The Jesus narrative has motifs of the Elisha narrative.

Ask most anyone what makes Jesus unique, and the things also done by Elisha will be mentioned – except when he quotes the golden rule from the Torah. 
Walking on water, healing the blind and lepers, raising the dead, feeding a multitude!

Chris_Hansen said
Elisha stopping the king from doing things not ordained by god is not comparable to Jesus stopping someone from fighting against prophecy.

  

It is especially interesting given the context. In Matthew, after Jesus stops his disciple he scolds him Jesus mentions that he can call on a whole host of angels to rescue him. In Kings, Elisha opens the eyes to a whole host of spiritual beings ready to fight if needed. 

The protagonist is calm and serene in the face of dangers with knowledge of a whole heavenly host on standby. Is there another place where this happens? 

Stephen said
Oh my bad, sorry, I didn’t get it.  FocusMyView I had assumed that since you joined his blog and actively post in this forum that you have actually read his books.  Prof Ehrman thinks Jesus was a historical figure but he doesn’t believe in magic Jesus.  The choice is not between magic Jesus and no Jesus at all.  Many scholars will stipulate that the writers of the New Testament used the OT stories about Elijah and Elisha to form their narratives.  But that in no way bears on the issue as to whether or not Jesus was a historical figure.  There is another simpler historical narrative.  Jesus was a Jewish apocalypticist who preached the coming kingdom of God.  The religion of Jesus became a religion about Jesus. Of course the writers of the NT used the traditions they inherited to shape their narrative.  

  

Sometimes discoveries need to be shared. 😀 

I never much posted in the NT sections because I was strictly historical Jesus. I thought the argument was obvious for two main reasons: 

We have a definitive time span that a Jesus would have appeared and died. 

The beginnings of “Jesus ” stories gave a definite starting point. 

Once I realized that the OT was filled with “Jesus” stories I was excited. But before reading any myhticists I turned to Bart’s books. After reading HJBG I was fully mythicist. I could no longer even see how anyone knowing what I know could believe there was a historical core to the Jesus narrative. 

So perhaps posting here is a little presumptuous, and I would not mind if it was taken down for being out of order. But I thought you folks might enjoy either tearing it apart or gaining a new perspective. Either way is good for me. I do learn a lot by being corrected. So far, however, it appears to be a contest of what perspective is correct when looking at the 🐘. 

I think he lays it out pretty clearly. 1)Paul knows of a James the brother of Jesus. 2)Paul speaks of a physical Christ crucified in 1 Corinthians 15. 

Am I missing anything? 

Anything laid out about how a historical itinerant preacher became God pretty much applies to mythicism as well. The same way an itinerant preacher is mistaken for God is the same way myths were taken as real. Mistakes. 

It was coming at the book from my own odd perspective on the OT. I see various hero stories repeated, then I realized one of those was a Jesus hero with variations. So I was reading Bart to ground me factually. He did that. He presented the facts. WITH MY CURRENT PERSPECTIVE, I simply could not follow why he is convinced by the evidence he lays out. Basically, that Pago mentions James without cause, and so James exists and is the brother of a physical Jesus Christ of “scripture.” 

Just the fact that Paul is so reliant upon, and proudly so, existing “scripture” means he was speaking of a Jesus already written about. Partly OT Judean Jesuses. 

BTW, I still recommend reading Bart Erhman to other people. My mom is making her way through her second one, which may be why I cant find all of mine. I only have two about the subject matter at hand. Jesus before the gospels and Misinterpreting Jesus. I have also read Triumph of Christianity and The one about Heaven and Hell. He covers a lot of ground diligently and honestly. He is clear when venturing his own hypothesis, which is great considering the layman aspect of the books. 

My viewpoint differs in other ways as well, so perhaps it is hard to have any empathy for my view without the complete adjustment in perspective. (I believe these comments are supported by the archaeology and the literature from the period) 1) The Torah is a mix of Hellenic and Aramaic influences, spawning a sort of nationalistic Judeanism out of Arameans following Yahweh ( nothing uncovered so far suggests anyone in the ancient world followed a Torah, excepting possibly the Essenes, but then their “following” was very… creative). 2a) Judeans were eager to convert, first to gain land area under the Maccabees (mass conversions were requirements for surrender) 2b)Then after gaining favor under Caesar, The temple would draw caravans of treasures from the wealthiest Roman cities to the temple in Jerusalem. (as criticized by Greek observers). 3) The very decorative synagogues were the town halls for Judeans, proselytes, and god fearers (as named in records of donors to a synagogue), so the community was much larger than any ethnic community diaspora. 4) Judeans were constantly getting kicked out of Rome. Why kick an ethnicity out of a city? Perhaps so the money went to the Rome temples instead of the one in Jerusalem. Perhaps because some converts stopped worshiping Roman gods. But it seems likely to me that this is part of the larger story of encouraged conversion. 

So while Bart Erhman notes the difference in the monotheisms Judaism and Christianity that Judaism was more inward focused and not expansive, I think the archeological and historical record bears out a different story. The ideas that Judaism was more inward focused is probably the result of the Mishna and the Talmud, written after three massive uprisings and an eventual genocide. Most scholarship looks at the Judean landscape where gMark sets the physical Jesus through the lens of the Mishna. These same scholars cry foul at the use of “oral tradition” in other settings. Even Richard Carrier used the Mishna to make a point about what happened or did not happen during the time period attributed to Jesus. 

So Paul is thoroughly Judean, converting Gentiles and arguing with other Judeans about the Judean Jesus that he has read about in Judean “scriptures (re OT)”. He is preaching in the last days, just before Judeans would be handed the world by Yahweh. Here is a point Ehrman affected me on. In describing how he (Ehrman) believes Paul really believes he saw something, I began to realize Paul may be a bit of a loon. Yet Paul is the thin bit of hope for a historical Jesus! This has stayed with me as I amusingly read about the “sperm bank of David” by Carrier and the “cross of the equinoxes in the sky” by Robert Price. It is completely unnecessary to try to explain away the ideas of a Paul who imagines people, places and things!

This was my investigation after I realized Judean Jesuses were in the OT.