katiov

I just got through reading The Jesus Puzzle. Has anyone else read it? If so I'd like to discuss it.

Toto

Many of us have read it. What would you like to discuss?

katiov

Oh, great! It's so hard to find anyone who's read it. I am an atheist, raised by atheist parents, and so I know little about the Bible (for better or for worse). I get the impression that the author's main arguement is that Jesus was a god, not a man (instead of typical skeptical thinking that Jesus was a man, not a god). So he was, like Apollo, Zeus, or Neptune, an idea, who was only later claimed to be a flesh-and-blood person.... The author's evidence is in the epistles of Paul, mostly, it seems. Am I right? Also, what is his evidence about dating the gospels (as too late after Christ's "death" to be eyewitness accounts)?

Rick Sumner

Wow. The irony.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

As for your last point, most liberal scholars, including those who accept the idea of a historical Jesus, agree that the gospels are too late to be eyewitness accounts.

Doherty's argument is that Christianity started with the worship of a spiritual savior, and that it was only after Christianity had been around for a while that someone constructed a human counterpart to this spiritual savior. Jesus was not so much like Zeus as he was like Joshua, Moses' lieutenant.

His argument is based on silences about a human Jesus where you would expect to find details. He does rely on Paul's letters.

This is the weak point in the theory. Paul's letters are hardly solid evidence, and may well have been forged later in the second century. This leaves us with no real evidence that Christianity existed before the end of the first century, and no evidence of how it started.

The main alternative to this theory is the "big bang" theory of Christian origins. Under this theory, Jesus was an extraordinary individual who made an life-changing impression on his small group of disciples, and these disciples spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire until it became the state religion. There is no real evidence that this happened, but some people hold to it because they can't image how else Christianity could have started. This is probably due to a failure of imagination.

What most people agree on is that late in the 2nd century, there was a Christian church, which started to make an effort to codify its beliefs and history. But whether they remembered their history or invented it out of whole cloth is the question.

If you are an atheist, the Jesus Puzzle is just an intellectual puzzle. If you are a conventional Christian, it might undermine your faith, or not.

What is your interest in it?

katiov

I am an atheist, raised by atheists, so I am no Biblical scholar. My interest was sparked because I do enjoy mythology (and studied it some in college) and the birth of Christianity out of a mythological Christ rather than a flesh Christ seemed much more plausible. Admittedly, however, I am not familiar enough with the Bible or Christian history to entirely understand Doherty's references.

katiov

This part of the book made most sense to me: Paul's letters referencing Christ indeed do not sound like references to a human, nor to historical-plane events, but rather to a god, and to spiritual-plane "events". Am I right that Paul nowhere mentions Mary, place names, or any other historical details of a man's birth and life?

sodium

I have read it. Here are some thoughts.

Cons:

He has to explain away several statements. I'm not really aware of any theory that doesn't do this. After doing so he claims that a historical Jesus is unmentioned (in the early Epistles), but that is really overstating the case. It's more that no apparent mention exists which Doherty can't explain in a way consistent with his theory.

As far as I know, he exaggerates how closely "midrash" fits with the contents of the Gospels. Reading the Jesus Puzzle, you might get the idea that it was perfectly common for Jews to construct new narratives based on scripture. But I don't think it's really been shown that this was a known literary form.

Pros:

Despite my concerns, the other accounts I've read are, in my unlearned opinion, even worse. Doherty makes a serious (and I think largely successful) attempt to deal with the whole of Christian scriptures as they exist. This is opposed to carving out parts of Mark to form a historical core, and basically ignoring everything else as reflecting the eccentricities of the authors.

Toto

Paul's letters do not contain the name "Mary", but there is the phrase "born of woman" which some apologists try to use to claim that Jesus was human, but which very well might have been inserted later. There is no mention of a place of birth or a place of preaching. Paul refers to Jesus being crucified by demons.

If you want to read alternative theories, you could check out Theories of the Historical Jesus on Peter Kirby's website.

You will also find many threads in this Forum on the general issue or specific aspects of it.

katiov

Can you tell me where? I don't know much about Christianity because my parents aren't Christians, but the case the author makes sounds strong to me, as a layman. If nothing else I could see there having been many Christ or messianic figures around at the time, and because of a lack of written records and historical documentation, later on any existing records or oral accounts could have been attributed to one figure. I could see this happening with the following imaginery situation: Say a group of people have no books, no libraries, no Internet. Parents tell their children about a beautiful girl who looses a glass slipper at a ball. Parents also tell about a girl who lives with seven dwarves. Another story is about a girl who has to spin straw into gold. Eventually, through the years, with no written records to codify anything, the story is that a girl spins her slipper into golden dwarves.....