GakuseiDon

Yes, if you mean that most people are trying to determine who the Jesus is behind the gospel stories, either HJ or MJ.

Chris Weimer

Jewish War, 2.155 "επειδαν δε ανεθωσι των κατα σαρκα δεσμων"

The arguments are thin. Actually, the arguments are horrible. He's objecting to Jesus because Paul uses Gospel of God? Moreover, Doherty is taking the gospels at face, a big no-no. When you compare the gospel accounts to Paul's letters, of course you're going to get discrepancies, silences, etc... It would be wise to remember that the gospels came after Paul. Go figure.

Which eyewitness accounts is he supposed to use? That Paul uses the OT is a given - are Jews supposed to give up their holy book for someone? Even the OT itself warns against this. Everything that Jesus did needed to be rationalized by the OT. Without it, the actions are meaningless.

Of course it was. It would be virtually impossible to do such an act and not be killed on site. That much is a given. But I thought we're talking about the historical Jesus, and not the embellished version given by the gospellers. I call strawman.

With all due respect to Michael, coincidence does not necessarily rule out historicity. Nor does it rule out intentional altering, such as Mark making what happened fit the OT better. That much happens all the time in real life - why not then?

Half of these aren't mutually exclusive, and many of them are the same thing, with variation. And when dealing with such a popular figure as Jesus, of course many people are going to weigh in with their own hand. And with such a varied corpus (four books by four different authors, plus side commentary) you're going to result in conflicting accounts depending on who thinks what should stay. It's not important what conclusions you list - it's the methodology, or so I thought.

We don't need to go into ad hominem attacks, Jacob. You can leave that back in grade school. If you want to actually deal with the evidence, fine, but don't you dare accuse every HJer of being biased as such.

You're quite right, actually. The gospels read as ancient myth. Heck, even I was a mythicist once. There are strong arguments against historicity. But overall, the position is untenable and fails. The HJ position is the one that best explains the evidence.

And again, you paint us all with your denigrating brush, broad strokes. Bad form.

He listed two. One he took his silence as damning, a faulty conclusion, mind you, but the other still was verbal about Carrier.

This is inaccurate. Please go back and read the thread in question. There was a lot of behind the scenes that you were "absent" for and missed out.

False. Achilles being unable to be hurt does not mean the entire Trojan War did not happen. The appearance of Grendel does not rule out Beowulf's existance. This is a terribly faulty methodology.

Ben C Smith

But when they are set free of bonds according to the flesh....

Good job, Chris. I did not think to look for κατα σαρκα in Josephus. And in a rather famous passage at that.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

Such ignorance should not go unanswered. Let the special pleading begin!

Toto

In context, the passage reads from here: Interesting.

Chris Weimer

Indeed. So here we have Josephus affirming that only when they are released from their bodies, which are modified by kata sarkon, can they be free to transcend this earthly realm and traverse the spiritual world. And you know what? By golly, it seems to have a faint familiarity with it? I can almost place where I heard this sort of reasoning before...

Actually, sarcasm aside, it appears that it is the only reference in all of Josephus for kata sarkon... Perhaps it was, as previously suspected, that it deals with "mystical" language and voodoo whatnot. Perhaps Paul picked up this echo from the Essenes - this, kata sarkon, is bad. Possible, plausible...probable?

jjramsey

What's interesting is that the Bernard Muller that Ted Hoffman was bashing came up with this passage as well :

Anyway, I looked at Doherty's response to Muller here:

http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/CritiquesMuller1.htm

I see a few problems with it right off the bat. First, there's the problem to which GDon alluded earlier, namely that Doherty is eliding the difference between the superlunary and sublunary spheres, where change only occurs within the latter, and higher and lower realms within the sublunar sphere. Second, Doherty also elides over the difference between Plutarch's allegorizing of the myth of Osiris and saying that the events of the Osiris myth happened in an upper realm of the sublunar sphere. Actually, he does this not only in the review but in his onw writings, where he says,

Third, Doherty writes, "Muller makes the mistake of ignoring the principle that the same word or phrase can have more than one meaning and application, and of declaring that because it means one thing in one set of instances, it must mean it in all." This, though, is not so, since he cites several examples of the use of kata sarka, not all of which have quite the same meaning, for example:

Not only this, but Doherty does not point to any contextual cues to indicate why other instances of kata sarka in Paul's writings should not be interpreted in the light of the usages in Paul which clearly do not use kata sarka in the sense of "in the realm of fleshly spirits."

The catch here is that the scholar that you cite, Raymond Brown, would certainly disagree with the contention that 1 Cor. 2:6-8 meant that Jesus was killed by demons directly and not by human beings. The same could be said for Paula Fredriksen, who you also cite.

I did stick to what I could say. I wasn't sure what you were saying about the Alexandrian texts, so I pointed out the problems that I could mention. I was surprised that you didn't clarify what the Alexandrian texts did say, but instead pointed to Turton's work, which argues against Mark mentioning Nazareth, but not on the grounds of what's not in manuscripts like the Alexandrian texts. Some of Turton's arguments are especially weak:

A poor argument from silence. Unlike Mark, both Matthew and Luke had made clear earlier that Jesus had come from Nazareth, and the baptism itself was not a occasion where mentioning Nazareth was all that helpful.

Um, never mind that Capernaum was an actual first-century village.

Another poor argument from silence. Saying that such-and-such event fulfilled the scriptures is a quirk of Matthew, not something equally common to all the Gospels.

No, what is being asked for are indications that an event that would normally take place on terra firma would happen in an upper stratum of a Platonic sub-lunar heaven.

GakuseiDon

Another interesting passage is just below that (my emphasis):

12. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, (7) by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.

I think this underlines why the gospels had to tie back to stories in the OT so strongly -- details in the gospels not found in the OT would have been used against Christians.

Ted Hoffman

Jewish War, 2.155?
Wars, II, VIII, 11 is theosophical explanation. It is talking about the nature of mortal beings. Christ was not a mortal being. It would be incorrect to expect a Christological passage to be based on the same motif as that of a mortal.
You can oversimplify things force-fit them if you want though. I find this approach simplistic and lacking careful consideration of the passages being compared.
Pauline Christology is not based on the interpretation of kata sarka alone. You have to factor in what Paul says elsewhere regarding the nature of Christ. And we know that Paul does not place Christ anywhere on earth to begin with.
So how can we expect him to believe Christ was an earthly mortal? This is a typical instance of MJ opponents importing gospel suppositions into an interpretation of Paul.
We know Marcion did not believe Christ to have been on earth. Considering Paul's gnostic leanings, we are justified to reason that his beliefs on Jesus were not fundamentally based on a flesh and blood man.
Please show us how so.
I figure that you are mistaken.
Those that witnessed his miracle feats. Those that were allegedly whipped out of the temple or those that witnessed the whipping victims. Those that witnessed his dramatic entry into Jerusalem on the back of a colt etc etc.
Prophecies have not been known to be a source of historical information. He could have asked eyewitnesses what Jesus taught for example, regarding flesh and the inheritance of the Kingdom of God.
This would only be relevant if Paul in fact, did rationalize what Jesus did with the OT.
Oh, other than the gospels, from where can I learn more about this historical Jesus that you mention?
You have a reliable methodology that I can use to separate the embellishments from the facts?
Please present it here.
Have you read Michael's work?
Where does he argue that coincidence alone is used to rule out historicity?
Is an altered narrative applicable as a reliable historical document?
How do you separate what has been altered from what has not been altered?
You claim that you are an atheist. An atheist does not believe in the supernatural. The supernatural Jesus (per Luke Timothy Johnson) is mutually exclusive with the natural, historical Jesus.
Almost all of these conservative scholars (e.g.Stevan Davies and Sanders) believe that Jesus was a man who was capable of supernatural feats.
As an atheist, what method do you use to retain the natural from the supernatural? Your own bias?

List three historical personages that have such a fluid nature.
Yes. And we are now waiting for your methodology.
We now await to see the methodology that you employed to reach this conclusion.
A faulty analogy does not help your case. An account that has been shown to be fictionalized cannot be used as a historical source.
If you are using sources other than the gospels to derive the life of a historical Jesus, please feel free to list them.
You cannot claim that "The gospels read as ancient myth" and then turn around and use them as evidence that a HJ existed.

It is like using a gun that has been shown to have been planted by the Police to argue that a gun was used in a murder case.
You cannot eat your cake and have it.

You cannot validly claim you are an atheist and yet lump together ideologically with religious people who are engaging in theology and purport to present them as critical scholars.
We have had people in the past who have claimed to be atheists here and upon investigation, have been exposed as frauds.
I hope that is not the case with you because the smell of fish wherever you post assails my olfactory system to a significant degree.
"Verbal about Carrier" is a meaningless statement that does nothing to challenge what I have stated regarding what Gibson did.

Clivedurdle

Odd comments here - voodoo. This stuff about principalities and third heavens etc should not be dismissed out of hand, but neither should it be assumed to be as fixed as some seem to be thinking - with heaven over there and earth over here.

These are rational minds much like ours but without the now huge body of knowledge we now have about how the universe works.

There will be huge variances in how the ancients perceived things - and how they thought the interactions between the gods and us humans worked out.

There are some very significant themes - ancient psychological issues directly related to our consciousness, our awareness of death and loss, of transcendence.

This story - of god and man becoming one - the ultimate unifying of the two worlds, of the creating of a new heaven and earth - is a logical outcome of alchemic thinking.

Experience shows cause and effect all over the place.

Take that a step further and you have the concept of first cause.

Experience shows to all of us that we are mortal and yet we dream immortal thoughts.

Next step, how might this dichotomy be resolved? Religious practices, magic, rituals are a very common way for us to bring the sublime and the ridiculous together.

Next step - Invent Christs to do this better.

Next step invent LORD JESUS CHRIST

Next step have an eternal once for all sacrifice.

Actually, I would argue God had to sacrifice Jesus, like Abraham and Isaac, but "for real" this time! This is something that could not be delegated.

But very unclear where - why would the ancients have a clear picture of the heavenly spheres when it is all imaginary in any case? Remember, the key people admit they are working from visions - Paul, John in Revelation. Why not an earthly sacrifice - it is made up! Look at the heresies - some state Jesus was some kind of spirit!

I thought Hebrews was very early - pre gospels - and I think seeing an earthly Jesus in there is reading stuff that ain't there!

We may have a cobbled together view about several Jesi with a huge supernatural Christ.

Balance of probabilities feels weighted towards an early Flash Gordon, Saviour of the Universe.

I have posted this before - I think it is very important to not confuse how the New Testament - and modern church practice - uses the terms Lord, Jesus and Christ. If Christ is used by itself, I think it is a direct reference to a heavenly being - it is not a shorthand. This is something that is easily edited - insert a Jesus or a Christ in various places and change the meaning!