What the genesis of the Muhammad myth can explain about the Jesus myth

[Secret Alias]

1. what came to be known as 'orthodox' Christianity had an understanding that Jesus was a man who was at once God because of the Virgin Birth and he came above all else TO BE RECOGNIZED as the one who was to come according to the Jewish prophetic tradition.
2. there does seem to be a rival tradition - MUCH MISUNDERSTOOD - that Jesus was a man who was at once God because of the Virgin Birth and he came above all else TO BE RECOGNIZED as the one who was to come according to the Jewish prophetic tradition.

While you focus your efforts on a rather simple-minded effort to interpret all information about early Christianity in terms of those things that support 'mythicism' the reality is that THERE SEEMS TO BE A 'HISTORICIST' for lack of a better term CHRISTIANITY - i.e. an expectation of a revelation of 'one who is to come' IN 'HISTORICAL' - i.e. 'real' - TIME BY SOMEONE OR SOMETHING NAMED 'JESUS.'

What that means is that it is silly to redefine the Christian story in terms of 'myth' away from history when in fact - as it should be obvious - ANYONE WHO EXPECTS A CERTAIN SOMEONE IN REAL HISTORICAL TIME CAN'T BE AN ENTIRELY MYTHICAL TRADITION.

To that end the terminology 'the Paraclete' seems to have been taken in the traditional Jewish prophetic sense - i.e. as a foretold figure of 'the Comforter' that is AS A TITLE OF THE COMING MESSIAH. While we don't have much in the way of 'pre-Christian Messianic literature' the expectation for the Menachem (מְנַחֵם) necessarily preceded Christianity. Since math stays the same throughout time the gematria of the name מְנַחֵם = 138 = the 'branch' a title which does appear and reappear in pre-Christian messianic literature.

To that end we can expect and indeed embrace the understanding that people living in the first century and beyond where competing to be understood as an awaited figure called 'the Comforter' in Jewish circles.

Here is where your worldview starts to fall apart. Given that you want to deny the primacy of Jewish-Christianity, it is hard to conceive of a notion where early Christianity developed from a tradition which understood that Jesus came to foretell the coming of 'the Comforter' WHICH WAS NOT IN ITSELF 'JEWISH' in some form. That means, that it is hard to understand why Marcionites, Montanists, Manichaeans and Muslims ALL SHOULD BE ATTACHED TO A TERMINOLOGY WHICH NECESSARILY DEVELOPED FROM JEWISH PROPHETIC TRADITIONS WHILE IN THEMSELVES WERE NOT 'JEWISH CHRISTIAN' IN SOME SENSE.

To that end, when Tertullian repeatedly makes reference to the Marcionites understanding that Jesus came to herald the coming of Marcion a hundred years after his advent it is hard not to 'put that together' with the multiple references to Marcion drawing heavily from Jewish messianic traditions. For instance, Tertullian says this regarding the Marcionite understanding of Jesus coming to reveal a messiah other than the bloodthirsty general associated with bar Kochba in the second century when the lost proto-text for Against Marcion was produced (i.e. in the writings of Justin Martyr directed against Jewish figures like Trypho).

To that end, the following figures have been identified in the surviving literature by the title 'the Comforter':

Marcion
Montanus
Mani
Muhammad

A straight-line can theoretically be drawn between Marcion, Mani and Muhammad. For one Manichaean literature does support the idea that Manichaeans claimed that Marcion witnessed the coming of Mani. The Cologne Mani whatever book (I forget the exact name) has this explicitly referenced. Also Hegemonius has this understanding within the context of an appeal to a figure called Marcellus (which may have some relation to the name Marcion) insofar as Mani comes to Harran and elsewhere to make the claim to Marcellus (a strange 'leader' of the community in which the bishop Archelaus presides) that he is the Paraclete for which the community has awaited - even that Paul awaited.

If we accept that Manichaeanism was somehow developed from 'Jesus came to witness the coming of Paul or Marcion' statements in Tertullian's discussion of Marcionism then it can be argued that early Muslim statements regarding Jesus came to witness the coming of Muhammad theology was a development of (a) 'Jewish Christianity' (b) Marcionism or (c) Manichaeanism. Scholars have made arguments for (a) and (c) at least in terms of influences for proto-Islam. The point here is that by trying to see Christianity exclusively in terms of mythicism and gnosticism you lose sight of the bigger picture of 'historical Christianity' - i.e. while mythicism and gnosticism are THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS ('theoretical constructs' in the sense that they exist in terms of DOCUMENTS but we have no actual eyewitness in terms of their relevance as historical construct) the actual PHYSICAL EVIDENCE points to a 'Jesus came to witness another' theology had widespread relevance and prevalence far beyond the supposed existence of mythicist Christianity.

To that end - the use of the Aramaic or Syriac use of 'Mani' in the third century and the Arabic use of muhammad point to a common theological origin especially widespread in eastern Christianity beyond the border of the Roman Empire.

[Secret Alias]

In case you want to see the development of the argument that the Marcionites (said Paul) understood Jesus came to witness the coming of another.

1. there is the understanding that 'what Marcion said is not the same as what Jesus said.' We see it in 1.19 - 20:

For the time it must suffice to follow up bur present argument so far as to prove, and that in few words, that Christ Jesus is the representative of no other god than the Creator. 'In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar Christ Jesus vouchsafed to glide down from heaven, a salutary spirit.' In what year of the elder Antoninus the pestilential breeze2 of Marcion's salvation, whose opinion this was, breathed out from his own Pontus, I have forborne to inquire. But of this I am sure, that he is an Antoninian heretic, impious under Pius. Now from Tiberius to Antoninus there are a matter of a hundred and fifteen and a half years and half a month. This length of time do they posit between Christ and Marcion. Since therefore it was under Antoninus that, as I have proved, Marcion first brought this god on the scene, at once, if you are in your senses, the fact is clear. The dates themselves put it beyond argument that that which first came to light under Antoninus did not come to light under Tiberius: that is, that the god of Antoninus' reign was not the God of the reign of Tiberius, and therefore he who it is admitted was first reported to exist by Marcion, had not been revealed by Christ. To prove next that this is a fact, I shall take up the rest <of my argument> from my opponents themselves. The separation of Law and Gospel is the primary and principal exploit of Marcion. His disciples cannot deny this, which stands at the head of their document, that document by which they are inducted, into and confirmed in this heresy. For such are Marcion's Antitheses, or Contrary Oppositions, which are designed to show the conflict and disagreement of the Gospel and the Law, so that from the diversity of principles between those two documents they may argue further for a diversity of gods. Therefore, as it is precisely this separation of Law and Gospel which has suggested a god of the Gospel, other than and in opposition to the God of the Law, it is evident that before that separation was made, <that> god was still unknown who has just come into notice in consequence of the argument for separation: and so he was not revealed by Christ, who came before the separation, but was invented by Marcion, who set up the separation in opposition to that peace between Gospel and Law which previously, from the appearance of Christ until the impudence of Marcion, had been kept unimpaired and unshaken by virtue of that <sound> reasoning which refused to contemplate any other god of the Law and the Gospel than that Creator against whom after so long a time, by a man of Pontus, separation has been let loose.

So in the manner of the Trumpite claims about the election, the orthodox make the case that the Marcionite understanding that Jesus came to witness the separation of Law and Gospel were only invented by textual emendation by Marcion long after Jesus.

This short and sharp argument calls for justification on our part against the clatter and clamour of the opposite party. They allege that in separating the Law and the Gospel Marcion did not so much invent a new rule <of faith> as refurbish a rule previously debased. So then Christ, our most patient Lord, has through all these years borne with a perversion of the preaching about himself, until, if you please, Marcion should come to his rescue.

Here the argument is just that Marcion came - according to Marcionites - to 'rescue' Jesus or Paul (in what follows it is clear that the Marcionites hold that (a) Paul wrote a gospel which testified to what Jesus said and that (b) the bad apostles corrupted it).

[Giuseppe]

That means, that it is hard to understand why Marcionites, Montanists, Manichaeans and Muslims ALL SHOULD BE ATTACHED TO A TERMINOLOGY WHICH NECESSARILY DEVELOPED FROM JEWISH PROPHETIC TRADITIONS WHILE IN THEMSELVES WERE NOT 'JEWISH CHRISTIAN' IN SOME SENSE.

I can't answer for Muslims (but I think that the Ebionites were Judaizers and by extension their possible last derivation in Arabia as 'Muslims') but I can answer for the others.

The answer is:
They, as gentilizers (the exact opposed of 'jewish-christians') wanted to do propaganda to persuade Jews to abandon YHWH.

The last word will be not, for all the Gnostics, the total condemnation of the Judaism and his god. The apostolic spirit of the disciples of Hermes, always eager to "sow the words of wisdom" (C.H. 1:29), will have as goal to draw the Jews from the hold of the evil creator and his Law...

(J. Magne, L'Exaltation de Sabaôth dans Hypostase des archontes, NH, II, 4, 95, 1-31 et l'exaltation de Jésus dans Philippiens 2, 6-II : ou la Naissance de Jésus-Christ, p. 20)

The Corpus Hermeticum, a not-Christian gentile work, shows how the not-Christian Gnostics wanted "to disturb" the other religions, included potentially Judaism:

29. And some of them with jests upon their lips departed [from me], abandoning themselves unto the Way of Death; others entreated to be taught, casting themselves before my feet.

But I made them arise, and I became a leader of the Race towards home, teaching the words (logoi), how and in what way they shall be saved. I sowed in them the words (logoi) of wisdom; of Deathless Water were they given to drink.

And when even was come and all sun's beams began to set, I bade them all give thanks to God. And when they had brought to an end the giving of their thanks, each man returned to his own resting place.

http://gnosis.org/library/hermes1.html


If you concede already that the same gentilizers wanted that the Pagans should abandon their gods, then why do you reject the concrete possibility that they wanted that the Jews should abandon their YHWH ?


The Naassenes coopted Attis and said that Attis was allegory of the Logos. Paraphrasing you, why SHOULD THEY BE ATTACHED TO A TERMINOLOGY WHICH NECESSARILY DEVELOPED FROM PAGANISM WHILE IN THEMSELVES WERE NOT 'PAGANS IN SOME SENSE?

[Secret Alias]

but I can answer for the others.

You can answer in terms of your nonsensical reconstruction of early Christianity. But what I am demonstrating is outside of it because it is developed from the actual evidence - both textual and physical. Namely that the fault-line of early Christianity IN REAL HISTORICAL TERMS runs along the question of whether Jesus was the messiah or whether he either as a historical person (i.e. a prophet) or as a supernatural being (i.e. an angel or God) came to witness the coming of another, the Comforter, a terminology which meant something like 'messiah' or was indistinguishable from it but by the time of Manichaeanism and Islam came to mean something else.

These gnostic and alleged mythical traditions might have been attested by the early Church Fathers but let's face it - as we see from Epiphanius especially - that the Patristic sources gravitated to scandalous textual material (i.e. reports/witnesses) because it reinforced the idea that everyone outside of Christianity were nutbars. Modern politics does the same thing. The Democrats and Republicans ALWAYS zero in on crazy opponents to delegitimize their enemies. The reason why the Church Fathers MIGHT HAVE avoided reporting the 'Jesus came to announce another' is because it was more difficult than bringing forward all the crazy groups that you adore.

All of your arguments in all your posts about alleged 'mythicism' develop from the assumption that THE CHURCH FATHERS REPORTS REFLECT THE ACTUAL COMPOSITION OF THEIR OPPONENTS. That's the danger of your arguments. You assume that the Church Fathers were FAIRLY reporting on the Christian world outside of the walls of the Church. I am questioning that notion.

[Giuseppe]

but I can answer for the others.

You can answer in terms of your nonsensical reconstruction of early Christianity.

Sure.

But what I am demonstrating is outside of it because it is developed from the actual evidence - both textual and physical. Namely that the fault-line of early Christianity IN REAL HISTORICAL TERMS runs along the question of whether Jesus was the messiah or whether he either as a historical person (i.e. a prophet) or as a supernatural being (i.e. an angel or God) came to witness the coming of another, the Comforter, a terminology which meant something like 'messiah' or was indistinguishable from it but by the time of Manichaeanism and Islam came to mean something else.

ok, so both we share the fact that the Gospels betray excessive insistence that Jesus HAS to be the Jewish Christ, against rivals who denied that Jesus was the Jewish Christ.

Where we diverge is that for me the rivals preached that Jesus was the Son of an unknown Father ('Bar-Abbas') while you think that the rivals preached that Jesus was not the Christ, but merely a precursor of another being of Judaism.

Forgive me if I consider the presence of Jesus Bar-Abbas in our Gospels as too much embarrassing to be merely a midrash based on Leviticus 16, and not rather also the trace of a previous polemic (by Judaizers) against the rivals of which I talk just above.

[Secret Alias]

Forgive me if I consider the presence of Jesus Bar-Abbas in our Gospels as too much embarrassing to be merely a midrash based on Leviticus 16, and not rather the trace of a previous polemic (by Judaizers) against the rivals of which I talk just above.

What I am saying is let's leave aside the question of originality for the moment. I don't agree or support your efforts to read mythicism into everything. But let's leave the question of what is original in Christianity.

By the time the Church Fathers were writing and developed a dichotomy between the 'true Church' and the heresies, we see two kinds of reports. On the one hand, we have 'just texts/interpretation' - i.e. the Valentinians - and then we have attestations of widespread 'churches' ecclesiastical hierarchy and laity - the Marcionites, the Montanists, the Manichaeans and later the Muslims.

What you do is say essentially ANY report about ANY sect is equal weight. I am saying there is a difference. Only the 'Jesus came to witness another tradition' had any widespread following. In the case of Montanism it is also worth noting that the earliest heresiologists DON'T EVEN MENTION THEM. We know they existed. But they don't get any reporting from Justin and Irenaeus and limited interest from Tertullian (Tertullian is a Montanist). The point is you can't just look at the text of what the Church Fathers said.

There are certain gospel passages which were read as supporting the existence of 'another.' These groups then read a version of the gospel which positioned Jesus as coming as something other than the messiah. The messiah was important to them. But Jesus wasn't that guy. The orthodox made that denial proof that these groups denied 'the Christ' - i.e. Jesus. But I think for ancient witnesses to a debate between those who supported that Jesus was the Messiah and those who said Jesus came to witness another who was coming as the Messiah = a jump ball. In other words, the orthodox don't necessarily win that debate. A similar debate is witnessed between Justin and Trypho and throughout the debates between Jews and Christians. You don't win those exegetical debates. You win some and you lose some. That's why the Church Fathers just made the heresies look like crazies. It was easier to do that.

Also: if we extrapolate BACK from the Manichaean and Muslim sources when Montanus said 'I am the Paraclete' = I am the messiah.

[Secret Alias]

If we go back to following the argument in Tertullian. Note 1.21:

But you will find no church of apostolic origin whose Christianity repudiates the Creator. Or else, if these churches are taken to have been corrupt from the beginning, can any churches be sound? Shall they be those hostile to the Creator? Put in evidence a single one of your churches which is of apostolic origin, and you will have me convinced. Since then it is on all accounts certain that from Christ right down to Marcion no other god than the Creator was included in the statement of this mystery, this gives all necessary protection to my statement of case, by which I prove that the very idea of that heretical god originated with this separation between the gospel and the law; while there is support for my previous postulate that we may not accept as a god one whom a man has constructed out of his own mind—unless of course he is a prophet,2 and then it would not be of his own mind. Whether Marcion can be so called—well, proof of this will be required. There was no call for discussion: the truth, like a wedge, thrusts out every heresy, while Christ is set forth as the representative of no other god than the Creator.

However we interpret this passage it is clear that the Manichaeans saw Paul as a prophet for the Comforter = Mani.