Stephen, you’re almost there.
I’ve never been to Atlanta – it must be a fairly decent place to live, no?
Living abroad can be a pleasure, but it also can be a pain – lots of things one has to get used to. However, if you’re fairly adaptable, it’s not such a problem. The thing is to find the right place for you.
Robert I manage a team of software programmers and testers. (I have attained that awesome position where I don’t do any actual work. I go to meetings. That’s less of a joke than it might seem.) I originally went to the Wash DC area because that’s where the money was. (And it turned out to be a great place to live.) The company I work for has lots of government related contracts with agencies whose names are acronyms you would recognize, some of which I can discuss and some not. I’m currently in Georgia assisting in the set up of a new facility.
I’m not sure that has anything to do with my ability to find time to read. I have time to read because I don’t watch TV. What happened is that the little portable TV I owned chose to die a couple of weeks before I moved. In all the fuss of the move I just never replaced it. And never missed it. I’m told that the average person in the US watches 6 – 8 hours of TV every day. Jesus! Doesn’t that go a long way to explain the current state of our culture and politics? I’m not saying everyone must choose but I did and I’ve never regretted it. I have loved ones and family and am no monk or hermit. It comes down to how we choose to spend our fleeting time on this earth.
Robert, congrats on your upcoming retirement. Good luck. Hope to continue to see you around on this forum, but some people get so busy when they retire, so we’ll see.
I skimmed the book a while back. I was of course very pleased. She is not a mythicist, but is hanging on by a thread, imho. Her only excuse for believing Jesus is historical seems to be her, ironically, reading into Paul. Setting James the brother aside for a moment, there is no reason to think Paul knew people who actually walked and talked with a physical Jesus. This is read into Paul’s letters because people read about Jesus and his disciples first, then read Paul. But the chronology of authorship, as you all well know, is reversed. Paul wrote first, and Walsh seems to think Mark knew of Paul’s letters (I am undecided).
So if a person can step into a mythicist’s shoes for one moment, you see that Paul does reference real people who saw visions of Jesus and were leaders of the ekklesia of the Lord. Later, Mark seems to mock these same leaders, making them illiterate fishermen is his narrative.
As far as “Jewish: wriitng techniques, these are, if I am not mistaken, no more well attested than MacDonald’s 6 criteria of Mimesis. What I mean to say is that modern people have, through careful analysis, charted how the ancients wrote. AFAIK, MacDonald does not get his techniques copying them from Aristotle, but by interpreting Aristotle’s and other’s descriptions of Greek writing.
In any case, I have applied MacDonald’s 6 criteria to the Elijah-Elisha narrative reworking of the exodus-conquest narrative to great success. I have been bluntly told that Hebrew authors did not write like that, and was directed to address the texts using tools gleaned from rabbinic writings. (Gmirken, though responded with excitment that Elijah and Elisha were Greek heroes through and through.)
At any rate, I think if she would simply re evaluate her position on Paul knowing people who walked and talked with Jesus, historicity of Jesus would disappear for her as well.
“14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews,” NRSVCE
How does this support historicity of a physical Jesus?
Also, 1 Corinthians 15 is a passage that is commonly held to show the reason for Paul’s jealousy is that others walked and talked with Jesus. The passage indicates no such idea. Instead, Jesus “appeared” to each and every one of them, and does this after his death, just like Paul. Paul is least because, and he tells us this directly, he persecuted the ekklesia of God. Also he was the last to be appeared to.
“3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
Walsh, in her interviews, is also very particular with the word ekklesia, questioning what it is, so I am just trying to be consistent in questioning why she thinks Jesus is a historical figure. She has a quick, one minute YT video that people enjoy playing when I admit I am a mythicist, saying how Paul knew all these people so Jesus must be historical.
Then the question for me is in how to interpret the phrases:
“the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea”
;and
“for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews”
“the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out”
“oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles so that they may be saved.”
(This feels awkward, as if I am channeling Jordan Peterson. But I think that I have a solid basis for doing so.)
What we are examining here is what the nature of Christianity was pre-gospels. Christianity was a part of Judaism, and it had a variety of Judean beliefs that were debated for centuries within Judaism before and after Paul. The ‘Jesus movement” must have been so internal to the inner workings of Judaism that Josephus did not even recognize it as a division in Judaism nor a separate group split from Judaism.
This all goes back to legends about a leader of the return from exile, Jesus son of Jehozadak. He reestablishes the cult in Judea, but either he or his descendants go astray, espousing ideas like intermarriage with the people of the land, trading on the Sabbath, and allowing gentiles into the temple areas. (Ezra 10, Nehemiah 13)
In a broad sense, the exploits of this Jesus are overwritten, and the descendants of Jesus stripped of power as high priests by Ezra (a fiction who steals the genealogy of Jehozadak) and Nehemiah, who may be based on a real person. But notice the story of rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls inverts the destruction of Jerusalem by Jesus son of Nun, so it makes sense that this portion was originally attributed to Jesus son of Jehozadak, set up as a sort of second coming of Jesus son of Nun.
At any rate, it is this class of Jews, who historically have opposed Jesus’s new, more cosmopolitan, way of thinking about gentiles who have caused the suffering of the peoples of God in Christ Jesus. It is also the type of Jews who ‘drove us out.’
to be continued…
“15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets,”
Lets start with a problem here. Who are the prophets that are killed by the Jews? Certainly in 1 Chronicles one is killed. Several are threatened with death, such as Elijah and Elisha at different times. John the Baptist is called a prophet in the gospels, but no other NT literature mentions him, so its not clear he is known outside certain circles. Jesus, in the gospels, claims that the Jews killed the prophets in the past.
In Matthew 23:35
“so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”
so we are clearly allowed to include Abel as a prophet, there is not telling exactly who would have been included in that number. And here somehow Jesus is blaming the Jews (or a certain type of Jew) for the death of Abel!
So this concept seemed to be a common way of attacking those who disagreed with the Jesus movement. I am not sure what to call the outlandish claim except hyperbole.
Who killed the Lord Jesus, if not the Jews clamoring for his crucifixion as portrayed in the gospels. What Jesus was killed by the Jews?
Here I should point out that this set of verses, at first glance, by themselves, make more sense as being about a Jesus as portrayed by the gospels. However, since gospel Jesus, from his beliefs, his apocalyptic message, and his crucifixion are all better explained by prior prophet-Jesus narratives already in existence long before the gospels, then gospel Jesus is best explained as fiction. And so I am left to deal with this set of phrases in Paul in terms of the prophet-Jesus legacy found in the ‘scriptures.’
continued…
Who killed the Lord Jesus
If pre-gospel Jesus is based on the scriptures, then the two people named Jesus in the LXX is a great place to start. I believe that Mark in choosing his sources, points the reader the source of the Jesus movement. That source is Zechariah. Zechariah 1-8 is about reestablishing the cult in Jerusalem, and Jesus son of Jehozadak, the high priest, is the star. He is crowned high priest in a ceremony that mirrors the bringing out of Coniah from prison on the 25th day of the 12th month (in Jeremiah, 2 Kings has a different date). In this ceremony, all the sins of Israel are washed away. Later, Jesus is crowned again, this time as a ruler/governor, though the crown is put away for safe keeping.
So what does this have to do with killing the Lord Jesus?
Zechariah 9-14 reworks several concepts from the court tales of David, as it prophecies about a supposed future event (I think more likely the sacking of Jerusalem by Ptolemy i). Ideas such as the withering hand of Jeroboam, and the split of Israel and Judah under Jeroboam, make there way into Zechariah 9-14. The rebellion of Absalom is also prominent. The son of David Absalom died hanging in a tree, and was greatly mourned by David, to the point of embarrassing those who fought for David to defeat Absalom. Zechariah 9-14 uses this imagery to convey the pain and suffering of Jerusalem.
The book of Zechariah, especially in 9-14, is very vague about who specifically it is talking about. The reader can be forgiven for thinking that the hero of Zechariah 3, Jesus, is also the tragic hero who was pierced and mourned later in Zechariah. Literally Jesus rises and is exalted, Israel is cleansed of sins, than later he is pierced and mourned. The reader would have to have known the source of Zechariah 9-14, though, since that is where the hero is hung on a tree. It is in conflating the original Jesus hero with the son of David anti-hero that we get the legends of a Jesus who was crucified, rose up and exalted, and the sins of Israel cleansed.
That is part and parcel of how I believe that the myth of Jesus came about. As much as I love finding opportunities to share my gospel, I felt that every bit of what I wrote was the least amount needed to explain my perception of 2 Thessalonians 2. As a matter of fact, dealing with 2 Thessalonians 2 helped me unlock what I believe to be the origins of Christianity as expressed through conflation within Zechariah as well as Mark’s choice of using Zechariah and Zechariah’s choices.
I hope I am not being too rude in assuming you will find this as a lot of hooey trying to work my way around these verses to declare Jesus a myth. I really do understand your POV. I had the same, though less educated, POV myself on historicity. But once you see the literary construct that Jesus of Nazareth is, his historicity cannot be resurrected.
At this point, any ‘evidence’ of a historical Jesus would be like bringing me DNA evidence of teenage Peter Parker fighting crime in 2000’s NYC. I usually ignore the DNA evidence and point to the legacy of fiction about Peter Parker fighting crime from previous decades. However, since I chose to jump into this discussion, I felt I had an obligation to respond.
Speculation of course because not much else is possible after 2000 years or more.
There was a taboo Binitarianism interpretation amongst some of the philosophers out on the streets because of books like Genesis 1:1-2, Exodus 14:15, Exodus 14:19. The Sadducees were against the interpretation, and the Pharisees were not yet persuaded.
As a result Early Christian Literature and the Apostolic fathers inspired by it all focused on solving that theological mystery which concluded for the most part centuries later after the Council of Nicaea and Nicene Creed.
Jesus was not a myth.
…did you you give the order to remove Jackie Robinson’s story from the DoD website?
I hesitate to wax political so all I will say is that it is much too revealing of the state of our culture that we have chosen our current leadership. What we hear about is bad enough but who knows what horrors are even now going on behind the scenes?
Living and working where I do I have known many government workers in multiple agencies over the years. Sure there are time-servers and deadbeats but no more so than in the private sector. I have known many conscientious hardworking feds who provide essential services to the American people, services that our benighted citizenry take for granted and will sorely miss when they are compromised or disappear.
Judith, Happy Easter.
Thomas Brodie learned in his training on the way to becoming a priest in the Catholic church that Moses was a myth. While this may have shaped his Christian beliefs, he was able to believe that God could speak through myths.
This held, afaik, for Brodie’s beliefs as he progressively came to believe the Jesus is a myth and that Paul’s letters were not written by an apostle “Paul.”
If God can speak through the myths of a 7 day creation, or of the flood, why not though a magical being that rises on the third day?
BTW, I do believe in Paul’s 6 or 7 authentic letters being of a Paul, and AFAIK their dating seems secure. I was simply stating the extent to which Brodie went while holding on to his faith.
BDEhrman
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