Seitsuman

I think that there was a Historical Jesus but he is of the same order as Historical 'King' Arthur - completely subsumed in myth updated to use his image but very little of it actually deriving from him. What we know of Historical Arthur is that he wasn't a king, there was not city called Camelot and he may not have been called Arthur. What we know of Historical Jesus is about as much. This is about one possibility for Historical Jesus.

It is possible (no knowing if it actually happened) that an Essene-related sect believed the time had come to produce their Messiah. They may have hedged their bets or been rival groups because a certain Elizabeth was married already to a senior priest and pregnant with a future shadowy figure known for calling followers to change their outlook and live a pure life. To this day the Mandeans of Iraq believe John the Baptist their true Messiah and Jesus a fraud.

They selected Elizabeth's young virgin cousin for their Messiah. There's some doubt about what virgin meant to Jews at the time since they argued over it, and even more doubt as to whether Parthenos actually means Virgo intacta at all. Virgo evidently does not, or it would not need to be qualified as Intacta (Untouched, not Intact) Some Jews practised pre-puberty marriage and there was debate whether deflowering blood should be treated equivalent to menarche blood. Others considered it sinful to have sex before the wife's first menstruation. Yet others define 'Virgin' as a female who either does not, or cannot have children - so a woman can become a virgin in middle age. The Graeco-Roman meaning looks to be that she has not become pregnant yet, it being accepted that she would not have sex before marriage - but marriage in aristocratic familiies would be as soon as she can become pregnant, usually somewhere between 12 and 14.

The child was to be conceived by God. Pagan tradition has precedents in Greece and in Sumeria long before and appears to have been still current in some religions, of virgins presenting themselves for ritual sex and any pregnancy regarded as of divine origin channelled through the priest[s] who actually did the deed.

In effect, this girl of reputable, probably high-status, family was selected for ritual sex by a group of sectarians until she became pregnant by the Will of God operating through the body of one of them. She must have been high status or her cousin could never have married the man she did. Marriage was arranged for practical status reasons. Only the poorest might have married for love. A senior priest would not marry a nobody and a nobody's cousin would not be dirt poor.

Nothing says Joseph was a carpenter. Even if he was, in a land where everything that wasn't stone or brick was wood, that would be a significant trade. But the gospels do not call Joseph a Carpenter. They call him more vaguely Tekhnox (TEXNOC), a 'technician', 'Artisan', which could mean anything from a lowly bricklayer to Chief Architect on Herod's Temple. He is always depicted as an old man and she a women roughly in her twenties. She would have been much younger than that, illegal anywhere except Iran today, but he would be older. He would be expected to keep her from his earnings, so he had passed apprenticeship to have a career in his own right. Employment in the modern sense was rare before industrial times; slaves and civil servants did that, most people ran their own show whether they hired themselves out per job or ran a shop of slaves and apprentices to do the actual work. There's some evidence that this Greek term was used for a Rabbi as well.

There's no evidence for a town called Nazareth either but there was a Galileean sect of Nazarenes, Nasoreans, Nazarites (Z represents Tsaddi, not Zain) and the traditional siting of Nazareth is on the outskirts of the city Sepphoris which was being rebuilt at the time after an army flattened it for rebellion. It is possible that Nazarites occupied their own little part of it like a Chinatown.

So it is possible that the first miraculous aspect of Jesus presents a truth in a way that might have been understood at the time in a very different way from now. He was born to a virgin through ritual sex (we might call it rape but she probably would not in their culture) of Holy Men offering themselves for YHWH to impregnate her through them. She was married off to a a skilled man capable of keeping her and her child in the state expected of a future Messiah with connections high in the religious hierarchy.

It's my feeling that Historical Jesus did a Krishnamurti. That is, Krishnamurti was raised and trained in Theosophy as the expected Modern Messiah (which perhaps he was). Once they let him loose as educated and mature enough to preach the New Gospel, he actually did so, told them they had all the words and none of the meaning, and started a Foundation which accepts that there there is more to life than crass materialism but each individual has to find it in their own way and all a Teacher can do is to tell them how to go about it for themself, not what to find. The Theosophists have been almost as disappointed in Krishnamurti as he was with them.

I suspect Historical Jesus was very much the same. Born to a role, he was educated in what was expected of that role and actually fulfilled the reality of it and not what his tutors expected to vindicate their own beliefs. This is what Messiahs do! They confound their doting followers full of claiming belief in their Superior Wisdom by showing that what they have to say is not what the doting followers wanted them to say, so either those followers accept their Messiahhood or admit they made One Big Mistake.

I think HJ split the Essene Movement he was supposed to lead by actually asserting some leadership that some of them did not like. Some conspired to get rid of him, others to protect him and Judeans in official positions did not distinguish them any more than we distinguish Hamas from the PLO and often Taliban.

Everybody was partisan. St.Paul had a 'revelation' as to how the folklore of this man could be used to reconcile polytheist and monotheist mysticism and the rest is religion.

rlogan

So Mary was an Essene slut.

In a way it's like modern priests diddling their alter boys I guess. Officially, Essenes eschewed sex and marriage. But in practice it was more like orgies.

Diogenes the Cynic

Blasphemy had (and has) a very narrow legal definition under Jewish law. Basically it amounts to cursing the name of God, and it requires that the Tetragrammaton be vocalized.

Claiming to have had a virgin birth probably would have been viewed as insane, but it wouldn't have met any legal definition of blasphemy under Jewish law.

Not that I believe that any mother of any possible HJ ever claimed any such thing.

Wiploc

For all we know, if Mary existed, she may have claimed to be a virgin, and if that amounted to blasphemy, she may have been prosecuted for blasphemy.

crc

rlogan

That is why the Jewish authorities would not have executed Jesus. And it is interesting to view Mary in the same light.

You have to take the claim in its full context as opposed to just "woman X claims virgin birth".

If she is claiming it in the context of her son overturning the tables of the money changers at the temple, leading a religious sect claiming to fulfill scripture as the savior -

Now you have more or less what the bible is claiming: the religious authorities press the roman authorities to execute Jesus because he is a threat.

Mary would be part of what amounts to conspiracy and she would have been executed along with Jesus and all the followers who failed to curse him and bow down before Roman gods and the Emperor.

That is what Pliny did to test the Christians.

The ones who had no Jesus.

(In the early 2d century)

No Jesus = no Mary

No execution of nonexistent Jesus = no execution of nonexistent Mary



No Jesus = no disciples. "Paul" envisions him on the road once upon a time.

But Paul is also fiction, of course. Invented by Marcion, or thereabouts.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Shehbazzar,

This is essentially correct, but I must disagree with the line "And nothing is to be known beyond that tale as fabricated by the writer."

I think we have enough modern studies of folk tales, myths, Hebrew history and Jewish writing processes to be able to trace the development of the story.

Look at the beginning of Matthew:

What is key here is the last line which talks of Bethlehem as being not the least among the princes of Juda and that a governor (king) will come out of it. One is surprised that no mention is made her of David being from Bethlehem. It is a little like saying Stratford on Avon is not the least of towns in England and one day a playwright will be born there. It is quite obvious that the reference in such a text would be to Shakespeare, and it is quite obvious that the reference of a king being born in Bethlehem must be to King David.

Knowing this, we can reconstruct what the original text must have read:

Quote:

1Now when David was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Saul the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3When Saul the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where the King should be born. 5And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

We can say that the original Jesus birth narrative text was a narrative of the birth of David and his conflict with Saul. That conflict is retro activated to the time of David's birth.

On the other hand Luke's narrative is different. It begins (1.5): In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; Compare this with 2 Chronicles 29.1:

Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

This is the only text in the Old Testament where the names Abijah and Zechariah are together. The actual designations of the names are unimportant in this context. For example, I might have a story about two championship horses named Achilles and Odysseus. It would be a reference back Homer's myth. In this case, we may take it that the two names area only a reference to Hezekiah or the time of Hezekiah.

Now it is possible that Luke is using the birth story of King Hezekiah as his model. The prophet Isaiah is associated with king Hezekiah. So he may be using birth stories about Hezekiah or Isaiah or both as his model. My guess would be that he is using birth stories about both Hezekiah and Isaiah as he seems to be describing both the birth of a king and a prophet.

This suggests that there was an ancient Jewish text containing birth stories of Jewish heroes like David, Hezekiah and Isaiah. It is unlikely that two different writers would use the same text to create birth stories for Jesus.
We may take it that the writer of the gospel of Luke created the birth narrative for the Gospel of Matthew and later again went back to his source and created the birth narrative for his own Gospel of Luke.

We can also say with some assurance that the original birth narrative of John the Baptist was written before the birth narrative of Jesus as the Jesus birth narrative seems to be tacked onto it, suddenly disrupting it. This leads us to another hypothesis: Either the writer originally was a follower of John the Baptist and wrote the John the Baptist birth narrative from his Jewish birth narrative source book, or he found that a version of the birth of John the Baptist had been taken from that source book and he used the same source book to change it.

Thus we can say:
1) It is quite likely that there was a Jewish source book of birth narratives still in existence in the second half of the second century when the gospel of Luke was written.
2) It is likely that the same author used that source book to create both the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

DCHindley

I think the answers to date have missed the point. We have to distinguish between claims made by Mary, claims about Mary made by Christians, and charges against Mary by non-Christians.

1st, Mary never made any claims about herself. We don't have her personal diary, or even a press release from her personal publicist.

2nd, Christians were not making claims about her virgin birth until, I believe, the mid 2nd or early 3rd century CE or something, if the dating of the Apostles Creed and some church Apocrypha can be trusted.

3rd, some Jewish sources were charging that Jesus was not of legitimate birth. We know this was circulated because Origen says the Pagan Celsus placed it in the mouth of an imaginary Jewish party in an imaginary conversation that was intended to show that even Jews disowned Christian claims about Jesus. This was around 248 CE, 70-80 years after the likely time of Celsus. Epiphanius, around 374-377 CE, also related similar claims about Jesus he had heard from a Jewish source. Similar stoies can be gleaned from the Talmud, Jewish midrash, and a work called Toledoth Jeschu (story of Jesus) which were circulating as early as the 2rd century, maybe before.

It looks as though firstly Christians made claims about Jesus that centered somewhat on his lineage. Maybe it was a claim to the Jewish throne, later a claim that he was the expected messiah.

Then it appears that Jesus' legitimacy as king or messiah was questioned by Jews, who suggested he was of illigitimate birth, which would have sunk both those boats.

Finally, as a response to this kind of charge, Christians, who by now were thinking of Jesus more as a divine redeemer and less as a kind of messiah, decided to incorporate popular pagan thinking about their rulers and gods and said "No, he was not illegitimate because like some of the Roman gods he was born of a virgin." "Matter settled!" they must have thought.

DCH (I'm on break, boss)

Sheshbazzar

Intriguing observations, Jay & Dave

storytime

Why is it not considered that "what was conceived in Mary" was the ideology of priesthood from the beginning when Levites were selected as Gods chosen people? This assuming that Mary was of the family of Levites.

Why would Joseph thought to put Mary, his wife, away? Maybe Mary was the daughter of Levite family and not supposed to marry outside her tribe, that is, if Joseph was of another tribe? Wasn't there rules of marriage to be followed?

semiopen

This may have touched upon by someone else here.

The Messiah is supposed to come from the tribe of Judah, specifically from the line of David. The lineage is inherited from the father, Judaism is inherited from the mother. If God was the father of Jesus, Jesus would not be of any tribe.

This is a serious breech of the prophecy, but imagine this is reconciled to the virgin birth with the usual song and dance.

There are no rules of marriage between tribes. If Mary was a Levite (not even sure this applies for women) she could marry anyone. Again her offspring would be of the tribe of their father.

This situation exists today in Judaism and is related to egalitarianism. The first aliyah to the Torah is given to a Kohen, the second to a Levite (non Kohen), and the rest to Israelites (non Levites). If women are called up (in Conservative and Reform for example) there are questions of lineage that arise.