A partial analogy for my best mythicist scenario?

[Giuseppe]

What favors a terrestrial scenario for mythical Jesus'death is also the deep pessimism nourished by Paul regarding the Earth (in the eyes of Prof. Hyam Maccoby, this pessimism anti-Earth alone was enough to make Paul a 'heretic' and a non-Jew in the eyes of other 'normal' Jews, even if Paul had not yet introduced an alien god but remained faithful to the God of the Jews).

Because if the Earth is infested hostile territory and inevitably corrupt by demonic archons, there is no need for a sub-lunar world alias of this world where to kill the mythological Jesus.

I wonder if this anti-cosmism within the limits of YHWH-devotion (as opposed to a Demiurg concept) was at work in the first gospel Mcn, since that gospel didn't reflect still the marcionite theology (to my great dissatisfaction), according to prof Klinghardt.

[Giuseppe]

What I like very much about the hypothesis of (very genial) Roger Parvus (but totally beyond his speculation about Isaiah, Simon Magus, etc.) is the crucifixion of the mythological Jesus as a mock Zealot (in the original myth). Somehow, dying as an apparent - and only apparent - Zealot, Jesus crucified (in himself) the same messianism kata sarka, so much hated by Paul.

It's for this reason that I don't give up easily to idea of a Roman crucifixion in original myth.

What I want to strive to say is that I perceive in Paul as a implicit tension, a hatred against Jesus himself, to the extent that he died crucified. But why Paul had to hate Jesus at the very moment in which Jesus died on the cross?
Because on the cross Jesus represented all the sin of humanity, so he had to be - or at least seem - a genuine criminal.

[Giuseppe]

Maybe in the original myth the mission of Jesus was to be cursed in the eyes of God by Roman crucifixion on terra firma as a vulgar criminal.

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
(Gal 3:13)

But this curse was to be totally a free evil without even the certainty of Jesus on his part to have to accomplish a holy mission. Jesus had to become entirely 'carnal', he was to become a mere human being, unconscious of itself and moreover sinner (hence likely a Zealot): i.e. he had lost totally consciousness of itself, of its true and divine origin. He could not even have the hope in a future glory because he knew no longer to be the Christ, the Son of God. Coming down to Earth, dying on Earth, He had lost all knowledge of his deepest self. A Paul knew so many things about him than Jesus himself knew on himself.

Apostles as Paul were 'Jesuophobes', true despisers of the carnal Jesus.

[Clive]

I say educated because the interpretation of Bible prophesies, though often seeming virtually free of rules to outsiders, actually does come with certain guidelines and traditional procedures of which insiders instinctively are aware. I say guesses because even those guidelines and procedures have never guaranteed results with true predictive power.

Do any academics study modern apocalyptic literature? For example the early 1960's document my mum had and regularly quoted from about the six of the common market and the anti-christ? Wonderful stuff that someone should be collecting and collating!

If a theology department does not have extensive collections of this stuff they are not really understanding their subject properly!

Many of these rules are in Dake's Concordance, the teaching Bible of true pentecostals

[Giuseppe]

The first step in direction of historicisation of Jesus is his gradual awareness of himself when he was on Earth.

So the Jesus of Cerinthus, though a mere human being, at least knew to be right and good according to the Torah before and after of being possessed by the spirit of Christ.

So the Jesus of Marcion, though not a human being, at least knew who he was when he was on Earth in the form of man.

So the Christ of Carpocrates when mocked Jesus dying in his place on the cross, at least knew he was not the one who died and why he laughed.

So the Catholic Jesus knew to be the Son of God before, during and after his drama on Earth.

But the Jesus of Paul did not know who he was when he came down to Earth, for all the time of the sacred drama.

[Clive]

On the OP, it is very common for big events not to be clearly situated on Earth or in time. Where and when is the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, where did Moses part the sea, get the ten commandments? Remember the world view was commonly a unified one with the gods and humans interacting, with mediators.

Christ as an angel, a holy, wild man here?

[maryhelena]

Are you suggesting that George Wells was in error when he wrote:

"In my first books on Jesus, I argued that the gospel Jesus is an entirely mythical expansion of the Jesus of the early epistles. The summary of the argument of the Jesus Legend (1996) and the Jesus Myth (1999) given in this section of the present work makes it clear that I no longer maintain this position. The weakness of my earlier position was pressed upon me by J.D.G. Dunn, who objected that we really cannot plausibly assume that such a complex of traditions as we have in the gospels and their sources could have developed within such a short time from the early epistles without a historical basis (Dunn, [The Evidence for Jesus] 1985, p. 29). My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q, or at any rate parts of it, may well be as early as ca. A.D. 50); and if I am right, against Doherty and Price - it is not all mythical. The essential point, as I see it, is that the Q material, whether or not it suffices as evidence of Jesus's historicity, refers to a personage who is not to be identified with the dying and rising Christ of the early epistles." (Can We Trust the NT?, 2004, pp. 49–50).

my bolding

Are you suggesting that because a mythicist holds the premise that there was no historical gospel Jesus (of whatever variant NT scholars come up with) that a mythicist cannot therefore uphold the relevance of history, of historical figures being relevant to the gospel writers in the creation of their gospel Jesus story?

No, I am not suggesting that at all. Many historical streams may have poured details into the developing picture. (By analogy, I think some modern conceptions of the Antichrist have been affected by twentieth century dictators like Hitler and Stalin.)

But, even for Wells, revelation came first.

I'm not so sure about that: Wells: ''My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q, or at any rate parts of it, may well be as early as ca. A.D. 50);''.

I would stress that my overall thesis—that the gospels represent a fusion of elements in two originally independent streams of tradition—does not depend on the existence of Q as the source of the life of Jesus stream; for Q-type material is present already in Mark, and so existed earlier, and may derive from some source resembling Q rather than from Q. Moreover, Matthew presumably did not just invent his non-Markan sayings material, but drew it from tradition of some kind (Q or other). Hence my claim that the gospels fuse ideas represented in the early epistles with life-of-Jesus material independent of them is not invalidated even if Q is eliminated by supposing, as some few scholars do, that Luke had read Matthew.

Wells, George Albert (2013-12-01). Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity (Kindle Locations 4644-4647). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

It seems to me that the preacher flesh and blood figure of Wells functioned prior to and apart from any Pauline revelation. Sure, maybe the Pauline revelation lead to fusing the flesh and blood figure with Paul's invisible, mythological, Christ figure. But that flesh and blood figure, re Wells, was independent of Paul's revelation. The earthly Christ figure, whether mythological or flesh and blood, precedes the visions Paul has of the resurrected Christ....Resurrection requires a prior existence does it not?

Has the Carrier/Doherty mythicist theory attempted to hijack the very meaning of mythicism?

I do not sense that Doherty himself has attempted to hijack the meaning. But I do think that his thesis took such a hold in some quarters that some mythicists assume one is arguing for historicity if earth figures into the equation at all; the Wells mythicist sometimes finds himself explaining that a myth set on earth is still a myth.

Years ago, on the JM list, I had a debate with Doherty over 'myth'. Doherty only allowing the Pauline scenario to be a myth and insisting that the gospels were 'fiction'.....

[Giuseppe]

...Something that is striking about the Paul's letters is that his Jesus seems to have no awareness of his identity when he assumed the guise of men on terra firma. That appearance is deceptive (at the expense of the archons, naturally) but also self-deceptive (against the 'carnal' Jesus himself).

[TedM]

In a nutshell, I think that the best mythicist option starts with a revelation that the Christ (the messiah) has already come to earth, been executed, and been exalted into heaven, with salvific consequences.

What is the alternative other than he lived and died somewhere other than earth -- ie the Doherty alternative? If 'mythicist' in this context means there was not any one real person who inspired Christianity from the get - go, but that the get-go (when there was an identifiable group of followers) was apparently concentrated on ONLY one 'messiah', then he either didn't really live on earth but was thought to have, or he didn't really live on earth and was not thought to have.

I might suggest that Mary Helena's idea of supporting actors isn't incompatible with your option, as the ideas that make up your revelation (come to earth, been executed, exalted, etc..) could well have been applied to a number of characters prior to a 'melding' into one character.

RE your AntiChrist analogy, I tend to agree -- not much detail is needed for belief to occur. And the greater the NEED for such belief, the less detail is needed.

Having said all of this, it doesn't make the 'best mythicist option' good or even reasonable given a full examination of all the evidence. Not saying it is not good, just saying it could still be a lousy theory, logically speaking.

[robert j]

Ben, I have rearranged excerpts from your OP to lead-in to my question. Hopefully I have not misrepresented your intent.

I suggest that this is similar (not identical) to what I am imagining for the earliest Christians. They came to believe that the Christ had already acted in history, though secretly; they imagined this based on scriptural passages about Wisdom personified, the death of the righteous man, the suffering servant, the promise of the messiah, and possibly the seventy weeks (interpreted differently than modern critical scholars interpret it, naturally). They did not immediately have all the details ...

But still, the main point is that the details are vague because the scriptures are vague; that is what can happen when you base your beliefs on the scriptures (at least until the creative juices really start to flow and the sheer momentum of finding more details takes over).

In a nutshell, I think that the best mythicist option starts with a revelation that the Christ (the messiah) has already come to earth, been executed, and been exalted into heaven, with salvific consequences. My contention has been that this first revelation need not have contained any specific details as to the exact time and place (though I do prefer to think of the time as having been recent, due to statements in Paul and other early writers) ...

Ben.

If Paul and the earliest Christians thought of the death and related events of Jesus Christ (from their perspective) as recent events, then they would have viewed the relevant passages in the scriptures as predictions of the far-off future.

What passages in Paul indicate that he thought the prophets were predicting events far into the future --- rather that revealing events that had occurred, or were occurring, or would occur soon in their own distant times?

I hope I am understanding your question; I will answer using the Pauline corpus that most modern scholars view as genuine (as opposed, say, to the Marcionite version of the epistles; if you want me to respond from Marcion or some other configuration, I will have to politely decline, since I am still working on all of that).

Here are passages that seem to indicate that Paul thought the scriptures were written with his own present time in mind. (Bear in mind that outright prediction is not always the thing, neither in Paul nor in my best reconstruction; sometimes the scriptures are seen as finding typological fulfillment in the present, with a definite view that God intended them to be read in that way.)

1 Corinthians 9.9-10 NASB:

9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? 10 Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.

Romans 9.23-26 NASB:

23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25 As He says also in Hosea,
“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”
26 “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

Galatians 3.8 NASB:

8 The Scripture, foreseeing [προϊδοῦσα] that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.”

Romans 9.29 NASB:

29 And just as Isaiah foretold [προείρηκεν],
“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity,
We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”

Romans 11.26-27 NASB:

26 ...and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
27 “This is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

1 Corinthians 10.11 NASB:

11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Ben.

Sorry Ben, poor wording on my part.

I certainly agree that Paul and many of his contemporaries believed the scriptures contained predictions, and had relevance in their own times. IMO, Paul’s very mission was justified by scriptural passages that he thought provided him with his self-appointed mandate to evangelize among the Gentiles.

My question about prediction in the scriptures is specific to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let me restate the question ----

What passages in Paul indicate that Paul thought the prophets were predicting that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would occur far into the future, close to Paul’s own times? Why couldn’t Paul have believed the prophets had written of a death/resurrection/assumption that had occurred, or was occurring, or would occur soon in their own distant times?

The passage you cited that could be interpreted as a savior coming in some unspecified Pauline future is Romans 11:26-27. However, in context, the deliverer hasn't yet come, and the Pauline use of Isaiah 59:20 here seems to be primarily related to the argument being made about Israel finally being saved when the full number of Gentiles have come in.

The salvifc sufferings of the LXX suffering servant in Isaiah 53 are mostly in the past tense.