to Peter,
So perhaps they thought Jesus was a man? You've made several quotes there, but it's really beyond the scope of this essay.
That's the whole point: According to my quotes, Paul thought Jesus had been a man on earth. That's certainly within the scope of "The best case about Jesus".
The rest of it is not really worth discussing here because even a best case argument from the other references in the letters of Paul might chip away at the understanding of Doherty but could still admit the hypothesis championed by Wells, et al., of a Jesus who was placed in the indeterminate mythic past.
Do you disagree that these passages provide the only evidence in Paul against the NON-DOHERTY, NON-CARRIER, non-first-century-Jesus interpretation?
Paul having met the brother of Jesus does not put Jesus in a mythic past.
Yes the quotes I gave from Paul's epistles either assert (when in bold) or suggest a human/earthly Jesus.
And I think they are enough of them to prove the point.
Do you find evidence in Hebrews of a first century Jesus?
The evidence here (which I gave in section D) is only about an earthly/human Jew called Jesus having been crucified in the past.
Also, there are other items in the Pauline epistles and Hebrews which suggest that crucifixion was in the near past ("firstfruits" (1 Cor 15:20), "today" (Heb 3:15, 4:7)).
And neither Paul or the author of Hebrews were making excuses about an important delay between the crucifixion and the time of their preaching.
I'll admit that I could possibly have been more clear about my intent, but nowhere in this essay do I really take up the torch for Doherty/Carrier/etc.
I did not imply it either. But the points I made are mostly against Doherty/Carrier hypothesis, which keeps Paul's apostolic activities in the 50's.
There are so many mythicist cases nowaday, I cannot direct my arguments against all of them at once, more so the ones which have Paul as an invention in the second century (BTW, I already provided some arguments against these theories in the "The Myth of Jewish Christianity" thread).
I'm looking for evidence for Jesus in these epistles - the one that was killed in the first century and known to his first century disciples. I could point to 1 Cor 15 and Galatians 1 in this regard. I pointed marginally to 1 Thess 2 and Hebrews 13, though I'm not even sure why those would count. Can you find more?
Well, 1 Cor 15:3-11 is an interpolation in my book, so is 1 Th 2:15-16:
http://historical-jesus.info/9.html &
http://historical-jesus.info/4.html
Galatians 1 and 3:6-4:7 have very valid points supporting the existence of a human/earthly Jesus who lived in the near past.
This is interesting work, but you seem to be assuming that the Gospel of Mark wouldn't be anti-disciples. I completely disagree. It's the thematic intent of the Gospel of Mark to illustrate the failure of the disciples. Why? That's a good question. But the fact that it's a Markan theme is hard to argue against.
The gospel of Mark is not anti-disciples all the time: "Mark", at times, was finding excuses to explain why the disciples were not saying things of the utmost importance for supporting the new Christian beliefs (such as Jesus giving gag orders).
In other cases, he made the disciples look stupid (not seeing the miraculous feedings for example), but he did the same for Jesus also ("asking his disciples to provide a meal for 5000", "expecting a fig tree to have fruits in early spring").
Why, according to you, "It's the thematic intent of the Gospel of Mark to illustrate the failure of the disciples"? What failure? Why the theme? Why have Jesus surrounded by failed disciples of (allegedly) in own choosing?
Yes there is a theme, if you will. And it is that the disciples did not see or heard anything divine about Jesus. And the failure of the disciples is their failure to have their testimony in favor of Christian beliefs (because they had no reason to become Christians after what they saw & heard as eyewitnesses).
I wonder about your ideas on that. That would be a good topic to discuss for another thread.
As for me, the explanations I gave, despite your disagreement, explain very well the recurring "theme".
Cordially, Bernard