- 1) I am not so sure that proto-Mark was the Earliest Gospel. The doubts in such sense are too much strong, without that I am able to give a totally valid alternative under the *Ev's priority (meaning that I am not sure how much a proto-Mark debtly purified by some anti-marcionite items — the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptism, the Parable of the Vineyard, the answer 'I am' in 14:61, etc — could be still a valid alternative to *Ev's priority).
Where the divergence is more serious is when Bruno Bauer writes:
But when I say and provide evidence that the holy writers depict in their creations “the inner movements and experiences, the trials and struggles of the community,” when I designate the self-perception and self-consciousness of the community as the raw material of those creations, when I demonstrate that the holy artists derived the material they processed and shaped in their creations from their own inner being, which was so rich and vast that in its vibrations and struggles it reproduced the inner life of their world and condensed it into personal self-perception, into personal passion—
Thus, I do not rely on tradition—(tradition in Strauss’s sense)—”going back,” but rather on the historical substance that the holy writers shaped—the actual substance that was processed in their work and became the soul of a new world, not the chimerical substance that, according to the Tradition Hypothesis, merely reappears in the copy that the writers captured from it.
Thus, I do not rely on tradition—(tradition in Strauss’s sense)—”going back,” but rather on the historical substance that the holy writers shaped—the actual substance that was processed in their work and became the soul of a new world, not the chimerical substance that, according to the Tradition Hypothesis, merely reappears in the copy that the writers captured from it.
( my bold)
Note that Robert M. Price resumed perfectly the Bauer's view in his review:
The casual reader will surely conclude that Bauer spends altogether too much time on the Caesars and not enough on Christian origins, but the while point of the book is that the Christ figure is not so much the historical incarnation of the divine Spirit as the literary incarnation of the Zeitgeist.
(my bold)
Hence I can explain better the following difference:
- 2) Bruno Bauer thinks that the proto-Gospel is a mere product of the self-perception of the community, but a such view assumes that the community didn't need a previous myth of Jesus that had to be historicized by the proto-Gospel: according to Bruno Bauer's logic, it was sufficient the persecution of the community (think about the Roman and/or Jewish persecutions of the Christians, or about the crucifixion en masse of rebel Jews in the 70 CE), to move the proto-Gospel to talk about a "crucifixion of Jesus". The basic idea of Bruno Bauer is that even the "crucifixion event" can be read explicitly in the real HIstory, by seeing it in the persecution of the community (beyond if a sectarian or national community). The corollary is that the community was totally connected with the world of the outsiders even as to the symbolism of the "crucifixion of Jesus".
At contrary, I think that, even if a lot of Gospel details come directly indeed from the self-perception of the community, the central idea of a Jesus walking and healing, and the central idea of a crucified Jesus, derived from the previous myth of a god Jesus descending through the heavens to die in the lower heavens (outer space). The corollary is that the community was separated sharply from the world of the outsiders at least as to the hidden symbolism of the "crucifixion of Jesus". The secret knowledge of the insiders, the fact that only the first evangelist knew that really Jesus was crucified in outer space and not on the earth, couldn't be a product of a mere relation between the community of the evangelist and the external world of the outsiders. It couldn't be read in the history of the community. It was not an allegory of a suffering sect or nation. It was the raw material of a previous myth virtually unknown to outsiders and preached only to insiders.
That makes zero sense.
Celsus didn't think JC was a myth. Surely he'd know as talked to Jews in Palestine. And he was totally independent free thinker. If JC was a myth he would have said so. Thanks