Vridar: Tim Widowfield, Euhemerism and Richard Carrier

[outhouse]

You contradict that assertion about a single community source with your next statement -

Maybe you missed my context or I did not explain it well, ill try again.

for this to work you would need a longer track record of these traditions that would show an evolution from a single community/source

It does not work, nor do we have such record

And what we see below is supposed to contradict the above euhemerists possible origin

The evidence all points to a wide spread origin of the movement with widespread beliefs whether a jesus lived or did not live.

[MrMacSon]

What we see with early Christianity is

• wide spread of the beliefs of the eventual movement whether Jesus of Nazareth lived or did not live.

[outhouse]

What we see with early Christianity is

• wide spread of the beliefs of the eventual movement whether Jesus of Nazareth lived or did not live.

Correct.

My point was if 100% euhemerism took place, we should see the origins and evidence differently then we do.

[MrMacSon]

My point was if 100% euhemerism took place, we should see the origins and evidence differently then we do.

I'm not sure '100% euhemerism' is a reasonable proposition, but Carrier has outlined how the the NT-gospel Jesus may be the result of euhemerization of the Pauline Jesus: –

1. ” …euhemerization is related to aetiological myth-making, i.e. inventing a historical event to explain a current ritual or doctrine or practice or belief (even though that invented event isn’t what really started it). Jesus could have been contrived in just such a way (Moses most likely was).

“However, the letters of Paul connect us with the originating events of the sect, and they involve inspiring visions of Jesus, and discoveries about him in scripture. It’s clear that Paul and the first apostles believed Jesus was a real person who existed…just, in heaven, as with all other archangels. So Jesus was not an aetiological myth. The Gospel Jesus could be (and for many details probably is). But that’s still a layering on top of the original worshipped deity of the sect. We also have evidence that this deity pre-existed Christianity in Jewish angelology (OHJ, Element 40).

“Hybrids are possible, too. For instance, the vision Paul had of Jesus inaugurating the Eucharist ritual (1 Cor. 11:23-26) is agreed by many scholars (e.g. Gerd Lüdemann) to be an aetiological myth (I explain why in OHJ, pp. 557ff.), yet is at the same time (at least claimed to be) a vision, and thus not a contrivance. Paul’s subconscious did the authoring, and he then believed what it presented really happened as revealed. Unless of course Paul is inventing, or borrowing a previous invention of the sect, and only claiming it was a vision just to authenticate it—which entails if it was invented before him, as is most likely, it was originally also claimed to be learned by revelation, which is why for Paul only a revelation can authenticate it, rather than an assurance of having learned it from eyewitnesses.”

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... nt-1057524


2.a. Bruce summed up Carrier’s proposition in this comment http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... nt-1057518 –

” … the original Jesus was some sort of angel or good-sky-demon, who wasn’t born of a virgin or anyone else, but simply lived where he was created, in outer space near the moon and below where the dome of the sky holds up all the rain. It was there that he “lived”, was crucified by bad demons, died, and was resurrected back to a new sky-body, as equally non-fleshy as Jesus’s original body. And it is possible that this is the only concept of Jesus that had ever existed through the lifetime of Paul …

” … some time after Paul and before Mark, or possibly the author of “Mark” itself, he did as they did with Osiris. That is, the Christian leader(s) took a sky God and created a Euhemerized Jesus man, set in the Jewish homelands. And this “human Jesus” may have been deliberately created to fool the masses, while the core inner group was allowed to know the secret. The secret was that the real Jesus had never been a man, but was always a pure sky God. Unfortunately, at some point, either the core inner group died off without passing on their secret, or else the fake story became so popular that nobody would accept the “true” sky God story. So by 120 or 150 a.d., nobody was left who knew that Jesus had been Euhemerized from a sky story.

“We may never know which of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John’s authors “knew the truth”, and which ones literally believed that a fleshy Jesus once existed. But clearly all four authors wanted their lay readers to believe that Jesus was a real dude.

“The key to Jesus as being Euhemerized is found everywhere in the New Testament where it says it happened “according to the scriptures”. To modern readers, this sounds as if it refers to the four gospels. But to first century people, it clearly meant Old Testament books such as Daniel and Isaiah. Many people speculated about a source book Q (quelle), but I think Q effectively was whatever people could pull out of their ass while reading Daniel and Isaiah. So they read the old books, imagined a sky Jesus, then pretended he was a dude to fool the commoners, then got overridden by the commoner tea party types of the day. So everyone who knew Jesus was really just a sky God got condemned for heresy by the first-century tea party Euhemerization-dupes, and now the fake story is the only history permitted.”

2.b. Carrier’s repsonse http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... nt-1057525 –

“Yep. You have sussed every point correctly, IMO. …

” … 2 Peter and Irenaeus … give hints of Christians existing who were insisting the Gospels were just allegories for the cosmic reality … but both the forger of 2 Peter and Irenaeus are condemning them as heretics; and thus kicking them out and shunning them. This split then became politically dominant through various happenstances, including having the ear of Constantine when he lucked out and won the empire and chose that sect as a vector for his governance.”

[outhouse]

I'm not sure '100% euhemerism' is a reasonable proposition,

I agree

[outhouse]

but Carrier has outlined how the the NT-gospel Jesus may be the result of euhemerization of the Pauline Jesus: –

And all I see are mistakes.

It’s clear that Paul and the first apostles believed Jesus was a real person who existed…just, in heaven, as with all other archangels

False. it is a rather blatant assumption on his part. Instead we see a dead man perceived to be in heaven.

But that’s still a layering on top of the original worshipped deity of the sect.

Yes. truth and BS


But the deity has a historical core as a martyred Galilean

We also have evidence that this deity pre-existed Christianity in Jewish angelology (OHJ, Element 40).

BS bad conclusion, based on the plagiarism of the NT authors.

[MrMacSon]

It’s clear that Paul and the first apostles believed Jesus was a real person who existed…just, in heaven, as with all other archangels

False. it is a rather blatant assumption on his part. Instead we see a dead man perceived to be in heaven

We may be seeing a dead 'man' portrayed to be in heaven.

or, we may be seeing an angel portrayed as a man, as other religious texts had previously done -

Zechariah 1

7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.

8 During the night I had a vision, and there before me was a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.

9 I asked, “What are these, my lord?”

The angel who was talking with me answered, “I will show you what they are.”

Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, “They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.”

11 And they reported to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... echariah+1

the deity has a historical core as a martyred Galilean

The deity was eventually portrayed as having a 'historical core as a martyred Galilean'

There is no evidence that Nazareth existed in the 1st century -

• NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, & the Invented Town of Jesus

We also have evidence that this deity pre-existed Christianity in Jewish angelology (OHJ, Element 40).

BS bad conclusion, based on 'the plagiarism of the NT authors'.

plagiarism by the NT authors ??

.

[outhouse]

NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, & the Invented Town of Jesus

Worthless rhetoric from a quack that is a known liar and carries less then zero credibility here or anywhere. He is a blithering idiot.

plagiarism by the NT authors ??

You don't understand how the NT authors plagiarized the OT text to create their deity?

[outhouse]

We may be seeing a dead 'man' portrayed to be in heaven.

Yes we do in Pauls case and in the gospels they believe a man who lived and died for their sins is in heaven, and will come back.

All these weak crackpot theories forget all the passages that he is coming back, back from where? death to life

[outhouse]

Salm also claims that the pottery found on the site that is dated to the time of Jesus is not really from this period, even though he is not an expert on pottery. Two archaeologists who reply to Salm’s protestations say the following: “Salm’s personal evaluation of the pottery … reveals his lack of expertise in the area as well as his lack of serious research in the sources.” They go on to state: “By ignoring or dismissing solid ceramic, numismatic [that is, coins], and literary evidence for Nazareth’s existence during the Late Hellenisitic and Early Roman period, it would appear that the analysis which René Salm includes in his review, and his recent book must, in itself, be relegated to the realm of ‘myth.’”

Another archaeologist who specializes in Galilee, Ken Dark, the Director of the Nazareth Archaeological Project, gave a thoroughly negative review of Salm’s book,