Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Didymus · 06-26-2006, 11:32 AM

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Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

"The Descent of Inanna" is close. The "humbling" of Jesus in 2 Phillipians is nowhere better precidented than Inanna divesting herself of divine symbols and attibutes as she descends to the underworld. Then she is killed, hung up, and after three days and three nights is brought back to life.

Nowhere? What about on the outskirts of any Roman city? What about on the Appian Way after the Sparacus revolt? Humiliation and crucifixion go hand in hand, no matter who the victim is.

I don't think the parallel is as close as you seem to. But even if it were, I can't imagine why Paul would have used that ancient (to him) Babylonian fable as his source for the crucifixion.

It wasn't as though Paul had to scour ancient texts to find metaphors and crucifixion-like events. The real thing was taking place on a regular basis in Damascus and Antioch and everywhere else in the Roman world, at least in the Greek-speaking East.

In the same vein, we don't need to rummage through a lot of ancient mythology to find a Pilate-like character, or a John the Baptist-like character. They actually lived in first century Palestine and were well-known in the Diaspora.

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It is true that unjust crucifixtion had resonance, but it didn't have to be historical.

It didn't have to be historical?

Well, did it have to be based on ancient fable? You seem to be suggesting that Paul would have shunned "real life" antecedents as a matter of course, i.e., "Gosh, I can't use that! It actually happened."

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The romantic fiction of the time used crucifixtion, mistaken identity, and empty tombs as plot devices.

It's true that we have one or two examples of that. But once again, why would Paul have drawn upon romantic fiction when the reality was all around him?

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Maybe I am misunderstanding, but "Paul" was never in a rage against the Roman authorities.

Sorry. I meant "rage" in the sense of "all the rage," that is, in fashion. That was a popular expression when I was a kid (in California).

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Neither does Paul consider the crucifixtion either unjust or unnecessary, he exalts and even wallows in it.

Whatever took place in reality, Paul's sectarians transformed it into God's instrumentality for the salvation of mankind. (My strong hunch is that witnesses on the scene viewed it as a shameful injustice by the Jewish authorities. That would explain why word spread to the Diaspora. But it may have initially "captured the public imagination" for other reasons.)

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It is the mystery of the ages being revealed, not in the death of some obscure preacher (what did he preach??), but in the preaching of the apostles, the alleged Paul himself the foremost.

We don't know whether Jesus was even a preacher! Of course, it suited Mark's theological purposes to cast Jesus in that role.

I realize that even the most "stripped down" notion of a human Jesus is hard for mythicists to swallow, and that there's a tendency to assume that any position involving a human Jesus must posit a lot of gospel-style historicity. But the only historical event in VHM is the crucifixion itself. It was the stone dropped in the pond, the match in the gas tank. Everything written after that was either invented or appropriated from other sources.

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Not a Jew, but a docetic phantom that took on the appearance of a man.

According to whom? Paul? Marcion? Baur? The German Radicals tried to revise the everything from the ground up. I don't see how you can reconcile either the consensus view or Doherty's view with the Radical positions on the "alleged" Paul, Luke, Acts, etc. The Radicals worked from completely hypotheses about the sequence and dating of the writings and origins of Christianity. You can't have it both ways.

I share with Doherty the premises that Paul was real, that four or five of the Pauline epistles are authentically his, and that he lived in the first century. It seems futile to discuss how Paul regarded Jesus if both parties don't agree that Paul existed.

Didymus

Clivedurdle · 06-26-2006, 12:23 PM

I think we must avoid this categorising of "fiction" "historical" "real thing".

If we are talking mystery religions the relationship is not to the Appian Way, but actually to other gods, and very likely here - a tree.

I know I have been "what a load of rubbish"ed about http://www.nazarenus.com/ but if one does not seriously look at what mystery religions were about and Paul's use of the word mystery we are missing the point.

I Cor 15 51

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Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, (WEB)

What is different is that Paul let the cat out of the bad - he said everyone can experience the mystery, through the Eucharist, not your elect, as others tried to slip back in, or limiting it to the foreskin less as the Jerusalem cult wanted - early quality control!

In fact, the Gospels make sense as plays written to tell the story, they do not have to be an HJ heresy evolved from this mystery religion.

Clivedurdle · 06-26-2006, 12:44 PM

http://www.equip.org/free/DB109.htm

by Nash is a good summary but is fatally flawed. It assumes direct parallels when what xianity is, is a far more sophisticated mystery religion, with a concept of the person and individual actions, built on Judaic thinking.

Writers like Nash make the major error of contrasting xianity (because they believe it is God's truth) with pagan mystery religions, instead of comparing and working out why the differences are there - because they grew in different niches with different things affecting them, not because one is true and the others are not!

http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1816

Similar assumptions may be at work here.

jakejonesiv · 06-26-2006, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didymus

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

"The Descent of Inanna" is close. The "humbling" of Jesus in 2 Phillipians is nowhere better precidented than Inanna divesting herself of divine symbols and attibutes as she descends to the underworld. Then she is killed, hung up, and after three days and three nights is brought back to life. (emphasis added)

Nowhere? What about on the outskirts of any Roman city? What about on the Appian Way after the Sparacus revolt? Humiliation and crucifixion go hand in hand, no matter who the victim is.

Exactly. Nowhere. The "humbling" of Jesus in 2 Phillipians is nowhere better precidented than Inanna divesting herself of divine symbols and attibutes as she descends. The key word is divine.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

I don't think the parallel is as close as you seem to.

How close is close enough?

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Originally Posted by Didymus

But even if it were, I can't imagine why Paul would have used that ancient (to him) Babylonian fable as his source for the crucifixion.

Inanna=Ishtar, the "Queen of heaven" in the OT, so it is not as remote as you imagine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didymus

It wasn't as though Paul had to scour ancient texts to find metaphors and crucifixion-like events. The real thing was taking place on a regular basis in Damascus and Antioch and everywhere else in the Roman world, at least in the Greek-speaking East.

Crucifixtion, or impalement, went back at least to the ancient Persians.

And while crucifixtion was common in the Roman empire, the sanitized version attributed to Jesus is atypical. The bodies were left up to rot, which is why there has only ever been found but one body of a crucifixtion victim, despite the multitudes crucified. No, the taking down of the body and burying it in a tomb is not derivative of Roman execution practices.

As Clivedurdle suggested, the earlier version of the myth had "hung from a tree." Hung from a tree! (Gal 3:13). Derived from Joshua 10:14 ff, where five kings were killed and hung from trees by Jesus (Iesous=Jesus, LXX), and buried in a cave which was sealed by rolling great stones (vs.18, 27), and before which the kings had previously been imprisioned and guarded, "And Joshua(Iesous) said, Roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them."

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Joshua 10
26 And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and
hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon
the trees until the evening.
27 And it came to pass at the time of the going down
of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them
down off the trees, and cast them into the cave
wherein they had been hid, and laid great stones in
the cave's mouth, which remain until this very day.

The parallels with the NT crucifixtion are too many to
dismiss. The difference is that Jesus and the kings
swap roles.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

In the same vein, we don't need to rummage through a lot of ancient mythology to find a Pilate-like character, or a John the Baptist-like character. They actually lived in first century Palestine and were well-known in the Diaspora.

John the Baptist is as mythical as Jesus. You are on much stronger ground when invoking Pilate. But then, the Pauline corpus does not mention Pilate, only that Jesus was crucified by unnamed "Archons of the Aeon". 1 Cor. 2:8. There are no historical anchors in the Pauline corpus as to when or where Jesus was crucified.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

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Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

It is true that unjust crucifixtion had resonance, but it didn't have to be historical.

It didn't have to be historical?

Well, did it have to be based on ancient fable? You seem to be suggesting that Paul would have shunned "real life" antecedents as a matter of course, i.e., "Gosh, I can't use that! It actually happened."

Well, I guess it could have happened. The King of the Jews was indeed captured, bound to a cross, flogged, and afterwards executed at the orders of a Roman official. But the King of the Jews was Antigonus, the Roman offical was Mark Antony, and the year was 37 BCE. Cassius Dio, _Roman History_ Book XLIX chapter 22 section 3-6. Does that count as a real life antecedent?

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Originally Posted by Didymus

I realize that even the most "stripped down" notion of a human Jesus is hard for mythicists to swallow, and that there's a tendency to assume that any position involving a human Jesus must posit a lot of gospel-style historicity. [I]But the only historical event in VHM is the crucifixion itself.

The "crucifixtion itself" is mythical development based on various scriptual, mythical, and even historical events. It is, like Jesus, a composite.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv

Not a Jew, but a docetic phantom that took on the appearance of a man.

According to whom? Paul? Marcion?

According to the author of Philippians 2, Jesus "But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man' KJV.
Tertullian wrote, that according to Marcion "Christ Jesus deigned to emanate from heaven, a salutary spirit."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didymus

The German Radicals tried to revise the everything from the ground up. I don't see how you can reconcile either the consensus view or Doherty's view with the Radical positions on the "alleged" Paul, Luke, Acts, etc. The Radicals worked from completely hypotheses about the sequence and dating of the writings and origins of Christianity. You can't have it both ways.

I share with Doherty the premises that Paul was real, that four or five of the Pauline epistles are authentically his, and that he lived in the first century. It seems futile to discuss how Paul regarded Jesus if both parties don't agree that Paul existed.

Didymus

Doherty has some catching up to do, but the main thesis of his work, that there was no HJ, is still strong. The Pauline epistles are second century pseudononymous works.

Jake Jones IV

J-D · 06-26-2006, 06:06 PM

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

Exactly what you said:
the possibilities are endless
It's not 'either this happened or that happened'.

I am not going to give way to epistemological despair. Many things are possible, but not everything is possible. And out of the things that are possible, many are not likely.

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

I largely agree with your scenario posted above. Given the silences, I don't think that the vision Paul had related to any specific previous historical person in Paul's mind. Whether that Christ figure was a real person or just spiritual doesn't particularly seem to matter.

Whether or not it matters, it was the original subject of this thread.

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

The groups Paul corresponded with may have had completely different origins or may have been divergent groups based on some single original person (How would we know?).

We may not be able to know for certain, but we can discuss what’s possible and what’s likely. The idea that this religious movement had its historical origin in the following of a founding preacher is at least possible. What’s the alternative possibility?

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Originally Posted by Sparrow

Later, as others spread the belief, it becomes necessary to offer some more definitive biography than Paul ever knew. The scripture is scoured, possible figures from the past are examined. This could have gone on independently or nearly so, leading to some of the contradictions we see today. Were I to write, in what we now refer to as 100CE, about a god/man executed after suffering, under whose authority would I choose and by what method of execution? These events may have been real, but they need not have been.

This is why I've come to a new turning point, right here in this thread. The Jesus plainly described in the Gospels is mythical, based solely on the non-existence of the miracles. Whether or not there was a human at the source appears unprovable without new evidence. I propose this question ought to be more accurately referred to as the PJ (Physical Jesus) vs. the SJ (Spiritual Jesus). Even if that were to be decided and proven, we would still no next to nothing about the actual lifetime of a PJ.

My biggest concern in this exercise is the enormous analysis that goes into a single word written two millennia ago. Were someone to examine my writing in two millennia, I would hope they would realize that at least occasionally I use words incorrectly or with an alternate meaning or even with dual meaning (comedy with this we would have not!). Sometimes I think we can read way too much into these texts.

But regardless of the intended meaning of the texts, we know that there has to be an explanation for the coming into existence of groups of Christians.

Sparrow · 06-26-2006, 06:31 PM

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Originally Posted by J-D

I am not going to give way to epistemological despair. Many things are possible, but not everything is possible. And out of the things that are possible, many are not likely.Whether or not it matters, it was the original subject of this thread.We may not be able to know for certain, but we can discuss what’s possible and what’s likely. The idea that this religious movement had its historical origin in the following of a founding preacher is at least possible. What’s the alternative possibility?But regardless of the intended meaning of the texts, we know that there has to be an explanation for the coming into existence of groups of Christians.

You're losing your touch. I can't find anything there to disagree with.

As I write this to go on the 31st page of this thread, the fact that we're still in any way discussing the OP is somewhat amazing. This thread began with a simplistic HJ v. MJ dichotomy which Ithink has been fleshed out expanded into a couple of plausible theories on each side. I am now firmly committed to the 'I'm not sure' camp. Maybe someone will find a new MSS and we'll have something else to add to the discussion.

J-D · 06-26-2006, 09:35 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

It explains Paul's references to Jesus' human charactistics and actions without making the assumption that he knew all about Jesus' life but for some highly conjectural reason kept quiet about it. Remember, I'm talking about a "one-trick Jesus" here, about a man who, to our knowledge, did nothing more than get himself crucified in Jerusalem in the early part of the first century.

Just to be clear, I don't think Paul had a clue about the Jesus of the gospels. That may be an argument from silence, but it's an argument from a succession of silences that are otherwise very hard to explain. I think Doherty does a terrific job on this, by the way.

Paul says little or nothing about the historical biography of a physical Jesus. One possible explanation is that he knew little or nothing about any such person. Another possible explanation, I say, is that he deliberately suppressed information about the man Jesus (if that was his name) because it was incompatible with the doctrine he had decided to teach. You may think that explanation is unlikely (although I don’t know why), but it’s not impossible. And I don’t see that it’s any more ‘conjectural’ than the alternative explanation.

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Nor do I. If I said that, put it in very small type, would you? Paul included just those few "biographical" elements needed to place his Jesus Christ in the role of the Jewish messiah. Nothing more.

As to the mystery part, yes, Paul felt that the truth about this mysterious "crucifee" had been revealed to him through scripture, dreams, visions and who-knows-what.

I don’t see why we shouldn’t also consider the possibility that Paul was a fabricator with little regard for the truth.

J-D · 06-26-2006, 09:37 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Ummm, a Palestinian locus for early Christianity? I still think that it was a religion of Jews and God-fearers living in the Diaspora. It didn't exist in Palestine during the first three centuries any more than it exists there today, i.e., as an import from gentile-land.

Didymus

It must have started somewhere. If not Palestine, then where?

J-D · 06-26-2006, 09:51 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

Jerusalem surely had great iconic significance. It would be essential for Paul to make a pilgrimage, however belated, to the seat of Judaism, the purported source of his faith. Of course, "pilgrimming" was different then; Paul made no mention of the holy places.

Paul may have visited a few stalwart members of the "church of God" in the city. And they probably talked theology into the night. But that's not evidence of a thriving community. A tiny, struggling one, perhaps.

Didymus

When you draw a distinction between a thriving community and a struggling one, I wonder how the question 'how strong was any Christian community in first-century Palestine' relates to the original topic of this thread. I don't know that anybody else on this thread has attached any importance to the question of how strong any Christian community in first-century Palestine was.

J-D · 06-26-2006, 10:27 PM

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Originally Posted by Didymus

If it's taken literally, Gal 1.19 is almost as troublesome to the "virtual MJ" idea as it is to standard MJ theory, to which it's fatal, IMO. So far, I have not found any "difficulty" in VMJ that's more problematic than BOTL. (This does not say that there isn't one lurking in the bushes!)

AFAIK, this is the only time in the entire NT where the writer claims to have met with a living, breathing eyewitness to Jesus' life. So it's very tempting to view it as an abberation, a fluke of some kind. A well-evidenced interpolation theory would solve a lot of problems, so I'd certainly like to hear your reasons for tossing Gal 1.19 into the Pseudegraphia Dumpster. Can you cite sources on this?

But, assuming that we must take it literally or "near" literally, how can it be explained in light of the virtual MJ idea? It seems like we're once again forced to conjure up unevidenced scenarios. But at least in virtual MJ Paul is allowed to think of Jesus as a human being. (As George Bush might unabashedly point out, human beings have brothers!) Here are some possibilities:

Scenario 1. Literal: James was the surviving brother of the man who was crucified. As the stories surrounding his brother grew, he carried on in Jerusalem as a church leader.

Leaving aside the "stories" part, that's the standard Protestant Christian position, minus certain implications (see below).

But wait! The virtual MJ idea posits that Jesus' actual life story was unknown. Wouldn't James have known about his brother's life? Wouldn't he have confirmed historicity and corrected false beliefs?

The answer is "not necessarily." At least not unless we work from a whole boatload of weak assumptions: all brothers keep in touch; all brothers are raised together; all brothers know what has happened to their siblings over the years. In fact, it's possible, if unevidenced, that the first time James met his brother Jesus as an adult, was in Jerusalem just before the Trial. But there's a problem with this, too. Neither Paul nor the gospel authors hint at such a "long lost brother" scenario.

Scenario 2. Near-literal: James, a leading figure in Jerusalem when Jesus arrived there, realized that this saintly man was in trouble and tried to protect him in a brotherly fashion. To accomplish that, he could have even claimed Jesus was his brother.

In either Scenario, VMJ permits Paul to refer to James as "the brother of the Lord" without implying that he met with a man who had been Jesus' companion during his earthly ministry in Galilee. And of course, there'd be no worries about Paul claiming to have met the brother of a mythical being.

Whenever it's necessary to speculate like this, it's a problem for the theory. But no Jesus theory is without such difficulty. As I've said, at this stage this approach to BOTL seems to me the least problematic. And there may be other VMJ-friendly approaches that I haven't thought of.

Neither Paul nor the Gospels give details about the fraternal relationship between Jesus and James. They don’t say whether they were close in age or far apart, whether they were raised together or raised apart, whether their relations were intimate or distant. The texts don’t hint at the idea that they were far apart in age: is that a problem for the theory that they were far apart in age? But then, is the lack of a hint in the texts that they were close in age a problem for the theory that they were close in age? Is it reasonable to conclude that they are unlikely either to have been close in age or to have been far apart in age, just because the texts don’t hint in either direction? I think it’s reasonable to say that the absence of anything bearing on the question in the texts (or in any other evidence) leaves all options open. Similarly, it seems to me that we have still open the possibilities that they were full brothers, half brothers, foster-brothers, or brothers by adoption (which possibilities show a gradation from your scenario 1 to your scenario 2).

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06-26-2006, 12:44 PM	#763
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	http://www.equip.org/free/DB109.htm by Nash is a good summary but is fatally flawed. It assumes direct parallels when what xianity is, is a far more sophisticated mystery religion, with a concept of the person and individual actions, built on Judaic thinking. Writers like Nash make the major error of contrasting xianity (because they believe it is God's truth) with pagan mystery religions, instead of comparing and working out why the differences are there - because they grew in different niches with different things affecting them, not because one is true and the others are not! http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1816 Similar assumptions may be at work here.

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