The Judaizers would have favored the idea of an earthly Messiah

[Giuseppe]

The trend towars the materialization (euhemerization) of the mythical Jesus is formed by two factors, basically:

• the general unability of the hoi polloi (especially if not civilized, see the "fool" Galatians) to represent for themselves a cosmic crucifixion, if not by using earthly images of the crucifixion (even if derived from OT scriptures).

• the particular favor to the idea of an earthly image of the crucifixion by the Judaizers, since the Jewish Messiah had to be (for the Jewish mainstream) an earthly figure.

This explains why the Galatians were more easily infiltrated by the Judaizers than the Corinthians.

This explains why the first gospels were written, at the end.

I note that some modern living critics, even if mythicists, are affected themselves by this trend.

Probably, a modern mythicist (G. A. Wells in primis) who places the death of Jesus in Paul on the earth and not in outer space is affected by this Judaizing trend without knowing it.

[davidmartin]

This talk of a 'mythical Jesus' doesn't make any sense historically

Even if there was no actual man born and called 'Jesus' you can still have physical humans who claimed either to be his incarnation or represent him
Of these there is a long list of names. Other than Jesus you have John, Simon M, Theudas, Dositheus, Menander, Paul, Cleobius, just to name a few

In this case the origins of Christianity would still go back to a real person (or persons)

It only ends up being meaningful theologically not historically
If a man claimed to be anointed as the cosmic Jesus - that man might as well be Jesus historically

So there's every reason to suppose various early Christians traced Jesus back to a man and one that likely was either crucified by the Romans or put to death in Judea or Samaria and hung on a tree according to the law. This is an obvious starting point for an earthly religious movement who wished to remember him

How does talking about cosmic Christ have anything to do with historical search for Jesus, or have I misunderstood you?
I don't mind arguing with this or agreeing in good humour!

[neilgodfrey]

• the general unability of the hoi polloi (especially if not civilized, see the "fool" Galatians) to represent for themselves a cosmic crucifixion, if not by using earthly images of the crucifixion (even if derived from OT scriptures).

I can understand hoi polloi with some acquaintance with basic science and how the world works having difficulty with the notion of a cosmic crucifixion but hasn't the main thrust of mythicists of this view been that the ancients had no problem with such a notion. Stories of gods doing all sorts of things "in the heavens" was a fundamental part of common mythology going right back to earliest Sumer, yes?

[Giuseppe]

• the general unability of the hoi polloi (especially if not civilized, see the "fool" Galatians) to represent for themselves a cosmic crucifixion, if not by using earthly images of the crucifixion (even if derived from OT scriptures).

I can understand hoi polloi with some acquaintance with basic science and how the world works having difficulty with the notion of a cosmic crucifixion but hasn't the main thrust of mythicists of this view been that the ancients had no problem with such a notion. Stories of gods doing all sorts of things "in the heavens" was a fundamental part of common mythology going right back to earliest Sumer, yes?

My point is that, even if the Galatians (as a good example of hoi polloi who have not some acquaintance with basic science) believed in a crucifixion in outer space, well, even so, they had surely need to materialize it by using earthly images. But by "cosmic crucifixion" according to more philosophical terms I mean what Ireneus described. Or Justin:

Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, “that the Spirit of God moved over the waters.” For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, “And the third around the third.”14

https://brill.com/view/journals/scri/13 ... 309_21.xml

Abstract
Considering the symbolism of the cross in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, scholars interpreted it in terms of Platonic and Gnostic influences. In this article I made an attempt to demonstrate a more profound ancient mythological and Jewish-Christian mystical background of this symbolism, which can be traced later in Christian Patristic writings and iconographic patterns.

Or what the Valentinians described as Horos.

[Giuseppe]

This talk of a 'mythical Jesus' doesn't make any sense historically

Even if there was no actual man born and called 'Jesus' you can still have physical humans who claimed either to be his incarnation or represent him
Of these there is a long list of names.

these your words show that the mythicism is not precisely clear for you. Read what Doherty says more precisely:

Finally, it has been suggested that various first century preacher/Zealots and would-be Messiah figures who agitated for revolutionary or apocalyptic change, and were usually dispatched by the military authorities (perhaps one was even executed by Pilate!), provided a partial model for the creation of Mark’s Jesus figure, or perhaps even that of Q at some stage. But this is a far cry from saying that the Gospel Jesus represents an historical figure in any meaningful fashion, or that thereby we can say that "there was an historical Jesus

(from The Jesus Puzzle)

[Giuseppe]

David, the better definition of mythicism:

Positive Mythicism — Jesus was initially conceived of as a celestial being, and only later accumulated an invented biography. There may have been historical figures used as the inspiration for the historicisation (when you come to make your demi-God into an apocalyptic preacher, you use the apocalyptic preachers you know of as inspiration), but the evidence shows the process went from divine to human, from myth to man.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/irrco.word ... icism/amp/

[neilgodfrey]

• the general unability of the hoi polloi (especially if not civilized, see the "fool" Galatians) to represent for themselves a cosmic crucifixion, if not by using earthly images of the crucifixion (even if derived from OT scriptures).

I can understand hoi polloi with some acquaintance with basic science and how the world works having difficulty with the notion of a cosmic crucifixion but hasn't the main thrust of mythicists of this view been that the ancients had no problem with such a notion. Stories of gods doing all sorts of things "in the heavens" was a fundamental part of common mythology going right back to earliest Sumer, yes?

My point is that, even if the Galatians (as a good example of hoi polloi who have not some acquaintance with basic science) believed in a crucifixion in outer space, well, even so, they had surely need to materialize it by using earthly images. But by "cosmic crucifixion" according to more philosophical terms I mean what Ireneus described. Or Justin:

Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, “that the Spirit of God moved over the waters.” For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, “And the third around the third.”14

https://brill.com/view/journals/scri/13 ... 309_21.xml

Abstract
Considering the symbolism of the cross in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, scholars interpreted it in terms of Platonic and Gnostic influences. In this article I made an attempt to demonstrate a more profound ancient mythological and Jewish-Christian mystical background of this symbolism, which can be traced later in Christian Patristic writings and iconographic patterns.

Or what the Valentinians described as Horos.

This is surely an instance where the term "crucified in outer space" brings us to grief. "Outer space" is a modern scientific concept that had no counterpart in the ancient world. Of course it is difficult to imagine a crucifixion in "outer space" and one must resort to vague and/or "philosophical" -- certainly somewhat abstract -- concepts to do so.

But any look at ancient mythologies tells us immediately that the "common people" had no problem whatever imagining all sorts of "earthly" events happening in "the heavens" or "abodes of gods" etc.

The illustrations of Justin and Irenaus appealing to Plato are not Pauline -- they are later attempts to address philosophical readers. If Paul could become all things to all "men" then he could surely tell a story as concrete and easy to visualize and understand as, say, a story of the Ascension of Isaiah. That's not philosophical or abstract at all.

I am not arguing that Paul's Christ was crucified in a non-earthly realm, by the way. I only baulk at the idea that commoners had difficulty in with imagining a crucifixion in a heavenly realm. (Is a slain lamb in heaven difficult to imagine? Or a person ascending to the throne of God and witnessing fighting angels along the way difficult to imagine?)

[Giuseppe]

Stories of gods doing all sorts of things "in the heavens" was a fundamental part of common mythology going right back to earliest Sumer, yes?

what you are saying is that the image of a demigod suffering was common mythology, for example, the death of Attis. But Paul (and true paulines) was not satisfied by the mere mental image of a god suffering.

The Galatians are "fools" because they limit thenselves to the mere earthly image of a god suffering.

Sallustius called the story of Attis

"an eternal cosmic process, not an isolated event in the past"

( On Gods and the World , 9)

Evidently also Sallustius would have defined "fools" the hoi polloi who limited themselves :

1) to image something as:



2) to place that earthly image in the outer place.

Idem for a crucified Christ. The mental image of it was for Paul not the following:



Not even this:



But this:



Could the Galatians understand that crucifixion?

No, they couldn't. Hence the extreme need of earthly images before. Of a Gospel, after.

[Giuseppe]

The illustrations of Justin and Irenaus appealing to Plato are not Pauline -- they are later attempts to address philosophical readers. If Paul could become all things to all "men" then he could surely tell a story as concrete and easy to visualize and understand as, say, a story of the Ascension of Isaiah. That's not philosophical or abstract at all.

no, here you are wrong. These illustrations are pauline.

One may suppose that the Paulinian expression from Eph 3:18

“… may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height”

can also fit into the same conception, and the reference to Eph 3:18 in combination with the Phil 2:8, the hymn, in which the technical term “kenosis,” according to G. Stroumsa, probably, means that the “incarnation implies for Christ giving up the greatness of his previous gigantic dimension,”82 occurs in the Great Catechism 32 by Gregory of Nyssa:


… it is from sight that the mighty Paul starts when he initiates the people of Ephesus in the mysteries, and imbues them through his instructions with the power of knowing what is that “depth and height and breadth and length.” (Eph 3:18) In fact he designates each projection of the Cross by its proper appellation. The upper part he calls height, the lower depth, and the side extensions breadth and length; and in another passage he makes his thought still clearer to the Philippians, to whom be says, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.” (Phil 2:8) In that passage he includes in one appellation the centre and projecting arms, calling “things in earth” all that is in the middle between things in heaven and things under the earth. Such is the lesson we learn in regard to the mystery of the Cross.83


As it was demonstrated by Daniélou, Gregory of Nyssa in his interpretation of the cosmic cross depended on the interpretation of Irenaeus84 elaborated in the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 34, the work which is extant now only in the translation into Armenian:


So then by the obedience wherewith He obeyed even unto death (Phil 2:8), hanging on the tree, He put away the old disobedience which was wrought in the tree. Now seeing that He is the Word of God Almighty, who in unseen wise in our midst is universally extended in all the world, and encompasses its length and breadth and height and depth (Eph 3:18) for by the Word of God the whole universe is ordered and disposed in it is crucified the Son of God, inscribed crosswise upon it all: for it is right that He being made visible, should set upon all things visible the sharing of His cross, that He might show His operation on visible things through a visible form. For He it is who illuminates the height, that is the heavens; and encompasses the deep which is beneath the earth; and stretches and spreads out the length from east to west; and steers across the breadth of north and south; summoning all that are scattered in every quarter to the knowledge of the Father.85

[Giuseppe]

Note that also in Mark there is a quasi-cryptical reference to the crucifixion as a cosmic event in the sense explained by passages as Ephesians 3:18:

42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph.

On the historicity one can't explain why Jesus dies so rapidly.

On the myth the answer is simple: Jesus dies in the act itself of going through the Limit between upper heavens and lower heavens. The action is very rapid.

Just as the sun is rapid to eclipse itself during the sunset.