spamandham

I think there is *something* to the idea of double charisma, but it is not some kind of established standard, it's just a loose correlation of a few cases...maybe a bit stronger than a Rorschach pattern. I think you may be making too much of it.

...and the birth narrative includes real men of history as well, yet it is easily seen as a work of pure fiction contained within the very same collection. Knowing that Matthew and Luke included historical men in the birth narrative, and knowing that the birth narrative is a work of complete fantasy in regards to Jesus, and knowing that these are the same people who bring us the timeline you refer to, isn't it kind of credulous to simply accept that timeline at face value? The sham of the birth narrative - something we know for absolute fact is a complete fabrication, tells us something critically important about the genre of the gospels that HJers universally ignore, preferring instead to pretend that the gospels are modern biographies. They are not. They are origins stories invented from whole cloth.

maryhelena

Yes, Paul is almost saying 'christians' are everywhere except Jerusalem... that Jerusalem was late to the party...

More confidence in Paul's letters? Paul's activities are dated (even if one puts Acts on the shelve) to pre-70 ce. Generally taken to be a follow on from the dating of the gospel storyline - within a short few years anyway. Yet, as mythicists uphold, there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth - so there is no logical reason to uphold any sort of immediate follow on date for Paul and his activities. Backdating a later development in order to give the appearance of a follow on is more likely. Particularly as the whole scenario re early christianity finding a home base in Jerusalem prior to 70 ce is nothing more than wishful thinking. I don't know much about modern Israel - are christian missionaries allowed to proselyting the Jewish community there? After all ...its the same storyline - the Jews crucified their messiah...

maryhelena

Perhaps not - I've had a two source theory for many years - so this 'double charisma' idea is just a little bit of icing on the cake...
Jesus of Nazareth is a work of pure creativity not historicity. That fact does not negate the possibility that the gospel timeline has relevance for the origin story of early or pre-christian history. The timeline has relevance - not the Jesus storyline that has been placed within that timeline.

The gospel Jesus storyline has a veneer of historicity and a spiritual, theological, ‘fulfilment’ of OT prophecy. The historical base is underneath that Jesus storyline. A historical baseline that runs, according to gLuke, from Lysanias of Abilene, 40 bc, to the 15th year of Tiberius. A timeline of 70 years. gMatthew uses Herod the Great – a 70 year timeline running from 37 bc to 33 ce. (including gJohn's three year ministry).

Which is simply to maintain that as with the OT so with the new - history is viewed through a prophetic lens. However creative is the prophetic interpretation - there still remains underneath it all - the actual historical circumstances from which the interpretation is based. That is a Jewish perspective - and it is, surely, a Jewish perspective that has given rise to the gospel storyline. To attempt, as it were, to cut of the historical core, the historical base, as of no consequence - well then, all one is left with is a flight of pure fantasy...

aa5874

But, there was really only one prophecy that SEEMED to have come true and that was the Fall of the Temple and desolation of Jerusalem. That is the historical core for the Jesus story. That is the single event that CLEARLY was regarded as the fulfillment of Scripture even Josephus regarded that event as fulfilled prophecy.

And after the Fall of the Temple, the stars and the moon would be darkened and the stars would fall. See the book of Joel.

And Jesus would return with the NEW JERUSALEM.

Revelation 21:1-2 - The historical basis for the Jesus story was the Fall of the Temple, and the desolation of Jerusalem c 70 CE.

bacht

Actually, I don't think there are any solid date markers in the Pauline epistles. If they were written by Marcion or someone else in the 2nd C then the whole timeline of Luke-Acts is useless, pure legend.

otoh there may have been gnostic movements in Judea or Galilee before 70, I don't think anyone has worked out the dating issues yet. Alexandria and Syria are two other candidates for proto-christian or early gnostic groups.

There's an obvious logic to dating all these developments after the fall of the temple, when normative Judaism was falling apart in Palestine, and sectarians may have multiplied.

maryhelena

Yes, I'd like to see mythicists move more towards re-dating 'Paul' to post 70 ce. Agreed, Syria and Alexandria are places where proto-christian ideas could have been generated. And whatever it was that historically lies within the gospel timeline (real history not the pseudo-history of Jesus) it makes more sense, to me, that there would have been a gap between the gospel timeline and the appearance of Paul on the scene (post 70 ce). The missing years into which the 'Paul' story has been backdated. Possibly from 30 ce to post 70 ce - a 40 year gap period in which whatever it was that was brewing in the early l st century would have been either consolidating or just simmering along - until 'Paul' comes riding in on his white horse prepared to challenge the ideas and change direction...

Yep, back to the 'double charisma' idea - a double strand, two layers to the ball of wax that is the early history of christian origins. Oh, now that makes me think - 40 years of wandering in the wilderness - and it was Joshua that has the honor of entering the promised land. And was not 'Paul', in Damascus, let down over the wall in that basket - echoes of Jericho....And another case of a 'double charisma' - that of Moses and Joshua.

spamandham

I guess I've misunderstood the double charisma idea. I thought you were referring to real cults, as opposed to simply the rehashing of legends.

maryhelena

As far as I can see the 'double charisma' idea simply relates to a movement having two charismatic figures - the second figure doing the honors after the death of the earlier figure. Hence, whether its real life, political or social movements - or the imaginary world of myth and legend - the principle remains the same. The real world realities just having a reflection within the make-up world...