Podcast Why Jesus Most Likely Existed, Tim O'Neill

[Sinouhe]

The early post-Pauline 1 Timothy mentions Pontius Pilate as Christ's judge, and the passage in Tacitus may imply that such a dating was generally held by mid 1st century Christians.

1 Timothy and Tacitus are not mid 1st century texts.
They are both dated after Mark and therefore are certainly influenced by those texts that place Jesus under Pilate.

To clarify: I would regard the positions that mid 1st century CE followers of Christ believed he had been crucified on earth, but were unclear whether this had happened at all recently, as interesting but improbable, rather than uninteresting.

Ok.

A belief that Jesus had been crucified recently does not formally prove his historicity, but (in the absence of creditable evidence to the contrary) it may make disputing his historicity uninteresting.

I agree but i see nothing in Paul to suggest that the crucifixion was recent. And given that his source is Isaiah primarily, the term recent seems to me to be a conjecture.

Mark and the other gospels add to our knowledge of what mid 1st century followers of Christ believe and hence provide additional evidence for the historicity of Jesus

This give a lot of credit to an anonymous text, with a theological vocation and written by an author who imitates ancient texts to compose fanciful anecdotes of the life of Jesus.

[rgprice]

But GD, hypotheses about "oral tradition", etc. are all unprovable and unsupported.

I haven't said anything about "oral tradition" in this thread AFAICS. That's part of what I call "the newspaper reporter's Jesus" idea, that is, Jesus was so remarkable that even if he hadn't been thought to have been resurrected, people would have written about him anyway. That's not what we see in the earliest texts.

Yet, the evidence that the Gospel of Mark follows the narrative from 1 & 2 Kings and that the scenes are all crafted from scriptural allusions relevant to the destruction of the Temple is concrete, factual and verifiable. The evidence that the Gospel of Mark is written as an introduction to the Pauline letter collection is likewise provable with real material evidence.

Sure. All perfectly consistent with a historical Jesus, just not a Gospel Jesus. And there is no reason why a historical Jesus has to be the same as a Gospel Jesus. A mythicist theory that contrasts its Jesus with a Christian apologist Gospel-like Jesus is based on a strawman.

Out of interest: how do you square the Gospel of Mark, with all its allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures framing many of the stories and sayings with regards to Jesus; with Marcion's Gospel, with stories and sayings by and about Jesus but an apparent rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures? Which one was written first, and what are the implications of that?

You may want to watch this is you have the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srDvhXanXHg

Certainly Mark is first. Marcion is a snapshot in time of what Gospel collections looked like early on, but I don't believe any canonical material derives from Marcion. Rather Marcion is a snapshot of what "proto-Luke" (or as I call it original Luke or Luke') and the earlier version of the Pauline letter collection looked like prior to proto-orthodox revisions.

Both Mark and original Luke I believe are open to Marcionite interoperation. I think Marcion's views were reasonably arrived at based on the Gospel of Mark and Luke'. We can find supporting material for Marcion's views in those works.

Allusions to the Hebrew scriptures are less apparent in Luke' than they were in Mark. But in either case, such allusions were not overt, so surely someone could have missed many of them and not recognized the relationship between the narrative and the scriptures.

Note that Matthew is a harmonization of Mark with Luke' in which the writer of Matthew specifically calls out and identifies many of the relationships between the narrative and the underlying Jewish scriptures. This is Matthew's reply against Marcion, where he point out all of the ways that Marcion has failed to recognize the links between Jesus' actions and the Jewish scriptures.

Post by GakuseiDon Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:15 pm

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Mar 02, 2023 5:56 pm
I don't know but I think it is safe to conclude the Jesus we know never existed. If there was a historical Jesus he was so different from what we know it is as if he didn't exist anyway.

Yes, that's pretty much been my position for years. I frame it as "I think some kind of historical Jesus is the best explanation for the earliest layer of Christian writings -- the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Mark -- that we have, but its so difficult to get any hard facts from them that he may as well not existed."

This is interesting, because it seems that you are agreeing with SA and I essentially.

My position is that nothing in any Gospel is based on any account of the life of Jesus. Nothing in the Pauline letters tells us anything real about a real person named Jesus. The Jesus we read about in the Gospels is entirely a literary invention.

But you say, "Yes, that may be true, BUT, I still think some real person called Jesus existed who inspired all this."

To which I (and I think SA) reply, "But if the Gospels and the Pauline letters actually tell us ZERO information about any real person named Jesus, then for all intents and purposes, the Jesus of Christianity never existed, period."

The point being, even if there was "some Jesus", if not a single real piece of information about him exists in the Christian writings , other than his name, then the person we read about in Christian writings is NOT "that Jesus". Oh and by the way, it seems that his "name" didn't' exist in the Christian writings either, as the figure being worshiped was called ΙΣ with a bar over it, so really not even anyone named Jesus was written about.

It's like saying I think Forrest Gump really existed, even though the movie Forrest Gump does not depict the life of the REAL Forrest, I still think there was a Forrest Gump. And even if there was areal person named Forrest Gump, if that person was nothing at all like the character in the movie /book, then its is still the case that the figure in the movie/book never existed.

[andrewcriddle]

A belief that Jesus had been crucified recently does not formally prove his historicity, but (in the absence of creditable evidence to the contrary) it may make disputing his historicity uninteresting.

I agree but i see nothing in Paul to suggest that the crucifixion was recent. And given that his source is Isaiah primarily, the term recent seems to me to be a conjecture.

I think we have discussed this before; but I find passages like Romans 5:8

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

as implying that Paul regarded the death of Christ as having occurred during the lifetime of his readers.

In the context of Paul's whole theology I doubt if the idea of the death of Christ as a long-ago event recently revealed is at all plausible.

Andrew Criddle

[rgprice]

But at base, I'm still left with the fundamental question: Given that the being described in Christian writings as ΙΣ, which was later translated as "Jesus", was viewed from the very earliest writings we have about "him" as: An agent of the creation of the world, one who will judge the world at the end of time, one who will destroy the material world in the future, the one who will defeat Satan, one who has overcome death, one who was sacrificed and then rose from the dead, a figure who resides in heaven and existed in heaven before the world was created, is it more likely that some human being did something to inspire people, most likely Jews, to think that he was this ultimate goldy power, OR is is more likely that this godly figure (which is remarkably similar to figures described y Philo, Neo-Platonists, and even various sects of Jews) was a theologically derived concept who was worshiped in communities related to Judaism, such as the many God-fearers and Proselytes, about whom a story was written that humanized the figure, which then led to a belief that the story was true and that it described a real person, even though, in fact the story was entirely made up.

Given that the writings of Paul are not about a person, but rather a deity called Lord ΙΣ, or KΣ ΙΣ, and that the Gospels are not based on accounts of a person, but rather are allegories that all derive from a single original story in which the deity ΙΣ is an embodiment of Paul whose actions re-enact a series of references to Jewish scriptures, and that none of these writings make any attempt to bring forward any information about any supposed real person, instead all being content to extract "Jesus" from the Jewish scriptures and/or Pauline writings, I can only conclude that it makes no sense at all to think that the worship of KΣ ΙΣ was rooted in any way shape or form on the life of a real person named "Jesus". Clearly the inspiration of the worship of this figure is scriptural and theological, rooted in readings of scriptures and philosophical concepts.

[Sinouhe]

I think we have discussed this before; but I find passages like Romans 5:8

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

as implying that Paul regarded the death of Christ as having occurred during the lifetime of his readers.

In the context of Paul's whole theology I doubt if the idea of the death of Christ as a long-ago event recently revealed is at all plausible.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, and I think I answered that Paul was talking about humanity in general and not about mid 1st century christians. Without dating either the sin of Adam or the crucifixion of Jesus

Romans 5

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses
17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Edit : By the way, reading the text again, the only real time indicator in this passage is this one:

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses

Romans 5 therefore implies that Paul :

- Vaguely places the crucifixion of Jesus after Moses.

- The "we" of Romans 5:8 is a reference to humanity in general that is saved after the death of Jesus which he places after Moses.

I don't see what more we can get from this passage.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Quoted earlier in the thread from the O'Neill interview

And then imagine that other forms of Christianity arose that believed those stories were true and accepted that there was such a Jesus in the early decades of the first century. And then imagine that the proto-form of Christianity died out and then imagine that the forms of Christianity that arose from the, from the belief that there was a historical Jesus decided to destroy all references to the earlier form of Christianity.'

There was a time when I'd have answered GakuseiDon's question about the best case that I was being too generous to mythicism with something like the above. If originally there was a single, cohesive, entirely myth-based cult of Jesus but the successor cultists interpreted this ur-myth as history, supplying a specific time and place for the events, then how did that sucession occur without leaving some traces?

It is no longer the top problem for me because I've come to suspect that maybe there never was a single cohesive cult of Jesus of any appreciable size, geographic extent, or longevity. In this view, the gospel stories, when they came along, were neither replacing a previous single disciplined competitor nor summarizing a more-or-less consistent body of oral Jesus stories, but rather represent an attempt at coalition building among people who could find common ground within what today is referred to as "cafeteria Christianity." (In retrospect, we have no trouble finding two or more ancients whom we call Platonists who disagree among themselves about various things, and occasionally each of them disagrees with Plato about something. Why couldn't early or proto- "Christians" have been as diverse a movement as Platonism? Modern ones seem to manage the feat.)

This is the wrong thread to advocate for those ideas. The only on-topic point I'd like to make here is that it matters that O'Neill fixates as much as he does on Carrier-Doherty, a full-fledged theory about earliest Christianity which among much else implies a mythical Jesus and also implies that specific historical processes must have played out (a succession from an original form to a historical form).

At the same time, O'Neill seems aware that even if we knew for a fact whether or not Jesus was a real man who actually lived then that alone would tell us little about how Christianity arose - something but nowhere near answering our top ten questions. The historicity of Jesus and a usefully detailed history of the church from about 30 CE to 130 CE are separable questions residing at different levels of discourse. IMO, of course.

[rgprice]

Quoted earlier in the thread from the O'Neill interview

And then imagine that other forms of Christianity arose that believed those stories were true and accepted that there was such a Jesus in the early decades of the first century. And then imagine that the proto-form of Christianity died out and then imagine that the forms of Christianity that arose from the, from the belief that there was a historical Jesus decided to destroy all references to the earlier form of Christianity.'

There was a time when I'd have answered GakuseiDon's question about the best case that I was being too generous to mythicism with something like the above. If originally there was a single, cohesive, entirely myth-based cult of Jesus but the successor cultists interpreted this ur-myth as history, supplying a specific time and place for the events, then how did that sucession occur without leaving some traces?

It is no longer the top problem for me because I've come to suspect that maybe there never was a single cohesive cult of Jesus of any appreciable size, geographic extent, or longevity. In this view, the gospel stories, when they came along, were neither replacing a previous single disciplined competitor nor summarizing a more-or-less consistent body of oral Jesus stories, but rather represent an attempt at coalition building among people who could find common ground within what today is referred to as "cafeteria Christianity." (In retrospect, we have no trouble finding two or more ancients whom we call Platonists who disagree among themselves about various things, and occasionally each of them disagrees with Plato about something. Why couldn't early or proto- "Christians" have been as diverse a movement as Platonism? Modern ones seem to manage the feat.)

This is the wrong thread to advocate for those ideas. The only on-topic point I'd like to make here is that it matters that O'Neill fixates as much as he does on Carrier-Doherty, a full-fledged theory about earliest Christianity which among much else implies a mythical Jesus and also implies that specific historical processes must have played out (a succession from an original form to a historical form).

At the same time, O'Neill seems aware that even if we knew for a fact whether or not Jesus was a real man who actually lived then that alone would tell us little about how Christianity arose - something but nowhere near answering our top ten questions. The historicity of Jesus and a usefully detailed history of the church from about 30 CE to 130 CE are separable questions residing at different levels of discourse. IMO, of course.

I agree Paul.

#1 We really have no idea how widespread worship of KΣ ΙΣ was prior to the writing of the Gospels.
#2 It seems that the reading of the Gospels as history was at least in part of product of contextual shift, i.e. the introduction of the Gospel stories to new communities that had not previously been worshipers of Jesus. Indeed, the writings of Justin indicate exactly this. Justin tells us that his conversion to Christianity occurred through his reading of the Gospel stories, meaning that he was not someone who was participating in a community of worshipers of KΣ ΙΣ into which the Gospel stories introduced new beliefs, rather Justin had no knowledge of Jesus and was first introduced to KΣ ΙΣ through the Gospel stories. Likewise, it seems that Roman "Christians" were really more of some philosophical school without any real foundation in Jesus worship at all. Then the Gospels were introduced in Rome, seemingly by figures like Justin Martyr and Polycarp, and as a result, Roman groups then began worshiping the figure described in the Gospel stories.
#3 In fact, many variants of Christianity did persist for quite some time. Our understanding of the various strains of the cult other than a few major variants such as proto-Catholicism, Marcionism, Valentinianism, Arianism, etc. is extremely limited.
#4 Our knowledge of memes, biological populations, cults, and other such phenomena indicate that such types of rapid changes and overtakings does indeed occur and isn't even that uncommon. Look at stuff like the Spiritualist movement of the 19th & 20th century, the Dutch Tulip market crash, Cabbage Patch Kids, etc.

The Cabbage Patch Kid story is in fact quite remarkable and instructive. The original creator was a female folk artist who handmade them and sold them in a farmer's market or some local market like that. A guy bought some and resold them and then basically stole the design from her. He went on to have them factory made and sold millions of them, becoming rich and famous, while she retreated into obscurity and was virtually unknown.

So here is an example of some original design and concept that was completely overtaken by a more popularized version, with the originally being almost entirely forgotten about. Indeed 1,000 years from how anthropologists will be able to find examples of mass produced Cabbage Patch Kids, but may never actually know of their origin.

[dbz]

Justin tells us that his conversion to Christianity occurred through his reading of the Gospel stories...

IMO, the Greek text of Justin is seldom translated in the correct context of Platonism_2.0. All translations from Latin are worthless as are most Greek to English translations.

• It is possible that Justin’s παντὸς πατέρα (every father) implies the same concept as Paul’s πατὴρ πάντων (father of all) i.e. the Greek middle-platonic view of a transcendent-god as the cosmic father of all.

Although ‘The Father of Greatness’ is not attested as such in the Nag Hammadi library, sev­eral of his epithets are also found in the Gnostic texts. ‘The Father of Truth’ and ‘The God of Truth’ appear in Eugnostos the Blessed. The God of Truth is also mentioned in the Apocalypse of Adam. ‘The Father, the Lord of the All’ is found in Asclepius. The Hypostasis of the Archons and the Teachings of Silvanus mention ‘The Father of the All’. (p. 193.)

• "The Religious Terminology in the Nag Hammadi Texts and in Manichaean Literature by Paul Van Lindt" (PDF)

Long Abstract

In this thesis I explore the emergence of the Christian triad with reference to two contemporary movements: Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. The earliest Christian text to enumerate a divine triad is Justin’s First Apology. This same triad is found in subsequent Christian texts and is ultimately reconfigured to become the Christian Trinity. I seek to explain the origins of this Christian triadology. There are two movements – Middle Platonism and Gnosticism – that were each part of the second century intellectual milieu, that each interacted with Christianity and that each posited ontological triads. On this basis these two movements are plausible candidates explain to the emergence of the Christian triad in the mid-second century.

I survey both Middle Platonism and Gnosticism to identify triads. These triads are analysed in terms of their structure and in terms of the function and ontological status of the individual constituents of these triads. This forms the basis of comparison with the Christian triad. In Middle Platonism, isosceles triads are diagnosed with a transcendent One above a pair of opposites; this pattern is found Eudorus, as well as Philo and Plutarch. Weak triadic structures are diagnosed in Plutarch and Atticus, who posit God and his emanating mind above the world soul; a similar pattern is found in Alcinous. The Neopythagorean interpretation of the Parmenides, perhaps as early as Thrasyllus, prompts a number of ontological triads, including the three Ones of Moderatus and the three gods of Numenius; this same pattern may be found in the Chaldean Oracles. Common to the triads of Plutarch and the Neopythagoreans is a hierarchical triad of transcendent God, mind and soul that will culminate in the three hypostases on Plotinus. It is this hierarchical triad that forms the best comparator with the Christian triad of the second century.

In Gnosticism and its cognate systems, I diagnose familial triads of father, mother and child in the Barbeolite tradition and three-male triads in the Ophite tradition. These triads may have pagan antecedents. There is also some evidence of the Platonic God-Mind- Soul triad within Gnostic systems. Early third century Gnostic texts contain a three-in- one triad, that is, a trinity, named the Triple-Powered One. This triad is later overwritten with the Neoplatonic Being-Mind-Life triad. None of the Gnostic triads seem plausible comparators for the Christian triad; there are some structural similarities but insignificant functional overlap to make influence credible.

I examine Christian thought prior to Justin and demonstrate that there was no ontological triad. This analysis focuses on the three constituents of what would become the Trinity. I demonstrate that God is identified as the Father, who, whilst considered transcendent, is also personally involved with creation and with believers. The Son is considered to be more than a man, born of a virgin and exalted to the heavens, but not identified with God; ontologically speaking, the Son is distinct. The Spirit is considered to be the power and presence of God, sometimes personified but not considered a distinct person. These Christians do not consider these three to be either a triad or a unity in ontological terms.

There is, however, a clear liturgical triad that I trace to primitive Christianity: the trine baptismal formula. I conclude that the baptismal formula was an expression of the Christian experience and thus of the faith to which candidates committed themselves to in baptism. The inclusion of the Spirit in the baptismal formula did not, for primitive Christians, denote a separate person or being, but a separate experience. This liturgical triad was to provide part of the basis for the emerging Christian triad. Justin is considered along with two Christian figures whom he directly influenced – Tatian and Athenagoras – who I have (somewhat artificially) grouped under the heading the “school of Justin”. These three are grouped for their shared thought pattern, which assists with the analysis of the emerging Christian triad by providing a wider set of datum. This is not to deny the innovations of these thinkers, which are also explored. I demonstrate that the “school of Justin” posited an ontological triad with a transcendent Father, a demiurgic and noetic Son, and immanent, world-penetrating Spirit. This is the conflation of the three referents of the trine baptismal formula with the three constituents of the Platonc God-Mind-Soul triad. I present evidence that Justin and Athenagoras engaged directly with Platonism, probably with Numenian and Plutarchian Platonism respectively. Tatian probably did not engage directly with Platonism but was influenced through Justin.

I also trace an argument developed by the “school of Justin” based upon the Platonic distinction between Being and Becoming. By identifying God as Being, identifying Being with that which is unbegotten, and identifying that which is unbegotten as creator, the “school of Justin” develops an argument for identifying the Son and the Spirit as God. This leads these thinkers to move beyond the Platonic precedent by unifying their hierarchical triad into a single substance. In so doing the “school of Justin” provides the basis for what will become the Christian Trinity.

Therefore I conclude that the Christian triad of the “school of Justin” emerged through a conflation of the trine baptismal formula with an ontological triad of Middle Platonism, which resulted in the three referents of the baptismal formula being embued with new functions and ontological status. Whilst emerging as a hierarchical triad, the logic of Platonic ontology when combined with Christian tradition required the sharp distinction between God as Being and all other things resulting in a Christian triad that was also a unity. This new triad became fixed as a central tenet of Christianity.

• Gaston, T. (2016). "Why Three? An exploration of the origins of the doctrine of the Trinity with reference to Platonism and Gnosticism". Oxford University, UK. "DPhil Oxford University, UK"

(Online PDF available)

• Justin's objection to the solid Platonism_2.0 of Marcion appears to be with third-god as demiurge. Justin appears to plump for a Christian triad.

[MrMacSon]

9.10
... imagine if there was a, a form of proto-Christianity that believed in a celestial Jesus that didn't come to Earth and did all this stuff in the heavens, died, you know, was crucified, died, rose from the dead in the heavens.1 And then imagine that this form of Christianity started to tell stories about Jesus that were set on Earth. And not set on Earth in some prehistoric, ancient inaccessible period, but actually set on Earth quite recently: in the early decades of the of the first century.

And then imagine that other forms of Christianity arose that believed those stories were true2 and accepted that there was such a Jesus in the early decades of the first century. And then imagine that the proto-form of Christianity died out and then imagine that the forms of Christianity that arose from the belief that there was a historical Jesus decided to destroy all references to the earlier form of Christianity.'
.

https://www.youtube.com/live/16bLztnVJv ... hare&t=548
.

1. The Sethian Apocryphon of John,* at least, has such as story ( * aka the Secret Book of John or the Secret Revelation of John )
   .
2. There probably weren't as many 'other forms' of Christianity among the 'forms' that believed in a real, human 'historical' Jesus
   
   ie. Tim has his 'quantifications' back to front (of course he's referring to the Doherty-Carrier model largely based on exegesis of Paul)

10:23
And imagine that, instead of doing what they tended to do in the second and third centuries and refute what they regard as heretical early forms of Christianity, they didn't do that with this one. They decided to ignore it completely and pretend it didn't exist.
.

• But that didn't happen. And it need not have happened.

And imagine that as a result no one noticed that this early proto-form of Christianity - the original form - existed at all until people in the 19th and 20th Century came along and discovered it by looking at the writings of Paul.

• Certainly other forms of early Christianity have been elaborated on since the 19th and 20th centuries - and before - perhaps 're-discovered' rather than 'discovered' - the so-called 'Gnostic texts - but they were not discovered by looking at the writings of Paul.

[rgprice]

He's certainly, very disingenuous. I think few people would have a hard time recognizing Marcion's Jesus as not having really existed.

If, for example, Marcionism had become the dominant form of Christianity, and today what most people believed, instead of Jesus having been born in a manger, that he descended directly from heaven and acted on earth as an apparition, that there would be little difficulty in arguing that Jesus never existed. But in fact, the reality is that the Jesus who was born in a manger is actually a theological rebuttal to Marcion's Spiritual Jesus who descended from heaven.

It need not be that Jesus was crucified in heaven in order to show that the whole thing was a myth. There were literally hundreds of myths set on earth. Indeed it not difficult now to argue that Moses was a mythical figure, and Abraham, and Samson, and Heracles, and Orpheus, etc., etc. All of their stories are set on earth.

But again, this is why should never have even gotten involved in this thread, we know he's a crank.