archibald

OTOH, a myth which originates with some figure about whom nothing is related except a death would be rather unusual too, don't you think?

DCHindley

There would have to be, I would think, some significant group emotional baggage connected with such a figure, which spurs this group to explain it to rationalize it into a myth, to explain it.

Do not the Gospels on many an occasion say that the disciples gave up family relationships to follow Jesus? What kind of emotional baggage would be placed on gentiles who converted to Judaism in order to share in the blessed age to come predicted by Jesus? In an age when "Greeks" frequently looked down upon "barbarians" such as Jews, and those Greeks who "mutilated" themselves through circumcision, they had by their conversions cut themselves off from their Greek families and friends. You cannot undo circumcision. Look at the intense anger and resentment that used to occur even in the US of A when members of immigrant families chose to marry outside of their ethnic and religious circles (and I'm not just talking about Jews ... my wife's pure Polish dad was bitterly ostracized by his two brothers when he dared marry an Irish/German girl ... what was he thinking!).

DCH

archibald

One can imagine an ancient conversation;


Bob's Mother: You've cut off WHAT?

Bob: I'm Joining the Christians ma.

Bob's mother: Never heard of 'em. Who is this Chrestus guy?

Bob: It's Christus ma, I think, and, well, he's this guy who got crucified.

Bob's mother: Hm. Christ crucified. Sounds suspiciously like intentional alliteration if you ask me. What else did he do?

Bob: I don't exactly know. I don't think anybody does. That's what's so attractive about it ma, the simplicity, the lack of narrative clutter.

Bob's mother: I'm not sure Bob. What will your father say? You know he has his heart set on you getting sun runner grade someday.

Bob: C'mon ma. How often'm I gonna get the chance to be in on the ground floor of actual mythology?

Bob's mother: Hm. Well, I suppose it makes about as much rational sense as anything else in the current zeitgeist. I just wish you hadn't used my best kitchen knife, that's all. Now, wrap that in a bit of kitchen roll and give it here. Puss puss, here puss puss. Din dins!

andrewcriddle

You are assuming here that in the earliest form of the tradition the Last Supper was a Passover Meal (dubious) and making some rather pedantic points (If the Last Supper was a Passover Meal then Jesus was executed during Unleavened Bread rather than Passover. Even if Pilate ordered Jesus' crucifixion this does not mean that he was crucified by Pilate.)

You do not appear to be presenting a strong argument against the substance of what I called Jesus Agnosticism.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you. You seem to be regarding it as entirely plausible that Paul and other early Christians claimed to be following a very recently crucified Jewish holy man called Jesus but seem to regard this as quite compatible with Jesus Mythicism. Or am I misreading you ?

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Another AD HOC IMAGINATION Explanation for HJ of Nazareth based on PURE Imagination.

Have you FORGOTTEN that HJ of Nazareth was NOT CHRISTUS? Your imagination has gone wild.

HJ of Nazareth is supposed to be an OBSCURE Apocalyptic preacher.

Please examine the written evidence of antiquity. The crucifixion of Jesus did NOT attract the supposed disciples to Jesus.

Even BEFORE Jesus was crucified in gMark Peter had already DENIED he knew Jesus.

1. The disciples abandoned Jesus when he was arrested.

Mark 14-50 2. A follower FLED NAKED when Jesus was ARRESTED.

Mark14.51 3. Peter DENIED ever knowing Jesus.

Mark 14-71 4. The visitors to the Empty Tomb Fled and said NOTHING to anyone.

Mark 16:8 - There is ZERO evidence that PEOPLE accepted the Jesus story because he was crucified.

In the very stories themselves, the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus devastated the disciples and followers of Jesus. They abandoned and denied Jesus.

If Jesus did live and was crucified based on the Evidence as stated in gMark then this may be the scenario.

Bob--- "Ma, that guy Jesus who claimed he could raise the dead and walk on water, he was just CRUCIFIED for his own STUPIDITY.

Can you imagine that he told the Sanhedrin he was the Son of the Blessed? That Guy Jesus was an IDIOT.

Bob's mother--That guy Jesus could NOT be a Jew. If he was a Jew he would have known it would be INSTANT death for Blasphemy. By the way, who is his father?

Bob--Good question--I can't recall that any Jewish man ever claimed he was their son. You may be right. How could he be a Jew and be so stupid?

fatpie42

I think it's probably me that's not understanding. Like I said in the title, my main concern here is clarifying the issues and it looks here like I need a great deal more clarification on how you (and very probably others on this forum) consider the different positions to be framed.

I'd personally consider myself to be in more of "agnostic" postion as you put it. Except that the agnostic position you seemed to put forward appeared to require some very definite historical assumptions.

In fact, I'd like it if you clarified whether the "agnosticist" position is a real solid position on this matter or whether it's just sitting on the fence. If it was sitting on the fence, I'd say it probably applies to me. However, if it involves a specific set of claims which I'd need to take for granted then, naturally, I'm not so sure about it.

1) I'm not assuming that there even was a meal. I was simply suggesting that if there was a passover meal then it couldn't still have been passover when Jesus was executed.

My suggestion about passover was not a concrete position on the historicity, but rather a point of scepticism regarding this statement from you:
"executed by Pilate one Passover at Jerusalem"
You claim this italicised statement to be part of what you framed as "Jesus Agnosticism". My problem isn't that I need the meal to be a passover meal (though I'd have thought a story about Jewish meal involving bread and wine was more likely to be framed as a passover meal), but rather that the connection between the passover and the crucifixion is clearly a symbolic connection posing Jesus as a sacrificial lamb. The timing of the execution with passover is therefore very unlikely to be a historical element regardless of whether Jesus the man was historical or not.

2) I don't understand the pedantic points. I was not questioning exactly where in the Jewish festival Jesus was executed, but rather whether the connection to that Jewish festival would have been historical at all. That both the execution story and the last supper story currently appear to be framed as occurring during passover is fact. Whether either of the stories were originally framed with a connection to that festival is a different matter.

3)"Even if Pilate ordered Jesus' crucifixion this does not mean that he was crucified by Pilate."

*Scratches head* I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

Oh um... sorry. If I'd ever heard of Jesus Agnosticism before you used the term earlier in the thread, perhaps I'd be doing a better job....

I'm trying to stick to the facts. I am not prepared to bite the bullet on this issue yet because I'm not sure where the bullets are. So yeah, I'm approaching the issue with an open mind.

It could be that Paul's been persecuting people and they claim that the crucifixion is recent. I see no reason to refute that possibility. I've heard that the early Christians were pretty much all Jews, so that they would frame their messiah as Jewish seems unsurprising. Heck, it's not like there weren't a lot of Jewish messiah figures around that time. I don't see why any of this ties Paul's theology to a specific historical messiah figure called Jesus. Paul's theology is concerned primarily with a vision he received.

Perhaps you can clarify the issue here so I know what the problem is. Because my position is that for early Christians they are dealing with a bunch of stories. They could be stories about people called Jesus, but unless there's one specific person called Jesus I'd say the historical Jesus position fails. As for this agnostic position, I've no idea what their position entails - but if it requires a historical figure who was crucified by Pilate on Passover then I'm sceptical.

fatpie42

It seems to me that while you have some unconventionally late dating for the New Testament writings, you still agree on the basic point that - of the texts we have - the Epistles are the earliest.

Uh-huh.

Well, when you feel like sharing rather than ranting, I'll be ready to listen.

fatpie42

How much narrative clutter did living messiahs like the Egyptian have? Isn't it actually more plausible, considering the failures of living messiahs, to be told that an amazing figure has already been and gone and the time is at hand?

The circumcision requirement would be no problem for early Christians since they were all Jewish anyway. According to Paul there was a big problem with new recruits not actually following Jewish traditions like circumcision and you can imagine why.

The simple message of early Christianity was that the end times was at hand and you needed to sign up quick or risk damnation. "Doesn't make sense? Well how much do you trust these philosophers who themselves admit to being liars? Who are you going to trust, lying Cretans or God almighty?" :P

And while this message spread, traditional polytheism was losing its shine.


I mean, if I'm missing something important here, please fill me in.

fatpie42

Sounds like a good review if ever I heard one.

Hmmm, I was going to thank you for the link, but that thread is rather lacking in enlightening discussion. It's pretty much just your positive and negative spectrum (which is pretty neat, I'll admit).

Francesca Stavrakopoulou reckons that King David was a myth. I'm sure we all reckon that Perseus, Theseus and Heracles were myths. I'm fairly certain that King Arthur was a myth and strongly suspect the same of Robin Hood. The story that Muhammad tells of Abraham destroying the smaller idols and then blaming the bigger idols wasn't necessarily made up by him or received in revelation. It might well have been an existing story in oral tradition. Mythology accumulates, which is precisely why determining the existence of a historical figure is so awkward in the first place.

If finding flaws with the historical elements refuted the HJ claim, it would be easy. Unfortunately any such flaws can be dismissed as later additions or symbolic embellishment. It's not even like such embellishment was unusual or would suggest malign intent. Accounts simply weren't written as history in the sense that we understand it now. There are many elements in the gospels which are clearly propaganda, but that's not a big surprise either.

Eusebius is often suggested as a possible explanation for the interpolations in Josephus, but the gospels are known to have multiple versions. Mark has an extra section shoved on the end. Why suppose foul play? Why not suppose that, for the Christians compiling those accounts, it simply didn't matter to them?

andrewcriddle

By Jesus Agnosticism I do mean sitting on the fence, not just in the sense that you personally haven't made up your mind, but in the sense that the state of the evidence makes sitting on the fence the correct position.
I may have expressed myself too harshly and if so I apologize.
You seemed to be analysing my example of Jesus Agnosticism in a way that was IMO too sceptical (If Jesus was a Galilean killed in Jerusalem this probably happened at one of the three great feasts most likely Passover) and too detailed (Whether Pilate oversaw the crucifixion or just authorised it doesn't really matter.)
My problem is that if a group of people are claining to be following a specific individual recently publicly executed then the obvious assumption seems to be that this individual actually existed, was recently publicly executed and in some way gave rise to the group. The group may very likely have attributed to their guru some wise sayings and some striking actions originally attributed to other figures but this doesn't change the basic position.

Andrew Criddle