Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:24 pm

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 1:35 pm If, as you responded to Paul the U, "it is possible to believe that lambs existed before the world came into being... in some heavenly prototype of features of the world", why does that reflect on the historicity of someone associated with that being?

Because, in general, people with such extraordinary associations are either fictional (such as a temple's servant in a very obscure video game who is simultaneously a dragon with powerful secret knowledge) or are mythical (such as Red Horn, aka Wears Human Faces in his Earlobes, aka He Eats Deer Lungs, who is at some level a human from a nythical past, a star, an arrow, and a god).

Again: I'm trying to work through this in a pseudo-Bayes manner, so not saying your wrong. Thinking of it as a reference class: Are those people with extraordinary associations considered historical as well, placed in a specific time and place?

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:24 pmIf Pilate were to be taught to be simultaneously human and a lamb who died before the world's creation, that would suggest strongly that he is fictional or mythical. But we have multiple sources (including Philo from his lifetime) which make no such claims about him, meaning that if we were to have such a source and it were to be dated later than the other sources, we could dismiss it as a later legend or propaganda.

If Revelation was written in the 90s CE, would that be enough time in your view? Probably only 30 years after Paul and maybe 20 years after gMark. Or if Revelation was written by a more mystically minded author (or someone eating magic mushrooms), might that be an explanation for the text? The slain Lamb at the start of creation is not a common motif. I'm not sure if it exists in other Christian writings other than those referring back to Revelation itself. AFAIK it is not something claimed by later Christians. I suspect they would have considered it to have a mystical meaning.

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:24 pmIn Buddhism, a similar process of accretion of legendary and aggrandizing details surrounds Shakyamuni Buddha. The Shakyan sage who in earlier texts is said to have sought and found enlightenment, to be be indistinguishable from his monastic followers in appearance and to suffer from bad health later in life in later texts is said to have many marks of distinctness (none of which is obesity!) and in some Mayahana Sutras is said to have been enlighened for millions of years prior to his birthduring which he only pretended to seek enlightenment, grow older, sicken and die - because he is really immortal and larger than the world! If we were to judge Shakyamuni Buddha's historicity only by these later Mahayana texts, he would be less likely to be historical.

I'm sorry, I don't see it. Trying to view historical texts through the lens of mystical ones doesn't seem a practical approach. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that approach seems to suggest that historical people are less likely to undergo "mythification", whereas I'd argue that historical people or events that are considered to have some kind of supernatural component are more likely to undergo such development. Carrier gives the UFO crash at Roswell as an example.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 4:08 amIf Clement thinks Jesus's life was found in the scriptures, then I agree he will probably point that out. But if Clement thinks Jesus's life conformed to the scriptures, then arguably it is remarkable if he has some source for those facts which conform but then fails to append some mention of it to his scriptural reference.

I guess it would be on a case-by-case basis. For example, here is 1 Clement Chap 16 where the author first quotes Isaiah 53 and then Psalm 22 to demonstrate that Christ was "humble-minded" as an example to those Corinthians he was writing to whom were not humble-minded:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... berts.html


Assuming that there were eye witness accounts as well to Jesus' humbleness, would we expect that the author to have mentioned those as well, or instead of, those Old Testament passages? I'd say no, but I'll admit that I am biased in this, since according to what I've seen the Old Testament is still the most important source for early Christians, more important than Gospel accounts until they become authoritative towards the end of the Second Century. It's why Justin Martyr quotes from the Old Testament as much as Greek philosophy in his Apologies to the Romans. I'd be interested in your thoughts here.

Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 12:01 pm

And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

In related news, it must be very important to detail that the centurion is standing opposite of IS.
My guess is that he sees, witnesses, how with the last Pneuma of IS also the Holy Spirit, who descended into him at the start (and which Mark effectuates via baptism whereas John just has it occur that way), exits: the XS

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:05 pm

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 4:08 amIf Clement thinks Jesus's life was found in the scriptures, then I agree he will probably point that out. But if Clement thinks Jesus's life conformed to the scriptures, then arguably it is remarkable if he has some source for those facts which conform but then fails to append some mention of it to his scriptural reference.

I guess it would be on a case-by-case basis. For example, here is 1 Clement Chap 16 where the author first quotes Isaiah 53 and then Psalm 22 to demonstrate that Christ was "humble-minded" as an example to those Corinthians he was writing to whom were not humble-minded:

I am open to the view that the author of 1 Clement made a conscious rhetorical choice. Something like, "What will persuade these gosh-darned haughty Corinthians? How on earth did Paul ever get through to these self-important bone heads? Wait - Paul ignored Jesus and just quoted Jewish scripture to them. It worked for him. Let's try that again now."

Case by case, as you say. However the "case," singular, here is (maybe) a lengthy but integrated single work. From an aspect of Bayesian thought which Carrier mostly avoids by assuming conditional independence: in 1 Clement maybe we do not have a gazillion somewhat independent examples of early Christians appealing to Jewish scripture rather than Christian "historical writing," but rather a single protracted implementation of a rhetorical strategy in hopes of prevailing in a single debate. A sample of size one, in other words, and so not very useful for making generalizations.

If I can go back to a slightly earlier post of yours:

that approach seems to suggest that historical people are less likely to undergo "mythification", whereas I'd argue that historical people or events that are considered to have some kind of supernatural component are more likely to undergo such development. Carrier gives the UFO crash at Roswell as an example.

I think you're on to something. I would offer as potential examples the "mythification" of reputed witches. In the Uncertaintist's Hallowe'en series, there are a few real-life examples:

An indisputably historical woman becomes a folk-lore witch while she's still alive:
https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... achusetts/

after she died, the folk-lore lives on, and she ends up as a satanic seductress
https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... continued/

About the same time elsewhere in the British colonial New World, a parallel case develops where an eery flaw in a funerary monument apparently gives rise to a folk-tale which draws on three real women's lives and once again creates a mythical supernatural seductress:
https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... continued/

Just for balance, a much smaller story (no afterlife seductions, sorry) where a very-probably fictional witch becomes a (supposed) real-life woman:
https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/202 ... cal-woman/

I am not saying that that is anywhere near being a sufficient dataset to "decide" the issue, but I think it illustrates that historicty and "mythification" are at best loosely coupled. I also think that if you start with a mythical figure and "trace back," then you really might find any one of a real human being, a "composite" of real people, or a total fiction at the origin.

Maybe that helps, maybe not. I am, however, skeptical that there is a useful reference class in all of this which can be gleaned solely from considering landmarks of curated world literature when the underlying process of "mythification" is more general than that. All of the blog examples above have 20th or 21st Century published references to the myth, but none of them are well-known except maybe locally.

ETA, an afterthought: I don't think it's an accident that when the origin is a real woman, then I can claim supreme confidence (indisputably historical), but when the apparent origin is a pure fiction, then I have to hedge. Maybe the root novelist had a source that I can't find (even though I looked and the trail ran cold). In the intermediate case, I can be confident that each of the real women I found did contribute to the eventual myth, but I can't possibly know that I found everybody who contributed, nor eliminate that some contributors were fictional characters.

That is suspicious of a systemic sample bias, and if there is such a "real life closes cases" bias, then that complicates construction of a useful reference class. Or it would do so if Carrier weren't pulling his numbers out of his aft quarters anyway.