perceived as an abnormal thing, how do explain the logia that I quoted ? Any ideas ?

And again when I say "messianic" self-consciousness I mean it within the perimeter set for it in the NT. I did not mean Theudas, Bar Kochba, Shabbetai Zvi, Menachem Scheerson or any other historical Jewish leader acclaimed as messiah in the traditional meaning of the word.

Jiri

aa5874

Do you I have to go through the entire NT and the early christian writings to show you that the Jesus of the NT was presented as a God?

The historicist claim that Jesus was just a man is bogus, a figment of their imagination. It cannot be supported without using the same sources, the NT and early christian writings, that claimed Jesus was a God.

Until the historicist can produce some independent source for the man only Jesus, then their cause is an exercise of futility.

gurugeorge

It's not that I "don't allow" it, it's that I see no reason to prefer that hypothesis. A good reason to prefer that hypothesis would be, e.g., some evidence external to the cult documents that show that, yes indeed, there was a chap called Joshua who claimed to be a kind of spiritual, revalued-values version of the Messiah wandering around at the time, who was pretty impressive and attracted a large, devoted following. That would be good reason to prefer the "man mythologised" hypothesis you uphold.

Absent that external corroboration, what we have to do with are some cultic documents babbling on about a god-man with superhero-like powers, who was supposed by his adherents to have lived some time in the recent-ish past.

Why should one automatically assume (absent some kind of nudge from external evidence) that there was a man at the root of this cultic, evidently mythical story?

See, we have the cultic documents, about the Jewish superhero. What we don't have is cultic documents about the Jewish superhero PLUS some kind of evidence of a really-existing man who might make a reasonable fit for a man behind the Jewish superhero story. Without the latter kind of evidence, the claim that the hypothesis that there was a man behind the Jewish superhero story is the best explanation of the existence of the cultic documents is circular, and the "imaginary friend" origin is more likely.

TedM

Paul says Jesus was a man. IF you think "man" doesn't mean man, point me to where Paul refers to Jesus as not being a man in the life in which he was crucified. It's a silence, spin. You can continue to try to justify his silence but it remains a silence, no? The issue isn't whether Paul needs to point out that Jesus really was a man. The issue is that Paul DOESN'T point out that Jesus wasn't a man who was on earth during his "life". Not just in this one example, but ANYWHERE. It's a general silence no one can reasonably expect from him, especially given his propensity to describe Jesus in the exact ways anyone would describe a human being. Not only does he do that, but in such cases (Romans 5 being just one of them) he provides NO evidence to the contrary, as WAS the case in the example you gave from many centuries prior to Paul.

Then you need to reread the OP. This is about silences in Paul's writings which we would not expect if Paul's Jesus' life was in the cosmos.


No, it was after his death, at the moment of resurrection. Anyone can die.


By refusing to accept the idea that God can suffer and be truly human. Some people are less flexible that others. It's not hard to imagine, spin.



I really believe you know the answer to your question. If you continue with this nonsense I will ignore you.

ted

TedM

To recap, and get back to the OP, here are 4 silences so far which strongly go against Doherty's theory that Paul's Jesus never walked on earth, but was revealed through revelation to have lived in some parallel universe. No credible replies have been given which show why we shouldn't expect Paul to have addressed these issues if Doherty is right.

1. Paul's lack of clear placement of Jesus in another sphere. No description is made of his having been somewhere other than earth. This absence is true even when he makes specific references to Jesus as having been a "man", of "flesh" and "blood", of the Jewish "race", the "seed of Abraham", and "descended from David according to the flesh". Why might a description of where Jesus had lived be expected? i. Because of the quantity of refences he makes: Paul speaks of Jesus in a way that sounds like his life was on earth over 90 times. ii. Because the widely held expectation for a Messiah was one that would come to earth, derived from many scriptural references. iii. Because Paul was very familiar with Messianic references in the scriptures which place the Messiah on earth.

2. The lack of any reference by Paul to opposition that claimed Paul's Jesus was a figment of people's imagination. Why might such a reference to this claim have been expected? Because Paul tells us of other oppositions to his gospel of faith. Faith is a cornerstone of his message. IF part of that was having faith that Jesus wasn't a figment of imagination in the first place, Paul would be expected to include THAT in his requirements of faith. Instead, the opposition Paul DOES refer to seems to pale in comparison (eating meat, circumcision for Gentiles, what a "true" apostle is) to such a basic requirement that one believes he really had lived and died in the sphere above.

3. The lack of any reference in the non-Paul literature to a non-historical Jesus origin or popular branch. We would expect later Christian writers to have been aware of such a tradition because of their knowledge (and acceptance) of Paul and his teachings, and because of the tradition among churches Paul founded and wrote to.

4. The lack of any reference in the pagan writings to anything similar to what Doherty proposes for Paul with regard to activities in the sublunar realm. We would expect that because much was written about mythical characters and their actions in the pagan literature.

ted

TedM

Solo, I simply can't relate to what you are writing. I may have misunderstood your point about John. I thought it was that the author was crazy, but your latest post suggests that it was Jesus who was crazy if the author was correct. That's a hypothesis that may have some validity. In any case, I have no desire to continue the discussion, as I'd prefer to limit the discussion to the OP, which took forever to get off the ground due to some bizarre objections by Toto and TedH.

thanks,
ted

Ted Hoffman

Let me deal with one of your arguments.
I will present two arguments. Here is one argument:
1. Ancient thought held it that the earth was layered (This is seen in Philo [earthly vs heavenly man], the lords prayer, Ascension of Isaiah, Genesis 6:1-4 and Corinthians where Paul speaks of a third heaven).

2. Spiritual beings (gods, demons etc) occupied the upper, incorruptible layers and mankind occupied the lower, corruptible layers (earth).

3. The spiritual beings could move from the upper layers to the lower layers through incarnation (see Genesis 6:1-4 where fallen angels incarnated to mate with women and Ascension of Isaiah - where Jesus incarnates while crossing several layers - and Philippians 2:8-11). Earthly beings could move upwards via exaltation by Gods etc.

4. Philippians 2:8-11 says that Jesus was God but humbled himself and became man and for that, was exalted by being called Christ. In Burton Mack's words:
5. Jesus was therefore in another sphere.

Here is another one:

1. Ancient thought held it that the earth was layered (This is seen in Philo [earthly vs heavenly man], the lords prayer, Ascension of Isaiah, Genesis 6:1-4 and Corinthians where Paul speaks of a third heaven).

2. Spiritual beings (gods, demons etc) occupied the upper, incorruptible layers and mankind occupied the lower, corruptible layers (earth).

3. The spiritual beings could move from the upper layers to the lower layers through incarnation (see Genesis 6:1-4 where fallen angels incarnated to mate with women and Ascension of Isaiah - where Jesus incarnates while crossing several layers and he sees warring demons - and Philippians 2:8-11).

4. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 that demons (arcontes) killed Jesus.

5. Jesus was therefore (killed) in another sphere.

You may now rebut these arguments, show me which statements you object to and which ones you agreed with. I have numbered them to allow this.

youngalexander

Arhh! I do not know if the analogy is reasonable, but if it is, I have this day learnt something!

GakuseiDon

Actually, demons shared the lower, corruptible layer with mankind. This is the area from under the moon down to the ground.

Incarnation -- taking on flesh -- is only associated with coming to earth AFAIK.

I don't see how point 5 follows, I'm afraid.

"Arcontes" doesn't mean "demon" -- this has been gone over before. But even if it was a reference to demons, it doesn't mean that it was done in a different sphere. Some examples:

* The Ascension of Isaiah talks about Beliar "the great ruler, the king of this world" coming to earth "in the likeness of a man" to persecute Christians.
* Also in AoI: Satan "roused the children of Israel against" Christ, and they crucified him.
* Paul recommends "delivering" an evildoer "to Satan" (1 Cor 5:5)
* In 1Th 2:18, the author writes that "we would have come to you... but Satan hindered us".

Lots of other examples of Satan being active on earth, either directly or indirectly. I'm not aware of any examples of Satan killing any person or spirit above the earth, though. If Jesus was regarded as the Son of God, it makes sense that his demise was at the hands of Satan, whether he was a sublunar being or an earthly one. I doubt that his death would be put down to an accident ("And lo! Jesus was trod on by a camel accidentally, and He died...")

GakuseiDon

I agree with you that there is a strange silence in the literature around "mythicist" Christians. But I don't think we can push it too far without it becoming a strawman. Think of it in the reverse: some people try to show silence by comparing Paul to the Gospels. But few people posting here believe the Gospels to be an accurate historical account, so I doubt few would be worried about such "Gospel" silences.

Similarly, even many Doherty supporters disagree with Doherty in one or more areas. Carrier recently wrote on this board that he "still has as much disagreement as agreement" with Doherty. Other mythicists have made clear they have disagreements with Doherty. What are these disagreements? How important are they? Who knows! All we know is that Doherty is the better explanation.

Doherty himself believes that earliest Christians had a variety of beliefs. Some believed in a descending Christ figure, some believed in a Logos figure that didn't descend, etc. If this is the case, then I would say it is going to be hard to pin a particular silence, since we could say that that author was a member of a group that didn't have that particular belief. It's like my earlier example of comparing Paul to the Gospels -- if you don't take the Gospels as historical in the first place, you aren't going to be too concerned by some "Gospel" silences.

I don't want to sound too discouraging, since I agree with what you've written above. But Doherty's argument is currently too ephemeral IMO to examine using an argument from silence. Any proposed silence can be met with a "well, that particular group of mythicists just didn't believe that". I just don't see a lot to argue about with Doherty mythicists, until they can sort out the areas of disagreements (hopefully Carrier will be the first, in the next year or two). Until then, I suspect "Doherty is the better explanation" will remain their default position.