GakuseiDon

I'm not sure what you mean by "invalid". Do you mean "less significant"? Parallels are parallels. There ARE parallels between Jesus and say, Buddha, and the broader the parallels are drawn, the more parallels you can find.

Yeah, that's the problem, all right. Different people tend to arrive at different scores. I'm a Christian, and I scored Jesus at the low end of the scale... but surely that must be mere coincidence. That's why I was wondering whether Raglan had some objective guidelines -- to see if some definitive score could be decided on based on Raglan's original work. I'll have to try to hunt down his book at the local library.

jjramsey

Actually, I'd say that you can also run the scam by being vague on the transference as well. Indeed, I'd say with the prophecies of Nostradamus, the vagueness is the big thing.

youngalexander

Yet, I maintain that this is much less of a problem for Raglan than the other examples I quoted.
True, Nostradamus is another notorious example. Having slept upon it a bit, I reckon that I should expand the last section of my previous post. To reiterate;
Taking the Bible Code (BC) and Licona's Examples (LE) and comparing them to Raglan's Scheme (RS).

Source Database:
BC uses the characters of the text of the bible. They are conveniently arranged in pages and there are a vast number of them. LE uses the biography of JFK and the history of the USA. A good many facts are known concerning both. RS applies to the biographies of ancients. Most of these bioi are rather sparse - interestingly, Jesus is somewhat of an exception.

Transference Connections:
BC applies a set of rules which allow reading the character sequence forward, backward, up, down or even diagonally. The reading may reference every nth character, where n is arbitrary. LE may choose whatever data he likes without restriction. Notice the completely arbitrary nature of these procedures. Also notice that, once chosen, the rule appears quite specific. Clearly these rules a chosen precisely because a match is possible.

Contrast that with RS. Yes, the initial selection of the traits (rules) are somewhat arbitrary. Yet having been chosen and this openly stated, they remain fixed and cannot be taken up or set aside or others used to replace them. They either provide a match or they do not. Now, as we have discussed previously there is of necessity a degree of flexibility in applying them. The question is, how flexible can we allow them to be for a given level of parallelism? Enter the dreaded subjectivity.

I'd make two points concerning this. Firstly, I do not think that Raglan's application is anyway near as broad as jjr would maintain say. Take a 'royal virgin'. Raglan allows; royal virgin, princess both ordinary & crocadile, demigoddess, goddess, daughter of a patriarch and principal family of the Levites. This is probably the widest range of all the traits. Nevertheless, it is reasonably confined to a narrow theme. Secondly, these ranges are virtual straightjackets compared to the open slather rule choice of BC or LE.

Target Database:
Here we meet another interesting characteristic of spurious matching which provides a sharp contrast to RS. Both BC and LE (at least for history of Rome) have again a large number of choices for which a 'match' may be found. Yet because the Source DB is so vast and especially since the Transference Connections are so arbitrary (even tho they appear specific), both BC and LE can afford to restrict the TDB to provide a more startling conclusion. BC looks for words and phrases pertaining to apocalyptic events or the death of notables. LE can lock onto salient features of Jesus bio or the more exciting events in troubled Rome.

What is the TDB of RS? It is the 22 points of the scheme itself! The Hero Pattern. The matches are either made or not and a score tallied. No picking and choosing. What you see is what you get.

In the light of this analysis, I maintain that Raglan's is a legit procedure and Pyramidology, Bible Codes and Licona's bunk are not.

jjramsey

Not just the biographies of ancients, but the stories of ancient mythical characters, which are not nearly as sparse as the bioi. More to the point, there are a lot of mythical characters, so a large space to search for the hero pattern.

As I pointed out in another post, the traits "victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast" and "at the top of a hill" are interpreted uselessly broadly as well. Also, "virgin" is interpreted broadly enough to include women who have had sex. RidingTheScree interpreted "reigns uneventfully" and "prescribes laws" so broadly as to make those criteria worthless.

Raglan's criteria are narrow enough to not describe everyone but so broad as to be at best a questionable measure of a genetic relationship or common ancestry. I have a class now, so I'll elaborate on that later.

jjramsey

Ok, some of my elaborations.

First, where are the Raglan criteria really weak? Jesus is a poor fit to these:

10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future Kingdom
11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and city, after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death

These are the really "heroic" bits, where most of the melodrama and derring-do are. For these to fit Jesus, one has to stretch these quite a bit. One place where Jesus is a decent fit is in a place that looks tacked-on to start with, namely the virgin birth. As I mentioned on the Jesus the Copycat Savior? thread, the "royal virgin" criterion, despite youngalexander's protestations, looks suspiciously like it had Jesus in mind, especially since it fits Jesus cleanly but fits the more conventional heroes much worse.

GakuseiDon

Yes, and that's made me think that perhaps we should talk about two Hero patterns: an "Action Hero" who achieves fame and power through his actions (marries a princess, kills a king/beast), and a "Spiritual Hero" whose fame rests on his ability to influence. Odysseus and Krishna would fall into the earlier group, and Christ and Buddha into the later group.

youngalexander

Gaku Mate! Only two? You and jjr are going to require a few more than that by the end of this post.

jjramsey mate, the power of your argument has converted me. While searching for some feeble response it came to me as a blinding light. I had been contemplating
and wondering idly how it was for gods and sexual encounters with human females re the actual breaking of the hymen and could they possibly (being gods) manage the act without this distressing occurance? I consulted my 9 month grandson (Joshua), but he babbled incoherently which I took to be a positive omen and worthy of the subject.

It was then that it came to me. What a fool I had been. These ‘parallels’ are not Euclidian at all, but exhibit a distinctly Riemann mapping. The are too obtuse, abstruse, and decidedly of no use for the forthright directness and exactitude which we must demand of the true ‘parallel’.
10. There are those, who upon reading of Jesus' return to the land of his birth from Egypt might assume otherwise, but even if he was subsequently crowned “King of the Jews� twas all mockery and thus not substantial.

11. Quite right. Not a king, giant, dragon or wild beast in site. Unless of course we count those pigs, the odd demon or two and the Great Beast Himself (Satan), but definitely not the poor benighted fig tree.

12. Nope, no princess (or predecessor). Mind you, we have to entirely discount Catholicism. The Bride of Christ and all that. Come to think of it, she (Mary) being his old mum, was the daughter of a predecessor. Perish the thort, it’s incest in any case. We could never contemplate that while happily munching on Jesus body washed down with a glug of his blood.

14. By golly we’ve got them here. Who would equate his ministry with a ‘reign’? Certainly not the assembled masses being royally fed and entertained and crying ‘hosannah’ as he emulated David the kingthingy.

15. Spot on. He came to uphold the Law (not a jot or tittle changed). Certainly not to prescribe it. Teachings, what of them? Surely they were not to be taken seriously! A new covenant, away with it.

16. Lose favor with his subjects? I should say not. Paid Roman stooges I call them, shouting for Barabbas like that. What if his disciples did slope off at the crisis and Peter deny him – it’s all probably allegory in any case.

17. I denied myself the pleasure of seeing Gibson’s “Passion of Christ�, too much gore for my taste. I’m sure that he made most of it up anyway. All that whip lashing and such as the poor bugger drags his cross up to Golgotha (which probably wasn’t very high either).

18. As for the crucifixion, what could be more common in those times? There was that business about the stone, and the angels or was it a young man? Then there were the women, how many was it? No matter, we shall come to that by-and-by.

No question of it. A considerable stretch. It is so necessary that we have detailed exactitude when examining these traits. No sloppy comparisons, no rubbery figures and heavens to Murgatroyd – definitely no contradictions.

Now for the ‘real’ Jesus. Which one shall we choose for our Pattern? By order of priority it ought to be Paul’s, but alas he is a trifle short on detail, and it is above all detail that we must have. Mark then. Regretably suffering somewhat the same disadvantage, altho nowhere near to the same extent. Matthew, Luke, the forth? Trouble is our ‘eyewitness’ accounts keep expanding. Even worse, they differ in many significant characteristics. Dare I mention that these accounts are even contradictory at certain critical points of the narrative?

I could give you chapter and verse, but most reading this will be quite familiar with the details.
Question:

Do we thereby talk about the Jesi? Four or five or more separate individuals none of whom match a consistent ‘Jesus Pattern’? Or do we recognise that, whatever the reason for these discrepancies, there is only one ‘historical’ Jesus and set about attempting to extract it. Now, as previously stated, I do not think that there is a ‘Jesus Pattern’. Yet, I am given to understand that a good many others do. How do they reconcile the various gross mismatches and outright contradictions?

After you have managed that, you might continue on and explain why such ‘flexibility’ is not to be extended to other narratives of other ‘lives’ in other places, times and circumstances which surely must be allowed to vary to a greater extent than that of the very same Jesus.

As Yoda might say, “On your own petard, hoist, you are�.:devil:

Clivedurdle

jjramsey, I am puzzled by your list of derring dos and how it seems to mislead.

Surely the death on the cross with the veil of the temple rent in two, earthquakes, darkness at noon, dead rising from graves followed by the resurrection and ascension are classic hero stuff? Saving us all from sin by the blood of the lamb - talk about Flash Gordon Saviour of the Universe stuff (queue Queen!)

Must be something about it to cause many many artists to produce the most superb work, like Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia and Dali's Christ of St John.

I also give Jesus a clear 22 out of 22.

I mean, RE classes in schools in Britain and the C of E have agreed to tell the story by explicitly comparing Jesus and Superman!

Clivedurdle

Does not this analysis require approaching it from two directions?

Are the pieces in place to define a hero?

What is the overall story about? Is it heroic?

If it is - and I can't imagine a more heroic one than this one - saviour of the universe - the details, the plot lines probably will have variances - just as Star Trek plots are not infallible! (Bugger, offended another religious group - protests in the streets, burning embassies!)

GakuseiDon

I was hoping this thread wouldn't devolve into a 'are they parallels or not' debate. Whether we agree or not is really beside the point -- I suspect that historicists will tend to score low, mythicists high. Perhaps Raglan's score is really a good measure to determine whether the scorer is a mythicist or not?

The OP is "Can we give a definitive score to Jesus based on Raglan's own criteria". But perhaps I should have read more on how Raglan came up with his other scores before starting this thread.