JoeWallack

JW:
The Question is could Christianity have started without a Historical Jesus. The existing problem for this Thread is it has not Defined "Christianity". I see at least two Possible definitions relevant to this Thread:

1) Any Type of belief in Jesus (Possible or Impossible).

2) Belief in an Impossible Jesus.

The only thing we can be certain of is that if there was a historical Jesus, he was a Possible Jesus.

HJ's can use 1) as a defintion and conclude that there was a historical Jesus.

MJ's can use 2) as a definition and conclude there was no historical Jesus.

In my related Mark's View Of The Disciples Thread, I argue that Paul and "Mark" were writing primarily as Reactions to and Rejections of Possible Jesus.

If I Am right and the earliest known General and Specific Orthodox Christian writings are a total Rejection of Possible, Historical Jesus so that Orthodox Christianity Began with a Rejection of Possible Jesus and Belief in Impossible Jesus than did "Christianity" Start without a Historical, Possible Jesus?



Joseph

jjramsey

The Gospel writers are the most obvious examples, but even Paul gives the impression that he had met contemporaries of the living Jesus, such as the James who is more likely than not Jesus' biological brother. Paul had also met Peter, and unless you presume that there was a long time span between Jesus' death and purported resurrection, then Peter was also a contemporary of Jesus, since he claimed to see Jesus after he had died. You are wrong then in saying Paul "gives no hint as to how long the religion had been around before he joined it."

If they wanted to "establish a basis for claiming antiquity," then going back only a few generations would hardly be enough. As GDon pointed out, when Justin Martyr was arguing for "diabolical mimicry," he was trying to show that Christianity was ancient by showing that the pagan myths were diabolical mimics of Hebrew scriptures, which are far older than a few generations old.

Amaleq13

I'm simply noting that historicists assume that the men named by Paul are the same disciples named in the Gospel stories. To ignore the fact that Paul never identifies them as such and the fact that the "James" of the James/John/Peter trio in Paul appears in the Gospels to have been split into two different characters (one considering Jesus crazy and one clearly not related to him) is remarkably simplistic.

There is no "face value" for the assumptions you wish me to accept despite the lack of reliable supporting evidence for them. It seems to me that you have an understandable tendency to ignore evidence that conflicts with your conclusions.

How you make the leap from "suggesting the possibility" to "favoring" is beyond me but it seems decidely constructed of straw.

There is nothing "straightforward" about the above assumption. It was made quite clear when we discussed this previously that neither you nor Andrew were able to answer many of the consequent problems with anything but speculations (which, BTW, frequently conflicted). The fact remains that the reference, taken literally, creates significant problems that have no "straightforward" answers. It seems to me you are confusing a "simple" answer with a "simplistic" one. Yours is, IMO, an example of the latter.

I remain "agnostic" with regard to the reference in Paul to James as "the brother of the Lord" because there seems to me to be problems regardless of how one interprets it. A literal interpretation appears to conflict with Paul's expressed theological views regarding flesh vs spirit as well as his expressed desire to obtain equal authority and especially given that there is no apparent compulsion to make such a singular admission. OTOH, a titular interpretation lacks any direct support. The fact is we simply do not know what Paul meant by this singular reference.

With regard to our previous discussion about "consistency" I think I should not have place the emphasis on your use of the word so much as what was being identified as "consistent". What is consistent is an apocalyptic expectation not Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.

manfer

Those arent predictions, Sir jjramsey.
Mark 9.1 its better a covered threat ( I hope not to me, )

Mark 13, talking, talking, talking, and i do the question: how its possible to one man to predict after his own dead ? Then thats "history" no predictions. Then,very easy to guess.

jakejonesiv

Hi Ted,

I would like to see a list of the matches between Q (assuming for sake of argument that such a document existed) and the Pauline Epistles. My guess is that the corresponence isn't very strong, but I would like to see the evidence first.

Jake

TedM

Hi Jake. A google search may yield a better or more complete list. Here's what I came up with several months back when comparing the hypothetical Q1 (earliest layer) of Q with Paul's "authentic" epistles.

Enjoy,

ted

jakejonesiv

If a biological relationship was indicated, it would be "Brother of Jesus", as indeed you assume in your quote above. However, it is "Brother of the Lord" a religous title.

As far as the contemporaries of the living Jesus, if you mean the Jesus spirit, the Resurrected Jesus, then OK. But the Pauline author never wrote of anyone who spoke to or saw any alleged Jesus in the flesh.

Jake

jakejonesiv

Both the Pauline authors and the compilers of the gospels knew the Septuagint. That will explain most of the alleged correspondences.

Jake

TedM

That doesn't help much since Paul uses "the Lord" when referring to Jesus, many times, and we can't establish that "Lord" was only used to refer to the risen incarnation. "Brother of Jesus" would have been helpful, but I'm sure that it too would be labeled a title by skeptics. To me, the idea that "Brother of the Lord" is a title bestowed on certain early Christians and not others, and that then quickly died out is a weak argument given the unfulfilled reasonable expectations that are raised by it.

I don't know how many it would explain. In any case, if they came from the Septuagint, that isn't an argument against Paul's knowledge of it--in fact we would EXPECT Paul to know all about it in such a case, since he was thoroughly knowledgeable of the scriptures, and a pharisee. The closest specific references to me appear to be the ones discussing apostleship. I'm not sure if the Spetuagint has anything comparable to those (greet each other with peace, eat whatever is set before you, preachers of the gospel deserve to get paid, all within a context of what constitutes an apostle of the gospel regarding Christ)...

ted

jjramsey

This is exactly what I meant when I said that you tended to favor tenuous and speculative connections over straightforward ones. You have no problem thinking it likely that the "'James' of the James/John/Peter trio in Paul appears in the Gospels to have been split into two different characters," even though the evidence of this is sketchy, but are leery of concluding that the Cephas in the Pauline epistles, who purportedly was one of the first people who saw the risen Jesus, who was a pillar of the Church, and whose name means "Rocky" in Aramaic, is the same person as the Peter in the Gospels and Acts, who purportedly was one of the first people who saw the risen Jesus, who was one of Jesus' inner circle, who became an apostle, and whose name means "Rocky" in Greek.

You have confused "assuming" with "inferring."

That objection is bizarre to me. If Paul was aware that Jesus was human, then there would be no problem with him acknowledging that he had physical brothers.

We have two "big name" Jameses in the Gospels, one of which is the brother of Jesus and the other who is a son of Zebedee. The "apparent compulsion to make such a singular admission" is likely due to (1) a need for disambiguation, because only one of those Jameses made the pronouncements that were giving Paul trouble, and (2) a lack of choice in possible disambiguating phrases.

You objected to (1) based on 1 Corinthians 15:3-11, where there was no disambiguation amongst the Jameses, ignoring that the focus on that passage was the resurrection and that for the purposes of that particular passage, either James was as good a witness to the resurrection as the other, while in Galatians, it is the policies of a particular James that are important, so it is more important to identify which James is in question. You handwaved by saying "But that passage is about the resurrection, it's so important, how could they be so casual about which James was which?" It's cutesy rhetoric, but it doesn't change that the two Jameses happen to be far more interchangable in the Corinthians passage than in the letter to the Galatians.

You objected to (2) on the grounds that Paul could have picked something other than "brother of the Lord" as a disambiguating identifier, and that he could have picked "brother of Jesus" or "the Just" instead, and avoided the hint that James was above him. Here you are on somewhat stronger grounds; however, in the first case, you have the problem of Paul not being in the habit of keeping the name Jesus very far from some indication of his exalted status, such as the titles "Lord" or "Christ" or a reference to his rising from the dead. The likelihood that Paul would have written the bare "brother of Jesus" is not very strong. In the second case, there is the question of whether titles for James like "the Just," which had become common currency by the beginning of the second century, had yet circulated enough to become common knowledge in the middle of the first. I would point out titles like "the Just" wouldn't have helped Paul much, since they confer honor on James as well.

Glad you noticed.

The fact is that there are very good reasons for interpreting it as a reference to a blood relationship and very tenuous reasons for interpreting it otherwise.

Yet an apocalyptic expectation is more of an expected outcome if Jesus was apocalyptic than if he was not.