GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:04 am
I'm not sure if you've had time to completely read Price's book, but are there any elements his theory has added to your own mythicist views, Giuseppe? (apologies for the earlier misspelling!) I haven't read his book, and probably unlikely to read it, but I'd be interested if he had any insights that you found compelling or new?
I have read the book. The part more interesting and original is that his case is based on the Gospels. About the epistles he agrees entirely with Carrier and concedes that the Pauline Jesus
may be dead in an earthly scenario, but always in a legendary one.
The case based on the Gospels is this:
What Giuseppe says is basically correct. The case stands on several legs.
#1) Mark is fiction – but this doesn’t prove that Jesus never existed
#2) Key scenes in Mark can be shown to be literary allusions, which proves that their inclusion in other Gospels must have originated from Mark, not some other external source.
#3) This shows that every narrative about Jesus ultimately is based on Mark.
#4) The fact that every narrative about Jesus is based on Mark, must mean that there was no other information about Jesus to be had. It was the only source of “information” about a human Jesus.
#4 is what proves that Jesus didn’t exist, and it is proven on two counts: #1) All of the narratives about Jesus are based on Mark #2) There were significant doubts about the early existence of Jesus among several so-called Christian sects, which 2nd-4th century apologists had to combat. The ONLY evidence that they ever mustered was theological reading based on the Gospels, THAT’S IT.
The issue is not that we can’t go back today and find evidence because it was too long ago, the issue is that within 100-200 years of this person’s supposed lifetime there was a compelling need to provide evidence for his existence, and we know that early Christians did in fact search for many of the physical pieces of evidence of Jesus’s existence, like his tomb, like the place where he was crucified, etc., but the fact is that THEY NEVER FOUND ANY, within 100 years of his supposed life.
And the issue is that these guys were trying very hard. The 2nd-4th century apologists had a lot of opposition and they were trying desperately to PROVE that Jesus had in fact been incarnate “in the flesh”, but the ONLY evidence they EVER mustered was the Gospels. The entire case for Jesus having existed “in the flesh”, made by apologists within 100-300 years of his supposed existence, rested entirely on the Gospels. And their case for the “reliability” of the Gospels rested entirely on the belief that what they had was four separate independent eyewitness or second hand accounts that corroborated each other.
So without the Gospels, the 2nd-4th century case for the “humanity of Jesus” utterly falls apart, and basically the Docetists and Marcionites win.
And for good measure I throw in an explanation for why Jesus must have been a heavenly messiah to begin with. The failure of Doherty and others, IMO, is that they focused to much on trying to show that Paul’s crucifixion took place in heaven, which I agree with, but its not compelling.
What I explain is that it only makes sense that Jesus was originally understood to be a heavenly messiah because what sets Jesus apart is the fact that unlike all the other messiahs, who were supposed to create a perfect Jewish kingdom on earth, Jesus was a messiah who was going to create a perfect kingdom IN HEAVEN. This is key undisputable piece of evidence. The reason Jesus was going to create the kingdom of God in heaven, and not on earth is because the material world was hopelessly corrupt. If the material world is hopelessly corrupt, then the last thing you would believe is that a human messiah would be the one to create your perfect kingdom in heaven. Thus, it only makes sense that the perfect kingdom of God in heaven would be create by a heavenly messiah.
And we see this conflict between the role of the heavenly messiah Jesus and the human Jesus all throughout Christian theology to this day. And this also explains why Marcionites and Docetists existed in the first place.
I really do think that I’ve taken the position that Jesus didn’t exist from a place of conflusion and loose ends, to a place where it actually makes more sense than the idea that Jesus had existed.
For me personally, the idea that Jesus never existed was always problematic, and always had a bad taste to it. It always seemed to be reaching and not quite explaining. For me personally, I’m now at a place, which I hope I was able to explain sufficiently and convey through my writing, where I feel like the idea that Jesus never existed makes MORE SENSE than the the idea that he had existed.
And for me, that position is only arrived at through the arguments I’ve made in my writings. I don’t think that the cases made by others on this topic ever quite get there (Though of course many have made very important contributions to the topic). I feel like I have gotten there. To me, all of the dots never got fully connected. I feel like I’ve connected the dots.
http://vridar.org/whos-who-among-mythic ... ment-68847
In other terms, the historicist can't object that, since some writings were lost, then we can't exclude the possibility that in these lost texts there was the evidence of a historical Jesus. If a such evidence existed really, then the Great Church would have preserved it
with any means, in order to prove that Jesus existed "in the flesh" . The fact that only the knowledge-based-on-Mark was preserved is the evidence of the absence of other evidences. Mark is a too much weak source (in terms of historical value) to base the case for a historical Jesus only on it. But that is just what is happened.
