Clivedurdle

I am not sure they are an accretion on a mythical framework!

What if they are carefully put together stories about what this god man would do - heal the sick, be philosophical, be a great teacher, a few miracles.

I posted in the mythical beastie thread a comment about what angels get up to - and guess what! They match the gospel stories!

I do wonder if there was any deceit or accretion or change between earlier christs and the gospel christs.

What if you look at it all as attempts to describe this saviour hero who was going to bring in a new heaven and earth.

Yup, it is all made up, but it is a different sort of fiction, a magical mythic fiction that is worldchanging, complete with wondrous ritual - the eucharist.

Rick Sumner

I haven't made an argument. I've observed what is or is not conducive to Doherty's argument. The Hercules analogy is not.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Ben C Smith

Then I do think the argument fails. Because it appears that Van Voorst is addressing only the general argument from silence in that snippet, and, as you said, the mythical Jesus hypothesis is more than just silence. Therefore, I doubt he was trying for a full refutation in two sentences.

It is a refutation of the general argument from silence (that we should expect more gospel details or such).

It would also be a refutation if his debating opponent (Wells, IIRC) had submitted the general Pauline silence as a specific argument against an historical Jesus.

In short, I think you are being very, very generous in your assessment. What took you an entire logical proof took Doherty only a sentence. Where does all of this that you are talking about get discussed in this context?

ETA: Instead, we get the following in this context:

To claim that there never is such an occasion [to present historical and biographical information about Jesus] in those almost 100,000 words by those dozen different writers engaged in discussion and dispute about the nature of their Jesus, about issues of doctrine and authority, about the movement’s history and ethics and the approach of the end of the world, is simply ludicrous.

Another misrepresentation, at least of what Doherty quotes Van Voorst as having written. Where does Van Voorst say that there never was any occasion for such details? Rather, perhaps Van Voorst knows the moral that I pointed out with my examples, that having the occasion to say something (such as Tertullian had with Marcion, and Paul with the resurrection sayings) does not always equal out to having the necessity to say it.

We agree on that, then. He can still change it. It is his website. Hopefully he will.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Sorry, if you are not "arguing" that Doherty's case has been harmed above, by asserting the significance of physicality, that I responded to, you are twisting words beyond their meaning!

There may or may not be a problem about too tight a splitting of physical and spiritual in Doherty - as far as I take it, this is not a problem for a mythicist case because all heroes always do loads of things. My mystical beastie thread goes into detail about this, I asked explicitly for feedback and I have not got any!

It does feel there is a completely false belief that mythical is the same as spiritual. That is false.

James Bond, Superman, Angels, God, Jesus, Hercules, Hobbits all show clear abilities to do things and to exist! Hercules and Jesus are both said to be born of a woman. Hercules seems to be stronger than Jesus as he did hold the earth on his shoulders.

Technically, because Hercules was often talking to his dad, he can be seen as inhabiting earthly, sub lunar and heavenly spheres. They had excellent transport systems in the olden days.

And why should there not be two versions of Jesus's death, there are myriad versions of Hercules life? Why should not Paul have seen it in the heavens and later writers moved the scene - for that is what it is - a scene in a story - to earth, and then later come up with different variances on who visited the grave - typical of story telling about a judaic equivalent of Hercules, and of every superhero there has ever been!

Rick Sumner

Have you read Doherty's book? Or, for that matter, read his website through? Do you understand why Doherty's argument for mythicism has nothing to do with mythical heroes, but rather that Paul conceived of Christ as a purely spiritual being?

That you don't understand why his theory is incompatible with physical birth baffles me. He's well aware of the problem, it's why he argues against it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Clivedurdle

I cannot see how that could possibly be the case - Jesus hits top marks on the hero scale, does Doherty say Jesus is not a hero? How can anyone divide myth and hero - it is all about story!

In any case there is no problem with Christ being a purely spiritual mythical hero! Doherty states the death had salvific power - a clear heroic action - the argument is only about location, which in this world of myth is not as demarcated as everyone pretends - kindly explain how angels talked with lot, god caused earthquakes, Jacob wrestled with God, Hercules was the child of a woman and Zeus.

The first mythic location was probably with the archons in the heavens, the later mythic versions - I see the gospels as just as mythic - was on Golgotha.

Rick Sumner

I'll take that as a "no," you haven't read Doherty's book, or his website.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Clivedurdle

It would seem we are not agreed on the term myth.

Clivedurdle

http://pages.ca.inter.net/%7Eoblio/puzzle3.htm

The above story about a saviour messiah and the divine plan of salvation is classic hero - flash gordon saviour of the universe - stuff (cue Queen in background.

How on earth anyone can state the above is not classic hero myth stuff is beyond me! Earl may not be stating the obvious because it is obvious!

Would people kindly do a thought experiment?

Shout loudly Jesus myth is rubbish five times.

Stamp their feet.

Look up what myth means. Read Pratchett, Hercules, Jason, Genesis, Norse and Celtic legends, Lord of the Rings and the Gospels.


Ask why Jesus is not myth.

EarlDoherty

Actually, it struck me afterwards that I was wrong there. I see that I did use the term “only” in my article after quoting Van Voorst. My post was focusing on the interpretration of VV’s words. But even with another look at it, I realize that this changes nothing, and in fact I must point out that Ben was wrong in his claim that I had been guilty of a logical contradiction. From what I can see, my use of “only” is the sole meaning to be drawn from VV’s statement.

“Moreover, we should not expect to find exact historical references in early Christian literature, which was not written for primarily historical purposes.”

How else are we to take VV’s intention? If there were an additional category of documents besides ones “written for primarily historical purposes,” then VV would have to mention that as well. Note that his "which was" has to be taken in the sense of "because", otherwise his argument would have no force; in fact, it wouldn't even be an argument, just a statement of his opinion. By restricting himself to the one category, he is saying that we can only expect historical references in that one category, namely documents “written for primarily historical purposes.” And I can dispute that, claiming that this is not the only category of document where we could expect historical references. There is no straw man involved. It is not my fault of VV is implying that there is only one category. It doesn’t matter if there could be other categories, VV is implying the opposite, rightly or wrongly.

One might as well say that we can’t expect Jeffrey Gibson to date women because he is not interested in getting married. That statement, true or false, implies that in the writer’s mind the only circumstances under which Jeffrey would want to date is to find a wife. So can I not say (to paraphrase my statement about VV): “On what basis is it to be considered that only the desire to get married would lead Jeffrey to date women?” Obviously, I could come up with other reasons, and I’m sure you could, too. (One reason might be because he is spending all his time on IIDB fighting mythicism.)

But all this is completely immaterial. It’s a smokescreen. By claiming that I have set up a straw man which is hardly central to the point, Ben opens himself to the accusation that he is trying to deflect attention away from the fact that he has nothing to offer against the central issue itself. As I said earlier, instead of devoting time and space to meaningless and irrelevant side issues, why not address the main contentions? Who knows, Jeffrey might even find time for dating. I find it amusing that in a 43,000 word article, this is the point that people seize on to devote a dozen or more postings to.

Whereas, this is what they should have been addressing in regard to the VV quote:

…along with much fuller discussions about the silence in the epistles which is to be found in Part Two in answer to Graham Stanton and Morton Smith.

...not to mention all the myriad other points made in those 43,000 words which demonstrate that historicist refutations have hardly lived up to their alleged reputation.

All the best,
Earl Doherty