Hmm... what exactly is the argument here?
Carrier is positing a heavenly being - doesn't that fit right in ?
Just to say that Philo was not concerned about the man called "Rises". But he liked the name "Rises" because it was appropriate for his incorporeal being. So he used the name "Rises" for the firstborn of God who would rise up.
Sure Carrier is right about "Rises" being a heavenly being for Philo, but he is wrong about Philo naming "Rises"(the incorporeal Son of God) for the man Jesus (son of Josedec). That's certainly not the case.
From my blog post (# 17):
"In Element 40 (pages 200-205), Carrier comes back on the same, but involving Philo of Alexandria a lot more, and is quite affirmative from the very beginning: "In fact, the Christian idea of a preexistent spiritual son of God' called the Logos, who was God's true high priest in heaven, was also not novel idea but already held by some pre-Christian Jews; and this preexistent spiritual son of God had already been explicitly connected with a celestial Jesus figure in the OT (discussed in Element 6),
[Note: I certainly do not agree that Philo, or any others, connected Philo's Logos with the mortal man Jesus of Zechariah. There is no evidence for that] and therefore some Jews already believed there was a supernatural son of God named Jesus—because Paul's contemporary Philo interprets the messianic prophecy Zech. 6.12 in just such a way."
[Note: how would Carrier know that? Just through tenuous & convoluted series of suppositions, products of his tendentious imagination]" (bolding mine)
I also wrote:
"Finally, a very diplomatic note from Doherty: "By the way, on Richard Carrier’s Logos as Jesus, I do feel he did stretch things a bit. One can make that link through rather indirect channels, but the difficulties compromise the specific connection he seemed to be trying to make." which, according to Doherty, does not mean necessarily Carrier was wrong.
But which mythicist "evidence" is not stretched? or/and linked through rather indirect channels? or/and with difficulties compromising the specific connection?
The fact that Carrier uses that kind of evidence is telling a lot about his methodology. And I do not think he applied the Bayes theorem on that one!"
Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Bernard Muller wrote:Sure Carrier is right about "Rises" being a heavenly being for Philo, but he is wrong about Philo naming "Rises"(the incorporeal Son of God) for the man Jesus (son of Josedec). That's certainly not the case.
Actually, I agree, and I agree with Doherty - Carrier is stretching.
Carrier wrote:and this preexistent spiritual son of God had already been explicitly connected with a celestial Jesus figure in the OT (discussed in Element 6),
Yes - 'explicitly connected' is reaching, at absolute best it's implicit.
Bernard Muller wrote:The fact that Carrier uses that kind of evidence is telling a lot about his methodology. And I do not think he applied the Bayes theorem on that one!"
It's a bit of a let down.
And actually, the background elements that make up a fair chunk of the book (and from which we have been excerpting and discussing) do not seem to feed into any Bayesian calculation at all. They just sit there as interesting facts. The Bayesian calculations are only done on the classic pieces of evidence : Paul, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, External etc.
Bernard Muller wrote:Sure Carrier is right about "Rises" being a heavenly being for Philo, but he is wrong about Philo naming "Rises"(the incorporeal Son of God) for the man Jesus (son of Josedec). That's certainly not the case.
Actually, I agree, and I agree with Doherty - Carrier is stretching.
Carrier wrote:and this preexistent spiritual son of God had already been explicitly connected with a celestial Jesus figure in the OT (discussed in Element 6),
Yes - 'explicitly connected' is reaching, at absolute best it's implicit.
Bernard Muller wrote:The fact that Carrier uses that kind of evidence is telling a lot about his methodology. And I do not think he applied the Bayes theorem on that one!"
It's a bit of a let down.
And actually, the background elements that make up a fair chunk of the book (and from which we have been excerpting and discussing) do not seem to feed into any Bayesian calculation at all. They just sit there as interesting facts. The Bayesian calculations are only done on the classic pieces of evidence : Paul, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, External etc.
Kapyong
Interesting.....
It seems to me that perhaps Carrier has failed to make a case for Doherty's celestial Pauline christ figure being historicized as the gospel Jesus. By all means have a Pauline celestial christ figure - but, methinks, better to stop there. Reading Paul into the gospel Jesus story was never going anywhere....except, perhaps, to give the historicists ammunition by which to attack the ahistoricists position....
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Kapyong wrote: The Talmud makes no mention of Christianity and shows no sign of being a response to it. So it must be an early tradition.
While I believe this is generally true (and Targum Jonathan as well), and probably always true in the Talmud in relation to Messianic perspectives, there are a specific series of passages that appear to be a response to Jesus.
