Dean Anderson

Surely the two are not mutually exclusive?

Clivedurdle

What's that? Phrases like verily verily I say unto you?

Mythra

I know what you're saying, but I'm not sure you're right. As I understand it, the mythicist position requires that there was no historical Jesus at all. Ever. And, it sets up a very different model of development of the ideologies.
The myth position requires that the whole christ concept had its genesis in the spiritual realm. That it began solely through revelatory experiences.

Religious syncretism does allow for a historical person somewhere in the equation. Whether he was part of the end-of-world apocalyptic group, or whether he was a preacher who was well-versed in the wisdom sayings, or whether he was simply a man who was considered righteous and wrongfully executed.

I see them as quite different approaches.

Mythra

Well, I'm not really saying that Jesus was a cynic. Nor that cynicism was the original underlying beginnings of christianity. (although I do realize that "Q1" implies that)

But, in looking at many of the themes of cynicism, I'm not sure how a person can fail to recognize them in the gospels, and even in the Pauline Epistles to a certain extent:

The belief that wealth and pleasure were not worth pursuing.
The soul is more important the physical body. Reduce the needs of the flesh to the bare necessities.
Disregard of physical discomfort.
Happiness is attained by living a virtuous life.
Admiration of poverty and hardship.
Even a slave can enjoy tranquility and integrity by rising above his circumstances.
Disdain for intellectualism.

Mythra

Is this a research paper, or a book? I haven't had much luck finding it. Although I did find other works by Kloppenborg.

Also, is this something that could be understood by a lay person? As you can tell by my posts, I'm not a scholar.

I'm just an ex-christian looking for answers. And for every answer, I find two more questions.

Toto

Kloppenborg lists this on his homepage as

“A Dog Among the Pigeons: The “Cynic Hypothesis” as a Theological Problem,” Pp. 73-117 in From Quest to Quelle: Festschrift James M. Robinson (or via: amazon.co.uk). edited by Jon Asgeirsson, Kristen de Troyer, and Marvin W. Meyer. BETL vol. 146. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1999

You will have better luck searching for the book under the name "From Quest to Q."

Google books has a few pages, but not of this article.

S.C.Carlson

A shorter, perhaps more accessible, version of this piece is found on pp. 420-444 of his Excavating Q (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Stephen

Zeichman

If you want a sample of the kind of arguments Kloppenborg is disagreeing with, PM me and I'll e-mail you Hanz Betz' article on Cynicism and the historical Jesus.