Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

[ghost]

It's easy to see why and the answer takes care of the early "Church Fathers", who could not even agree on a Time Line for this Mythical Son of God. They are writing for a New Religion. Many of the writers are writing from positions inside the Roman Court!

There's a Mystery here??!?

The Roman religion (religio Romana) was already there; so it would have been more economical to base the "new" religion on the Roman religion as opposed to starting from scratch.

[Stephan Huller]

The examples of Mary Helena and ghost are instructive for anyone who wants to use 'mimesis' to turn the gospel narrative inside out for intellectual repurposing. No one can deny that the Torah, the Jewish prophetic writings and other ancient source material is referenced in the evangelist's narrative. But can we use that fact to make the claim that nothing is as it seems, that 'Jesus' is really someone else, that what appears to be about a crucifixion under Pilate is really about a wholly separate person in a wholly separate age? Of course not. But Mary and ghost march along undeterred.

It is amazing to watch Mary go through Carrier's book with obviously only one question in mind - why doesn't Carrier accept my theory about Christian origins? This is repeated overtly and covertly in every one of her posts. 'If Carrier accepts X, therefore he should accept my theory.' But why the emphasis on Carrier? The purpose of scientific investigation is to establish a set of proofs that can be duplicated (i.e. seen by anyone at any time in any place). Why not just come up with a reasonable explanation for why the gospel is apparently about a person or thing referenced in the manuscripts as ΙΣ, ΙΗ or ΙΗΣ and all the related variants who lived and was crucified in the times of Pontius Pilate?

To this point Mary has not developed a convincing argument why her explanation is better than the standard one. This isn't a slight against her. It is very difficult to disprove 2000 years of interpretation. But this is what she got herself into by joining the fraternity (or sorority) of amateur Biblical researchers. Could she find a program somewhere to accept her thesis at a reputable university or college? Of course not. Why not? Because of obvious holes in her thesis.

She points to the error in the Toledoth Yeshu to open the possibility for Jesus living in the 1st century BCE but she conveniently ignores that the same tradition by the very same line of reasoning makes reference to Jesus being crucified in the late first century CE or possibly the fourth century CE. At this point in her inquiry she should admit, the rabbinic tradition is not a reliable source of information about Jesus. Instead she goes on to double down on her original point (by way of Carrier) that the same stories were known to Christians in the fourth century.

But surely if we follow this logic the famous story of Jesus being a mamzer which is known to Celsus and Origen and a great number of other Church Fathers doesn't fit her theory, nor does being hanged from a carob tree, nor does Jesus's entering the temple and learning the Tetragrammaton (and fooling the lions which guard the holy of holies), nor being sodomized by Judas, nor being a spokesman for antinomianism, nor being a Sabbath breaker, nor does being close to the Roman government and on and on it goes.

Any reasonable person would accept the fact that they had come up with an unconvincing theory. But instead of doing this, she continues to pick through Carrier's book and ask the asinine question - 'why doesn't Carrier accept my theory?'

I happen to be friends with Richard Carrier on Facebook. He admitted in a recent post that he's broke making less than $25,000 a year and asked friends and family to make donations to him to help pay his bills. Why don't we all take up donations here and pay Carrier to go through Mary Helena's theory and offer the answer to the question that captivates her so - i.e. 'why he doesn't accept the idea that Jesus was Antigonus'? Then she can move on from asking this inane question as a pretext to explain to us why Carrier SHOULD buy into her theory.

FWIW when I completed my book I sent Richard Carrier a copy as a courtesy because I referenced him in one chapter. He read it (or at least I am certain he read the sections that made reference to him judging by his response). Let's encourage Mary Helena to put her ideas down in some plausible form and send it on to Carrier and let us get on with more important things at the forum.

[maryhelena]

The examples of Mary Helena and ghost are instructive for anyone who wants to use 'mimesis' to turn the gospel narrative inside out for intellectual repurposing. No one can deny that the Torah, the Jewish prophetic writings and other ancient source material is referenced in the evangelist's narrative. But can we use that fact to make the claim that nothing is as it seems, that 'Jesus' is really someone else, that what appears to be about a crucifixion under Pilate is really about a wholly separate person in a wholly separate age? Of course not. But Mary and ghost march along undeterred.

It is amazing to watch Mary go through Carrier's book with obviously only one question in mind - why doesn't Carrier accept my theory about Christian origins? This is repeated overtly and covertly in every one of her posts. 'If Carrier accepts X, therefore he should accept my theory.' But why the emphasis on Carrier? The purpose of scientific investigation is to establish a set of proofs that can be duplicated (i.e. seen by anyone at any time in any place). Why not just come up with a reasonable explanation for why the gospel is apparently about a person or thing referenced in the manuscripts as ΙΣ, ΙΗ or ΙΗΣ and all the related variants who lived and was crucified in the times of Pontius Pilate?

To this point Mary has not developed a convincing argument why her explanation is better than the standard one. This isn't a slight against her. It is very difficult to disprove 2000 years of interpretation. But this is what she got herself into by joining the fraternity (or sorority) of amateur Biblical researchers. Could she find a program somewhere to accept her thesis at a reputable university or college? Of course not. Why not? Because of obvious holes in her thesis.

She points to the error in the Toledoth Yeshu to open the possibility for Jesus living in the 1st century BCE but she conveniently ignores that the same tradition by the very same line of reasoning makes reference to Jesus being crucified in the late first century CE or possibly the fourth century CE. At this point in her inquiry she should admit, the rabbinic tradition is not a reliable source of information about Jesus. Instead she goes on to double down on her original point (by way of Carrier) that the same stories were known to Christians in the fourth century.

But surely if we follow this logic the famous story of Jesus being a mamzer which is known to Celsus and Origen and a great number of other Church Fathers doesn't fit her theory, nor does being hanged from a carob tree, nor does Jesus's entering the temple and learning the Tetragrammaton (and fooling the lions which guard the holy of holies), nor being sodomized by Judas, nor being a spokesman for antinomianism, nor being a Sabbath breaker, nor does being close to the Roman government and on and on it goes.

Any reasonable person would accept the fact that they had come up with an unconvincing theory. But instead of doing this, she continues to pick through Carrier's book and ask the asinine question - 'why doesn't Carrier accept my theory?'

I happen to be friends with Richard Carrier on Facebook. He admitted in a recent post that he's broke making less than $25,000 a year and asked friends and family to make donations to him to help pay his bills. Why don't we all take up donations here and pay Carrier to go through Mary Helena's theory and offer the answer to the question that captivates her so - i.e. 'why he doesn't accept the idea that Jesus was Antigonus'? Then she can move on from asking this inane question as a pretext to explain to us why Carrier SHOULD buy into her theory.

FWIW when I completed my book I sent Richard Carrier a copy as a courtesy because I referenced him in one chapter. He read it (or at least I am certain he read the sections that made reference to him judging by his response). Let's encourage Mary Helena to put her ideas down in some plausible form and send it on to Carrier and let us get on with more important things at the forum.

[ghost]

No one can deny that the Torah, the Jewish prophetic writings and other ancient source material is referenced in the evangelist's narrative. But can we use that fact to make the claim that nothing is as it seems, that 'Jesus' is really someone else, that what appears to be about a crucifixion under Pilate is really about a wholly separate person in a wholly separate age? Of course not.

That's how hypertexts and transtextuality work, including diegetic transposition.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpses ... textuelles

They could have taken the protagonist of the Roman religion and employed a Jewish priest to create a Jewish-style rewriting.

[Stephan Huller]

Do you even have a clue about what you are talking about? No of course not. You've demonstrated that time and time again.

[ghost]

Do you even have a clue about what you are talking about? No of course not. You've demonstrated that time and time again.

Just because they mention Pilate in the Jesus story doesn't mean the Jesus story can't be a rewrite of an older story. They could have adapted and relocated an older story to another place and time. The mention of Pilate can be just to give the impression that the story happens in the same place and time as Pilate. It's not unheard of in the history of literature that an author readapts an older story to create a newer story.

[Stephan Huller]

Just because they mention Pilate in the Jesus story doesn't mean the Jesus story can't be a rewrite of an older story.

If it was a completely fictitious story like Romeo and Juliet that would be true. But the theory breaks down when you realize that Christians have always believed that this is the story of the means by which all the world was saved. In other words, the story needs to be 'true' in order to have any salvatory power. Moreover the specific timing of the story to the age of Pilate is shown as early as the second century. Why on earth an important chronological marker like 'Pilate' would be referenced (as opposed to a generic 'the governor,' 'the Roman procurator' when this anonymous reference was certainly possible) is a strong argument in favor of the proper dating for the story.

They could have adapted and relocated an older story to another place and time.

Anything can be argued to be true. But why? Why is it MORE likely than taking the story at face value? This is a massive obstacle for any attempt at temporal relocation.

The mention of Pilate can be just to give the impression that the story happens in the same place and time as Pilate.

So you take this transportation one step further than Mary. Mary says:

Explicit dating of the gospel narrative in the narrative itself (wrong), explicit names of important characters in the narrative (wrong), but explicit reference to the location of the story (correct = Judea)

You absurdly say:

Explicit dating of the gospel narrative in the narrative itself (wrong), explicit names of important characters in the narrative (wrong), explicit reference to the location of the story (wrong)

Don't you see how stupid this becomes when all of you are gathered together in one place like lunatics in a mental hospital? It is one thing to make an argument that certain temporal markers are 'wrong.' For instance Mark doesn't reference 'the fifteenth of Tiberius.' One can make the case that early witnesses make reference to another time - i.e. 'the seventh of Tiberius.' But what you are doing TOGETHER is simply ludicrous.

If you and Mary can remove all boundaries and argue for EITHER Caesar or Antigonus how are we to differentiate between the two? In other words, if anything goes can't Jesus have been any murdered individual in antiquity? Or perhaps we can go one step further and say not only is the dating of the narrative (wrong), not only the names of important characters (wrong), not only the location (wrong) but the fact that the main protagonist was crucified (wrong). In fact if you are going to make Caesar = Jesus you have to do that as well.

This is so hopeless stupid, I can't even continue with this.

It's not unheard of in the history of literature that an author readapts an older story to create a newer story.

But if you remove the time, date, names of characters, central details about what happened to the individuals - WTF is left to distinguish the founder of Christianity from anyone in history?

[Stephan Huller]

At least Carrier has really only removed (a) the dating for Jesus and (b) the circumstances of his death. I don't accept his proposition but at least he's not saying:

(1) change the names of the main characters
(2) change the time they lived
(3) change the location of where they were active
(4) change the circumstances of their death

= and then you have the 'truth' about the origins of Christianity! This is so mindlessly implausible I think ghost should check himself into a clinic.

[The Crow]

Wait a minute. One source says he was beheaded by Antony, well two if you count Plutarch. My question is what sources do we have that plainly states Plutarch witnessed this event? Or his Plutarch writing only what he heard happened?

Antigonus and Plutarch are not contemporary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch

Thanks. If I had thought I would have known that.

[maryhelena]

So far for me, a stumbling block against mythicism, and a pebble on the scale weighting toward "Jesus was an actual guy," is the problem of Nazareth. I know that Nazoraios is obscure. Still, why invent a biography giving a Galilean origin to an original divine angel/god, and then later have to correct that by inserting a birthplace in Bethlehem? Though I'm not a fan of the Criterion of Embarrassment, I can't yet fathom why it's plausible to think that inventors of a biography gave the messiah an origin in Galilee and apparently only later (i.e. between gMark and gLuke/Matthew) other inventors grafted on a Bethlehem layer. Pretty poor if invention from whole cloth; understandable if a real Galilean origin had to be fudged.

Nothing unusual between a place of conception and a place of birth

That's gLuke's story.

I don't think Bethlehem was a later addition. The Toldot Yeshu and Slavonic Josephus give Bethlehem as place of birth - both setting the birth narrative earlier than gLuke. Apart from gLuke's conception story set in Nazareth other symbolic meanings might well be in play. A literary, fictional, gospel Jesus can be placed wherever the storyline seeks to go....no straight lines expected here.

As for the Carrier-Doherty historicized Pauline celestial Christ figure - I've never upheld that version of mythicism. The plain vanilla version - that the gospel Jesus figure is a literary creation; a mythological or symbolic figure - hence did not exist historically - is good enough for me. That Jesus was not historical, therefore, the alternative is the Carrier-Doherty mythicist theory, is unsound reasoning.