Peter Kirby

I have long had the intention of doing a "reality check" on the purely mythological or spiritual interpretation of Paul by comparing the Pauline epistles to the letters of some divine of later date, about whom there can be no doubt that he accepted Jesus to have been a person of flesh. I recently stumbled upon a collection of letters by a Puritan minister online, though I now forget how I arrived there. So I began to read the collected corpus of letters attributed to Samuel Rutherford, as found here:

http://www.puritansermons.com/ruth/ruthindx.htm

There are several passages in which Samuel Rutherford employs a manner of speaking about Christ that would appear to be purely mythological.

Letter 37, To Lady Kenmure
"Therefore, when you lie alone in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of myrrh, to sleep and lie all the night between your breasts (Cant. 1:13)."

Clearly the source of information about Christ for Rutherford was the Old Testament, which he mined for scriptural allusions to his Cosmic Christ. Christ appears to be utterly divorced from any Galilean setting, or even humanity at all, being likened unto a sack of myrrh which can be held close to the believer in the time of Rutherford.

Letter 87, To Elizabeth Kennedy
"God has made many fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the Flower of all flowers is Christ."

There is no historical Jesus in sight in this passage. Christ resides in heaven and is titled "the Flower of all flowers," clearly a mythological sobriquet. A similar passage is found in Letter 88, where Rutherford says, "we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted."

Letter 87, To Elizabeth Kennedy
"Oh, if men would draw back the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily!"

Here Jesus is said to reside inside the ark, which is odd for a Galilean peasant.

Letter 88, To Janet Kennedy
"If we would fall out of love with all of our masked and painted lovers, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost chamber of our heart."

Here Rutherford speaks of the Christ in you, a Gnostic-sounding concept. Similar language is found in Letter 100: "I long to hear how your soul prospers, and how the kingdom of Christ thrives in you."

Letter 88, To Janet Kennedy
"Oh, let the King come! Oh, let His kingdom come!"

There is no sense here that Christ had come a first time on earth, as told of in the Gospels. Rather, Rutherford looks forward to the day that the King will come. A similar situation is found in Letter 247: "Now the very God of peace establish you to the day of His appearing."

Letter 99, To William Gordon
"I took Christ's obscurity to be as good as Scripture speaking wrath; but I have seen the other side of Christ, and the white side of His cross now."

Would Christ really be obscure if he had appeared on earth and walked among us? And how is it that "His cross" had appeared to Rutherford, except it be in a spiritual sense?

Letter 100, To the Lady Cardoness
"See that you buy the field where the pearl is. Sell all, and make a purchase of salvation."

A similar parable is found in Matthew 13:44, "The kingdom of the heavens is like a treasure hid in the field, which a man having found has hid, and for the joy of it goes and sells all whatever he has, and buys that field." But Rutherford gives not the slightest hint that this saying comes from Jesus.

Letter 103, To the Lady Cardoness
"I cannot but recommend Him to you, as your Husband, your Well-beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy."

This is clearly mythological language.

Letter 103, To the Lady Cardoness
"I dine and sup with Christ."

How is this possible if Christ is thought of as a human being in 1st century Palestine?

Letter 103, To the Lady Cardoness
"Look through all your Father's rooms in heaven, because in your Father's house are many dwelling places."

Rutherford does not mention that this imagery comes from Jesus (John 14:2).

Letter 131, To Jean Brown
"No, I think patience makes the water Christ gives us good wine, and His dross silver and gold."

No mention is made here of the miracle at Cana of turning water into wine.

Letter 131, To Jean Brown
"Don't worry about the storm when you're sailing in Christ's ship: no passenger will ever fall overboard."

Here Christ is likened to a ship captain, with contemporary believers aboard. No allusion is made to the stilling of the storm by Christ in the Gospels.

Letter 230, To Lady Kenmure
"And the Lamb, your Husband, is making ready for you."

This is allegorical, not historical, language.

Letter 233, To Fulk Ellis
"I believe that our Lord is only lopping the vine-trees, not intending to cut them down, or root them out."

This is reminiscent of John 15 but no reference to the words of Jesus is made.

Letter 233, To Fulk Ellis
"And even when we have arrived within the castle, then must we eternally sing, 'Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who has saved us, and washed us in His own blood.'"

Was the historical Jesus a lamb, in whose blood believers were washed? Or does Rutherford speak of a spiritual Christ?

Letter 247, To Janet Kennedy
"Many stars, great lights in the church are falling from heaven, causing many to be misled and seduced."

A parallel passage is found in Matthew 24:29, but no mention is made of the words of the historical Jesus.

The collection of Rutherford's letters here numbers thirteen. The collection can be read through in a couple hours. The collection was *not* made by me, or by anyone who anticipated my use of them. They were collected, not unlike Paul's letters, because they were thought to well represent the thoughts of Samuel Rutherford. (I have not had time to read the larger collection of hundreds of letters by Samuel Rutherford--but, then, not everything jotted by Paul has been preserved either.) Yet, for all that, there is not a single explicit reference to the career of Jesus of Nazareth on earth; indeed, not even debateable passages such as there are in Paul's corpus. This collection of letters by a seventeenth century Puritan are bereft of the kind of references which are demanded from first century Christians. They also exhibit similar spiritual language and allusions to Jesuine sayings without attribution.

This study, therefore, shows conclusively that the argument from silence as applied to the New Testament epistles by Jesus Myth advocates to show that the authors disbelieved in an earthly Jesus is methodologically unsound.

best,
Peter Kirby

Jackalope

Peter, before you start judging Kirby's writings, you need to study Elizabethan and Jacobean writing conventions first. The "fairest flower" and "Flower of flowers" both come from love songs of the time. "As your Husband, your Well-beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy" is another stealing from the commonly-known songs of the time.

You're going to have to check these against both literary and song convention before you can judge if Rutherford is speaking in mythological terms or simply metaphorical ones.

I'm actually in agreement with you that Yeshua bin Yosef was most likely a mythological character, but you do need to understand the difference between common writing conventions of a period and myth before you can make a judgement. Jacobean writing is especially flowery, even that of men of reason.

--Lee

Peter Kirby

Lee, I thought that the end and beginning of the post would make it clear that I do not think that Samuel Rutherford disbelieved in an earthly Jesus. The very point is that someone could write in this manner and neglect to make explicit reference to the life of Jesus of Nazareth yet still happen to accept that Jesus was the name of a human being. This shows that Jesus Myth advocates draw unsound conclusions from the alleged silence of the New Testament epistles.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Peter - I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I think that you can distinguish these letters by the passage of time. For Rutherford, Jesus might as well have been a mythological god on a higher plane. In fact, church doctrine has emphasized this spiritual aspect of Jesus for most of its history, until the influence of the Enlightenment and Deism led on a quest for the historical Jesus. When Rutherford speaks about a spiritual Jesus, he could be reflecting his reading of Paul's letters and standard church doctrine.

In contrast, Paul met people who supposedly knew this remarkable human being, but shows no interest in his human aspect.

(And, you can find near contemporaries of Rutherford who made trips to the Holy Land to be where Jesus was. You can't seeem to find these people in the first century.)

I think a better parallel would be to look at how people today write about some recent, semi-deified historical figure. Does anyone mention Elvis or the late president Kennedy without mentioning some human aspect of them? What about that Hasidic Rabbi whose followers thought he was the Messiah?

Clutch

Peter,

Did Rutherford live in a time and place enabling him to cite direct eyewitness testimony of a putative historical Jesus? No.

Did Rutherford believe that Jesus had personally appeared to him, charging him specially with the task of spreading the word? Not that you've mentioned.

I don't follow these debates very closely; maybe lots of mythers have specifically built their case on the context-independent impossibility of one's believing Jesus to be historical, but writing of him metaphorically.

My assumption, however, would have been that they'd focus more upon Paul's having "motive and opportunity" to make reference to the details of a historical Jesus. The argument, good or bad, would hence be that Paul's silence is to some extent surprising given this motive and opportunity. Rutherford, by contrast, lacked opportunity absolutely, and motive in anything like Paul's alleged degree.

So I don't (yet) see the force of your proposed analogy.

Peter Kirby

Can you make an argument that meeting people who supposedly knew Jesus would make Paul more interested in talking about the human aspects of Jesus in his letters? All that logically follows is that Paul would have had access to stories about Jesus, which he considered reliable. Well, so did Samuel Rutherford--in the Four Gospels of the Geneva Bible, which were believed at that time to have been written by apostles or disciples of apostles. Both Paul (ex hypothesi) and Rutherford could have mentioned details about the life of Jesus if they chose to do so. They just did not so choose in their letters to other believers.

How much more documentary evidence do we have for Christianity in the seventeenth century compared to Christianity in the first? A thousand times? Ten thousand times? More? And what percentage of Christian literature in the seventeenth century makes mention of pilgrimages made to the Holy Land? One percent? A tenth of a percent? Less?

Do you know where to find their letters to each other?

I don't think that there ever will be something like a perfect analogy. I wasn't claiming a perfect analogy. I was showing that one could write after the manner of the New Testament epistles yet still accept that Jesus was once a human being.

best,
Peter Kirby

MortalWombat

Another thing to keep in mind is not just Paul, but virtually all 1st century epistle writers are silent about historical and biographical information about Jesus.

The trend is:
Early writings = lack of historical and biographical info
Later writings = full of historical and biographical info

That's what needs to be explained.

Peter Kirby

Is there any evidence that people in the time of Paul were claiming that there was no earthly Jesus, or that they needed eyewitness testimony to his existence? No.

And bear in mind that it was generally believed in seventeenth century Europe that Matthew the apostle wrote the first gospel and that John was the beloved disciple who wrote the fourth. So Rutherford did have the ability to quote from alleged eyewitnesses. It just does not seem that Rutherford's epistolary correspondence required such illustrations from the life of the earthly Jesus.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

My answer from the JM list:

If these letters were all you checked,how is it you know that Rutherford thought of Jesus as a historical person? He was, after all, removed from his teaching post for unapproved theological views. Problem: you can't demonstrate that without showing that Rutherford knew the life of Jesus, thus invalidating your case. It is obviously easy to find letters that do not mention Jesus' life, family, etc, from anyone in any period.

BTW, lengthwise, it appears that this collection is smaller than 1 Corinthians or Romans. You'd need better controls than this.

Rutherford's writings all show extensive knowledge of the gospel:
http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualnls/RuthRefWil.htm

Further, the argument from silence does not rest on Paul's letters, but letters by several different authors, as well as on the lateness of the gospel writings, the lack of credible mention in historical sources, the contradictions in the traditions, and the lack of silence on the story over time.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

This is the very claim that I have disproved. A writer as late as the seventeenth century was not "full of historical and biographical info."

best,
Peter Kirby