PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

It seems to me necessary to distinguish the position of the Literary Jesus from the notion of a Mythological Jesus and an Historical Jesus.

In my book, The Evolution of Christs and Christianities (see Evocc.com) I propose that the Jesus Christ character developed from an original play by a woman named Mary. I suggest that we can trace the Jesus Christ character directly to this work of literature.

Now this position is quite different from an historical Jesus position. While the original play may have refered to historical characters like John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate, it was intended as a unique work of self-expression and did not intend to relate a true and historical story. Like the Da Vinci Code or Superman (who fought the Nazis during World War II) it might refer to historical events or characters, but it was not intended to be a true historical story.

On the other hand, this is quite different from the mythicist position. Mary did not look over the different mythological stories of her day and decide to put in a little bit of Mitras here and a little bit of Horus and Isis there. While Mary was obviously influenced by her Samaritan background and the Greco-Roman culture around her, she was not consciously attempting a syncretism of myths. Rather, the theme of her satirical play was that even if God sent his word down from heaven in human form, the Jews would not recognize it.

In some sense, all myth grows out of literature and all literature grows out of history. So we should see the three stages as part of a growth process

1: The Historical Christ Stage. Numerous Jews, Samaritans and Galileans assume the role of Christ/Messiah in the First Century to liberate Judea from the Romans. They are mis/guided by Jewish history/mythology.
2: The Literary Christ Stage. Literature is written for education/entertainment purposes which synthesizes these men (especially John the Baptist and Simon Magus) into a single character and a single set of circumstances.
3: The Mythological Christ Stage. Numerous cultic and dogmatic changes are made to the early literature to create a Christian mythological world.
4: The New Historical Stage. The mythological Christ world is promoted as the actual historical world.

Both the historical and mythological Christ positions become incomprehensible when they ignor the literary stage.

Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

andrewcriddle

Schweitzer in the 2nd edition of Quest of the Historical Jesus draws a distinction between Symbolic interpretations of Jesus and Mythological interpretations of Jesus which has some similarities to your distinction between a Literary Jesus and a Mythological Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

Thanks. I'll have to check it out. I read it a number of years ago, so it may have influenced me.

I think a literary approach will appeal to those who see that we are getting quite little history in the gospels and quite little mythology. In the entire Gospel of John, the only supernatural thing that the protagonist really does is raise Lazarus (possibly originally Mary Magdalene) from the dead, at least before the comical endings are tacked on. So this is one of the least supernatural mythological tales ever told. Where are the cyclopes and men being changed into donkeys and the women being changed into flowers? Of course, the synoptics come along later and add miracles right and left, but that's part of the mythologizing process. At the same time, what history gives long and repeated ideological-theological speeches in poetic meter about God sending his word into the world?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Clivedurdle

Are you arguing John is earlier than the synoptics?

rlogan

I missed the part where you supported the existence of this play, P.J.

Maybe you can help me with that.

Thanks.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Clivedurdle,

In the book I argue yes and no that proposition. Mark is taking stuff John, but he is also taking stuff from the original play. So some of Mark is earlier than John.

I'm doing experiments now to check that. It is possible that all of Mark is later. I should be able to give a definite answer to that question in a couple of weeks.

Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

PhilosopherJay

Hi RLogan,

I give the evidence in the book The Evolution of Christ and Christianities.

The short version of the proof is that we have to look for a genre for the gospels. It is certainly not biography. No biography begins with a man being possessed by a spirit as the gospels of Mark and John do. It is not history; where are the wars and discussions of the personalities of leaders? It does seem close to the ancient romantic novel. The lovers (Mary and Jesus)who appear to be dead only to appear alive later are a typical convention of the romantic novel. However, there is a noticable lack of description of both characters and places in the gospels. Novels have to supply this visual material to the reader. Since in plays the viewer is already seeing the characters and places, this it is unnecessary. We also need to consider the use of poetry (1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.) which marks it as a play. The movement of comical scenes in the first half with rising drama at the end also marks it as a play. Mary meeting and kissing Jesus in the tomb at the end is the cue for the audience to applaud.

Other people have proposed that it was a play written by Seneca. So I am not the first to notice the dramatic structure of the material, although I believe I am the first to propose that it was a play written by a woman. The book examines the structure of the gospel narrative in relationship to other plays and literary works written by modern women over the last two centuries. It finds some surprising similarities, enough, I hope, to give weight to this proposition.

Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

Clivedurdle

Caesar's Messiah also postulates a significant Mary - is yours the same one?

From evocc.com

Is not your description of Mary that of a typical druid?

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=167032

No Robots

Keep going, Clive. I'm sure you'll make Jesus into a Welshman yet!

Clivedurdle

I thought I was almost there! (the Welsh are a lost tribe of Israel!)

But seriously, a technologically very advanced people - there is plumbing in stone dwellings on Orkney built well before the Romans - trading with China and with links all over Europe probably had significant effects in the Middle East.

Terry Jones - Barbarians discusses this. The classic game of the victors writing history has happened, and they made sure the predecessors are strongly propagandised against.

What if all these witches and magi we hear about were actually connected?

Historians are rewriting a huge amount about the celts. Beware of received wisdom here, and some of the stories may contain very interesting truths!