Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Jesus Tales wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2024 9:31 pmI googled Chrissy Hansen and this place popped up.

A "Chrissy Hansen" search with Google's Big Brother algorithm for me popped up:

Hansen also just admitted the historical Jesus could have been connected with a second “god” in heaven found in Jewish thought of the period (citing Schäfer’s Two Gods in Heaven), so it is Hansen who is claiming there was such a prior “god” (just not that it was named Jesus or worshipped). So I can only assume this sentence escaped revision in the final draft.

But I am delighted to see Hansen admit in her conclusion that “recent scholarship has demonstrated that Christianity was quite aware of and influenced by its neighbours,” even “possible mimesis with Greco-Roman sources (which [Dennis] MacDonald and others have explored in detail),” and “even possibly the resurrection belief and its portrayal being based on Greco-Roman models.” This is an extraordinary turnaround for Hansen. She’s actually moving in our direction now, and admitting that the field has actually already been moving in our direction for years already. We noticed this. Historicists balked. Then whined when they realized they were the ones who were wrong.

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--Carrier (22 January 2023). "Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

There's something very wrong with the way the word "admit" is used.

dbz wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2024 8:11 am --Carrier (22 January 2023). "Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

There's a growing consensus among scholars that early Christians believed Jesus was the incarnation of a pre-existent celestial being, a concept that aligns with existing Jewish theological ideas of angelic or other celestial creatures. Cf. "Two Powers in Heaven - Jewish Texts and History - Biblical Criticism & History Forum". earlywritings.com. 2024.

Richard Carrier doubts the traditional view of Jesus as a historical figure. His viewpoint is that the celestial Jesus was the primary object of worship for early Christians. And that the historical Jesus narrative was a later development influenced by various cultural and theological factors.

IMO one could argue that some percentage (i.e. 1 +|- 99%) of the earliest Christians understood the celestial creature IS XS and worshiped said creature as a divine being.

Summarized as:
A significant portion of the earliest Christians understood Jesus as a celestial creature, pre-extant Earth's creation, and worshiped this celestial Jesus as a divine being. This argument derives from various textual and MSS evidence, thus the concept of a pre-existent, celestial Jesus was a core belief from the very beginning of Christianity.

This argument informs the broader theory of minimal mythicism, which posits that Jesus was a mythical figure, not a historical person. And that the idea of a pre-existent celestial Jesus was gradually transformed into a more humanized figure over time, leading to the development of the historical Jesus narrative.

dbz wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2024 8:11 am

Hansen also just admitted the historical Jesus could have been connected with a second “god” in heaven found in Jewish thought of the period (citing Schäfer’s Two Gods in Heaven), so it is Hansen who is claiming there was such a prior “god” (just not that it was named Jesus or worshipped). So I can only assume this sentence escaped revision in the final draft.

I wonder why Hansen disagrees with Carrier here. The second power in heaven was called Joshua in recent times. Does this amount to say that a "pre-Christian Jesus" existed?

The great researchers here might find it useful to read Hansen's article before hitting their keyboards.

This place is non-stop comedy. I've always said a reality show is in order.

I have downloaded the article of Chrissy Hansen from academia.edu, and the first thing that I have made is a search for any occurrence of 'second power in heaven'. I have found that Chrissy accepts the idea that a historical Jesus was identified with a such second god.

Then the second thing I have made is a search for any occurrence of 'Philippians', since I wanted to find a possible quote of the hymn to the Philippians in the Chrissy's article. I have found zero occurrences of the hymn. Which is sufficient to debunk it.

Why is it important?

Because the pre-pauline hymn says that an entity received the name of Jesus after the his death.

The proponents of the Second Power in Heaven say that the "name above all the names" was 'Lord', meaning YHWH, rather than Jesus.

What if both are correct? YHWH, (meant as) the Second Power in Heaven, received the name of Jesus.

Was there a pre-Christian divine entity? Yes: the second Power in Heaven.

Was it called Jesus? Yes: read the Hymn to Philippians.

The Christianity was born when a guy called 'Jesus' a pre-Christian divine being: Second Power in Heaven.

Did a pre-Christian Jesus exist? Yes. It was the Second Power in Heaven.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2024 7:58 am I have downloaded the article of Chrissy Hansen from academia.edu, and the first thing that I have made is a search for any occurrence of 'second power in heaven'. I have found that Chrissy accepts the idea that a historical Jesus was identified with a such second god.

Then the second thing I have made is a search for any occurrence of 'Philippians', since I wanted to find a possible quote of the hymn to the Philippians in the Chrissy's article. I have found zero occurrences of the hymn. Which is sufficient to debunk it.

I guess download and ctrl-F is sort of like reading.

You show simply your reluctance to consider the simple possibility that a divine being received the name "Jesus" in recent times before that he received the his not-life on the earth. All here is the my criticism.

Chrissy Hansen wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:50 am I am more than happy to entertain the possibility [that a divine being received the name "Jesus" in recent times before that he received the his not-life on the earth]. I wrote an entire paper entertaining that possibility, and I found it lacking anything remotely compelling...

dbz wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 1:45 pm

DrSarah wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 12:19 am Dr Sarah disagrees that there was Jewish worship of a pre-Christian Jesus.

Given so much we don't know about the Jews and their different sects...

[7:06] G.E >>> I've heard this from plenty of other people,

• "Do you have evidence that there was a sect of Jews that believed in this Celestial dying Christ type of person?"

and it always kind of gets me because it's like we don't necessarily need to have direct evidence of it.

Carrier >>> It's all indirect, it's all circumstantial, because all the evidence that we would want is gone. It wasn't preserved so this relates to this element [number] two, when Kip says,

• "There's so much we don't know about the Jews and their different sects!"

That's because no one preserved this information right so we've lost like 90 to 95 percent of the knowledge we would need to know to make normative statements about what all Jews thought or what some Jews could have thought or whatever so we can only work indirectly we have to build evidence like circumstantial evidence to establish whether a sect would believe something or not uh and so that's a complex process Etc that's what scholarship is for.

But all of that is back in play now because now that we know that there was huge diversity and we don't know about all of it. There's so much we don't know and that's relevant—what we don't know. [8:14]

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--"Carrier vs Davis: Unveiling the Diversity of Jewish Beliefs" @time:00:07:06. YouTube. Godless Engineer. Sep 12, 2023.

Background Elements to Christianity

• Element 2 When Christianity began Judaism was highly sectarian and diverse. (p. 66)

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"On the Historicity of Jesus". RationalWiki. Retrieved 31 August 2023.