Paul’s Jesus --- Man or Myth ?

[robert j]

Part One

If we assume Paul’s Jesus was considered as human, then what are the options? I expect many solutions could be offered. I’m going to consider three here --- two widely popular, and the third not as much.

The story one might hear in any number of Christian churches on Sunday morning has a human Jesus leading a movement in the Jewish homelands, and was crucified by the Romans for sedition. As the story goes, the prophets in the Jewish scriptures were inspired by god to see the future, and they had foretold many events of this Jesus. This solution goes well beyond the realms of known physical laws and is firmly in the realm of faith --- a non-starter for me.

Next is a similar human Jesus. After his death, his followers looked to the scriptures for consolation and found passages they could apply to their fallen leader --- passages which gave meaning and hope. Their Jesus provided a spiritual salvation for all nations and was a true conduit to god. From our perspective here, the OT prophets did not foresee the future, but rather these early believers were creative. The application of the scriptural references grew with time and the human was further shrouded in myth and legend. In this solution there was a historical Jesus. Both human and myth.

And then my preferred solution, Paul (or direct predecessors) found a spiritual savior by means of fresh readings of the Jewish scriptures --- previously hidden mysteries --- and the events and meaning of this Jesus were constructed entirely from the scriptures. Not historical. But a human or a myth? --- well, I think both here as well.

Paul’s letters were occasional, that is, they primarily address issues that he faced with each congregation --- questions, challenges to his authority and teaching, and compensation. One does find glimpses of his theological system, but he had already related the details of his Jesus Christ --- as found in the scriptures --- on his initial evangelizing visit. He only occasionally and briefly reminded the congregations of these details in his letters as they were useful in his arguments and when he was faced with new issues.

Paul did state quite clearly the source of his system ---

"That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried. And that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures …” (1 Cor 15:3-4)

"… the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to revelation of the mystery kept secret in times of the ages, but now having been made known through the prophetic scriptures, according to command of the eternal God. Leading to obedience of faith unto all the nations, having been made known the only wise God through Jesus Christ …” (Rom 16:25-27)

I don’t think Paul composed this doxology in Romans, but I do think that it was composed by one of his well-educated and faithful junior-partners with the intention of accurately reflecting Paul’s teaching.

The following passage in Galatians finds a variety of translations. Nearly all bible translators eschew the obvious translation of proegraphe (προεγράφη) as “previously written”. However, that translation is supported by the use of the very same form of the verb in Romans 15:4 where the term clearly refers to the Jewish scriptures (“For whatever was written in the past (προεγράφη) was all written for our instruction, so that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) ---

“Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes it was written in the past (προεγράφη) Jesus Christ having been crucified” (Gal 3:1)

And this in which Paul was arguing for authority, but none-the-less clearly stated his primary source of authority ---

…that in us you may learn, not beyond what has been written. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

Paul used the Jewish scriptures extensively regarding his Jesus. Paul also used the scriptures to construct his own mandate as an evangelist to the Gentiles (Jeremiah, Numbers, and Isaiah). And, Paul typically ignored the original context and intent of the scriptural passages he used.

I think in Paul’s system, the salvific benefit for humans provided by his Jesus Christ was made significantly more relevant with the heavenly benefactor having taken on human form to suffer and die. Paul did state quite clearly the human nature of his Jesus ----

“… having taken the form of a servant, having been made (γενόμενος) in the likeness of men, and having been found in form as a man” (Philippians 2:7-8).

“... having been made (γενόμενον) of woman” (Gal 4.4)

“… having been made (γενομένου) of the seed of David …” (Romans 1:3)

Paul’s references to the human nature of his Jesus could have been derived from such passages as 2 Kings 7:8-17 (aka 2 Samuel 7:8-17) and Isaiah 7:13-14.

The author of Romans was very clear about his source here ---

And again, Isaiah says: "The root of Jesse will come, and the One arising to rule over the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles will hope." (Rom 15:12 --- using Isaiah 11:1-12)

For the most part, I agree with this statement from Earl Doherty ---

“Scripture did not contain any full-blown crucified Messiah, but it did contain all the required ingredients. Jewish midrash was the process by which the Christian recipe was put together and baked into the doctrine ….” (Doherty, Earl, Jesus Neither God Nor Man, 2009, p. 87).

I’m struck by two passages of Christian tradition, one Pauline and one purported as Petrine ---

… that in us you may learn, not beyond what has been written. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

… without the Scripture we say nothing. (Stromata, 6.15.128 --- see part two below)

Then, how might one characterize Paul’s Jesus Christ? Human or myth? Both, I think. Paul’s Jesus was a creature of the scriptures --- a pre-existing heavenly spirit that accepted humiliation to suffer and die on earth in the form of a man sometime deep in the scriptural past for the benefit of mankind.

robert j

[robert j]

Part Two

Paul was not unique in employing creative readings of the Jewish scriptures. For many in those days, the sacred scriptures were living documents --- a continuing source of new insights and guidance for the here and now.

Philo of Alexandria in his On the Contemplative Life, described a community of Jewish sectarians, the Therapeutae, that spent many hours of the day searching the scriptures for, as Philo put it, "… literal expressions as symbols revealing secret and hidden meanings …"

The sectarian authors of the Dead Sea Scroll Pesharim typically ignored the historical and literary context in the scriptural passages, and instead, applied the ancient scriptural messages to the events and concerns in their own contemporary community.

In his commentary on Psalms 1, Origen cites a 'Hebrew' scholar as saying that the Jewish scriptures are like a large house with very many rooms. Outside each door lies a key --- but not the right key. The great and difficult task is to find the right keys that will open the doors.

In a very odd bit of Petrine tradition (which actually looks quite Pauline), it seems the author believed he found some of those keys. Clement of Alexandria provided this passage as a direct quotation from a document he called the Preaching of Peter (putting Clement’s running commentary in italics, and the highlighting, are mine) ---

Peter in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says, “But, having opened the books of the prophets which we had, we found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly and in so many words the name Jesus Christ, both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem was founded, all these things that had been written, what he must suffer and what shall be after him. When, therefore, we gained knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him." And a little after he adds that the prophecies came by divine providence, in these terms, “For we know that God commanded them, and without the Scripture we say nothing." (Stromata, 6.15.128). 1/

robert j

1/ Note: This translation is by J.K. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, and is used by Bart Ehrman in his, Lost Scriptures --- Books That Did Not Make It Into The New Testament, Oxford University Press, 2003, p.238.

[Giuseppe]

a question, please:

are you sure that, in the passage of Clement quoted by you, the words ''before Jerusalem was founded'' are alluding to ''his resurrection and assumption'' etc (actions of Jesus) and not instead to the finding of prophecies in the old books ?

Thanks in advance.

[andrewcriddle]

a question, please:

are you sure that, in the passage of Clement quoted by you, the words ''before Jerusalem was founded'' are alluding to ''his resurrection and assumption'' etc (actions of Jesus) and not instead to the finding of prophecies in the old books ?

Thanks in advance.

FWIW there is a discussion of this Clementine passage at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=736
and http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... l?t=245275

Andrew Criddle

[DCHindley]

a question, please:

are you sure that, in the passage of Clement quoted by you, the words ''before Jerusalem was founded'' are alluding to ''his resurrection and assumption'' etc (actions of Jesus) and not instead to the finding of prophecies in the old books ?

Thanks in advance.

FWIW there is a discussion of this Clementine passage at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=736
and http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... l?t=245275

Andrew Criddle

Long ago I had to conclude that the early Christian fathers believed that Jesus' life, death and resurrection was cryptically predicted in the first five books of Judean scripture (the Law). Such a thing had to be proposed so as to avoid difficulties with objections that the operations of the sacrificial system in Judean temple by the priests was the culmination of God's will for the Judean peoples.

Even after the temple's destruction, a temporary hiatus of 70+ years might not seem too much to overcome if one expected God to again allow one to be erected in replacement.

One of the earliest treatises to argue that a temple was not necessary for God to effect his will was whatever source was appropriated as the first part of Stephen's speech in Acts (7.2-50, and abbreviated in the mouth of Paul at 13.16-23).From vs 51 ("You stiff necked people") on to verse 53 it is pure Christian polemic against Judeans.*

Because the author of Acts felt free to throw the early part of "Stephen's" speech into the Judeans' faces suggested to me that it was actually a sectarian Judean POV that was not generally accepted by most Judeans, but which early Christians had accepted as the correct POV. In my humble opinion, such a POV was not likely to have gained traction among Judeans unless there was no longer any possibility that a Jerusalem temple might be rebuilt, so, say, after the foundation of Aelia or at latest the failure of ben Kosiba's rebellion.

DCH

*In the mouth of Stephen:

Acts 7:2 And Stephen said: "Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 7:3 and said to him, 'Depart from your land and from your kindred and go into the land which I will show you.' 7:4 Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living; 7:5 yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him in possession and to his posterity after him, though he had no child. 7:6 And God spoke to this effect, that his posterity would be aliens in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and ill-treat them four hundred years. 7:7 'But I will judge the nation which they serve,' said God, 'and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.' 7:8a And he gave him the covenant of circumcision.

Acts 7:8b And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. 7:9 "And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him, 7:10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him governor over Egypt and over all his household. 7:11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 7:12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers the first time. 7:13 And at the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 7:14 And Joseph sent and called to him Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five souls; 7:15 and Jacob went down into Egypt. And he died, himself and our fathers, 7:16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

Acts 7:17 "But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 7:18 till there arose over Egypt another king who had not known Joseph. 7:19 He dealt craftily with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, that they might not be kept alive. 7:20 At this time Moses was born, and was beautiful before God. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house; 7:21 and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 7:22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. 7:23 "When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. 7:24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking the Egyptian. 7:25 He supposed that his brethren understood that God was giving them deliverance by his hand, but they did not understand. 7:26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and would have reconciled them, saying, 'Men, you are brethren, why do you wrong each other?' 7:27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 7:28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?' 7:29 At this retort Moses fled, and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 7:30 "Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. 7:31 When Moses saw it he wondered at the sight; and as he drew near to look, the voice of the Lord came, 7:32 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.' And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 7:33 And the Lord said to him, 'Take off the shoes from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 7:34 I have surely seen the ill-treatment of my people that are in Egypt and heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.' 7:35 "This Moses whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?' God sent as both ruler and deliverer by the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush. 7:36 He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

Acts 7:37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a prophet from your brethren as he raised me up.' 7:38 This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living oracles to give to us. 7:39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, 7:40 saying to Aaron, 'Make for us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' 7:41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their hands. 7:42 But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: 'Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices, forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 7:43 And you took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of the god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship; and I will remove you beyond Babylon.'

Acts 7:44 "Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. 7:45 Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations which God thrust out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, 7:46 who found favor in the sight of God and asked leave to find a habitation for the God of Jacob. 7:47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him. 7:48 Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; as the prophet says, 7:49 'Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool. What house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? 7:50 Did not my hand make all these things?'

Acts 7:51 "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 7:52 Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, 7:53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." = This part is clearly how the author of Acts summarizes the importance of 7.2-50.

In the mouth of Paul:

13:16a So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said:
13:16b "Men of Israel, and you that fear God, listen.
13:17 The God of this people Israel chose our fathers
= 7.2

13:17 and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, = 7.10

and with [Moses'] uplifted arm he led them out of it. 13:18 And for about forty years he bore with them in the wilderness.
= 7.36

13:19 And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan,
he gave them their land as an inheritance, for about four hundred and fifty years.
13:20 And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.
13:21 Then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.
13:22 And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king; of whom he testified and said, 'I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.'
= 7.45 with additions about Samuel the prophet

13:23 Of this man's posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.

[FransJVermeiren]

Then, how might one characterize Paul’s Jesus Christ? Human or myth?

Robert

I believe wrong questions never give good answers. In your first question you mix up Jesus and Christ, so in fact there are two questions:
1. How shall we characterize Paul’s Christ?
2. How shall we characterize Paul’s Jesus?

There are a lot of Christ passages in Paul’s letters that are future oriented, so maybe Paul’s Christ is a future Christ. As there are also a lot of anti-Roman cryptograms in the Pauline letters, Paul’s Christ might be a quite earthly rival of the Roman emperor, and not a mythological figure. When the Romans are thrown out, the Jews are going to take over world dominion from them.

And Paul’s Jesus? As Paul doesn’t know any biographical detail about Jesus, Paul’s Jesus is non-existent. All 'Jesus' mentions and passages are post-70 CE interpolations. Some of them are traceable, others are not. Jesus was active after Paul’s career as trailblazer of the future messiah. There is overwhelming 'converging evidence' (Garraghan) that Jesus was active during the war of the Jews against the Romans in 66-70 CE.

[Bernard Muller]

to robert j,

Next is a similar human Jesus. After his death, his followers looked to the scriptures for consolation and found passages they could apply to their fallen leader --- passages which gave meaning and hope. Their Jesus provided a spiritual salvation for all nations and was a true conduit to god. From our perspective here, the OT prophets did not foresee the future, but rather these early believers were creative. The application of the scriptural references grew with time and the human was further shrouded in myth and legend. In this solution there was a historical Jesus. Both human and myth.

I would approve your second option, albeit with a bit of rewriting, more so about his followers (as eyewitnesses) not being the ones going through the process you described, but instead hellenized activist Jews.
http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html and http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3x.html

And then my preferred solution, Paul (or direct predecessors) found a spiritual savior by means of fresh readings of the Jewish scriptures --- previously hidden mysteries --- and the events and meaning of this Jesus were constructed entirely from the scriptures. Not historical. But a human or a myth? --- well, I think both here as well.

Well, if it was so, the demanding, skeptical & challenging Corinthians would have kept asking questions about that enigmatic earthly human Jesus and we would be finding attempts to answer that in Paul's epistles. Furthermore that takes out Paul saying Jesus had a blood brother named James (Galatians) and Josephus telling the same in his Antiquities.

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

Some mythicists cannot agree with Carrier/Doherty's ''outer space'' theory for the 'where' of the crucifixion.
They say that Paul had to mention somewhere the 'where' of the crucifixion, if he meant really a celestial crucifixion.


I think that this would be a false problem, as the 'outer space' was not so 'outer' but rather a very ''earthly'' space.

I would like to point out only the three following passages where what Carrier calls 'outer space' is called more ''concretely'' : ''extremities of Matter''.

But where Typhon intrudes, laying hold of the extremities,

(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, LIX)

because the extreme parts of Matter (which parts they denominate “Nephthys” and “End”) are chiefly possessed by the destructive Power

(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, LIX)

But the fable, desirous to signify this, says, that the mother of the gods exhorted Attis to take care of himself, and neither depart any where else, nor be captivated with any other. but Attis, departing from the mother of the gods, descended even to the very extremity of matter.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/toj/toj04.htm
(Julian, On the Mother of the Gods)


The expression ''extremities of Matter'' would be more appropriate to indicate something visible (hence: earthly) yet extremely distant and therefore unreachable. The extreme skyline.

A good analogy would be what the American Continent was, for an European, before the year 1492 : the extreme ends of the world. By definition: unreachable.

Therefore, I think that Plutarch, Julian and everyone who used the expression ''extremities of Matter'', imagined that place as - at least in theory - the ''natural'' extension of the known earth, but de facto as an unreachable place.

The more ''concrete'' effects of a such imagination would be the extreme vagueness of the (even if concrete) elements that are meant to be there: a tree, a city, a river, a mountain, a cross. Not more details are added.

Think about how very much vague were descriptions of the ''Indies'' before that America was discovered.

The same enigmatic mix of concreteness and vagueness is found in that famous passage of the Ascension of Isaiah:

And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.

(9:14)

By this, I want to say that even if the place of the crucifixion was not meant explicitly as the ''air below the moon'' but as the earth, it was not the earth stricto sensu (like for example the mention of a place near Jerusalem or Jerusalem itself, for example), but the ''extreme parts'' of the earth (hence: something still in the middle between the Moon and the true - i.e.: known - Earth).

In conclusion, the two following expressions are precisely equivalent, for a man of the I CE:

1) to be crucified in an unknown and remote place on earth.

2) to be crucified ''below the Moon''.

[robert j]

Then, how might one characterize Paul’s Jesus Christ? Human or myth?

I believe wrong questions never give good answers. In your first question you mix up Jesus and Christ ...

Paul’s Christ might be a quite earthly rival of the Roman emperor ...

And Paul’s Jesus? ... All 'Jesus' mentions and passages are post-70 CE interpolations ...

Jesus was active after Paul’s career ...

Our basic assumptions are so very different. I’m going to acknowledge your opinions, and leave you to them.

[robert j]

to robert j,

And then my preferred solution, Paul (or direct predecessors) found a spiritual savior by means of fresh readings of the Jewish scriptures --- previously hidden mysteries --- and the events and meaning of this Jesus were constructed entirely from the scriptures. Not historical. But a human or a myth? --- well, I think both here as well.

Well, if it was so, the demanding, skeptical & challenging Corinthians would have kept asking questions about that enigmatic earthly human Jesus and we would be finding attempts to answer that in Paul's epistles.

ETA: We don't know what went on behind the scenes. And, if Paul's Jesus was entirely a figure of the scriptures as I suggest, how could the Corinthians expect Paul to provide additional details? Paul wrote ---

…that in us you may learn, not beyond what has been written. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

I think there are extended passages in the Corinthian correspondence related to the fleshy aspect of Paul’s Jesus.

For examples of Paul’s emphasis on the body of Christ --- on the flesh of Christ --- one might refer to 1 Corinthians 6:15-17, 10:16, 11:24, and 11:27-29 (among others). But some among the Corinthians apparently had problems with this emphasis.

The issue may be reflected in 1 Corinthians 12:3, where it seems some of the congregations said Jesus was “anathema”. Perhaps some among the Corinthians did not accept Paul’s emphasis on the body and flesh of Jesus and were making a metaphysical argument here on the nature of the body after death. This would be consistent with a general belief apparently held by some Greeks --- derived from Orphism to Middle-Platonism --- that the body was a prison of sorts, and only upon death was the spirit within released.

But certainly In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul made impassioned arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, for Jesus’ resurrection as a model for all believers in the end, and for the nature of the resurrected body. Paul’s apparent earlier emphasis on the concept of a bodily resurrection led to Paul working hard to gently walk-back his bodily resurrection by framing it in spiritual terms that he hoped the congregation might accept in 1 Corinthians 15:35 through 15:58.

Apparently the issue wasn’t adequately resolved, and Paul, in his desperation in 2 Corinthians to maintain some semblance of authority, threw in the towel ---

Therefore from now, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have regarded Christ according to flesh, yet now we regard Him thus no longer. (2 Corinthians 5:16)

Furthermore that takes out Paul saying Jesus had a blood brother named James (Galatians) and Josephus telling the same in his Antiquities.

Because there are so many ways the James tradition may have found its way into the relatively late Josephus, I just don’t find it convincing.

As for Paul, the focus of my arguments in this thread, I acknowledge that reasonable arguments about James have been made for both sides of the issue.

But Paul referred to all fellow believers as “brothers”; and Paul may have singled out James in Galatians 1:19 because Paul characterized his James as the leader of the movement (Galatians 2:2, 2:9, and especially 2:12). For me, these render the arguments inadequate to tip the scales towards an early 1st C. human Jesus with a biological brother named James.