Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

[Stephan Huller]

But we don't need to add all this stupidity. It distracts us from finding the right answer. What is often overlooked is that modern Protestants (perhaps 'neo-Protestants is a better description) want Jesus to be a historical man. Fine. But this represents a reduction from the original idea of the early orthodox Christians that Jesus was BOTH God and man by means of the Virgin Birth. No one (or no one whose literature survives) ever believed that Jesus was JUST a man. So we still have this odd paradigm - a guy who looks like a man, who had a virgin mother (no human father) but still in some way God who walked and talked with men. I happen to think that the Marcionites and their wholly divine man was earlier than this. There are a variety of reasons for this (it is simpler, less convoluted). But the point is that 'man-shaped' being Jesus was still God. So the earliest belief has everything to do with God tabernacling with men.

[Charles Wilson]

Josephus believed that God actually LIVED- existed might be a better word- in the inner sanctuary temple. All Jews did.

...And who served in the Temple?

1 Chronicles 24: 1 - 19 (RSV):

[1] The divisions of the sons of Aaron were these. The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abi'hu, Elea'zar, and Ith'amar.
[2] But Nadab and Abi'hu died before their father, and had no children, so Elea'zar and Ith'amar became the priests.
[3] With the help of Zadok of the sons of Elea'zar, and Ahim'elech of the sons of Ith'amar, David organized them according to the appointed duties in their service.
[4] Since more chief men were found among the sons of Elea'zar than among the sons of Ith'amar, they organized them under sixteen heads of fathers' houses of the sons of Elea'zar, and eight of the sons of Ith'amar.
[5] They organized them by lot, all alike, for there were officers of the sanctuary and officers of God among both the sons of Elea'zar and the sons of Ith'amar.
[6] And the scribe Shemai'ah the son of Nethan'el, a Levite, recorded them in the presence of the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahim'elech the son of Abi'athar, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the priests and of the Levites; one father's house being chosen for Elea'zar and one chosen for Ith'amar.
[7]The first lot fell to Jehoi'arib, the second to Jedai'ah,
[8] the third to Harim, the fourth to Se-o'rim,
[9] the fifth to Malchi'jah, the sixth to Mij'amin,
[10] the seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abi'jah,
[11] the ninth to Jeshua, the tenth to Shecani'ah,
[12] the eleventh to Eli'ashib, the twelfth to Jakim,
[13] the thirteenth to Huppah, the fourteenth to Jesheb'e-ab,
[14] the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer,
[15] the seventeenth to Hezir, the eighteenth to Hap'pizzez,
[16] the nineteenth to Pethahi'ah, the twentieth to Jehez'kel,
[17] the twenty-first to Jachin, the twenty-second to Gamul,
[18] the twenty-third to Delai'ah, the twenty-fourth to Ma-azi'ah.
[19] These had as their appointed duty in their service to come into the house of the LORD according to the procedure established for them by Aaron their father, as the LORD God of Israel had commanded him.


"...as the LORD God of Israel had commanded him..."

...And these people had no Say in any events from the Installation of Herod by Rome on?
Puh-LEEZE.

CW

[ghost]

Finally a good question. My guess the substitution myth.

But Moses has no cross. Where does the cross come from? He also doesn't have kingship or a wreath. Where do the kingship and the wreath/crown come from?

What's also weird is that in "we have no king but Caesar" at least a comparison between Jesus and a Roman emperor is implied.

[Stephan Huller]

But Moses has no cross. Where does the cross come from?

Justin saw Moses spreading his arms during the war against Amalek as symbolic of the cross. I have argued that it is important to distinguish between a T shaped and an X shaped object. If the object was T-shaped that brings one set of possibilities. The X shaped another. I personally side with the latter. But these are questions which are outside the silliness of bringing Caesar into the mix. As no early Christians were ever identified as seeing Jesus as a symbol for Julius Caesar it is pointless to drag this possibility into a story which seems to be about something else entirely - and something specifically Jewish at that.

What's also weird is that in "we have no king but Caesar" at least a comparison between Jesus and a Roman emperor is implied.

So it is your point that when Jesus is interrogated by Pilate this represents the Emperor or Julius Caesar being questioned by his governor. Then when the Jews crucify Christ it is really the Jews killing the Emperor of Julius Caesar. Then when he rises after three days this is symbolic of the Emperor or Julius Caesar coming back from the dead. I don't recall any of these things being a part of the Imperial cult. But of course I should expect you will find some stupid way of explaining all this to no one's satisfaction except your own.

[MrMacSon]

The question isn't whether the angel is "real" but eliminating possibilities down to "what happened" at the beginning of early Christianity.

I agree 100%

... but this is full of misrepresentations -

People like you and ghost and Mary all want to leave things so vague that "any number of possibilities" leaves open the door to a self-acknowledged fiction was venerated by the early Christians where all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

I don't want to leave things vague or 'so vague'. I certainly don't think or advocate "a self-acknowledged fiction was venerated by the early Christians" - you keep asserting that strawman. I acknowledge it wasn't a fiction per se. I partly use that word to try to get you to a point of at least making some acknowledgement there is a distinction between (i) what was initially proposed, and (ii) how perceptions & belief in those proposals changed from the initial proposers to initial believers & then to subsequent believers, especially as accounts of those proposals varied over time. You have shown that with textural variations from Justin to Irenaeus: it's just that you don't acknowledge the point when I make it.

Whether or not angels are "real", the evangelist claimed real human beings had an encounter with an anthropomorphic shaped being in a particular year of "real time."

I agree!

The original date of this encounter was 20 - 21 CE which was exactly 7 x 7 years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish religion. Because of the pre-existent Jewish interest in cycles of numbers of this sort (and probably by reverse inference) the story of this encounter was about why and how God wanted to end or ended the old Jewish religion. The "myth" was explanatory. There is nothing more to it.

You recent post about this are intriguing.

There was no Jesus = Caesar or Jesus = Antigonus, no shifting time travel, no crucifixion = something else.

I essentially agree - it is unlikely the NT Jesus is based on one single figure.

Whether or not you or I believe in angels the Jews of the age certainly did. Justin Martyr's beliefs about the angel who met the Patriarchs is the very same "Jewish angelology" of the historical evangelist and those who accepted the sanctity (historicity, ie the "reality" and "truth") of his narrative.

Agree

There are no other plausible alternatives for "mythicism"

.

[MrMacSon]

I happen to think that the Marcionites and their wholly divine man was earlier than this.

Huh? I thought the Marcionites had a dual-god belief system?

What is often overlooked is that modern Protestants (perhaps 'neo-Protestants is a better description) want Jesus to be a historical man. Fine.

I think this is to appeal to atheists. You don't have to believe in god to come to our church, just "Jesus the humanitarian/humanist".

[Stephan Huller]

I think you need to familiarize yourself with the early varieties

[MrMacSon]

believers in heavenly & celestial-angels; from which Gnostic belief systems (such as Docetism, Montanism, etc.) arose.

[MrMacSon]

.
Justin saw Moses spreading his arms during the war against Amalek as symbolic of the cross. I have argued that it is important to distinguish between a T shaped and an X shaped object. If the object was T-shaped that brings one set of possibilities. The X shaped another. I personally side with the latter.

Perhaps it is not a dichotomy (of one set of possibility v another set).

Do you think the role of the T-shaped cross (v the supposedly-then-more-conventional X-shaped cross) invokes the role of the [tau-rho] staurogram?

[ghost]

As no early Christians were ever identified as seeing Jesus as a symbol for Julius Caesar it is pointless to drag this possibility into a story which seems to be about something else entirely - and something specifically Jewish at that.

But Christianity could have emerged from the Roman veteran colonies in Palestine that worshipped Divus Iulius. So it wasn't necessarily entirely Jewish. It could have been Roman with infuence from surrounding Jewish culture.