Kyrelev seems to assume that Paul believed in an
earthly crucifixion of the Messiah:
In the light of the present stage of historiography,
the problem of the origins of Christianity should be approached
without reference to the personality of Christ
and his activity, which, from the traditional theological
viewpoint, is the starting point of the history of Christianity.
What is of interest here is only how the image
of Christ gradually took shape, how it became historicised
and transformed from the mystical lamb and the Word
into a real human being with a concrete biography.
In the evolution of the image of Jesus one can see
two component parts of the Christian dogma. First, the
Messiah has already been on earth and will come again
some time in the future. And second, with all his holiness
and divinity the Messiah was a human being with a
real earthly biography, one who was born in this world
and died (or at any rate whose existence came to an end).
Both aspects of this process of historicising found expression
in the New Testament documents of the second
century, namely, St. Paul's Epistles and the Gospels.
And if we assume that this process began with the Epistles,
it seems to be completed in the Gospels.
In order to understand the process whereby Christ was
transformed into a historical personality, it is necessary
to establish the ideological reasons (which are socially
conditioned) for the need of such a transformation.
Why could not Jesus remain in the imagination of his
followers a mystical lamb or God who only had to come down
to earth some time in the future and appear not as a man
but as a divine being?'
Owing to historical circumstances such a variant of
the new religion would be inadequate. The new religion
was in constant struggle against Judaism. The Christian
dogma must be seen to contain new elements, and they had
to go further than the orthodox Judaic expectation of the
coming of the Messiah. The doctrine that the Messiah had
already come and had essentially fulfilled his mission
was a new element that attracted the early Christians.
It became especially significant at a time when the liberation
movements were suppressed by Rome, when hopes for
the coming of a militant and victorious Messiah were frustrated
by the most convincing argument, that is, life
itself. But if the Messiah had already come, then one
only had to know how it happened, in what way his deeds
were carried out, what kind of a personality he was, where
he was born and how he died, and so on.
The enemies of Christianity demanded more and more
new arguments that would confirm its truthfulness. If
the Messiah had come, they said, what did he do, where
did he live, what did he teach, how and in what circumstances
did he find himself in the supernatural world?
The early Christians could ward off these blows only by
working out a biography of Christ with the help of imagination.
(p. 173-174, my bold)
I see a contradiction here. If Kyrelev thinks that Paul had in mind an
earthly Christ, then how could Paul prevent other Jews from esposing his Christ as not-existed? This is the same question raised before by Kyrelev himself (even if not mentioning Paul).
I suspect that Paul didn't need an apology against Mythicists of the his day because there was not a so explicit
and especially PUBLIC claim by his part of the 'historicity' of Jesus. He preached
''a crucified Christ'' but he never said
by who this Messiah was crucified (only in a highly-top-secret epistle reserved for the ''perfects'' he cares only one time to say that Christ was crucified by the
''archons of this aeon'' and even then the doubt is raised about the identity of the archons: were they Romans or demons?).
All the necessary for the new
''brothers of the Lord'' was to know that the Messiah was arrived and was crucified. Period.
But the Parusia didn't arrive insofar the cult propagated more and more. The secrecy (for the only 'perfects') about the identity of the Christ
had to be abandoned, sooner or later.
And being sufficiently propagated, the cult had need of a propaganda against the interest (that is the same
our interest) about the identity of the Christ.
