GakuseiDon

I've been thinking over a "sublunar" Christ, and trying to reconcile it with what I know (or think I know) about the beliefs of Paul's day. Here is my mythical Christ theory, a modification of Doherty's, but without all of Doherty's nonsense about "sublunar mythical realms", etc. AFAIK it is consistent with the beliefs in Paul's time.

I'll start with Paul, and backtrack from there. Paul hears that people are worshipping a new angelic being called Jesus, who has brought salvation to the Jews. He goes off to persecute them. Along the way, he has a vision where Jesus appears to him, and is converted. He becomes convinced that Jesus offers salvation to the Gentiles as well, through reading the scriptures. He later talks to the Jerusalem pillars about what they believed, to make sure that he got the details right. They probably thought that Paul was essentially correct, or at least, if wrong, then in a harmless way.

So, what did James and the others believe, and how did they differ from Paul? They believed that Jesus, as God's Wisdom, had descended under the firmament, to take on the demon spirits there. What were the demon spirits? Satan, and his cohorts. But some early Christians also believed that each nation had its own daemon in charge. James et al believed that Jesus had brought salvation to the Jews. Paul became convinced that Jesus had conquered not only Satan, but the daemons of the gentile nations as well, and so had brought salvation to the gentiles.

Why would James, etc, become convinced that God's wisdom had descended into the firmament, to take on Satan? It was because a new star (or maybe comet) was observed appearing in the skies. A comet was thought to show that Julius Caesar's spirit was entering heaven, so the reserve could also happen. A comet or new star in the right constellation (IIRC I believe there was one that signified the Jewish nation?) could have had that significance. Stars were also thought to be gods in some way, so a new star, esp in the right cosmological position, would have showed that a new god or angel had entered the world. If it only lasted a few days, it could have been said to have ascended again.

Paul's version probably would have had limited appeal, since the gentiles preferred their gods "earthly". Mark repackaged Jesus to appeal to Roman sensibilities. The virgin birth was added to combat the Emperor cult. I'm not sure how the crucifixion fits in at this stage, however.

Anyway, this modified version of Doherty leaves out the weaknesses and nonsense in his theory, and seems to conform to known beliefs. What do people think? Could I get a book out of this?

Clivedurdle

I was after something similar here, but I do think we need to define more clearly the range of beliefs then and how they interrelated and co-evolved.

Toto

You seem to want to piggyback on Doherty's extensive work without doing his extensive reading, and you want to postulate things for which we have absolutely no evidence so far. If you come up with some evidence for the astrotheological beliefs of the Jerusalem Church you might have a start.