spin

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Let me give you a scale with three values:

[t2="p=4;bdr=1,solid,#000000"]1.|{c:bg=lightgreen;rs=2;w=60}Real
|{c:bg=silver;w=80}Historical|{c:bg=#FFA0F0;rs=3;w =80}Not mythical

||2.|{c:bg=lightblue;rs=3}Ahistorical||3.|{c:bg=wh ite;rs=2}Not real||4.|{c:bg=yellow}Mythical[/t2]

A. If something is historical, ie demonstrably a past reality, it is naturally real and not mythological.

B. Something can be real without it being historical. So much about the past we lack historical information about, so there's a lot of real that's just not historical and of course not mythical.

C. Something can be not real and therefore not historical, but not mythical. The example I often use is Ebion.

D. Something can be mythical, therefore neither real nor historical. Think of the Cyclops.

(I could of course add another category or more, such as fictional/not fictional, which would look similar to mythical.)

If Paul believes that Jesus was real, I don't see how you can conclude that Paul's Jesus was mythical. Paul, if Jesus was not real, would simply be mistaken. If Paul is simply mistaken in his belief that Jesus was real, how is that any different from the case of Ebion?

Views that don't consider all the range of options don't seem particularly helpful. Why are biblical scholars so interested in ancient biographies? Because they find realistic parallels with the gospels.

You are at present projecting the notion of myth onto what we are dealing with. (And hopefully as the table above indicates lacking historical evidence doesn't mean a figure was not real.)

If you lack substantial information, in what way is it "still mythical" to you?

Or it was suggested to him somehow. Or he was under the influence of something that warped his perceptions. Etc.

Suetonius is happy to repeat divinations, presages, and dreams. Paul having visions about Jesus is a reflection on Paul. The christian pundits may be right that the people in Jerusalem actually gave Paul information about Jesus and he's churned it all around and come up with what he preached.

This means nothing to me. I tend to take Andrew Criddle to task for giving his probabilities regarding his opinions and I don't see that you are being any different here with your slim leaning towards myth.


spin

dog-on

Do you think that there were any Greeks that thought that Zeus was real?

Romans for the historicity of Romulus?

Egyptians worshiping Isis?

Are you saying that Zeus, Romulus and Isis should not be considered mythical beings?

The Dagda

They are as real as Jesus.

They're all wrong I am the only one who exists, the rest are just jealous of me.

I am The Dagda.

GakuseiDon

Yep. And he was born and died in Crete.

Most definitely, as below.

Without a doubt. Tacitus puts Isis as reigning around the time of Moses:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...ories/5A*.html

"It is said that the Jews were originally exiles from the island of Crete who settled in the farthest parts of Libya at the time when Saturn had been deposed and expelled by Jove. An argument in favour of this is derived from the name: there is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida, and hence the inhabitants were called the Idaei, which was later lengthened into the barbarous form Iudaei. Some hold that in the reign of Isis the superfluous population of Egypt, under the leadership of Hierosolymus and Iuda, discharged itself on the neighbouring lands..."

Further on on the same page, Tacitus makes the interesting point about the destruction of Jerusalem:

"Prodigies had indeed occurred, but to avert them either by victims or by vows is held unlawful by a people which, though prone to superstition, is opposed to all propitiatory rites.43 Contending hosts were seen meeting in the skies, arms flashed, and suddenly the temple was illumined with fire from the clouds. Of a sudden the doors of the shrine opened and a superhuman voice cried: "The gods are departing": at the same moment the mighty stir of their going was heard.44 Few interpreted these omens as fearful; the majority firmly believed that their ancient priestly writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judea should possess the world."

They were all considered as historical people by people back then, though with some legendary embellishments.

Here is Plutarch on Romulus, who gives an interesting story of his death:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/.../romulus*.html

This task, then, Tarutius performed, and when he had taken a survey of the man's experiences and achievements, and had brought together the time of his [Romulus's] life, the manner of his death, and all such details, he very courageously and bravely declared that Romulus was conceived in his mother's womb in the first year of the second Olympiad...

It was in the fourth month after the founding of the city, as Fabius writes, that the rape of the Sabine women was perpetrated.20 And some say that Romulus himself, being naturally fond of war, and being persuaded by sundry oracles... began unprovoked hostilities against the Sabines...

He disappeared on the Nones of July, as they now call the month, then Quintilis, leaving no certain account nor even any generally accepted tradition of his death, aside from the date of it, which I have just given...

Romulus disappeared suddenly, and no portion of his body or fragment of his clothing remained to be seen... the light of the sun failed, and night came down upon them, not with peace and quiet, but with awful peals of thunder and furious blasts driving rain from every quarter, 7 during which the multitude dispersed and fled, but the nobles gathered closely together; and when the storm had ceased, and the sun shone out, and the multitude, now gathered together again in the same place as before, anxiously sought for their king, the nobles would not suffer them to inquire into his disappearance nor busy themselves about it, but exhorted them all to honour and revere Romulus, since he had been caught up into heaven, and was to be a benevolent god for them instead of a good king...

Julius Proculus... went into the forum and solemnly swore by the most sacred emblems before all the people that, as he was travelling on the road, he had seen Romulus coming p179to meet him, fair and stately to the eye as never before, and arrayed in bright and shining armour. 2 He himself, then, affrighted at the sight, had said: "O King, what possessed thee, or what purpose hadst thou, that thou hast left us patricians a prey to unjust and wicked accusations, and the whole city sorrowing without end at the loss of its father?" Whereupon Romulus had replied: "It was the pleasure of the gods, O Proculus, from whom I came, that I should be with mankind only a short time, and that after founding a city destined to be the greatest on earth for empire and glory, I should dwell again in heaven."

dog-on

Thanks for the additional info, GD. This makes the point quite clearly.

spin

Note, by the way, that Plutarch wrote lives of many famous people. He made no substantive difference between the life of Romulus and any other. He parallels Romulus with Theseus, just another biography. I can't be sure that Lycurgos or Numa Pompilius were real people, but they are two more lives in Plutarch's collection.


spin

The Dagda

Was Herodotus historically accurate? Why then does The Bible become Gospel if it is subject to the bias of historians?

Surely we should look to other sources, like the Gnoistic or Coptic texts or the Dead Sea scrolls?

dog-on

Indeed and that is the whole point and why I have no problem with the modern view that the characters Zeus, Romulus and Isis are, regardless of what, in the case of Romulus, based on Plutarch, considered mythical. Of course, I use the same exact standard when I consider the character Jesus Christ.

GakuseiDon

You're welcome.

gurugeorge

Because Ebion is a case of error (perhaps mixed in with tendentious theologising), Paul's case, in his own words, is a case of having a subjectively real-seeming perception of something that (we know) isn't real. We know that this sort of thing can happen. Visionary experience/mystical experience doesn't require the postulation of insanity (as Solo suggests), it's something that's not exactly common, but common enough to comfortably fit Paul's own words and be a satisfactory solution to the puzzle of Christian origins. Of course, it's error too (from our position) but not the same kind of error as Ebion.

i.e. We have positive evidence that Paul's Christ was a real visionary entity, a real hallucination, but no positive evidence that he was a real human being.

Given that, and given the presence of nascently gnostic terms, and given the absence of the kinds of traces of intensive literary technique found in Mark (for example), most of the other ahistoricist options (wrt to Paul at least) cancel out: the only actual positive evidence we have is that at the earliest point in time we can see, "Jesus Christ" was mythical, in the sense of not being real, in the sense of being an entity "seen" in Scripture and "seen" in visionary experience by at least Paul (and probably the Jerusalem people).

Yes but (wrt Paul) "it's a biography/novel/politically-motivated pamphlet" have as little evidentiary backing as "he was a real human being". Whereas we do have evidence, about as good as we can get, that at least this one very important early Christian (and possibly the ones just before him) believed "he is real" in a sense that only we moderns, in hindsight, with our scientific understanding of the world, know was a mistake.

I agree. But I don't see how the notion of myth I'm using is exclusively modern. In ancient times, some people believed their mythical entities were real, others (perhaps more educated, more rationalist) didn't. The word fits either way.

But we don't lack substantial information, we have what amounts to an eyewitness account, in Paul, of an entity that we know isn't real - i.e. is purely visionary, and a suitable basis for the beginnings of a religion (after all that's how many religions start).

Yes, those are possibilities, but where's the evidence for them? But actually we don't even need to look for evidence for those - we can stop at "visionary hallucination", because that's the most straightforward interpretation of what Paul says, taking him at his word.

Yes - pagans had as much of a broad spectrum of opinion about these things as people do today. Some people think the entities they meet and talk to in visions are real, some people don't think the entities they meet and talk to in visions are real, some people think the entities other people meet and talk to in visions are real, some people don't think the entities other people meet and talk to in visions are real. Most people on this board would think that (if they had such visions themselves) the entities they met and talked to wouldn't be real, or if they are considering others' visionary experiences, they wouldn't think those peoples' visionary experiences betoken anything real.

i.e., they are mythical. (However, tbh I don't care about that word in particular - there are various interpretations of the meaning of "mythical". All I mean is that, quite straightforwardly, we have an example of visionary experience, and that's quite a sufficiently reasonable explanation for the start of Christianity, a sufficient basis for later accretion of pseudo-historical, and yet more mythological details.)

Maybe. But why go there? Those options are more murky and have less positive evidence speaking for them than the straightforward reading that Paul had visionary experiences of an entity, believed the entity was real, and believed the "story" the entity told him (i.e. something like "I was recently on earth, fooled the Archons, etc., etc."). If the mini-credo in 1Corinthians 15 has some validity, then we can extend that to the original founders.

Problem solved.

(Until some contrary evidence turns up wrt those very early days - e.g., of a human Jesus, of literary creation run amok, of hoax, etc., etc.!)