Llyricist

I gotta point out that belief in a spiritual Christ does NOT equate to "HJ" as far as mythicists are concerned. The argument is that there wasn't a specific human (flesh and blood) to which both the gospels and the early epistles refer.

Layman

This makes no sense. If Marcion and other pre-gnostics believed that a guy named Jesus ministered in Galilee and Judae in the X year of X's reign, taught in syngouges, healed the sick, called Peter and James and John as 3 of his twelve disciples, fought with the Pharisees, and cleansed the temple, he believes in a historical Jesus. It's just that his gnostic driven low opinion of the physical world could not let him believe that person was made out of the same stuff as we humans are. Jesus was real. Jesus was historical. But Jesus was not fully human.

That is radically different than Doherty's view that the early Christians believed that Jesus existed only in the heavenly sphere. It is just another branch of the HJ tradition.

Amos

The followers of the false Gospel are identified in Gal. 5:1-5. Whereas before "when you did not acknowldge God, you served as slaves to gods who are not really divine (Gal.4:8; and these lesser gods were power, wealth and beauty), but now that you have been freed in Christ "stand firm, and do not take upon yourselves the yoke of slavery a second time! Pay close attention to me, when I tell you that if you have yourself circumcised Christ will be of no use to you! I point out once more to all who receive circumcision that they are bound to the law in its entirerty. Any of you who who seek your justification in the law have severed yourselves from Christ and fallen from Gods favor!

Pauls Gospel is where freedon in Christ also means freedom from religion and its observance of the law (which equals non-Jewish circumcision). Paul is telling us here that it is wrong to proclaim freedom in Christ and seek justification in the law for the second time. Therefore, the false Gospel is read by law-abiding church-going Christians.

Llyricist

Okay, I stand corrected, a fully formed spiritual being shows up and preaches is a branch of the HJ position..... while the only valid mythicist position is the exact framework that Doherty espouses..... riiiiight.

Layman

So far no mythicist has made a case for counting Marcion as one of their own. Whether we choose Doherty's flavor of the Jesus Myth or not, it cannot be argued with a straight face that Marcion believed that Jesus did not exist. Marcion believed that Jesus did exist here on earth. At a specific place and time doing specific things.

And please try responding with explanation instead of sarcasm.

Llyricist

As one of their own??? that's a non sequiter, that's like saying Doherty identifies himself with Paul.... does not compute. Seems to me that most myths are BELIEVED to be true by at least some. They are STILL myths. Heck, Doherty never even suggests that Paul didn't really believe what he wrote.
Are you going to suggest that nobody ever believed Zeus and Co. really existed? That all the Pagans KNEW that they were worshipping figments??? If that's the case the burden of demonstration is right back on you.
Well the last time somebody explained an alternate position to Doherty's he got accused of retreating from Doherty. When in fact he never claimed to agree with Doherty in the first place.

rlogan

Sure it can. Faith healers that "pull" chicken livers out of gullible paying customers. Tarot-card reading frauds. Spiritualists contacting the dead. Scientology. christianity The Catholic megafrauds of history. Communist dictators who do everything "in the name of the people". An uncountable number of examples throughout history of people articulating positions they know to be patently false.

Your working assumption is altruism. That is a less likely approach than working with the maxim that "power corrupts".

Without a framework to hang the Christ myth on, each of the separate movements can go its own way with their own version. Hence, attaining control over the "jesus story" is attaining control over the movement as a whole.

GakuseiDon

There is evidence for Marcion believing that Jesus existed as an entity that walked the Earth.

Do you have any evidence for Marcion believing that Jesus did not exist?

Toto

We only know whar Marcion and other heretics thought through the descriptions of their enemies.

Freke and Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries describe gnostics such as Marcion as believing that the story of the crucifixion was an allegory, given to initiates as a real story (or Outer Mystery), but later revealed to have a deeper meaning (Inner Mystery) when the initiate had progressed spiritually. They describe Docetism as just a way of understanding the Jesus story as allegory. It may be difficult to figure out what the gnostics really believed, because they told the orthodox that they believed in the same things, but often had private meanings or interpretations of the same words.

page 120:

"Literalists" is the term used in this book for the orthodox anti-gnostics, who were stuck on the outer mysteries and never reached the level of enlightenment which would have allowed them to realize that the story was a fable.

Freke and Gandy are neo-pagan polemicists, and there have been some challenges to parts of this book, but I have not seen a challenge to their understanding of gnosticism.

GakuseiDon

Toto, Freke and Gandy are shocking. I would distrust any conclusion they make, until I check the cites for myself. They make many claims that they don't back up with cites. They have lots of indices indicating footnotes, but too often when you go to the footnote at the back of the book, the information is either tangential to the claim, or it ends in a cite to a page in a book written 100 years ago and out of print.

I'm not saying you should dismiss their work out-of-hand, but more as a warning to check ANYTHING they say before using it.

I have the Jesus Mysteries, and you are referring to p. 147 of the paperback edition.

F&G say that a gnostic belief in an existing Jesus (i.e. docetism) is "a misunderstanding of Gnostic teachings". Looking at that section that you quote, I don't see anything to back them up. Where do they get their information about "Illusionism" from, and why is it different from what is believed today?

Do they give any references or provide any evidence for this?