Ted Hoffman

I have just been thinking.
Considering the manner in which Paul wrote - especially considering his 500 people seeing Jesus and Jesus roaming the earth for over 40 days after resurrecting, it only makes sense that he believed in the resuurection of a spiritual Jesus.

This is in sharp contrast to the Gospels resurrection story that EMPHASIZE the bodily resurrection of Jesus - Jesus showing his wounds, asking for food etc after resurrecting.

What does this mean? Paul evidently held a completely mythical view (mythical in the sense of Attis/Osiris) of Jesus and had no concept of a blood-and-flesh man having died and arisen bodily.

That means the Historical Jesus was fabricated wholecloth by Mark, Ignatius or whoever else it might be. It means this HJ is a tradition that developed LATER. Because there is NO way Paul could have failed to know about a HJ - as portrayed in the gospels

as someone put it:
How can we answer all these questions? Except with a MJ?

Mike Rosoft

It is obvious to me that Jesus the Miracle Worker (as described in the Bible) is a fiction. As for historical Jesus, given the amount of evidence we have (about nil), the only thing I can say is "he might have existed".


Mike Rosoft

zog

I believe personally that there is the shadow of a person behind the Gospels but i find the JM arguements convincing.

I am farily agnostic on the issue overall but it really depends how you define the HJ because you can go from raising of the Saints to the non-crucified preacher in Thomas.

Mick911

I think that Jesus had a connection to God, as did Mohammad, Confucious, and others that I can't think of now lol.

So i guess I am HJ leaning toward MJ

Iasion

Greetings all,

I argue for a Mythical Jesus.

It seems that Paul and his spiritual experience were typical of the founding of Christianity.

There is no sign there of a historical person,
its more a new understanding of spiritual truth, which re-interprets the old scriptures.

The key issue for spiritual thinkers in Paul's day was whether there was a 2nd god (because the supreme good God could not be directly in touch with lowly matter, thus an intermediary is necessary).

This principle of an intermediary lies at the root of the multiple emanations and planes of the Gnostics and middle-Platonics.

Earl argues that Paul's Iesous Christos was a divine entity, who descended to be crucified on the plane 'above' ours, then rose again to heaven.

I argue that Paul's Iesous Christos represents, in some way, our soul, or spirit - our non-physical, 'higher' part.

Paul uses the forms "in Christ" and "Christ in you", consistant with the idea of a non-physical body, interpenetrating our physical body.

Paul also discusses the various bodies of humans, another pre-occupation of the Gnostics and neo-Platonics.

Paul reads to me as a man who had travelled to a higher plane - "in the body or out? who knows?" - and is struggling to explain what he has realised.

Clement Alex's comment is the key:
the pleasures of the flesh PIN the SOUL to the BODY

Paul's strangeness of expression is the tone of a man with one foot in the spiritual dimensions - those (un)lucky few who have direct personal experiences of the spiritual dimensions are noticed, their words are remembered - Paul was such a man.

Stripped of its mythology, I think Paul was struggling to explain a theory of human nature that went like this :
* our soul is immortal, a part of God - "Christ"
* our soul descends into matter, to be "crucified" by being born,
* in a body, the "cross"
* and suffer a life in matter
* then "rise" again from the body
* back to heaven where we belong

I don't think Paul saw Iesous Christos as any more historical than, say, Zeus.

Iasion

Gooch's dad

I lean towards HJ, but the gospels are mostly invented stories, stuff that attempts to fit to supposed OT prophecies.

There seems to be a core of history in the gospels and Thomas, though. Verses like John 7:42, where the crowd points out that Jesus cannot be the Messiah (since he isn't from Bethlehem) wouldn't be in the gospels if the stories were complete fabrications. Verses like this indicate to me that Jesus was *not* from Bethlehem, and the Jews had confronted him and his followers on this issue.

-Kelly

Asha'man

Excellent point.

I think that same reasoning can be applied to many of the more controversial parts of the Gospels. The virgin birth story was added as a defense against claims that Jesus was a bastard of the most conventional sort. It was clear that Joseph was about to disown Mary for her pregnancy, and that simply demanded some sort of explanation. The delivery in the barn may have been the result of Joseph kicking Mary out of the house, not from any sort of census with a travel requirement.

I think the insane trial sequence is another glimpse at real history being heavily modified. I suspect that the Sanhedrin actually found Jesus guilty of blasphemy and killed him. Fragments of this story are still visible in the text. However, most of the rest of the story has been modified to shift the blame, and then shift it back again.

mike_decock

I think the insane trial sequence and the fact that it flies in the face of what we know about rabbinic jurisprudence is evidence that it never happened.

Considering that Christianity become the Roman state religion, I think the trial is a later addition to shift blame away from the Romans and onto the Jews. Either it was included in the gospels (written for a Roman audience) before the Nicean council and was preserved to keep it more palatable for the Romans, or it was added by the council to make it palatable.

If the Sanhedrin trial had really taken place and they found Jesus guilty, he would have been stoned, not crucified.

-Mike...

joedad

Maybe it's too simplistic to think of it this way, but Gospel Jesus is like a Unicorn.

Is a Unicorn historical, or just its horn and the stories associated with it? If I wrote a story about "Silver Stallion," my steed that flies around the pasture and gives children rides to Never Never Land, is Silver Stallion historical because I keep horses, and horses are real? Horus and Attis are just as historical as Gospel Jesus by this standard. Something or someone real had to inspire them. So I think Peter Kirby's position is well taken.

It seems to me that if Gospel Jesus is not a myth, then there are no myths.

joe

Ted Hoffman

I think its possible that whoever was writing the account of a messiah from Galilee envisioned the resistance that man would have met and addressed it in those passages.

What about Dionysios, Osiris, Attis etc? They were also born by virgins. On what basis should we start by assuming Jesus was born by an actual woman then start reasoning backwards?

Mary's pregnancy and Jesus' virginal conception are both part of the story - on what basis do you extract part of the story ans use it to lend veracity to the other part?

Mithras was said to have been born in a manger, among shepards

It is said that Mark was not well acquainted with the Jewish customs then.