The Jesus Myth, and it's failures

[The Norseman]

I think that is probably an important factor in all this. And it seems to get overlooked in most of these discussions, even as you say, by academic bible scholars writing as research on this subject.

I was trying to make a similar point in the What Counts thread when I said that we overlook the fact that in Paul’s day people did not just believe in miracles, they were completely certain that miracles happened constantly. So at that time nobody would ever have thought to question any preaching which said Jesus had raised the dead, walked on water and risen from his grave. Even if they followed some other religious belief not connected with Christianity, they would still hear those Jesus stories and simply accept that this person was a miraculous wonder worker.

However, when bible scholars examine those stories today, it's seems they are forced into saying the wondrous stuff can all be discarded from the bible and still leave something which is true of a real Jesus. Though if you tried to do that in biblical times, when the stories were actually being told, then there would have been no story to tell and anyone listening to a preacher like that would have instantly told the preacher he was a lunatic wasting everyone’s time with nothing useful to preach at all.

More generally, I suppose preaching about the wonders of a messiah or other gods, was a form of community entertainment. There was presumably not much other form of recreation. No books to read, no films to see, probably not even any paintings or drawings for common people to see. Instead people told stories to one another. And the best and most exciting stories were probably stories like the amazing deeds of the messiah Jesus.

It's not just that people believed these miracles happened, but I'd place a hefty bet on the fact that it was essentially required -- Paul was offering his version of the expected bona fides of Yeshua.

I mean, who would possibly want to follow some loser called Yeshua? After all, I've got a huge pantheon of other gods who are known to be real and actually do stuff.

In Paul's day, a Yeshua character wouldn't be taken seriously unless he did with the magic ju-ju and in our day, no one is ever taken seriously if they do claim to make with the magic ju-ju.

 

[HansMustermann]

We don't have to take bets. We know from Paul himself that the Jews expected miracles, and apparently even his version was not miraculous enough.

1 Cor 1:22 (speaking about why apparently neither is particularly convinced of his new religion): "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom"

In case it's not clear, σημεῖον is used throughout the NT usually as the miraculous kind of sign authenticating something. As in, for example, when the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign (that he's divine) in Matthew 12:38, they mean they want to see a miracle.

And later it would be a fairly common imputation to the Jews, Ebionites, etc, that WTH, they follow the less miraculous version.

(Cue a possible motive for having much more miracles in the gospels.)

 

[eight bits]

The Norseman

Thank you for the kind words.

On the cup thing, what I'm interested in is what the earliest version of the story was. With luck, that would help frame the "historical Jesus" hypothesis with some specificity. It won't decide the issue, but it might help define what the issue is. Besides, it's a puzzle, and I like puzzles.

The idea that Jesus would play-act cannibalistic vampirism at a Jewish dinner table is absurd. Late versions of the story, like John, do frankly depict Jesus as saying things that disgust Jews and alienate his own supporters. See chapter 6, especially verse 48 ff. This may be great creative writing, but it is wildly unrealistic.

I think early versions of the story, even if the story was entirely made up, would not depict Jesus being crudely disgusting. However, the earliest version of the story that we actually have does show Jesus using body-and-blood imagery for food. (Not at a dinner table, though, and nothing is said about who eats the food which Jesus describes.)

So, we have a puzzle, interesting (to me) in its own right, whether Jesus is a fictional character or a real person instead. How did the story go, if it was intended to be realistic, but included such an unJewish element? The alternative I propose is that the offensive business didn't occur at a dinner table, and did occur in a context where it was plainly symbolic, advanced the plot of the story, and didn't involve anybody pretending to eat someone else. The business might still be strange and dsiturbing, but at least it isn't absurd.


Hans

OK, then, so much for levity. Let me state the point prosaically.

Paul restricts what Paul says about this character's actions in time and space to things that Paul says real people are also capable of. That lends no support to Paul intending the character to be non-human. If we can't determine what order of being Paul means, then it fails to bear at all.

Persistent differences among personal opinions, including differing opinions about the weight of evidence, are to be expected when the evidence is thin, as is the case here. The situation does, however, somewhat gut the point of you and I discussing Paul. If you cannot locate evidence that, in your estimation, bears upon Paul's personal opinion about Jesus' humanity, but only "maybe yes, maybe no," then we need to be discussing something else instead.

IanS

What I wrote to Hans is also my reaction to many of your points. You asked whether the 1 Thessalonians convinces me. Yes, Paul describes himself elsewhere as a participant in some of the behavior described there. I believe the passage reflects Paul's characterization of relationships among human beings on Earth. If Jesus is a suspected non-human, then so are Jews, their prophets, Paul's readers and Paul himself.

I cannot prove that Paul consistently thought that he himself was a flesh and blood human being, and 2 Corithians 12: 1 ff. may be offered in evidence. Paul says outright that on at least one occasion he didn't know if he was corporeal or not. Paul also told his readers that they would fly, so maybe he doesn't think they are on Earth, either. But if nobody in Paul is definitely flesh and blood, and everybody in Paul can fly, then there is little point in our discussing whether a specific character in Paul is flesh and blood or not.

IanS, part deux

Jesus appears on earth like any other human (though he is the superhuman scion of a supernatural God in heaven). He performs many wondrous miracles (though they are always the sort of things anyone at the time could have imagined), he tells of many wondrous things and makes all sorts of prophetic statements with great insight etc (though he never reveals anything at all unknown to the proto-science or medicine of the time), etc.

We are apparently not discussing Paul any more, and we also skip Mark. Jesus' paternity isn't addressed there, and Jesus does nothing that other people don't do similar things. There is nothing "supernatural" about Jesus that isn't supernatural about the human race generally until Matthew, and even after that, Acts will depict disciples and non-disciples (Simon of Samaria, some hapless exorcists) alike doing Jesus-stuff.

The idea that Jesus is superhuman is late, IMO, and develops as the tales are retold. What Jesus is early on is conscious of what time it is. He thinks that God is now returning to history. God does miracles again, as he did in bygone days (in the story books that Jesus read from). Jesus presides at miracles, he doesn't "do" miracles. Other people, ordinary people, can also preside. The magic is all around; you just tap into it. You don't even have to be right with God.

Later on? Well, Jesus was mistaken about what time it is, wasn't he? It's still early in the end of days, not quite the very end yet. Jesus isn't coming back soon, so maybe we need to beef up the stories about how special he was when he was here. Less presiding, more doing.

You and I do things every day that a First Century person would see as a miracle, including what I am doing right now, sending an internet message. I also do less technical things, for which I know the expalnation and they would not. If I told them God did it for me, and would do the same for them, they would plausibly buy it. Why not, if I really do it, they really have some of the same results (placebo healing, "exorcism," ...), and there is no lively competing explanation available to them?

 

[HansMustermann]

So, we have a puzzle, interesting (to me) in its own right, whether Jesus is a fictional character or a real person instead.

Well, as I may have mentioned before, to me the question isn't just if there existed one guy called Jesus, but whether he also actually did any of the gospel stuff attributed to him, held any of those opinions, or if we have any reason to believe that the gospel authors who fleshed this character actually used any actual information about him instead of just making stuff up.

If you will, it's like we know that LOTS of arabs named Abdul existed, and even if by numbers and sheer chance alone, some would be scholars. But that doesn't mean one of them is the historical Mad Arab of Lovecraft.

My point is that if you have to basically pretend to know that just about every single story about him either

A) didn't happen, or

B) didn't happen that way, or

C) requires me to believe that something Paul self-confessedly hallucinated is an accurate depiction of an event he didn't witness...

Then we may well have one guy called Jesus (or maybe not even that, since a possible reading of Paul is that he got even that name post-mortem) but he's not the historical Jesus in any meaningful way for me.

I illustrated that point before when I asked if people would accept Alexander son of Herod as the historical Jesus. Turned out that most people wouldn't, even though, by coincidence or not, his story has substantial overlap with the Jesus of Nazareth story. But just having a couple of things in common and not much else doesn't really make one a historical Jesus, just like being called Clark and being a journalist doesn't make one the historical Superman.

Paul restricts what Paul says about this character's actions in time and space to things that Paul says real people are also capable of.

Paul says no such thing.

Coincidentally SOME of the stuff that Paul says about Jesus is possible for a human to do... but also quite possible for a spirit in heaven to do, according to the beliefs of most ancient humans. And even that is very little stuff, as basically Paul tells surprisingly little about Jesus, even though he's writing 20-page letters about Jesus.

Paul's Jesus however is also clearly capable of supernatural stuff, like talking to people after his death. And had a divine nature in the first place, according to Paul.

That lends no support to Paul intending the character to be non-human. If we can't determine what order of being Paul means, then it fails to bear at all.

It seems to me like "we can't determine" means just that: "we can't determine." It doesn't mean an invitation to do a textbook argument from ignorance. ('We don't know what he meant, therefore you can't prove I'm wrong, therefore I'm right.')

 

[pakeha]

...Coincidentally SOME of the stuff that Paul says about Jesus is possible for a human to do... but also quite possible for a spirit in heaven to do, according to the beliefs of most ancient humans. And even that is very little stuff, as basically Paul tells surprisingly little about Jesus, even though he's writing 20-page letters about Jesus.

Paul's Jesus however is also clearly capable of supernatural stuff, like talking to people after his death. And had a divine nature in the first place, according to Paul. ...

Indeed.

First Epistle Of Saint Paul To The Corinthians 10:1-5
[1] For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. [2] And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: [3] And did all eat the same spiritual food, [4] And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.) [5] But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert.

With all respect to any Christians reading this, Paul's writing reminds me of one of my very favourite STTOS Episodes
The Devil in the Dark
http://www.tvmuse.eu/tv-shows/Star-Trek--The-Original-Series_10802/season_1/episode_25/

Was Jesus a Horta, then?

 

[eight bits]

Hans

Coincidentally SOME of the stuff that Paul says about Jesus is possible for a human to do... but also quite possible for a spirit in heaven to do, according to the beliefs of most ancient humans.

It doesn't matter for our problem whether a human can actually do all that Paul thought was possible for ordinary humans. Paul thought people could fly, which is a robust idea of human performance compared with "most ancient humans." In any case, his Jesus did what Paul thought everybody else right-with-God could do, and Mark followed suit. Matthew introduced the first thing nobody else on Earth can ever do, to have God for a literal father. John later went ballistic, and portrayed his Jesus as the immediate cause of the Universe.

There's not a lot for you and me to discuss about whether these later authors had any actual information or were just making up stuff like that. Maybe at CARM...

And even that is very little stuff, as basically Paul tells surprisingly little about Jesus, even though he's writing 20-page letters about Jesus.

I don't share your surprise. We are reading letters. Like much correspondence, a chief focus is the correspondents.

It doesn't mean an invitation to do a textbook argument from ignorance. ('We don't know what he meant, therefore you can't prove I'm wrong, therefore I'm right.')

Lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.

 

[tsig]

Hans


It doesn't matter for our problem whether a human can actually do all that Paul thought was possible for ordinary humans. Paul thought people could fly, which is a robust idea of human performance compared with "most ancient humans." In any case, his Jesus did what Paul thought everybody else right-with-God could do, and Mark followed suit. Matthew introduced the first thing nobody else on Earth can ever do, to have God for a literal father. John later went ballistic, and portrayed his Jesus as the immediate cause of the Universe.

There's not a lot for you and me to discuss about whether these later authors had any actual information or were just making up stuff like that. Maybe at CARM...


I don't share your surprise. We are reading letters. Like much correspondence, a chief focus is the correspondents.


Lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.

This seems miraculous:

Mark 1 9-11

[9] And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
[10] And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
[11] And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.


and this:

Mark 2 10-12

[10] But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)
[11] I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.
[12] And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

 

[IanS]

IanS

What I wrote to Hans is also my reaction to many of your points. You asked whether the 1 Thessalonians convinces me. Yes, Paul describes himself elsewhere as a participant in some of the behavior described there. I believe the passage reflects Paul's characterization of relationships among human beings on Earth. If Jesus is a suspected non-human, then so are Jews, their prophets, Paul's readers and Paul himself.

I cannot prove that Paul consistently thought that he himself was a flesh and blood human being, and 2 Corithians 12: 1 ff. may be offered in evidence. Paul says outright that on at least one occasion he didn't know if he was corporeal or not. Paul also told his readers that they would fly, so maybe he doesn't think they are on Earth, either. But if nobody in Paul is definitely flesh and blood, and everybody in Paul can fly, then there is little point in our discussing whether a specific character in Paul is flesh and blood or not.

IanS, part deux


We are apparently not discussing Paul any more, and we also skip Mark. Jesus' paternity isn't addressed there, and Jesus does nothing that other people don't do similar things. There is nothing "supernatural" about Jesus that isn't supernatural about the human race generally until Matthew, and even after that, Acts will depict disciples and non-disciples (Simon of Samaria, some hapless exorcists) alike doing Jesus-stuff.

The idea that Jesus is superhuman is late, IMO, and develops as the tales are retold. What Jesus is early on is conscious of what time it is. He thinks that God is now returning to history. God does miracles again, as he did in bygone days (in the story books that Jesus read from). Jesus presides at miracles, he doesn't "do" miracles. Other people, ordinary people, can also preside. The magic is all around; you just tap into it. You don't even have to be right with God.

Later on? Well, Jesus was mistaken about what time it is, wasn't he? It's still early in the end of days, not quite the very end yet. Jesus isn't coming back soon, so maybe we need to beef up the stories about how special he was when he was here. Less presiding, more doing.

You and I do things every day that a First Century person would see as a miracle, including what I am doing right now, sending an internet message. I also do less technical things, for which I know the expalnation and they would not. If I told them God did it for me, and would do the same for them, they would plausibly buy it. Why not, if I really do it, they really have some of the same results (placebo healing, "exorcism," ...), and there is no lively competing explanation available to them?

Well I’d like to admit that I found the logic of the above difficult to appreciate. So I’ll just say a very brief word about what I think is being said -

- just because Paul appears to describe Jesus primarily in terms of a theology drawn from his understanding of the OT, that does not imply that we are somehow thereby forced to conclude that Paul and everyone he met must also have been just as non-human & supernatural as Jesus.

On the supernatural point - Paul describes Jesus as a figure who rises from the dead and speaks to people from the heavens. Paul thinks Jesus is a scion of Yahweh who resides in the heavenly skies. That is clearly a belief in Jesus as a supernatural non-earthly being.

Paul may well have believed that Jesus had at one time appeared on earth in human form. But in his letters he does not give any clear unambiguous description of meeting anyone who ever told him anything about knowing or meeting an earthly Jesus.

Specifically re. the passage in Thessalonians - that may be just yet another example of Paul preaching a theology which he draws from OT scripture, and from which he concludes that the messiah is prophesised to be unjustly persecuted unto death even by the peoples of his own misguided Jewish nation. But now, through Paul’s divinely ordained preaching, he is giving God's chosen people the correct “guidance” in the way of the Lord, in accordance with scripture, amen.

And finally - do we have any good reason for doubting the literal word of sentences about Jesus in Paul’s letters? Ans, yes we most certainly do. For a start, Paul repeatedly emphasises that he gets all his knowledge of Jesus not from any man but from scripture. Paul is quite obviously a lifelong religious fanatic who is sufficiently enraptured (or deluded) as to believe in frequently seeing visions of the dead messiah and hearing his voice with messages from heaven, and someone who says that he himself had been transported through the skies to the third heaven etc. This is not someone who is preaching objective historical facts. This is someone preaching fanatical beliefs in heavenly gods and the inerrancy of revealed divine truth from OT scriptures.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

- just because Paul appears to describe Jesus primarily in terms of a theology drawn from his understanding of the OT, that does not imply that we are somehow thereby forced to conclude that Paul and everyone he met must also have been just as non-human & supernatural as Jesus.

Another lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.

On the supernatural point - Paul describes Jesus as a figure who rises from the dead...

As Paul says he himself and every one of his readers will do, except for those who do better than Jesus and never die at all. The supernatural agent making all this happen is God, not Jesus or Paul or the readers. They are natural pesons upon whom God does his magic.

,,,and speaks to people from the heavens.

All of Paul's readers are going to fly to the heavens to meet Jesus; Paul doesn't say, but I assume they'll be able to converse if they actually get there.

Paul thinks Jesus is a scion of Yahweh who resides in the heavenly skies.

Actually, Paul doesn't commit to a fixed place of residence, and the Jewish God doesn't have any children, although the phrase "Son of God" is used often enough. If "Brother of the Lord" can be figurative, so can "Son of God."

That is clearly a belief in Jesus as a supernatural non-earthly being.

No, actually he is in the condition that all human beings will someday be in. He's just gone first... the point of the letters is that the process of every reader getting his or her very own pneuma-body is unfolding right now. The readers will get their turn real soon. Apparently God underestimated the demand.

Paul may well have believed that Jesus had at one time appeared on earth in human form.

And that's the sum and substance of the historical question, the only question you and I can discuss. If we're in agreement about the possibility, then aren't we done yet?

If not, I've already addressed the position that there can be no textual evidence of an author discussing a natural person, because an author could be discussing a supernatural being doing what natural beings do - especially Paul, who has such an exuberant notion of what natural beings can do. If so, then no evidence means what it always means: there is no rational reason for anybody to change their current beliefs, if any, or to adopt any particular new belief. It also leaves us a bit short of things to talk about, concerning this subject anyway

tsig

This seems miraculous:

First. Yes, it is. But Jesus doesn't do it, God does. And so Jesus infers that the end of days is at hand and God will be intervening n history doing all sorts of magical things. Which is good, because Jesus is just standing there, listening. I stand in the shower listening to voices all the time. But I have noisy neighbors.

Second. So what? Placebo healing, and zero chance we'll hear about any occasion where Jesus said "arise" and the guy didn't. Just because a First Century person is impressed doesn't mean we have to be.

But even from the First Centrury perspective, there's nothing there that says Jesus personally is the causal agent rather than God attending to both Jesus and the sick man. Jesus is the guy who knows that if you ask God in magic times, then God gives. The sick guy could use some magic. The deal is done The invited inference from the doing of the deal is not that Jesus has any natural power, but that he has the power to forgive sins - in other words to speak on God's behalf regarding some theological questions (sin and forgiveness).

So, Jesus is a prophet. There are plenty of those in Jewish tradition and literature. They're people (maybe fictional people, but the fiction is about natural persons).

 

[tsig]

IanS


Another lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.


As Paul says he himself and every one of his readers will do, except for those who do better than Jesus and never die at all. The supernatural agent making all this happen is God, not Jesus or Paul or the readers. They are natural pesons upon whom God does his magic.



All of Paul's readers are going to fly to the heavens to meet Jesus; Paul doesn't say, but I assume they'll be able to converse if they actually get there.


Actually, Paul doesn't commit to a fixed place of residence, and the Jewish God doesn't have any children, although the phrase "Son of God" is used often enough. If "Brother of the Lord" can be figurative, so can "Son of God."


No, actually he is in the condition that all human beings will someday be in. He's just gone first... the point of the letters is that the process of every reader getting his or her very own pneuma-body is unfolding right now. The readers will get their turn real soon. Apparently God underestimated the demand.


And that's the sum and substance of the historical question, the only question you and I can discuss. If we're in agreement about the possibility, then aren't we done yet?

If not, I've already addressed the position that there can be no textual evidence of an author discussing a natural person, because an author could be discussing a supernatural being doing what natural beings do - especially Paul, who has such an exuberant notion of what natural beings can do. If so, then no evidence means what it always means: there is no rational reason for anybody to change their current beliefs, if any, or to adopt any particular new belief. It also leaves us a bit short of things to talk about, concerning this subject anyway

tsig


First. Yes, it is. But Jesus doesn't do it, God does. And so Jesus infers that the end of days is at hand and God will be intervening n history doing all sorts of magical things. Which is good, because Jesus is just standing there, listening. I stand in the shower listening to voices all the time. But I have noisy neighbors.

Second. So what? Placebo healing, and zero chance we'll hear about any occasion where Jesus said "arise" and the guy didn't. Just because a First Century person is impressed doesn't mean we have to be.

But even from the First Centrury perspective, there's nothing there that says Jesus personally is the causal agent rather than God attending to both Jesus and the sick man. Jesus is the guy who knows that if you ask God in magic times, then God gives. The sick guy could use some magic. The deal is done The invited inference from the doing of the deal is not that Jesus has any natural power, but that he has the power to forgive sins - in other words to speak on God's behalf regarding some theological questions (sin and forgiveness).

So, Jesus is a prophet. There are plenty of those in Jewish tradition and literature. They're people (maybe fictional people, but the fiction is about natural persons).

OK:

Mark 6

[41] And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.
[42] And they did all eat, and were filled.
[43] And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.
[44] And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.


Looks like Jesus did a miracle here.

 

[eight bits]

tsig

Looks like Jesus did a miracle here.

We can save some time. The pattern of answers is gining to be the same; Mark's short, and many people have already read it, so there aren't a lot of surprises left to mine.

Little happens in Mark that could not have happened. What couldn't have happened is the interpretations placed on the event (and not always even that much impossibility actually appears in the received text in some cases).

Applying that schema to your latest "miracle"

1 - It is perfectly obvious that all the food was brought by the people themselves. Some brought more than others did, but in sum, there was more than was needed for that single meal.

2 - Jesus isn't depicted making any food. Neither Jesus nor anybody on his staff is depicted passing out food. Jesus plays with only a little bit of food, and in the next line everybody has eaten. How you choose to fill in what might have happened between the two lines isn't my problem. I'm talking about the text in hand. There's nothing between those two lines in the text.

The schema will be the same throughout Mark. There is also a specific literary note on the two feeding pericopes:

These are so obviously explained naturalistically that I suspect that its earliest form was a cooperation parable, although that might have led to practical demonstrations. If so, then these are self-limiting, since if freeloaders swarm, then it won't work any more. Jesus remarks later on in Mark (8: 18-21) that the dsiciples didn't understand the two mass feedings... the same complaint he makes when they frack up parables or sayings. You eat food, you don't understand it. You understand allegories, or perhaps practical demonstrations of the benefits to Jews of cooperation among Jews in the face oppression.

If that seems like a miracle to you, then that's swell. To me, blank space is blank space. I guess that makes me a Biblical literalist, eh?

 

[The Norseman]

tsig


We can save some time. The pattern of answers is gining to be the same; Mark's short, and many people have already read it, so there aren't a lot of surprises left to mine.

Little happens in Mark that could not have happened. What couldn't have happened is the interpretations placed on the event (and not always even that much impossibility actually appears in the received text in some cases).

Applying that schema to your latest "miracle"

1 - It is perfectly obvious that all the food was brought by the people themselves. Some brought more than others did, but in sum, there was more than was needed for that single meal.

2 - Jesus isn't depicted making any food. Neither Jesus nor anybody on his staff is depicted passing out food. Jesus plays with only a little bit of food, and in the next line everybody has eaten. How you choose to fill in what might have happened between the two lines isn't my problem. I'm talking about the text in hand. There's nothing between those two lines in the text.

The schema will be the same throughout Mark. There is also a specific literary note on the two feeding pericopes:

These are so obviously explained naturalistically that I suspect that its earliest form was a cooperation parable, although that might have led to practical demonstrations. If so, then these are self-limiting, since if freeloaders swarm, then it won't work any more. Jesus remarks later on in Mark (8: 18-21) that the dsiciples didn't understand the two mass feedings... the same complaint he makes when they frack up parables or sayings. You eat food, you don't understand it. You understand allegories, or perhaps practical demonstrations of the benefits to Jews of cooperation among Jews in the face oppression.

If that seems like a miracle to you, then that's swell. To me, blank space is blank space. I guess that makes me a Biblical literalist, eh?

Nothing in there makes me think that it has to be about a real flesh and blood person, either. The allegory does in no way require a live person to teach this parable does it?

 

[davefoc]

tsig


We can save some time. The pattern of answers is gining to be the same; Mark's short, and many people have already read it, so there aren't a lot of surprises left to mine.

...

Your explanation of what look like, at first glance, miracle stories to some of us as actually stories about natural occurrences strikes me as strained. However, I think that your point is that there is a transition in the nature of the stories that appear to be miracle stories to some of us to a different kind of less equivocal miracle stories in the gospels that were written after Mark? Perhaps you could contrast the different kinds of miracle stories that you perceive?

 

[HansMustermann]

It doesn't matter for our problem whether a human can actually do all that Paul thought was possible for ordinary humans. Paul thought people could fly, which is a robust idea of human performance compared with "most ancient humans." In any case, his Jesus did what Paul thought everybody else right-with-God could do, and Mark followed suit. Matthew introduced the first thing nobody else on Earth can ever do, to have God for a literal father. John later went ballistic, and portrayed his Jesus as the immediate cause of the Universe.

But then there goes the whole argument about Jesus being human instead of some mythical superman.

I mean, it's like claiming that Hulk must have been a real human, if someone who ever wrote a Hulk fanfic believed that any human could puff up and turn green if they only exposed themselves to the right kind of radiation. Or that Mithras must have been a real person if only the author believed other people can be born from a rock. And indeed, the Greeks believed most humans originated from rocks someone threw over their shoulder.

 

[eight bits]

The Norseman

Nothing in there makes me think that it has to be about a real flesh and blood person, either. The allegory does in no way require a live person to teach this parable does it?

Nope. Mark could be just like Daniel - a novel about an invented Jewish prophet. Daniel isn't a natural being nor a supernatural being. He is an arrangement of words on a page.

Next level of discourse down - What was the shared understanding of the author and his first readers about the factual status of Daniel? That could be a lot a like Jesus lore. The first readers of Daniel may well have understood it was fiction, but some later readers, even readers just a century or two later, thought it was history. Woo hoo.

Next level of discourse down, where we are in this subthread - what did the author of Daniel intend the title character to represent: a supernatural being or a man who trafficked in the supernatural?

Most people think that Daniel is supposed to represent a human being. However, by some of the standards proposed here, that supposition isn't based on evidence. An angel could do everything that Daniel does, so maybe the author really intended Daniel to be an angel.

OK, then. Everything about Jesus is uncertain, and the evidence one way or the other is thin. If I hold any opinion about his origins at all, then it is heuristic. One particular heuristic I use a lot is to decide similar cases similarly. Jesus' saga is not the only work of literature I have ever read.

I believe that the character Toto in The Wizard of Oz is intended to represent a dog, a natural being. I recognize that everything Toto does could also be done by a Jinn, nevertheless, I place little weight on the "Toto is supposed to be a Jinn" hypothesis. This, despite Toto interacting with witches, flying monkeys, a talking lion, a tin Golem-thing, and so forth, things which no natural dog can ever do, in a place that is not Kansas nor anywhere else on Earth.

For the same reasons I think Toto is intended to represent a dog, I think Daniel is intended to represent a natural man. For the same reasons I think Daniel is intended to represent a man, I think Jesus is natural-in-intention, too. If I revised my estimate of Jesus' humanity, then I would be heuristically impelled to revisit Toto's caninity. When I'm done with that, next up will be, Is Moby Dick really supposed to be a whale? Can't say for sure; but I'll take my chances on yes.

davefoc

I can only regret that you think people reporting some natural occurrence and giving it a supernatural interpretation is strained. I don't see that there's much I can do about that. My experience is different. It happens all the time, right here on the webz.

Pooling snacks is a staple of military lore. Units get cut off from the supply lines, and everybody contributes what they have for the benefit of all. In the short term, it is a reliable phenomenon.

It is the second meal in a row that requires a miracle. That is not the Marcan testimony. There were some leftovers - I suppose if the baskets were big enough, it would make a dent.

Perhaps you could contrast the different kinds of miracle stories that you perceive?

We are already discussing an example. In the Marcan Feeding of the Five Thousand, Jesus is not depicted as making food nor distributing food nor is any member of his staff depicted as doing these things. What happened between Jesus playing with a small amount of food he happened to find onsite and everybody having eaten is literally a blank. And yet, readers here tell me that the blank ought to be filled in with "A miracle happened," instead of an obvious and even expected natural event. ("Psst, what was that bit with the fish sandwich?" "Dude, you're supposed to do what Jesus just did, ask around if anybody has food, and maybe they'll share.")

How much "contrast" do you require, Dave? Literally nothing, not one word, on the page in Mark, but an apparent miracle in the Gospel According to Tsig.

Hans

There goes what? No evidence means people continue to believe what, if anything, they already believe on prioristic and heuristic grounds. That often means that different people believe different things.

Apparently you believe something different than I do. I will withhold comment on how encouraging I find that to be, but will simply point out that it is unsurprising and likely to persist. Finally, if there is no agreed-upon admissible bearing evidence, then there is nothing for you and me to discuss about this uncertainty.

 

[IanS]

IanS


Another lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.


As Paul says he himself and every one of his readers will do, except for those who do better than Jesus and never die at all. The supernatural agent making all this happen is God, not Jesus or Paul or the readers. They are natural pesons upon whom God does his magic.



All of Paul's readers are going to fly to the heavens to meet Jesus; Paul doesn't say, but I assume they'll be able to converse if they actually get there.


Actually, Paul doesn't commit to a fixed place of residence, and the Jewish God doesn't have any children, although the phrase "Son of God" is used often enough. If "Brother of the Lord" can be figurative, so can "Son of God."


No, actually he is in the condition that all human beings will someday be in. He's just gone first... the point of the letters is that the process of every reader getting his or her very own pneuma-body is unfolding right now. The readers will get their turn real soon. Apparently God underestimated the demand.


And that's the sum and substance of the historical question, the only question you and I can discuss. If we're in agreement about the possibility, then aren't we done yet?
If not, I've already addressed the position that there can be no textual evidence of an author discussing a natural person, because an author could be discussing a supernatural being doing what natural beings do - especially Paul, who has such an exuberant notion of what natural beings can do. If so, then no evidence means what it always means: there is no rational reason for anybody to change their current beliefs, if any, or to adopt any particular new belief. It also leaves us a bit short of things to talk about, concerning this subject anyway
.

We are not going to get anywhere with conversations like this.

You appear to be presenting your own theory of how a real Jesus could be shoe-horned into the biblical stories by removing all the elements which now in the 21st century seem like absurd fictional nonsense.

But there is no need for guesswork creating theories like that. The simple fact of the matter is that claimed evidence of a real Jesus appears to be non-existent. That has been demonstrated over & over again in these various HJ threads.

As far as Paul’s version of Jesus is concerned. He does not appear ever to be talking about a mortal human person (as you would like to propose). There are no clear unambiguous statements to that effect anywhere in the letters attributed to Paul.

Instead, as Paul himself keeps repeating, his belief in Jesus is taken from what he thinks is his correct interpretation of OT scripture from centuries before.

But Paul’s version of Jesus is not as a mortal human on earth, but as he clearly describes, it is of a supernatural figure who can rise from the dead and speak to people before floating off to heaven in full view of hundreds of people.

Now that may all be figurate speech from Paul, and may be meant to say only that the truly faithful believers can see and hear the risen Jesus, not because Jesus was ever really there, but because they believe it in their hearts and minds.

But whether that is the case or not, whether Paul and the others only ever thought those visions were drawn from their faith, that does not change the fact that Paul only ever seems to be describing Jesus as a figure known to him entirely from the theology of the OT. There are no clear unambiguous descriptions of Paul ever meeting an earthly Jesus, or anyone else ever meeting an earthly Jesus, or anyone telling Paul any believable credible account of how they had met an earthly Jesus.

The more one reads of these discussions, and the more florid and fanciful hypothesis that are presented in order to claim a real Jesus, the more it looks to me as if sceptical authors like Ellegard are probably right when they say the Jesus figure described in the bible is actually just a theologically derived OT figure, and not a real living person.

There may have once been a real preacher who may have been in some sense part of what became the Jesus legend of the bible. But that possibility is entirely trivial and adds zero to claims of a real biblical Jesus, because it’s obvious that in 1st century Palestine there were probably hundreds if not thousands of people preaching different versions of traditional Jewish OT belief in the coming of a god-given messiah.

 

[pakeha]

IanS


Another lucky thing, then, that neither of us argued that.


As Paul says he himself and every one of his readers will do, except for those who do better than Jesus and never die at all. The supernatural agent making all this happen is God, not Jesus or Paul or the readers. They are natural pesons upon whom God does his magic.



All of Paul's readers are going to fly to the heavens to meet Jesus; Paul doesn't say, but I assume they'll be able to converse if they actually get there.


Actually, Paul doesn't commit to a fixed place of residence, and the Jewish God doesn't have any children, although the phrase "Son of God" is used often enough. If "Brother of the Lord" can be figurative, so can "Son of God."


No, actually he is in the condition that all human beings will someday be in. He's just gone first... the point of the letters is that the process of every reader getting his or her very own pneuma-body is unfolding right now. The readers will get their turn real soon. Apparently God underestimated the demand.


And that's the sum and substance of the historical question, the only question you and I can discuss. If we're in agreement about the possibility, then aren't we done yet?

If not, I've already addressed the position that there can be no textual evidence of an author discussing a natural person, because an author could be discussing a supernatural being doing what natural beings do - especially Paul, who has such an exuberant notion of what natural beings can do. If so, then no evidence means what it always means: there is no rational reason for anybody to change their current beliefs, if any, or to adopt any particular new belief. It also leaves us a bit short of things to talk about, concerning this subject anyway

tsig


First. Yes, it is. But Jesus doesn't do it, God does. And so Jesus infers that the end of days is at hand and God will be intervening n history doing all sorts of magical things. Which is good, because Jesus is just standing there, listening. I stand in the shower listening to voices all the time. But I have noisy neighbors.

Second. So what? Placebo healing, and zero chance we'll hear about any occasion where Jesus said "arise" and the guy didn't. Just because a First Century person is impressed doesn't mean we have to be.

But even from the First Centrury perspective, there's nothing there that says Jesus personally is the causal agent rather than God attending to both Jesus and the sick man. Jesus is the guy who knows that if you ask God in magic times, then God gives. The sick guy could use some magic. The deal is done The invited inference from the doing of the deal is not that Jesus has any natural power, but that he has the power to forgive sins - in other words to speak on God's behalf regarding some theological questions (sin and forgiveness).

So, Jesus is a prophet. There are plenty of those in Jewish tradition and literature. They're people (maybe fictional people, but the fiction is about natural persons).

Thanks, eight bits.
I think that's about the best summing up of the case for an historical Jesus I've seen to date.

 

[tsig]

tsig


We can save some time. The pattern of answers is gining to be the same; Mark's short, and many people have already read it, so there aren't a lot of surprises left to mine.

Little happens in Mark that could not have happened. What couldn't have happened is the interpretations placed on the event (and not always even that much impossibility actually appears in the received text in some cases).

Applying that schema to your latest "miracle"

1 - It is perfectly obvious that all the food was brought by the people themselves. Some brought more than others did, but in sum, there was more than was needed for that single meal.

2 - Jesus isn't depicted making any food. Neither Jesus nor anybody on his staff is depicted passing out food. Jesus plays with only a little bit of food, and in the next line everybody has eaten. How you choose to fill in what might have happened between the two lines isn't my problem. I'm talking about the text in hand. There's nothing between those two lines in the text.

The schema will be the same throughout Mark. There is also a specific literary note on the two feeding pericopes:

These are so obviously explained naturalistically that I suspect that its earliest form was a cooperation parable, although that might have led to practical demonstrations. If so, then these are self-limiting, since if freeloaders swarm, then it won't work any more. Jesus remarks later on in Mark (8: 18-21) that the dsiciples didn't understand the two mass feedings... the same complaint he makes when they frack up parables or sayings. You eat food, you don't understand it. You understand allegories, or perhaps practical demonstrations of the benefits to Jews of cooperation among Jews in the face oppression.

If that seems like a miracle to you, then that's swell. To me, blank space is blank space. I guess that makes me a Biblical literalist, eh?

I would never accuse you of being a biblical literalist since you seem to read a lot more text than is actually there and to miss a lot that is there. The text specifically says that the apostles are worried about feeding the people and you have the people having food all the time just not wanting to share it.

 

[eight bits]

pakeha

Thank you for the kind words.


tsig

Thank you for not accusing me of bibical literalism. However, you lost me

The text specifically says that the apostles are worried about feeding the people and you have the people having food all the time just not wanting to share it.

What does anybody not knowing something have to do with what the facts are? Or that Jesus would figure out what to do before his staff grasps the situation? There must be some reason why they work for him, and not the other way around.


IanS

We are not going to get anywhere with conversations like this.

Where were we going otherwise? I ask again, if you and I are in agreement that it is impossible for a writer to describe a natural person's activities in such a way that no imaginable supernatural being could do the same things, and we are further in agreement that either natural or supernatural characterization is possible for literary Jesuses, then aren't we done yet?

You appear to be presenting your own theory of how a real Jesus could be shoe-horned into the biblical stories by removing all the elements which now in the 21st century seem like absurd fictional nonsense.

I haven't subtracted from the Marcan incident of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. I refrain from adding elements which are nowhere in the text and which are nonsensical.

Jesus played with some food that was in fact found onsite. He gives just that food, divided up, to the disciples for them to pass on. Blank space. People have eaten.

I am not the one saying that Blank space means that Jesus suspended the conversation of mass and energy. Mark didn't say he did, either. Mark didn't say anything about what happened during the blank-space interval. It's all on the reader who wants to read something into it.

All that's on the page is a description of a small troupe of people miming for a crowd the acts of dividing up a modest amount of food among themselves, and passing on pieces of that food to those around them. Really, that's all that's on the page. What's on the page suffices for the problem to be solved, with all physical laws safely intact.

And, if it hadn't worked, then there is no chance whatsoever that we would have heard about the failure. Assuming, of course, it wasn't just fiction anyway (but fiction about human characters).

 

[HansMustermann]

But the problem is that at that point you're writing your own Gospel Of St Eight Bits. You're taking what the story actually says, and adding and removing parts to get your own story.

But the problem is that we can do that to any other story.

E.g., we can take The Shadow Over Innsmouth, remove all hints at fishmen and whatnot from it, and get a rather mundane story where nothing really impossible happen. Or we can take the Dunwich Horror, remove the parts where actually supernatural stuff happens or is hinted at (e.g., remove the invisible second son of our lord Yog-Sothoth), and voila, there's nothing impossible there, therefore it must have happened.

Or if Lovecraft isn't your cup of tea, we can do the same for Star Wars. See, Luke didn't REALLY lift and push stuff with the Force, or use a blade made of light. Why, clearly that's later embellishments. Cut enough of that from it it and you can be left with a rather mundane story of a kid fighting against his dad, who's second in command in a militaristic dictatorship. Could have happened.

But the story is whether it did actually happen, and what do you base that on.

Just the fact that you can mangle a story into something mundane isn't really evidence, if not only it can say "yep, it's real" for Star Wars or Lovecraft stories, but there almost isn't a story on which it can deliver a negative answer. Take whatever most surrealistic and convoluted story you can think of, and chances are even that one can be massaged into being about something more natural and possible. I mean, if nothing else, you can always just discard the bits that can't be massaged into realistic stuff (see, they were added later in the oral tradition), and/or just take the "it's actually a metaphor" route.

In short, it's not a criterion for arriving at truth, it's just mistaking one's own fantasy and interpolations for reality.