I urgently need to fix a poorly thought-out reply to Dio. I was too tired and I hadn’t considered all the issues and implications. In response to:
I should have written:
I hold that the minimum requirements for a historical person to be fairly considered “THE Jesus” is that there must be solid, compelling (or at least no good arguments against) historical evidence of a single itinerant preacher who said a good fraction (say, offhand, 15%) of the things attributed to Jesus roughly in the time frame attributed to Jesus in the part of the world attributed to Jesus who was known to Josephus and/or Seneca.
Attributing the story associated with Jesus to composite sources – sans being known to Josephus and Seneca – doesn’t count since I already believe the sources of Q and the other sayings and the Righteous Teacher are all composite sources of “Jesus”. Since we already believe that, we would not accept that last because it magically converts all us mythicists into historicists by verbal fiat! Surely that’s not reasonable or fair.
(For some reason, the earlier posting of this seems not to have “taken”, even after refreshing my cache and so forth. I hope this won’t end up a double post!)
There are exceptions to that notion. The authors of Matthew and Luke were certainly the most important audience for Mark’s Gospel. The author(s) of Matthew were clearly Jewish, and whether the author(s) of Luke were or not, one thing is clear: “Luke” admired Paul and so defended him in his Gospel and “Matthew” hated Paul and so blasted him to pieces in his. Since Paul and his gospel goes back to well before the fall and also that Paul clearly states the Pillars were preaching one or more gospels before his own, we can have confidence there was an audience of at least oral versions going back before the sacking of Jerusalem. (Versions of what, we cannot say, but perhaps the Qumranian Righteous Teacher notion with an early layer of Q).
But if your point is just that no one would have been able to know if Jesus had lived or not, then we’re in agreement – except for Josephus and Seneca.
It’s a pointless request, but I’ll answer it even though it doesn’t come anywhere close to what my argument is!
Gershom Scholem’s 1973 examination of the life of Sabbatai Sevi (1626-1675), another “Messiah”, shows that myths of miracles and sayings and deeds even while he was still alive! There were “100% certain! I saw it with my own eyes!” myths of standing in fires without his hair or clothing being burned and angelic pronouncements from the sky all while he was still alive! You historicists – rejecting genuine, complex human nature and complex human psychology to your final breaths – all argue that should have been impossible. And then there’s Simon Kimbangu, who fought and fought during his lifetime against his believer’s anointing him “Christ of the Blacks”, and yet all the myths of his childhood sagacity, miracle working, and prophetic visions were being passed around not long after his death, from whence he could no longer fight against the myth-making. Then there’s William Marion Branham, who, like in Life of Brian, only made his worshipers think he was even more a miracle worker by denying it!
And then there’s that New Messiah Charles Manson, of whom myths of miracle working had long ago been created, such as miraculously floating a bus over a creek, like Yoda, all while he IS still alive!
Get over it already!
I just want to make this clear again: You’re still assuming what is to be proved! You are manifestly question-begging: By writing “mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account”, you’re implicitly assuming that the “original account” came only 20 years of some historical figure’s death! My thesis and argument is that there was no such historical person and that the first stories about the mythical Jesus began circa 100-40 BCE, plenty of time for total myths about him to be created and plenty of chronological distance to let followers have blind faith that this mythical figure probably lived recently.
I’m not persuaded by Prices’s arguments there. For what it’s worth, Doherty’s thesis (and mine) pretty much requires that 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 be genuinely Pauline rather than an interpolation. It’s an important bit of evidence for our mythicist positions.
Assuming what is to be proved again. There’s no evidence for any historical “what ‘they’ knew” that the Markan author(s) would seek to maintain from deviation. The author(s) of Mark was/were basing his/their pious novel on older myths, some oral and possibly some written along with their own faith stories and clubs against their theological or political opponents! Probably the Markan author(s) would make whatever meager efforts they could to keep their novel on top, but historical examples show us that any such efforts on anyone’s part would be short-lived for its utter futility.
There are plenty of historical examples of people who tried to keep their versions of things canonical (so to speak), but they almost always fail. The effort would be worse than herding cats, it would be like stringing cats through the eye of a needle. You shout back for a while, then give up when more urgent things press.
I’ve forgotten more than a little of this tangled mess, but if memory serves, the Qumranian scrolls and the Qumran community I’m referring to were not related much, if at all, nor was the original Qumran community I’m referring to an Essene one (they came later; it was a desirable bit of real estate for such communities). I’d have to research all that again to get it straight, and since I don’t think it’s an essential point, I probably won’t be eager to get back to all that.
Bottom line, I’m somewhat confident that the scrolls found in those caves were not the writings of the original Qumran community I’ve been referencing with their Righteous Teacher, but were placed in the caves far later. Sorry that’s so unhelpful and possibly wrong!
Blah, blah. I see you’re going in for blatant Christian apologetics rather than rational argument. Like I said, the fact that you folks just have faith makes ALL debate moot!
You can bring out solid, compelling historical evidence or witness to your heart’s content. I’ve no time to waste on the latter…
From something I just wrote to a blind witnesser: “Paul was a genius who had gone far out of his way to learn everything he could out of longing for wisdom and knowledge of cosmopolitan learning and teachers and all sorts of facts, history, stories, theologies, teachings, allegories, fables, legends and myths of all sorts. No one acquires that kind of vast knowledge without being driven by curiosity. To assert just to defend [a] silly historicist thesis – as is very obviously the case – that “Paul just wasn’t into all that Jesus stuff” is simply mind-boggling! It’s one of the most blatant cases of special pleading I’ve ever seen.”
Also, Paul never indicated or wrote of any historical Jesus or historical resurrection on earth. The death and resurrection Paul was speaking of took place in a spiritual realm, though it takes an exceedingly careful reading and the taking off of Gospel-colored glasses first. Every word Paul writes of Jesus Christ or The Lord is of the spiritual Christ of his own personal revelatory visions. The Risen Christ for him refers to his belief that the spiritual Christ rose from the middle sphere of then-common parlance to the topmost heaven (but I again acknowledge that takes some close reading and knowledge of that multi-realm supernatural mythology).
He was more driven by what he saw as his divinely inspired mission and the knowledge he valued most was the divine revelation you mentioned. It’s the kind of thing the mythicists would eagerly ridicule in a modern day Christian.
Referring to my “historicist thesis” appears to be an intentional misrepresentation of what I’ve actually said. If something silly is going on it’s your use of this transparent and ineffective technique. Also “Paul just wasn’t into all that Jesus stuff” is an inaccurate oversimplification of my point. I’m speaking of Paul’s priorities that are clearly represented in his writing. Of course Paul was into Jesus as the Christ and what he saw as his holy mission directed by revelation through the Holy Spirit. Spreading the gospel.
Your argument makes the assumption that of course he would have wanted to visit the historical spots that Jesus walked etc. The problem is it’s all an assumption without one passage to support it. I’m saying that in reading Paul and having some experience and understanding about people thinking they are guided and driven by the spirit, it becomes easy to dismiss such an assumption that is not backed by any evidence. His priority and main driving force was preaching the gospel and following the directive’s of what he saw as divine guidance. That being the case it’s very possible that the geographic locations that Jesus walked, the tomb, whatever, just didn’t matter in light of his mission.
So, unless you have any passage to support your assumption the argument built upon it crumbles.
That same principle applies to other assumptions your argument is built upon.
Your claims are since logic dictates that X {your assumption} is true then Y and Z must follow. The problem is logic does not dictate that X is true so you must support X with some evidence rather than just assertion. If you have some please present it. If not stop wasting time and bandwidth with high school debate techniques.
True. When your argument has more going for it than baseless assumptions I’ll have something to respond to.
Sigh , at least here’s a concrete example of your assumptions being wrong. I am not a Christian. Paul clearly was, so it’s helpful to understand and include the mindset of a believer when making guesses and assumptions about what he thought and valued.
Much of your argument is based on what you claim must logically be Paul’s mindset and priorities. Unless you understand and consider the mindset of someone who firmly believes they are divinely inspired and directed your assumptions are a waste of time. That’s what I’ve tried to do here, not because I’m a Christian apologist, since I’m neither, but because I have some understanding of the mindset that you apparently lack. Perhaps your personal preference for these arguments has blinded you to other rather obvious possibilities. Either way, an argument built on unfounded assumptions isn’t much of an argument.
Considering the content of your argument you seem to have plenty of time to waste. I am not arguing for an actual historical Jesus as described in your post to Dio. I’ve said several times that we have no way of really knowing. I am saying that the arguments you’ve presented in this thread are based on unfounded assumptions that you have presented as “the most obviously logical conclusion” They are not because you seem to have no understanding of the “divinely inspired” mindset which Paul must have had. Unless you have any passages to support those assumptions your argument is built on a flimsy foundation and deserves to be treated as such.
I have in a recent post to begbert listed several passages that seem to indicate Paul believed in a living individual Jesus. Care to comment on those?
It seems likely to me that Paul believed in a living man who was Jesus but preached a spiritual resurrection rather than a physical one. If you have anything other than unfounded assumptions to indicate otherwise I’d be happy to consider it. So far, that’s not the case.
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I’d just like to point out once again that this is an incredibly incorrect conclusion and a great example of your thought process leading you to those.
If this is true you have yet to support it. Serious question ;Where in Paul’s writing can we find a fairly clear reference to this multi realm mythology?
Sincerely, I’m willing to examine and consider this but I’d need something more than what you’ve offered here. It seems to me, so far, that it’s just as likely that Paul was referencing a living person who’s resurrection was a spiritual one rather than a physical one.
The obvious evasions, double-talk, empty rhetoric, fallacious argument, infantile nyah nyahs, and general hilarity of this mind-bogglingly silly post deserves another pass…
First, what this particular cosmosdan post is responding to must be brought back for some context (cosmosdan evaded most of it even when he typed in empty words to substitute for a “response”):
This, gentle readers, is the classic “Nyah, nyah” argument. Notice the total lack of substance, just vacuous blather.
Stupid ol’ me with my crazy assumptions! What was I thinking! Of course Paul wouldn’t give a shit about his God’s life and biography! What a foolish assumption on my part! Who would give a damn about their God’s presence on earth? How boring! How dull! No, what really got Paul’s audience goin’ was trivial little internal squabbles with churches other than their own and talk of foreskins! Why bore them with all this God walking on Earth trivia?
cosmosdan’s “counter-“argument”” – that Paul just didn’t care about all that Jesus stuff and didn’t even want to use that information to win his desperate arguments with just about everyone – is probably the stupidest response I’ve ever encountered on any issue ever. It is to laugh!
So cosmosdan then swings for the fences: “Maybe he DID write about the historical Jesus but it got lost in the mail! Whatcha say to that!” To wit:
See the sophomoric sophist ploy there? The fallacy? Talk about an argument from ignorance! “Since ambushed can’t prove we have every single one of Paul’s writings, there must be one or more missing in which Paul wrote of Jesus historical existence and biological references!”
You see, that some missing non-biographical ones are referenced doesn’t work for his pseudo-argument. Unless he can argue that there is definitely one missing that probably contained what Paul wrote of Jesus’ life and biography in them his “nyah, nyah” can’t work!
Fallacy alert! Hilarious.
Here’s what I wrote in response:
So since cosmosdan either knows he can’t and is just trying to evade and obfuscate -or- he really doesn’t understand much of anything relating to this issue, he comes up with irrelevant crap about 1 Corinthians’ “previous” letter about “immoral sex” (no Jesus biographical reference there, else the Corinthians would have asked to hear more), Ephesians (which Paul never wrote), and Colossians (not written by Paul either). Nada.
No and again no. What cosmosdan has to do is show us a reference to something Paul himself wrote that got lost and that also contained Paul’s record of Jesus as a historical human being who suffered, died, and was buried in Jerusalem. Then he has to explain why Paul made zero other references to a historical Jesus in everything else that we do have. Then he has to explain how it might have plausibly happened that the ONLY reference to a historical, biological Jesus was destroyed or censored and why we should believe that must have happened! Otherwise, he is simply committing the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.
Here is a brief, online summary of a noted mythicist’s take on 1 Corinthians, which only fools think matches the naive current Gospel-colored modern English rendering and understanding of those texts!
Sure, from already-believing apologists! Of course there is! Josephus own total lack of references to a historical Jesus must be swept under the rug somehow!
What is so ridiculously wrong with your thinking! We’re not assuming anything! We look at the facts without assumptions and they simply do not come anywhere close to adding up to a historical Jesus. There’s no there there! We’re not merely assuming it doesn’t add up, it simply doesn’t add up!
As such, the full burden of proof falls on you to point to solid, compelling evidence of a historical Jesus. WE CANNOT AND ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO PROVE AN EXISTENTIAL NEGATIVE!You have to prove an existential positive!
You can’t just stupidly say “there could well be or have been a biological Santa Claus living at the North Pole, some say yes and some say no. answer; nobody really knows. Pick which side suits you.” – you have to bring us evidence of his biological existence!
(so to speak), but they almost always fail. The effort would be worse than herding cats, it would be like stringing cats through the eye of a needle. You shout back for a while, then give up when more urgent things press.