For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus

[Craig B]

Then the narratives (oral or written, or both) could have become to be about an entity said to be a real person - that is where the reification / hypostatization (ie. anthropomorphization) could be said to have happened.

aka 'euhemerization', after Euhemrus who is said to have written narratives about the gods Zeus or Uranus as humans on earth​

I deny that definition of euhemerism^WP. Euhemerus did the opposite. He didn't start with Gods and rewrite them as human beings. That is what Carrier says early Christians did; and whether true or not, it isn't euhemerism.

Euhemerus forged a new method of interpretation for the contemporary religious beliefs. Though his work is lost, the reputation of Euhemerus was that he believed that much of Greek mythology could be interpreted as natural or historical events subsequently given supernatural characteristics through retelling. Subsequently Euhemerus was considered to be an atheist by his opponents ...​

I am, by a slight positive inclination, an euhemerist with regard to Jesus. A really existing, but natural, man who gradually became a God through progressive apotheosis.

Carrier is the opposite: Christ to him is an idea derived from the interpretation of ancient texts, who gradually acquired some imagined human characteristics. If the opposite of Euhemerism is Dyshemerism (I hereby offer this useful term, at no cost, to the world of scholarship), then that describes Carrier's theory. Wiki very relevantly observes that

Dion, the tyrant ruler of Syracuse, was deified while he was alive and modern scholars consider his apotheosis to have influenced Euhemerus' views on the origin of all gods. Euhemerus was also living during the contemporaneous deification of the Seleucids and "pharaoization" of the Ptolemies in a fusion of Hellenic and Egyptian traditions.​

If concepts derived from an interpretation of passages about gods in the Egyptian Book of the Dead had been misunderstood as referring to physical human beings, and this had later caused people mistakenly to believe that there had been a dynasty of real kings, the Ptolemies, living on Earth (but in this scenario there never was such a dynasty) then that would be "dyshemerism", comparable with Carrier's approach.

 

[GDon]

It certainly is an obvious absurdity. Run with it. Guaranteed to provide critics with hours of fun.

Meanwhile ---- I have no idea who argues any such thing. I have never heard that argument before, certainly not in any of the major mythicist works I have ever read.

But don't let that stop anyone making the most of their time with that funny and absurd straw man.

Craig B was quoting from my review of Dr Carrier's OHJ. As I write here: http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Carrier_OHJ_Review.html#Section4.2

Another text that Carrier uses to support his “celestial Jesus crucifixion” concept is the Book of Hebrews. Carrier writes on pp 540-541:

We saw that in the earliest discernible redaction of the latter [Ascension of Isaiah], the Jesus who passes through the heavens dies in outer space, in the sublunar heaven, not on earth. This also appears to be what the author of Hebrews believes:

The sum of what we've said is this: we have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of His Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary that this One have something to offer, too. For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer gifts according to the law, and who only give service to the copy and shadow of heavenly things [because Moses was instructed to make on earth copies of the things he saw in heaven] (Heb. 8.1-5).​

This certainly seems to say Jesus died in outer space. Because here we're told that Jesus not only performed his sacrifice in the celestial temple (as in Heb. 9, as we'll see in a moment), but that he had to do so. Otherwise the magic of it wouldn't have worked. We're also told that Jesus wasn't ever on earth-instead, he could only have been God's celestial high priest (so as to perform the ultimate sacrifice) if he wasn't on earth. Because 'if he were on earth, he would not be a priest', since earth already has its priests-but Jesus needs to be a priest, in order to mediate the new covenant (Heb. 8.6).
We're also told here the same thing Isaiah was told in the Ascension: that everything on earth has a duplicate version of it in the heavens (hence Element 38). The implication is that Jesus' blood must have been spilled on the heavenly duplicate of God's altar-not on earth, where there already are priests making blood sacrifices, which are less effective than celestial ones. Yet Jesus, being perfect, was the most powerful sacrifice of all (Heb. 7.27-28).​

But does Heb. 8.1-5 say that Jesus died in outer space? No, it doesn't. Nor does Heb. 9 say that Jesus "performed his sacrifice in the celestial temple". In fact, I would think that the idea of Satan and demons going into the celestial temple in the upper heavens to kill Jesus goes against everything I understand about the thinking of the time. Carrier simply can't be right about that.

Perhaps Carrier meant the offerings were presented in the celestial temple? It does seem that Carrier is mixing up where the sacrifice was made and where the sacrificial offerings were presented. On earth, the sacrifices were made outside the temple and then the blood offerings carried into it; that seems to be the same for Jesus' sacrifice in Hebrews as well. His blood was offered in the celestial temple, no doubt about it. But where was the sacrifice made? There is no evidence that the sacrifice – crucifixion of Jesus – was done in the celestial temple, which is in the upper heavens. Indeed, the very idea that Satan and his demons could get into the celestial temple to crucify a celestial Jesus goes against every idea of the thinking of the time. Hebrews does not supply evidence for a crucifixion in 'outer space'.​

Carrier is either placing the celestial temple in the sublunar realm (which he seems to be suggesting) where Satan reigns, or positing Christ going into the celestial temple in the higher heavens to be killed there. Either case has problems. A large part of the problem is Carrier's use of the anachronistic term "outer space".

 

[Mcreal]

I deny that definition of euhemerism^WP. Euhemerus did the opposite. He didn't start with Gods and rewrite them as human beings.

Yes he did. That wikipedia page is a mess. & Christianity has a long history of misrepresenting euhemerism and attacking that misrepresentation ie. making a strawman fallacy.

We don't have originals of Euhemerus's writings; just accounts of them. But the definition I presented is the correct one viz.

euhemerism/euhemerization: after Euhemrus who is said to have written narratives about the gods Zeus or Uranus as humans on earth.

 

[Craig B]

Manichaeans were a sect of Christians whose leader was called Mani.


People in antiquity who believed in stories of Jesus Christ were called Christians whether or not they were from the sect called Manichaeans, Cerinthians, Basilidians, Justinians, Valentians, followers of Marcion, Menander or from any of the multiple Christian sects.

Nonsense, and in any event not true in the opinion of Augustine, and not the message in his book presently under discussion

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) converted to Christianity from Manichaeism, in the year 387. This was shortly after the Roman Emperor Theodosius I had issued a decree of death for all Manichaean monks in 382 and shortly before he declared Christianity to be the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire in 391. Due to the heavy persecution, the religion almost disappeared from western Europe in the 5th century and from the eastern portion of the empire in the 6th century. According to his Confessions, after nine or ten years of adhering to the Manichaean faith as a member of the group of "hearers", Augustine became a Christian and a potent adversary of Manichaeism (which he expressed in writing against his Manichaean opponent Faustus of Mileve)​

 

[Craig B]

Yes he did. That wikipedia page is a mess. & Christianity has a long history of misrepresenting euhemerism and attacking that misrepresentation ie. making a strawman fallacy.

We don't have originals of Euhemerus's writings; just accounts of them. But the definition I presented is the correct one viz.

euhemerism/euhemerization: after Euhemrus who is said to have written narratives about the gods Zeus or Uranus as humans on earth.

That's not what I'm finding. Can you reference your definition please in the relevant literature? I keep getting this sort of thing.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
n Euhemerism The theory, held by Euhemerus, that the gods of mythology were but deified mortals, and their deeds only the amplification in imagination of human acts.
***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n euhemerism The doctrine that polytheistic mythology arose exclusively, or in the main, out of the deification of dead heroes; the system of mythological interpretation which reduces the gods to the level of distinguished men, and so regards the myths as founded on real histories; hence, the derivation of mythology from history.
***
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
n Euhemerism ū-hē′me-rizm the system which explains mythology as growing out of real history, its deities as merely magnified men​

 

[GDon]

If concepts derived from an interpretation of passages about gods in the Egyptian Book of the Dead had been misunderstood as referring to physical human beings, and this had later caused people mistakenly to believe that there had been a dynasty of real kings, the Ptolemies, living on Earth (but in this scenario there never was such a dynasty) then that would be "dyshemerism", comparable with Carrier's approach.

No, that would be euhemerism: the idea that the stories about the gods were really just exaggerated stories about normal (though heroic) men, especially kings, whom were later deified through admiration by their fellow men and women.

I argued with Dr Carrier on his blog about this. He describes it as (my bolding):

...any historicizing of a God is doing what Euhemeris did. It does not matter how magical you make the historicizing... Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend.​

But euhemerism isn't turning celestial beings into "historical ascended godmen", it is turning the gods (celestial or not) into ordinary men.

I don't think it is a big deal, since Carrier's point is more about how the historicizing of Jesus is part of a trend of historicizing timeless gods into godmen placed into history at that time. There is either evidence for that trend or there isn't. (Spoiler alert: there isn't!) But it is a weird how Carrier screws up the definition.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I deny that definition of euhemerism^WP. Euhemerus did the opposite. He didn't start with Gods and rewrite them as human beings.

Here we go again with just arbitrarily denying reality. You can't do that. Well, technically you can, but it's in the same way as technically you can run around with underpants on the head and pencils up the nose. We can't stop you, but it's not exactly a way to be taken seriously either

In fact, just about every information we have about Euhemerus -- though again, we don't have the actual texts, but we have quotes from him, e.g., in v, Eusebius, etc -- is that he did literally that. He wrote what you'd now call a travelogue, in which he finds ruins, tombs and ancient inscriptions, which he even quotes. Proving that what his contemporaries thought as Gods in Olympus, had actually lived on Earth during a fictive golden age in the past. He just makes up finding for example a tomb of Zeus in Knossos, and an inscription on a column in an invented temple of Zeus on an invented island, that supports it.

Mind you, although he gets the credit for it, he wasn't the first. The Egyptians beat him to it by 2000 years or so. The unification war after the first intermediate period is given the usual celestial parallel (can we call it reverse-Euhemerization?), but then we end up with a legend where Hathor goes all mad cow and does a whole rampage on Earth until the Nile runs red with blood and the other gods have to stop her. Essentially something that started as a celestial metaphor for events on earth, is actually euhemerized as a historical event where a goddess actually was on Earth and did the whole slaughter herself.

And he wasn't the last. The Norse Gods get human histories on Earth, wholly pulled out of the ass by Snorri Sturluson, including such details as Freya's affair.

At any rate, by now euhemerization is used in a very specific sense: that of reifying mythical stories and events as a historical events on Earth. Sometimes it involves translating the gods into mundane mortals, like Euhemerus did, and sometimes it involves gods or demigods being historical on Earth, like Hathor, but that's what euhemerization means. You can't just decide that nope, you're going to just redefine it.

That said, sure, what Carrier does isn't euhemerization. And he's not saying that what Paul did was euhemerization. He's saying that later Christians did it, by taking bits of myths about celestial Jesus and fabricating a historical (if still superman) Jesus doing stuff on Earth.

Now you can of course disagree that he's right, or that he has enough evidence for it. But he does use the term correctly.

 

[Craig B]

No, that would be euhemerism: the idea that the stories about the gods were really just exaggerated stories about normal (though heroic) men, especially kings, whom were later deified through admiration by their fellow men and women.

I argued with Dr Carrier on his blog about this. He describes it as (my bolding):

...any historicizing of a God is doing what Euhemeris did. It does not matter how magical you make the historicizing... Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend.​

But euhemerism isn't turning celestial beings into "historical ascended godmen", it is turning the gods (celestial or not) into ordinary men.

In the belief that there really originally existed ordinary men who were subsequently deified. Carrier's belief is that there was in origin an imagined figure derived from abstract concepts, who was later "andromorphised" but who never existed in factual reality. If one of these views is euhemerism, the other one is its opposite.

 

[Mcreal]

That's not what I'm finding. Can you reference your definition please in the relevant literature? I keep getting this sort of thing.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
n Euhemerism The theory, held by Euhemerus, that the gods of mythology were but deified mortals, and their deeds only the amplification in imagination of human acts.
***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n euhemerism The doctrine that polytheistic mythology arose exclusively, or in the main, out of the deification of dead heroes; the system of mythological interpretation which reduces the gods to the level of distinguished men, and so regards the myths as founded on real histories; hence, the derivation of mythology from history.
***
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
n Euhemerism ū-hē′me-rizm the system which explains mythology as growing out of real history, its deities as merely magnified men​

The term and the concept has been widely misunderstood and misrepresented.

From Encyclopedia Britannica

his name was given to the theory that gods are [really] great men worshipped after their death (i.e., Euhemerism) ...

Early Christian writers, such as Lactantius, used the principles of Euhemerus to assert that, because the ancient gods were originally human, they were necessarily inferior to the Christian god.

 

[Craig B]

The term and the concept has been widely misunderstood and misrepresented.

... the theory that gods are [really] great men worshipped after their death (i.e., Euhemerism) ...

From Encyclopedia Britannica​

But that's what I'm saying, and the theory I am willing to consider as regards Jesus. He was a man on Earth who gradually, in the imagination of a religious group, became a God, or what is the same thing, an aspect of the unique Divinity. But he originated as a real person, I think - on a slight balance of historical probability.

ETA Here's more from your Britannica article. In a utopian book, Euhemerus visits an island and there

discovers in a temple of Zeus the sacred inscription that gives the book its name. The inscription explains that Zeus and his ancestors Uranus (Heaven) and the Titan Cronus, as well as the other gods, were mortals who were worshipped because of their accomplishments or merits. Euhemerus may have been simply applying to all the gods what was commonly believed to be true of some—e.g., Dionysus and Heracles. He may also have been influenced by Hellenistic ruler cults, which became popular as a result of the success of Alexander the Great.​

Yes. Did Alexander the Great start as a real human being and subsequently become deified? Yes. If I say that's probably how Jesus started off, I'm not saying the same thing as Carrier, am I?​

 

[Mcreal]

But euhemerism isn't turning celestial beings into "historical ascended godmen", it is turning the gods (celestial or not) into ordinary men.

That doesn't tell the full story.

Obviously the gods are not turned into ordinary humans. They are, at some point in time, re-written as having been ordinary men who had been deified. They continue to be deified from the point they were portrayed as humans.

It is analogous to anthropomorphism (but just where gods have been given human traits)

Carrier is arguing that Jesus represents the anthropomorphism (=euhemerization) of a celestial angel (Paul's)

 

[Mcreal]

But that's what I'm saying, and the theory I am willing to consider as regards Jesus. He was a man on Earth who gradually, in the imagination of a religious group, became a God, or what is the same thing, an aspect of the unique Divinity. But he originated as a real person, I think - on a slight balance of historical probability.

No. Euhemerism is the development, at some point in time, of the proposition that entities previously known as gods, such as Zeus or Uruanus, had been humans who had been deified.

Euhemerism is the rewriting of a god as having had human traits.

 

[vridar]

Craig B was quoting from my review of Dr Carrier's OHJ. As I write here: http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Carrier_OHJ_Review.html#Section4.2

Another text that Carrier uses to support his “celestial Jesus crucifixion” concept is the Book of Hebrews. Carrier writes on pp 540-541:​

I realized that was the source of the chimera. It is one thing to use diverse evidence to demonstrate the general concept of a sacrifice in heavens, whether they be in the highest or lowest heaven. It is quite another to argue a separate and very specific case that is based on but one of those sources.

What I'm reading in Craig B and you is the creation of an imaginary consistency of ideas from the diverse texts and then attributing such a fantasy to the foundations of Carrier's argument.

I know you also dogmatically say the AoI does not support Carrier, but I don't believe your dogmatism is at all justified.​

 

[GDon]

In the belief that there really originally existed ordinary men who were subsequently deified. Carrier's belief is that there was in origin an imagined figure derived from abstract concepts, who was later "andromorphised" but who never existed in factual reality. If one of these views is euhemerism, the other one is its opposite.

I think I see what you are saying: "Euhemerism" is the idea that the gods were in fact actual men, whereas for Carrier's usage the euhemerizers weren't even looking to find the "actual men" behind the stories. It's a fair point. I'm not sure how relevant the motive behind the process is, though. For me the sticking point is that euhemerism was about rationalizing the myths of the gods as being about ordinary men (which is what Euhemerus was accused of doing, for which he was accused of 'atheism'), while Carrier's idea that this could lead to stories about godmen instead of ordinary (but heroic) men simply doesn't fit that definition.

 

[GDon]

I realized that was the source of the chimera. It is one thing to use diverse evidence to demonstrate the general concept of a sacrifice in heavens, whether they be in the highest or lowest heaven. It is quite another to argue a separate and very specific case that is based on but one of those sources.

What I'm reading in Craig B and you is the creation of an imaginary consistency of ideas from the diverse texts and then attributing such a fantasy to the foundations of Carrier's argument.

I can't speak for Craig B, but for my part, yes, that is correct. We need to test Dr Carrier's argument against what we know from the diverse texts of the time. We can either say that his argument is consistent with those texts, or it isn't consistent. If it isn't consistent, then it doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. But let's at least point out the inconsistency.

I know you also dogmatically say the AoI does not support Carrier, but I don't believe your dogmatism is justified.

Please elaborate.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

In the belief that there really originally existed ordinary men who were subsequently deified. Carrier's belief is that there was in origin an imagined figure derived from abstract concepts, who was later "andromorphised" but who never existed in factual reality. If one of these views is euhemerism, the other one is its opposite.

I understand what you're saying, but euhemerization or euhemerism doesn't refer to the underlying belief. It refers literally to taking a previously mythical figure like Zeus or Hathor, and inventing or "reconstructing" them as historical figures.

And sure, it may well be based on a belief that they were originally "reverse-euhemerized" so to speak. It may well be based on the belief that the author is undoing that mistake by reconstructing the original historical figures. It's pretty clear that Snorri for example is believing just that.

But the name "euhemerization" or "euhemerism" refer to the act of taking a mythical figure (e.g., Odin) and placing it into history (e.g., as an ancient conqueror king who came from Thracia or thereabouts), not the belief that caused it or that justifies it (in the author's mind.)

 

[Mcreal]

... now euhemerization is used in a very specific sense: that of reifying mythical stories and events as a historical events on Earth. Sometimes it involves translating the gods into mundane mortals, like Euhemerus did, and sometimes it involves gods or demigods being historical on Earth, like Hathor, but that's what euhemerization means. You can't just decide that nope, you're going to just redefine it.

That said, sure, what Carrier does isn't euhemerization. And he's not saying that what Paul did was euhemerization. He's saying that later Christians did it, by taking bits of myths about celestial Jesus and fabricating a historical (if still superman) Jesus doing stuff on Earth.

Now you can of course disagree that he's right, or that he has enough evidence for it. But he does use the term correctly.

I'd say

Carrier's saying that later Christians, after Paul, took bits of myths about a celestial entity (an angel or archangel) and fabricating a human Jesus doing stuff on Earth.​

I think Carrier is proposing the euhemerizng happened over a shorter time period than had happened previously.

 

[vridar]

I can't speak for Craig B, but for my part, yes, that is correct. We need to test Dr Carrier's argument against what we know from the diverse texts of the time. We can either say that his argument is consistent with those texts, or it isn't consistent. If it isn't consistent, then it doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. But let's at least point out the inconsistency.


Please elaborate.

There's no inconsistency in what you have pointed out in the argument of Carrier. If Carrier is pointing to various texts demonstrating the idea of a heavenly sacrifice then that's quite separate from moving from that generalization to argue a specific case from one particular text.

How can anyone honestly find any inconsistency there?

 

[GDon]

Euhemerism is the development, at some point in time, of the proposition that entities previously known as gods, such as Zeus or Uruanus, had been humans who had been deified.

Euhemerism is the rewriting of a god as having had human traits.

No. Euhermism is the rewriting of a god as being completely human.

 

[GDon]

There's no inconsistency in what you have pointed out in the argument of Carrier. If Carrier is pointing to various texts demonstrating the idea of a heavenly sacrifice then that's quite separate from moving from that generalization to argue a specific case from one particular text.

How can anyone honestly find any inconsistency there?

1. Where does Dr Carrier claim that the sacrifice was made? In the upper heavens or the lower heavens?
2. Where was the celestial temple located?

That to me is an inconsistency.

Also, any thoughts you might have on my arguments against Carrier regarding the Ascension of Isaiah would be greatly appreciated.