spamandham

RM. I'm not aware of an online source, but I can dig probably dig it up later at home and provide a book reference. It was either in "Deconstructing Jesus" or "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man". I always get them confused.

Solitary Man

It doesn't matter where it comes from, it's Griesbach theory to begin with. He didn't originate the theory. And it's so far out of touch with current scholarship to not even be looked at seriously. I don't know many scholars who look at Griesbach at all anymore. A few here or there. The two main theories are the 2 Source and the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre theory.

mg01

Thanks. If you are interested, Mark Goodacre makes basically the same claim. http://ntgateway.com/Q/

spamandham

HJ has just as many fanciful disparate speculations associated with it as does MJ. It isn't any simpler, because you still have to explain how Jesus was elevated to such legendary status in the very first historical records of him. The degree of legendary status exceeds even that of the emperors.

The simplest explanation I've seen is FJ (fictional jesus), which amounts to Jesus as originally a character in a book/play of intentional fiction.

spamandham

Markan priority is out of touch with current scholarship!? Based on what?

Amaleq13

What significant difference do you see between the two?

tselem: image, likeness (of resemblance)

dĕmuwth: likeness, similitude

Didymus

Sure. But I was getting at the more common "Doherty" style MJ, which is partly (and usually) supported by Paul's omission of the supposedly historical elements that were later included in the gospels.

Agreed. I don't think a "real" seminal figure is a necessary antecedent to a mythical figure, but I do think one existed in this case. What I don't buy is the assumption, even among skeptics, that the life of this figure was the basis of the gospels. Rather, I think we know virtually nothing of the life of Jesus. All we have is the rudimentary description found in Paul's epistles, e.g., a Jewish man who was crucified.

I think the unjust crucifixion of this holy man gave motion to the notion that he was divine. Cults sprang up around this belief, one led by Peter and the other led by Paul, and the rest is, er, history.

IOW, the Jesus worshipped by Paul may have existed, but the gospels were not in any way biographical, but rather were designed to foster the belief that Jesus' life - and death - was the fulfillment of prophesy. So they were primarily based on passages in the Septuagint, and secondarily derived from messianic folklore, Greek myths and possibly other sources, including Greek myths.

So I have split the baby Jesus thusly: there was a historical Jesus who was crucified in Jerusalem. He was a drifter; virtually nothing was known of his life. After his death, the belief arose that he was divine, a messiah whose counsel could be sought through prayer. This, IMO, is the Jesus worshipped by Paul's early churches. Later he was mythicized by the gospel writers, who invented his life and works from the raw materials supplied by older writings, mainly the Hebrew Bible. Mark, as the first gospel author, gets most of the credit for this Jesus, who is worshipped by millions of Christians today.

In a sense I'm agreeing with the MJ position, insofar as I acknowledge that the Jesus of the Gospels never existed.

Ddms

spamandham

It isn't a valid historical approach to simply remove the fantastic from a story completely filled with legend/myth/fiction and assume what's left over represents history. Remove the word 'virtually', and you may start to understand why some of us dispense with the HJ assumption altogether.

Jeffrey Gibson

It depends on what you mean by "pre-existence". If you mean that Jesus existed ontologically before his birth, then yes it can -- and should -- be dispensed with, since even if Paul is asserting the "pre-existence" of Christ Jesus in Phil. 2, this is not what he is claiming, just as the author of T. Moses is not asserting that Moses existed as a person before he was he was born when that author attributes "pre-existence" to Moses.

I take it you have not done much -- if any -- work in studies such as those by Jimmy Dunn and Hammerton-Kelly and others on what those who in the intertestamentary period were actually "up to" when they attributed "pre-existence" to some one or some thing?


Have a look at what was set out here out some time ago on this point here.

And please have a look at Jimmy Dunn's discussion of Phil. 2 in his Christology in the Making (or via: amazon.co.uk).


Jeffrey

jules?

The Hj theory is simple, that has been the success whether for the catholic church or Dan Brown. Some guy got nailed up for the revolutionary idea that we should be nice to each other. OK there is a lot more to it but a historical character is simple. people are attracted to the idea that Laozte [sp?] Pythagoras, Buddha, king Arthur, Homer were real people. MJ theories are far more complex.

Jesus of the book/play cashed in on idea that was fashionable, hence the relative rapid growth of the movement unconnected to the gospels and in fact Luke's preface suggests his patron was hungry for any information. The apocalyptic cult seems [my opinion] to have had as many adherents from across the Greco-Roman world as the current wave of influential doom merchants. Doom seems to flip in and out of fashion over the last 2000 years with predictable inevitability so were there doom merchants prior to 0 c.e. or do we only have the Christians to blame for this trend?

I find Mark's character more interesting the more I learn. contradictory, complex and like all good characters he seems to be based on people the author has experience of. I caught some of another thread which pointed out that the Jews for their sins did not deserve a cosmic Christ on a cloud but one on a donkey. Jesus gets a donkey to make the point but then proclaims that it was a piss take and in fact the messiah will return on a cloud.