Ehrman's Adoptionist Theory and Christ Mythicism

[maryhelena]

......... The number of "reconstructions" of the life of Jesus are so many and so different that you can easily pick a number of figures from Josephus that somehow fit the bill, and voilà, there is your historicist solution. The main difficulty with arguing against a minimal historicist position is that the latter is that wishy-washy that nearly anything or, in the case of the Jesus figure, anyone "fits".

How about naming a King of the Jews that Rome did execute?
As far as I know there was only one.

I was actually tempted for a moment to mention your name and a certain theory about some Hasmonean king, but yes, that would actually be a (minimal) historicist position. And yet it may even be further from the accepted story than Carrier's angel, which shows how meaningless the historicity question lastly is.

The historicity question is not meaningless. History of ideas is one thing but history is something else altogether. If it's early christian origins that we are seeking - then the history of ideas has to give way to actual history. Reality influences how we think, how we relate to our environment. Yes, we can have flights of imagination but it's dealing with what we know that has can impact our daily lives. After all, the OT is not just about theological ideas - political realities were very much to the forefront - as they are for many Jews to this day.....

So.....two contexts. Earthly and Heavenly/spiritual/intellectual/in the mind. The primary focus of the gospel story is earthly. The primary focus of the Pauline writing is spiritual/intellectual. The Jerusalem above and the Jerusalem below. Two contexts in which a 'low' and a 'high' christology can be accommodated without conflict. Sure, being an ahistoricist, there was no historical Jesus - but change the terminology to body (flesh and blood) and spirit (intellectual capacity)and the whole argument between the historicists and the ahistoricists becomes redefined. It's not any specific man that the gospel story is about - it's man in the abstract; man as flesh and blood; man as reality; man as historical; man as history. Indeed, the gospel writers could use any man or men as symbolic of their philosophy - but to give historical relevance to their story it would be necessary to use a man, or men, that had actually contributed or impacted upon the society they lived in. And - if it's early christian origins we seek - then those historical figures that were relevant to Jewish history, and relevant to the gospel writers, should be high on our list as avenues of research....

[Ulan]

The historicity question is not meaningless. History of ideas is one thing but history is something else altogether. If it's early christian origins that we are seeking - then the history of ideas has to give way to actual history.

That's a point where we fundamentally disagree. Time renders the distinction between the history of ideas and "actual" history meaningless. They become indistinguishable, especially in light of the tendency of humans to explain their ideas with stories.

[Giuseppe]

@Ulan

Now you get into the territory of having to do a second decision, which is whether that statement is original or not or means something else entirely. That's lastly subjective, given the lack of unambiguous evidence.

The embarrassment for not being able to answer to the question (''did Jesus exist?'') with a simple 'yes' or a 'no' (i.e., the embarrassment of Jesus agnosticism), given all the data we have, continues to be, in my opinion, more great than the embarrassment to respond with simply a 'yes' or a 'no'.

@Bernard

That should not be so surprising if that HJ was a rather uninteresting fellow, with a short public life in Israel only (as someone credited of healings)

Someone like Pio of Pietrelcina in Italy was (and is) considered a great saint (even called an ''alter Christus'') even during his lifetime by thousands and thousands of followers ready to testify his existence and miracles. Frankly I can't consider Jesus a more anonymous and insignificant figure than saint Pio.

[Bernard Muller]

@ Giuseppe,

Frankly I can't consider Jesus a more anonymous and insignificant figure than saint Pio.

What does Jesus have to do with Padre Pio? Different times, different circumstances, different life.
Do you think Jesus, if he existed, had to be hugely popular in order to start Christianity? Or due to the fact he was credited of healing, he had to be well known all over the empire? Do you think Josephus or others had to report on some rural accidental healer with a short & local public life?
"Miraculous healings were also commonplace" in antiquity as in this article by Carrier: http://infidels.org/library/modern/rich ... kooks.html
Sometimes a rather unimportant person, through a single event, can trigger the development by others of a huge movement. A good case for that is Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

The emergence of Christianity, as we know it, did require the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a 'trigger point'. That trigger point was the 'circumstances of his death', and hardly nothing else.

The key aspects of the 'Jesus-the-Christ' narrative are

• the reasons given for his death: sacrifice
• the narrative of the resurrection: salvation
• the proposition of a 'second coming'

Circumstances of his alleged death - suffering - are secondary.

Bernard, you somewhat contradict the proposition I quote above with your next proposition -

The problem with scholars is they put too much emphasis on that Jesus as the starter of Christianity. Furthermore they believe Jesus' immediate "followers" where the ones who began to develop & spread Christianity. WRONG.

Your previous 'viewpoint/s' is/are somewhat contradictory too.

HJ was likely so uneducated he probably never touched any philosophy; the same for his immediate "followers".

The narrative is about someone with a philosophy, albeit a theological one.

The narrative 'caught on' with people with a philosophy.

"social milieu" was a factor, and perhaps "beliefs of[for] some apocalypse" were wide-spread, but the key events that facilitated Christianty were in the 4th century and what Constantine & his successors did - Christianity took root because of events in the new Rome as the western Roman Empire crumbled - Byzantium - more than events in the old Rome (in the former western 'empire').

This is true -

... the tenets of Christianity have nothing to do with what Jesus & his immediate "followers" believed. Those immediate "followers" never became Christians.

[maryhelena]

The historicity question is not meaningless. History of ideas is one thing but history is something else altogether. If it's early christian origins that we are seeking - then the history of ideas has to give way to actual history.

That's a point where we fundamentally disagree. Time renders the distinction between the history of ideas and "actual" history meaningless. They become indistinguishable, especially in light of the tendency of humans to explain their ideas with stories.

Sure, the gospel writers wrote a narrative - but the narrative does not make history irrelevant. History stands outside any narrative a writer might create.

[Ulan]

Sure, the gospel writers wrote a narrative - but the narrative does not make history irrelevant. History stands outside any narrative a writer might create.

It doesn't matter if nobody can tell the difference.

[MrMacSon]

The historicity question is not meaningless. History of ideas is one thing but history is something else altogether. If it's early christian origins that we are seeking - then the history of ideas has to give way to actual history.

... Time renders the distinction between the history of ideas and "actual" history meaningless. They become indistinguishable, especially in light of the tendency of humans to explain their ideas with stories.

Sure, the gospel writers wrote a narrative - but the narrative does not make history irrelevant. History stands outside any narrative a writer might create.

I think there's some overlap with what you both are saying -

• the history of the development of ideas and the history of the *development of narratives around those ideas*
  
  • - is essentially what is being considered

[maryhelena]

Sure, the gospel writers wrote a narrative - but the narrative does not make history irrelevant. History stands outside any narrative a writer might create.

It doesn't matter if nobody can tell the difference.

Try that argument with a historian.....

[Ulan]

@Ulan

Now you get into the territory of having to do a second decision, which is whether that statement is original or not or means something else entirely. That's lastly subjective, given the lack of unambiguous evidence.

The embarrassment for not being able to answer to the question (''did Jesus exist?'') with a simple 'yes' or a 'no' (i.e., the embarrassment of Jesus agnosticism), given all the data we have, continues to be, in my opinion, more great than the embarrassment to respond with simply a 'yes' or a 'no'.

I know that many people feel embarrassed by not being able to answer a question, but I prefer no answer to an answer of which I know that it has a high probability of being wrong (those answers still have their place in questions of life and death, where a decision is, as far as probabilities go, better than no decision, but that's not the case here). That doesn't mean that it is, nevertheless, fine to think about these matters and to point at problems, but it's always good to also acknowledge the limits of the own approach.

Edit: Actually, if I had a job in this field, I would probably follow your suggestion. In that case, it's necessary to cling to an idea and fight for it. Indecision is lastly boring, and nobody will listen to you. But that says more about human psychology than anything else.