Gregg

You would not say this if you really understood the mythicist case as advanced by Earl Doherty. It is anything but "simplistic," although it is pretty straightforward nevertheless. The mythicist case does not rest on any one piece of evidence but on many strands of circumstantial evidence that add up to a powerful argument. It explains the origins of Christianity better than any other argument I've ever seen.

Doherty doesn't deny that history could have played a role in the writing of Mark's gospel. Mark may well have known about Jewish rabbis and revolutionaries who were crucified by the Romans and this inspired him to make the Christ a person of this type when writing his allegory. However, this is similar to writing a fictional story about a spy and using actual spies as a model. The executed rabbis and revolutionaries Mark may have used as models for his allegorical portrayal of his heavenly redeemer did not give birth to religions, including his religion.

Gregg

Brooke, even though I'm not a graduate student in religious studies, I do understand where you are coming from. I used to share your view that the idea there was no actual life or actual person behind the gospel accounts was ridiculous, simplistic, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, etc. It took me several readings of Doherty's thesis before things started "clicking" for me. But once you understand it, it's amazing how elegantly it explains so many things that have long confused scholars about Christianity's origins and history.

Such as, why do the letters supposedly written soon after Jesus' crucifixion not mention any details about his earthly life, like those found in the gospels? Surely people would have been TALKING about Jesus' earthly life ... why was no one WRITING about it? Explanations like "everybody already knew the details" and "Paul just wasn't interested in Jesus' human life" are ad hoc and unsatisfactory. It wasn't just Paul who seemed uninterested ... it was EVERYBODY!

So some scholars try stripping the story down to the absolute bare bones ... there was this pacifist yet revolutionary preacher, who wasn't much known outside a small circle of family, friends and followers, (dropping all the stuff about the big crowds that followed him around, or the triumphant entry into Jerusalem) who drew attention to himself by creating a disturbance on the Temple grounds and was quickly caught, tried, executed, and buried in a shallow grave. Yet we do not find even this in the epistles, and besides, if Jesus was such an unknown and relatively few people seemed attracted to him and his teachings, just what was it about him that inspired his followers to immediately after his death start writing about him in such transcendant terms? We don't see a progression of people talking about the life and death of a beloved teacher, struggling to make sense of it all, and gradually assigning more and more titles and identities to him, until they finally elevated him to godhood. We see people immediately forgetting about his earthly life and speaking of him as divine! Not until Mark some 40 or 50 years later do we get some kind of story that seems to tell us about Jesus' human life and show the origins of the Christian movement, and Mark doesn't even regard the appearances as important enough to mention! Wow, wasn't it the appearances that convinced Jesus' earthly followers and later Paul that Jesus had in fact been resurrected, that he was in fact the Christ, the Son of God? Not only that, Mark clearly structures his story on the five books of the Torah, explaining how Jesus is a new Adam, a better Moses, a greater Elijah, and so on, and he takes all the details of the crucifixion from the Jewish scriptures as well!

Then, take a look at the state of Christianity as we can determine it from the New Testament epistles. Within a few years of Jesus' death his earthly followers and Paul have supposedly established churches all over the Empire, with a bewildering variety of expressions of faith in this obscure Jewish rabbi who died a crucified criminal. Paul must combat people who preach "another Christ" who was not crucified! Where did that come from? Jesus' eyewitnesses (and Paul, who somehow can say his testimony is just as good as those who supposedly saw Jesus in the flesh) travel about, stopping at this town and that, explaining the good news that Jesus died to forgive sins, winning converts ... and the next thing you know there are "Christians" going about denying this central tenet of the faith and trying to win Paul's converts away from him! Were they home sick the day the apostles talked about the crucifixion?

Evidently the crucifixion deniers were a force to be reckoned with because Paul spends a lot of time defending the crucifixion by referencing Scripture, all the while never bothering to mention that people who actually knew Jesus, saw him arrested, heard the verdict, possibly saw him hung up, saw his body, etc. were still very much alive and available to testify as to the truth of the matter.

See how all these perplexities are resolved when you begin with a widespread and only loosely connected movement centered on the worship of a heavenly intermediary who in some fashion offers salvation, communion with God, spiritual understanding? This general movement, springing from the religious and philosophical currents of the day ... Greek neo-Platonism, pagan mystery cults, Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism, etc. then developed a great variety of specialized expressions that competed with each other. Paul, having determined that mystery of the Christ was to be found hidden in the Jewish scriptures, found kindred spirits in a Jerusalem sect of Christ worshipers and they developed a uniquely Jewish expression of the faith. No human being behind it other than the apostles themselves, worshiping their heavenly redeemer god, Christ crucified, and fighting for their particular revelation against the other varieties of Christ worship, against Judaism, and against the established Roman religion.

Then, after most if not all of these people are dead and gone, Mark writes a story in which he brings the Christ to Earth in an identifiable time and place and has him suffer and die at the hands of earthly authorities who really existed; but his story is structured on the Torah and his passion account is built piece by piece from scripture. His story is an allegory, a liturgical and teaching tool for his community; he never means for it to be taken literally. Where would he have gotten all this information about Jesus' life anyway, since not a word of it appears in Christian writings before that point? Word of mouth? But that brings you back to wondering why, if everyone was talking about it, nobody bothered to write anything down about Jesus' life in the 4, 5, or more decades following his death.

Decades later, of course, Christians gradually do start taking Mark literally, and 2,000 years later scholars search for the "real story" of Jesus in Mark and the other gospels, not understanding (or refusing to acknowledge) that the real story is laid out plainly for them in the epistles.

GakuseiDon

Out of interest, do you have data for this, or are you guessing? How many claims for people rising from the dead in the First Century do we have? (It's not really related to your overall point, just interested in the question)

When you say that "their opponents politely left it unsaid", which writings where it was left unsaid are you referring to?

Do you mean that some Christians regarded the Gospels as allegory, or the crucifixion as allegory? And can you provide any quotes where either were treated as "allegory"? Origen regarded some parts of the Gospels as allegory but other parts as historical -- is that what you mean?

Gregg

Admittedly a guess, but I would say a reasonable one. We do know people believed all sorts of miracles then. That they would believe people had returned from the dead is hardly a stretch. People thought dead "coming back to life" happened more frequently in the past than it does now.Brooke claimed that one thing that convinced her of the historicity of Jesus' ministry was that the Christians admitted the "embarrassing" fact that they worshiped a crucified criminal, whereas if they had made everything up they would never have made up anything like this. Yet nowhere in extant first century Christian writings do we find Christians defending the fact that they worshiped a crucified criminal. We do find them defending the crucifixion against opponents who considered it "folly," but there is no indication that their opponents attacked and ridiculed them for worshiping a crucified man as god. This did not happen until the gospels began circulating widely. Does it not seem logical that if Christian opponents began attacking Christianity on this point immediately upon becoming aware of it, that they would have done earlier had they been aware of it earlier? Why did they ignore this angle of attack for so long? The "politely left it unsaid" remark was tongue in cheek of course, but how could the Christians have possibly talked about their faith without revealing that they worshiped a crucified criminal (even if they considered him innocent) as a god? Unless, of course, they were NOT talking about a crucified man originally, but about a dying/rising heavenly redeemer, similar to the dying/rising gods of the pagan mystery cults.I was referring to Tatian's Apology, Chapter 21. From Doherty's site: "We are not fools, men of Greece, when we declare that God has been born in the form of man . . . Compare your own stories with our narratives." He goes on to describe some of the Greek myths about gods come to earth, undergoing suffering and even death for the benefaction of mankind. "Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories." I agree with Doherty that Tatian seems to be saying the Christian stories are like the Greek stories, which were then regarded as allegories.

I would say that Christians probably originally regarded the gospels, or at least the first gospel, as allegory through and through (of course most Christians were not even aware of the gospels for a long time). Only gradually did they come to be accepted as history. I suppose it's possible some Christians regarded parts of the gospels as history and others as allegory for a while, but I don't know of any examples of this.

Of course, Don, you should be pretty familiar with Doherty's arguments, since he posted a response to your critique of his case prominently on his site!

aa5874

No-one has been able to verify the authors of any of those books and can say when they were written and if they represent history of Jesus the Christ.

It is not prudent accept the words of those who have a vested interest in Jesus the Christ, just as you do not take the words of a salesman about the products he sells until you do some research.

Independent confirmation of the Bible is far better than information gleaned through conflict of interest.

So how do you explain 'devil worshippers', I mean, was the devil executed some time ago?

Gooch's dad

Welcome, Brooke! I pretty much agree with you on everything you've said. I also think that the gospels hold a fair amount of historical information, but I think that the theological claims of Christianity are baseless.

GakuseiDon

Yes, Paul wrote in 1 Cor 1:23: "we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles".

Earlier you wrote that such movements sprung "from the religious and philosophical currents of the day". If Paul was using the "philosophical currents of the day", why did he think that the Gentiles would regard a crucified Christ as "foolishness"? Why wouldn't they have thought that Jesus was just another dying/rising heavenly redeemer?

We don't know that they did ignore them. We have no letters to pagan non-Christians until the Second Century. The only reference we have -- Paul's comment about Gentiles regarding worshipping a crucified Christ as "foolishness" -- doesn't appear to support you AFAICS. What letters in the first 100 years are you referring to?

Then why would Paul say that pagans would regard worshipping a crucified Christ as "foolishness"? Wouldn't they say "hey, we grok that!"

Well, not really. I've given quotes from early writers elsewhere that show that they regarded the stories to have been about historical people. Jupiter had a tomb in Crete, Hercules lived around the time of the Trojan war, etc. It was the more fantastic elements of the stories that were regarded as allegorical or just stories.

Tatian was a student of Justin Martyr, and compiled one of the first known harmonies of the gospels. If Tatian was asking for pagans to understand the gospel stories in the same manner that the pagans understood their own stories -- as referring to historical people with legendary additions -- how would you take his statement "Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories"?

I humbly submit that I understand Doherty's arguments better than 99% of his supporters, since his supporters generally don't look into his arguments in any depth.

LGM

We have several claims of people rising from the dead in the NT alone. I'm surprised you are not familiar with them Don. Lazarus, Dorcas, Jairus' daughter, all those dead "saints" trippin' round Jerusalem...I believe even Paul got into the act when one his flock fell out a window...

Rising from the dead appears to be a very common first century occurence, if you believe the NT reports historical fact, instead of fiction.

LGM

Obviously it was a a stumbling block to most Jews, and foolishness to most Gentiles.

Yet he still managed to convince some. Never underestimate the power of a charismatic cult leader to convince others of some new "foolishness". It's the world's oldest profession.

It would appear the book of Mormon is a a stumbling block to Baptists and foolishness to atheists.

Yet I hear it's doing quite well in Utah.

Same ole...same ole.

Because it was the new "foolishness". People tend to prefer the well established "foolishness" of their day over new “foolishness”. It's probably the reason you are not convinced that the Reverend Moon is the second coming of Christ. Yet others do.
I’m sure the Moonie leaders make similar pretentious claims about why their beliefs aren’t accepted, as Paul did. It’s a very common cult tactic, creating an “us” vs. “them” mentality.

Foolishness evolves in fits and starts and serendipitous good fortune.

Paul’s foolishness won Constantine’s franchised religion sweepstakes of the 4th century, if things had gone differently, you’d be defending Mithras as real.

Some of them did.

Actually, Paul DID convince certain gentiles of his “foolishness”. And some of the gentiles who initially fell for it, eventually doubted it, or started believing other variations of it, as his letters clearly show. Paul was just another first century evangelist pushing his particular brand of “foolishness”, and like all theological foolishness, some believed, and many didn’t.

Ho…hum.

That should look good on your resume Don.

Doherty’s “argument” isn’t that hard to understand. It simply points to the chronological evolution of “Christ”, from Paul’s mystical spiritual version, that he and others gleamed from exegesis of Jewish scripture and pollinated with Platonic ideas, to the mythical earthly version we first find in “mark’s” allegory, that evolves into the much more sophisticated one we find later in "john’s" gospel.

spin

How did Osiris die? or Tammuz? or even Dionysus? Why did the women weep for Tammuz (Eze 8:14)? Do you really take Paul's statement literally as a true reflection of the Greek world he was in contact with? A crucified messiah would naturally be an insuperable hurdle for Jews. True messiahs don't die. But a messiah is itself a meaningless term for Greeks, though dying saviours are certainly not. Why should Greeks find a crucified saviour foolish? Isn't it par for the course?


spin