Did Jesus Die in Outer Space?

[MrMacSon]

.
It was the public crucifixion, execution, that, as it were, set the ball rolling. From that tragedy a new theological/philosophical development arose. 'Salvation' was not physical but intellectual. Sure, this new theology/philosophy was dressed up in the world view of that time. Strip away the fancy dress and what is left was way ahead of it's time: That in order to move forward intellectually it is necessary to 'crucify' outdated mental images. Intellectual evolution is not an automatic process - it requires conscious deliberate action - it requires intellectual 'warfare'.

Interesting.

I would say the brutality of the narrative of the crucifixion of a revered savior/messiah would have had a profound effect, and been used to profound effect; as it is today. I would say it was used to "crucify" 'other mental images', including those mental images & aspirations generated by theology portrayed as outdated.

The resurrection and proposed 2nd coming would have been part of the effect, and the manipulated success of the theology.

I wonder if the resurrection and 2nd coming were then confusions of similar concepts that became lore.

[Clive]

Umm, as the one in space is fictional, why shouldn't the alleged equivalence on earth also be fictional?

And the arguments here are assuming the heavens and the earth are separate things, but in the classic descriptions they are not - god walked in the garden of Eden.

This separation is a later idea, expressed by Plato and later Paul - glass darkly. We have formalised this separation into the idea of natural and supernatural, a late medieval idea.

Might it help if we were clear about the world views writers are using?

[Clive]

It is actually quite surreal, an early form of the trinity, the two crucifixions, the heavenly and earthly one became one to save the universe - death where is thy sting, and usher in a new heaven and earth. It is all there in the New Testament. Read all of it as one book - it was edited to do precisely that! I strongly recommend the NEB.

[Clive]

Acknowledge that people in the 1st/2nd century (most of them illiterate) had some common sense (& religious aspirations) and were living mostly in a secular, "low-tech" (& unscholarly!) world: they thought in real time (their own day to day present).

I think this fails. I don't actually believe people have alleged simple and complex views somehow dependent on education. My understanding of anthropology and archaeology is that everyone has highly sophisticated perspectives.

I am very suspicious of alleged common sense, and I would strongly argue that if they are parts of literate cultures, although illiterate themselves, they are highly experienced at other forms of literature, like listening and telling stories, theatre, making things with their hands, ...

The Incas were allegedly illiterate.

Quipus (or khipus), sometimes called talking knots, were recording devices historically used in the region of Andean South America. A quipu usually consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama or alpaca hair. It could also be made of cotton cords. For the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and military organization.[1] The cords contained numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords.[2] The configuration of the quipus have also been "compared to string mops."[3] Archaeological evidence has also shown a use of finely carved wood as a supplemental, and perhaps more sturdy, base on which the color-coordinated cords would be attached.[4] A relatively large number have survived.

Objects that can be identified unambiguously as quipus first appear in the archaeological record in the first millennium CE. They subsequently played a key part in the administration of Tahuantinsuyu, the empire controlled by the Incan ethnic group, which flourished across the Andes from c. 1450 to 1532 CE. As the region was subsumed under the invading Spanish Empire, the use of the quipu faded from use, to be replaced by European writing systems. However, in several villages, quipu continued to be important items for the local community, albeit for ritual rather than recording use. It is unclear as to where and how many intact quipus still exist, as many have been stored away in mausoleums, 'along with the dead.'[5]

Quipu is the Spanish spelling and the most common spelling in English.[citation needed] Khipu (pronounced [ˈkʰipu]) is the word for "knot" in Cusco Quechua (the native Inca language); the kh is an aspirated k. In most Quechua varieties, the term is kipu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

[Peter Kirby]

But the best possible case could put the critics on their heels. It could show that Tacitus wrote about Jesus and that this is more likely if Jesus were historical. It could revive the Josephus argument. It could pull the rug on attempts to find Christians without a belief in a historical Christ crucified under Pilate. Most importantly, it could show that the Gospels make the most sense if they are about a historical person. But somebody needs to do the hard work to make that best possible case.

I thought Bart Ehrman already did that in: "Did Jesus Exist?".

What makes you think so?

[GakuseiDon]

Probably best at this point that we go over Carrier's reasons for the need to reconstruct an earlier version of the S/L texts, to see how strong they are. Anyone willing to do this? I'm happy to do this, but won't have time to get to it for a few days. (Probably best to be done by someone who supports Carrier on this point also, to avoid charges of misrepresentation.)

I trust you to be fair, and you haven't disappointed at all. Take your time.

Thanks Peter for those kind words! I've gone over OHJ on the AoI thoroughly now, and will post my analysis of his reasons shortly. But it looks like he made the same mistake that Doherty made, and with the same consequences.

[Clive]

I wonder if there is too narrow a group of contributors here, who are unaware of how thinking about symbols and religion are changing.

Some of their Iron Age swords, complete with their intact hilts and scabbards, have to be seen to be believed. They’ve also found woven prehistoric fabrics, which (probably due to an accident of soil chemistry) haven’t survived at Flag Fen.

And then, of course, they found those nine complete Bronze Age boats. Nothing like them has ever been found before in Europe.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news ... -1-5223526

’ve taken two photos of the five blackbirds, to show their colour, modelling and the hole in their beaks. They are arranged in order of time, from left to right. No. 1 (on the left) was bought in the 1970s. It is probably quite a faithful representation of a an earlier 20th Century example, with good modelling and three colours of glaze; note how the glaze around the beak makes an attempt to mimic a real bird, also note the painted claws. The next bird (bought in the 1980s) is cruder than No. 1, but the shape is still recognizably that of a blackbird. The black glaze representing the bird’s feathers is confined to the bird’s body, and does not extend to the feet/perch. Bird 3 was bought in the 1990s and represents the low point of the typological series. The shape is rounded and frog-like and the glaze covers too much. The boundary between beak and neck makes no attempt to look bird-like. It’s tempting to suggest that in the 1990s few people cared much about cooking or baking pies and were heating-up ready-meals in microwaves. Bird No. 4 was bought after 2000 and is a fashionably minimalist representation of the blackbird. On the whole, the shape is well modelled and quite convincing, even if the poor bird looks like it has been fired up the barrel of a gun. The china too, is of better quality. And then we come to No. 5, which was bought after 2010. This blackbird is blue and made from the new wonder kitchen material: non-stick silicone; it has a yellow beak, made from a separate piece of silicone. By now although the material has changed, the modelling has returned to the shape of No. 1, even down to the detail of the gap in the base of the foot, where the steam enters. It’s tempting to suggest that the improved shapes of the last two blackbirds reflects a renewed interest in cooking, albeit as a hobby, or something done at weekends. I think blackbirds No. 2 and 3 say something rather sad about the ‘80s and the ‘90s. Or maybe I am reading too much into things which if I excavated them on site, I would probably interpret as religious offerings: the Cult of the Stiff-Necked Blackbird. How could I possibly know they were strictly utilitarian and owed their strange shape to a nursery rhyme? The frustration! There are times I would happily sell my soul to get inside the minds of prehistoric men and women.

http://pryorfrancis.wordpress.com/2014/ ... lackbirds/

[GakuseiDon]

In OHJ, Carrier writes on page 41 that "My perspective on this document [Ascension of Isaiah] has been inspired by the analysis in Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God nor Man". That's interesting, because Carrier seems to make the same mistake that Doherty made in J:NGNM, as I explained earlier in this thread. Carrier seems to imply that "in your form" in 9.13 is not in the earlier S/L texts. As Doherty noted, this is "a reference to human form and probably a reference to earth." (See my website for details here. Given that the Beloved's form is explicitly stated in the other levels of descent, I can't see it referring to any other level except earth.

Carrier writes, again on page 41:

• In other words, instead of conducting a ministry on earth, Jesus is commanded to go straight to the firmament and die... The 'tree' on which he is crucified (9.14) is thus implied to be one of the 'copies' of trees that we're told are in the firmament (7. 10).

As both Bernard Muller and I pointed out, the text doesn't claim that there are "copies" of anything in 7.10. But leaving that aside, is the implication in 9.14 that the tree was in the firmament?

Let's look at 9.12 to 9.14: (items enclosed with [**] below are missing from some texts)

• 12. And he said unto me: "Crowns and thrones of glory they do not receive, till the Beloved will descent in the form in which you will see Him descent [**into the world in the last days the Lord, who will be called Christ.**]
  13. Nevertheless they see and know whose will be thrones, and whose the crowns when He has descended and been made in your form, [**and they will think that He is flesh and is a man**].
  14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.

Now, "made in your form" appears in all texts. Since the Beloved takes on the form of firmament creatures in the firmament, and the form of air creatures in the air, then "in your form" would seem to be a reference to earth (as Doherty conceded in my review of J:NGNM, link above.)

But if 9.13 is a reference to a descent to earth, doesn't that suggest that the tree in 9.14 is also located on earth? I can't see it any other way, at least for the extant texts.

And from where does Carrier get "Jesus is commanded to go straight to the firmament and die"?

If my analysis is correct, then Carrier's use of AoI as support for his mythicist theory evaporates completely, as far as I can see.

I went through OHJ, to see how Carrier did his reconstruction of Ascension of Isaiah (his hypothetical version that existed before the S/L versions) and whether it would affect my analysis above. His discussion of AoI is mostly between pps 36 and 46.

My analysis:

1. Carrier concludes on page 43 that the original text of AoI didn't include most of the material currently found in Chap 11, but that the original text ended in a manner consistent with what is said in Chaps 9 and 10. This is not controversial. Chap 11 contains gospel-like details, and does not appear in the S/L versions. But the rest of Chaps 9 and 10 in the S/L forms he seems to be okay with, except for some statements that he suggests were interpolated in point 2 below. Again, these are not controversial.

2. He states that the phrases 'they will think that he is flesh and a man' (9.13) and he shall 'descend in your form' (8.26) are both missing from the Latin version, which are "the only statements outside the pocket gospel that refer to Jesus becoming like a man." (page 42). In this, Carrier is wrong. "In your form" appears in 9.13. I think that Carrier has been led astray by Doherty here, as I noted in my post above.

3. Most of the reconstruction is done on Chap 11. Since the critical reconstruction in support of his "Death in Outer Space" concept is based on his mistaken analysis of Chaps 9 and 10, it invalidates those parts of the reconstruction.

4. Carrier writes on page 41 that "The 'tree' on which he is crucified (9.14) is thus implied to be one of the 'copies' of trees that we're told are in the firmament (7. 10)." As I noted in the post above, 7.10 doesn't talk about "copies", but that aside: if "in your form" in 9.13 is a reference to earth (as Doherty conceded to me AFTER he wrote J:NGNM but which I'm guessing Carrier didn't read), then 9.14 very strongly suggests that the tree WAS on earth.

In the end, what we have in the S/L versions, is another example of a text that has a Jesus appearing on earth, but with few details, and certainly no Gospel details. This is consistent with other early texts, like 1 Clement, 1 Timothy, 1 Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, the five apologists to the pagans in the Second Century, etc, and, I would argue, consistent with the letters of Paul and the Pastorals as well. But that is a point for another day.

The main point is that AoI doesn't support Carrier's "Death in Outer Space" theory. It doesn't mean that Jesus was historical of course, since there are many examples of earthly mythical people.

Perhaps I'm overly optimitistic, but I hope that people will check up on my logic so that they can confirm my points against Carrier's "Death in Outer Space" theory.

[maryhelena]

In OHJ, Carrier writes on page 41 that "My perspective on this document [Ascension of Isaiah] has been inspired by the analysis in Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God nor Man". That's interesting, because Carrier seems to make the same mistake that Doherty made in J:NGNM, as I explained earlier in this thread. Carrier seems to imply that "in your form" in 9.13 is not in the earlier S/L texts. As Doherty noted, this is "a reference to human form and probably a reference to earth." (See my website for details here. Given that the Beloved's form is explicitly stated in the other levels of descent, I can't see it referring to any other level except earth.

Carrier writes, again on page 41:

• In other words, instead of conducting a ministry on earth, Jesus is commanded to go straight to the firmament and die... The 'tree' on which he is crucified (9.14) is thus implied to be one of the 'copies' of trees that we're told are in the firmament (7. 10).

As both Bernard Muller and I pointed out, the text doesn't claim that there are "copies" of anything in 7.10. But leaving that aside, is the implication in 9.14 that the tree was in the firmament?

Let's look at 9.12 to 9.14: (items enclosed with [**] below are missing from some texts)

• 12. And he said unto me: "Crowns and thrones of glory they do not receive, till the Beloved will descent in the form in which you will see Him descent [**into the world in the last days the Lord, who will be called Christ.**]
  13. Nevertheless they see and know whose will be thrones, and whose the crowns when He has descended and been made in your form, [**and they will think that He is flesh and is a man**].
  14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.

Now, "made in your form" appears in all texts. Since the Beloved takes on the form of firmament creatures in the firmament, and the form of air creatures in the air, then "in your form" would seem to be a reference to earth (as Doherty conceded in my review of J:NGNM, link above.)

But if 9.13 is a reference to a descent to earth, doesn't that suggest that the tree in 9.14 is also located on earth? I can't see it any other way, at least for the extant texts.

And from where does Carrier get "Jesus is commanded to go straight to the firmament and die"?

If my analysis is correct, then Carrier's use of AoI as support for his mythicist theory evaporates completely, as far as I can see.

I went through OHJ, to see how Carrier did his reconstruction of Ascension of Isaiah (his hypothetical version that existed before the S/L versions) and whether it would affect my analysis above. His discussion of AoI is mostly between pps 36 and 46.

My analysis:

1. Carrier concludes on page 43 that the original text of AoI didn't include most of the material currently found in Chap 11, but that the original text ended in a manner consistent with what is said in Chaps 9 and 10. This is not controversial. Chap 11 contains gospel-like details, and does not appear in the S/L versions. But the rest of Chaps 9 and 10 in the S/L forms he seems to be okay with, except for some statements that he suggests were interpolated in point 2 below. Again, these are not controversial.

2. He states that the phrases 'they will think that he is flesh and a man' (9.13) and he shall 'descend in your form' (8.26) are both missing from the Latin version, which are "the only statements outside the pocket gospel that refer to Jesus becoming like a man." (page 42). In this, Carrier is wrong. "In your form" appears in 9.13. I think that Carrier has been led astray by Doherty here, as I noted in my post above.

3. Most of the reconstruction is done on Chap 11. Since the critical reconstruction in support of his "Death in Outer Space" concept is based on his mistaken analysis of Chaps 9 and 10, it invalidates those parts of the reconstruction.

4. Carrier writes on page 41 that "The 'tree' on which he is crucified (9.14) is thus implied to be one of the 'copies' of trees that we're told are in the firmament (7. 10)." As I noted in the post above, 7.10 doesn't talk about "copies", but that aside: if "in your form" in 9.13 is a reference to earth (as Doherty conceded to me AFTER he wrote J:NGNM but which I'm guessing Carrier didn't read), then 9.14 very strongly suggests that the tree WAS on earth.

In the end, what we have in the S/L versions, is another example of a text that has a Jesus appearing on earth, but with few details, and certainly no Gospel details. This is consistent with other early texts, like 1 Clement, 1 Timothy, 1 Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, the five apologists to the pagans in the Second Century, etc, and, I would argue, consistent with the letters of Paul and the Pastorals as well. But that is a point for another day.

The main point is that AoI doesn't support Carrier's "Death in Outer Space" theory. It doesn't mean that Jesus was historical of course, since there are many examples of earthly mythical people.

Perhaps I'm overly optimitistic, but I hope that people will check up on my logic so that they can confirm my points against Carrier's "Death in Outer Space" theory.

The thread on the old FRDB, mention on GDon's above link, can be accessed via:

http://frdb.talkfreethought.org/thearch ... p?t=296954

(it might be restricted to member of the old FRDB - but maybe new members of 'talkfreethought' can get access. FRDB archives now under 'talkfreethought'. The thread contains exchanges between GDon and Earl Doherty.)

[John T]

But the best possible case could put the critics on their heels. It could show that Tacitus wrote about Jesus and that this is more likely if Jesus were historical. It could revive the Josephus argument. It could pull the rug on attempts to find Christians without a belief in a historical Christ crucified under Pilate. Most importantly, it could show that the Gospels make the most sense if they are about a historical person. But somebody needs to do the hard work to make that best possible case.

I thought Bart Ehrman already did that in: "Did Jesus Exist?".

What makes you think so?

Ehrman gives many examples that Jesus did exist. He points out the logical consistency and empirical adequacy of scripture with contemporary history of the 1st century A.D. Ehrman also breaks down the fallacies of the leading mythicists who throw aside rational reasoning and use illogical methods and bizarre interpretations of scripture to deny the existence of Jesus.

I would highly recommend Carrier fans and mythicist read, "Did Jesus Exist" but I strongly suspect they won't.

"In Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman builds a technical argument and shows that one of the reasons for knowing that Jesus existed is that if someone invented Jesus, they would not have created a messiah who was so easily overcome."...NPR Book review

That is not to say that Ehrman finds the Bible without error and neither do I.

"The mythicists have some right things to say," Ehrman says. "The Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical."...NPR

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/01/149462376 ... s-his-case

Sincerely,

John T