Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:40 pm

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:24 pm The proposal that mythical Jesus was a celestial saviour akin to Amitabha Buddha. The proposal that mythical Jesus was a figure from a mythical past believed to be historical akin to Herakles or Krishna.

• Are those two proposals mutually exclusive ??
  (they refer to two different criteria: morphology (for want of a better word) and chronology)

Well, Amitabha Buddha is alleged to be and to have been in the heavenly world Sukhavati ever since he became a Buddha, but Krishna and Herakles are and were never believed to be still living upon the Earth - rather, having done deeds upon the Earth during the past, they remain as gods elsehere.

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:34 pm And what was the Gospel Jesus? A composite of figures? a real preacher? A disguised rebel leader? An allegory? a God-man? A magician? All of the previous? None of the previous?

A literary character in new midrash[im] : one elaborated cumulatively (by multiple hands)

• He is unique

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:14 pm

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:16 pm Mine: The historical Jesus was a nobody, a humble person who died as a martyr

vs

Mythicists: The historical Jesus had to have been like a Gospel Jesus, an amazing person that everyone would have written about, who would have been in all the newspapers; otherwise he never existed.

Martyr is Greek for "Witeness"

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:33 pm ^ damn autocorrect! I mean Whitness!

In 2023 Soviet Russia, witeness kills you!

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 9:44 am

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:14 pm

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:16 pm Mine: The historical Jesus was a nobody, a humble person who died as a martyr

vs

Mythicists: The historical Jesus had to have been like a Gospel Jesus, an amazing person that everyone would have written about, who would have been in all the newspapers; otherwise he never existed.

Martyr is Greek for "Witeness"

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:33 pm ^ damn autocorrect! I mean Whitness!

In 2023 Soviet Russia, witeness kills you!

the certainty that Paul is pre-70

versus

the certainty that the Josephian figures are 100% historical.

Interesting that so many are failing at something that should actually be easy to do, and instead presenting false dichotomies in a vain attempt to score rhetorical points.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:32 am For example, I suggest that the mlinssen proposal about the Coptic Gospel of Thomas and the Leucius Charinus proposal about Constantine vis-a-vis Christianity cannot both be true. (Or neither.) What other examples, if any, may exist in this forum?

Granted!

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 12:06 pm Personally, I would say that a Jewish origin of XCanity is at odds with the material that we have.

Granted!

Huller's proposal for the Hebrew ISH being the source to the name / label of IS dovetails to that as well

Not to mention the Roman Greek of the NT (save for John and Luke) that doesn't make a particular strong case for Hebrew or Aramaic origins / source texts, apart from the fact that not even a single shred of any of those has ever been found

Regardless of Judaics who, just ask them, either sigh or LOL at the notion of the NT protagonist fulfilling even 5% of messianic expectations

Paul perhaps is the best example for texts that invalidate quite a bit all at once:

1. If Paul predates the gospels (and basically everything else) then how come he's basically apologising for a "Gentile" Chrestianity to a Judaic audience?
2. There can never have been a parting of ways as Paul already starts with going against Judaism core values, such as food laws, circumcision, Sabbath observation and general Torah adherence - because he's the alleged starting point to it all
3. How can Paul be solely about XS or "Christ" when the gospels are not about the dead, but the living IS or "Jesus" instead? There's always first a narrative about a person, after which the story about the movement follows

Nomina sacra originating within Judaism? That must be Greek Christianity, right? The answer is: Coptic Chrestianity

The Q source theory is completely at odds with the original Quelle theory that points straight to Thomas as a pure sayings "gospel", and its failure is demonstrated at large by the fact that its forced creation leaves little to no room for creative writing

Luke copying Matthew conflicts with Matthew copying Luke, and the answer is that Matthew redacted *Ev into Luke while writing his own

Every single Source hypothesis conflicts with another, and with itself

My few cents for the moment; I realise that about half of these doesn't qualify for the OP, but maybe I'll inspire some

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:16 pm Mythicists: The historical Jesus had to have been like a Gospel Jesus, an amazing person that everyone would have written about, who would have been in all the newspapers; otherwise he never existed.

With all due respect, I think that you misrepresent mythicism's claims. Some mythicists' arguments - notably that by Doherty - say that because the earliest Christians' writings portray a divine Jesus while not mentioing much if anything about his Earthly deeds, Jesus was originally a god completely, with the claims about his deeds upon the Earth as later developments.

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 10:31 am

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:16 pm Mythicists: The historical Jesus had to have been like a Gospel Jesus, an amazing person that everyone would have written about, who would have been in all the newspapers; otherwise he never existed.

With all due respect, I think that you misrepresent mythicism's claims. Some mythicists' arguments - notably that by Doherty - say that because the earliest Christians' writings portray a divine Jesus while not mentioing much if anything about his Earthly deeds, Jesus was originally a god completely, with the claims about his deeds upon the Earth as later developments.

And that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But would you then use those lack of claims about his deeds and sayings on Earth in those earliest Christian writings as evidence against a historical Jesus? I think you'll agree that that wouldn't make much sense. But it was something Doherty did quite often in his books, and I've found the same in Carrier's OHJ as well. In fact, I'm currently writing up his position on 1 Clement and had him in mind when I wrote the above.

This is how Carrier defines his Minimal Historicist Theory:


And that's great! That matches my own idea of a "hobody" Jesus, one who was humble, obedient unto death, but arguably didn't say or do the things in the Gospels.

But then Carrier writes in his conclusion of his analysis of 1 Clement: (my bolding)


In fact, it doesn't look strange at all based on Carrier's very own Minimal Historicist Theory! I think it's fair to say that some analysts on any side of the argument can't quite drop the idea of a Gospel Jesus, even when they agree that the historical Jesus -- if he existed at all -- wouldn't have been like the Gospel Jesus.

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 4:15 pm
This is how Carrier defines his Minimal Historicist Theory:

Page 34

Three minimal facts on which historicity rests: (page 34)
1 . An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worship­ing as a living god (or demigod).

And that's great! That matches my own idea of a "hobody" Jesus, one who was humble, obedient unto death, but arguably didn't say or do the things in the Gospels.

But then Carrier writes in his conclusion of his analysis of 1 Clement: (my bolding)

From page 311

It would never occur to us that he was a human man who conducted a ministry, performed great deeds among the people, and was railroaded in a Jewish trial and eventually crucified by Pontius Pilate. The fact that this lengthy document fully agrees with the expectations of minimal mythicism, but looks very strange on any version of historicity, makes this evidence for the former and against the latter.

In fact, it doesn't look strange at all based on Carrier's very own Minimal Historicist Theory! I think it's fair to say that some analysts on any side of the argument can't quite drop the idea of a Gospel Jesus, even when they agree that the historical Jesus -- if he existed at all -- wouldn't have been like the Gospel Jesus.

OK. It is strange to find myself once again "defending Carrier," when I'm just the wrong person for that job. (Carrier and I would probably agree on that).

Reading Carrier's minimal historicity in context, we can be confident that the purpose of defining any historical Jesus is to contribute to an understanding of Christian origins. In the first box quoted above, the contribution is implicit: the "followers" are the bridge between a historical man and a community who worshipped that man after he had died (= the origin of what becomes Christianity as that earliest community grows and secures that it continues).

I think it is difficult to interpret Carrier's term followers except that there is supposed to be a leader. If Jesus attracted "followers in life," then it is reasonable to infer that Carrier means that his hypothetical man displayed leadership in life.

Carrier does, in my view, err in tagging his definition as "minimal." One "even more minimal" hypothesis is that some followers of John the Baptist visited Jerusalem. Just outside the city, they encounter a grisly crucifixion scene. One of the moldering corpses has a sign hanging off of what's left of him (maybe "Behold your king" or whatever). John's followers continue on their way, but soon afterward one of them begins to have dreams about this scene, then the others have similar dreams and away we go ...

Notice that this victim acquires no identifiable "followers," full stop. He is no part of the explanation of how the original community came together (John the Baptist brought them together in this hypothesis). Paul's initial hostility toward the group may have been because of their attachment to John against the Herod family's interests. Finally, this "even more minimal" hypothesis and some similarly generic mythicism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, the dream character may have introduced himself as divine (compare Poimandres in the Corpus Hermeticum), and identified himself as the new Joshua.

Yes, in the second box, Carrier would have been excessively rhetorical in speaking of "ministry" and "great deeds." He would have exaggerated in speaking of "any version of historicity," although that error may simply be the inevitable consequence of him considering his "minimal" HJ to be truly the least that would be generally accepted as an HJ. Regardless, the terms "Carrier" and "excessively rhetorical" are often found together.