For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus

[IanS]

I believe that this is part of an "Adam Christology" that scholars like James Dunn have proposed. That is: Adam -- in the image of God, Jesus -- in the form of God Adam -- gave into temptation to grasp equality with God, Jesus -- resisted temptation Adam -- disobeyed God, Jesus -- obedient to God IOW, Paul believes that Jesus is a man, but a man like Adam, a new start for the human race..

What?? ... how did you just conclude from the clearly fictitious story of Adam, that "Paul" therefore believed "the Christ" was a real person, when in that passage "Paul" just clearly said he was not actually real??

If you read Gen 3:

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. ... 22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...​

This reading of the passage is controversial, especially with those who want to read a pre-existent being into Paul. But it is consistent with Paul's equating Jesus with Adam elsewhere in his letters.

"Controversial"? You are trying to claim that some nonsense about a talking snake from 1000 BC, shows that Paul thought Jesus was a human man?

 

[Kapyong]

Gday TubbaBlubba and all

Thanks for your comments

I would assume Paul to understand this well enough. If he intended his pagan audience to understand Jesus as a purely cosmic being in a heavenly realm, I would have expected him to describe Jesus in a rather different manner.

Such as describing where he was born ? Or where he died ? Or that he ever visited Jerusalem ? Or where he lived and preached ? Or even THAT he preached ? Or when he died ? Or was born ? Or what his parents names' were ? Or that he was tried ? Or that he had disciples ? Or his table-turning ? Or his triumphal entry ? Or his speeches ? Or ANYTHING clearly on Earth ?

Instead of describing him in heavenly terms like being the ' Son Of God ' ?

Or explicit metaphor like :' Do you not realize that Jesus Christos is within you? '

Or metaphorical crucifixion, metaphorical baptism, metaphorical burial etc.

Or how Paul (1 Cor. 15:22) contrasts the heavenly Jesus Christ, the 2nd Adam :

• in Christ all will be made alive,
• raised in incorruption, glory, power,
• a spiritual body,
• became a life-giving spirit,
• is the Lord from heaven,
• is the heavenly (not of dust - made of heavenly stuff?),
• is spiritual,
• is the image of the heavenly.

In comparison to (the first) Adam who is described like this :

• in Adam all die,
• sown in corruption, dishonor, weakness, sown a natural body,
• a natural body,
• became a living soul,
• of Earth,
• made of dust.

Paul over-whelmingly uses many explicitly heavenly / spiritual / metaphorical descriptions for Jesus Christ, but NOT ONE single clearly earthly reference.

But his language of being born according to the flesh and having a brother suggests a connection to our everyday reality, rather than a purely "mythical" reality.

Firstly TubbaBlubba, may I suggest you avoid the word 'real' or 'reality' - God has everyday reality, so does even Jesus Christ. The issue is about being on Earth Vs being in Heaven.

The mythicist argument here is that Paul placed the crucifixion in Heaven (Pi3H), not myth, nor Earth (but later G.Mark was myth.)

Meanwhile - 'according to the flesh' (Greek kata sarka) does not necessarily mean literally physically, as 2 Cor. shows :

2 Cor. 5:16 "Therefore we know no one kata sarka from now on. Even though we have known Christ kata sarka, yet now we know him so no more."​

Also - 'having a brother' is not a fair reading. Instead we have merely the term or even title 'Lord's Brother', amongst very many metaphorical uses of the term 'brother', in a community that calls each other 'brothers'.

Sorry TubbaBlubba But these are very weak and old reasons to support the Historical Jesus Theory, while we have seen many good reasons to support the Heavenly Jesus Theory.

Occam's Razor clearly argues that we should not add the un-necessary Historical Jesus Christ entity to our conclusion.


Kapyong

 

[IanS]

If GMark's Jesus is "clearly a fabulous figure living in a make-believe world" it doesn't seem so clear to the people around that time. The Gospels were presented as being about an actual person as far as I can see. Is there evidence that the Gospels weren't about an actual person, or about a person who was supposed to have actually existed?

The gospel writers may have believed Jesus was a real person. Or they may have believed he was real in some fanciful sense that was mixing up what today we would call "fiction", with reality (e.g. they may not have distinguished clearly between actual reality vs. a "reality" assured or promised in scripture). But whatever they believed, it seems clear that none of the gospel writers had ever known any such preacher as Jesus.

And although at least two HJ proponents in these threads keep complaining about the same repeated points being made by HJ-sceptics, it is of course true that the gospel accounts of Jesus are filled with what we now know to be fiction (miracles, revelations from God, Jesus defying death etc.). That point is so obvious that it seems to be overlooked by HJ people, as if they are no longer capable of "seeing the wood for the trees".... by which I mean that anyone proposing the gospels as credible evidence for Jesus really must have lost sight of how completely discredited they are by such a vast amount of the writing being later "proved" as quite certainly untrue (IOW - it's important to bear in mind that in biblical times people felt so absolutely certain that miracles happened every day somewhere in their locality ... they were believed as accepted fact ... so when they were told the story of all the many miracles of Jesus, most people would have no barrier to accepting that it must all have been true, and hence that it was proof positive that anyone as miraculous as that, simply must be the true messiah .... except of course, 2000 years later we now know that all those miracle stories are the absolute opposite of unquestioned fact; they are actually the very evidence that shows how overwhelmingly fictional and non-credible that gospel preaching/writing really was.

Today the only real surprise about that, is that 21st century bible scholars will happily discard almost all of what is said in the gospels as agreed impossible fiction, but still treat the writing as historically reliable by claiming that "a kernel of truth" remains (or "might" remain), sufficient to tell us that Jesus was a real person despite all the constant un-reality. Just how many untruths does that "witness" have to tell before it's admitted that he/it is too unreliable to be quoted as a credible source of evidence.

 

[smartcooky]

The gospel writers may have believed Jesus was a real person. Or they may have believed he was real in some fanciful sense that was mixing up what today we would call "fiction", with reality (e.g. they may not have distinguished clearly between actual reality vs. a "reality" assured or promised in scripture). But whatever they believed, it seems clear that none of the gospel writers had ever known any such preacher as Jesus.


And although at least two HJ proponents in these threads keep complaining about the same repeated points being made by HJ-sceptics, it is of course true that the gospel accounts of Jesus are filled with what we now know to be fiction (miracles, revelations from God, Jesus defying death etc.). That point is so obvious that it seems to be overlooked by HJ people, as if they are no longer capable of "seeing the wood for the trees".... by which I mean that anyone proposing the gospels as credible evidence for Jesus really must have lost sight of how completely discredited they are by such a vast amount of the writing being later "proved" as quite certainly untrue (IOW - it's important to bear in mind that in biblical times people felt so absolutely certain that miracles happened every day somewhere in their locality ... they were believed as accepted fact ... so when they were told the story of all the many miracles of Jesus, most people would have no barrier to accepting that it must all have been true, and hence that it was proof positive that anyone as miraculous as that, simply must be the true messiah .... except of course, 2000 years later we now know that all those miracle stories are the absolute opposite of unquestioned fact; they are actually the very evidence that shows how overwhelmingly fictional and non-credible that gospel preaching/writing really was.

I would still like an answer as to what people here believe the nature of the SGospels was. Were they.

1. Written accounts taken from oral accounts handed down through a couple of generations?

2. Written accounts taken from one or more earlier written accounts which no longer exist or have yet to be found?

3. Pure fiction in the minds of any of the writers, be they Mark, Mathew or Luke, or of whoever's material they wrote down?

Perhaps there was some of all three involved?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I would still like an answer as to what people here believe the nature of the SGospels was. Were they.

1. Written accounts taken from oral accounts handed down through a couple of generations?

2. Written accounts taken from one or more earlier written accounts which no longer exist or have yet to be found?

3. Pure fiction in the minds of any of the writers, be they Mark, Mathew or Luke, or of whoever's material they wrote down?

Perhaps there was some of all three involved?

If we stick to Mark, I'd say a mixture of 1, possibly 2, and above all else, sets of quotes (written and/or orally transmitted) by Jesus put into context employing an (often implausible-seeming) narrative devised by the author.

Here is a favourite example of mine, Mark 3:20+:

20And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. 21When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” 22The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 23And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26“If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! 27“But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
28“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

31Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. 32A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” 33Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” 34Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! 35“For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Note how Mark works to explain what Jesus means and to put it all into context - particularly '28“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”'

28-29 looks like something Jesus might've said, 30 looks like Mark trying to explain it.

 

[vridar]

Yes, I agree you responded to my points with alternative arguments, but I don't think I can respond to yours without repeating my point again. That to me is a sign that the argument can't proceed. If it can proceed, I'd be happy to do that.

If you feel your only response is to repeat yourself then it would follow that my own argument has not addressed yours. If that is the case then one would expect an explanation of how my argument fails in this manner. Otherwise I am left thinking you cannot respond to the argument and are simply ignoring it. Perhaps my position is seen as "wilfully" blind or such and therefore a response is considered a waste of time?

But didn't Schweitzer famously believe that Jesus predicted his own return in the near future, but that Jesus got it wrong? How could he have thought that was the case, if there is no degree of positive probability? Could he have meant 'certainty' with regards to the 'Gospel' Jesus rather than a historical 'bare-bones' one?

Perhaps Schweitzer simply meant what he wrote. I don't know that he "believed" in his historical reconstruction so much as found that the most satisfying argument, but like a genuine scholar he also understood the tentativeness of all historical reconstructions. He certainly had very little of the dogmatism of many anti-mythicists today.

We don't need rhetorical questions to try to save Schweitzer for ourselves. We can read his words in which he is addressing the dogmatism, the certainty, the proof-texting approach of his colleagues who were attempting to refute mythicism by unscholarly means and attitudes. I think S was addressing the very same approach you are taking with this thread, GDon, in the bolded portion of the first paragraph below:

More than once in the writings directed against [a mythicist] it is stated that even what is self-evident can nevertheless be made clear only if the will is there to be swayed by the evidence available. The writers call on ‘sound judgment’, a ‘sense of reality’, or even on the ‘aesthetic feeling’ of the man whose views they are opposing, that is, if they do not console themselves with the idea that nothing can be revealed to him who will not see.

In reality, however, these writers are faced with the enormous problem that strictly speaking absolutely nothing can be proved by evidence from the past, but can only be shown to be more or less probable. Moreover, in the case of Jesus, the theoretical reservations are even greater because all the reports about him go back to the one source of tradition, early Christianity itself, and there are no data available in Jewish or Gentile secular history which could be used as controls. Thus the degree of certainty cannot even be raised so high as positive probability.

So nothing is achieved by calling on sound judgment or on whatever else one likes to ask for in an opponent. Seen from a purely logical viewpoint, whether Jesus existed or did not exist must always remain hypothetical.

. . . .

. . . Modern Christianity must always reckon with the possibility of having to abandon the historical figure of Jesus. Hence it must not artificially increase his importance by referring all theological knowledge to him and developing a ‘christocentric’ religion: the Lord may always be a mere element in ‘religion’, but he should never be considered its foundation.

To put it differently: religion must avail itself of a metaphysic, that is, a basic view of the nature and significance of being which is entirely independent of history and of knowledge transmitted from the past . . .

(p.402, Fortress edition of Quest )

If GMark's Jesus is "clearly a fabulous figure living in a make-believe world" it doesn't seem so clear to the people around that time.

This returns us to our ignorance as to

• the date of Mark,
• the authorship of Mark
• the provenance of Mark
• the original audience of Mark
• the genre of Mark
• the intentions and sources of Mark

All of these points are up for debate. We we have no facts in relation to any of them upon which to base an argument. Yet your arguments treats all of these unknowns as "self-evident knowns" that just happen to favour your model of Christian origins.

The Gospels were presented as being about an actual person as far as I can see. Is there evidence that the Gospels weren't about an actual person, or about a person who was supposed to have actually existed?

This is your opinion, your interpretation, and is what must be established by argument. Of course Jesus in Mark is presented as a flesh and blood person from a family of siblings but so are pretty well most characters in most stories, fictional or parabolic or legendary or otherwise, depicted as such. Most stories, even fantasy, must work in verisimilitude at some level to work -- even when their characters are doing "real" magic.

I think you are getting the existence of a 'bare-bones' Jesus with a 'Son of God' Jesus confused. I'm only arguing for the former. I'm not arguing that we can know much about that 'bare-bones' Jesus with much certainty, to the point that he may as well have not existed.

Not at all. The Christology of Mark is another question entirely. We are supposed to be talking about the way Jesus is presented in the gospel. We can see how he is presented in the very first chapter.

We can see that the references to his family is just as theological in its message (true vs false family, trope of the man of god being rejected by his own, etc) as is the transfiguration scene.

To single out the fact that Jesus has a family as the bedrock that somehow necessarily derived from a real history of a real family is inconsistent. Both the transfiguration and voices from heaven are just as clear in their theological and literary allusions and message/intent as are the family references.

And there I disagree. I think it is enough to establish a 'bare-bones' Jesus. If there is a way to progress past this point, I'd be interested to explore it. I just don't know how to respond without repeating my earlier points.

The way to get past that point is to engage with the criticisms and not simply dismiss them and carrying on repeating your argument as if it is beyond criticism, or as if the criticisms come from the wilfully blind.

 

[vridar]

Some old conclusions that have something to say about the arguments being presented in this thread . . . .

Mark's rhetoric is the rhetoric of fiction, and it provides the most compelling evidence that his Gospel is a bona fide literary composition. . . .

In the last analysis, therefore, our conclusion only supports the first principle of historical criticism, which holds that a text is first and foremost evidence for
the time in which it was written. The rhetoric of point of view in Mark’s narrative is evidence for the time of writing, but not for the time to which the writing refers.

That's from an old Semeia article, #12, 1978, "Point of View" in Mark's Narrative by Norman R. Petersen, p. 115 to be exact.

 

[Mcreal]

- if you look in other letters from Paul, he makes very clear that he did not believe that "the Christ" was actually a normal human man at all.

eg. Philipians 2; 5-11 (quoted from Carrier On-the-H-of-J, page 533)

Have this in mind (of humble love) in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not decide to seize equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being discovered as a man in outward form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, a death of a cross.

In that passage, the writer ("Paul") is very clearly saying that his belief in Jesus is that he was not a human man. But instead was a form of the heavenly God himself, who simply made himself into "the likeness of man ... in outward form ...".

I believe that this is part of an "Adam Christology" that scholars like James Dunn have proposed. That is:

Adam -- in the image of God, Jesus -- in the form of God
Adam -- gave into temptation to grasp equality with God, Jesus -- resisted temptation
Adam -- disobeyed God, Jesus -- obedient to God​

IOW, Paul believes that Jesus is a man, but a man like Adam, a new start for the human race. If you read Gen 3:

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, & ye shall be as gods, knowing good & evil.
...
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...​

This reading of the passage is controversial, especially with those who want to read a pre-existent being into Paul. But it is consistent with Paul's equating Jesus with Adam elsewhere in his letters.

Believing that Jesus was a man like Adam has parallels in Irenaeus Adver. Haer. There is an interesting commentary on this in wikipedia (of all places) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus#Christ_as_the_New_Adam -

Christ as the New Adam

To counter his Gnostic opponents, Irenaeus significantly develops Paul's presentation of Christ as the Last Adam.

Irenaeus' presentation of Christ as the New Adam is based on Paul's Christ-Adam parallel in Romans 5:12-21. Irenaeus uses this parallel to demonstrate that Christ truly took human flesh.

Irenaeus considers it important to emphasize this point, because he understands the failure to recognize Christ's full humanity [was] the bond linking the various strains of Gnosticism together, as seen in his statement that "according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh." [67; Ad Haer, III.11.3]

Irenaeus believes that unless the Word became flesh, humans were not fully redeemed.[68] He explains that by becoming man, Christ restored humanity to being in the image and likeness of God, which they had lost in the Fall of man [69][70] Just as Adam was the original head of humanity through whom all sinned, Christ is the new head of humanity who fulfills Adam's role in the Economy of Salvation.[71] Irenaeus calls this process of restoring humanity recapitulation.[72]

For Irenaeus, Paul's presentation of the Old Law (the Mosaic covenant) in this passage indicates that the Old Law revealed humanity's sinfulness but could not save them. He explains that "For as the law was spiritual, it merely made sin to stand out in relief, but did not destroy it. For sin had no dominion over the spirit, but over man."[73]

Since humans have a physical nature, they cannot be saved by a spiritual law. Instead, they need a human Savior. This is why it was necessary for Christ to take human flesh.[73] Irenaeus summarizes how Christ's taking human flesh saves humanity with a statement that closely resembles Romans 5:19,

"For as by the disobedience of the one man who was originally moulded from virgin soil, the many were made sinners, and forfeited life; so was it necessary that, by the obedience of one man, who was originally born from a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation."[74]​

The physical creation of Adam and Christ is emphasized by Irenaeus to demonstrate how the Incarnation saves humanity's physical nature.[75]

Irenaeus emphasizes the importance of Christ's reversal of Adams's action. Through His obedience, Christ undoes Adam's disobedience.[76] Irenaeus presents the Passion as the climax of Christ's obedience, emphasizing how this obedience on the tree of the Cross Phil. 2:8 undoes the disobedience that occurred through a tree Gen. 3:17.[77]

Irenaeus' interpretation of Paul's discussion of Christ as the New Adam is significant because it helped develop the Recapitulation theory of atonement. Irenaeus emphasizes that it is through Christ's reversal of Adam's action that humanity is saved, rather than considering the Redemption to occur in a cultic or juridical way.[78][79]

It would seem that some of Irenaeus's commentary has post-Apocalyptic overtones.

Many of those references are to Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 18).

The other books and chapters of Adver Haers. are here - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm

 

[vridar]

So Paul and Mark wrote of Jesus as a man (as well as being another type of being at the same time). That descriptor hardly weighs in favour of historicity.

We also read accounts of beings whom ancient writers believed to be gods and not mere mortals. That doesn't mean they are not historical persons, either.

Jesus told a parable about a sower. We all acknowledge that the sower was a man with a job description and a work performance measure. That hardly means the sower was historical.

Ancient persons can be believed to have been gods with powers over the elements of the earth and abilities to perform supernatural feats , or as angels in human form, yet still be clearly historical persons.

Ancient persons can also be written about as mere mortals and still be nonhistorical.

Describing a person as a human or as a god is neither here nor there if we want to make a simple prima facie case for the historicity of an ancient figure in the literature.

What matters is a whole host of other questions that we bring to bear upon the available sources -- genre, provenance, authorship, something Schweitzer called independent "controls" . . . . . etc etc etc

 

[Kapyong]

Gday IanS and all

What?? ... how did you just conclude from the clearly fictitious story of Adam, that "Paul" therefore believed "the Christ" was a real person, when in that passage "Paul" just clearly said he was not actually real??

Please let's be careful with the slippery word 'real'.

Everything is real to those who believe it. God is real. Jesus Christ is real. Krishna is real.

GDon argues a real physical historical man.
I argue a real spiritual heavenly angel-man.

The key distinction here is the LOCATION being :

• Earthly, or
• Heavenly.

With the material of Jesus Christ' body being either :

• physical matter, or
• heavenly matter.

But it's all real


Kapyong

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Gday IanS and all




Please let's be careful with the slippery word 'real'.

Everything is real to those who believe it. God is real. Jesus Christ is real. Krishna is real.

GDon argues a real physical historical man.
I argue a real spiritual heavenly angel-man.

The key distinction here is the LOCATION being :

• Earthly, or
• Heavenly.

With the material of Jesus Christ' body being either :

• physical matter, or
• heavenly matter.

But it's all real


Kapyong

Well no, No it isn't.


One is well within the realm of feasibility.

The other is a complete and utter fairy tale.

 

[Kapyong]

Gday IanS and all

"Controversial"? You are trying to claim that some nonsense about a talking snake from 1000 BC, shows that Paul thought Jesus was a human man?

Hey buddy Pardon me, but that was rather rude, even childish perhaps. Members here, especially the polite GDon, don't deserve that - let's try to keep the tone calm and mature, shall we ?

You have plenty of evidence to marshall, and good language skills to express them, and an argument I agree is correct - but behaviour like that only weakens your credibility.

The connection between Adam #1 and Adam #2, in Paul's mind - is actually quite important. Consider this comparison from 1 Cor 15:22 :

• in Christ all will be made alive,
• raised in incorruption, glory, power,
• a spiritual body,
• became a life-giving spirit,
• is the Lord from heaven,
• is the heavenly (not of dust - made of heavenly stuff?),
• is spiritual,
• is the image of the heavenly.

In comparison to (the first) Adam who is described like this :

• in Adam all die,
• sown in corruption, dishonor, weakness, sown a natural body,
• a natural body,
• became a living soul,
• of Earth,
• made of dust.

Clearly Adam is an earthly man, but Jesus Christ is a heavenly being.

The issue is whether he EVER went to Earth.


Kapyong

 

[Kapyong]

Gday smartcooky and all

I would still like an answer as to what people here believe the nature of the SGospels was. Were they.
1. Written accounts taken from oral accounts handed down through a couple of generations?
2. Written accounts taken from one or more earlier written accounts which no longer exist or have yet to be found?
3. Pure fiction in the minds of any of the writers, be they Mark, Mathew or Luke, or of whoever's material they wrote down?
Perhaps there was some of all three involved?

I think it specifically started with G.Mark building on Paul et al - 'Mark' was a literate and educated pagan genius from Rome who had heard of the Jesus Christ mystery cult, and also read :

• Paul
• the Tanakh (LXX)
• Greek myths and mysteries, Homer

Around the time of the fall of the Jerusalem Temple he wrote a masterpiece of religious literature. He took names and central themes from Paul, stories and episodes from the Tanakh, and wove a wonderful tale of a god-man/Messiah set in a Jewish milieu and echoing patterns of the soter (saviour) from the mystery religions.

Literature, even myth - but not history. Nor a fraud, hoax, or lie.

Nor fiction.
Mark wove his tale from the Elijah/Elisha cycle, from Psalms inter alia, with the crucifixion theme from Paul, and the Son-Of-God pattern from the mysteries.

I.e. - he used SOURCES that bound his writing, he was NOT free to write anything he wanted. It was MYTH, not fiction.

Consider a new fan-fic about Luke Skywalker - the author can write Luke into an adventure, with certain freedoms, and limits too - Luke's father MUST be Darth Vader - but not because it's true.

We see that in G.Matthew when he tells us :
'He shall be called a Nazorean' (ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ) in Matt. 2:23.

Apparently there was a belief / legend / story in a Messiah called Nazorean, which is now lost to us. An example where the author was bound to use the term ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ - for unknown reasons, probably NOT historical.


Kapyong

 

[Kapyong]

GDay GDon

Is there evidence that the Gospels weren't about an actual person, or about a person who was supposed to have actually existed?

Pardon ?

Is there any evidence G.Mark was about a historical person ? Was presented as historical ?

Was the Golden Arse of Apuleis presented as historical ?

Was Chaereas and Callirhoe presented as historical ?

I just don't see any markers to indicate G.Mark was intended to be taken historically - do you ?

BTW - can I suggest words like 'historical' and 'physical' ?
Because actually, 'actual', is 'real' bad, really


Kapyong

 

[Kapyong]

Gday Nay_Sayer and all

Well no, No it isn't.
One is well within the realm of feasibility.
The other is a complete and utter fairy tale.

Do you believe everything heavenly is an 'complete and utter fairy tale' - even God ? Or just Paul's claimed belief in Pi3H specifically ?

Well, jumping in boots-first like that isn't very polite And the issue here is what Paul believed, not what anyone here believes (theologically i.e.)

Considering Paul's frequent uses of heavenly terms and spiritual concepts, and total silence on anything clearly historical, it is entirely feasible that Paul placed the crucifixion in heaven.

Plausible even.


Kapyong

 

[Mcreal]

So Paul and Mark wrote of Jesus as a man .as well as being another type of being at the same time. That descriptor hardly weighs in favour of historicity.

Irenaeus also wrote about various types of beings.

Against Heresies Book I, Chapter 3

Such also is the account of the generation of the later Æons, namely of the first Christ and of the Holy Spirit, both of whom were produced by the Father after the repentance [of Sophia], and of the second Christ (whom they also style Saviour), who owed his being to the joint contributions [of the Æons]. They tell us, however, that this knowledge has not been openly divulged, because all are not capable of receiving it, but has been mystically revealed by the Saviour through means of parables to those qualified for understanding it ... Paul also, they affirm, very clearly and frequently names these Æons, and even goes so far as to preserve their order, when he says, "To all the generations of the Æons of the Æon."

Against Heresies Book II, Chapter 21 -

1. If, again, they maintain that the twelve apostles were a type only of that group of twelve Æons which Anthropos in conjunction with Ecclesia produced, then let them produce ten other apostles as a type of those ten remaining Æons, who, as they declare, were produced by Logos and Zoe. For it is unreasonable to suppose that the junior, and for that reason inferior Æons, were set forth by the Saviour through the election of the apostles, while their seniors, and on this account their superiors, were not thus foreshown; since the Saviour (if, that is to say, He chose the apostles with this view, that by means of them He might show forth the Æons who are in the Pleroma) might have chosen other ten apostles also, and likewise other eight before these, that thus He might set forth the original and primary Ogdoad ...

2. Moreover we must not keep silence respecting Paul, but demand from them after the type of what Æon that apostle has been handed down to us, unless perchance [they affirm that he is a representative] of the Saviour compounded of them [all], who derived his being from the collected gifts of the whole, and whom they term All Things, as having been formed out of them all.

Against Heresies Book III, Chapter 17

1. It certainly was in the power of the apostles to declare that Christ descended upon Jesus, or that the so-called superior Saviour [came down] upon the dispensational one, or he who is from the invisible places upon him from the Demiurge; but they neither knew nor said anything of the kind: for, had they known it, they would have also certainly stated it. But what really was the case, that did they record, [namely,] that the Spirit of God as a dove descended upon Him; this Spirit, of whom it was declared by Isaiah, And the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him (Isaiah 11:2), as I have already said. And again: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me (Isaiah 61:1). That is the Spirit of whom the Lord declares, For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you (Matthew 10:20). And again, giving to the disciples the power of regeneration into God, He said to them, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

4. The Spirit, therefore, descending under the predestined dispensation, and the Son of God, the Only-begotten, who is also the Word of the Father, coming in the fullness of time, having become incarnate in man for the sake of man, and fulfilling all the conditions of human nature, our Lord Jesus Christ being one and the same, as He Himself the Lord does testify, as the apostles confess, and as the prophets announce —all the doctrines of these men who have invented putative Ogdoads and Tetrads, and imagined subdivisions [of the Lord's person], have been proved falsehoods. These men do, in fact, set the Spirit aside altogether; they understand that Christ was one and Jesus another; and they teach that there was not one Christ, but many.

 

[vridar]

The Book of Hebrews tells us that a person can appear among us as a man but in reality be an angel. Docetists believed the human appearance of Jesus was an illusion, albeit a spirit who appeared in "history".

Ned Ludd was believed to have been a man by his contemporaries. Ancients within Nero's generation yet after 70 CE believed the man Nero was still alive and waiting in the east for his return. Other instances have been cited by other commenters above. Rip Van Winkle and John Henry were men, too.

Or did they believe Nero was not a man but a god like other emperors? Now the god Augustus and his divine heirs -- now those gods had human mothers and siblings and were historical!

When a manuscript refers to a man or woman acting like a man or woman it does not follow that we have a prima facie case for historicity.

What follows is that we have a prima facle case for verisimilitude.

Historicity or mythology is determined by a range of other factors that must be brought to bear upon that manuscript. I have listed some of these factors in two other posts now but no-one here seems interested in discussing such boring basics! :-/

Depicting Jesus in human form gives us no more prima facie case for his historicity than does depicting God as a man give us reason to believe in his existence.

Now what would give me a prima facie case for Jesus being historical is a source setting him in a historical context and being corroborated at some level by what Schweitzer calls an independent "control".

When you take some moments to think about it, that's how we know anyone in ancient times was historical. But that returns us to my earlier post that -- ever since the days Schweitzer wrote about the state of play in his day -- no-one wants to address.

Eh bien, c'est la vie.

 

[HansMustermann]

Not that I can see. One way to evaluate a 'Harry Potter' story where its fictional aspect becomes lost between generations is to see how others view it.

But we know how that happens, because there are PLENTY of people who believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real person, and plenty used to send letters to the address in the novels even at the time. Even though it's not only trivial to find out if you haven't read the novels, but actually sending letters to the address in the book kinda says they did read the novel.

In fact, in polls, anywhere between 20% and 58% of Brits think that Sherlock Holmes was real. (Though the latter seems to be an outlier.) In a poll, about 21% thought Miss Marple was real, and for that matter, that Edmund Blackadder was real, never mind that the show shows him in 4 different eras that no one lifetime could cover. More than a third believe that Long John Silver was real. TWO THIRDS believe that Robin Hood was real.

While conversely about a quarter of Britons thought Winston Churchill was a fictional character. And very nearly half thought Richard The Lionheart was a fictional character.

Now why is that hard to imagine for an anonymous book, where it wasn't even easy to find? In a sect which even Paul calls stupid (if in a diplomatic way), why is it hard to believe that we don't know if it was about a real person, or just a group of those dumbasses took it as gospel anyway?

For the Gospels, even the pagans recognised that the stories were supposedly of someone real.

Yes, well, and by that logic you could say that the Xians were confirming that the pagan heroes had done miracles and travelled to places that aren't even on the map. No, seriously, they didn't say it didn't happen. They said Satan did it.

That's not how things worked at the time. The notion of proving that some hero doesn't exist wasn't the modus operandi.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes I have. The English expression "sperm" is not a good translation of the Greek "spermatos" where the meaning "descendant" is manifest from the context. In Greek the words are the same. In English not. That's what "transition" means, to find the word most appropriate in the target language. If I say about somebody: does he have any sperm? When I mean, does he have children and grandchildren? Would that be a good translation? But the Greek expression "sperm" does indeed refer to a physical substance, does it not?

The problem is that no, it means a lot more than that, actually: http://biblehub.com/greek/4690.htm

It's also used for symbolic descendants, such as Paul's gang being the REAL descendants of Abraham. Basically POSTERITY rather than literal kinship. It's used for a tribe, which we know from the TF forgery that the Xians were considering them to be. It's also used for life force, basically, as in the Holy Spirit. Etc.

In fact, I don't know why you'd assume that a language which gave us so many novel, poems, etc, would be strictly literal and never use a word in a metaphorical sense.

 

[David Mo]

There are only two arguments in favour of the existence of Jesus.

(a) Argument of difficulty:
Let us suppose that some texts of the Old Testament speak about a messiah that die and suffer for the people and was killed. I think these texts don’t exist, but let suppose this for the purpose of this discussion. If these texts exist it will be normal that Pauline Christians had taken them as a base of an invention of a suffering messiah. No problem. But the difficulty with this hypothesis consists in that the invented messiah was crucified by the Romans. If we suppose that people usually look for means adequate to their ends, and the end of Pauline Christians was to proselytize the Romans, to invent a messiah crucified, this is to say, executed for rebellion against Rome, was not consistent in any way. Furthermore, the crucifixion was an infamous punishment in Rome. It was not consistent as choice. It was an inconsistent mean to their ends. More likely other alternative death would be chosen. Therefore, a certain Jesus crucified by the Romans would have existed.
(b) Paul mentions a brother of Jesus as a well-known authority of the Jerusalem Christians.

Any other “evidence” rests on legends and myths. If something is true in Paul adnd the gospels it is almost impossible to draw from legendary stories.

The mythicists say that these are not valid arguments. They are wrong.
The anti-mithicists say that these are strong arguments. They are wrong.

(Where had I discussed this?).