Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

We are said by both mythicists and historicists that Paul was interested only about the spiritual celestial Christ. The rest didn't matter nothing to him (even if a real HJ existed).

Now, the French Mythicist Edouard Dujardin did an interesting remark (I go to memory from his "Ancient History of the god Jesus"):

If Paul was satisfied only about the things of Jesus "according to the spirit" (and not about the things of Jesus "according to the flesh"), then WHY he didn't ignore the FORM that the sacrifice took, i.e. the Crucifixion (at least insofar it was by definition a mere detail "according to the flesh")???

This Dujardin's remark does even more a point when we read that Paul says that Jesus was "mocked", somewhere in the epistles (I don't remember where precisely at the moment): another detail "according to the flesh" that Paul would have ignored, if he was really only interested about spiritual matters.

Clearly Dujardin isn't doing a historicist case (the details of the sacrifice reported by Paul are only three: the mocking of Jesus, his weakness and his crucifixion. The other Gospel details continue to be surprisingly absent). But even so they remain details of the "flesh", not of the spirit. Details that are apparently pointless, at least for someone interested only to mystical things.

Dujardin concludes that this is evidence that Paul had in mind a "rite of exposition" for the Crucifixion of Jesus. He was describing a kind of dynamic scene under his eyes, an earthly representation of the sacred drama. Only in virtue of this drama played on the earth, Paul would be moved to mention these (otherwise entirely pointless) details.

Therefore Doherty would be partially wrong when he derives the details above mentioned by Paul as simple additions (imagined) in the celestial realm of Air.

Paul was describing more in detail a sacrifice in a way that even his Gentile readers could see (and agree with him in this view): only so they could agree with Paul that Jesus:

1) was crucified
2) was mocked
3) suffered

...during his celestial "real" drama.

Therefore Paul and his readers did share the view of the same earthly ritual, one that was the earthly avatar of the celestial drama.

This means that Paul "saw" in hallucination only the Risen Christ. He could see his death only as the last of the his Gentile followers: uniquely by representing it in a "rite of exposition". Where someone played the part of Christ.

The original myth had :

1) the short drama of the Crucifixion (invisible in the Air insofar visible in his earthly drama)

2) followed by a very very long list of apparitions of the Risen Christ.

Mark replaced the chronological order above with the following:

1) a very visible earthly life of Jesus before the Crucifixion

2) zero apparitions of the Risen Christ.

Giuseppe wrote:The original myth had :

1) the short drama of the Crucifixion (invisible in the Air insofar visible in his earthly drama)

This idea is so stupid its hilarious even one sucker born yesterday ever bought into it. An invisible crucifixion in the air? Never go full retard. Paul taught what Marcion taught: Jesus in a spiritual body of celestial flesh crucified on earth.

If the archons are in the Air, then also their victim had to be there.

And the ancient people saw the Air as a "natural" extreme extension of the Earth (where also the god Attis died).

if some Cathars localized "in another Earth" the crucifixion, it is sufficient to believe serious the idea and assume it as the default position for the epistles.

note that Marcion was historicist insofar his Jesus was on the Earth.

The following words of Dujardin had struck me from the first moment I read them:

There is in this contention a strange confusion of ideas. Plainly the expiatory sacrifice realized by the death of Jesus was for St. Paul concerned with ''the things of the spirit''. But how does the fact that the death of the Redeemer took the form of a crucifixion concern the spirit more than the other episodes of the Passion? If he was not interested in what happened “according to the flesh”, he would have been content to proclaim Jesus sacrificed and would have ignored the form that the sacrifice took, as he ignored the rest; if he was interested in the form that the sacrifice took, he would similarly be interested in the important episodes of the Passion. If the tragedy of the Passion belongs to things ''according to the flesh'', the operation of the setting on the cross belongs thereto no less. If the crucifixion belongs to ''things of the spirit'', the other episodes of the tragedy belong thereto equally.

source: https://books.google.it/books?id=WebwDM ... on&f=false

Note the argument of Dujardin:

1) if the crucifixion is a historical detail, then why is Paul silent about the other historical details?

2) vice versa, if the crucifixion is a mythical detail, then why is something so much ''kata sarka'' as the mere detail of the crucifixion particularly remembered by Paul about the well-more-important spiritual thing (the sacrifice of Jesus)?

3) Occam's razor excludes, for the surprise (=improbability) raised by the point 1, that the crucifixion is a historical detail.

4) Occam's razor excludes, for the surprise (=improbability) raised by the point 2, that the crucifixion is a mythological detail.

5) the best economic explanation is that the crucifixion, as particular form of the sacrifice of Jesus, is simply the form of a historical ritualistic act, and as such it is remembered by Paul.

This would explain at once why

A) the crucifixion is a detail, a form, and not the substance of the sacrifice.

B) other details ''according to the flesh'' are not remembered (apart the ''mocking'' of Jesus and his suffering).


The point B is a very strong point by Dujardin. Ask yourself:

Evidence shows that when Paul (or who for him) wanted to remember the Eucharist scene (in itself another Christian ritual), he said only what is strictly essential about it. He didn't refer any minimal detail about that ritual (for example, the where and the when).

Idem for the typical Christian ritual: the baptism.


Therefore Dujardin is right: the particular form of the sacrifice of Jesus was the crucifixion because it was the main feature of a ritual executed before Paul in the early Christian communities.


Evidence a posteriori of the crucifixion being an earthly ritual is Galatians 3:1

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

Some corollary to the point made above:

Dujardin says that the crucifixion by demons was a later view than the crucifixion as ritualistic earthly act.
I would disagree.

Because Dujardin is like dr. Carrier. Both think that the Death of Jesus is in Paul an expiatory sacrifice.

I don't think so.

The true Paul didn't preach the crucifixion as expiatory sacrifice, but as Death and Resurrection of a God.

Surely, before Paul, the Pillars identified the Death of Jesus with an expiatory sacrifice. See evidence of this in the anti-pauline book of Revelation, where the Lamb is sacrificed. But the Lamb is sacrificed on a celestial altar.

Therefore, differently from Dujardin, I see the crucifixion as the form of the earthly ritual that remembers (and repeats on behalf of the community) the celestial sacrifice of the archangel Jesus.

This would explain the enigmatic reference to crucifixion in Revelation.

and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.

(Rev 11:8)

While the celestial sacrifice happened one for all in Heaven, the crucifixion as a ritual act was made in Jerusalem. That crucifixion is an earthly symbol of the celestial sacrifice of the Lamb.

Another and last corollary confirming strongly the Dujardin's thesis.

The reference to a death by cross in the pre-pauline Hymn to Philippians is not original.

Therefore it proves the nature of the crucifixion as merely the earhtly form added to the sacrifice of Jesus, not the his same (celestial) essence.

Another corollary confirming the thesis of Dujardin: the ''mocking'' of Jesus under the cross.

He says:

1 Corinthians 12:3

Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap

Galatians 6:7


During the earthly ritualistic drama, the other actors mocked the actor ''Jesus'', as imitators of the his celestial killers.

Clearly, they were only simulating ''real'' contempt of the actor ''Jesus'', during the ritual. Or in other terms: they cursed Jesus apparently without the Spirit of God (just as the ''real'' killers of Jesus).

But mocking Jesus is equivalent to mocking God, per Gal 6:7.

My point here is that the act of mocking/cursing Jesus assumes a vision of the crucified Jesus, i.e. the exposition in a ritual of the his crucifixion.

People only mock what they see.


Therefore Dujardin was very brilliant: he realized that the crucifixion is only appearance, form, ritual, exposition: it is not the real thing.