Afghan

But this then poses the question, what was the earlier gospel? Posing Pauline innovations doesn't seem to weigh in favour of Mythicists because the Historicists have a clear answer to that. Mythicism shows a deficit of explanatory power here.

Although presumably the people who Paul describes as "Apostles before me" and "Pillars of our assembly" are not the same people as the ones he tells to go and castrate themselves a few paragraphs later.

Amaleq13

Nobody really knows since we have no writings that can be reliably attributed to them.

Could you elaborate? I'm not following you. What "clear answer"?

We don't have any idea how Paul differentiated between the two given that both apparently agreed that adherence to the Law was necessary.

TedM

I suspect one group was more extreme than the other. Paul had a real problem with the group requiring circumcision for Gentiles. (understandably)

Afghan

Well, the Mythicists believe that there was some group in Jerusalem in the early 1st Century who had been around for some time gradually developing something close enough to a doctrine of a sublunar blood offering to 'crucify sin' and by whose resurrection the faithful were granted new life in the spirit for Paul to first persecute them as a zealous Jew and then jump ship with his own gospel and that they did all this without leaving very much in the way of evidence to substantiate their presence. So the question "Who did Peter think Jesus Christ was?" doesn't have an easily definable answer.

The Historicist on the other hand has quite a ready answer to that. Peter thought he was some guy called Jesus running around Judaea claiming to be the messiah. Which, let's face it, wasn't entirely unheard of.

Amaleq13

Just to be clear, you seem to be defining "mythicist" by Doherty's thesis but that is only one specific version and, regardless of whether one is a historicist or a mythicist, Peter's group did not leave very much in the way of evidence to establish their beliefs. We only know what other people attribute to them.

That's certainly clear but I question how much it follows the evidence.

For one thing, Mark's story suggests, by way of the "Messianic Secret", that all the Messiah stuff came after the resurrection.

From a historicist perspective, Peter followed a miracle-working, wisdom-teaching Guru who somehow managed to get killed as a seditionist despite not leading a seditionist movement and without having his followers arrested. Then, somehow Peter became convinced that his Guru had risen from the dead and somehow became convinced that he was also the Messiah despite the fact that such a notion was completely unheard of in Judaism.

Given the "somehows", it really isn't all that clear even if you assume a historical figure.

Afghan

Well if I define it that way it's because it's the position I'm familiar with. Of course, if you feel inclined to outline a more plausible scenario for pre-Pauline 'Christianity' then that would definitely help.

And yes we do only know what others have attributed to them but to this untutored eye it seems that unamibiguous attributions of Historicism occur a lot earlier - probably within a space of time when the attributers would have had first or second access to the people they were attributing such views to.

Mmm. I'm not saying the Historicist position is cut and dried but I think its "somehows" are less of a stretch. I'm not suggesting that Mark's account is 100% reliable and I wouldn't assume that the Roman presence in Palestine constituted a 100% reliable police state or inclined to expunge everyone who ever listened to an anti-Roman agitator.

Yes, it's slightly odd that Peter got away with it (although a later supposedly second-hand account asserts he lied like a bastard to do so) but it's a lot less odd than at least Doherty's thesis that these people had been hanging around Jerusalem for ages without anybody noticing them. At least in my subjective opinion.

Amaleq13

The closest thing to plausible that I've been able to imagine is the idea of Peter studying Scripture and praying as he tried to figure out why the Messiah had not appeared to free them from the seemingly endless Roman rule. As he reads Isaiah 53, he starts getting ideas until the profound realization of the hidden gospel becomes clear! After he collapses in exhaustion, the actual Risen Christ appears to him to confirm everything he believes he has found.

My own "theory" can be found here but I don't know if it should be identified as mythicist, historicist, or a hybrid.

There is very little that is "unambiguous" in Paul. What are you thinking of, specifically?

I completely agree that it is easier to accept but that, unfortunately, doesn't make it true.

Afghan

I'll have a read over when I get home. Thanks.

In Paul - nothing. But I'd be surprised if Pete's supposed amanuensis hadn't known someone who had met him.

And I wouldn't be so foolish as to claim that it made it true. The whole field of study is rather speculative. But ultimately we evaluate theories by how much they explain and how simply. And (again in my subjective and ill-informed opinion) Historicism seems to explain more and more simply.

On the other hand I can see the appeal of Mythicism in interpreting the writing of Paul. But Paul's mythicist tendencies, I feel, make just as much sense within a Historicist framework.

Amaleq13

Why? There appears to be no good reason to think the author of Mark knew Peter except an unreliable 2nd century "tradition".

I'll buy "more simply" but I've come to the conclusion that nothing terribly useful can be reliably identified in the Gospel stories as historical.

I agree as long as we accept that he knew very little about the "historical Jesus".

Afghan

Well that wasn't quite what I said. I said that it seems likely that he knew someone who knew Peter. Or do you want to make a case that the degree of separation was greater?

But you've piqued my curiosity. Apart from the fact that his gospel is a bit of a hatchet job on ol' Pete, what evidence do we have that the tradition is unreliable? I mean you would hardly expect a writer to be so mean to someone he didn't know. :grin:

No. We're in full accord there. But I think, in my naive and parochial way, that, if you want to explain why a disparate and persecuted organisation beset with internal squabbles believed with apparent unanimity that it was founded by a guy called Jesus who Pontius Pilate had crucified in Judaea 80 years or so previously, the Mythicists have some way to go before they can furnish an account that is halfway as plausible or elegant as the hypothesis that this was what had actually happened.

Goodness me no. And doesn't seem to have cared much either. I don't think it served Paul's agenda at all to emphasise the historic Jesus. In fact, I'd say, as an amateur Historicist, he actively set about de-emphasising the historic Jesus because historicity played right into the hands of Peter, Brother James, John et al.