Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

Post by neilgodfrey »

Irish1975 wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 11:28 am

I just don’t see this schism as arising from a patristic-style debate about the natures of an already-agreed-upon Jesus of Nazareth figure.
I agree. That was what I was trying to get at with my understanding of the origin of the gospels as a kind of symbolism. Those early gospels left the field wide open to interpret the nature of Jesus any way one wanted -- spirit in form of man, human, hybrid....

Ideas of the Jesus figure that had existed prior to the gospels inevitably got into the debates and had the potential to lead to much of the confusion.

There was no pre-defined understanding of a Jesus of Nazareth in the early gospels.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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I see where the problem arises from my first reply. Interpreting the gospels literally was not the way to laying a uniform or agreed-upon Jesus of Nazareth figure. It was only the beginning of the problem. Literal readings of symbolic texts (not meant to present a real biography) opened the floodgates to all sorts of interpretations -- those read into the gospels and those read out of them. Marcion's gospel had the Jesus come down from heaven; Mark's from nowhere -- up to your imagination (the question was irrelevant to the original author); -- the gospels left wide open the question of this Jesus figure and whether he was heavenly or earthly or other.

What the gospels did establish was that -- when all were read literally -- a Jesus figure of some form or nature did wander around Palestine and got crucified. The Jesus of the gospels entered history but left it open for his literal minded readers to understand him, his composition, his provenance, any way one wanted.
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mlinssen
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:54 pm What the gospels did establish was that -- when all were read literally -- a Jesus figure of some form or nature did wander around Palestine and got crucified. The Jesus of the gospels entered history but left it open for his literal minded readers to understand him, his composition, his provenance, any way one wanted.
Emphasis mine

Perhaps then, this little that was sure, was the entire message, or dare I say, goal?

Impale is the verb of my choice by the way, the whole cross thing didn't either develop until centuries after
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Irish1975
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:54 pm I see where the problem arises from my first reply. Interpreting the gospels literally was not the way to laying a uniform or agreed-upon Jesus of Nazareth figure. It was only the beginning of the problem. Literal readings of symbolic texts (not meant to present a real biography) opened the floodgates to all sorts of interpretations -- those read into the gospels and those read out of them. Marcion's gospel had the Jesus come down from heaven; Mark's from nowhere -- up to your imagination (the question was irrelevant to the original author); -- the gospels left wide open the question of this Jesus figure and whether he was heavenly or earthly or other.

What the gospels did establish was that -- when all were read literally -- a Jesus figure of some form or nature did wander around Palestine and got crucified. The Jesus of the gospels entered history but left it open for his literal minded readers to understand him, his composition, his provenance, any way one wanted.
I start from the Doherty/Carrier position that the earliest Jesus that Christians believed in, the Jesus of the Pauline epistles, was not a historical man recently dying in Palestine. If that’s right, don’t we have to look for tension in the transition from a celestial/mystical Jesus to the full acceptance of the Jesus of the Gospels?

That’s how I read the author of 1 John. When he says “Jesus was the Christ,” he’s saying something genuinely new in his time, which neither Paul nor his pseudographers ever actually said. For them, “the Lord Jesus Christ” was a single figure (of whatever nature, angelic or apocalyptic human or whatever), about whom it would not have occurred to them to say, “hey, this guy Jesus was the (Davidic) messiah.”

If it helps (sorry if it doesn’t), we could use some Kantian jargon:

For Paul, Jesus=Christ is an analytic truth: the two parts of his name are functionally equivalent.
For John, Jesus is the Christ is a synthetic truth: we are predicating Christhood of a historical individual called Jesus.

In 1 John, the assertion Jesus Christ came in the flesh is not an assertion about natures at all, but an assertion of the fact that a historical figure was now being identified with the celestial Jesus Christ figure worshipped since the days of Paul.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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Irish1975 wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 5:33 pm
I start from the Doherty/Carrier position that the earliest Jesus that Christians believed in, the Jesus of the Pauline epistles, was not a historical man recently dying in Palestine. If that’s right, don’t we have to look for tension in the transition from a celestial/mystical Jesus to the full acceptance of the Jesus of the Gospels?
Ah, then we are starting from different places. No, I don't accept the Doherty/Carrier view that Jesus was an entirely celestial figure. I see Paul's Jesus as descending to earth for crucifixion. That is, if one likes, a Jesus who "appeared in history" -- though that seems a rather modern way to put it. Paul's Jesus didn't do much else; he didn't teach or perform miracles.

So there was overlap between Paul's Jesus and the Jesus in the earliest gospels.

But if the first gospel(s) were not biographies but "midrashic" type scriptural stories then there was no thought given to the nature of that Jesus. A Jesus that was conceptualized like Paul's was taken up to be made a symbolic tale -- the Jesus who lived out a life of a "new Israel".

As long as a gospel narrative was understood to be an allegorical tale there was no conflict. The problems start when the allegorical tales are also understood to be literal.

It appears the Marcion side of Christianity was the first to fall into this misinterpretation of the gospel narrative. Someone like Mark retaliated with an overlay of even more scriptural symbolism and nonliteral storytelling.

But the damage was done. The symbolism took over and the very nature of this Jesus character was up for grabs. The original "Pauline" Jesus (JesusChrist?) never went away (though Paul was not the first with the concept) but it became identified with the figure in an early gospel narrative and it was challenged by new concepts of Jesus that were prompted by the literalist reading and creations of gospels.

I'm trying to imagine scenarios that remove that gulf between a celestial/mythicist and an earthly/historicist Jesus -- ideas are very much in flux so poke away into their holes.

I'm wondering if the problem was as mysterious as we think: was there really that strange gap between mythicism and historicism (to use our terms) back then or is that problem one that arises from some misunderstandings of ours?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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mlinssen wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 4:06 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:54 pm What the gospels did establish was that -- when all were read literally -- a Jesus figure of some form or nature did wander around Palestine and got crucified. The Jesus of the gospels entered history but left it open for his literal minded readers to understand him, his composition, his provenance, any way one wanted.
Emphasis mine

Perhaps then, this little that was sure, was the entire message, or dare I say, goal?

Impale is the verb of my choice by the way, the whole cross thing didn't either develop until centuries after
I don't know where you are coming from with these questions so you'll have to explain a bit more. Are you suggesting that there were centuries between the first message of Christianity and the concept of a Christ crucified? Does anything change whether Christ was crucified on a crucifix or impaled on a stake?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm
... I don't accept the Doherty/Carrier view that Jesus was an entirely celestial figure. I see Paul's Jesus as descending to earth for crucifixion. That is, if one likes, a Jesus who "appeared in history" -- though that seems a rather modern way to put it. Paul's Jesus didn't do much else; he didn't teach or perform miracles.

So there was overlap between Paul's Jesus and the Jesus in the earliest gospels.

... A Jesus that was conceptualized like Paul's was taken up to be made a symbolic tale -- the Jesus who lived out a life of a "new Israel".

I think an issue is to what extent Paul's Christ was infused with the gospel authors Jesus, something you touch on later in the same post I'm responding to with
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm (though Paul was not the first with the concept)
You said that^ after referring to the "original "Pauline" Jesus". Paul may have originally had a Christ or than he originally had a Jesus.



neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm It appears the Marcion side of Christianity was the first to fall into this misinterpretation of the gospel narrative. Someone like Mark retaliated with an overlay of even more scriptural symbolism and nonliteral storytelling.
You seem to be saying the [main] gospel narrative is both before and after Marcion.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm ... A Jesus that was conceptualized like Paul's was taken up to be made a symbolic tale -- the Jesus who lived out a life of a "new Israel".
My point in my previous post is that it's very likely that Paul's Jesus reflects to some degree the gospel Jesus, even if just by more use of the name Jesus with Christ

(and i like the idea -- rg price's, iirc (and maybe also Fran J Vermeiren's) -- that the gospel Jesus is significantly based on Paul)
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:42 pm
mlinssen wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 4:06 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:54 pm What the gospels did establish was that -- when all were read literally -- a Jesus figure of some form or nature did wander around Palestine and got crucified. The Jesus of the gospels entered history but left it open for his literal minded readers to understand him, his composition, his provenance, any way one wanted.
Emphasis mine

Perhaps then, this little that was sure, was the entire message, or dare I say, goal?

Impale is the verb of my choice by the way, the whole cross thing didn't either develop until centuries after
I don't know where you are coming from with these questions so you'll have to explain a bit more. Are you suggesting that there were centuries between the first message of Christianity and the concept of a Christ crucified? Does anything change whether Christ was crucified on a crucifix or impaled on a stake?
Thanks for that, let me explain a bit then.
It all is a story at the very least; regardless of real, true or false events underlying it - a story it is.
And stories have a purpose, a goal, and they try to reach that by telling what they tell and not telling what they not tell: omitting information is also part of the information included

So, and while I agree with it, if you state that the gospels tell us little more than a Palestinian Jesus who was put to death, leaving everything else open, then perhaps it was the goal to do just that. Mark for one uses a grand and elaborate framework with chiastic structure and he certainly was very, very literate

Centuries between the first message of Christianity and the concept of a Christ crucified?

Yes, I think so. Even if you put that first message in 150 CE in stead of 30 CE, my current findings (and I'm just into this) are that the use of a cross didn't appear before the 4th century. Stauros yes, tau yes, but the very cross that we all know of so well? I'm still looking (and I might find it, but haven't as of yet)

Does anything change whether Christ was crucified on a crucifix or impaled on a stake?
Sure, impaling would explain how he could have been conscious and lucid until the very last moment; it would explain him uttering a loud cry, both events which aren't consistent with dieing from blood loss
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus Mythicism & 1 John

Post by neilgodfrey »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 7:47 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm
... I don't accept the Doherty/Carrier view that Jesus was an entirely celestial figure. I see Paul's Jesus as descending to earth for crucifixion. That is, if one likes, a Jesus who "appeared in history" -- though that seems a rather modern way to put it. Paul's Jesus didn't do much else; he didn't teach or perform miracles.

So there was overlap between Paul's Jesus and the Jesus in the earliest gospels.

... A Jesus that was conceptualized like Paul's was taken up to be made a symbolic tale -- the Jesus who lived out a life of a "new Israel".

I think an issue is to what extent Paul's Christ was infused with the gospel authors Jesus, something you touch on later in the same post I'm responding to with
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm (though Paul was not the first with the concept)
You said that^ after referring to the "original "Pauline" Jesus". Paul may have originally had a Christ or than he originally had a Jesus.



neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:39 pm It appears the Marcion side of Christianity was the first to fall into this misinterpretation of the gospel narrative. Someone like Mark retaliated with an overlay of even more scriptural symbolism and nonliteral storytelling.
You seem to be saying the [main] gospel narrative is both before and after Marcion.
I spoke of an overlap between Paul's and the gospels' Jesus, but I don't mean to suggest that Paul had any notion of the Jesus of the gospel narratives. Not at all.

Our canonical Luke seems to have been a redacted version of Marcion's gospel. The author "Luke" turned Marcion's gospel against Marcion by introducing Old Testament motifs (Marcion not having much time for the Jewish Scriptures), presumably guided by the Gospel of Mark or its predecessor. So yes, the main gospel narrative appears to have been prior to Marcion but was certainly developed more fully in response to Marcion.
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