About an acute observation of Arthur Drews about the “humanity” of the pauline Jesus
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:27 am
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.
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.