archibald

The heresy of mythicism seems to be 'a missing link'.

I am referring to an early version, not the contemporary one. :]

Am I wrong? What is the evidence?

Juststeve

Archie:

I don't think there is any evidence that the early opponents of Christianity ever asserted that Jesus was a mythical figure. Many asserted that he was a bad guy, a sorcerer, a Mamser, a heretic, and a fraud, but never that he didn't exist. The most parsimonious explanation for the lack of any near contemporary doubt about his existence is that everyone knew that he existed although there was a lot of doubt about what his existence entailed. Soon one of the mythical Jesus theorists (a new name since myther offends Toto) will chime in with a much less parsimonious explanation.

Steve

Toto

We only know about heresies from the second century.

Some modern mythicists think that some of the gnostics, in particular the Docetists, did not believe in a historical Jesus, but that the orthodox heresy hunters did not give an accurate description of their beliefs.

Doherty seems to think that pure mythicism was an early stage of Christianity, since he dates the letters of Paul to the mid first century, which was well before the heresy hunters operated.

As Juststeve points out, the opponents of Christianity found it more effective to paint Jesus as a mere human, or a convicted criminal, but historians generally believe that these characterizations were derived from the gospel stories and are not an independent tradition.

TedM

That seems foolish at first glance. Why would they do that? It would have been so easy to just say ---'what the F are you talking about--have you never read the gospels?'


This is a pointless comment because we have to decide what Paul was talking about. One could just as well say that most other people seem to think that an HJ was an early stage since Paul and all the other earliest writings support one and the heresies we know about for certain came after those writings. This gets us no-where.

What tradition preceded the gospel stories? no one seems to know, although as I've done elsewhere we can derive a Jesus that resembles the gospel Jesus from most of the earliest writings--Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John, Didache..

aa5874

You DON'T know what you are talking about. You appear to have an extremely limited understand of the term "MYTH".

A myth is not merely a character that is believed to have NOT existed.

A myth is character that has NO real history of existence and is described as NON-HUMAN, such as MERMAIDS, Marcion's Phantom, or the THREE-IN-ONE Jesus.

Jesus was a God/Man/Ghost in the NT

For example, the Jews believe that their God exist and so do those who believe in Allah.

But, Gods are MYTHs.

Jesus was also believed to be the Creator in Christian writings of antiquity.

Jesus was claimed to be in the Form of God and equal to God in the Pauline writings. See Philippians2.

"Paul" also claimed that he was NOT the apostle of a human being (no man) that he did NOT get his gospel from a human being (no man) and could NOT please human beings to be a disciple of Jesus. See GALATIANS 1.

And further, "Paul" claimed Jesus was God's OWN Son. See Galatians 4 and Romans 1.

Jesus was ASSERTED to be MYTHICAL in the Pauline writings.

Ga 1:1 -

jakejonesiv

Hi Archibald,

What do you make of 2 John 1:7? "For many deceivers went out into the world, which acknowledge not that Jesus Christ hath come in flesh; this is a deceiver and antichrist."


It is quite true that many texts that were used in the docetic vs. incarnation debates of the second century have been appropriated by both sides for arguments in the HJ vs. CM debate.

But is this really inappropriate? If you are going to argue that a docetic phantom wafting like a ghost thru faux historical scenes indicates that Jesus was a real man, that is rather naive, isn't it? This is the basic argument that AA5874 resorts to in every thread, and it is a good one.

Jake

Toto

digression on spelling based on general confusion split off here

I don't think that Dale realized that he had stepped into the middle of a debate on a specific topic.

dalehileman

I plead guilty

Toto

Why would who do what? I can't figure out your objection.

If you are asking why the orthodox did not ask that question of the gnostic mythicists, we know the answer. They read the gospels as allegorical stories, and they wrote their own gospels.

It's not pointless. It is an answer to the OP, from someone who has spent some time analyzing what Paul was talking about. The general idea is that the HJ came first and was mythologized, but there is no evidence to support this.

That's a good question - what tradition preceded the gospel stories? The general answer has been to imagine that there was some oral tradition that passed on the information, but modern literary analysis has shown that the gospels are based on the Septuagint.

The Jesus that you can derive from Paul is minimalist.

aa5874

It is propaganda and Chinese Whispers that the Pauline writings are the earliest writings giving the impression that "EARLIEST WRITINGS" mean from the 1st century BEFORE the Fall of the Temple.

"EARLIEST WRITINGS" with respect to the Pauline writings MEAN 2nd -3rd century.

The EARLIEST EXTANT CODICES are dated to the 4th century and the PAULINE WRITINGS (P46) are DATED by paleography to the MID 2ND CENTURY to the 3rd century.

There are NO PAULINE WRITINGS AT ALL that are DATED by paleography to BEFORE the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE..

NONE whatsoever.

It is time to END the propaganda and Chinese Whispers about the Pauline writings.

The EARLIEST WRITINGS of the NT CANON is from sometime between the MID 2ND-3RD century dated by paleography.