Diogenes the Cynic

But that's really not what they say. Paul says Jesus was Jewish, born of a woman, was crucified by earthly authorities, died and was buried.

All of the other early sources that say anything about the crucifixion say it happened in Jerusalem. What source says or even implies that Jesus was crucified in Heaven?
He makes no comment on the historicity of the story at all, he's just pointing out that it had a pre-Markan source. he doesn't say the story has a historical kernel. He just says the story didn't originate with Mark. His larger point with this is not to argue anything at all about the historicity of the story, but only to show that somebody before Mark thought Jesus existed. Ehrman is only trying to show that a belief existed before Mark, not that the belief was true, or even likely to be true.
You know that this is way out of step with the overwhelming mass of credentialed scholarship. Making such a declaration so decisively fails to be persuasive to me without any breadth of methodology or argument to back it up.

I also didn't make any comment about the identity of any authors. I wrote a long piece once utterly destroying the authorship traditions of the Gospels. The bean counting of sources has nothing to do with any presumptions of identity or credibility with regards to authorship, only with their independence. They independently, without knowing each other, all thought Jesus was a real person. even the Gnostics did. No Christian group in that first couple of centuries can be demonstrated to have thought Jesus either wasn't a real person or was crucified in a celestial sphere (and this is something I think Earl Doherty really needs to SHOW sooner or later)
What are these sources that say Jesus was only venerated in heaven?

It isn't in Paul, or any of the Canonical Gospels, or any of the rest of the New Testaent. It;s not in non-Canonical sources either, not the Nag Hammadi Gospels, or any other apocryphal, Gnostic, Patristic or even early heretical sources.
Because mythicism seems to be predicated on gratuitously denying the historicity of a well attested and completely plausible event.
Frankly, the non-Pauline Epistles (including the pseudo-Pauls) bore me to tears, and I confess I don't read them much, but Paul himself says Jesus was born of a mother, and crucified by earthly authorities. What Epistle says he wasn't?

steve_bnk

A visible act of god would work for me.

Diogenes the Cynic

God can logically coexist with a mythical Jesus.

MrMacSon

Unless there is some evidence, all one can do is speculate.

Vorkosigan

This has been discussed ad nauseum. Paul does not know any historical Jesus; his Jesus was killed in the heavens somewhere by demonic actors. His comments on numerous topics, including marriage, government, and many others, entirely rule out that he know any historical figure. Earl has explained this in detail.

Ehrman is clearly appealing to the "historical kernel" except that he doesn't let the reader know about it. He instead talks about sources and tradition. When he says "sources" he means "wink wink" the oral tradition...."there is very little doubt that some of the stories originated in Aramaic and go back to the earliest stages of the Christian movement in Palestine." But that's not an appeal to a kernel, ya know.

Note that he does not inform his audience that the story is demonstrably a creation by literary paralleling. The story was not "originally told in Aramaic" as he claims but was constructed by the writer of Mark, who even brought the language of the LXX over to signal to the reader where it comes from.

There is precisely zero methodological support for any claim that Aramaic is a signal of tradition or sources. In fact further down..

....Ehrman than instances the Eloi, Eloi bit from Jesus' death in Mark. That's really bad Aramaic, as Brown points in Death of the Messiah, Vol 2, p 1061-1062 and no semitic speaker could confuse Eloi with Elijah. Brown specifically notes that because it is so bad, scholars have questioned its historicity. "This problem is a superb test of the hermeneutical approach one takes to Mark's account," observes Brown.

Of course this controversy totally vanishes in Ehrman; there's no mention of the Psalm lying behind Jesus' outburst, nor the problems with the Aramaic of the phrase. In fact I've already noted that Ehrman makes claims, withholds complexities, and omits noting that claims -- such as John being independent of Mark -- are highly controversial (and faddish to boot, the pendulum swings with latest argument).

Finally, Ehrman moves on to the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath in Mark 2. Whee! A pun in Aramaic! "Originally, then, this story circulated in Aramaic," intones Ehrman Actually the writer puns in a couple of languages but never mind that. As Koester argues, this line was added by a later redactor. Matt and Luke both don't have it. Koester (p276, ACG) also observes that criticism of the Sabbath observation was commonplace in the Xtianity of the day. Finally, it was also a common jewish saying, with comparable versions in rabbincal sources, but I forget where I read that. Crossan has the usual tendentious argument that it was original to Mark, in THJ, p257.

I haven't even discussed the context of that saying, with its hilariously mistaken Jesus.

In other words, Ehrman presents a methodologically impoverished, uninformed, narrow, even puerile discussion of this important point, and totally withholds from the reader any view that may complexify or conflict with his fantasy claim of Aramaic sources.

I'm not out to persuade you, but other readers may be interested to learn that the Ehrman simply withholds complexifying information and claims that things are solid when they are not. Nor am I way out of step with the overwhelming mass of credentialed scholarship. Ehrman has GJohn at 90-95, a date that apppears selected to shove it into the first century. Schnelle, a solid German conservative, puts it at 100-110 in his intro text, Theissen and Merz around the turn of the century. No patristic father knows it until the second half of the second century except perhaps JMartyr. p52 is often cited in dating it but its c125 date is not secure. There is no reason to think it dates from as early as Ehrman says.

No epistle says he underwent such things on earth.

Vorkosigan

maryhelena

:thumbs:

In other words; regardless of when the gospels are dated - the copies of copies of copies etc - the story within those pages can be read as reflecting a historical event that was relevant to the gospel writers. What that historical event was is the question - not that there was no such event. And that is the basic failing of some types of mythicism - the failure to acknowledge that an historical event was deemed to be relevant to the writers of that gospel JC story.

Doherty's strongest point - according to Wells:

So, 'Paul' is viewing his JC as crucified in a heavenly realm. But this heavenly/spiritual crucifixion of 'Paul's' JC does not negate the gospel story of a crucifixion on terra firma. Pseudo-history, mythologized history, salvation history - are all reflections, interpretations - of history! The question is not - is the gospel crucifixion of JC true, was it historical - but what is the gospel JC crucifixion story a reflection of. What history is being utilized; what history is being memorized, in that gospel JC crucifixion story.

Whether the gospel JC is a composite figure reflecting the lives of two historical figures (my own position) or a reflection of a single historical figure - is of interest historically - but of no real concern for the gospel JC story itself. That gospel JC story is about a crucified man. Now, so far so good. Men get put on crosses and die. However, once the resurrection idea comes into play we enter the realm of speculation - or to be more charitable - philosophysing.

Two crucifixion stories - the gospel JC and 'Paul's' JC? The pseudo-historical gospel JC crucifixion story - and the Pauline philosophysing JC crucifixion by spiritual forces story. Two stories that are not interchangeable. The spiritual crucifixion of 'Paul's' JC does not change, is not somehow historicized, into the gospel crucified JC. And the gospel crucified JC does not change into the Pauline crucified JC - and be crucified a second time..... There is no choice about it. Two different contexts that cannot change their inherent natures; flesh and blood and a spiritual/intellectual context. One context is attempting to reflect historical realities related to flesh and blood. The other context seeking to reflect another dimension - intellectual reality.

Any mythicist theory that is seeking to negate a historical component, a flesh and blood crucified component, relevant to the early christian writers - hence relevant to early christian history - is a losing ticket in the HJ/MJ debate....

Diogenes the Cynic

Ἃρχων just means "ruler." I know the Gnostics used it to refer to evil entities akin to devils, but it's primary meaning was plain old "ruler." We have no reason to believe Paul intended it an esoteric sense, and it's used dozens of times in the New Testament to refer to ordinary human authorities. Jesus himself is even called an archon in Revelation 1:5 (ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς - "ruler of the kings of the earth").

Gnostics called evil spirits "rulers," that doesn't mean that "ruler" meant "evil spirit."

A sort of analogy might be how modern gamers refer to in-game "boss monsters," or just plain "bosses," when talking about the level ending (usually mosre powerful) villains they fight throughout the course of a game. That would be an esoteric use of the word "boss," which most people of a certain age would understand if the context warranted it. Absent a clarifying context, though, people don't think of video game monsters when they hear the word "boss."

maryhelena

The only way to get 'salvation' value out of a 'crucifixion' is to change the context from a flesh and blood no value crucifixion, to a spiritual 'crucifixion' - i.e change the context from flesh and blood to an intellectual context.

Remember these words from Richard Dawkins....

That's the monstrous reality of finding 'value' within a flesh and blood crucifixion....

Let's give 'Paul' a little credit here.....

Vorkosigan

If only the debate were about Ἃρχων which as everyone knows means ruler. But since the debate is over "rulers of the age" you've addressed a point no one is making.

Vorkosigan

MrMacSon

I think it is possible there was not a single historical event, or if there was, the story could still have been embellished or altered in subsequent generations.


The crucifixion story may be a reflection of something, but that thing may not be historical ...


Interesting - there may be a 3rd,or 4th, etc?


Of course crucifixions may have spurred a number of stories to compete with all the other stories going around, but some, such as the ultimate Christian story, may have changed forms over a few generations.