Ted Hoffman

Chris, Inanna died too and resurrected. Yet she was a god, not a mortal being. Tammuz too. Believers held that Jesus was a pre-existent being: he existed before he reincarnated on earth.

Now that you mention born of woman (Gal 4:4), You know that Burton wrote that "in view of the apostles'belief in the pre-existence of Jesus, as set forth in 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 16,16, and of the parallelism of v.6 be interpreted as having reference to the sending of the son from the pre-existent state..." Ernest De Witt Burton (Eds. S.R. Driver, A. Plummer, C.A. Briggs), A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 1948, p.217

Even H.L Goudge, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1926, p.16 echoed the same sentiments as Buttrick who writes that Gal. 4:14 "Sent forth refers to God's sending of his son from his pre-existent state in heaven (1 Cor. 8:6;Phil. 2:6-8; Col 1:15-17)"

So, the first thing is that, per Pauline Christology, Christ was a god who reincarnated somewhere in the realm of the flesh (kata sarka). The Philippians passage (2 Phil. 6-11) makes this very clear.

Once we have understood that, we come to the question:

Did Christ have to reincarnate on earth?
The answer is No.

Inanna, for example, was believed to have been tortured in the netherworld. The ascencion of Isaiah has demons dwelling and fighting in several heavens above the earth. Paul talks of a third heaven in 2 Cor. 12.

Bottom line: the ancients believed in a layered universe. The Platonic Universe. Magic in the Roman-period entailed binding demons in the aer. Now, the warring demons in AoI had bodies (flesh), maybe not similar to ours, but they had to have bodies to be visible to Isaiah and in order to do battle. These demons existed in the realm of the flesh.

And Paul says demons killed Jesus. Instead of saying that Pilate, or the Romans, or even the Jews killed Jesus.

And Paul says that Jesus incarnated in the realm of the flesh.

And Paul does not say unambiguously that Jesus was, but came forth in the realm of the flesh. carrier notes: "Ginomai does refer to birth (in the same way as in English, "I came from my mother" and its primary meaning is creation/origination in all its connotations). But Doherty is right that gennao would have clearly indicated birth, whereas ginomai is ambiguous and thus allows either meaning (his or the traditional one)."

And Paul says he died and resurrected with Christ. Sanders notes: "II Cor. 12 made it perfectly clear that Paul was some sort of mystic. “Being crucified with Christ,” “dying with Christ,” and “being one person with Christ” were obviously very important concepts to him"

This would only have been possible if Paul believed in parallelism of events. This "parallelism of action", Doherty explains, expressed the paradigmatic relationship that the Jews believed, which involved a form of synchrony with respect to earthly and heavenly counterparts: David is the King on earth and God King in heaven. Davidic kinship is a form of exaltation. K Schubert says that "Son of David seems to denote a provisional stage of exaltation". This parallelism constitutes what Gerd Theissen calls a "structural homologue"

We know that the ancients believed in events happening on earth paralleling those in heaven. The TDNT explains: "...the witness to Christ who reached men were strangely influenced by Gk. thought. It was planted in a society to which the idea of a history which develops and moves towards a goal was alien. This society does not think in terms of detached aeons. Being generally dualistic, it thinks in terms of superimposed spheres. Here, then, the
pneuma cannot be regarded as the mere sign of things to come. As a
part of the heavenly world is the thing itself...Logically, the [gnostic] thought meant that the spiritual nature of man was already pre-existent" TDNT, Vol VI, p.416

When you consider all these, they explain why Paul used the OT to know about christ. They explain why Paul never placed Jesus anywhere on earth. They explain why Paul believed archontes killed Jesus and so on.

We have to be very clear here. At the outset, it is possible that the Pauline Christ resurrected on Earth or on some other place below the orb of the moon.
But when we piece everything that Paul said together, it is more likely that his Christ incarnated elsewhere.

Make your pick.

What do you understand Paul to mean when he writes "the law"?

To express magnitude, hence the certainty of Christ's resurrection, which was central to Pauline Christology.

Paul does not say the spirit had a "need". Why did the transfiguration "need" the people who witnessed it?
You are the one who has introduced this concept of "need". Did Sinbad need to be a sailor?
Perhaps.

Assuming he had a mortal life. And you are incorrect to say his teachings were paramount to Paul: his crucifiction and resurrection was.
You said (presumably after examining the link): "The arguments are thin. Actually, the arguments are horrible." When I asked you to "show us how", you now respond: "I'm not going to respond to someone merely pointing to a link. Bring the arguments here and show how they're relevant"

I find this approach craven and elusive. It shows you cannot rebutt the arguments. At least Tedrika tried. You, OTOH, are comfortable to issue declarations from a reclining position.

Sanders does, like almost all HJ scholars, Check the link above.
They call him a miracle worker and a son of God. Those are your HJ friends.
He does not.
You got this one right this time.
Where does Paul rationalize what Jesus did with the OT?
I have been begging you to show us how to look. For the umpteenth time, please show us how. I have not been able to find anything on your site or blog. Provide a link please.

Link please.
You dont strike me as one well familiar with it. Never mind.

Which verse in Mark has Mark presented as an imitation of an Old Testamental theme? Which theme?
Turton talks of citations, allusions and parallels from the OT as signs of creation from the Old Testament.
You agree that some of the christs are mutually exclusive, like the natural and the supernatural ones. You were therefore incorrect.
Cite the different sources that present different characters and natures for King Arthur, Achilles, Confucius.
I dont mind. Just provide a link to this alleged introductory material.
Your methodology please.
Without recourse to external sources? None.
It matters if you keep mentioning it like some badge of honour.

gstafleu

I assume these "anti-Christian rants and raves" [aCrr's] are mine? Let's see. I point out that Christians attach a lot of importance to Jesus as presented in the gospels. Hardly an aCrr, most Christians would agree. I then make the point that, given this, it is legitimate to investigate if such a person could be historical. Hard to see an aCrr there; sure, some Christians may not be too thrilled with an historical investigation of their version of Jesus, but it is still not an aCrr. Finally, although this is not in the bit you quoted, I point out that if you want to determine the (non)historicity of any Jesus, you need a fairly well-defined Jesus, and the Gospel Jesus is one such. Again, aCrr's seem to be lacking here.

You, on the other hand, say "But who gives a flying fuck what Christians think?" And "Christian claims are laughable in the academic world". Hmmm....


The conclusion from that seems to be that there is not enough evidence to either verify or falsify the claim to an HJ. But for an MJ we don't need to falsify, showing that there is not enough evidence for verification is enough. That is because the burden of proof is on the person who claims that something exists. The claimant can not get away with saying "I propose that X existed, but I'm not going to prove it, it's up to you to show X did not exist." Until there is sufficient evidence, the hypothesis "X existed" is not accepted. At best it is shelved for future reference, in case more evidence pops up.

If true, that takes Paul out of any HJ-MJ debate. Any Jesus you could come up with could be seen as attested by Paul. Again, you cannot make an HJ or MJ claim unless your J is reasonably well defined. Claiming that some unspecified J is either H or M does not work.

The comparison would be that I don't believe you own a computer. The evidence that you do own one would be that you post on this forum, and you need a computer for that. Hence we know that you at least own a computer that can post to the forum. We don't know if it is a Mac or a PC.

That is what I'm getting at when I say you need a reasonably well-defined J. We don't need to know the color of his hair. But we do need to know which attributes are deemed relevant, and then we can discuss whether or not a J with these attributes is H or M.

The minimax computer I can deduce you have, from the evidence that you post to the forum, is that it is one that can post. From this it follows that your computer is not H, not M. In other words, you can counter my disbelief in your ownership of a computer by saying that your posting is evidence that you own a computer that can post, and that hence the statement you don't own any computer is false. The fact that you can post can only be explained by your ownership of a computer (OK, we're ignoring internet cafe's, friend's computers etc.)

So you own a computer of the "posting kind." Now what kind of J do we have compelling evidence for? Apparently not the gospel one. OK, agreed. Not the Jesus Seminar one either? Fine. According to you Paul doesn't really specify any kind of J, so we don't need to look there either. So where do we look?

To finish, let me be clear on one thing. MJers can only show that a given J is M. The possibility that there is some other J, that perhaps nobody has proposed yet, and that that J is H always remains. Mythicsim can never make a statement like "there never was any kind of Jesus." Nobody can do that, because you cannot prove a universal negative. The best you can do is show for each proposed Jesus that he is M. So the possibility of an HJ always remains open. But to turn that possibility into an actuality you'll have to show an example.

No Robots

Someone could have said to Columbus, "You haven't proven to my satisfaction that the Earth is circumnavigable," to which Columbus could have replied, "I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you. Instead, I'm going to act on my premise, and test my hypothesis." This is how science operates. Anyone is free to say, "You haven't proven to my satisfaction that Jesus lived pretty much as he is presented in the Gospels." But anyone else can reply, "I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove it to you. Instead, I'm going to act on my premise that he did."

gstafleu

Agreed. I would add, though, that acting and testing the hypothesis is part of the convincing process.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that this is analogous to your Columbus example? That is only the case if "I'm going to act on my premise that he did" implies "and test my hypothesis." But you don't add that bit. Acting on the premise that J existed is fine, but doesn't say anything, pro or con, about the hypothesis "J existed."

Zeichman

This is wrong. Don't fool yourself into thinking that any less than 99.8% of qualified NT scholars believes there was a historical Jesus, Jesus Seminar folks included. Robert M. Price is about the only exception in terms of the group, who describes himself as agnostic on the topic.

That isn't to say there aren't reasonable objections to an HJ, but the proposition that people who believe in the HJ are "out of touch" or anything along those lines is absolutely absurd.

gstafleu

That may be true, but it is just a McDonald's argument (N people cannot be wrong, where N approaches a large number).

I'm not saying anything about "out of touch." I'm just saying that, methodologically, the bop is on HJers, because it cannot be on MJers (that goes for any "Exists" hypothesis, not just HJ). Now I could be wrong about that bit of methodology. If so I'm certainly interested in seeing a correction. But a McDonald's argument doesn't count (just go visit the joint sometime ).

Zeichman

I implied this in my post.


I don't know about you, but I prefer that no position is assumed, that everything has to be argued. Including ahistoricity. Just to say "there was no HJ" is not enough, one needs to conclude that it is the best explanation of the evidence.

And, being a vegetarian, I'll pass on MickeyD's. Thanks, though.

Chris Weimer

When you posit a theory of your own to explain the evidence. Simply not believing is not enough - you must show how and why Jesus came to be.

But until you can show otherwise, tada.

gstafleu

OK, wasn't sure about that.

That certainly holds if there are two competing hypotheses that both try to explain the same evidence. The question here, I think, is if there is enough evidence to warrant the HJ hypothesis in the first place. That onus is on the HJers. Now it is certainly true that, if an HJer comes up with a particular bit of evidence, saying "this is evidence for an HJ," then any rejection of that bit of evidence as sufficient should be well reasoned. But the first move, coming up with the proposed evidence, belongs to the HJers.

There is no similar come-up-with-evidence onus on the MJers, because they are not proposing anything (at least, they don't have to propose anything).

OK, let me try the following, maybe this helps clear things up a little. We distinguish two types of MJism: weak MJ and strong MJ. Both are positions taken versus an HJ hypothesis.

Weak MJ simply states that there is not sufficient evidence to support the HJ hypothesis. In other words, it denies that the HJ hypothesis can be verified. That does not mean the HJ hypothesis is shown to be wrong, it just means it has to be shelved until more evidence (one way or another) arrives.

Strong MJ states that the HJ hypothesis can be falsified. This does indeed require either counter evidence or an alternate, better, explanation of the evidence the HJers offer.

In general, MJ is strong MJ. Let us take Doherty's argument from silence in Paul as an example. He claims that, given the importance of the gospel Jesus, one should expect to find attributes of the gospel Jesus mentioned in Paul. The fact that we don't find them falsifies the hypothesis that Paul's Jesus equals the Gospel Jesus. This in turn falsifies the hypothesis that the Bible is about exactly one Jesus: there are at least two.

I'm really nutshelling part of Doherty's arguments here, but I hope it is clear what I'm trying to say. Doherty tries to falsify a certain hypothesis (the bible is about one Jesus), and then comes with a better explanation (Jesus is a myth).

Here is an example from Robert Price's work that I first though was strong MJ, but it may actually be weak MJ. In Deconstructing Jesus he gives a list of all sayings from Q1, accompanied by earlier or contemporary quotes saying the same thing. He is showing that Q1 does not satisfy the criterion of dissimilarity, and that shows that Jesus is not necessary to explain Q1. I think this is weak MJ, because he really only shows that Q1 is insufficient evidence for verifying the HJ hypothesis. (Mind you, Price did not conclude that Jesus is a myth, he just showed that Q1 doesn't verify the HJ hypothesis.)

Strong MJ is more convincing then weak MJ: showing that a hypothesis is actually wrong is always better than just showing that the evidence is insufficient. But if I'm right about my Robert Price example, weak MJ can be pretty good as well. BTW, I know that Price hasn't pronounced himself an MJer, but his work does have bearing on the MJ case. The example would be part of a weak MJ case: you would have to come up with similar (in the sense of showing the evidence is insufficient) arguments for all evidence that the HJers adduce. Hmmmm, now that I think of it, isn't that pretty much what the combination of Deconstructing Jesus and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man amounts to...?

Chris Weimer

And yet you have not even begun to address our claims. Perhaps when you do, this statement will appear more meaningful. Otherwise it's merely shoving fingers in the ears and screaming "LALALALALA".