GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 12:40 pm
Obviously one reason for there to be no historical details about Jesus in a text is because the text's author was a mythicist. But my observation is that a look at the wider text shows a vagueness about historical details about
anything, much less than about a historical Jesus.
true. Hebrews, for example, seems unaware even of a (mythical or historical)crucifixion of Jesus. Think about the paradox: the historicist Loisy accused of "distraction" the mythicist Couchoud just by remembering the latter that the crucifixion was missing in Hebrews. Even if Jesus is described as suffering, a cross is never mentioned in Hebrews. So a coherent mythicist has to assume that the author of Hebrews didn't know the crucifixion of Jesus, but only the Passion of Jesus. Idem for the author of Apocalypse.
Let me ask you a question: there is nothing in the texts about what Jesus looked like, what he said, where he appeared, when he appeared. Yet Carrier mythicism has the idea that Jesus appeared in visions and communicated with people like Paul. Why are there no details about that? In themselves, such appearances wouldn't necessarily go against historicity if they were thought to have occurred after Jesus's death. But wouldn't people want to know where Jesus appeared and what he said at such appearances?
mmm. A bit skeptical on that. I think that it was not a necessary thing to say, that the demons can kill
directly an angel only in their own territory (=the lower heavens). It is an implicit corollary of a demonic killing. The problem is not if the Romans are implicitly seen or not with the demons.
The problem is that the Romans are never mentioned at all. So a mythicist reader can go far with the his phantasy and image the celestial context, just as it "happened". But can a historicist reader introduce the Romans and go with the his phantasy without
also going against what the text meant really?
The my point is that the reader has to go (=he is expected to go
just by Paul) with the his phantasy to supply the missing items in the text read by him.
In both the cases (mythicism or historicism) he should imagine how "really" the crucifixion happened. Under the historicist paradigm, he should imagine as was good Pilate against Jesus. Under the mythicist paradigm, he should imagine as Sauron killed Jesus.
But
who would have more
right to imagine the missing things in the text?
I think that the mythicist has more right, for the simple fact that there is not the minimal historicist clue of an earthly Passion to work as potential
input for imagination:
the missing mention of Pilate or of the Romans is fatal for historicity.
As I've said: even if Carrier mythicism wins the consensus, these types of questions will still be asked. It's not as if all controversy around these questions will come to a stop. Interested researchers will still be asking these types of questions.
correct. It is human nature, afterall, to imagine what was missing but had to be there. But then again, who has more right to imagine? Surely who has more input for the his imagination. The mythicist "dreams" because he reads "archontes". Can the historicist "dream" in the his own way
with equal right if he never reads Pilate?