The Real Bottom Line in the Mythicism Debate

[Charles Wilson]

But this has nothing to do with this thread. Please stop bringing this Herod obsession of yours into this thread

Sorry you don't get it SH.
At least you didn't curse MY forebears...

See ya.

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Stephan

God sent his adopted son to save the Jews and to lead them. They messed him up. God wanted to show them that he was displeased, so he got the Romans to burn the temple. God's attitude was you don't follow my adopted son, you don't follow me. After Commodius in 177, the Jews could answer, "Hey our emperor is now a natural Son of God (the previous emperor). Are you trying to make trouble for the emperor by saying adopted sons are better than natural ones? We were right to reject adopted sons. Natural sons are better. The Christians answered, "Wait a second, did we say he was adopted, no we meant he was a natural Son of God." -- Quick rewrite of old origin of John story to make it into a birth of Jesus story -- "You see, there was this girl named Mary and before she was married they found she was pregnant..."

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Because the myth whether developed from a historical individual or invented fiction serves a social need. What purpose does Jesus the crazy Jewish law breaking magician serve? How does it explain God's role in the destruction of Judaism?

[MrMacSon]

.
This is quite fascinating -

Hi all,

Just a thought here, the process of authority recognition would have reflected the way the emperor gained his authority.

After the temple's destruction, Vespasian had authority due to recognition by the army. Titus (81-83) and Domitian (91-96) got their authority from their natural father, Vespasian. This natural kinship ended in 96, when Nerva got his authority from the Senate. The next five emperors were all adopted sons of the prior emperor starting with Trajan in 98. It was not until Commodius (177-189), the natural son of Marcus Aurelius, that natural kinship again because a mark of legitimate authority.

This would suggest that the gospel of Mark and John with their adoptive authority code were written between 98 and 177. Matthew and Luke, with authority derived derived from sonship, would have to have been written either before Nerva, before 96, or after Commodius 177. Since Matthew and Luke are familiar with the adoptive mode of authority transfer evidenced in Mark and John, one may suppose that they were written after Commodius in 177.

Thus we can date Mark and John (the adoptive gospels) between 98 and 177, and Matthew and Luke (the post adoptive, natural son gospels) post 177.

I agree totally with Stephen's bottom line position that the gospels are there to explain the fall of the Temple, i.e. the Jewish-Christian defeat at the hands of the Romans in numerous wars.

Warmly, Jay Raskin

Well Jay if that's the case why involve a trumped up god man? I fail to see where a jesus plays any role in this.

God sent his adopted son to save the Jews and to lead them. They messed him up. God wanted to show them that he was displeased, so he got the Romans to burn the temple. God's attitude was you don't follow my adopted son, you don't follow me.

After Commodius in 177, the Jews could answer, "Hey, our emperor is now a natural Son of God (the previous emperor). Are you trying to make trouble for the emperor by saying adopted sons are better than natural ones? We were right to reject adopted sons. Natural sons are better." The Christians answered, "Wait a second, did we say he was adopted, no we meant he was a natural Son of God." -- Quick rewrite of old origin of John story to make it into a birth of Jesus story --

"You see, there was this girl named Mary and before she was married they found she was pregnant..."

Warmly, Jay Raskin

It's an interesting reflection on the theocratic-ruler authority that existed at the time.

[MrMacSon]

I think that the real bottom line here is simple. Mythicists choose to go outside the Bible and Bible believers choose to stay in it.

I don't think it's a dichotomy like that.

Christians have, until recently, used extra-biblical texts to bolster their position, but now wider commentary & consensus has shown those texts to be either likely altered later (eg. Josephus's Testamentum Flavium (Antiquites 18), or be mostly references to early Christians, or likely both (eg. Tacitus).

How do you justify an historical person that is mentioned some 100-200 years after the fact? Does the mere mention of a name like jesus some 200 years later really support an historical person? In a court of law this [is] hear-say, but apparently it does not hold standard when it comes to a jesus.

It is essentially special-pleading by Christians that the Gospels & Pauline texts are 'sources'. They don't meet the criteria of the Historical Method to be classified as *[contemporary] primary sources*.

It is also seems to be special pleading that those NT texts are asserted to have been written in the 1st C. There is no evidence they were.

[steve43]

If you discount the New Testament, Josephus, and Tacitus, you are left with basically nothing.

But that's what you want, right?

[MrMacSon]

^ not necessarily. Just proper attribution & weight given to the texts, & the relationships of all the texts chronologically wrt the eventual narrative; in the conventions of the Historic Method

[The Crow]

If you discount the New Testament, Josephus, and Tacitus, you are left with basically nothing.

But that's what you want, right?

Steve43 heres What's that some one once said? If you take all the miracle workings and other supernatural claims given to jesus out of the Bible your left with nothing. I really do not see how Tacitus and Josephus play into it. I have never understood it. Neither lived during the purposed time of jesus. Josephus was not born until some 3 or 4 years after his purposed death. Tacitus is the real enigma. I wish some one would point out how by way of one paragraph (Annals 15:44) that Tacitus is an historical conformation of a jesus. If Tacitus is confirming anything its that Christians were in Rome at the time shouting something about a Chrestus as their saviour or something to that affect. What part of Annals 15:44 confirms to Historians that Tacitus knew jesus was real?

And just off the cuff. What about 2 John1:7-11? Apparently there were those then that denied a jesus ever existed. Why does John choose to admonish instead of confront the non believers if they had overwhelming evidence at the time?

Here are three things that come to my mind.

(1). The NT was not written as an historical document and it never says so. If it does would some one point me to it.
(2). Why would a Jew writing under Roman authority even speak of a jesus considering he could be strung up for treason.
(3). Tacitus mention of Christians is that suppose to be clear cut evidence of jesus existence? When apparently Tacitus was only writing what he had heard.

[Tenorikuma]

It all comes down to one question- could the Jewish believers in antiquity have accepted the idea that 'God' (i.e. the godhead) was unaware of or wasn't involved in the destruction of the temple.

Stephan, I have a lot more reading to do on this subject, but weren't Jews (at least, those with a philosophical bent) already beginning to see God as a transcendent being who wasn't really involved on earth? That's why we have the Sophia/Memra/Logos acting as a divine agent, the angels giving the law, and pseudo-John claiming that no one has ever seen God. Before long, you even have full-blown Jewish/Christian Gnosticism, in which God is so transcendent he doesn't even know the world exists, making divine contact with humanity the domain of beings like Sophia, Yaldabaoth, and Christ. You have Paul and Simon both preaching the same gospel of freedom from angels and the law, with apologists like Irenaeus proclaiming one apostle to be authoritative and the other heretical.

But why is all this convoluted development necessary? why is it likely that the Jewish world was won over by this crazy law breaking sorcerer in the first place? what about a 70 CE text makes this the necessary first step to the process.

Because Palestinian Jews who still had influence among the diaspora started to revive Messianic expectations, and people like Bar Kochba started showing up, trying to restore the temple. Christians, who had already rejected the earthly temple, needed to show that the second power in heaven had already come as the Messiah, albeit in secret. Surely, the ignorant scribes and Pharisees of the Gospels—the Jews who reject Jesus—are a literary representation of Jewish Messianists in the writer’s own day trying to revive a failed religious system.

I agree totally with Stephen's bottom line position that the gospels are there to explain the fall of the Temple, i.e. the Jewish-Christian defeat at the hands of the Romans in numerous wars.

Not just that, they explain why the Temple needs to stay fallen. The Temple is irrelevant, and God never wanted it in the first place — see Stephen's speech in Acts.

[bcedaifu]

It was a wholly Jewish understanding too one which appealed to many or at least some Jews until the late second century.

???
"wholly Jewish"

What utter crap. Where in the "old testament" do you find one word about YHWH impregnating a human female, and then "rescuing" his demigod son after the latter's death, by raising him to Mount Olympus? The "WHOLE" of Christianity is based on the fable of Herakles. Christianity is a pagan GREEK, not a Jewish, religion. No educated Jew would ever believe such nonsense.

Judaism is the frosting, not the cake. All the quotes in the New Testament, from the Old Testament, are used, as we employ Shakespeare--to lend an aura of legitimacy to this new tradition--Christianity. Spin quoted Shakespeare, just a couple weeks ago, for example, without bothering to actually list chapter and verse, why? No need. The quote is so famous everyone knows it. Referencing the most famous author in the English language, demonstrates spin's own erudition, in case we had been apprehensive about the validity of his post.

The peddlers of earliest Christianity needed some gloss to demonstrate why wealthy patrons should fork over their gold to those swindlers. A few quotes from Moses and his pals, did the trick. We see the same process with the Mormons, in a more recent era. Do we imagine that it was the Jews living in North America, in the 19th century, who flocked to Mormonism, making it the dynamic structure we observe today?

[pakeha]

At the end of the day, though, we're talking about a literary devise using the "ironical Roman triumph" and "prophecied Suffering Servant" rather than describing an actual event?

Yes. Or rather the actual event was the Jewish War culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. Jews basically appear to have reacted in two different ways: one that led to orthodox Christianity and the other that led to rabbinic Judaism.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm finding trying to place the data pertinent to the Jesus narrative difficult to sort into any sort of a rational/plausible scenario, but then,I'm new at this and am fortunate to be able to ask questions in forums like this one.