Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Post by Peter Kirby »

MrMacSon wrote:
MrMacSon wrote: Care to provide a list of these pre-Pauline Jewish, Roman and Greek writings that express Paul's ideas?
neilgodfrey wrote:
I was thinking of works exploring Paul's ideas as found in Greek-Roman and other Jewish literature:
  • Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Paul and the Stoics)
    Malherbe (Paul and the Philosophers)
    Huttenen (Paul and Epictetus on Law)
    James Waddell (Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios)
    Jarvis Williams (Maccabean Martyr Traditions in Paul's Theology)
And most recently I have been reading the following and finding many explanations of Paul's ideas found in Docherty's "Jewish Pseudepigrapha" and Litwa's "Iesus Deus" which identifies Greek and Roman sources for some of Paul's thought.
Thanks Neil.

It would seem "exploring Paul's ideas as found in Greek-Roman and other Jewish literature" would be a useful historical exercise.
If you could read only two, I'd say start with Philo (the Alexandrian Jew of course) and Epictetus (a Stoic), and work your way out from there, not neglecting your Seneca (one of two extant writers with long letters like Paul, and a Stoic), Cicero (the other, with Stoic leanings), Plutarch (a "middle" Platonist), Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jewish pseudepigrapha. Stephan has convinced me of the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch also. Read the Septuagint again, especially if you grew up Protestant and never took a trip through the Apocrypha... some of them books collecting background material in primary sources might be good (several), or just a sourcebook on mystery religions (Meyer has one). It may be third century, but some time with Plotinus' Enneads and Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers may also be of value. I'd also suggest reading Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Paul for a grok-able summary of ways in which Paul was read outside the catholic tradition. A lot of these roads have been traveled, so it's more a matter of finding the right bibliography and having the time.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

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Cheers (I think :think: )
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

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MrMacSon wrote:Cheers (I think :think: )
Cheers!
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

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outhouse wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:
It looks like you've been studying McGrath's avoidance tactics for responding to questions like this. :-)

I learned it from you ;) No just kidding. But you leave many unanswered questions yourself.


If we had a mythical core to the story, we should have a geographic center for the movement, why don't we?

When did the myth start?

Why did it become start spreading after 33CE ish and claim it was under Pilates rule?


Why did they claim it started at Passover ?


Why create a deity out of one of their oppressed peasants?



Sorry brother but mythicist are the ones leaving a trail of unanswered questions they never address. Not me.
These were the so-called "facts", the so-called "raw data", that Larry Hurtado said mythicists need to account for. All of these "facts" are assumed to be "historical realities" on the basis of a narrative otherwise not attested until well into the second century. Meanwhile, there are other narratives with contrary data being touted.

We don't "know" -- it is not "a fact" -- that the movement began in Palestine from around 33CE after a Passover event there. That is all an interpretation based on one late narrative.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Post by outhouse »

Peter Kirby wrote: But Jesus who "died and rose to heaven"? Not so fast hombre. To use Doherty's famous phrase, you're reading the Gospels into Paul. Paul does not say that Jesus rose to heaven. Period!

Ephesians 1:20
he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

I think it means the same thing. :facepalm:

While not Paul, it is a tradition that existed while the temple stood.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Post by neilgodfrey »

neilgodfrey wrote:
outhouse wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:
It looks like you've been studying McGrath's avoidance tactics for responding to questions like this. :-)

I learned it from you ;) No just kidding. But you leave many unanswered questions yourself.


If we had a mythical core to the story, we should have a geographic center for the movement, why don't we?

When did the myth start?

Why did it become start spreading after 33CE ish and claim it was under Pilates rule?


Why did they claim it started at Passover ?


Why create a deity out of one of their oppressed peasants?



Sorry brother but mythicist are the ones leaving a trail of unanswered questions they never address. Not me.
These were the so-called "facts", the so-called "raw data", that Larry Hurtado said mythicists need to account for. All of these "facts" are assumed to be "historical realities" on the basis of a narrative otherwise not attested until well into the second century. Meanwhile, there are other narratives with contrary data being touted.

We don't "know" -- it is not "a fact" -- that the movement began in Palestine from around 33CE after a Passover event there. That is all an interpretation based on one late narrative.
Ah, I see that Peter Kirby has already taken up the discussion with you on some of these points. I'll leave it between you and him. My own response to the "facts" you list as requiring explanation (as they were set out by Hurtado) was posted at http://vridar.org/2013/03/16/whos-the-s ... d-in-myth/
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

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outhouse wrote:
Peter Kirby wrote: But Jesus who "died and rose to heaven"? Not so fast hombre. To use Doherty's famous phrase, you're reading the Gospels into Paul. Paul does not say that Jesus rose to heaven. Period!

Ephesians 1:20
he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

I think it means the same thing.

While not Paul, it is a tradition that existed while the temple stood.
I don't care if you "think it means the same thing." Because you make too many assumptions, and in your mind "the same thing" is this guy named Jesus crucified in Jerusalem who rose to heaven, having subsisted on this earthly plane (which is the point you are trying to prove here). You clearly didn't read my post closely, because I quoted that one already. Start from the text, not from assumptions. Scroll up, read, and maybe learn something this time.

Ask yourself the question, where did Jesus ascend from? When he was raised from the dead, where was he? Now if you ask your average Christian this question, and even your average piker atheist, they would say something like the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea or, if they were trying to be snazzy, some common grave lot set aside for the condemned outside of Jerusalem. That's where the magic happened. But that's not what Paul says. The Ephesians Paul, the same one you quoted, shows that Jesus ascended from the scriptures and deduces in the same breath that he therefore must have gone down to the lower parts of the earth in order to ascend, as a connected argument. Even if Paul said exactly what 1 Peter 3:22 says (which he doesn't, verbally speaking), even 1 Peter 3:22 might not mean what you assume it means (with the phrase "gone into heaven"). After all 1 Peter 4:6 says the gospel was preached to the dead. Now I don't think Peter was down there preaching. Maybe not Paul either, that's quite a trick, even for a tricky guy like Paul. Who preached to the dead? Well, where would you go down if you wanted to raise up Jesus? It's right there in the texts, if you just care to read them.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Post by outhouse »

Peter Kirby wrote: To use Doherty's famous phrase, you're reading the Gospels into Paul.

.
Only if one is severely ignorant to Paul's Christology.


Pauls Jesus lives in heaven yes or no? Yes

Pauls places huge importance on Jesus resurrection, yes or no. Yes.


His main emphasis was on Death, resurrection and his lordship of Jesus.
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

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neilgodfrey wrote:Ah, I see that Peter Kirby has already taken up the discussion with you on some of these points. I'll leave it between you and him.
Oh fun. :)

Personally I think these textual battles have been fought enough times on the forums, but there have been so many assertions lately on this board that take for granted that the apparent reading of Paul's letters is so clear (and so clearly historicist) that I felt compelled to provide a basic course in what should already be basic knowledge for anyone who is going to broach the subject, IMO... 90% of this is simply on Doherty's website, free of access and easy to find, and people should already be familiar with the material (again, IMO, without requiring me to duke it out in the flesh with some lazy "oh but I can't see it, ergo it's not there" forum-goer...).
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Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

Post by Peter Kirby »

outhouse wrote:His main emphasis was on Death, resurrection and his lordship of Jesus.
I just wasted a large, beautiful, eloquent (if I say so myself) post here (on you anyway), and you waste my time with these 'outhouse' questions and sentences. I agree that there is a large emphasis on "death, resurrection and...lordship of Jesus." I've explained my point. What's yours?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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