TedM

Ah, evidence. Nah, don't have any. Doesn't change my belief though. My belief is based on the following:

1. Paul's theology of a non-historical Jesus would have been well established among both Jews and Gentiles.
2. The historical Jesus was widely known among those who knew Paul's theology within 20 years of Paul's death.
3. This issue would have generated passionate emotion among the Jews because of the beliefs of Jews with regard to both resurrection and the concept of a crucified human Messiah.
4. There is no direct evidence of a historicity conflict among the two groups of believers.
5. There is no clear indirect evidence of such a conflict--ie no strong indications of interpolations of Paul's material to make it sound more human.
6. Therefore, such a conflict never existed. Therefore the evolution never occurred.

To answer your question, a 'natural evolution' is unlikley to have occurred for the above reasons. It would therefore have had to have been an 'unnatural and fast creation', quickly adopted and that quickly suppressed and doctored opposing views. This is possible but again is unlikely to me, although perhaps more likely than a 'natural evolution' which would have been slower and therefore more likely to have left more evidence for it.

Ted

MCalavera

Good points, Ted.

The Apostles surely did believe Jesus to be a man and not just a spiritual god.

TedM

Because people are more impressed when a real person does amazing things than when a cartoon character does amazing things.


No. This is a false assumption. I gave no comparison--ie 'more' important--on which you could arrive at this conclusion.


no, of course not. I didn't qualify my statement enough. sorry.


Many certainly would feel this way. I don't fear the truth though. I just said I wouldn't like it.


No, I meant that it is dishonorable to take pleasure in the pain of others, irregardless of the reason.

Once again you have made a false assumption about what is 'more' important to me. Little feisty tonight?

GakuseiDon

I think it can, and we can use Wells and Doherty to get us there. From Wells, here (my bold):

Some elements in the ministry of the gospel Jesus are arguably traceable to the activities of a Galilean preacher of the early first century, whose career (embellished and somewhat distorted) is documented in what is known as Q (an abbreviation for 'Quelle', German for 'source'). Q supplied the gospels of Matthew and Luke with much of their material concerning Jesus' Galilean ministry...

And this is Doherty's view of the Q community from his book "Jesus: Neither God Nor Men":

The itinerant prophets of this new 'counter-culture' expression announced the coming of the kingdom of God and anticipated the arrival of a heavenly figure called the Son of Man who would judge the world. They urged repentance, taught a new ethic and advocated a new society; they claimed the performance of miracles, and they aroused the hostility of the religious establishment. (Page 3)

As for miracles, there is no question that the Q prophets, as preachers of the kingdom, would have claimed the performance of signs and wonders, for every sectarian movement of the time had to possess that facility. These, especially miraculous healings, were the indispensable pointers of the kingdom. (Page 384)

Both Wells and Doherty support the existence of such a group. Could not a "Jesus" have risen from it? And naturally he would have been using the sayings of the groups, and claiming the performance of wonders and especially miraculous healings.

The group's focus was on the message being preached, and not on the death of Jesus, which had no significance to them originally (this Jesus was being famous for what he did in life, and not for what came after). They would have had beliefs similar to the early Ebionites, if not Ebionites themselves. From here:

The doctrines of this sect are said by Irenaeus to be like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They denied the Divinity and the virginal birth of Christ; they clung to the observance of the Jewish Law; they regarded St. Paul as an apostate...

Then some people started having visions about Jesus, and this led to the idea that Jesus had resurrected, as the first-fruits of the general resurrection to come, which could now be considered around the corner. Suddenly Jesus' death had great importance. As Paul wrote:

[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:3-4)"

Such an idea is not unprecedented. As Dunn writes:

Josephus twice reports the possibility of speculation that Moses had been taken or had returned to the deity (Ant. III.96f.; IV.326; cf. Philo. Mos. II.288). Philo expounds Ex. 4.16 and 7.1 in several places and does not scruple to say such things of Moses as 'He (God) appointed him as god' (Sac. 9), or of one as 'no longer man but God' (Prob. 43; see also Som. II.189; Mos. I.158; Qu.Ex. II.29). [Dunn, James D.G. Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation]

Shake and bake both groups together, add in a straining process while they remapped actions and sayings to conform to Hebrew Scriptures and presto! forty years or so on, we get the story in gMark.

But note that the Jesus in gMark is then based on an actual person and on presumed events. Like Doherty's Q community, he was thought to have performed miracles, preached the Q sayings, and preached an end times message. So on that alone, the story in gMark could an a depiction of someone coming from that community.

The problem is the forty year straining process. It's possible that the baby was strained away with the bath water, so that if there had been a Jesus, he has been lost to history, so he may as well have not existed at all, though this will depend on the strength of Wells' comment on "some elements" in the Gospels being "arguably traceable" to the Jesus figure. And even though we might not be able to say with certainty what he did or said, it still leaves the historicity of such a figure as the best possibility IMO.

Kapyong

Gday,

So your argument goes :
The JMT (Jesus Myth Theory) means believers are fools,
but believers are NOT fools,
therefore the JMT is false.


There we have it again :
The JMT requires dishonesty of early Christians,
but there's no way the early Christians were dishonest,
therefore the JMT is false.

(Of course there IS clear evidence of doctoring of the texts, there is clear evidence of dishonesty.)

But anyway - the JMT does NOT depend on dishonesty at all - it just requires misunderstadnings.

Paul didn't have to be dishonest at all - he could have easily believed in his spiritual Jesus Christ being.

Mark didn't have to be dishonest - he just wrote a religious STORY - he never claimed it was history.

Others who copied the G.Mark didn't have to be dishonest - they just copied a story they had read, whether they beelieved it or not.

Later believers didn't have to be dishonest - they just believed a story.

(Of course there COULD have been dishonesty involved, there was plenty of it - but the JMT does NOT depend on dishonesty or lies or a hoax or a conspiracy. And this strawman never goes away.)


Well your belief is wrong. Why do you think mistakes about historcity MUST be due to deliberate dishonesty? Can you explain why please?

What about all the OTHER persons or god-men who were falsely considered historical? Do they ALL require deliberate dishonesty?

Such as Adam and Eve or Moses or Job or Lazarus or Jonah ?
Was it DISHONESTY that made people believe they were historical?

What about Zeus and Demeter and Hercules and Osiris ?
Was it DISHONESTY that made people believe they were historical?

What about William Tell or Sherlock Holmes or Perry Mason or John Frum ?
Was it DISHONESTY that made people believe they were historical?


Or can there possibly be OTHER reasons?


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

No where does Paul clearly indicate that Jesus was crucified by historical beings in a physical world.

Instead we get vague and allegorical religious beliefs that are CLAIMED to really MEAN that.


K.

MCalavera

No offense, but I get this feeling you just don't want to admit his position makes much more sense than yours. And now you're just grasping at some straws.

Does the following passage tell you anything?

1 Thessalonians 2:14-15a

Kapyong

Gday,

Ah, they 'sound human' only.


Well, pardon me TedM, but if you admit they only 'sound human', then you've almost agreed with my point that they MIGHT refer to a human.

Let's pick a few from the middle :


Whoa - but the argument is whether Jesus was crucified in some heavenly sphere/plane, or crucified on earth. We KNOW Paul says he was crucified. We are arguing about where.

Here you cite the claim that Jesus was crucified, and you obviously think this is reference to a HISTORICAL crucifixion when he doesn't SAY that at all.

That's the real problem here TedM - you are convinced that a reference to crucifixion MUST mean a physical crucixifion, so therefore this reference IS to a historical crucifixion (so therefore it's evidence for a historical crucifixion.)


Yes, we agree.
But where is the evidence the cross was historical in Paul?
You have just ASSUMED that, when it's the point under argument.


The consensus is that he is referring to spiritual powers - did you see the recent discussion about Origen's commentary about connection between the earthly and the spiritual powers?


Why do you believe a certain date makes it physical?
Once again you have assumed that it was historical.


Paul says the Lord commands - you have assumed this means Jesus.


Osiris had a brother. Ron Weasly has brothers.


And if it doesn't?
Why bring up such a weak point? Because there are NO good points.


Wow.
THAT is a reference to a flesh and blood Jesus?
Are you serious?



Sure enough - it's all the same ol' list of INTERPRETATIONS, none of which REQUIRE a historical Jesus.

So your list of 90 boils down to zero clear and certain references to a flesh and blood Jesus in Paul.


K.

TedM

That isn't my argument, as I think you may see as you continue to catch up on the posts. You appear to continue to be reading things into my posts that I'm not writing. I don't dispute the JMT because I believe believers are not fools. The original post I made that you are responding to primarily explained how I and I think others FEEL about a mythical Jesus. It isn't saying I or they are right yet you jumped right into a number of assumptions about my conclusions that you entirely made up in your head because of your PRESUMPTIONS about me. As you and others pumped me for more information I have explained more about my beliefs regarding JMT but please try not to make the mistake of assuming that I come to my beliefs as a result of my FEELINGS. I am able to separate the two to a fair extent.


You are doing it again. I didn't claim in the post you have pulled this from that JTM is false, nor have I claimed there is no way the early Christians as a whole were dishonest because they were 'too good' to be that way (the implication of your statement). See a later post where I give my 6 steps for supporting my above statement.


Some yes, but there is a difference between putting in a passage here and there and whole cloth historicising the Jewish Messiah. IMO it wouldn't have worked.

I don't think conditions would have allowed the story to catch on as fast as it would have had to without some evidence that it did.

I was addressing the claim that Paul's Jesus was crucified by beings in a spiritual world. It is not as clear as was claimed.

Kapyong

Gday,

Really?
When did the wider Christian community start referring to the histrocal Jesus stories such as the Empty Tomb or the Baptism or Mary or Pilate?

In fact it's early-mid 2nd century :
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dal.sah...FOC/Table.html

The Gospel stories were unknown to Christians in general until a CENTURY or more after the alleged events. You may CLAIM the Gospels were written 20 years after Paul, but they didn't become known until MUCH MUCH later.


But those stories did NOT become known to the Jews until AFTER the 130s or so - after two wars with the Romans had trashed Jerusalem and killed most of the Jews and even erased Judea from the map.

When the Gospel stories finally DID become known in mid 2nd century or so - they were attacked as fiction based on myth etc.


K.