Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

[GakuseiDon]

MY CONCLUSION:

So, in light of Gullotta's criticisms, Carrier might think his thesis can still survive that Jesus was based on some angel, and I too.

Exactly! As I've said on the other thread, as long as Jesus was believed to be a pre-Christian celestial being somehow named "Jesus", then Dr Carrier's theory is still viable on that point. "Archangel", "angel", "Logos" -- it doesn't matter.

However, this debate is just going to go round and round. And I blame Carrier squarely for this. Just like he uses his stupid term "outer space" to encompass the lower heavens and upper heavens (very, very different metaphysical areas!) causing confusion and making discussions difficult, he's done the same here.

From OHJ (my bolding):

... the basic thesis of every competent mythicist, then and now, has always been that Jesus was originally a god, just like any other god (properly speaking, a demigod in pagan terms; an archangel in Jewish terms; in either sense, a deity), 15 who was later historicized, just as countless other gods were... (page 52)

... I shall use god to mean any celestial being with supernatural power, and God to mean a supreme creator deity. Though by this definition angels and demons are indeed gods, I'll sometimes (but not always) use angel or archangel to refer to 'gods' that are believed to be acting as messengers or servants of God... (page 60)

A 'god' is not an archangel!!! "Archangels" are usually considered a specific class of beings, given names (e.g. Micha-EL, Gabri-EL, Kal-El ) and jobs. If, on one hand, Carrier is using the term as a handle synonymous with 'gods' who are messengers, while on the other hand, scholars are using the term as used in scholarship, they will continually talk past each other. This is what has been driving the confusion in arguments on this board, and misunderstandings between Dr Hurtado and Carrier. I wish Carrier would stick to "celestial being", and not use "archangel" unless he damn well means "archangel" and only "archangel".

And a shake of a fist at you too, Giuseppe! You seem to love the old texts as much as I do. Don't add to the confusion!

[MrMacSon]

Perceptions and names for pre-Christian celestial beings probably varied from place to place and time to time. They are likely to have been moved through the realms.

[karavan]

That's not a credible position at all @Giuseppe.

"We know from the Hymn to Philippians that at least the same Christians were giving to a divine being the name 'Jesus' ('Jesus' being clearly the ''name above all names'' that is given to a suffering hero, per Couchoud)."

This is a total red herring — Jesus wasn't an angel for Paul. So it makes literally zero difference that Paul thought Jesus was God. The question is not whether Paul thought Jesus was God (he did), but if he thought he was an angel. Good luck convincing someone on that, given the total absence of evidence.

"But for Ehrman (see my post above), an angel is precisely"

But the thing is, for *Paul*, Jesus was not an angel. It doesn't matter what Ehrman defines an angel as, if it blatantly contradicts what Paul defined an angel as. We're discussing if PAUL thought Jesus was an angel, correct? The obvious dichotomy between Jesus and angels in Romans 8 should be enough to settle that. Angels belong to the created realm.

The "Ebionite's" were a tiny, later sect whose opinions you can't just back-project more than a whole century onto Paul. The Ebionite's were also vegetarians. Do you know what Paul wrote about vegetarianism? That he wasn't a vegetarian. This is a total red herring.

Carrier's views about Jesus being a historicized celestial angel is totally ridiculous. On the face of it, like 95% of angel names ended in -El. Already, Jesus is a huge exception and part of an unlikely minority from that tradition. And no, "Immanuel" is not an angel name, it was a later association Christians made with Isaiah. Jesus' name was *Jesus*, the sixth most common name of the average Jew in the century based on an archaeological survey.

[Giuseppe]

But the thing is, for *Paul*, Jesus was not an angel. It doesn't matter what Ehrman defines an angel as, if it blatantly contradicts what Paul defined an angel as. We're discussing if PAUL thought Jesus was an angel, correct? The obvious dichotomy between Jesus and angels in Romans 8 should be enough to settle that. Angels belong to the created realm.

"angel" or "archangel" makes no difference for what matters here: said bluntly, Jesus' pre-existence in Paul implies Jesus's non-existence in Paul.

[Giuseppe]

Obviously the reversal is valid, too: remove Jesus's pre-existence from Paul, and you will remove Jesus's non-existence from Paul.

[karavan]

Sorry, wha?

[ABuddhist]

Sorry, wha?

I believe that Giuseppe is approaching Pauline texts from a materialistic atheistic perspective: pre-existent beings (gods) do not exist, but Paul presents Jesus as a pre-existent being - therefore, Paul is presenting a Jesus who does not exist.

As a non-materialist atheist (who only rejects uncreated creator gods even as I recognize that gods and humans claim incorrectly to be uncreated creator gods), I think that the interpretation that I have outlined is strange, because even though Giuseppe and I agree that certain types of gods do not exist, I recognize that we must reconstruct what Paul believed and regard it as being believed to be real by Paul and his followers - even though it is impossible and absurd.

Thus, it is absurd to believe that an uncreated creator god sent his divine son to Earth in order to be crucified in order to buy our salvation from the uncreated creator god's wrath - but Paul believed such (according to mainstream biblical scholarship).

It is also absurd to believe that an uncreated creator god sent his divine son to a heavenly location in order to be crucified in order to buy our salvation from the uncreated creator god's wrath - but Paul believed such (according to some mythicists such as Dr. Carrier).

It is also absurd to believe that an uncreated creator god sent his pre-existing divine son to be crucified in order to buy our salvation from the uncreated creator god's wrath - but Paul believed such (according to some Giuseppe, if I understand him correctly).

[Giuseppe]

It is more simple than that. I can't prevent a person from believing the craziest things.

What I can't frankly believe about Paul, is the contemporary presence in the his genuine epistles of:

• the belief in the pre-existence of the his Jesus and

• the belief that the his Jesus had lived recently on the earth an entire life on the earth.

[ABuddhist]

It is more simple than that. I can't prevent a person from believing the craziest things.

What I can't frankly believe about Paul, is the contemporary presence in the his genuine epistles of:

• the belief in the pre-existence of the his Jesus and

• the belief that the his Jesus had lived recently on the earth an entire life on the earth.

So, you are saying that Paul, as represented by his letters, neither believed that Jesus was pre-existent nor that Jesus had lived recently on the earth an entire life on the earth.

What do you think that Paul believed about Jesus? That Jesus had been a figure from some mythic past, along the lines of Inachos, Kassapa Buddha, Heracles, or Krishna? That Jesus had lived his life upon the earth in a more distant past (as with the Spartan cult of Lycurgus)?

[Giuseppe]

So, you are saying that Paul, as represented by his letters, neither believed that Jesus was pre-existent nor that Jesus had lived recently on the earth an entire life on the earth.

my point is that the two beliefs (recent entire life on earth and pre-existence) are mutually exclusive. The same historical individual couldn't have both the beliefs.

It is slightly more probable that, among the two beliefs (recent entire life on earth and pre-existence), the first (=recent entire life on earth ) was original, than the second (=pre-existence).

What do you think that Paul believed about Jesus?

if you mean the Paul who talks about pre-existence, then I follow Dujardin about the crucifixion being a ritual practiced periodically from ancestral times. The "victim" played the role of the god Jesus during the short time of the sacred drama. Something happened during the last of the those rituals: a hallucination en masse during which all the sectarians had identified completely the recipient (=the human actor) with the spirit-possessor (=the god Jesus), just as it happened sometimes during the Catholic celebration of the Eucharist (I think about the so-called Eucharistic Miracle). The "fact" provoked a new birth of a religion already in existence.

An intriguing possibility: the name of the human actor, during the celebration of the last ritual, was Simon.

This scenario explains why the first gospel, Mark or proto-Mark,

• 1) had a separationist christology, as witnessed by Irenaeus:
  
  
  Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.
  
  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103311.htm

• 2) was a sacred drama hence a sacred liturgy. The Liturgical Hypothesis says that the liturgy of reading from the holy scriptures determined for each moment of the calendar cycle what passages of the prophets and of the Gospel were to be read.