Amaleq13

I'm saying that an assumption based on a belief that Jesus was the Messiah doesn't really tell us whether Paul considered Jesus to be a historical figure. IOW, I don't see the difference between a willingness to assume on faith Davidic descent and a divine conception and a willingness to accept Davidic descent and a purely spiritual existence.

Can you beg an unanswerable question? The bottom line is we really don't know why Paul chose the words he did or what he was thinking when he wrote them. We can only speculate.

Why should we assume any of Paul's believers ever got to the push/shove point with regard to Jesus' Davidic heritage? I think you could make that argument for the Gospel authors and point to the genealogies as evidence of a response but I don't see any evidence of it being a problem earlier.

Is a demand answering adequately by an unsubstantiated assertion? I don't think so. I see Paul's "flock" as wanting the established respectability of Judaism plus the hope of his gospel minus the annoying penis surgery and food restrictions.

I tend to think of Paul's primary target audience as the God-fearers. They were familiar enough with Judaism to appreciate any connections he might make but not so entrenched as to be turned off by the differences.

Wouldn't that go hand-in-hand with the apparently new "demands" for biographical details about Jesus that the Gospels provide?

If it is an assumption that follows from a belief that Jesus was the Messiah, it seems to fit either so we can't tell from it.

It would matter if we could say with confidence that Paul could only have been referring to a historical figure. I just don't see how we can.

Yep. If that could be shown, not only would Earl's thesis have a problem but so would the notion that Christians always believed Jesus to been divinely conceived.

GakuseiDon

I think I make much the same point when asking you to demonstrate the existence of beliefs that would allow crucifixion occuring in the air.

As for the indications: Here is Plutarch giving what the "man-in-the-street" (as you refer to below) believed:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...Osiris*/A.html

One of the first acts related of Osiris in his reign was to deliver the Egyptians from their destitute and brutish manner of living. This he did by showing them the fruits of cultivation, by giving them laws, and by teaching them to honour the gods. Later he travelled over the whole earth civilizing it without the slightest need of arms, but most of the peoples he won over to his way by the charm of his persuasive discourse combined with song and all manner of music...

They say also that the date on which this deed was done was the seventeenth day of Athyr, when the sun passes through Scorpion, and in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris; but some say that these are the years of his life and not of his reign...

Isis, when the tidings reached her, at once cut off one of her tresses and put on a garment of mourning in a place where the city still bears the name of Kopto...

The traditional result of Osiris's dismemberment is that there are many so‑called tombs of Osiris in Egypt; for Isis held a funeral for each part when she had found it. Others deny this and assert that she caused effigies of him to be made and these she distributed among the several cities, pretending that she was giving them his body, in order that he might receive divine honours in a greater number of cities.

So these things were regarded as happening on earth. Plutarch continues:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...Osiris*/B.html
Eudoxus says that, while many tombs of Osiris are spoken of in Egypt, his body lies in Busiris; for this was the place of his birth; moreover, Taphosiris requires no comment, for the name itself means "the tomb of Osiris."...

On the allegorical nature of the myths, Plutarch says:

Therefore, Clea, whenever you hear the traditional tales which the Egyptians tell about the gods, their wanderings, dismemberments, and many experiences of this sort, you must remember what has been already said, and you must not think that any of these tales actually happened in the manner in which they are related. The facts are that they do not call the dog by the name Hermes as his proper name, but they bring into association with the most astute of their gods that animal's watchfulness and wakefulness and wisdom, since he distinguishes between what is friendly and what is hostile by his knowledge of the one and his ignorance of the other, as Plato remarks. Nor, again, do they believe that the sun rises as a new-born babe from the lotus, but they portray the rising of the sun in this manner to indicate allegorically the enkindling of the sun from the waters. So also Ochus, the most cruel and terrible of the Persian kings, who put many to death and finally slaughtered the Apis and ate him for dinner in the company of his friends, the Egyptians called the "Sword"; and they call him by that name even to this day in their list of kings. But manifestly they do not mean to apply this name to his actual being; they but liken the stubbornness and wickedness in his character to an instrument of murder. If, then, you listen to the stories about the gods in this way, accepting them from those who interpret the story reverently and philosophically, and if you always perform and observe the established rites of worship, and believe that no sacrifice that you can offer, no deed that you may do will be more likely to find favour with the gods than your brief in their true nature, you may avoid superstition which is no less an evil than atheism.

Earl, as I've replied before, these are events that occur above the firmament. What about the equivalent of a "heavenly Jerusalem" above the earth in the sublunar realm? There doesn't appear to be any evidence for such an idea. Can you list the activities that were thought to have taken place in the sublunar realm above the earth?

Yes, and as I think I've shown, Plutarch had the man-in-the-street believing these things as happening on earth. Plutarch himself gave them an allegorical meaning, so they happened not at all. There is nothing to show that people believed it happened in a sub-lunary realm above the earth.

I think there is adequate evidence for this. Plutarch again:

Many things like these are narrated and pointed out, and if there be some who think that in these are commemorated the dire and momentous acts and experiences of kings and despots who, by reason of their pre-eminent virtue or might, laid claim to the glory of being styled gods, and later had to submit to the vagaries of fortune, then these persons employ the easiest means of escape from the narrative, and not ineptly do they transfer the disrepute from the gods to men; and in this they have the support of the common traditions.

Tacitus this time:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/ta...sAnnals03.html

First of all came the people of Ephesus. They declared that Diana and Apollo were not born at Delos, as was the vulgar belief. They had in their own country a river Cenchrius, a grove Ortygia, where Latona, as she leaned in the pangs of labour on an olive still standing, gave birth to those two deities, whereupon the grove at the divine intimation was consecrated. There Apollo himself, after the slaughter of the Cyclops, shunned the wrath of Jupiter; there too father Bacchus, when victorious in war, pardoned the suppliant Amazons who had gathered round the shrine.

Tacitus also says:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...y/tacitus.html

Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighboring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighboring countries.

Actually, someone on another board got very upset when I called Roman and Greek beliefs as "pagan". So I was trying to be a little more politically correct. So you are correct. I meant the Roman beliefs here.

jakejonesiv

Yes, from somewhere else. This was inserted by catholic redactors to humanize and Judaize an originally docetic Jesus.

Jake Jones IV

TedM

Here is something I received a while back from Bernard Muller on this issue:

ted

the_cave

There's a difference in the meaning of "Davidic descent"--mythical or earthly. I can see that it might not explain what Paul meant, but I think he must have known his audience.

Because that was the common understanding of the Jewish scriptures at the time?

Which included a faith in an earthly Messiah.

Maybe. But can we guess that they just threw out the expectation of an earthly Messiah?

Sure, and the motivation for it all would be faith in an earthly Messiah.

Amaleq13

No doubt about it. They knew what he meant by the reference but that doesn't really help us figure out what exactly it is they knew. Did they "know" it was literally true or did they "know" it was somehow true because Jesus was the Messiah?

Was the idea of a sacrificed and resurrected Messiah "the common understanding of the Jewish scripture at the time"? No. Why should we assume that any other particular "common understanding" presented a problem if Christians chose not to accept it? They took the Jewish idea of a promised savior and ran with it.

That assumes what you are trying to argue, doesn't it? Since it is clear that they felt free to pick and choose what parts of the traditional expectations were and were not necessary for their own faith, upon what basis do we assume that an "earthly Messiah" was considered necessary?

They were willing to throw out the traditional expectation of a warlord and the expectation of immediate freedom for "Israel", why should "earthly" get special treatment as an assumed requirement?

Why would faith in a Heavenly Messiah be any less motivating?

Clivedurdle

Were not heaven and earth both equally real for all these people - and many today?

Therefore the MJ/HJ argument is possibly based on a logical error.

The point is is the "sphere" of Jesus more human or godly? I'm quite clear it is godly and therefore mythical, but confusion creeps in because the entire Bible assumes heaven and all is real - as shown by all the quotes about zion and the concept of a new heaven and a new earth.

youngalexander

Sorry for taking so long, but it has been plurry hot here and turning the computer on doesn't help. I see that a number of others, including Earl have answered. I would say in the LH as ac defined it. However, I doubt that the author of Hebrews thort in such categories.

Since others have made some general comments and because the OP concerns kata sarka I shall say my piece on it as well.

The reason I came to IIDB was in order to see some debate on Earl's theory. I had never entertained the idea of a MJ before reading TJP and having found it (& Carrier's review) quite impressive, wanted to see some counter opinions. I have certainly got my wish.

As far as I can see TJP and the website articles mount a powerful case for Paul's Christ Jesus being mythical. True, there are 'born of woman', 'brother of the Lord', 'kata sarka', 'Lord's supper' and various other objections as we have been discussing. However, it seems to me that they can all be satisfactorily answered. Bear in mind that there are no absolutes here, it is all a question of probabilites. Earl has only to demonstrate that his reading of 'kata sarka' is plausible and has a reasonable probability of being correct to nullify it as a theory killer. I think that he has done this.

The main game is the silences. I first became aware of preacher men when Billy Graham visited the wide brown land in the fifties. For 50yrs I have observed a considerable variety of such godmongers and I've gotta tell you I have never seen one such as Paul who tells us virtually zip about Jesus life, death and particularly teachings. Frankly this is just so at variance with my own experience that I do not believe that he ever knew anything about the gospel events. Of course, that is not surprising since they are largely inventions anyway.

I do not agree entirely with DMT (Doherty's Mythical Theory) and am not at all sure re 2nd century apologists for instance, where you are clearly on sounder ground. Personally I am more inclined towards Carrier's more centralised view, rather than the riotous diversity (which did exist) being the only syncretic pathway. It seems to me that Paul's jesus was a MJ and thus so was that of Cephas and gang. We could then pretty much allow the orthodox Apostolic Way until Mark's allegory, the destruction of the Temple and Luke taking Mark as history.

I have been working my way thru Carrier's booklist; Malina, Stark, Rank/Raglan, Dundes, Price, Doherty, Talbert as well as RC himself, particularly in TET and Evan Fales. I have even put in an order for the last available copy of Dillon's Middle Platonists.

It's all beginning to make sense.....
And now back to the pool!

the_cave

...and the answer to that depends on what they understood by "Jesus" and "Messiah"!

Not among Jews?

If Galatians is at all accurate (we probably shouldn't get into a discussion of that), then Paul's mission was approved by the Jerusalem church. Surely they were preaching primarily to Jews who had previously expected an earthly Messiah of one sort or another?

I'm saying it wouldn't motivate the demand for biographical details.

LGM

Lets see...

A guy named Saul starts a first century cult around some mythology he creates based on his reading of ancient Jewish prophecy. A guy named Mark takes this mythology and turns it into an earthly allegory. A guy named Luke turns this allegory into history. A guy named John turns this history into a new dogmatic religion. Another guy adds some apocalyptic prophecy to the new religion. A guy named Constantine decides to franchise the whole thing. A guy named LaHaye starts a 21st century cult around some mythology he creates based on his reading of ancient Christian prophecy.

A guy named Earl points out it all started as a myth.

It is all starting to make sense...