EarlDoherty

Why is it misleading? I cut out bits in order to make the point as clearly as possible, so that the reader does not have to screen out details that are unimportant to the point. What would including "since the creation of the world" do to undermine my argument?

Even if the second sentence talks of creation and brings Paul's point to a certain specific, it does not change the fact that in the first sentence he makes a statement which he should not be capable of making. I shouldn't have used the NEB translation in my Top 20 item, because it's a little misleading: "before their eyes" implies that this is a previous reference to creation, whereas all Paul is saying is, literally:

"All that may be known of God by men lies within them [phaneron estin en autois], for God has revealed it to them."

In the next sentence he goes on to say that creation is one of those revelations; men should understand God's attributes through the things he has created. Another source of men's understanding is scripture, and that can be encompassed by the "for God has revealed it to them."

What cannot be encompassed by what Paul says here, and which we should have every reason to expect would be in Paul's mind, is revelation of God by the preaching of Jesus and what he had to say about God and his nature. So making that statement as he does, strongly indicates that he has in his mind no earthly Jesus preaching God. And this should be impossible if he had any concept of an earthly Jesus.

That's why I chose it as a convenient, and fairly simple (so I thought), number 1 for my Top 20.

Earl Doherty

TedM

A far simpler concept is that Jesus was a much milder version of what we see in the scriptures, and was relatively unknown prior to being crucified for a disturbance in the temple, or some such, during Passover, and that some people related his passover death with that of a passover lamb. The rest followed naturally.

ted

TedM

Jesus' appearance had little to do with people living since the creation of the world and prior to Jesus' appearance, who had an opportunity to perceive god through nature.


Creation is the ONLY specific he mentions, from what I see. That's what existed "since the creation of the world". God has revealed himself within them through his revelation in nature. I think it is telling that Paul doesn't mention scripture or anything else here. He has chosen something that applies to ALL men. Paul is saying that that is enough. There is no need for scripture or Jesus to declare guilt on all men. And, it confuses the issue because not ALL men had seen scripture or Jesus.
I think your extraction of the only specific given by Paul confuses the issue a LOT more than had you kept it in. Keeping it in allows one to understand the essential point Paul is making, and removing it does not.


LATER Paul discusses those who had scripture (Jews) and their guilt specifically. Then even later he talks of those after Jesus "how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?"(10:14), and the guilt of those that don't believe. Somewhere in those later chapters would be a more reasonable place to expect something about Jesus.

Your expectation about what "would be in Paul's mind" is misplaced, and clearly so, at least to me.

ted

Ben C Smith

This reads as if you have not even read Crossan on the gospel passion. If Crossan is even remotely correct (that early Christians knew only the bare, brute fact of the crucifixion), then your objection here is completely moot.

Because your expectations are a poor substitute for sound methodology.

Because, on my view, such details did not yet exist. Somebody somewhere had to create them. I think Clement wrote before that happened.

When you argue for A as if you have argued for B, it most certainly is a non sequitur.

Oh, you are joking! Wells has an explanation (which does not match your view of a heavenly realm). Crossan has an explanation (which does not match your view of a heavenly realm). And I have at least twice given you a crystal clear modern analogy to creating pseudo-historical data based solely on scripture (which does not match your view of a heavenly realm). You never responded to this latter (to wit, the modern Christian view that Jesus was not very good looking).

In my view it is not a lack of interest so much as it is a lack of knowledge.

Ben.

gstafleu

That is not a non-sequitur. In a recent discussion we agreed that most of what we find in scripture finds its source in what I then called FBI: Faith Based Inventiveness. In other words, most of what we find in scripture is neither historical reporting, nor does it find its source in historical reporting. So, if we find that certain events within scripture have their only source in (other) scripture, then the a priori most likely hypothesis is that said event does not have history as its (ultimate) source.

One could niggle that there is a difference between an event having a non-historical source, and it having a source in the "spiritual realm." There is something to that niggle: the "spiritual realm" is a more detailed instance of a non-historical source. Nevertheless, the fact that the event is most likely non-historical stands in both cases.

As a result of this, if it can be shown that an event has only scriptural roots, and it can also be shown, as Earl does, that the event can be read as non-historical, then the most likely hypothesis is that it is non-hoistorical. It could of course still be historical, but that would need the adduction of extra evidence: just pointing out that the event can also be read as historical is not enough.

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

Wouldn't a discussion as we are seeing here about 1 Clement be exactly what one would expect if the myth hypothesis were correct?

If the myth hypothesis is correct, we have the following situation. We start out with an early period, say before 70 CE, where we find an (almost) exclusively spiritual Christ. At the other end we find a late period, say as of 150 CE, where we find a historical Christ. In between we have an interregnum, and in that interregnum we find a change from a spiritual to a historical Christ. In other words, we would expect to find "missing links" in that interregnum--except that they wouldn't be missing, of course.

Isn't 1 Clement such a not-missing link? As Earl shows, it certainly can be seen as part of a spiritual tradition. As others show, it can also be read as having (at least some) history in it. This, I would suggest, is exactly what we can expect in the interregnum. Clement may have thought of his Christ as spiritual, or there may have been (the beginnings of) history in his mind. In either case, it is easy to see--given the current discussion--how readers of his letter could have thought he referred to a historical Christ, whether Clement actually thought of his Christ as historical or not. As such, isn't this a perfect example of how the Jesus story could have morphed from a spiritual Jesus to a Historical one?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

If that is niggling, then the whole difference between Wells and Doherty is niggling. And maybe that is what Doherty sees it as.

But you stated it here perfectly. The spiritual realm option is a narrower, more detailed instance of the broader nonhistorical or scripture as source option.

If all Earl did was to argue (A) that, say, the gambling for clothes came completely from scripture, not from historical reminiscence, I would have no problem. In fact, I would tend to agree with him. But he does not stop there. He goes on to say (B) that this gambling for clothes was imagined as happening in a spiritual realm of some kind. There I take exception. And the thing is, Earl often seems to argue for A but then assume that he has proved B as a direct result.

Let me approach it in another way; let us assume for a moment that Jesus never existed. Earl tells us that most or all of what the early authors knew about this nonexistent Jesus they learned from scripture (seen through revelation). If they knew that Jesus died, they had learned it from scripture. If they knew that Jesus rose again, they had learned it from scripture. Why, then, can they not have learned that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood human being who walked the earth from scripture? Why does it all have to take place in another realm, in the minds of these authors? The answer is obvious. It does not have to take place in another realm; these authors could have learned that Jesus was earthly or fleshly from the scriptures, just as some modern Christians learn that Jesus was not a handsome man from the scriptures. To say that the early authors thought in this way is to shoulder an extra burden that, say, Wells does not have to bear. It is not enough to say, in this case, that Jesus never existed. Earl also has to show, by his own choice, that those who first imagined him did not imagine him on earth as a real man.

I basically agree with this.

Ben.

dog-on

And that would be a very good assumption.


Maybe, since it would appear that Earl thinks that the original writers actually literally believed what they wrote about, that Earl is really trying to keep from calling these writers blatant liars. He is attempting to allow them a bit of credibility, at least within their own minds and view of reality.

Remember, Earl bent over backwards trying to keep all of Paul, instead of simply pointing out all the reasons that certain passages could, more simply, be viewed as probable interpolations.

I am also willing to bet that the original writers "did not imagine him (Jesus) on earth as a real man".

gstafleu

True, they could have (whether this is the most likely explanation is another matter). I think we are basically on the same track here. In these discussions, two things tend to get conflated:

1. Is the Jesus figure based on a historical person?
2. If not, how did the Jesus story, the "myth," develop?

These are both valid, but independent, questions. However, if you can give a good answer to (2), then you have made your case for (1) stronger. Earl, I think, tries to answer both questions. There is certainly nothing wrong with that--to the contrary, I'd say--but it does raise the danger of conflation (cf the infamous "fleshy sub-lunar realm" discussions).

Having said this, I do think that Earl makes a good case for his proposed etiology. After all, a son of God does sound rather spiritual, doesn't it? And of course if you propose that something intuitively obvious like a historical Jesus is wrong, people are going to ask you: Well, what then did happen? Earl gives a quite reasonable answer to this question, I think. Interestingly, Jeffrey Gibson's Temptation article also provides some quite interesting etiology, in this case quite focussed: How did Matt/Luke's Temptation scene come into existence?

Just in case if anyone is wondering how you can answer (1) above with "Yes" without also providing an answer to (2), please remember my "FBI" (Faith Based Inventiveness) argument. Most people on this forum, whether HJer or MJer, would a agree that a lot, in fact most, of the NT materials are not history based but are FBI based. That is sufficient to establish that the Jesus figure is most likely also FBI based, the question of how exactly that process unfolded being secondary.

Gerard Stafleu

Amaleq13

I don't suppose you've developed a new argument since the last time you made this assertion and were unable to support it?

What, exactly, makes this "most likely"?