Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

[Bernard Muller]

to Kapyong,

Bernard Muller wrote:

to Kapyong,
Who do you know, before Doherty, described the air as the realm of FLESH, or part of the realm of FLESH?
Well, consider these quotes from the ancients who divided the sphere into two categories :

Above the Moon
Below the Moon

Thanks, but this is not news to me.
However I was asking: "Who do you know, before Doherty, described the air as the realm of FLESH, or part of the realm of FLESH?"
You did not answer my question, which was very straight forward.

Your conclusion:

This gives a clear picture that above and below the moon was a definite division - and the description of below the moon perfectly fits with what can be called 'flesh', with the above being 'spirit'.

No problem with the division. But who, before Doherty, called the sublunar world "flesh" or the air above air "flesh"
No, the description of below the moon does not perfectly fits with what can be called 'flesh'.

Following on from above, next we consider how the Air is between the Moon and the Earth :

I already said (to Neil) I do not have any problem with that.

Your conclusion:

This gives us two themes :
below the moon is corruptible
below the moon is Air, (then Earth)

Combine these two ideas together and we get the Air being in the realm of corruption and change - i.e. 'fleshly'.

No, the air being in the realm of corruption and change does not make it "fleshy", except if you can find an ancient author who called the air "fleshly".

Following on from above - what happened in the Air ?

We can see that the Air is filled with demons and spirits and the souls of the dead. Actions occur there to do with death, punishment and rebirth. And there are things in the Air as well :

So far what happens in the air is about incorporeal demons,angels, spirits and souls: nothing fleshy. One exception: Julian and his feast of dead (& apparently resurrected) emperors in the air right below the moon. But Julian was a neoplatonic 4th century author, writing 3 centuries after Paul's times!

And there are things in the Air as well :
Plutarch, Vision of Arideus, 1st C. wrote:

when the souls of the dead come up from below, they form a fiery bubble as they cleave the air; ...
...
Moreover, he said, there were certain lakes that lay parallel and equidistant one from the other, the one of boiling gold, another of lead, exceeding cold, and the third of iron, which was very scaly and rugged. By the sides of these lakes stood certain Daemons, that with their instruments, like smiths or founders, put in or drew out the souls of such as had transgressed either through avarice or an eager desire of other men’s goods....
...
The last thing he saw was the souls being modified for rebirth. They were being wrenched and reshaped into all kinds of living creatures by specialist artisans, who were using a combination of tools and blows to join and force together some parts, twist others back, and obliterate and eliminate others altogether, so as to make the souls fit different characteristics and ways of life. And he saw among the others Nero's soul, which was in a bad way, not least because it had been run through with red-hot nails.

The two last paragraphs (from "Moreover" to "nails") of your quote is related to happenings & places in the UNDERWORLD, not in the air.

Your conclusion:

So the Air is filled with demons and spirits, it is a region of corruption and decay, and actions happen there to do with death and rebirth - sounds just like the Carrier/Doherty thesis to me.

In your examples, I do not see death or rebirth anywhere in the air AND specifically the air as a region of corruption and decay, even if the earth below is, and the two are often combined as the sublunar realm.

According to your quotes, the Carrier/Doherty thesis, despite some elements of it being valid, is unjustified in some other parts.
Therefore, overall, their thesis would be on very shaky ground and rather dubious, if not fallacious.

Cordially, Bernard

[Peter Kirby]

So I'm reading Chapter 9, Part 4, p.375-78... on the supposed lack of historical Jesus references in Paul's trial scenes in Acts (as though that's somehow a big deal). Carrier spends the entire chapter dismissing Acts as historical fiction. Which is fair enough. I think most scholars realise that. But then in this section he tries to argue that these trial scenes may contain historical nuggets because they don't seem like the kind of thing Luke would make up - e.g. Carrier: "One argument for this being the case is the remarkable disparity between these trial accounts, and speeches and sermons that take place elsewhere. If Luke were simply fabricating the whole thing, these accounts should be consistent..." (p.378)


... Hang on... Isn't this the Criteria of Dissimilarity?? Carrier spent his whole last book complaining how unproductive such criteria is, but now it's OK for him to use??

I'm enjoying this book. It's definitely the best mythicist book out there. But when I read parts like this (and there have been numerous similar examples) I still feel he's being just as inconsistent (if not more so) in his methodology as those he criticizes when attempting to argue for his 'heavenly realm crucifixion' hypothesis. If he's not going to allow other scholars to look for historical nuggets in the gospels and acts using the Criteria of Dissimilarity (despite their overall unreliable qualities), then he should be consistent and deny himself the privilege.

I don't have the whole context.

Is it the criterion of dissimilarity? The criterion of dissimilarity (or double dissimilarity) counts as Jesus the parts that are neither distinctly Jewish nor Christian. It works at the tradition-historical level. The comment from Carrier appears to be aimed at the redaction criticism level, which asks why the author is writing something and whether it reflects the author's own tendencies or perhaps pre-existed the author.

I really got to get the book.

I am also kind of surprised to see an argument for the historicity of Acts, even if partially, in his book, but it's not like a lot of good scholars don't argue similarly, and I'm not sure I agree that it's internally inconsistent with Carrier's own lines of reasoning.

[toejam]

^Well, it's the same principle: Teasing out historical nuggets by thinking you've found potential sources lying behind the narratives because they contradict/go against the grain of a presupposed agenda, and then assuming these hypothetical sources are better representing the historical reality. The point is that Carrier is very critical of historicists when they do this, but he's no better in this case. My concern with Carrier's book is not his arguments against the reliability of the documents, but that his own replacement Christian Origins theory doesn't fair any better.

[Peter Kirby]

Out of curiosity, what does he end up doing with the parts of Acts that, supposedly, may be historical? Why does he bring it up?

(PS - I think Carrier has to be allowed to argue for some historicity of some things somewhere. He's not a Skeptic of History; he's skeptical of the historicity of Jesus.)

[Kapyong]

Gday all,


Here is
Carrier on Hebrews 8:4

"The gospel repeatedly emphasized throughout the book of Hebrews is that 'Jesus the Son of God is the great high priest who has passed through the heavens' (Heb. 4.14; see also 6.19-20, in reference to the account in Heb. 5; etc.). You might notice that that sounds exactly like the celestial high priest named Jesus in early Jewish theology (Element 40) undertak­ing the very task described for the celestial Jesus in the Ascension of Isaiah (Chapter 3, §1). We saw that in the earliest discernible redaction of the latter, the Jesus who passes through the heavens dies in outer space, in the sublunar heaven, not on earth. This also appears to be what the author of Hebrews believes:

The sum of what we've said is this: we have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of His Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord set up. not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is nec­essary that this One have something to offer, too. For if He were on earth. He would not be a priest, since there are already priests who oiler gifts according to the law. and who only give service to the copy and shadow of heavenly things [because Moses was instructed to make on earth copies of the things he saw in heaven] (Heb. 8.1-5).

"This certainly seems to say Jesus died in outer space.47 Because here we're told that Jesus not only performed his sacrifice in the celestial temple (as in Heb. 9, as we'll see in a moment), but that he had to do so. Otherwise the magic of it wouldn't have worked. We're also told that Jesus wasn't ever on earth—instead, he could only have been God's celestial high priest (so as to perform the ultimate sacrifice) if he wasn't on earth. Because "if he were on earth, he would not be a priest', since earth already has its priests—but Jesus needs to be a priest, in order to mediate the new covenant (Heb. 8.6). We're also told here the same thing Isaiah was told in the Ascension: that everything on earth has a duplicate version of it in the heavens (hence Ele­ment 38). The implication is that Jesus' blood must have been spilled on the heavenly duplicate of God's altar—not on earth, where there already are priests making blood sacrifices, which are less effective than celestial ones. Yet Jesus, being perfect, was the most powerful sacrifice of all (Heb. 7.27-28). "

Notes:
"47. This also entails that the high priests on earth are the earthly copies of Jesus, who is the celestial high priest, the 'realized' Platonic form of all human high priests: that is. the perfect and eternal high priest of which all earthly priests are but poor and mortal imitations (the actual Platonic form would be a thought in the mind of God: see Element 38). After Christ's resurrection, his copy on earth became the Christian church (I Cor. 12.27: Col. 1.18. 24). which was also a copy of the celestial temple (Element 18). because the temple is the body and Christ (as its high priest) is the spirit inhabiting it. Believers, being the parts of Christ's body, are similarly imagined as being the new temple priesthood in I Pet. 2.5 and 2.9 (tending their body as the temple)."


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

FYI:
My Index to Carrier's citations can be found here at the top of page 32 :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14896#p14896

Kapyong

[toejam]

Carrier's on the offensive again with another rant against Bart Ehrman: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/5977

Seems to me like he's fishing for a response to get some free promo for his book...

[Peter Kirby]

Carrier might be better off without his blog. It gives scholars a reason to ignore him, precisely because it is casual, flippant, and aimed at the mass market.

[GakuseiDon]

Can I suggest that we split out any comments about Carrier lying / Ehrman lying / anyone else lying into a separate thread, and concentrate on the contents of Carrier's book and issues arising therefrom in this thread? It's been a good thread so far, so it would be a shame to let tangents spoil it.

[junego]

[box]

So I'm reading Chapter 9, Part 4, p.375-78... on the supposed lack of historical Jesus references in Paul's trial scenes in Acts (as though that's somehow a big deal). Carrier spends the entire chapter dismissing Acts as historical fiction. Which is fair enough. I think most scholars realise that. But then in this section he tries to argue that these trial scenes may contain historical nuggets because they don't seem like the kind of thing Luke would make up - e.g. Carrier: "One argument for this being the case is the remarkable disparity between these trial accounts, and speeches and sermons that take place elsewhere. If Luke were simply fabricating the whole thing, these accounts should be consistent..." (p.378)

... Hang on... Isn't this the Criteria of Dissimilarity?? Carrier spent his whole last book complaining how unproductive such criteria is, but now it's OK for him to use??

I'm enjoying this book. It's definitely the best mythicist book out there. But when I read parts like this (and there have been numerous similar examples) I still feel he's being just as inconsistent (if not more so) in his methodology as those he criticizes when attempting to argue for his 'heavenly realm crucifixion' hypothesis. If he's not going to allow other scholars to look for historical nuggets in the gospels and acts using the Criteria of Dissimilarity (despite their overall unreliable qualities), then he should be consistent and deny himself the privilege.

I don't have the whole context.

Is it the criterion of dissimilarity? The criterion of dissimilarity (or double dissimilarity) counts as Jesus the parts that are neither distinctly Jewish nor Christian. It works at the tradition-historical level. The comment from Carrier appears to be aimed at the redaction criticism level, which asks why the author is writing something and whether it reflects the author's own tendencies or perhaps pre-existed the author.

I really got to get the book.

I am also kind of surprised to see an argument for the historicity of Acts, even if partially, in his book, but it's not like a lot of good scholars don't argue similarly, and I'm not sure I agree that it's internally inconsistent with Carrier's own lines of reasoning.

[/box]

Hi, I'm new and not all that well read on these subjects, but I did buy & read this book.

Although I'm not sure I agree with Carrier's analysis, istm he's not claiming any historicity nor is he using Dissimilarity or Embarrassment (I don't think, although my understanding is that these criteria are not intrinsically wrong, just being misused in NT studies). His inference seems to be that Luke may have had access to a source (probably about Paul?) that MAY OR MAY NOT have had any real historical information, but may have represented the beliefs of earlier Christians who created said source.

He contends that Luke was obviously a proponent of a historical Jesus but may have let some earlier beliefs from this source(s) bleed through his rewrite and that this could explain some oddities in Acts where there should be biographical/historical info on Jesus but it's missing. In particular the trials of Paul. I'm not going to try to retype his whole argument; it's several dense pages. He summarizes and analyzes Acts 23 through Acts 26. He also says "this does not leave me with a strong certainty" of there being an "Acts of Paul" early source.

Some of his summation from page 380.

"That Luke wouldn't even think of this [using the historical deeds/fate of Jesus as rhetorical material for both prosecution and defense in Paul's trials] when inventing these narratives is hard to explain, especially since when he provides us with speeches elsewhere, not just from Peter but even from Paul (as in his Antioch synagogue speech), he gives us something of what we expect. Whereas here, all of those details have mysteriously vanished, despite this being collectively the longest and most detailed series of trial hearings related in Acts. I have to conclude it's at least somewhat more likely that Luke is reworking some narrative he received, a lost Acts of Paul, in which there was no Jesus executed by Pilate, but a cosmically dying-and-rising Christ known only through revelation and scripture."

He gives his probability that Luke would have written these scenes exactly as found in Acts on the hypothesis of historicity as a range of, at best, 90% to, at worst, 50%.