The Jesus Myth Part II

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dastardly stem
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The Jesus Myth Part II

Post by dastardly stem »

Starting a new thread not to upset the balance that has developed in the previous one. I want a chance to investigate a little deeper the messages we get from Paul and other sources. As has been repeated, Paul's writings on the earliest sources of Christianity in extant records. His are the earliest, found in the historical record, on the teachings and in mentioning Jesus Christ. I've explained why I don't personally buy into the extra biblical references about Jesus in the first century, because there weren't any (with a possible passing mention by Josephus which appears to be a later interpolation).

I think its fair to point out what Paul didn't say.

So let's consider(taken from On the Historicity Of Jesus ch 12):
Paul mentions ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ in his seven authentic letters at least 280 times—and that doesn’t count other references to him as only ‘the Lord’ or ‘Son of God’. Altogether, Paul found over three hundred occasions to mention Jesus (by some name or title), and on at least half of those occasions he tells us some particular fact or other about this Jesus. But (as we’ll see) not one of those facts connects Jesus with an earthly life (without adding suppositions not in the text). His crucifixion is mentioned over fifteen times; and his resurrection, over thirty times. But never any details. So those could have occurred in outer space (as explained in Chapter 3). We hear very little else.
It's quite possible Paul had more details about Jesus but didn't share them in the extant letters we have. Its possible he wrote other letters offering more details. But considering how much we have, his failure to offer details of a living Jesus are odd. And if odd, that would be the point. And possible is not probable.
Paul’s Jesus is only ever in the heavens. Never once is his baptism mentioned, or his ministry, or his trial, or any of his miracles, or any historical details about what he was like, what he did, or suffered, or where he was from, or where he had been, or what people he knew.
If Paul preaches a Jesus only in the heavens, what might that say about a human Jesus who lived a mortal life? If Paul is said to be one wo carries on teachings began by a man named Jesus who lived before him, it is exceptionally odd that Paul never shares a peep from this man. He must have heard something, one would think.
No memories from those who knew him are ever reported. Paul never mentions Galilee or Nazareth, or Pilate or Mary or Joseph, or any miracles Jesus did or any miraculous powers he is supposed to have displayed . . . or anything about the life of Jesus not in the Gospels. Paul never references any event in Jesus’ life as an example to follow (beyond the abstractions of love, endurance and submissiveness), and never places anything Jesus said in any earthly historical context whatever. So far as these letters tell us, no Christian ever asked Paul about these things, either. Nor did any of these things ever become relevant in any dispute Paul had with anyone. Not one of his opponents, so far as Paul mentions, ever referenced a fact about Jesus’ life in support of their arguments. And no one ever doubted anything claimed about Jesus and asked for witnesses to confirm it or explain it or give more details.
Common types of responses that hit when one points out Paul's lack of giving anything about Jesus' mortal life:

"why would we expect to see Paul teach Jesus' teachings, or tell us anything about Jesus' life? Or why would we expect Paul to mention the past when he wants to build the Church into the future?" Hopefully we'll get back to these types of questions, but notice, these questions aren't providing evidence of historicity. And it seems to me an explanation is required on a historicists model.
Accordingly, historicists have to explain why in Paul’s letters there are no disputes about what Jesus said or did, and why no specific example from his life is ever referred to as a model, not even to encourage or teach anything or to resolve any disputes, and why the only sources Paul ever refers to for anything he claims to know about Jesus are private revelations and hidden messages in scripture (Element 16), and why Paul appears not to know of there being any other sources than these (like, e.g., people who knew Jesus). Whatever explanation historicists devise for these curiosities has to be demonstrably true, and not something they just make up to explain away the evidence. Because such ‘making up of excuses’ would risk the fallacy of gerrymandering, which necessarily lowers your theory’s prior probability since you have to assume facts that aren’t in evidence and that aren’t made probable by any evidence there is.
The historicist position seems to be just as what is described here: making something up to explain away the evidence. I would propose someone actually needs to engage the evidence if one is intent to say Jesus really lived. An explanation that he must have lived because a religion obviously began, doesn't work. It's making something up. An explanation that it's quite possible that a Jesus lived in the early first century and taught a noticeably odd form of Christianity, doesn't work. It's turning a possibiliy into a probability.
All this is evident in such passages as Gal. 1.11-16, where Paul says he received the gospel only by revelation, and in Rom. 15.25-26, where scripture and revelation are the only sources of information about Jesus that Paul mentions Christians having. In Rom. 15.3-4 Paul even appears to say that we have to learn things about Jesus by discovering them in scripture; Paul apparently knew nothing about any community of witnesses to consult for such things (he even appears to deny any such sources existed in 1 Cor. 4.6, beyond revelators such as himself). Combining both observations, in 1 Cor. 15.1-9 Paul says the gospel that was revealed to him (as he says in Gal. 1; see §4) was known only by revelation and scripture.
If there were a man Jesus preaching Christianity and Paul, after this Jesus' death converted to that religion, Paul would have had to have learned it from someone. But he explicitly claims that did not happen. It was revelaed to him by revelation.

Gal. 1.11-18:
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:

14 And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,

16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.

18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.
(someone may take issue with me excluding verse 19 since it mentions James the Lord's brother, but I've given my take on that enough and am mentioning it here so I don't get accused of hiding something).

"Neither I received it of man, neither was I taught it.....I conferred not with flesh and blood". The point being, Paul is explicitly contending that no one taught him the gospel.
Stranger still, that gospel lacked any reference to Jesus having a ministry or ever preaching the gospel, or performing great deeds, or having parents who were Davidic heirs, or being chosen by God at his baptism. All Paul tells us is this: For I delivered to you first of all that which also I received: that according to the scriptures Christ died for our sins, and that he was buried, and that according to the scriptures he has been raised on the third day, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to ‘the twelve’ and then he appeared [to hundreds of brethren all at once] and then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles, and last of all to me as well, as if to an aborted fetus—because I am the least of the apostles, who is not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Assembly of God.

Note what is missing here. We’re told Christ’s death and resurrection are known from the scriptures; but he was only seen after that. There is no reference here to ‘Cephas’ or ‘the twelve’ (or any of the others) seeing Jesus before his death, or having traveled with him, or having sat at his feet, or having been personally chosen by him. In other words, according to Paul’s gospel, Jesus had no ministry and was personally unknown to anyone until he appeared to an elect number after his resurrection.
If Jesus was unknown to anyone in Paul's lifetime, then it'd be no wonder if Paul thought he was a cosmic God whose sacrifice and triumphs happened somewhere other than on earth. When he speaks of Peter (or Cephas) he speaks of one who also saw Jesus in revelation. He doesn't say Peter was some guy who was a disciple (indeed the concept of disciple isn't found in Paul's letters at all) of a mortal man Jesus who went around preaching Christianity. Thus, on Paul there is no evidence of a itinerant preacher named Jesus who later was mythologized into a god.
This is confirmed in Phil. 2.5-11, where again Jesus has no ministry: all he does is descend from heaven, submit to death and reascend (discussed in §4). This accords with what we found in 1 Clement (as I demonstrated in Chapter 8, §5), where not only is scripture and private revelation again the only way anyone appears to have known about Jesus, but where Clement actually quotes scripture as the words of Jesus, and only cites scripture as his evidence that certain things happened to Jesus, and says it is only through the apostles that Jesus transmitted the gospel (thus effectively denying Jesus had any public ministry).
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus wasn't born and lived a life on earth, he was made in the likeness of men in order to perform a sacrifice.
...exactly as Paul (or one of his successors) says, the gospel was only ever learned from ‘revelation’ and the ‘writings of the prophets’ (Rom. 16.25-26). Not from any public ministry. And thus not from any (actual) historical Jesus. Thus, we see the same in Gal. 1.11-12 (where revelation is his only source) and 1 Cor. 15.3-8 (where scripture and revelation are the only sources he or anyone else has). Even in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 Paul references revelation as his only source (as I’ll explain in §7), precisely where we should expect human testimony to be his only possible source; and in Rom. 15.3-4 Paul all but admits to there being no actual stories about Jesus, that to learn things about him we have to turn to the scriptures (or again, revelations). This is what these letters simply say, when taken by themselves (and this is corroborated by other letters from the Pauline school: e.g. Eph. 3.3-12 and Col. 1.24-29). It therefore requires no other added suppositions. This is therefore the simplest hypothesis for why Paul never showed any interest in the historical Jesus, nor did any of his congregations, nor did any of his opponents. Because there was no historical Jesus. There was only a revealed being. Which was not anything one could dispute—except by claiming to have contrary revelations (hence Gal. 1.6-9). Apologetic attempts to dodge this bullet always involve suppositions, which are either not in evidence or implausible. Like, for example, the excuse that the earliest Christians, including even Paul and his opponents in the church, simply weren’t interested in anything Jesus said or did in his life. There is no evidence of that. To the contrary, the letters are full of interest in Jesus’ death and what it accomplished and what words he revealed to his apostles. And a disinterest in everything else goes against all precedents in history and human nature. It should also be pointed out that if no Christians were interested in any details of Jesus’ life, then they cannot have transmitted any details of his life, either. The Gospels are therefore confirmed as fictions. For as I already remarked (in Chapters 6, §7, and 8, §4), you cannot claim the Christians were simultaneously keen to accurately preserve memories of Jesus and completely uninterested in any memories of Jesus. So the notion that ‘they didn’t care about any of that’ is simply a non-starter. Only the desperately illogical would cling to such a thesis.

Another common excuse is to say that Paul’s letters were just ‘occasional’, addressing only the specific issues that came up, and were not thorough treatises on what Jesus said and did. The premise here is certainly correct. The conclusion is not. Why weren’t any facts about the life or deeds or teachings or trial or execution of Jesus ever themselves an ‘occasion’ of query or example or proof or dispute? Why were such things never relevant to any doctrine or question or dispute in the church that Paul spent thousands of words addressing? It’s not that the letters we have suggest Paul was asked or tasked with discussing or mentioning such things and he failed to answer. Rather, it’s that, so far as we can tell, no letters sent to him ever asked or tasked him with discussing or mentioning such things. No event in Jesus’ life, no details of Jesus’ life, ever had any relevance to any of the occasional issues he addressed, and no one ever used such events or details in any argument Paul ever had to confront. No one was even curious about such things. That is what is extremely improbable. Simply saying the letters were only ‘occasional’ does not make that fact any more likely. Indeed, we’re not just faced with the extremely high expectation that at least something along those lines would come up or be relevant or asked about or debated. It’s also improbable that even casual or incidental mentions of historical facts about Jesus would never arise, not once in twenty thousand words.
Hopefully the point is clear. Paul did not learn about a Jesus who lived a mortal life from anyone. He learned about a gospel that included a cosmic God who is the Savior. He never claims to have known anyone who personally knew a living mortal Jesus. And that really matters, contrary to those who wish to explain it all away.
Like Paul’s happenstance mention of baptizing for the dead (1 Cor. 15.29) or the fear of what angels might do if Christian women don’t cover their hair in church (1 Cor. 11.9-10) or the fact that Christians will one day judge the angels (1 Cor. 6.3). Paul lets slip countless incidental details like these about Christian practice and belief, not because he was required to but simply because that sort of thing can’t really be avoided. You would actually have to try very hard not to ever mention anything in twenty thousand words beyond the bare few facts you need to communicate. That these kinds of incidental details about Jesus never appear, yet incidental details about many other things do, is again simply improbable. Unless there were no incidental details about Jesus.
What's probable on Paul? There was no living mortal Jesus who preached Christianity, caused a public stir with a sizable enough following to get himself killed by authorities.
Sure, there must have been a lot of details about the celestial Jesus and his ordeal in outer space (as, e.g., we know from Ignatius that the early Christians had a complex angelology: see Chapter 8, §6), but those were esoteric aspects of cult belief and doctrine, part of the Christian mysteries, and thus would often be secrets (Element 13; which the same example in Ignatius illustrates), or obviously not applicable to earthly affairs (and in these letters Paul generally only deals with earthly affairs). But public facts about the biography, ministry, feats, trial and execution of Jesus could not have been secrets. Nor would most of Jesus’ teachings have been. Nor could public disputes about what he actually said or did not have arisen (when disputes about everything else did), nor could such disputes arise and not ever appeal to who was present to see and report them. Nor could it be that nothing in Jesus’ life was relevant to the earthly affairs of Paul’s Christian congregations. Or, again, that no one was curious to know them, or eager to reference or employ them in their arguments and communications. We simply never hear Paul say, ‘from James I learned that Jesus, who was his brother in life, had said/done x’, or answer, ‘Peter says he was there when Jesus said x, so why is your teaching at odds with x?’, or argue ‘my revelations of Jesus are as good as those other apostles having known the man personally’, or anything comparable. These are simply not arguments anywhere found in these Epistles, nor anything like them. And this was in a time when eyewitnesses were supposedly still living, abundant and running the church. That’s weird.
So to clarify...of course it's possible that Jesus lived and Paul was just really weird and wasn't thoughtful, logical in any sense, or helpful to anyone. The issue, on the teachings of Paul, Jesus' historicity is unlikely. It'd be expected if Jesus was a cosmic god whose work was done above earth. Details of cosmic happenings would be esoteric mysteries, seen as secrets.

Many have recognized the oddness of Paul if one assumes there was a Jesus who lived a mortal life.
In Gerd Lüdemann’s study of these letters he concluded:

Not once does Paul refer to Jesus as a teacher, to his words as teaching, or to [any] Christians as disciples. In this regard it is of the greatest significance that when Paul cites ‘sayings of Jesus’, they are never so designated; rather, without a single exception, he attributes such sayings to ‘the Lord’. . . . Paul thought that a person named Jesus had lived and that he now sat at the right hand of God in heaven. Yet he shows only a passing acquaintance with traditions related to his life and nowhere an independent acquaintance with them. In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus.
So Paul can't be considered a reliable witness to a historical Jesus at all, according to Lüdemann. If not, then how do we verify Jesus ever lived?
Indeed, despite Jesus being so central to Paul’s every argument, ‘it seems strange indeed that the Epistles so seldom make reference to [Jesus’] life and teachings’. Lüdemann likewise finds modern excuses for this implausible:

The argument that [Paul] could assume his readers’ familiarity with these [facts] because he had already passed them on in his missionary preaching [and therefore never had to mention them] is not convincing. He could and does presume some familiarity with the Greek translation of the Scripture, the Septuagint, which was mediated to his converts either by himself or earlier by the local Jewish community. For this reason he repeatedly and specifically cites it in the course of his ethical teaching. Moreover, when Paul himself summarizes the content of his missionary preaching in Corinth (1 Cor. 2.1-2; 15.3-5), there is no hint that a narration of Jesus’ earthly life or a report of his earthly teachings was an essential part of it. . . . In the letter to the Romans, which cannot presuppose the apostle’s missionary preaching and in which he attempts to summarize its main points, we find not a single direct citation of Jesus’ teaching. One must record with some surprise the fact that Jesus’ teachings seem to play a less vital role in Paul’s religious and ethical instruction than does the Old Testament.
Paul the apostle who was preaching a cosmopolitan Christianity, unlike Peter and co, was said to rely on the Old Testament rather than on any teachings of Jesus at all. That fact counteracts most explanations, or more properly excuses, needed for Paul--he needed to move on, look forward and not look back. But instead he looks back, and by that we mean way back.
Lüdemann is not convinced Jesus didn’t exist, but he finds the Epistles can be of no help in proving he did, and expresses his surprise at this. But if it’s surprising, it’s improbable. Because that’s what ‘surprising’ means. In contrast, minimal mythicism maintains the Jesus ‘Paul believed had lived as a man’ only lived so in outer space; thus on that theory Paul’s not mentioning any fact of his earthly life is not surprising. It is therefore more probable.
On Paul mythicism is more probable than historicism.
Margaret Barker likewise expresses her perplexity at Paul’s letters:

‘at the centre of [Paul’s] preaching there is not the teacher from Galilee but the Redeemer from heaven. Why?’ Indeed, she argues, from his letters one would have to conclude that ‘the Jesus who was only a teacher from Galilee disappeared from the tradition at a very early date, so early that one wonders whether it was ever there at all’.17
Was it ever there at all? If so what is the convincing evidence? If nothing in Paul can be looked to then where can we look? It seems improbable that there was a Jesus on such thinking.
Nikolaus Walter more or less concurs, concluding that ‘we can detect no hint that Paul knew of the narrative tradition about Jesus’, which anyone ought to agree is ‘surprising’. Even Helmut Koester admits, ‘it is generally agreed that Paul’s letters do not permit any conclusions about the life of Jesus’. Kurt Noll goes further, concluding that the evidence in Paul’s letters demonstrates that no fully formed Jesus traditions, of either sayings or narratives, existed in Paul’s day, and that all such traditions therefore post-date his generation.
"all such traditions...post-date his generation." That is most probable on mythicism.

Continuing on more of the scholars opinions and arguments to try and justify a historical Jesus:
]Scholars are thus starting to rethink the sequence of events. Nikolaus Walter has concluded that many of the teachings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels were in fact fabricated out of the sayings of Paul, and that there simply wasn’t any collection of teachings from Jesus beyond occasional revelations. James Dunn confesses that this ‘would seem an odd conclusion to be forced to’ given what appears in the Gospels, but once we agree the Gospels are fiction, it does not look so odd after all, and even Dunn admits the letters are peculiar on any other assumption—so Dunn himself had to resort to the implausible hypothesis that Paul was everywhere simply implying Jesus as his authority. But that notion is exploded by the fact that Paul makes no such assumptions when citing scripture as his authority (so, as Lüdemann argued, why would he treat Jesus differently?), and in fact Paul frequently identifies Jesus (‘the Lord’) as his authority, and even takes care to distinguish between commands he received from his revealed Lord and his own opinions (e.g. 1 Cor. 7.25 vs. 14.37 or 9.8 vs. 9.14). We have to face the fact of it. There simply is no source known to Paul, for him or anyone, but scripture and revelations from his celestial Jesus. And that all but rules out a historical Jesus.
If we rule out a historical Jesus on Paul then there ought to be pretty good evidence for a historical Jesus elsewhere. I don't think there is. And that makes the historicist position unlikely.
Mogens Müller attempts to save Jesus from this conclusion by admitting there is nothing in Paul’s letters that confirms that Jesus recently existed but that ‘we need, however, a broader understanding of the predicate “historical” as used in connection with the person of Jesus’, such that:‘historical’ should not be employed simply in connection with attempts to reconstruct details in the life and teaching of Jesus, treating him solely as a figure of the past. The predicate ‘historical’ should be allowed also to include his impact as it has been conveyed to us through the meanings attached to his life. . . . But in that sense of ‘historical’, the mythic Christ—the Christ whom Paul would have said really did exist, living and dying and rising in outer space—would also be a ‘historical’ Jesus. The term then becomes meaningless—unless Müller wants to argue that Paul was right, there really is a Jesus Christ living in outer space. But that’s a question for theology, not history. Either way, the effects of this ‘Lord’s’ revelations, and how he was understood from reading scripture, would then be the cause of all the ‘effects’ on Paul and his ideas that Müller then catalogues. Those effects therefore cannot distinguish between minimal historicity and minimal mythicism. Müller’s study is therefore impotent. Indeed, the fact that Müller had to resort to this tactic, that he was forced to concede Paul never talks about a historical Jesus in the ‘other’ sense, ought to be admitted as strange, and is itself confirmation that the mythicist thesis makes this evidence more likely.
So trying to change the concept of historical does little to justify historicity, it really only renders historicity meaningless.
Accordingly, Thomas Verenna followed Müller’s study with a contrary one finding that Paul’s letters more readily indicate that Paul had no knowledge of an earthly historical Jesus, but only a celestial one. These letters therefore are evidence for minimal mythicism.
A celestial only Jesus seems to best fit with Paul.
Other scholars are in denial over this. And in their efforts to deny it, they resort to fallacious and self-refuting notions. Robert Van Voorst provides a typical example when he says ‘we should not expect to find exact historical references in early Christian literature, which was not written for primarily historical purposes’. This attempt to deny the conclusion is twice fallacious. Because, in the first place, ‘exact historical references’ are not the only thing missing. The silence extends even to inexact historical references—in fact, all historical references of any kind, beyond details so vague they are just as expected on minimal mythicism and thus unable to demonstrate minimal historicity. And in the second place, the general rule Van Voorst is presuming (that if early documents about a person were not written for primarily historical purposes, then we should not expect to find in those documents any historical details about that person) is not even remotely defensible, and in fact is generally false. Letters about persons almost always contain historical references to them.
As we said above, it's certainly not reasonable to think we shouldn't expect to find any references to Jesus' life in Paul. That's called making up an explanation in hopes to avoid dealing with the evidence.
In fact, our expectation should be exactly the opposite in exactly this case: when the person in question is believed by the letter writer (and his intended readers) to have been God’s Incarnate Son, the Savior of the Universe, the most important being ever to walk the earth, whose every utterance is the Word of God and every act evidence of his mission and teachings and qualifications as divine and the ultimate example for all doctrine and conduct, when every letter about him is primarily on conveying knowledge or resolving disputes about who he was and what his true teachings were, it is simply impossible to avoid ever once mentioning any details about that man’s life and character. Such a writer could not fail to call upon or have to debate things Jesus actually said and did or that were said and done to him. In short, it is simply not conceivable that the historical Jesus never said or did anything, nor was anything ever said or done to him, that was relevant to resolving any dispute or supporting any teaching raised in these letters, or to satisfying anyone’s curiosity, or even just to be mentioned in passing.

Even if the author wanted to avoid mentioning every single thing Jesus did say or do and every single thing said or done to him, because it all—all of it, every last bit of it—contradicted what they were teaching, then their audience (and especially their opponents) would be asking them and challenging them with exactly that fact, so even then they would be compelled to respond, and thus compelled to mention such things anyway. Quite simply, the more you write about a man, the more the probability rises that at some point you’ll mention in passing at least some such details about him (things he said, did, heard, suffered; matters regarding his friends and relations, his origins and travels; people’s memories of him, including any reports being spread by his enemies; and so on). To avoid ever mentioning even one such detail in over twenty thousand words becomes increasingly improbable, until that probability starts to become small to the point of peculiarity.
I hope to use this thread to discuss the evidence. That other thread can continue in its current direction.
Last edited by dastardly stem on Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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So, since it is the case that Paul never met Jesus and was converted by his vision of Jesus; since he developed his doctrine of Jesus largely without the benefit of strong knowledge of the details of Jesus life and mostly around Jesus' execution and resurrection, Paul is understandably not a good witness to the biographical details of Jesus' life. He would not emphasize those elements of Jesus he was particularly weak in. He pounds on his spiritual witness and teaching.

Also, we need to be aware of the likely influence that Marcion's canon had on the selection of Paul's epistles that were preserved, transmitted, and promulgated. Marcion was a kind of Gnostic and his canon reflected his perspective. It was narrow, and it was edited to reflect a Gnostic point of view in which the good news was in conflict with the traditional teachings of Judaism and "Old Testament" literature. Marcion, too, was not interested in the historical Jesus, his connection to earlier Jewish prophecy, his birth, his lineage (he edited the nativity out of his Luke).
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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All I’m seeing is the problem inherent in drawing conclusions based on the absence of evidence. I’m not seeing any evidence based reasonable basis for what Carrier thinks should be in Paul’s letters.
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:57 pm
... what Carrier thinks should be in Paul’s letters.
"I, Paul, write to the church at Ephesus to sustain you in your faith in the risen Savior Christ Jesus, through whom we are justified, and who was totally a real dude who was born in Nazareth (or maybe, Bethlehem ... I forget) and enjoyed folk music and long walks on the beach."
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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Kishkumen wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:06 pm
So, since it is the case that Paul never met Jesus and was converted by his vision of Jesus; since he developed his doctrine of Jesus largely without the benefit of strong knowledge of the details of Jesus life and mostly around Jesus' execution and resurrection, Paul is understandably not a good witness to the biographical details of Jesus' life. He would not emphasize those elements of Jesus he was particularly weak in. He pounds on his spiritual witness and teaching.

Also, we need to be aware of the likely influence that Marcion's canon had on the selection of Paul's epistles that were preserved, transmitted, and promulgated. Marcion was a kind of Gnostic and his canon reflected his perspective. It was narrow, and it was edited to reflect a Gnostic point of view in which the good news was in conflict with the traditional teachings of Judaism and "Old Testament" literature. Marcion, too, was not interested in the historical Jesus, his connection to earlier Jewish prophecy, his birth, his lineage (he edited the nativity out of his Luke).
That would be awesome and intriguing if we could connect Paul's religion to that of Marcion's. Excellent thought, Kish.
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:57 pm
All I’m seeing is the problem inherent in drawing conclusions based on the absence of evidence. I’m not seeing any evidence based reasonable basis for what Carrier thinks should be in Paul’s letters.
I don't know what you mean by this because for me it just makes too much sense that we'd expect something from Paul. At some point Paul would have to have referred to Jesus' teachings at the very least. I like how Margaret Barker put it as quoted by Carrier: "the Jesus who was only a teacher from Galilee disappeared from the tradition at a very early date, so early that one wonders whether it was ever there at all".

If Jesus was a real human who taught Christianity, somehow his light died long before Paul started writing his letters, and that was replaced with a new version of a different Jesus. But as it were, people would have still been around, like Peter, James and John, to confirm he really lived. And Paul met Peter and took no words from jesus from him? I admit it's hard to swallow that Jesus really lived considering Paul's authentic letters.

I'd agree, though, that the best argument against Carrier's, and other's, mythicism would be arguing from silence. But, to be fair, that is probably even a larger problem for historicists. It seems we need to take seriously the levels of probability.
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

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dastardly stem wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:15 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:57 pm
All I’m seeing is the problem inherent in drawing conclusions based on the absence of evidence. I’m not seeing any evidence based reasonable basis for what Carrier thinks should be in Paul’s letters.
I don't know what you mean by this because for me it just makes too much sense that we'd expect something from Paul. At some point Paul would have to have referred to Jesus' teachings at the very least. I like how Margaret Barker put it as quoted by Carrier: "the Jesus who was only a teacher from Galilee disappeared from the tradition at a very early date, so early that one wonders whether it was ever there at all".

If Jesus was a real human who taught Christianity, somehow his light died long before Paul started writing his letters, and that was replaced with a new version of a different Jesus. But as it were, people would have still been around, like Peter, James and John, to confirm he really lived. And Paul met Peter and took no words from jesus from him? I admit it's hard to swallow that Jesus really lived considering Paul's authentic letters.

I'd agree, though, that the best argument against Carrier's, and other's, mythicism would be arguing from silence. But, to be fair, that is probably even a larger problem for historicists. It seems we need to take seriously the levels of probability.
You're stated the problem as I see it very succinctly: "[F]or me it just makes too much sense that we'd expect something from Paul."
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dastardly stem
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

Post by dastardly stem »

Bret Ripley wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:33 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:57 pm
... what Carrier thinks should be in Paul’s letters.
"I, Paul, write to the church at Ephesus to sustain you in your faith in the risen Savior Christ Jesus, through whom we are justified, and who was totally a real dude who was born in Nazareth (or maybe, Bethlehem ... I forget) and enjoyed folk music and long walks on the beach."
Except Ephesians is considered a forgery of Paul rather than an authentic Pauline epistle.
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

Post by huckelberry »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:24 pm

You're stated the problem as I see it very succinctly: "[F]or me it just makes too much sense that we'd expect something from Paul."
Yes indeed, Paul addressed things people were uncertain about or needed clarification. There would be puzzlement about this spirit crucified in the heavens. Obviously some people were confused as they ended up thinking later that there was some guy in Jerusalem. Paul should have explained that there was no human Jesus. He should have explained which level of heaven we are talking about, how this spirit Jesus was able to die and why it should be important that he went back to better levels of heaven.Paul should have mentioned the Ascention of Isaiah I mean that would have been essential Christian scripture.
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Bret Ripley
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Re: The Jesus Myth Part II

Post by Bret Ripley »

dastardly stem wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:55 pm
Bret Ripley wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:33 pm
"I, Paul, write to the church at Ephesus to sustain you in your faith in the risen Savior Christ Jesus, through whom we are justified, and who was totally a real dude who was born in Nazareth (or maybe, Bethlehem ... I forget) and enjoyed folk music and long walks on the beach."
Except Ephesians is considered a forgery of Paul rather than an authentic Pauline epistle.
"Ephesus" is what is wrong with that sentence?

You astonish me, sir. :)
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