Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 4:54 am
lclapshaw wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2024 9:27 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 5:38 pm
maryhelena wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 12:00 am
Now that I think about it - James Bond and Ian Flemming - are a pretty good example of what has happened with the gospel Jesus story. The created literary figure of James Bond has had many actors play the part in movies. As the gospel Jesus historicsts have supplied many versions of their, assumed, historical Jesus figure - seditionist to pacifist - and many more inbetween....
That's a good point. I should add that whereas "Jesus Christ" appears in the NT story under a consistent code name of "IS XS", James Bond appears under a consistent code name of "007".
Whereas Flemming provides a name behind the code the NT author(s) do not. As a result in antiquity (to return to the OP) it was not the historicity of "Jesus Christ" which may or may not have been challenged. The name of "Jesus Christ" is plastered across all modern translations of the NT but is absent from the earliest manuscript evidence. Rather what may or may not have been challenged is the historicity of the figure known as "IS XS".
Bingo! Hard to challenge the historicity of someone when you don't actually know their name.
PK reckons that the people using these texts knew how to speak the words (and thus the name) associated with these abbreviations.
That hypothesis makes perfect sense with respect to the insiders --- the people using these NT texts. People within the church with sufficient education may well have known how to speak the words (and thus the name) associated with these abbreviations "IS XS" and thus to be able to know "IS XS" was "Jesus Christ". This is a hypothesis based on "
oral transmission". And it is likely to be unfalsifiable.
However the greater problem is with those who were not "insiders" of the church texts and who would have had absolutely no idea what the abbreviations "IS XS" represented. In order to historically identify "Jesus Christ" in the texts of the church the "outsiders" had to get the meaning of the words associated with these abbreviations from the "insiders" - those within the church. This should be completely obvious.
Let's leave "007" aside. Suppose Ian Flemming's books mention "IS BD" but not "James Bond" and a small little known cult was formed about these books. If "IS BD" was an historical figure then it follows that the insiders to the identity of "IS BD" would be people within British Secret Service department of MI6. These people alone would have sufficient education (and security clearance) to know that the historical "IS BD" was the historical James Bond.
However those who were outsiders to MI6 would have absolutely no idea who the historical "IS BD" was. Interested investigators would have to turn to the elite members of MI6 as an authoritative source for the identity and history of "IS BD". The outsiders would have to turn to the insiders.
What could possibly go wrong?
Interesting....
007 = James Bond
James Bond = ? A composite or a compound figure. Hence a literary figure reflecting various historical figures.
Maybe the Jesus Christ code (if that is what it is) has more going for it than X = Y.
Fleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division and 30 Assault Unit during the Second World War, admitting that Bond "was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war".[2] Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war.[3] Aside from Fleming's brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond's make up, including Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job, Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale and Duško Popov.[2][4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming
So... to really understand how Fleming created James Bond one might investigate the historical characters that Fleming drew upon.
So.... code = Jesus Christ =. Jesus = a literary figure reflecting various historical individuals used by the creators of the gospel figure. Rather than creating a coat of many colours for gospel Jesus.... rebel Jesus, miracle Jesus, apocalyptic Jesus etc..... consider Doherty....
Earl Doherty
"I can well acknowledge that elements of several representative, historical figures fed into the myth of the Gospel Jesus, since even mythical characters can only be portrayed in terms of human personalities, especially ones from their own time that are familiar and pertinent to the writers of the myths."