The Jesus myth Part I

[MG 2.0]

Why waste breath when things can be wrapped up in a nutshell?

Regards,
MG

If you have no desire to participate then please don't waste time telling us that. You can simply not participate. We'll get it.

But I did. If I have something additional to say, I will.

Regards,
MG

[Kishkumen]

I disagree. Paul treats Jesus as a cosmic god who did not leave teachings and never met anyone. He only speaks of the gospel coming to him by revelation or through jewish scriptural sources, not through anyone who could have met Jesus. And he doesn't say Peter knew Jesus as another human. And the passing comment that James was the brother of Jesus could as easily be seen as a reference to a brother in the gospel rather than a biological brother. So I'm not seeing as reference as all that convincing or definable.

This is the process of "explaining away" the evidence that is so frustrating to deal with. If Paul wrote that Jesus was "born of a woman" at Galatians 4:4, then the mythicist says this is only a stock description of a human being, and it can't mean that Paul thought Jesus was a real person who walked on the earth. If he mentions that James is "the brother of the Lord" (Galatians 2:19), then this can't mean what it appears to mean in its context--that James was the brother of Jesus in the biological sense. If Paul talks about the cross, he can't be referring to the mundane form of Roman execution that uses a wooden cross, it must be some cosmic symbol. All of these forced and counterintuitive readings specifically seek to exclude the evidence that Paul thought Jesus had been a real, living human being.

The fact is that although it is possible to take these passages in another sense, it does not erase their value as evidence of Paul's understanding that Jesus had lived a human life on earth.

[Kishkumen]

Here is a fun historical tidbit from Philo that shows how the things we sometimes suspect are made up did also happen in the real world in Jesus' time:

There was a madman called Carabas whose madness was not of the savage ferocious kind – a kind which shows no more consideration […] for those who come within range than for those who are possessed by it – but was of the kind that is relaxed and milder. This man lived all day long, and all night long as well, stark naked in the streets, exposing himself heedlessly to extremes of heat and cold and to the pranks that were played on him by infants and children who had nothing better to do. They chevied this poor creature to the public gymnasium; stood him on a platform where he would be visible to all eyes; flattened out a papyrus-leaf and set it on his head to do for a diadem, and draped the rest of his body in a rug to do for a robe, while, to do for a sceptre, some one handed up a short section of papyrus-stalk (the native Egyptian plant) which he had seen lying in the street where it had been thrown away. When Carabas had thus received the insignia of royalty and been tricked out as a king with all the parade of a pantomime, some young fellows took their stand on either side of him with sloped rods, to do for sloped pikes, like a burlesque bodyguard; and then other people made their approach – some as though they were going to pay him their respects, some as though they were going to lay a suit before him, and some as though they were going to consult him on public affairs. And then, from the crowd standing round in a circle, there thundered out the strange cry of ‘Marin’, which is said to be the Syrian for ‘Lord’ – for they knew that Agrippa was a Syrian by race and that a large slice of Syria constituted his kingdom.”

Looks a lot like the mocking of Jesus before his crucifixion.

[Bret Ripley]

That's not the argument at all. The point regarding the more mythological elements attributed to a person is simply a point about setting a prior probability.

Thanks for the correction, stem. I'm glad my premise was faulty.

If someone appears on that list its more likely they are mythologized then not

Is that all? My position is something like "of course Jesus was mythologized" -- that doesn't help me assign a probability to whether or not there may be a historical 'core.' (For some reason, I'm starting to experience uneasy flashbacks to the "Doors of Death" thread.)

[Bret Ripley]

If nothing else he was crowned king in heaven, no?

This makes me optimistic about Carrier's thesis. I am heartened. If "king" can be taken to mean "mythical king," why, doing the same to a mere peasant ought to be dawdle.

[Res Ipsa]

I disagree. Paul treats Jesus as a cosmic god who did not leave teachings and never met anyone. He only speaks of the gospel coming to him by revelation or through jewish scriptural sources, not through anyone who could have met Jesus. And he doesn't say Peter knew Jesus as another human. And the passing comment that James was the brother of Jesus could as easily be seen as a reference to a brother in the gospel rather than a biological brother. So I'm not seeing as reference as all that convincing or definable.

This is the process of "explaining away" the evidence that is so frustrating to deal with. If Paul wrote that Jesus was "born of a woman" at Galatians 4:4, then the mythicist says this is only a stock description of a human being, and it can't mean that Paul thought Jesus was a real person who walked on the earth. If he mentions that James is "the brother of the Lord" (Galatians 2:19), then this can't mean what it appears to mean in its context--that James was the brother of Jesus in the biological sense. If Paul talks about the cross, he can't be referring to the mundane form of Roman execution that uses a wooden cross, it must be some cosmic symbol. All of these forced and counterintuitive readings specifically seek to exclude the evidence that Paul thought Jesus had been a real, living human being.

The fact is that although it is possible to take these passages in another sense, it does not erase their value as evidence of Paul's understanding that Jesus had lived a human life on earth.

That form of argument does smack of special pleading. I can’t read the relevant languages, so I don’t have the chops to evaluate some of the arguments. It would be one thing if there were different words in the relevant language for the wooden cross used for crucifying and a cross that is a cosmic symbol. It would be another if it were the same word, with an alternative interpretation placed on it.

[dastardly stem]

This is the process of "explaining away" the evidence that is so frustrating to deal with. If Paul wrote that Jesus was "born of a woman" at Galatians 4:4, then the mythicist says this is only a stock description of a human being, and it can't mean that Paul thought Jesus was a real person who walked on the earth.

This is all allegory, as he explicitly says in Galatians 4:24. Some suggest that he presents his whole argument, starting in Gal 3, and then ends suggesting he was using allegory, that means the phrase born of a woman is not allegorical. I don't find that very convincing. And as it turns out his word choice when he describes born of a woman is not the word used for human birth, but the word used to mean "made" as in how Adam was made rather than human birth born (the KJV uses made). He then carries on to describe the allegory of Abraham having Hagar and Sarah as the two sources of humanity. Of course if we take the phrase born of a woman and pull it out of the descriptions he offers, it sounds bad. I don't think it's as conclusive as it immediately sounds. Carrier's response to Daniel Gullotta here gives further detail.

If he mentions that James is "the brother of the Lord" (Galatians 2:19), then this can't mean what it appears to mean in its context--that James was the brother of Jesus in the biological sense.

It could mean that. It simply could mean brother as in brother of the Lord sense too--"Have we no right to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?"."--1 Cor 9:5. That's the problem with this one time mention, and how later this was scene as good evidence that Jesus, the god, had an actual biological brother--which doesn't make much sense, I think. Granted this is perhaps the most devastating point to raise against a mythicist position. But seeing as they used the term brother to refer to each other, including to refer to believers of Jesus being brothers of the Lord, or Jesus, doesn't really make this a conclusive piece of data favoring historicity. That means if Jesus never lived on earth, calling James the brother of the Lord is quite likely since that's what they did with believers--called them brothers of the Lord.

If Paul talks about the cross, he can't be referring to the mundane form of Roman execution that uses a wooden cross, it must be some cosmic symbol. All of these forced and counterintuitive readings specifically seek to exclude the evidence that Paul thought Jesus had been a real, living human being.

If Paul talks about the cross it may not mean that at all. It may just be euphemism for Jesus' cosmic death.

The fact is that although it is possible to take these passages in another sense, it does not erase their value as evidence of Paul's understanding that Jesus had lived a human life on earth.

I do think context matters. The big problem in reading Paul is we place him, naturally since it's placed that way, after the gospels. That is we read Paul carrying the assumption from the gospels that Jesus really lived. I think the passages can be read differently and in many cases should be taken not as evidence of historicity, since things like Jesus being born of a woman is not really meant to convey human birth from a mortal woman, and at best should be inconclusive. "I don't know" is always an acceptable response if we simply do not know.

If we assume the conclusion that Jesus really lived, when reading Paul, then we will see all reason to think that is what Paul meant, I think. Also I'd like to suggest there are plenty of cases where Paul helps present a pretty clear mythicist case. I hope to get there.

[Physics Guy]

"Brother of the lord" does not sound like a conventional Christian phrase to me. "Brother in the lord", maybe. The preposition seems important.

This sounds like Carrier trying to pull a fast one.

As to Paul being mythicist: it can't be mythicism just to ascribe some cosmic role to Jesus, because by that definition every Christian that ever lived was a mythicist. Mythicism is saying that Jesus never did anything that wasn't cosmic, because he never existed as anything but a cosmic figure.

So statements from Paul about the cosmic Christ are not evidence for Christ being purely a myth, any more than pictures of me eating ice cream are evidence that I never eat anything else.

[dastardly stem]

"Brother of the lord" does not sound like a conventional Christian phrase to me. "Brother in the lord", maybe. The preposition seems important.

This sounds like Carrier trying to pull a fast one.

Hey PG, I used a bad example with Philemon. I changed it to a more appropriate one that uses the phrase brethren of the Lord, rather than brethren in the lord. Both are used, in writings of Paul. This suggests that Paul thought that not only were believers said to be brothers together in the Lord, but that they could also be said to be brothers of the Lord.

No fast one, I don't think.

Also, I think an important point to note from the 1 Cor. 9 passage is Peter and apostles are noted as different from the brothers of the lord. If James, there are perhaps a dozen James' referenced, was not an apostle, nor at the ranking of Peter, then calling him the Lord's brother seems to fit with the way 1 Cor 9 reads as well. That is those gentleman who believed and may have had some standing among the believers but were not elevated to Peter, nor Paul an apostle.

[Physics Guy]

Listing "the brethren of the lord", and "the other apostles", and Cephas sounds to me as though these are three distinct sets of married Christian leaders. The sentence implies that Cephas and the other apostles were not "brethren of the lord". If being a brother of the lord were a mystical or metaphorical thing, though, who could possibly have a better claim to that status than Cephas or the other apostles? If anyone were a mystical or metaphorical brother of Jesus, they would have been.

I think the clear reading of this sentence is that one group of early Christian leaders besides the apostles, who were also respected enough for their marital status to be a model, were some literal blood relatives of Jesus.