spin

My answer to the question is that people try to use words coherently, wanting to be understood so they tend not to confuse the receiver of their message by using words so that they casually bear two meanings. Paul uses HB citations which contain kyrios in the Greek, indicating that he is happy to use the term to indicate god.

Starting with Romans and reading all absolute uses of kyrios as meaning god, not Jesus, there is little trouble understanding the text. However, when we come to 1 Cor, we hit an almost absolute use of kyrios in 2:8 "they would not have crucified the lord of glory". The phrase "lord of glory" is tantamount to an absolute use of kyrios, yet it obviously refers to Jesus. But 2:16 is clearly god. What goes here? (Ah, yes, 2:16 is another unmarked HB reference, but the casual reader probably won't know that.) Again 6:14, "god has raised up the lord", again Jesus. Is it surprising though that both 2:8b and 6:14 aren't part of the flow of discourse in which they are each situated?

1 Cor 9:5 talks about "the brothers of the lord", but what does that mean to us? Can we decipher it without the knowledge his readers had? We can no longer assume the significance we are familiar with, because it means that we impute equivocation on Paul in his use of kyrios. We bookmark this one as difficult to deal with, though as I have pointed out before there is a Hebrew name Ahijah, used 49 times in the HB, which means "Yah(weh) is my brother", also not transparent as a name.

Then we come to the death of the lord in 11:27 at the end of the eucharist add-in to the Jewish meal, the lord's feast, in which Paul is talking about how one should approach the feast, then we get the extra material about the eucharist and finally we are brought back to the original topic with 11:27, which mentions the body and blood of the lord.

From then on through the works of Paul the absolute use of kyrios is smooth sailing, with no necessity to think of the term referring to Jesus -- unless one is predisposed to read "the brother of the lord" as referring to Jesus.

I would like to believe Paul is coherent in his use of language, so I have to hold those times kyrios refers to Jesus with great suspicion. One cannot build arguments on the assumed significance or relevance of such phrases in Paul.


spin

Amaleq13

For example?

The teachings placed in the mouth of Jesus in Q are quite similar to the teachings of the Cynics so your attempt to differentiate seems flawed and arbitrary. The Jesus depicted in Q is exactly what Paul describes the Greeks seeking.

As far as I can tell you have yet to establish this.

How did you determine which was real and which was mythical?

"But made himself of no reputation..." (Philippians 2:7, KJV)

The idea that the incarnation was intended to deceive the executioners is obtained from Paul. It seems quite accurate to say that the Son tricked his executioners into making him the ultimate atoning sacrifice by disguising himself as a lowly servant. Almost sounds mythical when put that way, doesn't it?

And I'm saying that I reject your calculation of the odds as flawed and think your consideration of the unlikelihood of coincidence to be unrealistic. Either you don't understand how common the name was or you are ignoring this fact in your calculations. Either way, I think you are wrong in assuming it unlikely so your conclusion does not follow.

From teachings like Paul's, yes. It seems to me that they would have to get this idea from somewhere else entirely.

Yes because you seem to me to be completely changing the emphasis of Paul's actual teachings in order to support your claim. I don't consider that legitimate at all. The "man" in Paul's teachings is relevant only as a disguise for the Son/Christ to be unknowingly executed. He is an appearance that hides the true identity of the pre-existent Son which was necessary for the atoning sacrifice and resurrection.

Yes and, as I said before, they achieve this by combining the depiction of the leader in Q and Paul's theology. I'm trying to figure out how the Q Jesus, assuming he is the HJ, could have become Paul's disguised Christ. It really isn't a very good disguise, is it?

Unless you can be more specific, I don't see the point of such a vague focus. There seems to be little difference between a man about whom little can be said because he was subsequently overwhelmed by mythic interpretations and a total myth. Unfortunately, I suspect that the former is the best anyone can hope to do with regard to identifying "the historical Jesus".

We are looking for a connection between Paul's beliefs and these others because, otherwise, they might very well be entirely independent.

Yes, the question is how the Q Jesus (assuming him to be the HJ) could have inspired the beliefs Paul preached yet be essentially ignored.

Again, this does not appear to accurately describe Paul's gospel. Where does he call anyone to live "a holy life" like Jesus? The only aspect of Jesus' life Paul calls others to imitate is the selflessness of his sacrifice.

As I've stated several times, the coincidence is that the leader of the Q prophets had the same name as Paul's gospel attributes to the incarnated Son/risen Christ. I also mentioned, either here or in my PM, that I consider the notion of later Christian interpolation to be more problematic and less credible.

No it isn't. A coincidence is by definition unplanned or due to chance. That two people in a group share a birthday is a coincidence but, given a large enough group, this coincidence is also a certainty. Likewise, that the Risen Christ was given a very common name means that it is a certainty that there were many fellows by that name at the same time.

Were prophets uncommon or teachers of wisdom in the 1st century? What are the odds that one of them was named "Jesus" or "Joshua"?

I'm going to assume you've been too distracted by spin to follow my posts closely but I urge you to reread the last few so that you stop asking this entirely misguided question. Thanks in advance.

Definitely? I see no reason for that level of certainty let alone any estimation of the likelihood. If they are the people teaching "another Jesus", then they probably knew about each other.

I would assume any such evidence is in the same place as the actual Q text.

Yep. I don't see how we can do anything else but come back to Paul with each and every specific conception of the HJ in order to determine if it makes sense.

It isn't an assumption, it is a recognition of the evidence we have. There is a lot missing from Paul that is found in Q and the Gospels. The obvious question is "why?" if they are all talking about the same guy.

Assuming a pretty thorough job of replacing, no. I would expect only hints and fragments to have survived. Like a hypothetical source text and rumors of the beliefs of the Ebionites.

Amaleq13

Is the "messianic secret" Mark's author uses a way of explaining why these two depictions have never been together prior to this story?

Amaleq13

On the subject of the ubiquity of the name "Jesus", I found this interesting post by Toto:

TedM

Interesting. Mark's Jesus is both teacher, miracle worker and savior. Who doesn't recognize the teachings and miracles? The Pharisees (Paul?). Who doesn't recognize the salvation, and resurrection element? (Peter and the disciples).

Is this because there were 2 different Jesus' or 2 different interpretations of the same Jesus?

I"m working a bit on a reply to yesterday's post.

ted

TedM

It is interesting, but focusing on just how he uses the name Jesus provides no perspective whatsoever on how likely a 2nd use of it would have been. In order to put it into perspective we need for someone to do the exact same analysis on every single name Josephus gives--not just the name Jesus. If it turns out there are 10 other names Josephus provides that are just as common and have just as many gospel uses and have a name that has a Q-oriented meaning, then we still have a very unlikely coincidence (ie, 10% chance of a different Jesus with Q-like sayings). Even just 2 others makes it an unlikely coincidence with only a 33.33% chance.

ted

Amaleq13

You seem to have missed my point and, instead, continue to create complicated mathematical probabilities based on seemingly flawed assumptions.

The point of the post was, as I pretty clearly indicated, to illustrate the ubiquity of the name "Jesus".

Do you deny that it was a common name?

Finding other common names doesn't change the fact that "Jesus" was a common name. It either was or it was not common. There really isn't any "perspective" involved here.

The number of "gospel uses" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and the number that have a "Q-oriented meaning" (whatever that is supposed to mean) are entirely irrelevant to whether the name "Jesus" was common.

Are you operating on the assumption that the name is an interpolation into Q? Otherwise, I don't understand why you keep focusing on the usefulness or appropriateness of the name for the text. If the name belonged to the leader, that was his name whether it was appropriate or useful or not.

TedM

No, I agree.

The perspective comes from how common it was. To consider there to have been two HJ's--or a HJ in Q and an independant mythical one with Paul--both with the name Jesus--one who was such a great teacher that Q was written about him, and the other who was thought to have been the Messiah requires an appeal to coincidence, even if the name Jesus was common. The perspective I'm trying to bring is that of how likely it would be that 2 same-named men really inspired such writings within a short amount of time. If all men were named Jesus, it is 100% probable. If half the men were named Jesus, then it is 50% probable. If one out of 10 men were named Jesus, then it is 10% probable.

If we are talking about a gospel that uses both Paul's writings and Q, then the coincidence isn't so great, because we know the source is the author of that gospel--not 2 independant works. And if we are talking about 2 men walking down the street with the same name the coincidence isn't so great because the events are common.

What makes it a coincidence worth discussing is the assumption of independant events combined with the uncommon magnitude of the claims for both camps. The claims are huge: One camp says this guy is Wisdom incarnated and the other says it is the Messiah. It isn't as though we are talking about a couple of small movements here. If that were the case the coincidence would be no big deal. After all, as you said there are other Jesus' who had some gospel-like attributes. But, how many of them are Wisdom incarnated and how many were claimed to have been the Messiah? How many Wisdom incarnations were there? That's the point I'm trying to make. The perspective calls out for a comparison of names. We do know there were other teachers, who likely had some wise sayings, and we do know there were other Messiah claimants too. But, here we have the top dogs of both groups having the same name. Coincidence? How much of one? I think fairly high.

For that reason, I conclude that the NAMES in each (NOT necessarily the content attributed to them) were based on either the same mythical person or the same actual person.


Yes, I was including that because it is part of a larger analysis, but if we assume the name was not made up, then I agree that its appropriateness is not relevant.

ted

TedM

I'd like to address this on another thread sometime. Too busy for the time being though.. Thanks for the post.

ted

Amaleq13

Who is denying coincidence? I've been using that word throughout. I think what we are actually arguing is the concept of "unlikely" which is your addition. I contend there is no rational basis for the judgment. I think you are ignoring the central concept of independent when you make your calculations. You are clearly combining factors from Q and Paul to reach your number but that is the opposite of independent development.

IMO, the math supporting your "perspective" is screwed up. If you are trying to speculate on the probability of two independent figures with the same name, it seems to me that you have to estimate the probability for each independently.

IOW, you would first speculate about the likelihood that a guy with the common name of "Jesus" would serve as the leader of a group of prophets. It seems to me that the fact the name is "common" pretty much requires the probability to be pretty high even if we were talking about an extremely rare "occupation". Then again, I think this entire effort to obtain a specific number is a waste of time because a) it is entirely speculative and b) it is entirely unnecessary.

The name was common.

The "profession" was apparently not uncommon.

Therefore, finding a guy with that name in that profession shouldn't cause anyone's eyebrows to raise even when we throw in a leadership role.

It should be no more surprising to find a prophet leader by the name of "Jesus" than it is to find any of the other 20 guys named "Jesus" mentioned by Josephus.

It should be no more suprising to find evidence of a different group with a leader named "James" or "Joseph" because those were common names as well.

Why are you struggling so hard to deny the obvious?

With regard to speculating on Paul's Jesus, you've got to speculate about the odds of God's Son choosing to diguise himself with the appearance of flesh and taking on the name "Jesus". Good luck on those calculations but, as I said before, "God's Salvation" seems like the perfect choice of name given the core teaching of Paul's gospel. And that means it would be the perfect choice for the first apostles or the perfect choice for God's Son.

You find it uncommon for followers of a particular individual to glorify, venerate, and mythologize him after his death? You are wrong. It happens all the time.

We aren't? Both movements appear to have started with a small group of highly devoted men.

I agree and that does appear to be the case. I'm glad we can put this nonsense behind us now.

Actually, I think that comes from the Toto quote but you seem to have gotten what was said backwards. It was being suggested that the Gospel authors may have borrowed from stories about these other guys as they wrote about "their" Jesus.

And the point I've been trying to make is that this is a late development and, thus, isn't really relevant to considering the guy who started it all. You seem to be assuming that the whole thing was written at once. As I've already mentioned, it is my understanding that, among those scholars who accept Q, most understand it to have distinct layers reflecting a progressively changing depiction of Jesus. The initial layer seems to depict a wise teacher/leader of this group of prophets rather than the later mythologization as God's Wisdom. For all we know that mythology was a reaction to the growing popularity of Paul's theology.