Histoire et mythe à propos de Jésus-Christ by Alfred Loisy

[Giuseppe]

Has someone this book of Loisy?

It seems that it has not only a criticism of Couchoud (probably not different from the 'criticism' a Carrier would receive today by a McGrath) but also something of more interesting: why the reasons Marcion couldn't have written the first gospel would be the same reasons why Turmel is wrong to argue that Marcion interpolated the great part of the epistles.

[Giuseppe]

of interest.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/ ... 56-008/pdf

[Giuseppe]

Found a copy on ebay.

Next I will quote something of interesting. I can't believe that Alfred Loisy reduced himself to the mere role of a Christian apologist.

[Peter Kirby]

Found a copy on ebay.

Next I will quote something of interesting. I can't believe that Alfred Loisy reduced himself to the mere role of a Christian apologist.

He was a Christian, wasn't he? Should someone not write in support of what they believe?

[schillingklaus]

So what? Detering was a Christian, too; yet he had no qualms stating the inauthenticity of the epistles and the inaccuracy of the gospel narrative as a whole.

[Peter Kirby]

So what? Detering was a Christian, too; yet he had no qualms stating the inauthenticity of the epistles and the inaccuracy of the gospel narrative as a whole.

So what indeed? In each case, they argued for the conclusions that they held.

[Giuseppe]

To my knowledge, he was not a Christian. My claim is based only on the fact that the Italian apologist Giuseppe Ricciotti counted, rather polemically, Loisy among the "eschatologists" who denied the Pauline paternity of a great part of the epistles (remember that Loisy was influenced by Turmel about Paul) in order to better explain the birth of the high christology.

As the argument goes: Paul minus the mysticism of the epistles implies historicity.

[Giuseppe]

It seems that Loisy was a pantheist:

He regarded such mysteries as the incarnation of God as mere metaphors and symbols, and described his own religious belief as pantheistic, positivistic, or humanitarian rather than Christian.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... -1857-1940

[Giuseppe]

The book has arrived very rapidly!

It is incredible the pure hatred (!) Loisy shows again and again against Couchoud.

For example, I read this:

J'ai déjà signalé que l'apologiste Quadratus, sous le règne d'Hadrien, célébrait le grand nombre des résurrections opérées par Jésus et dont quelques-uns des bénéficiaires auraient encore survécu de son temps. Les survivants de l'apparition aux cinq cent frères pourraient bien être apparentés aux ressuscités de Quadratus. Le Paul qui parle ici se fait naturellement contemporain de l'âge apostolique et il affecte d'autoriser son miracle par des témoins irrécusables. Couchoud, qui pourtant n'est pas un naïf, n'hésite pas à le prendre au mot: il importe au bien de son mythe que Paul et tous les autres délirent à plaisir.

(p. 35-36, my bold)

It is evident the great embarrassment, for the historicist Loisy, represented by 500 brothers who have hallucinations of the risen Jesus. So it is not only the poor Paul the hallucinator. So also the Pillars were hallucinators. What is the probability that even only one of those hallucinators had known a Jesus "in the flesh"? Zero.

Loisy fears so much the historicity of a such collective hallucination, so fatal for the credibility/rationality of the presumed disciples of a historical Jesus, that he rejects the entire list of resurrection's visions as interpolation.

[Giuseppe]

I see that surely Ben C. Smith is more intellectually honest than Alfred Loisy, despite of the fact that I have always considered the former secretly a Christian apologist.

Loisy, commenting the following words of Couchoud:

Le Christ Jésus qui est pleinement Dieu, antérieur à toute créature, s'est fait non seulement serviteur (paîs) mas esclave (doûlos), car la crucifixion est le supplice des esclaves.

...so writes:

Notons cette habileté de langage: on est invité à supposer que l'idée de la crucifixion a été déduite de la condition d'esclave attribuée à l'Etre divin dans l'occasion indiquée. Mais ceci n'est qu'un sophisme dissimulé sous un artifice de style.

(ibid., p. 75)

Compare the apologetical rapidity by which Loisy would like to avoid any further exam of the mythicist evidence raised by the logical implication:

"pais/slave---> choice of crucifixion as form of death"

...with the honest coming out in a skeptical direction done by Ben C. Smith:

Another explanation of the origin of the crucifixion, one very interesting:

Ben has talked about the crucifixion as a servile supplicium by definition, since this form of death was applied to slaves in primis.

The translation of the Jewish word ébed (=servant), by the Greek word παῖς (child, young slave, Latin: puer) inspired the idea that the Messiah had to be of very humble condition.

He was the son (παῖς) of God, hence the slave of God (still a παῖς !), hence he had to die as a slave: i.e. crucified.

I appreciate all the contributions to this thread, from among which the above contribution has turned out to be especially illuminating to me; I originally thought that Isaiah 53 would not belong to the list in the OP because it did not specify a crucifixion (as opposed to any other kind of suffering and/or death), but juxtaposing my own observation about crucifixion being the servile supplicium alongside this important passage is like playing trump in a card game.

I honestly do not know whether an historical Jesus existed or not. But I have long been trying to imagine ways in which a purely mythical or legendary Jesus might lie at the root of Christianity, and one thing which has often held me up has been the crucifixion: why that particular form of death? I can readily admit (and did so in the OP) that some miscellaneous vision or insight could easily account for it, but the issue has always been whether it is the best way to account for it. An historical crucifixion with which Christians were stuck (and which Christians had to make the best of) always seemed to provide at least a slight advantage in trying to trace possible developmental trajectories. But that may no longer be the case for me.

So, answering to Peter Kirby: yes, Alfred Loisy was a mere Christian apologist.