For a few years here I have initiated a few threads to discuss the historicity of Jesus. I would hestiate to continue given the touchy nature of the subject, but proceed anyway in hopes people take this in the spirit it is intended. Of course I welcome all thoughts. And anticipate everyone proceeds with due consideration.
A list of previous threads on that matter:
Part 1: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1247&p=38945&hilit=myth#p38945
2: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1394&p=44561&hilit=myth#p44561
3: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=154439&p=2756686&hi ... h#p2756686
hmmm...I skipped a part 4
5: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=154704&p=2763596&hi ... h#p2763596
and another without number: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=156666&p=2813329&hi ... h#p2813329
I've made the point several times that it does not matter if a Jesus who can be considered the one who preached and began Chrsitianity ever lived. That is to the believer or non-believer. The myth is found in the stories written about him. All writings about him did not originate with jews who lived in Jerusalem. They were written by Hellenized jews, adept at Greek, and educated in Greek and Roman legend. They were written with Greek and Roman legend in mind, accentuating hellenized jewish hopes, it appears. As it were, there were no mortal voices helping the formation of Paul's Jesus hinting to him what Jesus was. He gives ambiguous hints that there might have been a Jesus that proceeded him. But not much more. And Paul is clear, he's preaching that which was revealed to him from above, not that which was given him from another. Similarly there were no human voices ringing in Mark's ears conveying quotations from a master teacher. Mark was clear, the story he wrote ended without anyone being told the great secret. One would have to presume too much to get from either of the first accounts about Jesus to even render a hope for historicity. And the later accounts are all dependent sources. So it remains pertinent to continue to address that pointless historical dogma, as I see it.
A century after Paul, Justin Martyr, contrary to our christian apologists today, made the point that the Christian religion is simply a recapitulation of many roman and greek legends, from a Jewish perspective. I say "contrary" in regards to apologists today because, of course, today apologists wish to distance the Jesus story from all outside influence, as far as possible. The apologists need a history that never was. They need to presume uniqueness and hope that such rhetoric matters. Our apologists today need to pretend that the romanticized stories about Jerusalem and jewish happenings were accounts, and most of these defenders erroneously say first-hand accounts, of something that really took place. But Paul and the anonymous author of Mark crafted their works not by first-hand accounts from others, but as creative works, invented much like religion would have it--through imagined hopes of past heros and gods, legends and myths. Our Jesus was made not out of a mere man who walked around preaching his odd form of Judaism. No one in history knew that man. He was made by creative thinkers living amongst diasporic Hellenized jews, Greek and Roman thinkers alike.
Offering a defense of Christianity, Justin Martyr appeals:
--Justin, 1 Apol. 21And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.
http://logoslibrary.org/justin/apology1/21.html
Justin emphasized that the stories of the Christians' hero, crafted perhaps 100 years before him, were myths no different from those of the surrounding populations. The Logos, "born without sexual union", "crucified", "died", "rose again", "ascended to heaven"...these were all themes amongst the heros and gods of Roman and Greek antiquity. Facts were not the game. Jesus was given the story of legend not because the legends that preceeded him prophesied of him, they were given so he could stand as a credible legend among many others. He was not given such station because Mary and Joseph's son was a real guy, but in hopes to outdo and out manuever the other myths that inspired the people all around. To say Jesus lived but was not the guy written about as many tend to do, is just to say he never was.
But long before Justin was Paul, then the gospel authors, including the Luke who wrote Acts. In their time, Jews of the urban diaspora were less separatist and more ameniable to syncretic forms and practices than say Jews of Jerusalem. These more Hellenized Jews utilizing their situated culture and influence (Miller, 2015, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity 9-11). It became a big part of who they ended up being. Indeed, as Miller notes, "One particularly precarious example of this dynamic came with the syncretic identification of the Jewish god with Zeus-Jupiter, supreme father of all."(Ibid 9) So as it turns out, Jews found in the areas from which the gospels and Paul's letters originated crafted a character that would be expected. In every way.
Justin appealed to the people for Christian acceptance...not by declaring Christianity true, nor historically feasible. He appealed to expected and accepted common myths about gods and heros. He said our myths are, in some way, no different than yours, so we should be all set.
Some unknown anonymous author, who likely stumbled upon some letters of Paul, ended up writing a tale that inspired billions. Some lowly guy who lived amongst unknown others, orchestrated what came to be the history of the most loved person in all of human history, perhaps. How did this creative genuis do it? We may only have hints. Its doubtful that 2,000 years after him, he'd have known that billions of people would be worshipping a charcter that he helped devise. His friends were likely those who had been educated on stories of heros and gods of the past. They knew what to expect from any other proposed god. He apparently knew how to get others interested in his writings. They were a community of literate elites, ready to pass to each other any worthy story. As Mark's story spread amongst his friends, others, no doubt took notice. They then passed it on to other literate communities. Matthew, or whoever he really was, happened up on it. He too knew the myths and legends. He thought something like "I like this story, but I think I can enhance it and make it better". He copied it, largely, word for word, and began his own creative enhancements. Even with inconsistencies between them the two shimmered and shined in some people's minds. Luke to an attitude much like Matthew as he read the stories. "I'll one up them." And he did. John, some time later, worked hard to really divinize the whole history and voila! We have the gospels. The stories comprising thoughts, and hopes from diasporic Jews living in the first, and perhaps early second centuries, which are largely heralded as the most sacred of all writings in human history.
Dennis R. MacDonald has detailed some influence earlier writings had on Mark.
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It is true, Jesus might have been some guy walking and talking, condemning and healing in what would be legendary ways. But, in a way, it also seems less and less useful to propose he actually was. It may even be best for believers to accept that the stories written about him do not represent history. Believe that he is, but the stories are myth, perhaps even metaphorical in nature. God didn't come down. Its only a story to say if he did come down he'd sacrifice for all, or something. There need be no actual non-sacrifice (since sacrifice actually entails giving up something) of a god who knew he was to be crowned with eternal glory. That wouldn't make sense. There only needed to be a metaphor. And only in metaphor would a sacrifice make sense. Then again, who am I to tell believers what to think? All I can say is it seems rather paltry to hang one's faith on a history that is so replete with question and nonsense.
Peace my good people
