graymouser

In the past I've been somewhat agnostic with regard to the existence of a historical Jesus, but the whole controversy aroused by Ehrman's book has led me to rethink the main problem I have with mythicism, which I think is something that is generally not addressed.

Historically, the Gospels paint a picture that is the opposite of what we would expect to see in mythicism. I refer specifically to the rising christology of the Gospels as they were written in chronological order (given the consensus dates of modern scholars). That is, roughly, Mark, Matthew, Luke and finally John. The meta-narrative of the Gospels is a very powerful one.

Mark: Jesus is the Son of Man, and the Christ - that is, he is not yet a literal "Son of God" - and he expels demons, heals people, performs miracles, preaches, is crucified and resurrected.
Matthew/Luke: Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin through a miracle. He performs additional miracles and has extensive appearances post-resurrection.
John: Jesus is explicitly God, does new miracles, has much different teachings and an elaborate career.

It makes no sense for a mythical invented god-man to progress from being Christ to being God - which, despite the assumptions of a thoroughly Christian culture, were in their time period completely mutually exclusive categories. Paul and Mark are consistent with Jesus as the Christ, that is as the messianic figure heralding the Kingdom of God, without requiring him to be God incarnate. This is more or less consistent with what Jews believed about the Christ (although the idea that he was crucified creates more problems for mythicism). The Christ was anointed by God, not God himself, and in point of fact if we are making someone out to be God, it doesn't make sense for him to be the Christ. Our picture by the time we get to John is of an incarnate God who is called the Christ, a rather incoherent position on its face.

To me, this is the main flaw with mythicist positions: for the most part it assumes that the character who was invented was Jesus Christ the god-man. But that's just not consistent with Mark, unless we read later Gospels back into it retroactively. Mark was not talking about God walking the earth but about the Son of Man, the Christ, who was crucified and resurrected, heralding the beginning of the end of the world. This is entirely consistent with a man who was turned into God, rather than a god-man who was historicized - and this process seems to require a man as its historical kernel.

MrMacSon

None of it is logical. None of it can be assumed to have significance other than as myth.

The fact it seems to be "entirely consistent with a man who was turned into God, rather than a god-man who was historicized" does Not "require a man as its historical kernel".

It is likely the canonical gospels were collated, edited and embellished over many generations, and then collectively collated with the alleged writings of the alleged Paul.

Undoing it all would require likely-destroyed or hidden backroom-documents in chronological order.

dog-on

But doesn't this simply ignore all of Mark's subtle hints?

graymouser

What subtle hints are you referring to? Mark, as I read it, is about a Son of Man and a Christ, not God incarnate. People think that Mark is about God incarnate because they read John and later high-Christology works back into it. Please post chapter and verse of what you think indicates that Mark's Christology is as high as John's, but in a subtle way.

graymouser

Actually I think that, while the Gospels certainly had an editorial hand taken to them - it's certifiably true in places - the content of the originals is not somehow unthinkably obscure. There's material that on the face of it is false prophecy - Jesus's insistence that the Kingdom of God would come in the generation he was addressing, most particularly - that simply would have been edited out if possible when creating a sanitized version. The persistence of such text and the agreement between the different texts (the synoptic problem, as it were) indicates that the basic core was in tact. The way you present it, we couldn't do history at all, as almost any accounts were embellished, had parts falsified and were edited over the years by various people with different agendas.

As for the historical person at the core, a mythical Christ makes no sense. The Christ was specifically supposed to be the fulfillment of prophecy on earth, not in some mythical otherworld. Mythicism has at its heart the idea that Jesus was primarily a god-man, not a failed messiah who was elevated to godhood by his followers.

MrMacSon

- yes, it has been proposed the Kingdom of God was proposed for each generation as the story was put to them, so no need to edit to sanitise.

The originals are thought to be based on the old testament prophecies - there were many stories to provide a preliminary pseudo-belief-system for the gentiles, and those that aligned with the OT were most popular, hence most enduring, hence selected for the canon.

The ones most embellished were mostly the theology-myth ones; and even the likely-real-people that were embellished, were embellished with God-like properties or parents, such as Alexander the Great.

sotto voce

The Kingdom of God was the rule of God in the life of contemporary disciples. The NT letters and Acts relates this occurrence.

Toto

How does Paul fit into this?

If you follow anything resembling the standard dating, Paul is before Mark, and Paul has a very high Christology.

graymouser

Paul's Christology is higher than Mark, in that he is much more forthright about the "Son of God" and constantly addresses Jesus as κύριος, but I don't think he explicitly goes as high as John. If Jesus was "exalted" after the crucifixion, and Paul by his admission was concerned only with Christ crucified, this would make some sense of it. Paul is only talking about Christ after the passion and (supposed) resurrection, after which he is due divine honors, that were not part of the lifetime narrative. So Paul's exalted Christology is in reference to the crucified redeemer, not to the earthly man.

This does not rule out a worldview of early Christianity where Jesus was truly Christ and not a god-man, and actually makes a great deal of sense out of Paul's heavy emphasis on Christ after the crucifixion. In context, if Paul truly believed that Jesus was a god-man, the appellation of "Christ" which he used so heavily makes no sense; it probably took decades for the concept of the messiah as a god-man and not as a redeemer separate from God to actually take root.

James The Least

Mark 1:1 "The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet."

Mark, his reader, and Jesus know a secret that no one else in the story knows -- that Jesus is the "literal" Son of God. This is explicitly stated in the first line. Mark's character doesn't come right out and say, "Hey, everybody, I'm the son of God," because it would ruin the suspense of his story.

It is completely consistent with Mark, from the very first line. Mark is constructing theology, not dispassionately reporting oral tradition.