Juststeve

Earl:

Yes, I would call expert witnesses to teastify to their expert opinions.

Steve

gurugeorge

Who is "he"?

What you are saying amounts to "fantastic elements in a story couldn't pertain to a normal human being". Well, sure, we know that already.

What we need to know, and what can't be established simply by reiterating that rationalistic truism, is whether or not there was a normal human being at the root of a story that's about a "he" who is through and through (in terms of the story itself) a fantastic being.

Once we've independently identified a human being who might plausibly be construed as the real person at the root of the myth THEN your line of argument has logical bite. Then that logic comes into play: "well if we're looking for elements in the story that might have happened to the real guy, we can rule out the fantastical bits". You can do that, that line of thought now has logical bite, because you've independently established the existence of the guy. Your inquiry is now about someone, you are talking about a real "he", i.e. a normal human being, whose existence has been (roughly - of course we aren't expecting miracles here!) verified independently of the cult texts, and who THEREFORE can tolerably be construed as the real chap behind the myth.

Prior to that independent identification, the "he" you are talking about can only be the "he" of the myth, because you have no other "he" to talk about - you haven't found him yet.

Juststeve

bacht:

I don’t know that there is a paradox but their certainly is a mystery. I don’t know how so many people came to believe fantastic things about Jesus, or the Buddha, or Mohamed. I don’t know how people come to think that you go to a psychic to find out who to marry or that there is a sea serpent living in Loch Ness. All of these are irrational beliefs for which I can give no good account. In fact I can’t give a good account for the growth and endurance of any religion of which I am aware. They all see to be transparent nonsense to me.

Maybe you can help me. Can you tell me how millions of people can believe that a long dead guy will be coming back any day now. It makes no sense to me but it makes even less sense if there was no dead guy in the first place.

Was that your point?

Steve

gurugeorge

I'm sure bacht will respond but I can tell you right now: they don't think of him as just some "guy". They think of him as a fantastic, supernatural being who had some sort of "guy" element, but who's mostly "goddy". And goddy entities can do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, in the eyes of their believers.

It's YOU who is thinking of "him" as some "guy", because you are blithely taking it for granted (on the testimony of biased experts) that the Jesus myth is an example of a myth with euhemeristic origins.

Does every myth in the world have euhemeristic origins, such that you feel warranted to assert that this is just another example of the same old same old?

No, like everyone else, you are simply taking for granted what has yet to be established: first, find your "guy".

bacht

Thanks Avi. The short answer to your question is that God doesn't need anything, but some Jews got tired of Ezra's monotheism. Thus gnosticism, which morphed into proto-catholicism and trinitarianism.

Syncretism was the trend after Alexander the Great, which the Judahites resisted up to Antiochus IV. Then the system started to break down over the next couple of centuries. They couldn't maintain their pre-Hellenistic theocracy, and the ruling class couldn't resist absorbing pagan ideas.

spamandham

You could apply this same approach to any larger than life fictional character as easily as you can apply it to records of a historical person who's memory was puffed up larger than life.

The approach might be valid for a real historical person, but it is nonsensical for a fictional character. The fact that it is possible to apply such an approach in no way indicates that the character is historical.

So when you decide to apply such an approach to Jesus, for example, you have already decided he is a real historical person before you even start the analysis.

bacht

I think you've answered your own question. Humans are irrational, and there always seems to be a market for 'nonsense'. A general expectation of resurrection or afterlife seems to have developed in the Hellenistic period, maybe because people were unhappy with life in a materialistic transnational urban culture.

It may be logical to look for a real person behind the gospel story, but religion isn't logical.

Juststeve

bacht:

Religion isn't logical but history is. We have good reason to think that there was a Christian movement by the middle part of the first century. Although some here scorn scholars at major universities, I wonder why, they tell us that by the middle of the century Paul was writing letters and Gospels were soon to be written. Tacitus tells us that by the year 64 there were enough Christians in Rome for Jesus to persecute. The historical question is how to account for the existence of this new movement. One possible explanation is that it began with a fictional account written by a person unknown at a time and place unknown. The alternative explanation is that there really was a guy like Jesus, who earned some followers, who died and whose followers kept the story alive, adding layer upon layer of legend in the process. You choose whichever explanation appeals most.

Steve

gurugeorge

The problem with this is that if the scholarship that tells us Paul was writing letters by the middle of the first century is to be believed, then the myth starts off as fantastic legend. There's no evidence of this gradual "layering" you're talking about. That's precisely one of the difficulties, the paradoxes, that leads people in a mythicist direction.

In fact, if there's any "layering" going on, it's in the other direction - in the bringing down to earth of some aspects of the myth over time.

i.e. you don't get much sense of Jesus as an "itinerant preacher" from Paul - that comes later, with the synoptics.

GakuseiDon

But that is not the criterion of embarrassment. I wish people would stop making the assumption that it is only about "embarrassment". The criterion is also called "the criterion of contradiction", and that is how it is used: early sources contradict each other, suggesting a revision of an earlier "embarrassing" fact, which MAY point to the earlier source being a more accurate account. The example given here is the baptism of Jesus by John: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~kloppen/criteria.htm

No-one considers the criterion as "slam-dunk" proof. But the criterion of embarrassment has nothing to do with some one account containing something embarrassing, like in your Adam example.

... which has nothing to do with the criterion of embarrassment. As I said, think "contradiction" first -- it requires more than one source -- before looking at the "embarrassment".