mg01

Consider the situation as would have been known in the 2nd-1st century and the history and future of Israel/Judah relayed by the scriptures:

• The misfortunes that befell Israel/Judah were their own fault
• "Sinners" are those who were not obeying the law
• Shortcomings well "documented" in Kings
• Within post-exilic prophets, blame turns practically bitter
• Sinners must be destroyed (also based on the law), it's their fault
• A future "day of YHWH" is prophesized
• YHWH will destroy Israel's enemies and anoint a new Messiah (i.e. earthly King)

The scriptures (i.e., the priests of YHWH) repeatedly place the blame for Israel/Judah's misfortunes on the people. Two key points become critical; the nature of the Messiah, and the fate of sinners.

Traditional Jewish approach regards the history as fact and the Messiah a future earthly king appointed by God, destined to restore the mythical glory days of the United Kingdom and self rule. (This was despite the fact that Israel/Judah's track record for such uprisings however was not in their favor in this matter.) Also within this view is the idea that to avoid sin (and a fatefull destruction) individuals must remain pure by constant ritual and adherence to the law.

As an alternative “metaphysical” explanation, the Messiah/Christ of the prophets is reinterpreted not as a future earthly hero, but as spiritual figure offered by God as a sacrificial substitution (“lamb of God”) for the sins of the people. The point of which is that adherence to the law regarding the forgiveness of sin is not necessary because Christ's sacrifice (a cosmic event that has already happened) has released you of the burden.

This message is the "good news". Spreading the message becomes the mission of the apostles. This is what Paul preaches. It involves teaching the news of Christ as a spiritual savior and informing others that what was traditionally accepted is incorrect. “Hey brother, have you heard ‘the good news’? You don’t have to do that stuff because Christ has already died for your sins.” An initiate’s "receiving of the message" becomes a personal revelation that Christ's sacrifice had freed them from their sins and released them of the burden of the requirements of the law. This is the Pauline/proto-Gnostic metaphysical view found in the epistles and preached by the earliest apostles.

Symbolically, receiving the message is accompanied with baptism. In rising out of the water the initiate receives the “spirit of God” and is released of the burden of sin. This spiritual awakening is their “second birth” where they are re-born in Christ. Initiates share in the partaking of the blood/body of their savior who died for their sins. These ancient and familiar rites are given new meaning as they are attached to the philosophical ideas surrounding the metaphysical Christ savior figure they believe to be described by the prophets. None of this requires a physical earthly Jesus.

While the rites are initially derived from metaphysical premises (i.e., myth), as the tradition grows they are given credence by attaching them to the acts of Christ himself. Due to human nature, some who heard the message took it spiritually, but others took it as historical, and even before the first gospel was written, there was likely debate as to whether Christ had really walked the earth. Folklore develops and Christ’s deeds begin to be relocated to the human realm. That the whole idea began as myth explains how so many divergent views later developed. The strands split and result in the Pauline/proto-Gnostic sect and the Jerusalem Paul/James historical sect forming the basis of both the Paul/Peter difference and the derogatory tone toward the disciples in the early gospels.

Drawing from the earthly Jesus folklore, the first gospel, Mark, is written following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE as allegorical fiction which presents the “good news” as having been delivered by earthly Jesus himself rather than the mystics who conceived it. The work attached spiritualist concepts to the supposed historical character and presents the theme that Jesus’ deeds fulfilled scriptural “prophecies”, extending the some concepts out of which he was conceived in the first place. The tale served as the “Sunday school version” of the message about Christ containing morals relevant to the time that would to serve as an introduction to individuals to the world of Christ.

The “good news” is presented as being rejected by individuals too to understand it. Both the idea that many who heard the message were too “stubborn/hardened” and failed to understand it (i.e., the other camps) and that it was ultimately dismissed entirely and the messenger silenced by those in Jerusalem was meant to imply by the author, in traditional Jewish fashion, that the destruction of Jerusalem was their own fault and a direct result of opposition to “the good news.” For those living in the immediate post 70CE era this served as reason for people to accept this new religious idea since those that failed to accept it previously had been destroyed, just as God said would happen, and just as the author of Mark has Jesus explicitly state with the “those who blasphemy the name of the holy spirit shall be utterly destroyed” remark.

At the heart of the difference between Jesus and other supposed mythical religious figureheads is in other cases you can still have the message without the messenger, but with early Christianity, Jesus was the message. An idea that began when Jewish “revisionists” reinterpreted the Prophets and envisioned the much discussed Messiah as a spiritual savior rather than an earthly king.

mg01

A mythical begining does not pre-suppose a uniform tradition. Other cultures have multiple versions of the same stories and sometimes show a wide range of variation in details from place to place. We still to that today with the Bible, createning our own version of the tale based on the parts we like and the parts we reject.

That Mark may be the least fantastic only shows how we can trace developments in a literary tradition, once it hits paper. And similarties between and different interpretations of the supposed saying of Jesus again only goes to show how different groups selected and used the parts they liked.

The beginnings of Jesus and the text of the gosples and epistles share the same issue as the beginnings of the Israelites and the Torah, which is that there is little to nothing to go on prior to either being written.

robto

Mostly because their impact is hard to summarize in a few words. But good on you for calling me on it.

Paul's epistles present a rather mythified Christ. Yet, 1) they don't present the myth of a god who came to earth - they present the myth of a man who was exalted to be near God. And, 2) the epistles connect to the gospel portrait of Jesus in significant ways: characters like James and Peter, for example. (Note that the Gospel of Thomas also mentions James and, of course, Thomas.)

Doug Shaver

There is no good short answer, but when I must answer briefly, I say "Intellectual inertia." Some related points:

• Jesus' historicity has been simply taken for granted, by non-Christians no less than Christians, for almost two millennia. One reason is that unlike much of what was written about him in the NT, there is nothing prima facie implausible about his mere existence or his having been executed by Pilate -- and for whatever it's worth, we do have Tacitus's report that he was in fact executed by Pilate. Pilate might have been a bloodthirsty s.o.b., but he couldn't have executed somebody who didn't exist.
  
• Historically, most of the alternative hypotheses have indeed been out in left field. Any impartial observer is therefore justifiably very suspicious of anyone who questions Jesus' historicity. It's like trying to defend alien abductions. Even if you had really great evidence, you'd have a heckuva time finding any mainstream scholar who would take you seriously.
  
• Doherty's is the only plausible hypothesis I've seen, but for the average person its plausibility depends on a knowledge of ancient philosophy, specifically Middle Platonism, that almost nobody has except for a handful of academic specialists.

No Robots

It seems that there are two parts to the O.P.. First is the question as to why we think that Christ is historical. Second is the question as to why we think this is important. On the first question, the answer, simply stated, is that the depiction of Christ is congruent with depictions of contemporaries in other contemporary Jewish literature, namely, the Talmud. There is no reason to question the existence of Hillel the Great, for example, whose depiction in the Talmud is mythologized in a way similar to Christ's mythologization in the Gospels.

On the second question, Christ's historicity is important to some of us because his thought and life are filled with meaning for us. Specifically, Christ is the great exponent of spiritual separatism, the idea that some are suited to living life on the basis of the unity of all thought, while others are incapable of this. For those of us who strive to live on a spiritual basis, Christ is indeed our rock.

Amaleq13

That you offer an appeal to "the weight of the evidence" suggests you completely missed my point. The evidence is essentially weightless with regard to favoring either side.

Regardless of whether one is a mythicist or an historicist, one must accept that something apparently entirely unique took place and that nearly all the relevant evidence is problematic. Neither an entirely historical nor an entirely mythical Jesus is explicitly described by the evidence. Assumptions are required by both sides and it is not clear which requires the greater number. IOW, Occam's razor cuts both ways.

The rhetorical posturing by both sides in which the other is denounced as, at best, lacking sufficient evidence is simply absurd and counterproductive to rational discussion. (this is not directed specifically at you but at a general tendency I've noted over the years)

Amaleq13

That is not entirely accurate:

"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Philippians 2:6-8, KJV)

Jeffrey Gibson

What makes you certain -- if indeed you are -- that what Paul is recounting here is story of anyone, let alone a god (is saying that one was ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ actually an assertion that one was [a]god ?), coming from some divine realm to earth?

Jeffrey

Amaleq13

Surely you know me better than that by now.

You are correct that no specific location is given for when "Christ Jesus" was "in the form of God" or if the subsequent change in form involved a change in location but it is certainly reasonable to think that an initial heavenly location is implied and, IMO, the implication, alone, is enough to challenge the certainty of robto's assertion.

Paul's statement, thought by some to actually be pre-Pauline, may reflect precisely what robto denies.

spamandham

The quest for Jesus is no different than the quest for knowledge on any ancient subject. The right approach is to examine the evidence, form reasonable hypotheses, and see how the evidence stacks up.

In the case of Jesus, that's particularly hard because he's already highly legendary even in the earliest accounts of him, and the early church committed 'pious' fraud to strengthen their arguments for their authority.

So the question is, what hypothesis has the best explanatory power? IMHO, to presume there never was a historical Jesus is a simple explanation and is consistent with all the evidence, whereas various historical Jesus theories all end up having to explain how a historical person was so rapidly made legendary without leaving any early trace of his humanity behind. It's possible there was a historical Jesus, but why presume it? It's also possible that the 'historical Jesus' lived long before the first century.