Amaleq13

Agreed and Paul obtained that expectancy from those who had resurrection experiences before him. I don't know if the "discovery" of a sacrificed/resurrected Messiah in Scripture was enough to inspire the expectancy but the impact of the resurrection appearances certainly would have been.

Llyricist

I'd just like to point out that IF Paul is writing a couple of decades after he "converted" and started his evangelising (as is the common conception), then the fact that he writes as if the concepts are pre-existant, does not preclude the possibility that he originally introduced them some decades before he wrote.

Amaleq13

Good point.

Glad to see you back in action!

mike_decock

I can appreciate that there is a great amount of uncertainty of where this expectancy originated. Maybe Paul made it all up, maybe the Romans did, maybe some Jerusalem group did. Or maybe (Heavens forbid) there was a guy named Jesus who said and did some stuff, got killed and his followers had resurrection experiences. It's all speculative.

I'm still trying to find out why the mythicist position has more explanatory power for the evidence we have. If it's really so indeterminate, why not take an agnostic position?

-Mike...

Koyaanisqatsi

Indeed. Then I guess I'm an "HJ mythicist" .

I accept that there was a rabbi named Jesus and the myths about him were made up out of whole cloth

Now the question becomes, what part is the "myth" and what part is the HJ?

Llyricist

Well Tortie Cat came along and articulated most of what I was attempting to articulate so well that I "ceded the floor", the only difference was that I added the possibility of who James and Simon really may have been.
Well personally, that IS my position.

But as to why the Mythicist position has a skosh more explanatory power. I believe the main thrust of the argument is the chronology of the strata we have regarding Jesus. That is, with the possible exception of GJohn, it seems to start out the most mythical/mystical and then becomes more historical sounding as time goes on. Which seems to me to be totally the reverse of what would be expected if a historical person with a following gradually accreted the legendary aspects.

As for your OP, I don't see it as any different whether there was an HJ or not.... It's just as much a problem for either case.

mike_decock

The operative term is the "strata we have". I think the mythicists are expecting too much "history" in the epistles. The purpose of Paul's letters isn't to communicate the events of the living Jesus, he's writing to an audience already familiar with the "gospel" (whatever it was at that time).

-Mike...

rlogan

I've been referring to this as the "composite" school, but it is a little more detailed:

We have a host of candidate HJ's, not all named Jesus. We have some OT prophesies to imbue our candidate with authority, complete with mistranslated hebrew constructs. We have competing traditions we have to either contend with or weave in. We are constrained by whatever "Christ" traditions have sprung up independently.

The final product has no date of crucifixion because any cursory check would reveal there was no such person with all the composite characteristics.

Llyricist

Well the Mythicist would turn around and claim that you "assume facts not in evidence" to read in a "gospel Jesus" to whatever underlies the epistles.

As you yourself pointed out, both positions rely on a heavy dose of speculation, and so far I, myself, only see the balance tipping slightly in favor of the Mythicist position, for more reasons than just that thrust I noted above.

Amaleq13

Paul tells us his gospel is about the salvation offered by the crucified/resurrected Christ. The salvation appears to be against the End Times Judgement. The resurrection appears to be a signal that those End Times are approaching.

If Paul knew that the living Jesus taught that he would die, that he would be resurrected, and that he would soon return in that resurrected form to herald the End Times, don't you think it is reasonable to expect he would have mentioned it?