spin

And I haven't seen any to justify your position.

Clivedurdle

Could we have a summary of the possible species Jesi and their various probabilities. This might help clarify what the Pope is condemning.

Please add to these.

Traditional catholic fully god fully man doing stuff now like transubstantiation
Protestant stripped down version of above
Modern theological studies Jesus
Islamic prophet figure
Jewish Jesus
Doherty type
Ellegard teacher of righteousness
Flavian model
Constantinian invention
Itinerant rabbi, rebel leader etc
Freke and Gandy type
Nazarenus type
Evolution of Christs type
Da Vinci Code type
Others?

How might we "score" these? Why?

Is "taste" a significant factor?

Does this variety say anything?

Chris Weimer

Whatever spin. You've said nothing worth responding to.

spin

You get what you give.

I was hoping for a bit more tangible material from you beside the few cryptic remarks you've made on a few threads, so that you could get some feedback that may be "worth responding to."

So, nothing comes from nothing; speak again.


spin

mountainman

Aside from the two middle paragraphs (of six) which deal with
fiction and conspiracy (to be dealt with separately elsewhere)
the rest paints a unique picture with the available history.

I am happy to accept this also as an indication of your own
"better fit" with respect to the chronology of the rise of the
christian religion -- if this is appropriate.

Mithras gets special mention in Gore Vidal's Julian, and
by Julian himself:

'Hymn to King Helios
Dedicated to Sallust


What I am now about to say I consider to be of the greatest importance
for all things "That breathe and move upon the earth,"
and have a share in existence and a reasoning soul1 and intelligence,
but above all others it is of importance to myself.

For I am a follower of King Helios. .... from my childhood
an extraordinary longing for the rays of the god penetrated deep into my soul;
and from my earliest years my mind was so completely swayed
by the light that illumines the heavens that
not only did I desire to gaze intently at the sun,
but whenever I walked abroad in the night season,
when the firmament was clear and cloudless,
I abandoned all else without exception
and gave myself up to the beauties of the heavens;
nor did I understand what anyone might say to me,
nor heed what I was doing myself.' [353].

On Julian’s first initiatory excursion,
the result is a vision, extrapolated
from Julian’s own King Helios.

The following is purported to be immediately
after the day of the Mythraic rites ...

When the day ended . . .
and I stumbled from the cave,
I was born again . . .

As I looked at the setting sun, I was possessed by light.
What is given to few men was given to me.
I saw the One.
I was absorbed by Helios . . .

My veins coursed not with blood but light . . .
I saw the simplicity at the heart of creation.
The thing which is impossible to grasp without the help of divinity,
for it is beyond language and beyond mind:
yet it is so simple that I marveled at how
one could not have known what is always there,
a part of us just as we are part of it.

BTW spin, I hope you notice that my picture of bullneck
is being balanced by knowledge of Julian's nickname,
bull-burner ... for obvious reasons.

Ted Hoffman

This is fundamentally wrong from start to finnish. Even Van Voorst (JOTNT) handles Tacitus, Pliny, Josephus and the rest and he never comes close to claiming that they are "overwhelming" evidence for a HJ. The only overwhelming thing is the lack of evidence.
I for one am mildly pleased to witness this takedown of Chris by spin. Chris has a predilection for chest-thumping which often goes out of hand given that he lacks any data worth shouting about. But he is otherwise a very nice guy, rich sense of humour and very knowledgeable.
Now onto spin and his mushrooming and underdeveloped Ebionite type hypothesis.
Well, the framework under which Jesus interacted with the world was through a form of structural homology (Gerd Theissen) and he was supposed to be an intermediary saviour figure. He interacted with Paul through revelations.
We maintain that he was mythical to Paul - the first one who promulgated the idea of a crucified Jesus. We dont give much weight to what later believers chose to believe. Remember that later Marxists dont necessarily agree with Karl Marx on many issues.
There was a process of evolution that accreted historical ideas to the Pauline Jesus. No, Paul did not believe Jesus was fiction. He believed Jesus existed and that Jesus died and resurrected. Theists today believe God exists, not that he is fiction. You cannot argue that because the earliest Christians believed in Jesus, they ipso facto believed Jesus was historical (or whatever non-mythical alternative you want to assign him).
We dont give a rats ass if modern Christians believe that Jesus was a martial arts experts who ate sushi and arrowroots: our focus is Paul.
I haven't studied Ebion much but what is the evidence that Ebion did not exist?
What about Tammuz? We are told of Tammuz worshippers mourning in Ezekiel. Why is Ebion better? He wasnt even a godman AFAIK. He never underwent a salvific death etc...
I smell apples...no. Oranges...

Ben C Smith

Neither did Chris. How did a bit of Josephus and perhaps a touch of Tacitus and Pliny blow up into overwhelming evidence from those quarters in the space of a single post?

Chris made it quite clear that he was relying principally on Paul and the gospels.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

Hi Ben, I appreciate your rushing to Chrise's side. But are you sure you want to engage in a tortured defence a recipe? I mean, Chris starts with Paul, then adds Josephus, some ketchup, sorry. No ketchup please. He advises that we just add the gospels, and some onions. Sorry, no onions(damn), Chris says specifically that we should add a bit of Josephus and a perhaps a touch of Tacitus. And for salad, oops. Sorry. No salad yet. We will come to the salad later. Chris says clearly that after a touch of Tacitus, add Pliny (not some Pliny, but Pliny) then some carrots and if there are no carrots well, maybe even some gnostics.
You think the word perhaps gives Chris enough wiggle room to elude spins overwhelming hammer?

spin

I had no desire to take Chris down. I was hoping if possible to get a more communicative rapport going.

I get tired of the adversarial approach among infidels. It doesn't make to much sense. It is the infidel who is supposed to be evidence driven and able to enunciate their thoughts more openly in order get to the bottom of issues.

The Ebionites have very little to do with anything, Ted. The figure of Ebion is merely that of a non-person who got turned into a person.

I'm sure you'll understand when I say "spoken like a true believer."

And I'm glad that you've been reading up on the secondary literature.

I must admit I'm not convinced about what Paul did or thought from his letters as yet, so you may be right.

You might maintain this, but how well does it actually reflect Paul's thought? Our local HJ spokespersons have tended to point our Paul's zealous references to "in the body" and you've been absorbed in countless threads which regurgitate the subject.

I have difficulty understanding that Paul both saw Jesus as "mythical" and believed he existed.

I must admit that I have actually been stearing between MJers, HJers and FJers (ie people who think that Jesus was a fictional entity -- usually a Roman conspiracy theory). That is why I said, "Fiction as raw material for a religion doesn't work."

Colorful, but I agree that later christians are irrelevant to the emergence of Jesus, be that emergence via Jesus's presence in the world, Paul's speculation, or the various other possibilities.

The Ebionites get their name from the characteristic that they were "poor", in Hebrew, )BYWN.

If you have knowledge of people believing that Tammuz was a real walking in the street human being, then I'll listen to it.

Ebion is nothing more than an example of how a non-person can become a person. It wasn't done through any weird processes whatsoever. It was almost certainly a plain above board bad assumption that blossomed into a person who interacted in this world and who had a home town and other trimmings.

You haven't washed your hands, Ted. You don't know what you smell. It'll teach you for feeling up the fruit.

Hopefully, you understand better why I mentioned Ebion. In other threads I've mentioned traditions, one of which was the exodus tradition, and if as I think that it's derived from the expulsion of the Hyksos, the current form of the tradition very often helps little in understanding the origin of the tradition. Ebion is merely a documented example of how a tradition can come about, one that reifies someone into existence.

It would seem that the approach you support pins the origin fundamentally on Paul. This may be right, but I'm still stuck at dealing with the Pauline interlude with the Jerusalem messianic believers. Does this say that Jesus existed outside of Paul's ambit and may even have preceded him? And he does talk about other gospels and other jesuses which could cause trouble to his flocks. I would have thought that another Jesus (2 Cor 11:4) meant one that was different to Paul's Jesus.


spin

Ben C Smith

Actually, I rushed to the side of sound reading. Chris just happened to be there.

The recipe analogy is interesting, but I am not sure what it means. No, I do not wish to engage in a full-blown debate. I was merely pointing out the obvious, to wit, that when one uses terms such as perhaps and a bit of with reference to a text one is not usually claiming overwhelming evidence from that same text.

I did not reference spin. I referenced you. Somehow you got from a bit of Josephus and perhaps a touch Tacitus to even Van Voorst never comes close to claiming that Josephus and Tacitus are overwhelming evidence. How did you do that, Jacob?

(As an aside, what you quoted from me in your post was actually from Chris. Doubtless you cut the wrong pair of quote tags.)

Ben.