Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

[Stephan Huller]

Stephan Huller wrote:
I can't even imagine what "faith in fiction" would look like. Can you?

A short glimpse at Mormonism or Wicca might alleviate that lack of imagination.

No by 'faith in fiction' I am referencing the implication of the faith of so many at the forum that the gospels were written as self-acknowledged fiction. For instance with Carotta's nonsense, it doesn't make sense to suggest that the author wanted people to believe Jesus actually existed. The story of the gospel is a kind of 'trap door' or false front for some other 'truth.' The suggestion seems to be that Christians never actually believed in the story of a person named Jesus. But then, what do theories like this do with the concept of 'faith'? They must argue then that they had 'faith in self-acknowledged fiction' i.e. that the authors weren't trying to 'pull the wool' over the eyes of the believers as in Pete's system. Instead they wanted them to believe in some other 'truth' by means of a 'self-acknowledged fiction' which I think is just stupid.

[Ulan]

I don't see why anyone should accept the existence of this 'Hasmonean component' any more than Charles's 'Flavian component' to the gospels or ghost's 'Caesar component' or Pete's 'Constantine component.

... or the general "mythicist" story. "General", because they basically all hang more or less in the void and have a mythical component.

Apparently each of them thinks that if only this other nutbar could 'just see the light' they'd give up their belief in X and come over to see Y as the ground of all being. It's really hilarious in the end. And this will go on forever.

Yup. And even if anyone finds a letter from Mark, stating "Hey folks, don't get too worked up about it, but I made everything up", it will probably just be concluded that the letter was forged. Not that I expect much to show up anymore. I guess this will be one of those things we will probably never know for sure.

[Ulan]

The suggestion seems to be that Christians never actually believed in the story of a person named Jesus. But then, what do theories like this do with the concept of 'faith'? They must argue then that they had 'faith in self-acknowledged fiction' i.e. that the authors weren't trying to 'pull the wool' over the eyes of the believers as in Pete's system. Instead they wanted them to believe in some other 'truth' by means of a 'self-acknowledged fiction' which I think is just stupid.

This is not necessarily true for the "general" mythicist theory like the Carrier/Doherty hypothesis. If you propose that these people really believed in the heavenly Jesus whom they found by poring too long over OT texts in those texts, they composed the gospel as pesher/midrash/whatever about these occurrences; or at least Mark might have, while the story later, with other gospel writers, found a life of its own.

Again the disclaimer, I find it much easier if this story was really attached to some historical figure, but I don't see it as strictly necessary. If you believe that Daniel was written as political piece and as an attempt to "rescue" a former prophecy from Jeremiah, this might have happened again.

[RecoveringScot]

I don't see why anyone should accept the existence of this 'Hasmonean component' any more than Charles's 'Flavian component' to the gospels or ghost's 'Caesar component' or Pete's 'Constantine component.

... or the general "mythicist" story. "General", because they basically all hang more or less in the void and have a mythical component.[/quote]

No document hangs in a void. Every human creation, whether interpreted 'mythically' or not is produced and interpreted within a cultural context. For instance Paul's apparently celestial Jesus could not have been proposed in a void. There must have been some audience which not only understood what he was saying, but *how he was able to say it in the first place*. Otherwise he could not have been understood. This implies that Paul's ideas, though on the face of it unique or startling, must have been the result of a cultural process (which is not necessarily adherence to a 'tradition') of some kind that preceded him. Trying to identify what exactly that context was is the problem for which various solutions have been offered. In that sense nothing can just be 'made up' from nothing.

So the question becomes, is substitutive history - it says this but really means that, not as allegory but as a code to be interpreted - a common or plausible form of history writing? Allegory is transference through analogy between two different tyes of realm. Like 'Animal Farm' it reduces human actors to animals, or like religious allegories likens the actors on earth to those in the heavens. What it doesn't do is offer one set of humans as 'really' another set of humans of the same or a different time - what on earth would be the point? If you merely substitute one pro-Roman anti-Judaic (or vice versa) man with another who lived later, one doesn't 'conceal' the other, considered as a political exemplar. And who would be deceived into accepting the story who wouldn't have accepted the original? This is why the 'it was Caesar' secret code stuff is implausible.

[Ulan]

No document hangs in a void.

Then it's good that nobody claimed that.

[RecoveringScot]

No document hangs in a void.

Then it's good that nobody claimed that.

Quite right, I should have said 'story' instead of document.

[Ulan]

Quite right, I should have said 'story' instead of document.

Still, I referred to the hypotheses, not the story, which, as you rightly said, wouldn't hang in a void, even if it were invented. Even in full mythicist hypothesis, the story is bound into its environment. As you find most of the stuff in the OT, the environment is kind of obvious. At least to me.

[Stephan Huller]

And remember, something might well be true but if it can't be proved in some way 'theoretically' (i.e. by logical arguments) we just won't know about it. Even if the gospel was 'really' about Julius Caesar Carotta's arguments don't prove that to be true. Maybe one day when evidence emerges of a 'Jesus = Caesar' cult it is something we should consider AT THAT TIME. But for the moment it's just complete rot. Same with the Flavian proposition, the Hasmonean proposition and - as aforementioned - the Jesus is a slice of pizza proposition.

[RecoveringScot]

Quite right, I should have said 'story' instead of document.

Still, I referred to the hypotheses, not the story, which, as you rightly said, wouldn't hang in a void, even if it were invented. Even in full mythicist hypothesis, the story is bound into its environment. As you find most of the stuff in the OT, the environment is kind of obvious. At least to me.

And to me, which makes the 'unobvious' interpretations a, er, challenge. I don't think that some name changes and so on don't happen. I'm pretty sure that 'Paul' wasn't his real name for one and he was never 'Saul' I think, but in that sort of a case we're talking about the same person under another name, not someone completely different for whom he would 'stand in'.

[ghost]

The Hasmonean elements came via Josephus. What you see by the time of the Flavians is already a composite character, but it doesn't mean he was always a composite.

This is not true. The Hasmoneans existed, seen today by way of coins, other records in other cultures, etc. "Existence" is not a predicate but I believe that the word may be used correctly in regards to the Hasmoneans, the Temple Priesthood as enumerated in 1 Chronicles 24 and with other data. It is interesting that the settlement "Jabnit", populated by members of the Mishmarot Group "Immer" believed that the Hasmoneans came from them. Josephus didn't compose piyyutim about the Hasmoneans in Jabnit as far as I know.

I shold have been more explicit. What I meant is not that the Hasmoneans didn't exist, but that the Hasmonean stories flowed into Christianity via Josephus.

AS for "Jesus" existing as you imply, I cannot go even to the phrase you use,"...by the time of the Flavians..." There was no "He", composite or otherwise. That's what I try to get across over and over concerning "Transvaluation".

I don't think we can deny Julius Caesar's existence, and that that there was a cult around him. I say "by the time of the Flavians" because this cult existed before the Flavians. The Flavians did not invent the cult; they just changed it.