spamandham

...but still legendary enough as to quite possibly be a work of abject fiction. By no means is the question of genre for Mark settled.

Sure, but Q is not an actual known document. It's a reconstruction based on the assumption that the gospels originated as a collection of sayings. Price has shown that there is no need to propose Q at all. All you have to do is recognize that Luke was based on Mark, that Matthew was based on Mark and Luke, and that John was based on the other three.

The Gospel of Thomas reads like a "confuscious says" book. It begs to be categorized as a compilation of wisdom sayings attributed to a legendary figure. This argues against rather than for a historical Jesus, if you date it as it's traditionally dated. At best, it provides no weight one way or the other.

robto

This passage has been, and continues to be, much debated by NT scholars (or via: amazon.co.uk). I certainly can't recap that debate here. But let me just point out that the passage is not necessarily seen as an account of a god descending to earth, even by Christian NT scholars (who presumably would WANT to see it this way). To clarify my earlier statement, there is no place where Paul clearly and unambiguously describes a god who descends to earth.

robto

spam, I don't think this thread is for the debate between HJ and MJ, rather, it's for those of us who come down on the HJ side to give our reasons.

spamandham

I wasn't debating MJ/HJ, I was dissecting the reasons you gave for preferring HJ.

Clivedurdle

It is possibly this sort of statement that causes the hj default position.

Doves, sky's opening, voices from heaven, prepare the way, next scene with Satan....

Must be a different Gospel of Mark. What is "least legendary" when it is at home?

If AMark was around today he or she would be employed by Spielberg!

2-J

'least legendary' = contains the fewest miracles, and has Jesus as more human than the others?

I think that's a fair working definition. Makes sense to me, anyway.

Jeffrey Gibson

Ah, but is it reasonable -- especially in the light of (a) what NT writers knew to be the fact that that Adam, who was never in a heavenly realm, was in "the form of god" and (b) that Paul goes on to speak of Christ Jesus being exalted to raised to a heavenly realm only after he was, and as a result of his willingness to be, executed by crucifixion.

Didymus

Seems like you're getting off track.

The MJ vs. HJ issue is not about the sort of Jesus you or I "lean toward" or "believe in," but about which sort of Jesus the earliest Christians, and Paul in particular, worshipped and wrote about. In their eyes, was he a man living on earth, or a man-like being who existed only on a spiritual plane?

It's not unreasonable to think that the earliest Christians were in the best position to know whether or not he was a "real man." If the earliest Christians didn't think he was a man on earth, then the notion of a historical Jesus must have developed later. If that's what happened, the whole HJ notion would be tossed into a cocked hat.

Of course, there are many other "takes" on Jesus, e.g., he walked the earth only as a phantasm, a man in appearance only; that he was born as a man but became a god when he was baptized; that he was a mere man born of a virgin until he was crucified; that he was an ordinary man but a helluva magician; that he was a man on some occasions and a god on others; that stories about him were based on various traditional tales of first century healers and miracle workers; that he was an amalgam of various bible passages applied to the messianic yearnings of second century Jews; that he was a fictional character based on Odysseus.

In 324, the Christians finally decided the question once and for all: From divine conception, he was fully human and fully divine, not unlike being 100% spinach and 100% solid brass at the same time.

As to the HJ vs. MJ debate, here's my unevidenced proposition:

Paul was "sold" by some Jerusalemites on the divinity of a madman who had been crucified in Jerusalem. He became a fanatical convert. As time went on, his faith was confirmed by his own fantasies, dreams and visions. He came to believe he was in communication with the risen spirit of this man. With his help, this cult of Christians thrived, especially among Jews and their pagan associates in the Diaspora.

In the late first century, a "Jesus' life before Jerusalem" - transcribed as Mark's gospel - was kludged together from legends of holy men and healers, as well as biblical passages that could be applied to contemporary life and politics. Naturally, some well-known historical elements became part of the picture - such as Pontius Pilate's having been prefect of Judea during the early first century. Like all fiction, the Jesus story has elements of fact.

So I think Paul believed Jesus had been a real man living on earth. In that sense, I'm an HJ'er. But I also think he knew nothing about him except that he was crucified in Jerusalem. So, like Silas, we're in the same boat with Paul, because most of the rest - if not all - is fiction.

In turn, I think Paul's unearthly regard of Jesus can be explained by his own neo-Platonist leanings and derangement, not by a belief that Jesus had not lived as a man on earth.

Didymus

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually, "the Christians" didn't get around to "officially" settling this question with the declaration you note until 451 at the Council of Chalcedon. And even then the issue was not decided "once and for all" as you claim, since there were many who considered themselves orthodox who did not accept position on the identity of Jesus promulgated there.

Jeffrey

Malachi151

Even that isn't the real question, or the whole question.

The earliest Christians, even Paul, could have believed in a Jesus man living on earth and that Jesus could still have been a myth.

In fact, this is largely how I see it, though not exactly, and I don't think we really have enough information to totally figure that part. I think we do have enough info to figure out that Jesus was never real. How exactly Paul and others conceived of Jesus I don't think we can say for sure.

But, clearly there are myths about humans that never existed. John Henry is a typical example. Its likely that John Henry never existed and the famed competition between him and a machine never took place. However, after the legend of John Henry became popular there were people who believed that he was real and that the competition had actually taken place.

That's more along the lines of how I view the "Jesus Myth" as having developed. In such a way, even the early Christians thought of Jesus as having been real and been a person on earth, but nevertheless this was never the case.