dog-on

I'll stay away from the distinct possibility of later interpolation, etc.

By Paul's own admission, he receives his gospel from scripture. The dying/rising God is Hellenic. Appearances are visionary. Everything is in accordance with the scriptures, messianic prophesy and/or concurrent Hellenistic thought.

What leads you to believe that Paul thought Jesus lived on earth in recent times? Paul's congregations were waiting on the coming of Christ. Does this necessarily mean that they believed he was some guy who had recently been among them? Paul doesn't ever specifically say. Christ could have easily been considered in the same vain as other Hellenistic God-men, as having existed in some legendary past. Hidden and now revealed through scripture. This idea would not have been foreign to his audiences.


If Paul really was Saul, a Jew, the idea of a deified man would seem rather odd. If we take what Paul says about himself as the case, the non-earthly Christ would seem a better fit.

My point is that, regardless of what Paul believed Jesus to be, a purely mythical character (human or not) is just as, if not more, likely. The Eucharist is just too Hellenistic for it to have been initiated by a Jewish preacher. When I was in Jerusalem, earlier this year, I was amazed at how pagan the Christian religious sites, in reality, truly are. This religion may have used the Jewish scriptures as it's basis for authority, but it is in no way Jewish.

I agree.


But, this "spark" is not specifically required. Remember, those people were really expecting the perousia at any moment. The Christ explanation just happened to be at the right place and at the right time. Once it caught on, of course, it became desirable to put a history to the figure.


Where does Paul mention Pilate? Christians point to OT scripture for references/prophesy of the crucifixion all the time. And besides, crucifixion was about the most nasty form of execution existing at that time. What better way to kill a God?

Do you apply this same logic to Adam and Eve? Paul believed that the mystery had been revealed to him. I don't think Paul felt he was "constructing a human character". I don't know where Paul says Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. Paul's Christ, while being a product of some messianic ideas, is not the Jewish Messiah, as Paul, if he were a Jew, would have well known.

dog-on

One other thing, someone here can enlighten me on. Is there any surviving first century account where someone argues that this person, Jesus of Nazareth, is not the Christ/Messiah?

Clivedurdle

The gospels - if they are first century - does anything good come out of Nazareth?

dog-on

Clive, I am looking for something to add credence to an HJ.

dog-on

Didymus, regarding OT crucifixion source:

Psalm 22:16
Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

I guess this was around in Paul's day.

When Paul says Christ Crucified, what does he mean? Crucified in the sense of physically hung from a literal cross, or in the sense of suppression or being "put down":

Gal. 5:24 (NIV)
24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

Gal. 6:14
14May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

This just gets more confusing all the time...

dog-on

How about Crucified in the sense of 3(b):

From blueletterbible.org

3) to crucify

a) to crucify one

b) metaph. to crucify the flesh, destroy its power utterly (the nature of the figure implying that the destruction is attended with intense pain)

dog-on

One last thing, what does 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 mean in the context of an HJ? Wouldn't the historical Jesus himself have been some kind of a sign to the Jews? Wouldn't all Jesus's teachings have been wisdom for the Greeks? Paul is saying that there are no signs for the Jews and no wisdom for the Greeks, just the preaching of Christ crucified. What the hell is he talking about?

Didymus

We don't, of course. But a lot can be explained by hypothesizing that single incident.

Given all the enigmas, the possibilities are endless. That just seems like a very serviceable one.

("False dichotomy"? What are you referring to?)

Didymus

Sparrow

Exactly what you said:

the possibilities are endless

It's not 'either this happened or that happened'. I largely agree with your scenario posted above. Given the silences, I don't think that the vision Paul had related to any specific previous historical person in Paul's mind. Whether that Christ figure was a real person or just spiritual doesn't particularly seem to matter. The groups Paul corresponded with may have had completely different origins or may have been divergent groups based on some single original person (How would we know?).
Later, as others spread the belief, it becomes necessary to offer some more definitive biography than Paul ever knew. The scripture is scoured, possible figures from the past are examined. This could have gone on independently or nearly so, leading to some of the contradictions we see today. Were I to write, in what we now refer to as 100CE, about a god/man executed after suffering, under whose authority would I choose and by what method of execution? These events may have been real, but they need not have been.

This is why I've come to a new turning point, right here in this thread. The Jesus plainly described in the Gospels is mythical, based solely on the non-existence of the miracles. Whether or not there was a human at the source appears unprovable without new evidence. I propose this question ought to be more accurately referred to as the PJ (Physical Jesus) vs. the SJ (Spiritual Jesus). Even if that were to be decided and proven, we would still no next to nothing about the actual lifetime of a PJ.

My biggest concern in this exercise is the enormous analysis that goes into a single word written two millennia ago. Were someone to examine my writing in two millennia, I would hope they would realize that at least occasionally I use words incorrectly or with an alternate meaning or even with dual meaning (comedy with this we would have not!). Sometimes I think we can read way too much into these texts.

Didymus

Yes, he received his gospel from scripture. Or from "the Lord" via scripture. And there's plenty of Hellenism in the mix. But that's no reason why Paul and his cohorts couldn't have regarded their "dying/rising God" as a recently crucified human. And there are plenty of reasons to think they saw him as exactly that.

By the way, the idea of a descending/rejected/ascending divine being is at the core of the Wisdom stories. I think you somewhat understate the role of Judaism in Paul's theology.

It explains Paul's references to Jesus' human charactistics and actions without making the assumption that he knew all about Jesus' life but for some highly conjectural reason kept quiet about it. Remember, I'm talking about a "one-trick Jesus" here, about a man who, to our knowledge, did nothing more than get himself crucified in Jerusalem in the early part of the first century.

Just to be clear, I don't think Paul had a clue about the Jesus of the gospels. That may be an argument from silence, but it's an argument from a succession of silences that are otherwise very hard to explain. I think Doherty does a terrific job on this, by the way.

All true. But there's no positive evidence that Paul actually did regard Jesus in that way. There's nothing to rule that out, but, in the absence of an explict Pauline statement to that effect, there's nothing to rule it in either. And it presents some real problems. jjRamsey's right: The "firstfruits" passage does suggest that Paul thinks of the resurrection as a recent event. And so does the syntax of 1 Cor 15.3-7. And are we to think that Paul thought the eucharist was enacted in the remote past? He certainly doesn't tell us that.

Yes, but Paul was a Hellenized Jew who seems not to have been troubled by such taboos. At least I can't recall him having expressed any hesitations about the idea of an incarnated godman.

I think by "mythical" here you mean "fictitious," in which case I fully agree.

I don't think Paul would agree with you!

Of course, I don't think we have reason to believe that the "virtual MJ" actually did any preaching whatsoever. He was only later imagined to have done such preaching, first in Galilee and then in Jerusalem.

!

Again, I fully agree. The spark was not specifically required. But if not a "current event" like an unjust crucifixion, then what???? The publication of Galatians? Doesn't seem like enough to capture the public imagination, does it?

The "spark," i.e., the hypothesis of a virtual MJ, does untie some Gordian knots like kata sarka and brother of the lord and Paul's giving Jesus a Jewish identity and jjRamsey's "firstfruits" objection. At the same time, it accounts for the silences. (There are many plausible explanations for lack of public knowledge about the origins of a crucified lunatic: orphanhood, amnesia, nomadism, etc.)

As I've said, as a hypothesis, it seems to solve more problems than it creates. Hopefully, it's worthy of serious consideration by HJ and MJ folks alike.

He doesn't, of course. It's not necessary to think that Pilate was involved at all, although the timeframe seems about right given the progress of the religion. Paul's reference to a "James" might also suggest that time period, but there were several James, including the almost-certainly historical James the Just. I haven't tried to sort out the datings. At this stage, I'd give some involvement by Pilate a fairly high probability. But I'm NOT suggesting that it was it the sort of involvement described in the gospels.

The Romans certainly didn't feel that way, if Celsus is any indication. But the notion seems to have caught on anyway, eh? Yes, there seems to have been a receptiveness to the idea. All the more reason to think that such an incident would have set folks to pondering, especially if the crucified man seemed saintly and his name was Jesus. I wouldn't take long for the "oral tradition" to attach Paul's rudiments of a bio to such a figure. Or maybe Paul did it himself. My personal jury is still out on that question.

Nor do I. If I said that, put it in very small type, would you? Paul included just those few "biographical" elements needed to place his Jesus Christ in the role of the Jewish messiah. Nothing more.

As to the mystery part, yes, Paul felt that the truth about this mysterious "crucifee" had been revealed to him through scripture, dreams, visions and who-knows-what.

You're quite right, he doesn't mention Jerusalem in that regard. Nonetheless, I think the probability of the crucifixion having taken place in Jerusalem is quite high. Where else would a Jewish messiah meet his earthly fate? For a hint, check Michael Turton's Commentary on Mark. The significance of the Temple pervades the gospel, even the Galilean section. But there's no good reason to think it happened the way the gospels say it did.

We don't disagree on much, but we disagree on that. As I said, Paul himself didn't see it that way. Nor did his Jewish followers, not that there were all that many.

A Hellenized Jewish messiah, perhaps?:grin:

Didymus