Duke Leto

I got to read the Jesus Puzzle a second time recently, and have found only a couple niggling points that keep me from fully accepting the arguments therein.

1) Why on earth a Crucified Christ again? Was it just the pierced/piercing Messiah mistranslation that gave them that idea?

2) Who the hell were Cephas and James then?

3) Did Mark then deliberately pattern Peter after Cephas? If so, why? Why place a known figure as subordinate to the mythical Jesus? (He did the same thing with John the Baptist of course.)

Malachi151

Who knows. Why was Isaiah said to have been sawn in half? I suspect that "Christ" was "crucified" because this was representative of the types of injustices that the people themselves were going through.

Two real people who were apostles of the early Christian faith, like Paul.

I don't know that he did pattern him on the real person, but Mark seems to have been intent on discrediting Peter and making a fool of him. I think that Mark was a student of Pauline teachings, and thus he made the other apostles out to be fools.

Amaleq13

It is my understanding that crucifixion was considered to be one of, if not the most, horrible and humiliating ways to be killed.

What other means do would you think demonic powers (directly or indirectly)would prefer for their sacrifices?

How much more disguised or empty of spiritual power could the heavenly messiah be than as the victim of such a death?

Doug Shaver

Nobody, but nobody, is ever going to come up with a totally bulletproof argument either for or against a historical Jesus. There is no conclusive evidence either way.

In my judgment, the preponderance of evidence, considered in its totality, is against a historical Jesus. In the judgment of a great many people whose intelligence I respect, the preponderance of evidence, considered in its totality, is for a historical Jesus. I'm OK with that.

I strongly doubt that Doherty's thesis is correct in every detail. I think his argument for Paul's not thinking of the Christ as a man who had lived and died recently in this world is very cogent. But Doherty's answer to the next question -- what, then, was Paul thinking instead? -- is possibly not so well grounded. From what little research I've been able to do on my own so far, I still think it's plausible, but only plausible.

TedM

Which to me doesn't make any sense. If this "Christ" were not a man why not talk about what he was and when he "lived" what all of the -earthlike references to him really meant? It makes little sense to me to refer to him in a mysterious way without discussing the mystery if it isn't what everyone and his brother would assume unless told otherwise.

And, if Paul DID have some discussions clarifying that Christ never really walked this earth, and they were edited out, that presumably-historicist editor exercised great restraint in not actually explaining what Paul REALLY must have meant or in adding in the details about who Paul's Jesus really was (born of Mary, not just "a woman", for example). The signs of such tampering don't seem to be there.

So, to me either Paul's accounts are uninterpolated yet more inconceivably silent about what he believed than what he didn't believe about who Christ had been in the past or the clearer explanations were originally there and an interpolator decided to change things in such a way that the final account is actually much less clear about who either Paul's Christ or the interpolators Christ was. Neither possibility seems very reasonable to me.

By default, to me the more likely explanation is that Paul's writings were consistent regarding Christ, and though lacking in detail about the man's life, when he did reference Christ's pre-crucifiction life he was referring a man named Jesus who had been recently crucified by those who didn't know who he really was, unlike Paul, who had a grand idea about who he must have really been.

I believe that the silences Doherty's theory requires are more significant than the actual silences he believes are there, and that actual silences he claims exist aren't as significant as he believes them to be, if in fact they do exist in the first place.

My take on Doherty's Top 20 silences, many by Paul is here.

ted

Malachi151

Ted, it's not silences, it's contradictions. Paul, pseudo-Paul, says things that flat out contradict the idea of Jesus having been a person on earth in his recent history.

Also, there are a few relatively minor interpolations in the letters of Paul. They are pretty much isolated and distinct, but they are there and they are also a few of the passages that people point to most to claim that Paul knew of a historical Jesus.

TedM

I"m quite aware of Paul, and am not familiar with one such contradiction. To my knowledge Doherty's argument is one about silences, not contradictions.

I can believe that a few interpolations made it in, and they were influenced by gospel accounts. However, that still leaves many 'earthly-sounding' references by Paul. About 90. see the Conclusions at my link in the last post for specifics.

The fact remains for me that what we have by Paul is not what we would expect if he were writing about a cosmic Christ who wasn't REALLY born, and didn't REALLY live, eat, talk, and get crucified on earth, but these things REALLY happened somewhere else although not at any particular point of time in the world's history, and that it was just simply 'time' for Paul and the various apostles and others to 'see' a very unorthodox 'truth' about the messiah everyone was expecting: He already came--though not on earth. He was crucified, though not on earth. And he would come again--this time to earth, and soon.

Shouldn't we at least expect Paul to have said where and when Christ appeared and how the scriptures supported the idea that the long-awaited messiah had ALREADY come?

ted

Solo

....what would they be, Malachi? I too would love to hear the things Paul said you think "flat out contradict" his assumption of recent Jesus.

Jiri

Malachi151

Here are some examples:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar..._history.htm#7

I think that Romans 10 is a major example of something that contradicts the idea that Paul thought Jesus was a person who had just been here.

I would also say that the instances where Paul says that he expects Jesus, or a Savior, to come from heaven is a contradiction, not just a silence. He never says that he expects him to come BACK AGAIN, just that he expects him to come. This is more than a simple silence.

For example:

Again, contradiction. Why are things being disclosed through prophetic writings, and not Jesus? Again this isn't simply a silence.

Pseudo-Paul:
Why is this revealed by the Spirit if Jesus was just on earth to reveal these things?

etc., etc.

Solo

Insofar as I understand, most of the objections of the writer are to Paul's references to a "deliverer" who is to come. He is not said to "come back" which one would expect if Jesus was a recently departed human. But Paul does not talk of Jesus in flesh because he does not believe Jesus would come back in a human form, but as transformed, risen Lord in a "spiritual body" (1 Cr 15:42-50).

Malachi, do you think the world is going to end tomorrow in God's Judgment ? Now, who on earth would want to think that ? Someone who is seriously delusional - right ? Have you ever met anyone who maintained that the world is going down the tubes but - not to worry - he was commissioned by God to reveal God's secrets hidden away from ordinary humans, which will fix your problem ?

So strictly speaking, Paul did not have all his marbles, right ? (even 2000 years back he would have been observed that way by people who had intelligence and poise) No ? You did notice, did you not, that not only God revealed his Son in Paul's body (Gal 1:15), but was "pleased" to do so (οτε δε ευδοκησεν ο θεος) ? You might want to factor that in when trying to guess what Paul was doing in Rom 10:14-17 when the scary idea hit that his Roman audience of strangers never heard of God's happy news of Paul's revelation. ( ..that's right)

Jiri