The Jesus Myth, and it's failures

[H'ethetheth]

Something tells me I won't find a better answer out there.

Well, as far as arguments within the framework of the bible go, I think it's a decent answer. Christians believe it because John the apostle says so.
Christians believe lots of weird things because an apostle says so.

 

[HansMustermann]

To address the "failure" thing though, actually it's a trope that every hero gets beaten up once or gets to the point where you think "now he's had it", but then manages to end up victorious. Think Superman and kryptonite, for example.

In fact it even spawned the related trope of Heroic Second Wind.

Get apparently defeated to the point of being killed? Sure, that's one way to amp it up. Alucard does that more than once in Hellsing. In the very first episode he's machinegunned into hash by ghouls with MP5s. Does it make him any less awesome? Hell, no. It's actually just more awesome when he rises right back and shows them that, natch, they can't get rid of him that easily.

So let's look at what actually happens in the gospels: the Jews and Romans collude to try to kill and humiliate a righteous man (well, or at least you're supposed to believe he's righteous), but 36-48 hours later he's shown everyone that, natch, they can't get rid of him that easily. And in fact they played right into his Batman Gambit and made his victory possible.

THAT is the actual story that is being told by the gospels.

Sure, if you remove key elements from it, in the name of some deluded just "knowing" which parts are actually historical, and change a few other elements too for good measure, you're left with a crap story that not many people would make up or like.

But then the same could be said about any other story. If you eliminate Alucard's rising after getting a few hundred gunshots, you're left with a crap hero that failed, nobody would make up such a crap hero, yadda, yadda, therefore Alucard must be historical. If you eliminate Superman's recovering after being trapped with kryptonite, you get a crap hero, nobody would make that up, etc, therefore Superman is historical. If you eliminate Luke Skywalker's escaping from the compactor in Episode IV... you get the idea, right?

Or lest someone complains that I can't compare modern stuff to ancient stuff, see Odysseus escaping from the cyclops, Inanna escaping from Hell, Odin's being right back to health after spending a week impaled and hanged, etc. Sure, if you remove their recovering for it, you get a crap hero that not many would make up.

But that's not the story told by the gospels. The story told by the gospels is of a superhero which doesn't fail at all, but which springs right back just when you thought you nailed him for good, and worse yet, it turns out you played right into his master plan by trying to kill him.

Would people make up THAT kind of hero and story? Well, actually, they still do all the time.

 

[metacristi]

Zechariah 12:10 - They shall look on him whom they have pierced. John 19:37 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Zechariah 13:7- Smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep. Matthew 26:31 says this was fulfilled in Jesus' death.
Isaiah 53:5-12 - He was cut off out of the land of the living (v8), his soul was made an offering for sin (v10), he poured out his soul unto death (v12). This was fulfilled in Jesus' death according to Acts 8:32-35; Luke 22:37.
[Genesis 12:3 fulfilled per Acts 3:25,26; cf. Genesis 3:15]

So, whereas premillennialism implies that Jesus' death was unexpected and unpredicted, the word of God says that Jesus' death was expected and was predicted.

The consensus among biblical scholars is that the dying messiah idea does not pre-date the birth of Christianity [edit to add: of course in the jewish culture in ancient Palestine; not really necessary for those who know the subject and what The Principle of Charity is but I do it to avoid empty comments such as those under my post].

As already said here it was Christians who tried to give strong justification to the view in later times by attempting to link it with the Scriptures. Not really a successful attempt. Even Carrier is still after this 'missing link', crucial for the success of his argument purporting to show that mythicism is vastly superior to the historicity of Jesus (of course denying, via tortuous mind gymnastics, that Paul and Josephus can be reliable when they talk about a biological brother of Jesus is also crucial)

 

[Akhenaten]

The consensus among biblical scholars (and there are enough atheists in the Biblical Studies departments) is that the dying messiah idea does not pre-date the birth of Christianity.

Osiris called and he'd like a word with you.

As already said it was Christians who tried to give strong justification to the view in later times by attempting to link it with the Scriptures. Not really a successful attempt. Even Carrier is still after this 'missing link', crucial for the success of his argument purporting to show that mythicism is vastly superior to the historicity of Jesus (of course also denying, via tortuous mind gymnastics, that Paul and Josephus can be reliable when they talk of a biological brother of Jesus is also crucial for this)

Ummm . . . what?

 

[catsmate]

Osiris called and he'd like a word with you.

BTW oh great and mighty Pharaoh I know I asked for a little cool down for Dublin, and many thanks for that, but the torrential rain is a little unwelcome.

 

[Akhenaten]

BTW oh great and mighty Pharaoh I know I asked for a little cool down for Dublin, and many thanks for that, but the torrential rain is a little unwelcome.

Apologies.

I've just dashed off a quick email to Tefnut.

She always has been one to overdo things.

 

[catsmate]

Apologies.

I've just dashed off a quick email to Tefnut.

She always has been one to overdo things.

Many thanks.

 

[pakeha]

Osiris called and he'd like a word with you. ..

Inana's also interested in that claim.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'd also like to point out that, forget Osiris, but every single Pharaoh or even noble could essentially grant you eternal life through his own ascension to the afterlife.

See, in their religion the Ka (soul) needed appropriate support it can live in, until it can go to the afterlife. That was why people got themselves mummified and the mummy prepared with he ritual of the Opening Of The Mouth. Basically the mummy was magically prepared to be "alive" so to speak, or more accurately so a soul can live in it.

BUT (less ideally) a soul could just as well exist in a statue or painting, if it had been prepared with the proper magical ceremony. The well off even had prepared statues in their homes, in case grandma's soul decides to pop back and see how you're doing.

And pharaohs and nobles routinely granted that to their servants and followers, by including figurines or paintings of said servants in their own tomb. It was a pretty sweet deal, actually, since not only it spared your family the costs, but the general deal was that you'll continue to serve said Pharaoh in the afterlife. People still had to work for a living in their afterlife, and by securing a good job in advance, you know, you ensured yourself a better ever after.

Now add to that the fact that the Pharaoh WAS an incarnated god, and would turn back into a real god after death and all -- and would even use magical powers to ensure the wellbeing of himself and his followers in the afterlife (see the spells inscribed on tomb walls) -- and you have a basic proto-Christ myth that predates the Christ by, oh, about 3 millennia.

 

[Brian-M]

That was why people got themselves mummified and the mummy prepared with he ritual of the Opening Of The Mouth. Basically the mummy was magically prepared to be "alive" so to speak, or more accurately so a soul can live in it.

BUT (less ideally) a soul could just as well exist in a statue or painting, if it had been prepared with the proper magical ceremony. The well off even had prepared statues in their homes, in case grandma's soul decides to pop back and see how you're doing.

I wonder that includes ordinary paintings made with paint produced from ground-up mummies?

"Mummy brown was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from white pitch, myrrh, and the ground-up remains of Egyptian mummies, both human and feline."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

 

[HansMustermann]

As far as I know, any painting or sculpture of a human (or roughly human shaped; see the cube statues they used quite commonly) worked, but it still needed the ritual performed so a soul can live in it. The material alone didn't make it automatically suitable. After all, a mummy was made of a human, which is as close as you get, and it still needed the ritual.

 

[pakeha]

A fascinating take, HansMustermann, on the ways people thought about the afterlife in that civilisation on the banks of the Nile.

 

[davefoc]

From the opening post:

...

Now getting to the meat. When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah? And why would they create such a figure when there were other historical individuals that could simply have been followed instead? When the story of Jesus is looked at, it is clear that he failed as the Messiah. The fact that he was crucified, and died, would have, for most Jews, been seen as a failure. The Messiah was not suppose to die. For Jews to just make up such a story simply does not make sense. In addition, if they were looking for such an individual (a religious leader who was killed), they had a handful of individuals during that time. Josephus lists a number of individuals who would have fit the bill, including John the Baptist (as well as Jesus).

...

HM's response to this very old and poor argument for the existence of an HJ:

...

Because it wasn't a failed messiah, and because it was hard to invent a messiah which actually conquered the physical world and put the Jews at the top? You know, because everyone could see that that didn't happen? That wasn't even hard.
...

Neil Godfrey on his Vridar blog quotes Carrier's response to the very old and poor argument that an HJ existed:
http://vridar.org/2012/03/22/bart-ehrmans-huffing-and-posting-against-mythicism/

Carrier hits the nail on the head when he points out the, well, obvious:

[T]he only kind of messiah figure you could invent would be one who wasn’t like that. Otherwise, everyone would notice no divine being had militarily liberated Israel and resurrected all the world’s dead. . . . . This means that if “someone made up a messiah” we can be absolutely certain he would look essentially just like Jesus Christ. A being no one noticed, who didn’t do anything publicly observable, yet still accomplished the messianic task, only spiritually (precisely the one way no one could produce any evidence against). In other words, a messiah whose accomplishments one could only “feel in one’s heart” (or see by revelation, as the Corinthian creed declares; or discover in scripture, as that same creed again declares, as well as Romans 16:25-26). This means Ehrman is definitely failing at basic evidential logic.
​

If the people that make this argument from incredulity would think about it a bit more, they would realize the problem with their argument before they decided to write it down.

 

[truethat]

Old testament scripture says the Messiah would be crucified.

The Jews misunderstood Jesus and thought he was there to free them from Roman oppression but in reality he was there to die as a sacrifice of atonement for mankind's sins.

where? I'm off to google this but I do not recall the OT saying that the messiah would be "crucified."

Here's what I'm finding as "crucified" in a site that says he fulfilled the prophesy

ew International Version (NIV)
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[a]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

6 Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce[a] my hands and my feet.

Mourning for the One They Pierced

10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit[a] of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

Footnotes:

I don't see a mention of "crucifixion"

Please clarify

 

[davefoc]

...
Now getting to the meat. When discussing the Jesus myth, the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah? And why would they create such a figure when there were other historical individuals that could simply have been followed instead? When the story of Jesus is looked at, it is clear that he failed as the Messiah. The fact that he was crucified, and died, would have, for most Jews, been seen as a failure. The Messiah was not suppose to die. For Jews to just make up such a story simply does not make sense. In addition, if they were looking for such an individual (a religious leader who was killed), they had a handful of individuals during that time. Josephus lists a number of individuals who would have fit the bill, including John the Baptist (as well as Jesus).

...

I wanted to comment on another aspect of this paragraph from the OP.

There is an assumption in the paragraph that the Jews were the original creators of the Jesus stories. If that were true that would be a fact that would tend to support the existence of an HJ. But is it true?

I have never seen good evidence that the Jesus stories originated from Jewish sources. That the Jesus stories did have Jewish origin is part of what I call the standard secular Jesus story. The idea is that Jesus and his associates did exist and their stories were transmitted to the Greek speaking (probably Gentile in my opinion) people that wrote the NT.

But what is the evidence for this? The NT has an antisemitic streak in it, I doubt that had a Jewish origin. Also, would a Jesus sect have worshiped Jesus or seen Jesus as a supernatural being? It seems unlikely (but not impossible) so that much of what the Greek speaking NT authors wrote about that is likely to have been of their own invention. There are also geographical and cultural errors in the NT that suggest if Jewish stories that originated in Palestine are the source for the NT that the stories were not reliably passed on to the Greek speaking NT authors.

For me, the issue of how the NT came to be written by people separated in time, distance, language and probably culture from the hypothetical HJ is one of the big questions about all this. There is very little evidence of the connection between the NT writers and the people that they wrote about and without that it is hard to see what is the evidence that supports strong conclusions about the nature of the HJ.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, the gospels are one thing and the origin of Jesus Christ is another.

I'll agree that Mark makes a hash of the geography, culture, etc, so he probably never even went to Judaea.

Matthew seems better informed, and in fact a fair guess is that what he was trying to do was fix the many many mistakes in Mark, but even he obviously doesn't have better sources since he just copies almost everything Mark made up. Plus, he's obviously working from a Greek translation, because nobody working from a Hebrew or Aramaic source would be so confused about a basic language emphasis construct of both as to produce the two donkeys ride, nor confuse "young woman" with "virgin". That mis-translation existed only in Greek. Though it must be said that whatever translation he is using was corrected in places to be closer to the Hebrew original, which caused some to postulate he was working directly from Hebrew, but then there were many rabbis working on producing exactly that kind of fixed copies, so there's no need to assume a Matthew who knows Hebrew in places, but completely forgets it in others.

Luke seems to have done at least SOME research, and he may have used Josephus too for ideas, so kudos for that. But again, he's no witness either and obviously doesn't have better witnesses, because he too copies from Mark and Q.

And John is so antisemitic and in-your-face, plus his Jesus makes puns in Greek, that he obviously was no Jew.

So there's that.

However, Jesus Christ seems to have originated actually with Paul and possibly a small group in Jerusalem. (If they're not his sockpuppet characters, that is.) And Paul claims to be a Jew. Then again, somewhere else he tells us that he claims to be a Jew to the Jews, a gentile to the gentiles, and whatever else helps him gain the audience's confidence.

But even if he was a Jew, I think the problem is that some people -- especially those arguing "the Jews wouldn't have made THAT up" -- seem to have the same confusion as John. Namely they seem to think that "the Jews" were some homogenous Borg hive where everyone thinks the same. Which is not true.

It's like claiming that Joseph Smith wouldn't have invented the golden tables, because "the Christians" wouldn't invent that. Well, most wouldn't, but it only took one who did. Or that Wicca can't be made up because "the Christians" wouldn't have made up a religion with all the devil worship trappings to troll other Christians. And again, most wouldn't, but it just took one or two who did.

My point is that "the Jews" back then were as diverse a group as "the Christians" today, and various groups were even at each other's throats over their beliefs. Paul could reach the conclusion that the scripture says the messiah already came, even though other Jews reached the opposite conclusion.

 

[eight bits]

OP, revived by davefoc, and a different aspect from Hans

the question must be asked why would Jews create a figure who was a failed Messiah?

They didn't. Paul's Jesus isn't a failed Messiah. He's alive, embodied, and commissioned from God. Jesus may have been "set apart from birth" by God, as Paul thinks he himself was, but Jesus has only been active as the Messiah since he rose, just as Paul wasn't actively discharging his current office of "Apostle to the Gentiles" before his own visionary crisis.

For Paul's creation, Jesus the Annointed One, death was a useful step in establishing Jesus' credentials as the Messiah. There might have been conceivable ways to be designated the Messiah without dying first, but nobody can rise from the dead unless he dies.

Jesus' priority within what Paul thinks is a general resurrection of all dead people, in progress as Paul writes, establishes two things to Paul's satisfaction. First, it is the end of days, and has been since Jesus rose. Now and only now is the time for God to reveal the Messiah, and God has revealed Jesus to Paul. Second, Jesus being the first to rise, combined with his having lived a life of conscpicuous righteousness, suffices for any thinking person to conclude that Jesus is the Messiah, who is only now finally discharging his office.

There is a further complication, that we don't know what the Jerusalem Gang taught about their former member. Mark is equivocal about whether anybody "knew" that Jesus was the Messiah during his first lifetime, including Jesus himself.

So far as we know, then, "Jews" did not "create a figure who was a failed Messiah." There was only one Jew, Paul, who is known to have created an on-topic Messiah. Paul's Messiah hasn't failed, he's just now getting started. ("Now" means Paul's now, almost 2,000 years ago.)

ETA: The very concept of being annointed is a claim of inauguration after an interval of election. You may be destined from the beginning of time to be annointed, and you may do things beforehand that qualify you to receive your annointing, but you aren't annointed until a discrete event has actually occurred to you.

 

[Akhenaten]

They didn't. Paul's Jesus isn't a failed Messiah. He's alive, embodied, and commissioned from God. Jesus may have been "set apart from birth" by God, as Paul thinks he himself was, but Jesus has only been active as the Messiah since he rose, just as Paul wasn't actively discharging his current office of "Apostle to the Gentiles" before his own visionary crisis.

A myth, in other words. Created, it seems, by yet another mythical creature.

Is there anything at all that humans won't believe?

 

[eight bits]

A myth, in other words. Created, it seems, by yet another mythical creature.

I rate Paul 85-15 or better favoring his having been a real person. Even if he were made up, the contents of the letters would still be consistent with earlier mythology (a successful Messiah in full career at the time of the writing, the mythologically "right" time), not contrary to it (the OP's "failed Messiah").

So, we would not have to explain how Jews, plural, created a failed Messiah, which was the OP's concern, recently quoted by davefoc.

Is there anything at all that humans won't believe?

So far, no luck. But people are working on it, you may be sure of that.

 

[davefoc]

I just wanted to correct my earlier post concerning whether the Jesus stories originated in the Jewish community.

I think the evidence derived from the seven or so epistles of Paul provide some evidence of a Jewish origin for the Jesus character and I am in agreement with those who responded about that.

There is not, however, good evidence to link the Gospel writers or any other parts of the NT other than the writings of Paul, with Jewish sources. It can't be proved that the Jesus stories other than what might have been derived from Paul had Jewish sources.

Eight bits captured my sentiments on Paul when he said that he was about 85-15 on Paul being a real person. That sounds about right to me, but there is still the issue of what part of Paul is factually correct. I don't think it is knowable what role Paul played in the rise of Christianity. He may have been mislead about the connection to an HJ of the people he met, he may have made up his interaction with Jesus associates to add gravitas to his pitch as the go to guy for information about the new religion, and there may have been interpolations that affect his meaning more than is suspected. It is also possible that Paul is not even the main man when it comes to getting Christianity going. He refers to competitors, so we know there were others out and about doing something similar to what he was doing, but we don't have writings by or about any of these fellows. Maybe one of them was more of a key player than Paul.

Over time, I have come to believe that HM was close to the mark when he said he believed there wasn't enough reliable information to make a good guess about the likelihood of an HJ. The lack of contemporaneous Jewish sources about the HJ and the overall unreliability of the available evidence for an HJ is an insurmountable problem if one is looking to build a case for a strong view that an HJ existed