About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Arthur Drews did this acute observation:


It was not unusual among the heathen peoples for a man to be sacrificed, in the place of the Deity, as a symbolical representative; although already at the time of Paul it was the custom to represent the self-sacrificing God only by an effigy, instead of a real man. The important point, however, was not this, but the idea which lay at the foundation of this divine self-sacrifice. And this was not affected by the victim's being a criminal, who was killed in the role of the guiltless and upright man, and by the voluntariness of his death being completely fictitious. Might it not also be, as the believers in Jesus asserted, that the Messiah was not still to be expected, and that only on the ground of human righteousness; but that rather he had already appeared, and had already accomplished the righteousness unattainable by the individual
through his shameful death and his glorious resurrection ?
The moment in which this idea flashed through Paul's mind was the moment of the birth of Christianity as Paul's religion. The form in which he grasped that conception was that of an Incarnation of God; and at the same time this form was such that he introduced with it quite a new impulse into the former mode of thought. According to the heathen conception a God did indeed sacrifice himself for his people, without thereby ceasing to be God; and here the man sacrificed in the place of God was considered merely as a chance representative of the self-sacrificing God. According to the old view of the Jewish faith it was really the " Son of Man," a being of human nature, who was to come down from heaven and effect the work of redemption, without, however, being a real man and without suffering and dying in human form. With Paul, on the contrary, the stress lay just on this, that the Redeemer should be himself really a man, and that the man sacrificed in God's place should be equally the God appearing in human form : the man was not merely a representation of God's as a celestial and supernatural being, but God himself appearing in human form. God himself becomes man, and thereby a man is exalted to the Deity, and, as expiatory representative for his people, can unite mankind with God.

(The Christ Myth, p. 188-190)

Note what precisely Drews is saying: that just the apparently more historicist feature of the Paul's Jesus - his being a human being - is really the more strong argument against the historicity of Jesus:

if a criminal (put here the failed apocalyptic prophet you prefer) was crucified in the role of the god,

or if a effigy made by man was crucified in the role of the god,

or if “one like a son of man” was crucified in the role of the god,


...still this was not sufficient to give the more perfect expiatory sacrifice, since the abyss between the victim and the deity was still too much great to be filled, in all these cases.

Only the same death of the more direct reflection/mirror of God himself (not God himself, but his more direct emanation) could give the more perfect expiatory sacrifice.

Since only so the distance between the victim and the deity could be reduced quasi to zero.

'quasi' since the Jesus is not God stricto sensu.


Hence the “humanity” of the pauline Christ is decisively more expected under the mythicist hypothesis more than under the historicist hypothesis.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Seen from this POV, the same Marcionite conception of a Jesus crucified only as hologram (docetism) is decisively more indebted to later historicist degeneration than the previous conception of Paul about the Son as man really crucified.

Therefore, the docetism and the identification of Jesus as 'one like the Son of Man' (an idea not coincidentially not found in Paul), represent both a return to the primitive (pre-christian) conception of the sacrifice regarding the great original distance between the victim (= a criminal, an effigy or a hologram) and the supreme deity.

With the Gospels, the distance between the victim and the deity becomes great again as in the ancestral times.

But that distance was very minimal in Paul and in the early Christians. And here is where precisely is the force of the Drews' argument agains the historicity of Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't know why I engage you. It's like trying to reason with a dog in a slaughterhouse. But God is anthropomorphic in the Pentateuch and the early Jewish writings. You know that right? When Mark cites Daniel near the end of the gospel - that's the penultimate 'proof text' for the existence of 'two powers.' No coincidence there. The Church Fathers are always on about the anthropomorphic character of god in the OT. Melito lists all the proof text. Philo denies it - but his denials seem rather contrived. The point is - from the perspective of latter rabbinic thought the idea is problematic. But why is it problematic? This is the question you have to ask yourself. It's not problematic of course for Christianity. Jesus is always God and Jesus was a man who - as an anthropomorphic god, 'hung out' with the Patriarchs of the Pentateuch and Joshua. But in spite of the Jewishness of this myth it became a problem for Judaism. Why? Because of the two powers. That's the reason the anthropomorphism became problematic. Jews who were comfortable with an anthropomorphic 'friend' of Moses and the Patriarchs presumably accepted the proposition that there was another (higher/better) god who wasn't anthropomorphic. But that became problematic in the late second century. Why? As Brent points out, the entire Empire was being moved toward monarchianism - not just Judaism and Christianity. I think the Jews and Christians were rushing to the Imperial trough bidding to demonstrate themselves to be 'more faithful' to the Emperors wishes. The punishments in Alexandria and anywhere the earliest forms of Christianity survived were owing to the fact that they still accepted 'two powers' essentially rather than modifying their beliefs to accommodate the new Imperial monarchianism. So too with Judaism. The Samaritans resisted and various older forms of Christianity. But they were punished accordingly for their insolence.

There can be a variety of contemporary forces at work. Here's one that I haven't spent much time on. Perhaps the Persian influence was growing and dualism was inherently suspect. The point however is that there is nothing controversial about God being man.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Secret Alias »

It's not that the things you focus on aren't interesting often times. It's that you - by your pre-existent fixations - exclude the most valuable pieces of information to solve the puzzles in early Christianity. In this case, the fact that if you read the Pentateuch and much of the Psalms (i.e. the oldest material in Judaism) you come away with the certain understanding that god was anthropomorphic. Here's the issue outside of Imperial politics. People who cited the Jewish scriptures couldn't very well claim that THIS god was the one most powerful god of the universe. The Pentateuch (especially as it was originally preserved at Qumran, among the Samaritans and the circle of R Ishmael) knew god to be a man. But as the wise Greeks knew, a god who is in one place can't be every place. So it is that the implications of there being two gods - one in heaven and another on the mountain - became a way out of this predicament for the Jews and those who sympathized with Judaism. You simply don't approach the problem from the right angle. To start out assuming that Christianity was something wholly separate from Judaism is just stupid and makes all your subsequent observations and investigations downright useless.

And remember that all the early sources identify Jesus = the anthropomorphic god of the Pentateuch. So it's not hard to see that the Jews not recognizing Jesus as their god clearly has something to do with the proto-rabbinic denial that god had a shape, that god had a form, that god had a 'face' (= panim which also means body but is used in the Pentateuch to describe the place where God was seen by Jacob). Get it now? If it's a myth it's a myth which develops from the 'heresy' of proto-rabbinical Judaism, perhaps even Pharisaism the 'bad guys' of the gospel. The meaning of the crucifixion develops from the Jews failure to recognize that they are crucifying their own god because the Pharisees (by their very name) represent the original 'heresy' in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:33 am Jesus is always God
Well, I disagree. Jesus isquasi deo”, not “deo”.

Colossians 1:15
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
I see also that you seem to be opposed to the only idea that the expiatory sacrifice found his origin in ancestral times and assumed the sacrifice of a substitute of the god (and a substitute too far distant from deity). Note that also 'one like the son of man' is still too much distant from God himself.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:51 am And remember that all the early sources identify Jesus = the anthropomorphic god of the Pentateuch. So it's not hard to see that the Jews not recognizing Jesus as their god clearly has something to do with the proto-rabbinic denial that god had a shape, that god had a form, that god had a 'face' (= panim which also means body but is used in the Pentateuch to describe the place where God was seen by Jacob). Get it now? If it's a myth it's a myth which develops from the 'heresy' of proto-rabbinical Judaism, perhaps even Pharisaism the 'bad guys' of the gospel. The meaning of the crucifixion develops from the Jews failure to recognize that they are crucifying their own god because the Pharisees (by their very name) represent the original 'heresy' in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
you seem to insist on a presumed (more imagined than real) continuity between the early Christians (Paul) and the Gospels. Hence you think that for "Mark" Jesus is really still god (or the being more close to the deity, that is equivalent).

But my point is different. The evangelists (even the pauline Mark) were going against Paul insofar they were returning to a pre-pauline and pre-christian conception of the expiatory sacrifice (one where there was a great distance between the victim and the deity). Ok, in Mark there was the Messianic Secret ("Jesus is a hidden God") but this doesn't matter really: by simply introducing a mere "historical" man (or a hologram) as image of the Son, "Mark" was making great again the distance before reduced to zero by Paul between the victim and the deity. The death of the Markan Jesus ("my god my god, why have you forsaken me?") is not so different from the death of a criminal (or an effigy in more civilized times) who is a mere substitute of the god, as in the Pagan mythologies.

Curiously, the use of Son of Man in Mark plays much on the ambiguity of the term: a mere human being or a celestial figure? This use is much similar to the use of the hologram as Jesus's body in Marcion: a mere appearance or a real deity? But in both the cases a historicist degeneration is occurring: an abyss is introduced again between the victim ("a mere son of man", "a mere hologram") and the deity ("the celestial Son of Man", the true "Son of Father"). Just as in ancestral times it always was.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Secret Alias »

But this is again where your mentality seems to find it impossible to consider all the uncertainties. You make these massive pronouncements - i.e. 'I have the answer' - when in fact your idol has feet of clay. You say 'Mark says this ...' Well so what? Mark is first relative to the canonical gospels but when we speak about Marcion and Justin we are already in a universe outside of the canonical gospels. There is no gravity here. Neither Marcion nor Justin used or knew about Mark. So who cares? But that's again the problem with your methodology. You want certainty. You want to be able to be like Moses (or not like Moses because you are an anti-Semite) coming down from the mountain with tablets inscribed with the hand of absolute truth. But in order to do that you need to lie. You need to pretend that your certainty is built upon other certainties so you speak of X, Y and Z as 'certain' (whether 'what Mark says' with the implication that this has any bearing on the situation or 'what gnostics said' when it is based on the flimsiest of hearsay etc). There are few certainties in early Christianity. The information is bad so the conclusions are inherently unreliable and the underlying Ding an sich is wholly obscure. At least Moses only had to lie about one thing - his meeting with God. In order to claim absolute certainty with the hobbling together of various fragmentary pieces of shit that we have had passed down to us we have to lie over and over again - pretending that the individual fragments of shit are gold which is certainly not the case. Shit is shit and shit will always be shit.

That's why developing the origins of Christianity out of the Pentateuch is a superior methodology. In the worst case scenario Christianity is wholly antinomian and we'll never figure it out - so everyone is wrong. But given that everyone in antiquity seems to think that Jesus is the 'divine man' who visited the Patriarchs the fact that the Pentateuch is more or less a constant and unchanged and consistent 'thing' we have a way of piecing together the answer which isn't dependent on fragmentary pieces of shit or mistaking fragmentary pieces of shit for gold.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 11:48 am In the worst case scenario Christianity is wholly antinomian...
“In the worst case”... ...in comparison to what? Is there an objective morality that commands us to reject a theory in comparison to another, when we are dealing about historical reconstructions?

if the discourse here is so strongly polluted by the oppressive weight of this supposed “objective morality”, then sorry, I interrupt every discussion.

Here is what I think about “objective morality”.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Secret Alias »

Well 'in the worst case' insofar as there is little or no evidence to support that proposition. The ancient Roman Empire like our own civilization had rules and laws. It would be eye-opening to say the least that a religion was founded on the premise that an unknown god came to earth to spread disorder and civil disobedience. But - and this is what you often fail to take into account - the idea that a religion could started as one thing and ended up as another is hard if not impossible to explain. In the period where better information survives it was not an antinomian religion. It was a religion which was compatible with middle class law-abiding values.

If Christianity could complete transform itself from A to B and turn itself inside out (where A is the unknowable beginning and B the religion of Irenaeus) then we still have to wrestle with the difficulty of the lack of information from period A. How do we know that it turned itself from an antinomian religion SPECIFICALLY to a law-abiding religion? We still have to prove that proposition. We still have to develop a history of period A and all your speculative nonsense doesn't substitute for actual evidence. Once we settle on the idea of a transformation we still have to prove that antinomianism was that 'A.' Where all inherited knowledge and traditions go out the window the door is open to all possibilities.

There are people at this forum who think that Jesus lived in the second century BCE. Others that Jesus was a pagan god. Others again that Christianity was a branch of the Essenes. The list goes on and on. Even if you get to the point of arguing for a transformation - and the religion of Irenaeus was just a B to some unknown A you still have to build a case for your bizarre theory to be that A. And even in the best case scenario you can't prove it. Of course your not even at that level. Your basically a guy who comes to a bizarre internet marketplace of ideas (= this forum) and you've set up a stand for a bizarre product (= a mishmash of crazy mythicist theorist theories from the nineteenth/twentieth century). You've been here for 3 years and haven't made so much as one 'sale.' No one has even come over to your booth.

So yes 'in the worst case scenario' is the right expression. Your theory is among the strangest of strange products hawked at this marketplace. Here's an example of why it doesn't work. I've noted that Clement of Alexandria has a variant of the 'antitheses' which begins in Matthew 5:17. As you may or may not know (this in spite of me talking about it almost every day here for 4 years) I argue, based on anomalies in Tertullian's Against Marcion (which I take to be three steps removed from Justin's original Against Marcion with Irenaeus's Against Marcion as 'stage two') the ur-text took this section of Matthew to be based on Marcion's original 'antitheses.' Clement's version of this same section of text (where the antithetical 'the Law says X ... but I say Y' is clearly exhibited points to Jesus having a dialogue with a Jew or Jewish leader rather than preaching a 'sermon on the mount.'

This/these lost 'antitheses' contextualizes the alleged 'antinomianism' of Marcion. Interestingly the antitheses are left out of Luke and are 'safely' relegated to Matthew, the alleged 'Jewish Christian gospel' (diffusing their antinomian character by associating it with an author who was allegedly pro-Jewish unlike Marcion). Yet even here, in the antitheses Jesus doesn't disparage the Law. He doesn't say the Law is evil. That's important. He doesn't advocate a position that lawlessness is good by contrast. His point seems to advocate (again according to Clement's version of the aforementioned 'antitheses') that the tenth commandment - the last 'iota' to borrow a gnostic concept from Matthew (which likely was derived from Marcion's gospel) - 'do not lust' is the ultimate commandment.

In other words ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται is part of the antitheses. It is found at 5:18:
MATTHEW'S PRESERVATION OF MARCION'S ANTITHESES

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not one iota, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’[f] 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The point is that I can't propose to explain why the surviving phrase of Matthew has 'ἰῶτα ἓν.' I can't explain the ἓν. But it is interesting that in Clement's version of this section - a section which was preserved as a dialogue again rather than a 'sermon' by Jesus - that coincidentally tenth commandment was the ultimate commandment - i.e. 'do not lust.'

We already have proof from the early period that a Semitic heretic Monoimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoimus took special interest in the iota and likened it to a kabbalistic sephirot. As Wikipedia explains it:
According to Monoimus, the world is created from the Monad (or iota, or Yod meaning "one horn"), a tittle that brings forth the duad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, heptad, ogdoad, ennead, up to ten, producing a decad. He thus possibly identifies the gnostic aeons with the first elements of the Pythagorean cosmology.
An astute eye will also recognize that this is one and the same with the Marcosian concept of the Tetrad (where Pythagoras notes 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10). The Marcosians were also Semitic.

So what I am telling you is that if you want to 'peer behind the curtain' and argue for a 'gnostic myth' the evidence would suggest that the iota/yod was taken to be the one power among the ten primal powers which would be sustained until the end of the world. Not commandments 1 - 9, not 'powers' 1 - 9 (whatever they were). But that the letter iota/yod was the beginning of the universe and that the last commandment which was the tenth would be sustained until the end.

Not only does that mean that a commandment 'do not lust' was still in force - it is said to be sustained until the end - but this shows that Chrsitianity was not identifiable with complete 'antinomianism.' Jesus wasn't saying that the law was evil or that he or his god was opposed to 'the law' (where Torah RIGHTLY was identified with the ten utterances from Sinai). Instead what he is saying is that 'the ten' - the iota, the yod - the little one, the least was at the root of the ten commandments, was the true power behind even the god of the Jews. I even wonder whether a saltire crucifixion was supposed to mystically point to the Roman number 'ten' and similarly by a similar stretch of symbolism whether the Tenth Roman legion would imply that the temple was conquered by the same iota/yod - a legion symbolized by the pigs in the Legion narrative of the gospel.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sat Sep 15, 2018 8:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus

Post by Secret Alias »

My point again is that you can't assume that just because Irenaeus isn't ur-Christianity that Couchoud wins by default. There are dozens of theories - if not hundreds of theories - none of which will likely be agreed as the solution.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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