It’s only slightly persuasive to condense most the OT Jesuses and the NT Jesuses into 300 BCE – 200 AD timeframe. I think my general idea stands unscathed if we stretch out Joshua and Elisha to 700 to 600 BCE.
My only objection to that is my protoJesus, Tammuz, is still being worshipped in the Temple in Jerusalem in Ezekiel. Bit if I let go of Tammuz the time span does not matter.
Robert said
I was only speaking of your crazy idea that the Hebrew Torah was a later translation from the LXX. I can only hold one of your crazy ideas in my head at a given time.
Lol.
Mostly it’s one big idea. Misunderstood fiction and theologized historiography make up the OT.
A loony letter writer and misunderstood fiction in gMark, along with the three Judean uprisings, create Christianity apart from Judaism.
Misunderstood fiction?
Well at least up to the point where you figured it out, right?
You should compare notes with Steefen. He’s the Flavian Caesar Jesus Conspiracy mythicist in our merry little band of truth seekers. I lean towards the old fashioned ‘Jesus was an alien’ trope. Explains a lot. He probably came to earth in that flying saucer Ezekiel saw in chapter one of his book.
Stephen said
Misunderstood fiction?Well at least up to the point where you figured it out, right?
Its a matter of the right genre, to begin with. The gospel is not historiography like Josephus books. It are not there at all to demonstrate a historical existence. Trying to get the “right” history (militant?, preacher?) out of it is futile.
Another classification that helps is mystery cults, where Greeks would form a cult around the beliefs that they were deriving truths from the gods in Homer. The early Jesus cult have some things in common with the Greek mystery cults and should probably be classified as a Greek mystery cult as well – this point is acknowledged by historicists as well.
Its a matter of the right genre, to begin with.
Don’t get too hung up on genre, a modern concern. Many scholars compare the gospels to Greco-Roman biographies, bios, but I think this is misleading. Authors can use the conventions of a genre without sharing the intentions of the genre. Luke I think comes closest to a bios but Mark has other fish to fry.
It are[sic] not there at all to demonstrate a historical existence.
This simply begs the question. (The informal logical fallacy not the pretentious euphemism for ‘raising a question’.) Whether or not the gospels are in any way historical is what we are asking. An assertion is not evidence.
Another classification that helps is mystery cults, where Greeks would form a cult around the beliefs that they were deriving truths from the gods in Homer. The early Jesus cult have some things in common with the Greek mystery cults and should probably be classified as a Greek mystery cult as well – this point is acknowledged by historicists as well.
But for a few exceptions like Eleusis, Mystery Cults were the product of late Antiquity. Their heyday was the Fourth century. They were as influenced by Christianity as they were influences. They were syncretic and exclusive, just the opposite of Christianity, which was purist and evangelistic. Mystery cults died out for the same reason the Gnostics did; because of their secrets they were always only a couple funerals away from obliteration.
Paul claims that he is only feeding his listeners milk, because they are babes. As a youth that makes perfect sense because it takes a while to learn all the minutia.
As an adult, with an atheist view looking back at my childhood, those words sound like indoctrination into a cult, where the higher levels are fed the “solid food.” That sounds like maybe we have no idea what the “meat” of Paul’s beliefs are. Maybe reciting Enoch would make him sound like a “fool for Christ.” In this way I would compare Paul’s Christianity to a mystery cult, but perhaps not Mark’s.
I have heard that potluck dinners and baptisms are also found in mystery cults, but I don’t know if those were before or after Christianity took off. Clearly Essenes washed with particular care but I dont know if they baptized per se.
The heyday does not mitigate the potential to imiatate other, earlier mysteries.
“It is not there at all to demonstrate a historical existence.”
Luke does come closest. While he does not cite sources, he claims to know of sources. So we see an example of biography, or close to it. As you say, Mark has other purposes for writing. As a mythicist, I see him modernizing Elisha to tell what has led to 70 AD’s destructive events. As a historicist, what would you say Mark’s purposes were for writing as he did? What type of book was it if not an ancient biography? Why hide what the real messiah said with stories of Elisha?
As a historicist, what would you say Mark’s purposes were for writing as he did? What type of book was it if not an ancient biography? Why hide what the real messiah said with stories of Elisha?
Ok we start by acknowledging that we have no access to the motivations of these ancient authors. I would say that any interpretation that rests on assuming we can know their motivations is a non-starter. We are forced then to take these ancient writings at more or less face value. For example, it is possible Paul was a second century forger who created the letters whole cloth. But how likely is that? What we find when we carefully examine the “Pauline” letters is that there are seven that share a similar writing style and consistent theology and reflect a milieu consistent with what we would expect from mid-first century. Then we are presented with other letters that claim to be written by the first writer but have different writing styles, theologies that seem to be developed from the first writer but not identical to the first writer, and reflect a milieu that is closer to late first century or even early second century. Critical scholars ask themselves, what is the simplest explanation that accounts for this data? That explanation is that the first writer, Paul, is authentic, and the other letters are forgeries based on the renown in the gentile Christian community of Paul and his ministry. Supporting this hypothesis is that we have another source, the Book of Acts, that tells stories about the figure of Paul while apparently not being aware of Paul’s letters.
This situation also obtains with the Gospel of Mark. All we can realistically discuss are the ways the stories seem to work in the narrative. I will not discuss Mark’s “motivations” but what I think we can glean from the text. I’m willing to defend every point but I don’t have space in this post obviously so I’ll give you the short version. I think the Gospel of Mark was written for the internal use of a community that had undergone some kind of trauma in recent memory. I am a historicist as you say although I think few of the details of the narrative are historical. Mark does have a historical consciousness. (See Mark 1:14-15.) Also there is a discernable tension between the depictions of Jesus’ message in the narrative, something you really wouldn’t expect if somebody was making it up but fully consistent with the view that the religion of the historical Jesus became a religion about Jesus after his death. So far so good. My only historical opinion that gets serious pushback is that Jesus was probably arrested by the Temple guards immediately** during the “incident” in the Temple and turned over to the Romans. The trial stories make good theater but are unlikely. (I waffle on whether Judas was historical or not.)
Mark is an act of literature. Not simply reportage. Jesus is a lot of things but he is foremost a character in a book. (Don’t think me inconsistent. None of what I’m about to say is inconsistent with Jesus being a historical figure. Precisely the opposite. It’s just that much of NT historical textual analysis is like trying to see the back of the Mona Lisa’s head. It becomes wearisome after a while.) Over the last few years I’ve been reading a lot of what’s called Narrative Theology, basically literary criticism of the Bible. What’s the story about and how can it speak to us? See ** you do not have permission to see this link ** for a recent work.
I know, I said the short version but I’ve become more and more convinced of Mark’s creativity. Not I hasten to add that he just made stuff up willy-nilly, but the way he forms his stories. Sure he used the Septuagint but that doesn’t mean he just lifted it whole cloth. (I am not convinced by the Homer thing.) Mark is the real genius of the NT. I confess that Paul has begun to bore me but I never get tired of Mark.
**get it? get it?
Stephen said
Misunderstood fiction?Well at least up to the point where you figured it out, right?
None of these arguments are new. Trying to divest oneself of having to find meaning in the Bible is the toughest part. Its ok to find meaning in the Bible just as one might agree with parts of Harry Potter, but fiction is fiction.
Even the ancients knew something was up. Early Jews figured either the Bible copied Greeks or the Greeks copied the Bible. Is it the Maccabees where a letter is sent saying the Spartans are distant cousins through Abraham? I am just looking at this from a different (probably correct 😛 ) angle than most are. I encourage all to show me where I am wrong. It takes me a while to admit it, but it will eventually sink in.
“Also there is a discernable tension between the depictions of Jesus’ message in the narrative, something you really wouldn’t expect if somebody was making it up but fully consistent with the view that the religion of the historical Jesus became a religion about Jesus after his death. “
IDK. Discernible tension in statements by the savior is right in line if we are combining all the saviors and crucifying them. Its part of the frustration of gMark’s turbulent times in 69-70 AD. If I thought gMark was made up whole cloth or if I thought the author was trying to lecture us on the right thing to do, I would agree. Futility seems to be key really. He crucifies the savior, after all. And then, despite all the worldly powers coming together, the savior has risen, once again underlying a bit of futility.
Otherwise I think I agree with most of what you said. I really like Judas being an OG. Jesus accepts the oil treatment on his hair instead of selling the oil to care for widows (inverted from Elisha’s expansion of oil so the widow can pay her bills). Judas is stunned by this reversal of Jesus’ character and turns him in because Jesus betrayed him first. Its a wonderful reversal of the Judean Jesus by Mark. The instant his Jesus stops prioritizing the widows and the poor, Judas turns him in.
While I probably brought that up to show Judean Jesus is a motif used with regularity by Hellenized Aramaics we can call Judeans from 300 BCE to 200 CE, the rest of the argument still stands if we use the more common format, where the Dtr. Hist is written centuries earlier and Jesus son of YHWH the righteous written about in the Persian period.
The point of this post is that we can get a mythicist Jesus Christ from purely Judean sources.
I’ll look in the Hebrew Bible forum and answer it there (eventually, but ASAP.)
Just a tidbit for the Elisha Jesus fans. I found it fascinating that in the midst of Elisha’s adventures is the Mesha story, where the Moabite king Mesha sacrifices his firstborn son to (presumably) his god Chemosh. The tide of the war turns and the Israelites, Judahites and Edomites retreat. So the sacrifice of the firstborn son by the king is something anyone using Elisha as a source for a more modern updated Jesus Christ would be familiar with.
It turns out that the Mesha story is part of a larger theme, fictional or otherwise, dating from Ugaritic tablets to Roman authors writing about a siege of Tyre. The act of the sieged sacrificing his son in plain view would have an effect on those laying siege, leading them to leave off the siege. So then, when was the gospel of Mark thought by many to be written? During the Roman siege of Jerusalem!
** you do not have permission to see this link **
So then, when was the gospel of Mark thought by many to be written? During the Roman siege of Jerusalem!
In which case it didn’t work. Another indicator of the historicity of the crucifixion. (Folks seldom make up their own failures. They rationalize them into successes. Wait a minute…) If the Romans had withdrawn their troops from Jerusalem then you would know it was all made up.
Yes, its not a tidy fit at all. Certainly not a copy and paste, but neither is much of it. Actually, since Jesus is written by Mark to be the son of God, its God sacrificing his son to keep the demonic rulers of the age at bay, not necessarily the Romans. Since there seemed to be this duality.
The biggest problem I saw with introducing this tidbit as a possible influence was Paul preceding Mark. Why would Paul need a crucifiction? What was being besieged? Who was being besieged?
Robert said
FocusMyView said
The biggest problem I saw with introducing this tidbit as a possible influence was Paul preceding Mark. Why would Paul need a crucifiction? What was being besieged? Who was being besieged?
Because it actually happened and the earliest followers and Paul needed to make sense of it. It is the simplest historical explanation.
I gave up with this guy. He doesn’t care about real historical research. Hence why he would rather listen to random websites than real scholars.
Robert said
FocusMyView said
The biggest problem I saw with introducing this tidbit as a possible influence was Paul preceding Mark. Why would Paul need a crucifiction? What was being besieged? Who was being besieged?
Because it actually happened and the earliest followers and Paul needed to make sense of it. It is the simplest historical explanation.
I always thought the same until I realize that the Jesus myth was much older than Paul or the gospels. Possibly centuries earlier. Its not just that other “Jesuses” were written about either, not just random people with the same name. It is the raising of the dead, curing the leprosy of a foreign invader, pouring of the oil, the sarcasm on the call to serve, the 3 times denial on the death of a master, the healing of the blind, the ability to see thousands of angels, the facing of Satan, clothed in rags, the potter’s field for 30 shekels, the being the son of YHWH the Righteous or the son of Nunn, crossing the river on dry land, and of course a child sacrificed by his father to end the siege of a city. All amazingly relevant to the story of Jesus Christ written by Mark.
Besides, what simple explanation is there for the historical silence on Jesus and/or the movement?
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