Jesus incognito model

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »


I’ve recently begun to believe that in trying to explain the origins of Christianity and the Jesus narrative, the model of the “hidden messiah” is perhaps more promising than the mythicist model of Doherty and Carrier.

The mythicist position is built on some very slender foundations, after all: Carrier in his book really proposes two: (1) Plutarch on Isis & Osiris and (2) his speculative reconstruction of the Ascension of Isaiah. The first is tangential at best, the second is, well, speculative, so it may be correct and it may not; it may explain everything but, such are the variations of belief on such subjects, it may prove nothing.

But one of the crucial elements of the Ascension of Isaiah is the notion of the Christ being incognito; at each level in his descent from earth, his higher nature is disguised – he makes himself like the form of the denizens of each lower level, and this is crucial to the plot: none of the lower level angels know that he is a being from above. And this clearly ties in to the “hidden messiah” notion that you have discussed above.

If the messianic narrative was that the messiah was expected to come to EARTH rather than a heavenly realm, and suffer in secret, completely unrecognized as the higher being he was, then it is conceivable that people of the 1st century CE might come to the conclusion (possibly by chronological calculations derived from the Book of Daniel,) that this earthly visitation had indeed already happened, unbeknownst to anyone, hiding in plain sight. If people came to believe that, one can easily see how theories about precisely when and where these events had happened and precisely who he had been, might easily arise. Narratives might easily develop around these theories.

One of my big problems with the Mythicist model is that it requires some sort of conceptual revolution before we arrive at the canonical gospels: people who had originally believed that Jesus existed on a purely heavenly level then completely switched and argued that he existed on an earthly level. The Incognito model doesn’t require this volte-face: the previously unidentified messiah simply could be identified as a certain X, who lived in a certain time in a particular place. The narratives told about him might have been derived wholly from prophetic literature, or might have been partly based on the life of a real person or persons, or simply linked to the name of an actual person. And one can also see how one could end up with more than one retrospective contender for the role. Some might have argued that John the Baptist, killed by Herod, was him; a narrative arose about a certain Jesus (real or invented) executed by Pilate, as in the Gospels; another candidate was a Jesus of the previous century (real or invented), executed in the time of Alexander Jannaeus, as suggested in Talmudic sources. And this model might explain the vagueness of Paul’s letters about the life of Jesus every bit as well as the mythicist model – the vagueness arising because no-one knew for sure where and when those events (derived from prophetic literature) had happened, rather than because they had taken place in a higher realm. Perhaps, for Paul, actually identifying who the Son had been on earth really wasn’t important at all; what mattered was that he was coming back in his undisguised form soon, to finish his business.

Well, it’s a theory, no?

https://vridar.org/2018/03/08/the-hidde ... ment-84906

It's an interesting model. But does it assume a Jesus lived recently or in an undefinite past?

If Jesus was crucified in incognito in a recent past, then the his killers would be probably the Romans.

The point is that often in the Jewish history the rabbis realize, via dreams, that the Messiah "is born". Even today. As it is said: "In this precise moment".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »


Before his death, Kaduri had said that he expected the Mashiach, the Jewish Messiah, to arrive soon, and that he had met him a year earlier.[6][7] It has been alleged that he left a hand-written note to his followers and they were reportedly instructed to only open the note after Rabbi Kaduri had been dead for one year. After this time period had passed, the note was opened by these followers and was found to read, "ירים העם ויוכיח שדברו ותורתו עומדים" (translated as "he will raise the people and confirm that his word and law are standing"), which by acronym, suggested the name "Yehoshua".[8][9][10] Such acrostics are a well recognised phenomenon in the Tanakh.[11] Many religious Jews and counter missionaries discredit the note as a Messianic forgery. Rabbi Tovia Singer suggests that when considering the context of the note, the name Yehoshua refers to the biblical Yehoshua Ben Nun rather than Jesus to whom many messianic groups ascribe the name "Yeshua".[12] Singer also claimed that no member of Kaduri's family he spoke to 'knew anything about this note'.[12]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Kaduri
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »

A problem I have with the Incognito Model is that there is at least a point in the pre-Gospel writings where the place of the crucifixion is named with more precision:

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood...

(Hebrews 13:12 )

...so contradicting the basic assumption of the Incognito Model: that the place of the crucifixion was an undefinite place.

So, which "gates" are meant? Surely the gates of which the archontes are doorkeepers, as per the Psalm 23:7-8 Septuaginta:


7Lift up your gates, ye archontes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.

8Who is this king of Glory? the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

It is very impossible to see Pilate as the doorkeepers of the earthly Jerusalem.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »

An interesting note from OHJ, p. 545):

In fact, the account of these gates in Ascension of Isaiah happens to match the
model of the Jerusalem temple: only the three lower heavens and the firmament have
gates, corresponding to the inner and outer sanctum of the temple (the gates down to the
third and second heaven, respectively), the outer gate ofthe temple itself (the gate down
to the first heaven), and the gate of the city as a whole (the gate into the finnament);
thus the upper heavens (in which is no lawlessness or decay) corresponds as one unit
to Jerusalem; and the sublunar realm corresponds to everything outside the walls of
Jerusalem
(such that what is 'in the city' is all that is holy, and what is without is all that
is base and corrupt).

(my bold)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »

So Justin (Dial. 36):
Then he replied, "Let these things be so as you say--namely, that it was foretold Christ would suffer, and be called a stone; and after His first appearance, in which it had been announced He would suffer, would come in glory, and be Judge finally of all, and eternal King and Priest. Now show if this man be He of whom these prophecies were made."
And I said, "As you wish, Trypho, I shall come to these proofs which you seek in the fitting place; but now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts, and Jacob, in parable by the Holy Spirit; and your interpreters, as God says, are foolish, since they say that reference is made to Solomon and not to Christ, when he bore the ark of testimony into the temple which he built. The Psalm of David is this: 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all that dwell therein. He hath rounded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that is clean of hands and pure of heart: who has not received his soul in vain, and has not sworn guilefully to his neighbour: he shall receive blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour. This is the generation of them that seek the Lord, that seek the face of the God of Jacob. Lift up your gates, ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty in battle. Lift up your gates, ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.' Accordingly, it is shown that Solomon is not the Lord of hosts; but when our Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, the rulers in heaven, under appointment of God, are commanded to open the gates of heaven, that He who is King of glory may enter in, and having ascended, may sit on the right hand of the Father until He make the enemies His footstool, as has been made manifest by another Psalm. For when the rulers of heaven saw Him of uncomely and dishonoured appearance, and inglorious, not recognising Him, they inquired, 'Who is this King of glory?' And the Holy Spirit, either from the person of His Father, or from His own person, answers them, 'The Lord of hosts, He is this King of glory.' For every one will confess that not one of those who presided over the gates of the temple at Jerusalem would venture to say concerning Solomon, though he was so glorious a king, or concerning the ark of testimony, 'Who is this King of glory?'

It's interesting to observe how the essentia of the proof of Justin is reduced to a mere repetition of the same myth behind the Ascension of Isaiah and behind 1 Cor 2:6-8.

Note that the myth reported by Justin is more old than the same Gospels read by him, since he - a proto-Catholic!- says clearly that the spiritual Archontes didn't recognize the real identity of Jesus, whereas in the our Gospels the recognition is the first thing made by the evil demons.

It is curious how Justin denies explicitly that the ''gates'' are of the earthly Jerusalem or of the earthly temple.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
lsayre
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by lsayre »

Did Jesus himself ever proclaim that his death was to be an atonement for the sins of mankind? Or did he merely see the handwriting on the wall and thereby announce in advance to his disciples that at some juncture in the not too distant future he would be captured and killed, with the rest of the story evolving only later? Allowing here for the presence of a real life Jesus, this raises the question of whether or not he would have thought of himself as divine.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus incognito model

Post by Giuseppe »

Jesus didn't proclaim nothing because he didn't have disciples, according to the Incognito Model. Idem in the Mythical (sub-lunar) Model.

So I don't understand you question in this context.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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