New Mythicist Evidence: Gospel of Philip 9

[Secret Alias]

And just to repeat, if you want to take Giuseppe's 'evidence' as a means of helping an interpretation of material in Revelations that's fine. But my original point was pointing out how silly it is to claim 'evidence' for the 'non-existence' of something especially in antiquity. For instance unless you have the explicit statement that Aristophanes wasn't at Socrates trial, you can't find evidence proving he wasn't there (outside of a few obscure and unlike scenarios).

Day to day Giuseppe, you precede through a labyrinth of texts attempting to prove what exactly? What would evidence of Jesus's non-existence even look like? A statement that Jesus was crucified in heaven or the sub-lunar realm? I am not sure that rises to the level of evidence of non-existence. But again I am not sure how one even finds 'evidence' of something not existing outside of an explicit statement from an ancient source to that effect and again, why would exactly someone write something down to this effect? It's almost as if they are expecting your coming.

[Giuseppe]

I don't understand why this opposition by you. I can agree about the fact that for the 90% of my posts I commit often and happily the fallacy of the possibiliter ergo probabiliter (and surely the 'rosh' solution of the enigma Golgotha is an optimal example of that fallacy, as explained by Ben), but please note the extraordinary 'coincidence':


in the more anti-Gnostic book of all the NT - precisely in Rev 13:8 - we have a particular feature shared also (and in more clear terms) by a Gnostic (probably even anti-Jewish) work totally at the antipodes of the cultural milieu that gave birth to Revelation.


Forgive me if the my only 'error' in this thread is to advance as the more simple explanation of this surprising fact the hypothesis that the myth of a celestial crucifixion of a celestial entity happened before the creation of the world is very old and at the origin of the entire Christ Myth.

And surely I may blame anyone who is just wrong to disagree with me about this point.

[arnoldo]

John 8:58 may support mythicism depending on your point of view.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

How can someone in the early first century claim to have existed before Abraham?

[Giuseppe]

John 8:58 may support mythicism depending on your point of view.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
How can someone in the early first century claim to have existed before Abraham?

No, you are wrong. My point is not the simple idea of the pre-existence of Jesus (because otherwise I would have given a lot of evidence!). My point is that the same death of Jesus was placed before the creation of the world, according to Gospel of Philip 9 (and Rev 13:8).

So a similar death could be only a mythical death, not a historical one (as the death under Pilate could be).

[arnoldo]

John 8:58 may support mythicism depending on your point of view.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
How can someone in the early first century claim to have existed before Abraham?

No, you are wrong. My point is not the simple idea of the pre-existence of Jesus (because otherwise I would have given a lot of evidence!). My point is that the same death of Jesus was placed before the creation of the world, according to Gospel of Philip 9 (and Rev 13:8).

So a similar death could be only a mythical death, not a historical one (as the death under Pilate could be).

Well, I disagree but that's just me.

[Giuseppe]

Well, I disagree but that's just me.

the point is that I don't know even where and about what you are disagreeing.

Are you really denying that the Gospel of Philip 9 talks of a Christ who died also and before the same creation of the world?

[Blood]

The correct lineation is Philip 53:6-9 (Nag Hammadi Codex II, Tractate 3). There is no "Phillip 9."

"It was not only when he appeared that he voluntarily laid down his life, but he voluntarily laid down his life from the very day the world came into being." -- Isenberg's translation (in the original post) was printed in Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2-7 (Brill, 1989).

[Ben C. Smith]

The correct lineation is Philip 53:6-9 (Nag Hammadi Codex II, Tractate 3). There is no "Phillip 9."

There is a Philip 9 according to at least two different versification systems.

[Blood]

The "Philip 9" lineation is from Internet sites only, not the Brill edition, and I learned from R. Joseph Hoffman and Bart Ehrman that nothing on the Internet is trustworthy.

[Blood]

As I said before, the Gospel of Philip is really an overlooked text. There's all kinds of weird stuff lurking in there.