ible

Even if the Bible is wrong, or contradictory, in many places; how would the Jesus myth arise? What would the motives be, however insincere or on the other hand pious, in producing a history about a man who was also God, who suffered and died for humanity's sins?

I'll start off with some of my own thoughts; you may go ahead and refute them or add your own. I'll talk a lot about mythology; if anyone has some good links on some of my speculation, send them out. I also apologize if this thread has been done before, but I think we can manage a different angle to it.

From my understanding, there are a few other myth/rituals in "primitive" cultures that involve a reversal--the king of the tribe becoming a "fool," and everyone has free reign for a couple days. Also just from Greek mythology we have the Deity procreates with woman, half god half man type myth. So we see a propensity for the human race to think about God-man, reversal relationships.

There are other myths where there is sacrifice, whether that being a God or a man, or animals or simply grains, "first fruits," etc. The Old Testament has many rites about sacrifice, though with animals and food mainly. The sacrifices could be for atonement, recognizing sin and what not.
(I.e. Leviticus 17:11
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.)
And my understanding is that this belief of sacrifice/atonement was present in many other cultures. In the Old Testament, the sacrifice for the greater stuff had to be without blemish--basically as physically pure as you had in your flock.

Also getting more into the OT, there was a line of kings, God promised a descendent on David's throne forever. In Psalm 110, God said to David's Lord--that whole passage about an offspring of David being greater than himself (which was quite against the notion back then that parents are greater than their children). Apparently this "prophecy" also had David proclaiming that this Messiah (king) would be a king-priest, like Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18).

And there are many prophecies in the OT that God would give His people new hearts (i.e. Ezekiel 11:19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.) and that God would forgive them in a new covenant (i.e. Ezekial 16:60 Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ... 63 Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign LORD.).

We already see the working of sin, death, forgiveness, restoration, etc., in the OT, and promises for the future. It's possible that the NT mindset, a God-man figure that came down and patched everything up between God and man, is waiting to jump out of the woodwork of the OT. The God-man figure, or Christ as we know him, fulfills the king-priest idea, fulfills the perfect sacrifice since he was (supposedly) without sin because he was God, fulfills an intercessory, atoning relationship with God and man.

So the "Jesus Myth" could just be a result of really believing what the OT had to say about sin and restoration, while bringing into play the notion of the God-man.

But who honestly believes that someone would just make up that story? Yes, it fits very nicely--as I study the Bible I continue to see the parallels and relationships between old and new testament. But I think the story of Jesus wouldn't have popped up on its own, without some historical figure. And apparently early Christianity was worshipping some historical Jesus as God:

From Religion Facts.

And Philippians 2:6-11 may very well be a hymn of early Christianity that St. Paul is quoting, and thus an earlier date of Christ's divinity.
A chunk of it:
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Note the OT corollary:
Isaiah 45:23
By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.

About the NT passage:
(Also from Religion Facts)

So it seems probable that there would be a historical figure that would get attached to these beliefs about atonement and sacrifice. It also seems that people started worshipping this figure as God not too long after his death.

But if you will insist that there is no historical figure, or that Jesus wasn't God, or something else--why would people make up such a story? It's kind of a crazy story, when you get down to it.

gstafleu

Let me try to give a nutshell-paraphrase of Earl Doherty's (The Jesus Puzzle) ideas about this. He (and others) start by pointing out that the OT God had become so pure and transcendent that it was a problem to understand how he could interact with base reality. Hence a mediator was necessary.

This mediator started out as a non-human being, that is what we find in the (authentic) letters of Paul. Paul never places Christ on earth, everything Christ did, including getting crucified, happened in one of the heavenly spheres.

However, there is a strong need for a human cult to have a human founder. Buddha and Confucius (and Wilhelm Tell ) are other (possible) examples of this. Hence the Christ cult also wanted a human founder, and Christ was pulled down to earth. The unique thing about this was that where other cults tend to put the founder in the indeterminate past, Christianity put him in the (then) recent past. Apart from that the historification of an at first divine being was not all that unusual.

I'm doing this from fallible memory, so all errors in this summary are obviously mine. What I'm trying to say is that the fabrication of a "historical" figure is not all that strange.

GakuseiDon

Nitpick: Just to correct terminology: Earl places Christ's crucifixion in the sublunar realm, up in the air between the earth and the moon.

mountainman

Very Pythagoraean, the sublunar being the intermediate
stepping stone between the terrestrial and the local cosmic
environment, not yet inclusive of the sun.

Nice story, but I think Earl forgot to take into account the
weight of Julian's testament to all mankind written c.362CE



Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...Galilaeans.htm

Doug Shaver

He obviously doesn't think Julian's comment implies what you think it implies. That doesn't mean he forgot it.

ible

So even if the historical Jesus is a complete myth (which isn't well accepted today anyway), where would our human propensities have come from? --our beliefs in sin, atonement, and rightness with nature or God.

From another point of view, if the (mythical) history of Christianity follows the story that we humans yearn to enact, does it make Christianity more or less truthful?

ecco

I do believe these were all around long before JC and indeed long before the OT was written.

EarlDoherty

Well, to nitpick in return, I never said that I (or Paul) placed Christ's crucifixion below the moon. The writer of the Ascension certainly seems to, but neither Paul nor any other epistle writer ever says exactly where, above or below. So I wasn't going to commit myself to where early Christianity in general placed it. Let's just say it was "offshore", out in that great spiritual and mythical sea beyond the earth.

Now, I have to say that I have been a little remiss. I was so busy directing Katie around the dance floor a few months ago, that I neglected a little detail. I neglected to ask Don to enlighten us about "Ocellus". A bit of laziness on my part, because although I asked myself at the time who this fellow was (vaguely recalled the name but couldn't place it offhand), I assumed that when Don appealed to this apparent authority to establish exactly what Middle Platonism constituted in regard to the heavenly spheres, he must have had some basis for it, and anyway, I was holding to the principle that what one philosopher may have said on the matter was hardly conclusive, since other writers I quoted contradicted him.

But I'll make up for it now. Don, please tell us exactly who (and when) Ocellus was, and please give us a quote from his writings (with sources, please) to demonstrate your claim as to the established and universal nature of Middle Platonic views of the sublunar realm. I'm sure Katie, too, is waiting with bated breath.

Thanks,
Earl Doherty

andrewcriddle

There is an online piece about Ocellus from the 1911 Britannica which gives some basic information.

See http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/NUM_OR...S_LUCANUS.html

Andrew Criddle

Sven

I don't believe in sin. As billions of other people on this planet do (AFAIK this is a concept which only Abrahamic religions possess).
As for atonement and rightness, you can find the roots of these in other primates: They probably evolved, because they provided a benefit for a social species.