maryhelena wrote: - that is the whole point of Euhemerus - the origin of the Olympian gods was earthly - whether you want to say that origin was legend or history. The theory of Euhemerus regarding the Olympian gods is that their origin was earthly.
Yes, Euhemerus portrayed them as 'earthy' (for want of a better term).
But, previously, prior to Euhemerus, they were not portrayed as earthy.
maryhelena wrote:That is the direct opposite to what is the theory of Carrier. Carrier maintains that his Christ figure was of celestial origin prior to being historicized as the gospel JC ...
That is euhermism (aka euhemerization) -
"being historicized as the gospel JC" = euhemerization
OK - as you want just don't expect any scholar of Euhemerus to back you up....
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Giuseppe wrote:But if you dishonestly define any euhemerist as STRICTU SENSU any people that invented historical gods only to prove their basic no-divinity, then you are using an apologetic tactic in hyper-defining words so to criticize Carrier (because clearly the first evangelist, by humanizing Jesus, didn't want reject his previous deity, as instead would do Euhemerus in his place).
But I hope you are not apologist
There is no “mainstream” use of the term that excludes magically historicized gods like Romulus and Osiris. That’s something you are just making up out of nowhere, based on a linguistic convention that doesn’t exist, by selectively choosing which uses of the word to look at and which to ignore. Such anachronistic and over-fastidious use of language is a common Christian apologetics tactic, playing games with words to try and deny things they don’t want to be true...
Here is Dr Robert M Price, in Deconstructing Jesus, page 250 (my bolding):
[Paul Veyne] describes how thinkers of Greek and Roman antiquity, including Diodorus, Cicero, Livy, Pausanias, and Strabo, approached mythic figures such as Theseus, Herakles, Odysseus, Minos, Dinoysus, Castor, and Pollux: They readily dismissed the supernatural tales of their heroes' divine paternity and miraculous feats but doggedly assumed there must have been a historical core that had been subsequently mythologized. Their task as historians was to distill the history from the myth and to place the great figures where they must have occurred on the historical time-chart... The whole approach earned the name of Euhemerism, from Euhemerus who originated it. The idea was to assume that all ancient gods were glorified ancestors or historical culture heroes. Though no mundane, "secular" information about them survived, it had to be assumed that a genuine historical figure lay at the roots of the myths.
See how Price notes that the ancient writers "readily dismissed the supernatural tales of their heroes' divine paternity and miraculous feats". That certainly doesn't describe the Gospels as the end product of euhemerizing.
Most people have never heard of the Greek mythographer Euhemerus; and so many might be surprised to find that they are Euhemerists on the subject of Jesus. That is to say, though they may not believe Jesus was the divine Christ that Christianity venerates as the Son of God and savior of the world, and may regard accounts of the miracles and wonders attending him as mere legendary accretion; nevertheless they certainly believe there had to have been a central figure that began Christianity. Perhaps he was just a wandering teacher, or an exorcist, an apocalyptic prophet or a zealot who opposed the Romans.
Again, Fitzgerald notes that the end product of Euhemerism is just a man, perhaps a wandering teacher. But if you take Carrier's definition, the Gospels are the end product.
... as concerns [Rabbi] Singer’s description of mythicists, in reality there are not two camps of mythicists, one which opines Christ is a myth through and through, and one that believes there’s “some guy” at the core of the story, to whose mundane biography were added fabulous fairytales. This latter camp is, in fact, called “euhemerist” or “evemerist,” not mythicist...
Despite his protestations against other “very biased” scholars’ conclusion without any real evidence that Jesus existed, [Rabbi] Singer claims again that no one can know what really happened but it is likely that such a person did exist. Hence, the rabbi is an evemerist, but he believes in this way only because there were plenty of apocalyptic preachers in the Levant during Jesus’s alleged era.
Think also that Second Century apologists invoked the name of Euhemerus to show that the pagan gods were only men -- see my examples in my earlier post. It wouldn't make much sense to have them claim "Your celestial gods are really men who ascended to heaven as gods". No, their claims were that the pagan gods weren't gods at all, merely men.
I'll make this my last post on the topic of Euhemerism here, so you can have the last word on that topic, Giuseppe.
I have at hand a strong counter-example against the gDon 's definition of euhemerism as "invention of a mere man" (and not of a like-gospel man):
The Egyptian PRIESTS of Osiris are not euhemerists according to the gDon's definition of euhemerism, at all irrationally against the FACTS the:
1) the PRIESTS of celestial Osiris invented a human Osiris and
2) their reason to do this is NOT because they wanted "to dismiss rapidly the supernatural tales of their hero", but in order to invent as end product a like-gospel Osiris, i.e. an ALLEGORICAL like-gospel figure, a godman, for reasons at all similar to these of first evangelist, according to Carrier's minimal mythicism.
GakuseiDon's limited definition of evemerism is simply confuted because it doesn't include the specific example of euhmerization of Osiris, viceversa the Carrier's definition does include it and therefore it's more correct.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
I wrote a comment in Carrier's blog where I ask if my counter-example above (of an allegorical simbolic "historical" Osiris just like the Gospel Jesus) can successfully confute the limited and hyper-defining (apologetical?) definition of Euhemerism given by GakuseiDon (that prohibits a priori to see the "historical" Osiris as a euhemerized end product, just as the simbolic Gospel Jesus, because his being allegory doesn't deny his deity).
This is his answer and I agree:
Yes. People who want only atheists to make use of euhemerization are inexplicably annoyed by the fact that theists can euhemerize their gods, too. They are further annoyed (just as inexplicably) by the fact that euhemerization can be a ploy (to conceal a cosmic truth under a historicized allegory) rather than a sincere maneuver. I have no idea why they are annoyed by these things or so desperate to insist they can’t happen or don’t reflect adaptive uses of what Euhemerus did. But alas.
P.S.: Roubekas says that Celsus didn't euhemerize Jesus to deny his deity, confuting so the existence of a monolythical rationalist 'euhemerization' trend as wrongly assumed by many scholars (and as exposed above by gDon).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe wrote:I wrote a comment in Carrier's blog where I ask if my counter-example above (of an allegorical simbolic "historical" Osiris just like the Gospel Jesus) can successfully confute the limited and hyper-defining (apologetical?) definition of Euhemerism given by GakuseiDon (that prohibits a priori to see the "historical" Osiris as a euhemerized end product, just as the simbolic Gospel Jesus, because his being allegory doesn't deny his deity).
This is his answer and I agree:
Yes. People who want only atheists to make use of euhemerization are inexplicably annoyed by the fact that theists can euhemerize their gods, too. They are further annoyed (just as inexplicably) by the fact that euhemerization can be a ploy (to conceal a cosmic truth under a historicized allegory) rather than a sincere maneuver. I have no idea why they are annoyed by these things or so desperate to insist they can’t happen or don’t reflect adaptive uses of what Euhemerus did. But alas.
P.S.: Roubekas says that Celsus didn't euhemerize Jesus to deny his deity, confuting so the existence of a monolythical rationalist 'euhemerization' trend as wrongly assumed by many scholars (and as exposed above by gDon).
Well now, finally an admission from Carrier that he is seeking to use an 'adaptive' version of Euhemerus. An adaptive version of Euhemerus which another poster on his blog has already labeled 'carrierization'...
Perhaps it's a good time to once again quote from Nickolas Roubekas:
Which Euhemerism will you use? Celsus on the Divine Nature of Jesus
When we deal with ancient texts that promote such interesting and important ideas about religion we must be very cautious, since it is not always easy to distinguish between what was said or written and that which is said to have been said or written, to paraphrase Michel-Rolph Trouillot whose words also opened this paper. In this way one will manage to discern between euhemerism, as the Messenean writer formulated it, and the various euhemerisms that emerged from certain interpretations, the vast majority of which have failed both to read and understand the surviving fragments, or have purposely imposed their own agenda on them for their own interpretative reasons.
my bolding
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
maryhelena wrote:
Well now, finally an admission from Carrier that he is seeking to use an 'adaptive' version of Euhemerus. An adaptive version of Euhemerus which another poster on his blog has already labeled 'carrierization'...
You're being highly disingenuous - Carrier refers to (i) 'theists euhemerizing their gods'; (ii) how "euhemerization can be a ploy (to conceal a cosmic truth under a historicized allegory) rather than [as] a sincere maneuver"; and (iii) how people "are annoyed by these things or ... insist they can’t happen or don’t reflect adaptive uses of what Euhemerus did", yet you accuse him of 'adaptive use' when he seems to have straight-forwardly focused on the rudimentary use of the term ??!
maryhelena wrote:
OK - as you want just don't expect any scholar of Euhemerus to back you up....
I have perused some of the 'academic' articles at the links you have provided, and I have even quoted some of them in this thread, and other threads here on BCH.
I agree with Carrier that there have been and are "adaptive uses of what Euhemerus" and " euhemerization can be a ploy (to conceal a cosmic truth under a historicized allegory)", yet I can also see Carrier's definition is a cornerstone.
Peter Kirby wrote:I hope everyone does know that the definition of Euhemerism means complete diddly squat outside of anything but the definition of Euhemerism.
That's just the way definitions are. They change nothing but our language for describing things.
That being the case, it's strange how involved people are in this argument.
I agree it is merely language for describing something.
It is describing a specialized application of 'anthropomorphism'.
But the terms Euhemerize & Euhemerism are helpful for clarifying a key concept of the development of theology.
Maybe a possible reason why the topic is so interesting is that very many times, when listening ancient myths, our natural approach is to "euhemerize" them in the hope to recover a "possible" historical core behind it (by INVENTING it).
Carrier's article indirectly, in his clearity, reveals how many times this happens.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
