Rank, Raglan, Freud, a Texas Sharpshooter, and Jesus

[JohanRonnblom]

You are very narrow and literalist in your interpretation; I like to think I my different conclusion is based upon a valid reading of the principle that Raglan addresses in his larger discussion and illustrates in his examples -- you disagree.

But you're illustrating it with bogus examples of people whose parents Raglan did not consider to be relatives. Of course we can freely imagine that maybe Raglan didn't mean relations to be 'literal', and maybe not birth or death or kingdoms or anything else either, but if you can't provide any example where he has argued this or where he has scored someone according to this principle of yours, well then it is a principle of yours and not one of Raglan's. No amount of handwaving about any 'larger discussion' helps that. Yes, we can read Raglan's 'larger discussion' about parents being related. He says this is a reference to the royal practice of marrying siblings. Does marrying your 26:th cousin remind of marrying siblings? Hardly. The purpose in the Jesus myth to claim that he (and by extension Joseph, and then, outside canon, Mary as well) was of Davidic lineage was completely different: to make it clear that Jesus was a) Jewish and b) legitimate leader of the Jews (upon his expected return anytime soon now). To turn this into something about Joseph being related to Mary is exactly the opposite of seeing the larger picture.

[JohanRonnblom]

You seem to think there must be clear right and wrong, intellectual/academic dishonesty or integrity.

No there doesn't have to be, but there can be. If you claim a text was written by Raglan when it was written by yourself, then there is clear right and wrong. It is wrong, and it is intellectually dishonest, and if you publish the false claim academically then it is academically dishonest.

[neilgodfrey]

You seem to think there must be clear right and wrong, intellectual/academic dishonesty or integrity.

No there doesn't have to be, but there can be. If you claim a text was written by Raglan when it was written by yourself, then there is clear right and wrong. It is wrong, and it is intellectually dishonest, and if you publish the false claim academically then it is academically dishonest.

Honesty has to do with intent. It is an ethical judgment. It qualifies to make and break careers. Your assertion that Carrier is guilty of dishonesty for listing the 22 features (not even quoting Rank or Raglan) under deliberately false pretensions is absurd. (You wonder why I detect a hostile 'let's kick carrier' tone here.)

Dishonesty is when an academic lies about having sources or having produced data that does not exist -- and that happens. Carrier is pointing to something in the public realm for all to see and compare. You are a very harsh judge indeed.

(Your approach to Carrier's ethics on the basis of such evidence seems to me to parallel your overly rigid and inflexibly literal interpretation and application of the Raglan elements and is where we are in disagreement on that, too.)

[Bernard Muller]

to JohanRonnblom,

I don't think, and I'm pretty sure Carrier agrees with me here, that the Gospels were intented to be "believed" literally.

In the case of gLuke, the author did not present her gospel as being some mythical allegories, but history (Lk 1:1-4). Even if I do not agree that gospel (or the other ones) is fully history (more like mainly fiction), at least the author did not say she was writing about myths or allegories.
As for Carrier, he wrote: "So the Gospels are simply not historical records, even when they try to pass themselves off as such ..." (OHJ p. 398) (bolding mine)

So just as there is no problem in writing a Superman book that contains things that people would not believe in, there is no problem in writing a Gospel that is not meant literally and not intended to be understood literally.

The Superman stories are fictions which are rather smoothly straight forward in their telling.
However the gospel of Mark is full of indications the author had to deal (rather awkwardly) with the silences of the eyewitness(es) on important items (because they were not telling about the fiction that "Mark" concocted later to support his agenda) and tried to explain these silences. That author also had to do damage control on the testimonies, when something reported was against some Christian beliefs.
As explained in http://historical-jesus.info/28.html

I think there is overwhelming evidence that the Gospels were intended as religious fables and not sold as "true stories"

Maybe you should revise that. Also the epilogue of gJohn specifies most of the gospel was written by an eyewitness (which is not true, of course, but certainly not meant to be seen as religious fables):
This is the disciple which testified of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. (Jn 21:24-25)

I would only add (and emphasize) that this also explains how the Gospels can be in disagreement about so many fundamental things that cannot be true at once, apparently without anyone protesting and disregarding the "untrue" version. This problem simply disappears unless you assume readers were supposed to understand all these things literally at once.

For each gospel written after gMark for a specific church, it was likely told any other gospels known by the community were not complete & contained inaccurate data (or in the wrong order: Papias) and certainly written later. That's what the intro of gLuke is implying.
And we do not know about the reaction of readers to a gospel appearing after others were known.
Christians nowadays are not alarmed by the differences and contradictions in the gospels but instead they, and apologists, are harmonizing them. That may have been the case in antiquity also: Eusebius told us of many attempts to harmonize the different genealogy lists in gMatthew & gLuke.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to JohanRonnblom,

I have a lot of issues with this graph, but to start somewhere it is very implausible to put a mythical Jesus at score zero in 60 AD. At a bare minimum, he was clearly considered the son of God, the circumstances of his conception were unusual, and he met with a mysterious death.

In order to have a Rank-Raglan hero, you need someone (real or fictitious) living on earth. According to Carrier, that belief about Jesus happened after Paul (used by Carrier as a testimony for a belief then of an entirely not earthly Jesus, but strictly a heavenly entity).
Actually, I was very generous to put a date of 60 CE, because Carrier said stories of Jesus on earth started as allegories for a mythical/heavenly deity (which would have taken decades to be believed as about an earthly & fully human Jesus).

Cordially, Bernard

[neilgodfrey]

Carrier said stories of Jesus on earth started as allegories for a mythical/heavenly deity (which would have taken decades to be believed as about an earthly & fully human Jesus).

why decades?

[MrMacSon]

Carrier said stories of Jesus on earth started as allegories for a mythical/heavenly deity (which would have taken decades to be believed as about an earthly & fully human Jesus).

why decades?

Generational change?

[neilgodfrey]

Carrier said stories of Jesus on earth started as allegories for a mythical/heavenly deity (which would have taken decades to be believed as about an earthly & fully human Jesus).

why decades?

Generational change?

Why would all the parents of one generation fail to teach their children or neophytes the true meaning?

[MrMacSon]

Why would all the parents of one generation fail to teach their children or neophytes the true meaning?

Would the parents know the true meaning?

It'd be like gay rights or gay-marriage today; many in the older generations don't believe in it, but many of the younger ones do.

[neilgodfrey]

Why would all the parents of one generation fail to teach their children or neophytes the true meaning?

Would the parents know the true meaning?

It'd be like gay rights or gay-marriage today; many in the older generations don't believe in it, but many of the younger ones do.

We are talking about a scenario where one generation is supposed to think the story is symbolic. Some people think it would take decades for this situation to change. This is not comparable to different values across generations. It's not about whether Jesus would advocate gay rights but whether a Jesus ever taught anything at all.

My point is that conflicting interpretations can arise very quickly and even sit alongside each other. It is not difficult to imagine how a symbolic or spiritual tale could be taken by some people as literal and physical and for conflicting views to compete with each other; but it is difficult to imagine how a normal historical account could ever be taken to be symbolic or spiritual? We know of cases where mythical people were believed to be historical but how many instances do we know where historical people have come to be thought of as not truly historical or not real -- as we see in the record of early Christian sects? (e.g. docetism)