Bede

I may be being unfair here, but you don't seem to know what you are talking about. I'm going to need a few mea culpas or I'm afraid our conversation will seem a bit pointless.

No. Docetists believed Jesus was an illusion who did the things in the Gospels. Doherty's theory is NOT about Docetism. He posts here often enough. Ask him.

No, you were wrong. Your either misread your sources or they are wrong too.

It has been debunked. More links:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-09-16.html
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2...acdonalds.html

The 18 page review article in JBL takes the view that MacD fails. As his work has largely disappeared without trace, that seems to be the consensus.

Best wishes

Bede

Ruhan

Good rebuttal...

I am well are of Doherty's hypothesis but in it he believes that the early Christians were docetists and didn't believe in a flesh and blood Jesus walking the earth. As this is a supernatural state, the neutral historian has to reject it and thus the Mythical Jesus becomes recognized as the most appropriate position from a historical point of view.

In your earlier post you referred to a sect of "Jesus Mythers" which is a ridiculous concept. There were Docetists who believed that Jesus existed but in a spiritual body. The Jesus Myth hypothesis claims that he never existed at all in any form.

This is a side point and not worth discussing.

It's quite sad how desperately you want this stuff to be true...

The quote comes from Origen, Contra Celsum 1.28 and it reads:

"Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands. His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra (i.32)]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god."

This Jesus (fathered by Panthera) is found in the Talmud and was supposed to have lived around 100 BCE. The reference in the Talmud only dates back to 300 CE but Celsus stated that he had heard about it from a Jewish man. This is obviously not necessarily true, however it does show us that there was some question over Jesus' historical record as early as the mid 2nd century CE.


Once again this is a side point but if you want to get into it. Your two sources were not rebuttals. The first one dismissed it because the narrative in the Iliad can be found in modern literature as well, ignoring the fact that the literary world is very different today than it was in the 1st century CE. The second source is a Christian apologetics blog...

Like Richard Carrier stated in his review, if there were presented with one or two parallels it would be interesting by we presented with countless examples of parallel narratives.

Lastly I would like to address the fact that you ignored my response to your original claim in regards to the lack of early polemics.

Regards,

Ruhan

Bede

OK. You don't know what a docetist is. They believe a spiritual Jesus did exist on Earth.

Nope. Doherty claims Paul thought Jesus existed but not on Earth. His followers were the earliest Christians.

On Celsus you said:

You then provide us with a quotation from Celsus that doesn't say this. Nor does the Talmud link the heretic Yeshu to Penthera AFAIK. I think you may have conflated Talmudic passages. At any rate the whole thing is massively specualtive, based on late sources and you've already admitted how common the name Jesus was.

On MacDonald, the blog refers to a long piece from JBL which is not Christian apologetics.

I thought I said I agreed.

Best wishes

Bede

Ruhan

That's exactly what I said. They did not believe in a flesh and blood Jesus but a spiritual Jesus.

By Doherty claiming that the earliest Christians were docetists he in fact invalidates the claim to a historical Jesus. Historians cannot recognize a spiritual Jesus as it is a supernatural claim. If he suceeds in proving that the earliest Christians were historians, then mainstream historians would be compelled to take the mythical Jesus position.


You confused the Jesus Myth with Docetism and now you are trying wiggle out of this. I know what Doherty said about Paul but this has nothing to do with that. I simply stated that there is a difference between Docetism (that claims that Jesus existed in a spiritual body) and the Jesus Myth (claims that Jesus never existed in any form).

The Talmud in fact does refer to Yeshy ben Panthera and it might be worth you doing some more reading on this subject before dismissing it out of hand.

That's still not a valid rebuttal and there are scholars who still consider this hypothesis possible.

If you agreed then the original question in this thread is answered. It's not suprising that there we find no early polemics claiming that Jesus was historical. The absence of early polemic writings on this subject also in no way refutes the Jesus Myth claim.

Personally I am undecided on this issue and I can see valid arguments on both sides.

Regards,

Ruhan

Toto

There are some who consider the Docetists as early mythicists (Michael Grant, also Freke and Gandy.) The Docetists thought that Jesus appeared to be on earth, but was actually a spirit. It is difficult to translate this belief into a modern materialist version.

Doherty posts here on occasion, but not regularly, so I will repeat what I think he has said before.

Doherty thinks that the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was a spirit in another dimension of reality (as we would term it today), and that Docetism was sort of a blend between this earliest belief and historicism. The issue is complicated because we don't have anything from the Docetists discussing their views - only from their opponents - so we can't be very certain of what exactly they believed.

Roger Pearse

Marcion was a docetist.

Marcion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time of Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salvation of all the nations.... Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own.

(Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem IV, c.6-7)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Bede

So you are now saying I was right and that Doherty's earliest Christians were not Docetists? Even Toto has stepped in to correct you, so please drop it.

A reader of this thread pointed out off board that some of the confusion here is down to my reference to a myther sect. By this, I meant the sect that Doherty alleges Paul founded that believed in a non-earthly Jesus. To Doherty, this is the original Christianity. It would be helpful if he gave it a name! By Myther sect, of course, I did not mean a sect who thought Jesus didn't exist at all, still less a sect of Donatists.

The Talmud refers to a Yeshu ben Panthera but it doesn't say anything much about him unless you link him to a different name. These sources are late and confused. Furthermore, Celsus does not say what you said he says. You were wrong.

Then defend Macdonald's thesis. I've read enough to see that it is as dead as a dead duck.

My OP was intended to refute Doherty's thesis. Rather than defend Doherty, you have simply produced a completely different thesis, similar to Wells, and proclaimed my rebuttal doesn't work against it. Maybe, but it does work against the target at which it was aimed.

This is one of the intensely frustrating things about arguing with some people. They won't defend anything and if cornered just say "Oh well, I'm not really sure. Blah blah blah." It is doubly annoying when they won't admit their mistakes.

Still, by not making clear that I was referring to Doherty's theory rather than the huge myriad of Jesus Myth theories that exist, I have added to the confusion.

Best wishes

Bede

mountainman

I'd agree with this assessment.

I made a response to a thread called "Burning and suppressing books
- a comparative study", providing a list of book written by Apollonius
which were burnt, every one, after suppression.

Philostratus' "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" has a long and vast
and very interesting history of suppression, written c.220 CE,
and tagetted by Eusebius in the Fourth Century for a serving.

But all this may very well be off-topic.



Pete Brown

Ruhan

I am a bit puzzled what your point is with this? I said Doherty I believe that the early Christians were Docetists. You confused docetism with the Jesus myth. My point was that if the earliest Christians were docetists, then mainstream historians would have to consider the Jesus Myth hypothesis as the only logical position.

Are you saying Doherty is not claiming that the early christians were docetists?

Donatists? Are you sure you don't mean Docetists?

A belief in a non-earthly Jesus is not the same as believing in the Jesus Myth hypothesis. The latter advocates the idea that the story of Jesus was born of a legend and that Jesus had never existed in any form, anywhere or at any time.

If the early church were some sort of Docetic sect then it could easily have developed into a more HJ type of sect. The Orthodox church was just another one of the many sects and the one that finally won the ideological battle. The Orthodox church could have developed from the early Docetic church.

It's possible but there is no evidence for it, thus it is called a hypothesis.

You previously said the the following "Nor does the Talmud link the heretic Yeshu to Penthera"

It might be worth getting your facts straight before being so arrogant about what is wrong or right next time.

Yeshu ben Panthera was supposed to have lived around 100 BCE but this is irrelevant. He could have lived at the same time as Jesus and the point would still stand that even as early as the mid 2nd century there was some doubt or confusion over Jesus' historical record. Even Celsus' quote shows that there were conflicting stories.

That's off topic. Start a thread on it and I would be happy to oblige.

That's the difference between us. You have an agenda and a target to aim at. I don't necessarily believe everything that Doherty believes and I am undecided about the MJ theory.

Having said that your OP falls flat if you were trying to refute Doherty as it's entirely logical for a docetic church to develop into an orthodox church. This would also not be the first time in history when a mythical character becomes thought of as a historical person.

In addition, it's also not suprising that we don't find any MJ polemics in the 1st or early 2nd centuries as you finally admitted yourself.

It's a difference between fundamentalism and scholarship. The former is always convinced it is correct and the latter is always questioning it's own views.

That might have helped.

Regards,

Ruhan

Ruhan

Hi Pete,

I think you misunderstood his point. He was saying that there was no suppression or book burning by the orthodox church in regards to the Jesus Myth.

Regards,

Ruhan