New ''argument'' pro historicity?

[Giuseppe]

The criterion of embarrassment applied on crucifixion is the following:

1) the first Christian apostles preach a ''crucified Christ''
2) it's a FACT that a crucified Christ is really embarrassing.
3) therefore: Jesus existed.

Carrier denies the point 2: a ''crucified Christ'' is not really embarrassing, as the castration of Attis is not really embarrassing. Therefore the conclusion doesn't follow.

Now, why did some docetic Christians of II CE deny the reality of crucifixion at point to prefer a Christus Ridens, laughing about the other guy that is crucified in his place?
Did they so because they were really embarrassed of a crucified Christ? We don't know about adorers of Attis that denied the reality of castration of Attis. The counter-argument of Carrier would be confuted.


I see some mythicist counter-arguments.


FIRST COUNTER-ARGUMENT:

1) I assume that the embarrassment for crucifixion did create the docetism in II CE.

2) the fact that that embarrasment is manifested only in II CE implies that it is born only in reaction to first historicist readings of the first Gospel.

3) therefore, when the first gospel was not still written, that embarrassment was not there, as there was not docetic crucifixion in I CE (I call 'docetic crucifixion'' the negation of the suffering on the cross).

4) therefore: this is more expected under minimal mythicism.


SECOND COUNTER-ARGUMENT:

1) I assume that the embarrassment for crucifixion didn't create the docetism in II CE.

2) therefore the docetic crucifixion was revealing in a more explicit manner what was already implicit in the original myth: that the embarrassment for the crucifixion was only apparent and not real, since the crucifixion was really a victory for Jesus, even if masked in the eyes of his killers.

3) therefore, when the first gospel was not still written, that embarrassment was not there, as even those who in II CE denied the reality of crucifixion, really they did so only in order to make more evident even for the hoi polloi that the crucifixion was only apparently a cause of embarrasment.

4) therefore: this is more expected under minimal mythicism.

[GakuseiDon]

The criterion of embarrassment applied on crucifixion is the following:

1) the first Christian apostles preach a ''crucified Christ''
2) it's a FACT that a crucified Christ is really embarrassing.
3) therefore: Jesus existed.

I really hate how the criterion of embarrassment is treated, mainly by mythicists. You'd think that it was the main method used by historicists! But in fact its limitations are recognised and it is only used in a few cases. And it is rarely used by itself.

John P Meier, for example, wrote as follows:

• “Like all the criteria we will examine, however, the criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria. One built-in limitation to the criterion of embarrassment is that clear-cut cases of such embarrassment are not numerous in the Gospel tradition; and a full portrait of Jesus could never be drawn from so few strokes. Another limitation stems from the fact that what we today might consider an embarrassment to the early Church was not necessarily an embarrassment in its own eyes.”

If you were going to use it in your example, it would actually be something more like this:

1) the first Christian apostles preach a ''crucified Christ''
2) it's a FACT that a crucified Christ is really embarrassing.
3) therefore: the first Christian apostles didn't make up that Christ was crucified.

You might still get to "Jesus existed" from that, but that is not the conclusion that can be drawn from the CoE alone. You'd need to use other criteria for that, as Meier points out.

Carrier denies the point 2: a ''crucified Christ'' is not really embarrassing, as the castration of Attis is not really embarrassing. Therefore the conclusion doesn't follow.

Yes, Dr Carrier does claim that, and this is very silly. Whether the castration of Attis is embarrassing or not to devotees 500 years after the myth was created has no logical relationship to whether the crucifixion of Christ was embarrassing or not to the first Christians.

The rest of your comments were interesting, and not affected by the above. But the crucifixion itself may not have been embarrassing by the time of the Second Century CE, if you are placing the docetics at that time. It would have been that a divine being took on flesh and actually felt suffering.

[Peter Kirby]

I really hate how the criterion of embarrassment is treated, mainly by mythicists. You'd think that it was the main method used by historicists!

I don't really want to go around digging up quotes now. But the 'mythicists' didn't cherry pick the criterion of embarrassment out of the roster of criteria used in order to beat it up in a strawman-like fashion.

The "historicists" have themselves to blame for the attention given to it, because several sound bites issued by scholars and historians of note have drawn attention to the criterion of embarassment and the cross especially, when speaking on the subject of the historicity of Jesus. The fact is that most comments from "historicists" are very uneven, and it is the most common fault of them to focus single-mindedly on one argument, which is roughly what you might expect since it's also common for many proponents of a historical Jesus to discuss it in only one paragraph (!) if not just a single sentence.

To unload this onto "mythicists" as their prejudice is far from fair or true.

[Giuseppe]

You'd need to use other criteria for that, as Meier points out.

No thanks, I do not even think about it. I quote the criterion of embarrassment here only for the reasons mentioned here: in short, do we know that docetic Christians (I mean precisely: deniers of the reality of crucifixion and proponents of a Christus Ridens) of the second century were embarrassed by the crucifixion of Jesus? Yes? no? why?

Whether the castration of Attis is embarrassing or not to devotees 500 years after the myth was created has no logical relationship to whether the crucifixion of Christ was embarrassing or not to the first Christians.

Why? Attis was a dying-and-rising god. And Jesus, too. Sharing at least an heinous death rectified by resurrection creates a logical relationship to the extent that you invoke embarrassment on the death of one or the other.

But the crucifixion itself may not have been embarrassing by the time of the Second Century CE, if you are placing the docetics at that time. It would have been that a divine being took on flesh and actually felt suffering.

Why not embarassing? If I am a docetic Christian and I claim that the Christ did laugh while another guy was crucified, I am assuming that for that guy the crucifixion was embarrassing (since Jesus himself did find it embarrassing to laugh so much!), therefore in extenso it should be such for Jesus (if Jesus was crucified), also.
Now, the problem is that this reaction to embarrasment (the negation of the reality of crucifixion, as above described), if born only in II CE (since we don't have deniers of the reality of crucifixion in I CE), it would be risen only after the knowledge of the first Gospel therefore it would be embarrassment not about crucifixion per se, but about Roman crucifixion per se. The fact that no I CE Christian did manifest embarrassment about the crucifixion in I CE (for example, by denying the reality of crucifixion already then) is more expected under mythicism.

By corollary, this opens an interesting scenario: that a crucial aspect of the crucifixion is not only what has been said so far (terrible punishment, humiliating, outrageous, etc.) but also another aspect: the crucifixion is by definition something that is exposed to the view of all, beyond those who are there to see it.

Wishing to compare it to a term today, the crucifixion is the fork, not the electric chair.

[Bernard Muller]

Why? Attis was a dying-and-rising god

Not at the very beginning of Attis' legend (without castration & resurrection). From http://historical-jesus.info/djp1.html:
And, much earlier (and closer to Paul's times!), around 150 CE, this is what Pausanias wrote in 'Description of Greece', 7, 17, 9-13:
"The people of Dyme have a temple of Athena with an extremely ancient image; they have as well a sanctuary built for the Dindymenian mother and Attis. As to Attis, I could learn no secret about him, but Hermesianax, the elegiac poet [330 BCE], says in a poem that he was the son of Galaus the Phrygian, and that he was a eunuch from birth. The account of Hermesianax goes on to say that, on growing up, Attis migrated to Lydia and celebrated for the Lydians the orgies of the Mother; that he rose to such honor with her that Zeus, being wroth at it, sent a boar to destroy the tillage of the Lydians. Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar, and it is consistent with this that the Gauls who inhabit Pessinus abstain from pork. But the current view about Attis is different,
[the tale then got considerably embellished & modified! Let's also notice the first account is humanly plausible (except for the killer boar, likely imported from Adonis' legend)]

There is no castration here, but Attis' death is obviously mythical and dramatic.

Guiseppe will certainly be happy that Attis' castration was added, and certainly will claim that happened for Jesus' crucifixion. But every cases are different and no general rule can be ascertained.

There are traces that the crucifixion was shameful in the earliest Christian literature:
Paul's first epistle does not mention a crucifixion
1 Cor 1:23 YLT "... Christ crucified, to Jews, indeed, a stumbling-block, and to Greeks foolishness ..."
Heb 12:2 "looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God"
Heb 6:6 "and having fallen away, again to renew them to reformation, having crucified again to themselves the Son of God, and exposed to public shame."
2 Cor 13:4 "... He was crucified in weakness ..."
Gal 5:11 "... the offense of the cross ..."

Later, the crucifixion as the sacrifice for atonement of sins was glorified.
Then the Gnostics came later and for theological reasons, some of them avoided to put the Son of God to the indignity of a crucifixion.

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

No, Bernard, in this thread I want to see (if possible) traces that the crucifixion was shameful in the earliest I CE leterature FOR THE CHRISTIANS. Not in the eyes of pagans (folly) and not-christian Jews (offence of the cross). Your use of these pauline quotes is simply not correct.

[GakuseiDon]

You'd need to use other criteria for that, as Meier points out.

No thanks, I do not even think about it. I quote the criterion of embarrassment here only for the reasons mentioned here: in short, do we know that docetic Christians (I mean precisely: deniers of the reality of crucifixion and proponents of a Christus Ridens) of the second century were embarrassed by the crucifixion of Jesus? Yes? no? why?

Yes, but that's not the CoE. The CoE is "they left it in EVEN THOUGH it was dissimilar to what they believed", not "they changed it BECAUSE it was dissimilar to what they believed".

Whether the castration of Attis is embarrassing or not to devotees 500 years after the myth was created has no logical relationship to whether the crucifixion of Christ was embarrassing or not to the first Christians.

Why? Attis was a dying-and-rising god. And Jesus, too. Sharing at least an heinous death rectified by resurrection creates a logical relationship to the extent that you invoke embarrassment on the death of one or the other.

See the quote I gave from Meier. You'd need to show that it was 'embarrassing' to those first reporting it. For example, if someone argued that the crucifixion wasn't embarrassing to the first Christians, then the CoE doesn't apply. Dr Carrier doesn't establish that the first reporters of the Attis myth did that for Attis.

But the crucifixion itself may not have been embarrassing by the time of the Second Century CE, if you are placing the docetics at that time. It would have been that a divine being took on flesh and actually felt suffering.

Why not embarassing? If I am a docetic Christian and I claim that the Christ did laugh while another guy was crucified, I am assuming that for that guy the crucifixion was embarrassing (since Jesus himself did find it embarrassing to laugh so much!), therefore in extenso it should be such for Jesus (if Jesus was crucified), also.
Now, the problem is that this reaction to embarrasment (the negation of the reality of crucifixion, as above described), if born only in II CE (since we don't have deniers of the reality of crucifixion in I CE), it would be risen only after the knowledge of the first Gospel therefore it would be embarrassment not about crucifixion per se, but about Roman crucifixion per se. The fact that no I CE Christian did manifest embarrassment about the crucifixion in I CE (for example, by denying the reality of crucifixion already then) is more expected under mythicism.

By corollary, this opens an interesting scenario: that a crucial aspect of the crucifixion is not only what has been said so far (terrible punishment, humiliating, outrageous, etc.) but also another aspect: the crucifixion is by definition something that is exposed to the view of all, beyond those who are there to see it.

Wishing to compare it to a term today, the crucifixion is the fork, not the electric chair.

It's an interesting line to pursue, it isn't anything to do with the criterion of embarrassment.

[GakuseiDon]

I really hate how the criterion of embarrassment is treated, mainly by mythicists. You'd think that it was the main method used by historicists!

I don't really want to go around digging up quotes now. But the 'mythicists' didn't cherry pick the criterion of embarrassment out of the roster of criteria used in order to beat it up in a strawman-like fashion.

The "historicists" have themselves to blame for the attention given to it, because several sound bites issued by scholars and historians of note have drawn attention to the criterion of embarassment and the cross especially, when speaking on the subject of the historicity of Jesus. The fact is that most comments from "historicists" are very uneven, and it is the most common fault of them to focus single-mindedly on one argument, which is roughly what you might expect since it's also common for many proponents of a historical Jesus to discuss it in only one paragraph (!) if not just a single sentence.

To unload this onto "mythicists" as their prejudice is far from fair or true.

I disagree, and I think it really would require digging up quotes. From what I've read, in any discussion of the CoE historians have nearly always stressed how weak and limited it is, and how it needs to be used with other criteria. You don't get that impression from mythicists (again, from what I've read). That Dr Carrier has to invoke that ridiculous example of Attis as an 'example' of the criterion is telling.

I argued with Nick Covington on the CoE on his blog on this. He wrote an excellent article on the CoE, giving its limitations. But as I pointed out to him, via the Meier quote, is that scholars are already aware of the limitations! He hadn't read any literature by historians AFAICT, and, like Carrier, he used a made-up example of the CoE rather than use one by historians.

There is a difference between arguing that 'the CoE is invalid' and 'the CoE is limited'. Historians tend to argue that the CoE is valid but limited. Mythicists ignore this, and then argue 'look at the limitations historicists ignore!' as though this invalidates the CoE. Though probably better to discuss in its own thread.

[Giuseppe]

When the docetic Christians changed the story, then they did so because they were *embarrassed* by that story (even more so since that story was still held by other Christians). That change did reflect their embarrassment. To be seriously embarrassed were Christian people (even if Gnostics). I'm assuming here that the same gnostic credence of the irreal crucifixion was an effect of their embarrassment. And note that by that change they did create a monstrous Christus Ridens that is even more morally embarrassing than the crucifixion himself! Those gnostics were not able to hide totally the older story (that Jesus was crucified) therefore they left the "body of the crime", against their will. I apply rightly the CoE in this case to conclude that: the Gnostics were embarrassed that in a previous story Jesus was crucified and not others.

[Giuseppe]

There is not only Attis. Richard Miller has shown 13 examples of body translation tropos applied on mythological people that are dead by a "heinous death". For example Theseus.