Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Jesus must have had a large wardrobe with different clothes sizes:
Photios BIBLIOTHECA 114 wrote:
"He [Lucius Charinus] asserts that He [Jesus] never was really made man, but only in appearance; that He appeared at different times in different form to His disciples, now as a young, now as an old man, and then again as a boy, now taller, now shorter, now very tall, so that His head reached nearly to heaven."

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/phot ... ca.htm#114
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billd89
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Body-Swap: "Later that night..."

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:06 pm Jesus must have had a large wardrobe with different clothes sizes:
Photios BIBLIOTHECA 114 wrote:
"He [Lucius Charinus] asserts that He [Jesus] never was really made man, but only in appearance; that He appeared at different times in different form to His disciples, now as a young, now as an old man, and then again as a boy, now taller, now shorter, now very tall, so that His head reached nearly to heaven."

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/phot ... ca.htm#114
I've been researching palingenesia, metempsychosis, metanoia, etc. for almost 7 years now. The phenomenon intrigues me, objectively. If you want to understand Rebirth, you must boldly, fearlessly look within. It also gets weird, fast.

I vaguely remember watching "Freaky Friday" (mid-1970s) and reading ancient Greek myth (e.g. where the gods take animal forms) since childhood, but havent we all been brainwashed by Fantasy tropes since forever? My university's anthropology courses didn't scratch the surface in the early 1990s. So Halloween guising is an ancient rite, and Body Dysmorphia and Transsexualism are both known, more extreme forms of some very deep-seated complex or desire in the human psyche to escape (or radically reconfigure) one's own body. It's not 'done' either -- cyborgs are here, and we're at the very cusp of an AI sentience which will transform humankind's physical and psychical forms 'beyond our wildest dreams' within the next two decades.

I admit that I cannot even fathom it, and it was never 'my thing', but the internet reveals entire communities of the strangest fetish genres. So I spotted "body swap" or "shapeshift", a quaint kink which demonstrates this alternative identity yearning? or narcissistic expression? for a base sort of palingenesia. Not that I know what I'm talking about, lol, but there's something here on point.

In academic inquiry, you may find dozens of Tumblrs to illustrate this (admittedly sexualized) Cross-Identity topic:
https://bodyswap-possession-shapeshift.tumblr.com/

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Secret Alias
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

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This is why my 'Jewish mythicist theory' is so superior to all other models for early Christianity. You can trace a line from Philo to early Christianity and then fill in the blanks with Jewish and Samaritan exegesis of the Pentateuch. There is a 'Man' in the first five books of the Bible (mostly Genesis and Exodus). The Church Fathers say that this is 'Jesus' (or the nomen sacrum which we have learned to read as 'Jesus'). It is unlikely that this figure was clothed. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/323163 This idea that the man was pagan this or that is just reflective of the imagination or taste of the person developing this silly theory.
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

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Edwards, Gabel, and Hosmer write, “He (the crucified victim) was usually naked, unless this was prohibited by local customs.” Edwards, William D. Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 255. No. 11. 21 March 1986. 1459.
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billd89
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Re: Question for Mythicists

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Shameless Materialism.
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Secret Alias »

Not only is the idea of 'the naked following the naked Christ' associated with Mark chapter 10 (Jerome and others) but the entire section which follows. Consider the following:
In contrast to Bartimaeus, who casts aside his cloak to follow Jesus (10:50–52), and those who spread their cloaks on the road before Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem (11:8), this young man abandons his cloak to flee naked from Jesus. https://books.google.com/books?id=DfgQB ... 22&f=false
I remind the reader of Clement of Alexandria's understanding of Mark chapter 10 in QDs (not the Letter of Theodore):
In the same way there is a genuine poor man, and another counterfeit and falsely so called. He that is poor in spirit, and that is the right thing, and he that is poor in a worldly sense, which is a different thing. To him who is poor in worldly goods, but rich in vices, who is not poor in spirit and rich toward God, it is said, Abandon the alien possessions that are in your soul, that, becoming pure in heart, you may see God; which is another way of saying, Enter into the kingdom of heaven. And how may you abandon them? By selling them. What then? Are you to take money for effects, by effecting an exchange of riches, by turning your visible substance into money? Not at all. But by introducing, instead of what was formerly inherent in your soul, which you desire to save, other riches which deify and which minister everlasting life, dispositions in accordance with the command of God; for which there shall accrue to you endless reward and honour, and salvation, and everlasting immortality. It is thus that you rightly sell the possessions, many are superfluous, which shut the heavens against you by exchanging them for those which are able to save. Let the former be possessed by the carnal poor, who are destitute of the latter. But you, by receiving instead spiritual wealth, shall have now treasure in the heavens.

The wealthy and legally correct man, not understanding these things figuratively, nor how the same man can be both poor and rich, and have wealth and not have it, and use the world and not use it, went away sad and downcast, leaving the state of life, which he was able merely to desire but not to attain, making for himself the difficult impossible. For it was difficult for the soul not to be seduced and ruined by the luxuries and flowery enchantments that beset remarkable wealth; but it was not impossible, even surrounded with it, for one to lay hold of salvation, provided he withdrew himself from material wealth — to that which is grasped by the mind and taught by God, and learned to use things indifferent rightly and properly, and so as to strive after eternal life. And the disciples even themselves were at first alarmed and amazed. Why were they so on hearing this? Was it that they themselves possessed much wealth? Nay, they had long ago left their very nets, and hooks, and rowing boats, which were their sole possessions. Why then do they say in consternation, Who can be saved? They had heard well and like disciples what was spoken in parable and obscurely by the Lord, and perceived the depth of the words. For they were sanguine of salvation on the ground of their want of wealth. But when they became conscious of not having yet wholly renounced the passions (for they were neophytes and recently selected by the Saviour), they were excessively astonished, and despaired of themselves no less than that rich man who clung so terribly to the wealth which he preferred to eternal life. It was therefore a fit subject for all fear on the disciples' part; if both he that possesses wealth and he that is teeming with passions were the rich, and these alike shall be expelled from the heavens. For salvation is the privilege of pure and passionless souls.
The coincidence that there are so many references to 'stripping' in the sections that follow the question of the rich man can't be coincidence. There was

1. the section that immediately precedes with the example of the παιδία who were inevitably understood to be naked in antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnopaedia

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the lesson here is that we must take (δέξηται) the kingdom of God as a παιδίον as a LITTLE child i.e. a naked one

2. the Secret Mark passage which Clement seems to deny embodies the 'naked with naked' theme of Theodore
3. the blind Bartimaeus passage where he ἀποβαλὼν τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ (the parallels here with a reverse Eden experience are obvious i.e. whereas Adam and Eve only see that they are naked when they bite the fruit the blind man sees when he is naked.
4. the naked process of his entrance into Jerusalem - καὶ φέρουσιν τὸν πῶλον πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν, καὶ ἐπιβάλλουσιν αὐτῷ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐπ’ αὐτόν. καὶ πολλοὶ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν ἔστρωσαν εἰς τὴν ὁδόν, ἄλλοι δὲ στιβάδας κόψαντες ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν.

So clearly under this interpretation Jesus's naked message has gone throughout the world and a scene from 'Oh Calcutta concludes the narrative. Jesus must be naked for this scene and if his name is 'Man' as I suggest it is the inversion of the events in Eden where instead of humanity walking away with 'skins' or coverings they have taken off their coverings as preparation from being translated into angels.

5. the Passion narrative necessarily presupposes nakedness and clothing and then nakedness
6. concluding with a naked crucifixion
7. and an empty tomb where the flesh disappear as a promise to heavenly translation/transfiguration.
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Secret Alias »

I think the situation here is simply BECAUSE we want the gospel to be 'real' we exclude all evidence which argues that it's essentially silly or at least unusual and unhistorical.
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Secret Alias »

And then from the perspective of the gospel of Mark. If we are to incorporate the Letter to Theodore:

1. Theodore is asking about 'naked with naked' (= nudism) after/in Mark chapter 10
2. Clement says no nudism in the extra scene in Secret Mark nor in blind Bartomaeus
3. the gospel of Mark CAN be read is a call to nudism in the concluding sequence i.e. strip your clothes and then eventually when you die you'll lose your materialism

No one ever read the gospel this way EXCEPT EVERYONE https://www.academia.edu/10372004/_Nudu ... ury_Italy_ So like the detractors of the Letter to Theodore make it about HOMOSEXUALITY plain and simple. The text has no reference to homosexuality only nudism.
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Secret Alias »

So the question is:

is the gospel a historical documentation of the death of a 'Galilean peasant' by crucifixion or a story about the liberating effects of nudity which culminated in a explicitly 'public' naked death?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Question for Mythicists: Did Jesus Wear Clothes?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Was Morton Smith "set up" to "discover" the Mar Saba letter ?
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