stephan huller

Exactly. Rene Salm is an interesting guy with an interesting perspective on things. To some how condemn him because he doesn't toe the party line is ridiculous. The opinions of Dave31's guru are so stupid that he or she is the last person to be setting arbitrary rules for orthodoxy. I am not sure that there wasn't a crucifixion of some kind involving someone named Jesus or perhaps even someone named Judas who was understood to have been crucified in his place. These are open questions where I will admit I don't know enough to condemn someone else for holding contrary views. I condemn Dave31's guru because the position she holds is a non-starter and born from a lack of familiarity with the primary, secondary and related sources.

maryhelena

Interesting...

Perhaps what Rene Salm is seeking to uphold is the idea that it's not all myth - and that is also the position of Wells.


Bottom line - the gospel JC storyboard would not have had a hope of achieving any impact without a foothold in historical reality. What that historical reality was is the question. Rejecting any historical relevance to that gospel storyboard is a dead-end for any investigation into early christian origins. All in the mind of 'Paul' - that route is a dead-end. And any mythicist who seeks to take mythicism into that cul-de-sac is doing the argument for ahistoricity for JC a great disservice.

Mythicism is a position that views the gospel JC as a literary figure, a symbolic figure, a mythological figure i.e. that gospel figure is ahistorical.

That position cannot reject historical reality, i.e. the historical reality in which that gospel story has been set down. One can interpret 'Paul' until kingdom come and one will be no closer to early christian origins than when one started. This is not about mind games - however entertaining they might be and whatever the value one finds in them. This is about the gospel storyboard and what that story is endeavoring to articulate about its place in Jewish history.

Some mythicists, methinks, need to clip their wings if they are seeking early christian origins. Pauline 'spirituality', mind games, might well have value - but a route to early christian origins they are not.

I've been in the ahistoricist camp for almost 30 years - and never once did it ever cross my mind that it's all mythical - that it's all ideas without any relevance to historical reality. Never. Ideas only achieve their potential when they connect with reality. And to imagine that Paul, whoever he was, was prepared to reject reality in his 'spiritual' theories is a preposterous idea - and a very non-Jewish idea to boot!

maryhelena

Even if, for the sake of argument, the Pauline position is that of a crucified figure in some non-material arena - that position would not, could not, rule out the relevance of the gospel story of a JC crucified on terra-firma. Whether one comes at that from Paul being first - or Paul being late on the scene. There are two stories here not one. Jerusalem 'above' and Jerusalem 'below'. Actually, arguments over which story came first, while interesting, do not diminish the relevance of either story. Each story has it's own focus. One story focused on terra-firma, focused upon the history of a particular place and time. The other story focused upon spiritual/theological or intellectual/philosophical ideas. Both stories need to be seen in their own context. History and philosophy. History and our search for meaning or understanding.

Yes, there is no historical gospel JC - of whatever variant. But that does not mean there was no relevance to the gospel JC story. Historical relevance.
Consequently, mythicists should be aware of the dangers of throwing the baby out with the bathwater....

maryhelena

There are not two mythicism positions here. Mythicism is a position that upholds the ahistoricity of the gospel JC i.e. that the gospel figure is a literary creation, a symbolic figure, a mythological figure. That position does not rule out history as being relevant. To do that is to take mythicism into a cul-de-sac.

Perhaps Rene Salem is simply wanting to distance himself from a form of mythicism that seeks to rule out any historical relevance to the gospel JC storyboard. Hence, it's not mythicism that he rejects but it's aberration. A mythicism that has allowed itself to be stuck in a quagmire of it's own creation. Or should that be fleshly sub-lunar illusions......:constern01:

outhouse

actually its very simply maryhelena



up to 400,000 witnesses at passover spread and seeded the legend

outhouse

agreed

but paul does serve a purpose for timing the events just due to date of composition, it gives us a gauge

Dave31

That's just as false as when ApostateAbe said it for the same reasons.

I see no need for an orthodox creed for mythicism, however, words, definitions and positions serve a purpose to make clear distinctions and this one seems obvious to me. If one believes in any type of historical Jesus they simply are not a mythicist on that specific issue because that is very clearly an euhemerist/evemerist position - the belief that a god or legendary hero was a real historical person who simply had myths added to their biography. It's pretty cut and dry to me and Rene Salm himself has made it very clear that he is an "euhemerist"/evemerist on that very specific issue. Salm may take the mythicist position on many other issues, however, the most significant issue of all, the HJ question, Salm himself claims to be an "euhemerist"/evemerist. So, there's just nothing to debate here.

I thought I read on Salm's website that he beleives that John the Baptist was the 'real Jesus' but, I'd have to look around for that again. Maybe others here would help out on that? Maybe Salm would make that claim more clear for us himself?

Evemerist vs. Mythicist Position

The Mythicist Position

ApostateAbe

Acharya S is trying to monopolize mythicism, and she is a real contender. If I were a mythicist, I would be worried about that. Bart Ehrman did mythicists a favor by giving Acharya S so little bother in his book.

Toto

Salm's website contains articles from people who claim that Jesus was John - an article that Salm translated from the French by George Ory, and Robert Prices' article showing an argument that the gospel Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead.

He directly addresses your concern here:

You should note that Earl Doherty thinks that there was a Galilean teacher behind the Q sayings. But if this prophet/teacher was not crucified under Pilate, it is hard to call this person the historical Jesus.

You will find that most fictional characters have some basis in a historical figure, however distorted.

Salm gives his own outline of Christian origins here.

I think that Salm, like Freke and Gandy, is a neo-Gnostic, or at least a Gnostic sympathizer.

Diogenes the Cynic

Robert M. Price also thinks that Jesus and John the Baptist were both based on the same original character, which may or may not have been historical.