Here, for example, are a few texts the most natural interpretations of which seem to me to undermine an historical Jesus (my bracketed comments follow each):
2 Corinthians 11.3-4: 3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. 4 For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. ["Another Jesus" seems a strange way to speak of another opinion about an historical Jesus.]
Philippians 2.5-11: 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant [μορφὴν δούλου], and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross [θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ]. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Confer Isaiah 45.23: 23 “I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness, and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.” [It seems like the only actual name in the piece, and the only word actually called a name, is Jesus; but, if this figure received that name only upon his exaltation, what happens to the historical Jesus?]
Romans 13.1-7: 13 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Confer 1 Peter 2.13-24: 13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 18 Servants [οἱ οἰκέται], be submissive to your masters [τοῖς δεσπόταις] with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. 21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. [How can such words be penned with full knowledge that an historical Jesus, innocent of wrongdoing, was crucified by the governing authorities? And why does that latter passage describe Jesus' suffering only under the rubric of masters and slaves?]
Revelation 13.8: 8 And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain from the foundation of the world [ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου]. Confer Revelation 5.6-14: 6 And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sing a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” 14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped. [How can the Lamb have been slain from the foundation of the world if the Lamb is actually an historical Jesus?]
Philippians 2.5-11: 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant [μορφὴν δούλου], and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross [θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ]. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Confer Isaiah 45.23: 23 “I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness, and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.” [It seems like the only actual name in the piece, and the only word actually called a name, is Jesus; but, if this figure received that name only upon his exaltation, what happens to the historical Jesus?]
Romans 13.1-7: 13 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Confer 1 Peter 2.13-24: 13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 18 Servants [οἱ οἰκέται], be submissive to your masters [τοῖς δεσπόταις] with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. 21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. [How can such words be penned with full knowledge that an historical Jesus, innocent of wrongdoing, was crucified by the governing authorities? And why does that latter passage describe Jesus' suffering only under the rubric of masters and slaves?]
Revelation 13.8: 8 And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain from the foundation of the world [ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου]. Confer Revelation 5.6-14: 6 And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sing a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” 14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped. [How can the Lamb have been slain from the foundation of the world if the Lamb is actually an historical Jesus?]
And here, for example, are a few texts the most natural interpretations of which seem to me to require an historical Jesus (again, my bracketed comments follow each):
Mark 15.21: 21 They compel a passerby coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross. [It sounds like the original author of this line expected his or her readership to know who Alexander and Rufus were, in a storyteller's device similar to what we find in Ruth 4.16-17, implying both the existence of their father Simon and his unwilling participation in the crucifixion, and therefore also an historical Jesus who was crucified.]
John 21.18-24: 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He says to him, “Follow Me!” 20 Peter, turning around, sees the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” 21 So Peter seeing him says to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 22 Jesus says to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. [So much about the beloved disciple seems iffy to me, but still, the best explanation for the concerns expressed in this passage seems to me to be that there was such a disciple, implying the existence of the historical Jesus whom he had followed.]
Papias apud Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.1-4, 9: 1 And there are extant five writings of Papias which are given the title of Exegesis of the Oracles of the Lord. Of these Irenaeus too makes mention as his only writings, thus saying as follows: These things Papias too, who was a earwitness of John and companion of Polycarp, and an ancient man, wrote and testified in the fourth of his books. For there are five books arranged by him. 2 It was Irenaeus who wrote these things. But Papias himself rather, according to the preface of his volumes, by no means reveals himself to have been either an earwitness or an eyewitness of the holy apostles, but teaches by the words that he says that he received the things of the faith from those who knew them: 3 "But I shall not hesitate to arrange alongside my interpretations as many things as I ever learned well and remembered well from the elders, confirming the truth on their behalf. For I did not rejoice, like many, over those who spoke many things, but [rather] over those who taught the truth, nor over those who related strange commands, but over those who related those given by the Lord by faith and coming from the truth itself. 4 And if anyone chanced to come along who had followed the elders, I inquired as to the words of the elders, what Andrew or what Peter had said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord [had said], the things which both Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord, were saying. For I did not suppose that things from books would profit me as much as things from a living and remaining voice." .... That Philip the apostle lived in Heirapolis together with his daughters has been made clear before. But as regards them let it be noted that Papias, their contemporary, mentions a wondrous account that he received from the daughters of Philip. For he recounts a resurrection from the dead in his time, and yet another paradox about Justus who was surnamed Barsabbas, as having drunk a deadly poison and yet, through the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm. [Papias seems to have heard things about people who had followed an historical Jesus. It is easy to doubt whatever it was that was claimed about this figure, but harder to doubt the incidental fact of his existence.]
Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a: It was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover. [I find it telling that a Jewish text like this (in)famous one from the Talmud would support a paschal chronology for the execution of an historical Jesus that agrees with what we find in John and can discern behind Mark.]
John 21.18-24: 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He says to him, “Follow Me!” 20 Peter, turning around, sees the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” 21 So Peter seeing him says to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 22 Jesus says to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. [So much about the beloved disciple seems iffy to me, but still, the best explanation for the concerns expressed in this passage seems to me to be that there was such a disciple, implying the existence of the historical Jesus whom he had followed.]
Papias apud Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.1-4, 9: 1 And there are extant five writings of Papias which are given the title of Exegesis of the Oracles of the Lord. Of these Irenaeus too makes mention as his only writings, thus saying as follows: These things Papias too, who was a earwitness of John and companion of Polycarp, and an ancient man, wrote and testified in the fourth of his books. For there are five books arranged by him. 2 It was Irenaeus who wrote these things. But Papias himself rather, according to the preface of his volumes, by no means reveals himself to have been either an earwitness or an eyewitness of the holy apostles, but teaches by the words that he says that he received the things of the faith from those who knew them: 3 "But I shall not hesitate to arrange alongside my interpretations as many things as I ever learned well and remembered well from the elders, confirming the truth on their behalf. For I did not rejoice, like many, over those who spoke many things, but [rather] over those who taught the truth, nor over those who related strange commands, but over those who related those given by the Lord by faith and coming from the truth itself. 4 And if anyone chanced to come along who had followed the elders, I inquired as to the words of the elders, what Andrew or what Peter had said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord [had said], the things which both Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord, were saying. For I did not suppose that things from books would profit me as much as things from a living and remaining voice." .... That Philip the apostle lived in Heirapolis together with his daughters has been made clear before. But as regards them let it be noted that Papias, their contemporary, mentions a wondrous account that he received from the daughters of Philip. For he recounts a resurrection from the dead in his time, and yet another paradox about Justus who was surnamed Barsabbas, as having drunk a deadly poison and yet, through the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm. [Papias seems to have heard things about people who had followed an historical Jesus. It is easy to doubt whatever it was that was claimed about this figure, but harder to doubt the incidental fact of his existence.]
Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a: It was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover. [I find it telling that a Jewish text like this (in)famous one from the Talmud would support a paschal chronology for the execution of an historical Jesus that agrees with what we find in John and can discern behind Mark.]
There are no smoking guns here on either side. Every single mythicist passage can be interpreted along historist lines (usually with a bit of shoehorning), and every single historicist passage can be interpreted along mythicist lines (usually by simply denying that the chain of transmission existed).
But what I wonder is whether we can accept what I deem to be the most natural interpretations of all of these passages. The result would be that there was both an historical Jesus and a mythical Jesus. A shorthand way of putting this might be that there was an historical Jesus, but Paul did not know about him. This shorthand depends on either the interpretation or the authenticity of several passages in the Pauline epistles; if it turns out that those passages are both genuine and best interpreted in an historicist manner, then Paul himself would know about the historical Jesus, but forms of the faith that predate Paul would not, despite being all about a figure aptly called Jesus Christ. The main point here is that it is possible that a fully fledged and yet fully mythical Jesus Christ figure was conjured up in complete independence and ignorance of any crucified man named Jesus, and then, once a man named Jesus had been crucified, his history was just close enough to the myth to invite a syncretism which created the mythicohistorical figure now known as Jesus Christ.
This thread is simply my proposed outline for a possible reconstruction of Christian origins based on both sets of passages above being pressed in the ways I have suggested. I will proceed through the five steps represented in this simple diagram (which is not meant to represent anything chronological; all that matters is the relationship of each box to the other boxes):
- mythicohistoricaljesuschrist.jpg (25.62 KiB) Viewed 12247 times
Origins of the Mythical Jesus
Yahweh was, I submit, worshipped as a descending and ascending (dying and rising) deity after the pattern of Ba'al (or Hadad); both Ba'al and Yahweh were cloudriding storm gods; both were at least sometimes regarded as sons of the high god El; and Ba'al actually meant "lord", which is interesting insofar as Yahweh was often rendered as "lord" in various texts, including the Septuagint. Psalm 18.46 (18.47 Masoretic; 17.47 LXX) reads: "Yahweh lives, and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of my salvation." This line echoes lines 18-21 of column 3 of the Ugaritic account of Ba'al and Môt, in which Ba'al has succumbed to death in the nether realm: "Even I may sit down and be at ease, and (my) soul within me may take its ease; for mightiest Baal is alive, for the prince lord of earth exists." This descent and ascent of Yahweh perhaps mirrored, in some retellings, that of Inana (or Ishtar), in which the goddess is said to have descended through seven layers or portals to reach the nether realm, where she was slain but rose up again after three days and three nights. Yahweh is, in this story cycle, essentially a savior; he is also the son of El (or El Elyon); that is, he is the son of God. He may, then, have earned the name Yehoshua. Yehoshua (= "Yahweh saves") is to Yahweh as Zeus Soter (= "Zeus the savior") is to Zeus.
Lady Wisdom was another descending and ascending figure in Jewish thought. 1 Enoch 42.1-2 encapsulates her career in a nutshell: "Wisdom found no place where she might dwell; then a dwelling was assigned her in the heavens. Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, and found no dwelling. Wisdom returned to her place and took her seat among the angels." Wisdom is essentially a revealer (of truth, of the law, of knowledge), but Yahweh, too, could be known as a revealer, as in Psalm 98.2 (97.2 LXX), which reads: "Yahweh has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations." (What is revealed here, interestingly enough, is salvation.)
There seems also to have been a certain degree of Joshua/Jesus speculation in various circles. The Jewish hero Joshua may have been a historization of an original deity (one who could stop the sun and moon in their tracks, the single most impressive miracle narrated in the Bible). And Joshua himself, as narrated in the Hebrew scriptures, may have served as the model for future liberation of the nation of Israel. It is at least interesting that the name Jesus could be applied (according to Vulgate manuscripts) to a messianic figure in 4 Ezra 7.26-34 who bears little resemblance either to any historical Jesus or to the figure described above as an avatar of Yahweh himself. Perhaps competing Jesus figures like these are what lie behind Paul's talk of "another Jesus" in 2 Corinthians 11.3-4.
The Joshua speculation does not seem to me to be necessarily constitutive of the kind of mythical Jesus figure I am describing here and now (though it may have been in ways I am just not seeing yet). I suggest that the other two strands (the descending and ascending Yahweh and the descending and ascending wisdom) combined into a single mythic story about Yehoshua as a descending and ascending (dying and rising) deity who serves both as a savior and as a revealer. Yehoshua can be shortened to Yeshua. The emphasis can shift in the retelling between salvation and revelation (most of our canonical Christian texts seem to emphasize salvation, but an example of an emphasis on revelation may be found in the Shepherd of Hermas, which seems aware of the son of God's sufferings in Parable 5.6.2, but dwells far longer on the son of God revealing things). This story forms the basis of what amounts to a Jewish mystery cult, and this cult has left traces across Christian literature. Yeshua was originally thought to have been slain in the nether realm, and this focus on the nether realm (or the abyss) at the expense of the earth can sometimes still be detected, as in Romans 10.6-7. The so-called harrowing of hell may be a relic of this focus, as well; refer to Ephesians 4.8-10 and 1 Peter 3.18-20; also note the phrase "under the earth" in Philippians 2.10. In Ascension of Isaiah 10.8 the Beloved is told to "go forth and descend through all the heavens. And you will descend to the firmament and that world; to the angel in Sheol you will descend, but to Haguel you will not go." Here the earth ("that world") is no more than just another point along the path. The sevenfold descent of the Beloved in this same text may be a relic of the form of story as told about Inana and Ishtar. Yeshua would have been slain in the nether world, not by humans, but by demons of some kind. Again, we may find traces of this element in our literature, including 1 Corinthians 2.9 and Ascension of Isaiah 9.14. It is possible to read such texts as examples of demonic forces standing behind human agents, but it also makes sense for the demons to have acted directly against the son of God in the original story, with their human agents to come in only later (as they seem to do in Ascension of Isaiah 11.19, part of a passage which may well be an interpolation, since this is the point where we would expect the divine voice, as per 10.12, and the ascent of the holy ones, as per 9.17, but instead get a series of gospel details). The story of Yeshua's descent and ascent would be located in mythic time, not in historic time; basically, it would have been imagined as having happened before or during (as part of) the creation.
Origins of the Mythical Christ
Messiah is simply the word for "anointed one" in Hebrew. Priests could be anointed, as could kings; prophets, too, could be anointed (1 Kings 19.16). We have evidence for the expectation of a Messiah from the tribe of Joseph or Ephraim, a Messiah from the line of Aaron, and a Messiah from the line of David. Jewish expectation of a coming Davidic messianic figure began, I think, with speculation prompted by a handful of core texts from the Hebrew scriptures which promised a Jewish ruler to defeat Israel's enemies and restore Jewish values to the land. The core texts include Genesis 49.8-12 (scepter and Shiloh); Numbers 24.15-19 (star and scepter); 2 Samuel 7.8-17 (promise to David); Psalm 2.1-12 (Yahweh and his anointed/Messiah); Psalm 110.1-7 (109.1-7 LXX; scepter from Zion); Isaiah 11.1-10 (the branch of Jesse); and Daniel 7.1-14 (one like a son of man); this list is representative, not exhaustive. In this conception the Messiah is viewed as a human being who has been exalted to a higher status by his symbolic adoption as Yahweh's son. However, the Messiah can also be seen as a supernatural being. The name of the Messiah is said to be one of seven things created before the world in the Talmud, Nedarim 39b, thought to predate the sun based on an interpretation of Psalm 72.17 (71.17 LXX); similarly, 1 Enoch 48.1-3 claims that the Son of Man was named before the stars of heaven were made. (Christian texts will eventually go even further than this.) Now, as long as the Messiah remains a promise for the future, I would not call the belief that expects him Christian; thus Trypho remains only Jewish, and not Jewish Christian, since Justin Martyr places the following words on his lips in Dialogue 8.3: "But Christ, if He has indeed been born, and exists anywhere, is unknown and does not even know Himself, and has no power until Elias come to anoint Him and make Him manifest to all. And you, having accepted a groundless report, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake are inconsiderately perishing." Once the Messiah is said to have already exercised at least part of his salvific work, or to have already been revealed in some meaningful way, I would call the belief that espouses him Christian. Christianity requires (at least) two messianic stages: one in the past and another in the future; this is, of course, the origin of the distinction between the first and second advent.
Origins of the Mythical Jesus Christ
The mythic story of Yeshua was susceptible both (A) to being fused with Jewish expectations of the Messiah and (B) to receiving overlays of sacrificial imagery and symbolism.
A. Forcing Yahweh, as El's son, into the mold of the Messiah, as Yahweh's son, creates some tension, and the easing of that tension often entails agreeing with Deuteronomy 6.4 that "Yahweh is our Elohim, and Yahweh is one." Thus Yahweh is no longer the son of El; instead, El and Yahweh have been collapsed into one, leaving room for the Messiah both to remain as the son of God/Yahweh and to still assume the characteristics of Yahweh that Yahweh would have enjoyed as the son of God. This move has left traces all over our Christian texts; one can scarcely read a page without finding the Christ being referred to as the son of God and also finding him being attributed characteristics which once belonged solely to Yahweh. In the section about the mythical Jesus above, Yahweh/Yehoshua/Yeshua had only one nature: divine. In the section about the mythical Christ above, the Messiah had only one nature: human, though his name and function were foreordained before the creation of the world. But now the way is clear for the Messiah to share of two natures: divine and human, at the same time.
B. The Apocalypse of John not only shares in the messianic ambiguity just outlined but also lays a sacrificial veneer over the salvific work of Yeshua before the creation. (I am here taking for granted, by the way, that Revelation 11.8b, "where also their Lord was crucified," is a gloss; if I am wrong about that, things change.) Yeshua was transliterated into Greek and thence into Latin and English as Jesus. Messiah was translated into Greek and thence into Latin and English as Christ. This figure, Jesus Christ, is visualized both as the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world (τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου) and as a messianic child born of Israel (portrayed as a mythic woman in Revelation 12.1-17) who will soon rule the nations with a rod of iron (Revelation 12.5; 19.15; refer back to Psalm 2.9). It is customary to interpret Revelation 12 as detailing events which have already happened (including the birth of Jesus), but the details do not line up very well, and I feel it may be more natural to take Revelation 1.1 more seriously as indicating that the visions in the book are meant to foretell "the things which must soon take place". In other words, the Messiah Yeshua (= Jesus Christ) has both already performed his basic salvific work as a sacrificial lamb (an act which is merely said to have happened, not narrated in one of the visions) and already been revealed in some way, at least to John the Revelator; this is, then, a properly Christian text. What we would think of as a first advent was actually imagined to have taken place at the foundation of the world, and what we would think of as a second advent, which includes both the Messiah's birth (and subsequent snatching to God's throne) and his coming as a conqueror, is framed as something yet to come (or at least something not yet revealed as a concrete event which has already happened). If the Apocalypse is composed of different layers of materials, as I suspect, this overall picture has to be more finely nuanced, but all of these elements have to be accounted for one way or another.
There was another, rather different way of combining Jewish messianic speculation with the Yeshua myth, one that we find in other early Christian literature. I am particularly fond of this part of the outline because its centerpiece is a correlation that I discovered on my own, with no direct assistance. Basically, meditation on various scriptural passages could easily lead to additional details being added to the past career of our Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ) figure. However, many of those details sound quite earthly and human. Meditation on the Suffering Servant (a child/servant, παῖς, in 52.13 who serves or slaves away, δουλεύω, in 53.11) of Isaiah 52.13-53.12, for example, might lead to the notion that the Messiah Yeshua was, in fact, a slave. This notion might have started out merely as a title ("child" or "servant" of God) to add to Jesus Christ, as we find in Didache 9.2-3; 10.2-3; Acts 3.13, 26; 4.27, 30. But progressive revelation from the scriptures (the application of scriptural concepts to the Messiah), possibly supplemented by dreams or visions interpreted in various ways (refer to Hebrews 2.1-4), would gradually flesh out a messianic figure from the Hebrew scriptures who, instead of having suffered before the creation, actually suffered at some point in human history (it is hard to tell how far along in this process the Didache and the speeches and Acts actually are). This move would have been facilitated, if not forced, by the sheer number of texts which describe this figure's suffering specifically at the hands of humans (Psalm 2.2, for example, or Psalm 22, 21 LXX, in its entirety, or the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah already delineated). If the suffering and death were to remain in mythic time, not much could be added to it scripturally beyond that sacrificial veneer that the Apocalypse of John supplies; but figuring out that it actually took place in human history could conceivably add scores of scriptural passages to the drama without losing the sacrificial symbolism at all (as proven in Paul, for example, and in the epistle to the Hebrews and that of Barnabas). Conceiving the Messiah as a slave not only placed him somewhere in human history but also gave him a very particular form of death, one which may not have been quite so specifically designated before: crucifixion, for it was known as the servile supplicium (punishment for slaves); Wisdom of Solomon 2.10-22 would have supported this move, speaking as it does of the wicked inflicting the righteous man, a son of God, with a shameful death.
My suspicion is that, at first, precisely because of the language of service or slavery, Jesus Christ was imagined as having been crucified, not by the power of the state, but rather by the power of a cruel master or lord. This explains how Romans 13.1-7 and 1 Peter 2.13-16 can be so blessedly naïve about rulers posing a threat to believers; it also explains why 1 Peter 2.18-24 includes its description of Christ's sufferings, not in the section about submitting to rulers, but rather in the section about submitting to masters! At this stage, Jesus' death has not yet been imagined as having occurred at the hands of the state, which is still viewed as a bulwark against potential abuses by individual patricians (masters). A summary of this overall viewpoint can be found in Philippians 2.6-11. Jesus Christ has two natures (divine and human), descends both in the form of a slave and in the form of a human, suffers and dies (in obscure circumstances which are revealed to the faithful, not known from local or recent history), and then ascends to receive the name above all names, which seems to be Jesus (not Lord or Christ): Yehoshua = Yeshua = Jesus (Yahweh saves). The actual location of the crucifixion would have been teased out of scripture. Wisdom of Sirach 24.8 has Lady Wisdom say, "Then the Creator of all things gave me a commandment, and the one who created me assigned a place for my tent. And he said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance,'" and then specifies Jerusalem in 24.11: "Likewise in the beloved city he gave me rest, and in Jerusalem was my power." The demonic forces who once slew Jesus directly are now standing behind human agents.
The idea that the Christ was not only named and destined from before the creation but also had some kind of tangible existence before creation really begins to take off. Sibylline Oracles 6.13-19 seems to say that Adam and Eve caught a glimpse of him already in human form, and of course 1 Corinthians 10.1-3 says that the rock in the wilderness was Christ. Justin Martyr and other church fathers thought that Jesus Christ appeared on the pages of the Hebrew scriptures quite frequently as the angel of the Lord. It is my current position that Pauline thought belongs to this cluster of ideas, and that passages in the Pauline epistles which would require a belief in a known human figure (1 Corinthians 11.23-28) with known relatives (Galatians 1.19) and who suffered under a known historical figure (1 Timothy 6.13) are interpolated, forged, or misinterpreted. If some or all of those passages are not actually interpolations, forgeries, or misinterpretations, then my view of Paul changes, and he has to be placed later in the general scheme of things. Some proposed interpolations do not actually matter for Paul's placement in this cluster of thought; for example, it does not matter whether Romans 1.1b-5a is genuinely Pauline or not, since the Messiah in this stage of affairs could be and often was thought of as the scion of David anyway. Also, just as the Apocalypse of John could overlay the precosmic death of Jesus with sacrificial symbolism, so too could Paul (1 Corinthians 5.7) and the entire epistle to the Hebrews overlay the crucifixion of Jesus with similar sacrificial symbolism. I do not distinguish for my present purposes, by the way, between those who thought of the Messiah as a literal human being (born of the line of David, for example) and those who thought of him as an angelic figure of some kind (as in docetic, separationist, and gnostic speculation). Taking "the form of a human" can be ambiguous in those respects. What matters here is that the suffering and death of this savior figure is now seen as having happened on earth, during human history.
Origins of the Historical Jesus
During the century immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, there were innumerable local liberation movements among the Judean and Samaritan peoples. Josephus describes them as "thieves and enchanters" in Antiquities 20.8.5 §160-161a: "Now as for the affairs of the Jews, they grew worse and worse continually, for the country was again filled with thieves and enchanters who deluded the multitude. Yet Felix caught and put to death many of those enchanters every day, together with the thieves." Many of these prospective liberators seemed to be enacting a script handed to them by Hebrew scriptures having to do with the figure of Joshua. Josephus reports in Antiquities 20.8.6 §167-172, for example, that various men led their followers into the wilderness in order to show them signs and wonders, including "the Egyptian," who also promised that the walls of Jerusalem would fall. The anonymous figure described in Antiquities 20.8.10 §188 seems to have followed a similar pattern. Scholars sometimes call these figures "sign prophets" (both the Egyptian and Theudas, according to Antiquities 20.5.1 §97-99, called themselves prophets).
I suggest that one of these sign prophets was named Jesus, whether from birth or as a nickname by analogy with the Hebrew hero (Joshua = Jesus). This Jesus had followers, one of whom was named Philip; Papias (apud Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.1-4, 9) apparently was able to glean information from the daughters of this Philip, and also asked various passersby through Hieropolis for statements from those who may have known either Philip or the other "disciples of the Lord." This implies that Papias spoke to people who knew Philip and/or his daughters; we may safely doubt most any story that may have been passed along such chains of transmission, but the incidental (and therefore more valuable to an historian) information is that a figure existed who had disciples or followers. Another potential chain transmitting the same kind of information is found in Mark 15.21, in which Simon, a Cyrenian, is said to be the father of Alexander and Rufus, implying that at some point the readers of this text knew who those sons were, as per the analogy in Ruth 4.17, in which the reader is expected to know who David is. Yet another potential chain comes from John 21.18-24, in which it is implied that some fretting accompanied the death of the Beloved Disciple, who had been supposed to remain until the second coming of Jesus. (It is with no small degree of hesitation that I include this particular chain here, since so much that is written about the Beloved Disciple in the gospel of John feels inauthentic to me; yet I have as yet no better explanation for the concerns expressed in John 21.18-24 than that this disciple existed and was known to have followed Jesus.) Finally, for evidence of a different sort, we have the convergence of details in John, in the passion narrative that preceded Mark, and in the Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, that Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover.
It makes sense that an attempt at sedition or protest would happen precisely in the context of one of the main Jewish feasts. According to Josephus, the massacre under Archelaus took place at Passover (Wars 2.1.3 §8-13; Antiquities 17.9.3a §213-218); a fight between Samaritans and Galileans broke out while pilgrims were on their way to a feast (Wars 2.12.3 §232-233); the Samaritans littered the temple grounds with dead bodies at Passover time (Antiquities 18.2.2 §29-35); a crowd revolted against some Roman soldiers, one of whom had exposed himself, at Passover time (Antiquities 20.5.3 §105-112); and Jesus of Ananus did his thing at the feast of Tabernacles (Wars 6.5.3 §300-309). Passover was the feast of liberation par excellence. Mark 11.1-3 and 14.13-14 contain what might be regarded as acts of subterfuge to keep Jesus and his activities concealed in Jerusalem. And of course there is the so-called cleansing of the temple, as well as a few other indicators that Jesus was involved in some kind of sedition or protest.
All of this evidence converges to suggest that a certain sign prophet intended to protest or revolt in some way at the feast of Passover but was instead captured, charged by the Jewish authorities with magic and misleading the people (compare Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a with Justin Martyr, Dialogue 69.7a: "But though they saw such works, they asserted it was magical art. For they dared to call Him a magician [μάγον] and a deceiver of the people [λαοπλάνον]."), and crucified by the Roman authorities on a charge of sedition, possibly but not necessarily during the governorship of Pontius Pilate. Perhaps this Jesus was even crucified with bandits, thus rounding out Josephus' description of a nation overrun with deceivers: this would be an enchanter crucified amongst thieves.
Origins of the Mythicohistorical Jesus Christ
The mythic Jesus Christ figure traced above and the historic Jesus figure described immediately above were merged at some point, principally on the basis of a core coincidence: the mythic Jesus was determined (by progressive revelation) to have been crucified (as a slave) in Judea, probably even in Jerusalem by that time, while the historic Jesus was known (by surviving witnesses) to have been crucified (as a free man) in Jerusalem. This convergence of details is indeed a coincidence, but not a very huge one: Jerusalem is the most likely venue for important Jewish events of either a mythic or an historic character, and Jesus, besides being the name of a famous Hebrew liberator and making a good avatar for Yahweh himself, was also a very common Jewish name. Jesus having been executed during the Passover might be seen as another coincidence, given the sacrificial symbolism associated with the death of the mythic Jesus, but it really is not. Truth is, while Passover presented itself as an ideal opportunity for the seditionists, the sacrificial symbolism came from all kinds of sacrifices, not just Passover ones. The overlap was bound to occur somewhere; if Jesus had been executed just before Yom Kippur, for instance, then that layer of sacrificial symbolism (found in the epistle to the Hebrews and the epistle of Barnabas, among other texts) would have seemed like the coincidence to be explained. Another element which is not at all a coincidence is the epithet of Messiah or Christ. I do not think that the historical Jesus was thought of as the Messiah in any real way, and certainly not called the Messiah, until after his story was merged at least partly with the mythic Jesus Christ template. When his story was rewritten and messianic elements were added on, therefore, they had to be smuggled in under cover of the messianic secret.
The merging of the historic Jesus figure with the mythic Jesus figure led to gospel materials which present a rich mixture of various christologies and theologies, the result of the variegated mythic templates being made to fit in different ways over the historic figure, of which very little beyond the bare fact of his crucifixion can actually be recovered. Now there came a grand piling on of all kinds of materials, texts, and traditions. There was a quick and easy attribution of Christian prophetic utterances (1 Corinthians 14.1; 1 Thessalonians 5.19-22; Didache 10.7; 11.7-12; 1 John 4.1-6) to Jesus; for example, the apocalyptic discourse we find on Jesus' lips in Matthew 24.1-25.46 = Mark 13.1-37 = Luke 21.5-36; 17.20-37 probably began as an anonymous prophecy of the kind we find in Didache 16.1-8. Sayings which originally used the expression "son of man" to refer either to humans in general or to the specific figure predicted in Daniel 7.13 are now both thought to refer to Jesus as "the son of man" and placed on his lips as his very own sayings, creating a situation in which he appears to speak of himself in the third person. The convergence of mythic and historic figures led to very different kinds of materials in the gospel tradition; for example, Jesus walking on water turns Yahweh's mythic struggle against chaos or death into an historic incident, while his baptism by John turns an historic Jesus into the mythic son of God by adoption. I do not think the story of the baptism of Jesus on its own is enough to warrant belief in an historical Jesus (the criterion of embarrassment being able, at most, to push the information back one step, not necessarily to confirm it as bedrock original); but, once we suspect on other grounds that there was an historical Jesus, the baptism by John seems pretty plausible; the story would have been related at first by followers of the historical figure, not cultists of the mythical figure; hence Jesus apparently being baptized for his sins (!) in Mark 1.4, 9 (commitment to the divine nature of the cultic figure would later fix this issue). Ancient sacrificial protocols were applied in excruciating detail to the death of Jesus, leading both to exegetical texts like the epistle of Barnabas and to a complete passion narrative such as what we find in the canonical gospels and the gospel of Peter. The scriptures, in fact, were ransacked for details of any variety that might be applied to Jesus. Other historical figures (the Egyptian, Jesus of Ananus, Theudas, and so on) found their biographical details added on to Jesus' career in various ways (or, if you will, their biographical details were plumbed for information that could be applied to Jesus). Christ was set up as an oppositional figure for the Caesars; note that it is at Caesarea Philippi that Peter confesses Jesus is the Christ in Mark 8.27-30, and note the similarities between the Priene inscription and various biographical details about Jesus. Aretological motifs from other legendary figures (Apollonius, Moses, Romulus, Alexander) were bestowed upon Jesus. Christian rituals such as baptism and the eucharist were given etiologies having to do with Jesus. At the same time, rival sects such as that surrounding John the Baptist were coopted, their founders posthumously designated as Christians and their followers adopted as fellow brethren so far as possible. One of these sects, called the Nazarenes, was associated (whether accurately or not) with Jesus himself, leading to him being called a Nazarene, and eventually his hometown to being identified as Nazara/Nazareth by means of an etymological back formation. Little was known to the cultists of Jesus Christ about the historical Jesus, and few of Jesus' actual activities as a seditionist were being reported by his former disciples (for reasons both of embarrassment and of self-protection); therefore much had to be brought in from all kinds of sources. This accumulation of detail may have happened slowly in some quarters (Barnabas and 1 Clement) and more quickly in others (the canonical gospels). There is no Big Bang of either of the two kinds usually posited: (A) on the historicist side, an historical figure did not suddenly accumulate mythical elements based on visions of a resurrected Galilean peasant; rather, converging cultic ideologies and progressive revelation led to the various views of Jesus Christ, and whatever visions and revelations there were merely supplemented them; (B) on the mythicist side, a mythical figure did not suddenly take on flesh and blood in a single allegorical move by some hidden, embittered literary genius (often seen as either Mark or Marcion); rather, lingering reminiscences about a genuinely historical seditionist gathered legendary accretions both from other historic figures and from purely mythic speculations about Yahweh and the Messiah.
I apologize for how dense this is! It is not easy trying to put all of the relevant information together without overcrowding the outline. There is much more to be said (I have observations about and from the Qumran texts, the Odes of Solomon, the gospel of the Hebrews, and many more topics), but I do not want the specific data to overwhelm the basic idea, to wit, that it is possible that both a fully mythical Jesus and a fully historical Jesus existed, and that they were combined on the strength of a simple coincidence: two figures (one historical, the other mythical) named Jesus who were crucified in Jerusalem (or at least in Judea). If that is too much of a coincidence for you, then you will have to rightly reject my proposal out of hand; no need even to examine the details. The exact components of the coincidence could be fiddled with: perhaps, for example, the death of the mythical Jesus had not yet been located in Jerusalem. But I think we need enough of a coincidence to make the merging of the two figures attractive in the first place. We need to be able to imagine cultists devoted to a divine, mythically obscure Jesus figure hearing about a human Jesus and saying, "Hey, that sounds like the guy we have been talking about. Did you say he was baptized by John the baptist, too? That sounds interesting." We need to be able to imagine disillusioned followers (or followers of followers) formerly devoted to a human, historically obscure Jesus figure hearing about a divine Jesus and saying, "Hey, I bet that is what was going on with our former master. He was the messiah in disguise all along. We just failed to recognize what his being the messiah was all about."
Just as modern Catholics can choose to identify with and emphasize universal Papal succession, the medieval mystics, the Virgin of Guadalupe or other local miracles, the ascetic brotherhood or sisterhood of monks and nuns, and/or personal piety in various combinations — because the Catholic church is all of these things and more — in early Christianity the various strands that had fed into the movement as a whole could be emphasized in various combinations, because each element had already been emphasized at some point in the recent past and was just waiting to be picked up again by anyone who might show an affinity for it. A set of texts like the epistles of Paul becomes the collected work of one of the cultists, edited and interpolated in line with the ongoing push to eke more details about the mythical Jesus out of the scriptures and then, only a bit later, out of some of the legendary details about life and times of the historical Jesus. A text like the gospel of Thomas becomes a collection of sayings from various quarters (Hellenistic Galilean cynics, Christian prophets, possibly even some from the historical Jesus himself) attributed to a Jesus figure whose main attributes stem more from the "revealer" than from the "savior" aspect of the deity in the original Jesus cult. A text like the gospel of Mark becomes a collection of traditions from both poles (myth and history) and every point in between, which is why passages that suggest Jesus is just a human (who goes to John to be baptized for his sins) are juxtaposed with passages that cast Jesus as no less than Yahweh himself (trampling the waves of chaos underfoot by walking on the waves): the former kind derive ultimately from the witnesses, the latter kind from the cultists (though we may never be able to definitively sort out all of the passages which derive from each side).
But this wild diversity of materials and beliefs is better accounted for, I think, by a multifaceted approach to Christian origins than by a Big Bang theory in which it all stems (within a few decades!) either from one man whose human reality was divinized or from one cult whose divine figure was humanized. I think that there may well have been one historical Jesus and at least one mythical Jesus; the coalescence of these figures into one is what lies at the root of the diversity that we find.
Ben.
