The Dagda

Already done.

Note I am the one on the End, and thus the true Messiah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants

QED I am God.

spamandham

Although I agree that Paul is consistent in not discussing the man Jesus (which would imply then that the handful of verses where he does do this are not genuine), It seems to me that Paul is not using 'crucifixion' in the same way the Gospels do. Whatever Paul means by crucifixion, it's something that he is able to demonstrate spiritually directly to the Corinthians and Galatians. A drug induced mass euphoria? Some kind of illusion? Glossalia? Some kind of ritual mutilation?

Whatever it is, it seems to be quite convincing to them and is enough to win converts based on this superficial demonstration. It's later on that Paul reveals to them the secret meaning of it.

This is certainly plausible. Temporal lobe epilepsy might also work, with a seizure being the price of revelation.

I think drug usage is also plausible. Was the 'body and blood' of the eucharist originally some kind of drug based ritual perhaps involving magic mushrooms?... and 'crucifixion' a term used to describe getting high? Is the 'messenger of satan' - related to his spiritual encounters - a mushroom hangover that some people report?

gurugeorge

As always, I do agree strongly with your emphasis on the visionary aspect being at the root of the whole foofaraw; but I really don't see any need to impute bipolar conditions and all the rest of it, since these types of visions can be had by anybody without anything heavily dysfunctional going on. IOW, visions (or even mystical experiences) in and of themselves aren't evidence of psychiatric disorder - even if people with these kinds of disorders also have ecstasies and visions. (Logic 101, no?)

I've linked to this before, but please consider the work of Thomas Metzinger here, particularly this essay. Also consider this rationalist's experience with OOBEs (and of course there's the more famous Susan Blakemore).

The point is, yes, there's some kind of "slipping of the gears" going on, but not necessaily in any way that amounts, in and of itself, to a psychiatric disorder. The "slippages" are in areas involved in processing of everyday data about how to get around in the world (proprioceptive, world-modelling, self-modelling); however, psychiatric disorders (in other parts of the brain) may trigger the same "slipping".

A mini-example of the kind of thing is when you're next to a train that pulls out of the station, or when you step on a still moving staircase, or if you have a sleep paralysis experience. These are all in the same area (it looks like, see references above) as "slippages" of the proprioceptive function, only with visionary experience and astral travel there's more of the world-modelling part of the brain involved. (Likewise with mystical experience, experiences of loss of self, of unity, etc. - although here it's something a bit different going on, it's to do with world-modelling at a higher level of abstraction, at the very level of distinction between self and other, for example).

A few weeks' practice at lucid dreaming or astral travel, and anybody can have subjectively convincing experiences of meeting Jesus (or Dagon, or the Spaghetti Monster) and talking to him, without going mad in the least - not only that, but they could get answers to questions, be told by Jesus (or Dagon, or the Spaghetti Monster) to write things down and spread the message, and still laugh the whole thing off.

All good, clean fun!

The point is, it's not that big a deal - it wasn't even all that big of a deal in those days. We know that magic was more common in ancient times. Why? Because people were more stupid than they are now? No. Because such experiences were relatively more common, relatively more sanctioned in society (although still somewhat on the fringe). If you hadn't talked to spirits yourself, at least you might have known of someone who had.

Also, the philosophical distinctions we moderns deploy, wrt to subjectivity and objectivity, evidence, etc., are the fruit of centuries of philosophical labour. You can't expect an otherwise sane, normal person of those times who happens to have a subjectively real-seeming vision of talking to a divine entity to have the kind of sophistication a modern-day rationalist would have, to be able to discount the real-seemingness of their own experience. A few rationalists in those days might have done, but surely we can forgive those who didn't.

Solo

Paul is not after the fact of the crucifixion but after its spiritual meaning. Never the twain shall meet in genuine Paul. As for the gospels, except Mark, they feature physical Jesus and physical death and argue for physicality of resurrection. Mark understands resurrection still in Pauline terms. His Christ expires on the cross with a sense of being abandoned by his God. This relates back to one of the verses of Paul featured above - he was crucified in weakness. He now lives 'by the power of God' through the mystical union with Paul's church.

The altered mentation in Paul's church is I believe accounted for by a natural process of periodic high nervous excitment and temporary change in brain chemistry

I start with the assumpton that Paul's primary targets were intelligent manics like himself who went though the bi-polar pneumatic process and understood his mystical idiom. These then attracted a "believer base", i.e. people - usually family and close friends - who themselves had no acquiantance with the psi-phenomena but were attracted by the personal charisma of the leaders, their ethical standards, the group's focus on community and the underlying promise of salvation.

In reality, bipolar symptoms can be caused by all sorts of organic or occult causes. TLE is very closely related to certain manifestations of BPD as they are known to produce complex partial seizures, and the postictal psychosis would probably in most cases be undistinguishable from mixed-state, or depressive psychosis in manics.
Also, disorders like porphyria can produce classic pneumatic behaviours. There certainly were visionaries in the early church whose 'source' was not BPD. (The author of the "road to Damascus tale" would likely be an experiencer of a different NDE Jesus, most likely of the stroke variety, though transient visual loss or blurring happens occasioally in the aftermath of a grand mal).

In reality, we are looking at a complex of factors, that push the subject into extremes of mood, and emotional coloring.

I am not a great friend of the intoxication theories. The spirit is often contrasted in NT with drinking and drunkenness - and the appearance of drunkenness is often a symptom of a manic high, as Peter tells us Acts 2:15, and John uses as a teaser of Jesus turning of water into wine at the marriage at Cana. See also Mk 10:39, Lk 1:15, 1 Cr 12:13, Eph 5:18, gThomas 13 and 108.

Jiri

andrewcriddle

I tend to feel that this argument proves too much.

The contacts of Gospel of Peter and Justin Martyr with our gospels are strong enough to make it hard to believe that they were not aware of the Judas story.

FWIW Papias (early 2nd century) supposedly appears aware of a legendary version of the Judas story.

Andrew Criddle

spin

We are not talking about fairies, but your claims about christian myth. If you have difficulty with fairies, you might have difficulties with your presumptions about gospel figures. If you choose a position that you cannot support with evidence, then it's a belief, isn't it?

You're full of beliefs, aren't you? But you're not doing anything to improve the status of them.

This is a skeptics' site, not a believers' site.

By "historical" I gather you mean "real", as in having existed, for I've been arguing here for a very long time that it is obvious that Jesus is not historical, because there is no evidence to suggest it. I stick to the evidence and say that Jesus wasn't historical. You go beyond the evidence and say that Jesus was not only not real, but also mythical.

All this historical Jesusism is pandering to belief, as is the mythical Jesus stuff.

You know you can believe whatever you like, but to the question, when you publicly tout a substantive case, such as the claim that Jesus was mythical, you need to be able to show evidence for the claim. You can't pass the buck and simply ask the others to prove the contrary.

You can call them whatever you like, but you whinged about me pointing out the plain fact that no-one has fulfilled the request of the OP.


spin

Clivedurdle

This would very quickly be selected for by evolution. Cultural rules would make like minded people meet and marry each other and attract more like minded people....

Remember those tortoises and finches!

Is xianity inbred? Like a breed of dog?

And Jesus then becomes part of the breed's backstory....

aa5874

But, what you say makes very little sense. There is information about Jesus in the NT and Church writings that clearly described Jesus as a Supernatural creature. The evidence or information from sources of antiquity must either support history or mythology.

Once you admit that the evidence does not support history then it is not beyond the evidence to conclude that Jesus was a mythological figure.

gurugeorge

But there is evidence that he is mythical - in the sense of being an entity seen in vision by at least Paul, and (although I know you don't necessarily agree with this) the Jerusalem people.

So we have the following situation:-

1) We have before us "evidence" of a mythical entity (i.e. prima facie, the texts are about the purported historical existence of a superhero-type being, a divine entity either clothed in flesh or having the appearance of being clothed in flesh) - this is what aa5874 constantly stresses. Although proof of the historical existence of that entity is probably the intention of a fair proportion of the NT texts, as scientifically-informed modern investigators, we can immediately brush that aside.

2) Given 1), it's one strong option that the story is accreted myth around a man who actually existed. The problem with this option is, as you say, that we lack evidence that there is a human being at the root of this myth.

3) However, we do have positive evidence that for at least one very important founding early Christian, although the entity obviously seemed subjectively real to that Christian - he spoke with the entity, got revelations from him, in visionary experience (the only sense in which we scientifically-informed investigators can allow such a subjective conviction) - he was still mythical to us, mythical so far as we are concerned.

I think you are right to lay stress on the more over-arching concept of "ahistorical" - it was still always possible that he might have been a pure literary creation, for example, or something Paul just made up off the top of his head.

But we do have positive evidence of Paul's visionary experience (I don't mean using Acts, but using evidence internal in the letters - i.e. his having avowedly received the gospel from the horse's mouth, his talk of being "caught up in the third heaven", and the general circumstantial evidence in Corinthians that this sort of thing was practiced in his religious communities).

So, there's no evidence, in Paul, of any entity we would recognise as a human being called "Jesus" having been seen or spoken to by anybody mentioned by Paul; but we do have evidence that Paul saw and spoke to an entity in vision, and colorable evidence that the same sort of thing happened to the Jerusalem people (Paul at the end of a list of "ophthe" and all that).

It's all very slim, but what weight there is does seem to lean towards myth (in the sense so common in religion - person receives "message" from entity seen in visionary experience).

dog-on

No, we are talking about whether or not Jesus Christ, as portrayed in the gospels, is a myth.

Jesus could fly, walk on water and do all other kinds of magic. Fairies can do similar types of things.

I suppose that if Mark or Paul, themselves, explained it to me I might be able to make a more fact based argument. Barring that, I am subject to my opinions based on their writings, or the opinions of others, again, based on the writings of Mark and Paul.

I do not know if there was a Jesus person at the core of Christianity. I do not have the evidence, one way or another. I do know that the character portrayed in the NT accounts is quite fantastical and so I label this Jesus a myth. You can call it fiction, legend, or whatever suits your fancy. I call it a myth because Justin Martyr claims that what Christians believed about Jesus was no different then what Romans believed about the sons of Jupiter.

Whenever I have looked into the sons of Jupiter, invariably I need to look under Myth.

We have no other evidence for Jesus, except for these texts. In my view, the case for the type of character portrayed in the texts seems fairly clear.

You are correct.

I didn't mean to whine. You are correct regarding the OP's request. So I'll use Pete's favorite, albeit not with his conclusion.

Julian called the stories superstitions.

There, evidence!