The Missing Man

[melodious]

I'm sure it has been hashed out dozens of times on other threads, but I would like to "resurrect" the topic once again with a helpful outline as an introduction. Here I shall present an excerpt of the conclusive points out of chapter 7, "The Missing Man" from Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's erudite thesis entitled "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the 'Original Jesus' a Pagan God?":-s

It is my belief that if you can prove that Jesus is not a historical person, you pretty well have the fundamentalist/literalist carnalizing, fetishizing, feverish Christians by the ... you get the picture.

Like countless scholars who have made this quest before us, we have found that looking for a historical Jesus is futile. It is astonishing that we have no substantial evidence for the historical existence of a man who is said to have been the one and only incarnation of God throughout all history. But the fact is we do not. So, what have we got?

• > A few mentions of "Christians" and followers of someone called Crestus among all the extensive histories of the Romans
  
  > Some fake passages in Josephus among all the substantial histories of the Jews
  
  > A handful of passages from among the vast literature of the Talmud, which tell us that a man called Yeshu existed and had five disciples called "Mattai, Nakkia, Netzer, Buni, and Toadah"
  
  > Four anonymous gospels that do not even agree on the facts of Jesus' birth and death
  
  > A gospel attributed to Mark written somewhere between 70 and 135 CE, which is not even meant to be an eyewitness account and certainly isn't from its ignorance of Palestinian geography and the fact that it misquotes Hebrew scripture
  
  > Gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke, which are independently based on Mark and give entirely contradictory genealogies
  
  > A gospel attributed to John, which was written some time after the other three and certainly not by the disciple John
  
  > The names of 12 disciples for whom there is no historical evidence
  
  > The Acts of the Apostles, which reads like a fantasy novel, misquotes the Hebrew Old Testament, contradicts Paul's letters, and was not written until the second half of the second century
  
  > A selection of forged letters attributed to Peter, James, John, and Paul
  
  > A few genuine letters by Paul, which do not speak of a historical Jesus at all, but only of a mystical dying and resurrecting Christ
  
  > A lot of evidence which suggests that the New Testament is not a history of actual events, but a history of the evolution of Christian mythology

Maybe (if we realy want to believe it), something of this could (perhaps) be evidence of a historical Jesus. This cannot be ruled out. But the evidence that suggests that Jesus is a mythical figure is so compelling that we will need something far more substantial than any of this to undermine it.
- Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy from The Jesus Mysteries

Question for debate: Is Jesus a historical person or is he a mythical figure of a dying and resurrecting godman like Dionysus, Osiris/Horus, Attis, Serapis, Tammuz, Krishna, Prometheus, Mithra, etc.?

[Goat]

Yes, it is. It is a collection of text, many of which are based on others, so they are not independent.

You say "many", I say "some", but neither of us is saying "all". Can you show that Paul’s (authentic) letters are "based on" any other NT books? You can’t. They’re not like the synoptics. In the example that I’ve given (which you have so far scrupulously avoided) it doesn’t even matter if Acts is "based on" Paul or not; the author of Acts had to write a cleaned up version of the embarrassing history that Paul gives, and no one bothered to alter Paul’s original story.

Can you show that Paul's information is independent? Like I said, it all comes down to Paul's letters, (much edited and some forgeries).

Can you eliminate the Gabriel revelation story as a source for Paul's conceptions?

Can you show that it's anything but Paul's imagination?

I mean, speculation is all fine and dandy, but you need something more substantial that speculation.

[Lotan]

Can you show that Paul's information is independent?

That depends what you mean by "independent". Paul didn’t live in a bubble. It would be very strange if he didn’t receive information from others…

None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him," 1 Cor. 2.8-9

We might ask "as it is written" where? Not the LXX, as we might suppose.
J.M. Robinson (as well as Helmut Koester and others) argue that it is from the Q source, and ultimately, Jesus himself. Their argument is supported somewhat by this?

Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind." Thom 17

And…

"Fortunately, quite a bit of textual material from the Christ cult is available to us from the letters of Paul. That may seem strange, given the fact that the letters are clearly Paul’s own compositions. But the happy circumstance is that Paul incorporated in his letters, not only the ideas he had gotten from these Christians, but also fragments from their literary production. These fragments of literary composition cannot be pieced together to give us a single, larger composition of any kind, so we have no composite text from these early communities. But the small units that have been preserved share a tenor and manifest other literary features such as poetic conventions that make of them a coherent set. This set of poetic fragment gives us enough information to paint a most interesting picture of the people Paul hated but couldn’t resist. Because these people were the ones who first used the term Christ when referring to Jesus, we may think of them as the first Christians.
To isolate these fragments from the letters of Paul, one must pay close attention to Paul’s own ideas and distinctive use of language. When a small unit of composition occurs in one of his letters that varies from Paul’s customary ways of expressing himself, a closer look at the smaller textual unit is necessary. Especially in those cases where the smaller unit resembles poetry in keeping with the ancient rules of composition, the suspicion can hardly be avoided that Paul engaged in a bit of creative borrowing to make his points. By using ,material familiar to these congregations, even while reshaping it for his own purposes, Paul was performing as an accomplished rhetor. That would not have been unusual for the times. As a matter of fact, using traditional material in a speech or treatise without crediting the source was customary practice for Greco-Roman authors. How to do it was taught in school, and doing it well brought high honors. Thus it has been possible to identify and collect a sizable number of small literary units that reflect the views and literary accomplishments of the Christian congregations with whom Paul was in conversation." - Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote The New Testament?, pp. 76-77

�CHRISTOS,� the Greek translation of the Hebrew meschiach or�messiah� (“anointed�), is Christianity’s designation of choice for Jesus. The word is so firmly established in the tradition so early on that, by the time we have Paul’s letters, “Christ� functions most simply as Jesus’ name. In other words, the understanding of Jesus as Messiah did not originate with Paul, but was inherited by him. - Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews, pg. 119

"Paul inherited a number of specifically Christian traditions, such as liturgical acclamation and confessions (1 Cor. 12:3; Phil 2:11; Rom. 10:8-9), creedal formulations (1 Cor. 15:3-5; Rom. 1:3-4; 3:24-26; 4:24-25; 1 Thes. 1:9-10?; 2 Tim. 2:8; cf. Rom. 6:17) and hymns (Phil. 2:6-11; Eph. 5:14; Col. 1:15-20). Paul's moral teaching or paraenesis (as found in, e.g., Rom. 12:1-15:13; Gal. 5:1-6:10; 1 Thess. 4:1-5:22; Col. 3:1-4:6) contains traditions from several sources, including Cynic and Stoic moralists, Jewish halakah, and dominical teachings, but most likely also reflects early Christian catechetical material. The authority of the Spirit within himself and other Christians (1 Cor. 2:13-13; 14:31, 37) offered yet another source of traditions. Prophecies were tested, apparently by their coherence with fundamental traditions received from Jesus, the OT and the prior witness of the Spirit in the Christian community (1 Thess. 5:20-21; 1 Cor. 14:29)." - M.B. Thompson, 'Tradition,' in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, pg. 944

"Intensive work on the question of pre-Pauline formulae was carried out in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the substantive findings of these studies still stand. Several variations of formulae which presumably served as summaries or even liturgical responses can be detected simply by the regularity of their form and the frequency with which they are repeated." - James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, pg. 174

"Paul insisted that he received his gospel and other revelations from God (Galatians 1:11-12, 15-17; 2:2; 2 Corinthians 12:1-7), but the content of his faith did not differ essentially from the faith of those who were Christians before him. After his conversion he preached the faith he once sought to destroy (Galatians 1:23; cf. Galatians 2:6, 9; 1 Corinthians 15:11). His emphasis on divine revelation in Galatians came in response to those who insisted on requiring Gentile Christian converts to keep Jewish traditions (circumcision, food laws, etc.). Writing to those who esteemed revelations, Paul reminded the Corinthians of the traditions he had passed on to them (1 Corinthians 11:23; 15:3-11). He believed that he Spirit of the risen Lord spoke through Christian traditions, including his own teachings. Paul admonished his readers to hold fast the traditions they had received from him (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6) and he commended his readers for doing so (1 Corinthians 11:2; cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:1; Col. 2:6-7)." - M.B. Thompson, 'Tradition,' in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, pg. 944

Paul himself even admits that his gospel (supposedly received through revelation) is the same as that of his predecessors…

I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, 'He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.' Gal. 1:22-23

…and also his contemporaries…

Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we preach and so you believed.1Cor. 15:11

…and that the ultimate source of the gospel they share was Jesus himself?

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, 3 will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. 1Thess. 4:15 (Compare with Mark 9:1, Matt 16:27-28, Luke 9:26-27)

…so we must conclude that either Paul was merely talking big, or that he really did receive a revelation from God that essentially matched the gospel message of so many others!

"According to the Pauline letters, there were many other apostles/preachers (1Co1:12,9:2-5; 2Co11:5,13,23a,12:11; Php1:14-17; Gal1:6-7), some "in Christ" before Paul (Gal1:17; Ro16:7), some preaching different 'Jesus' (2Co11:4), and all of them Jew (2Co11:22-23a)" from here.

Like I said, it all comes down to Paul's letters, (much edited and some forgeries).

This may be what you said, but as I said earlier Paul’s letters are our least problematic source of information about Jesus. I didn’t say that they are the only source. There are also gospels, like Thomas or Mark, that are independent of Paul, and of each other.

If, by "forgeries" you are referring to letters not written by Paul, but attributed to him, then these aren’t relevant as a source of evidence for the HJ, except that they point to the reality of Paul’s existence. As for the charge that those letters considered to be authentically Pauline were "much edited" please provide evidence for this assertion.

Can you eliminate the Gabriel revelation story as a source for Paul's conceptions?

No more than I can eliminate super intelligent, time-traveling unicorns. What's your point?

Can you show that it's anything but Paul's imagination?

Can you show that we're not living in the matrix? Paul didn’t invent Jesus if that’s what you mean.

I mean, speculation is all fine and dandy, but you need something more substantial that speculation.

Are you kidding me? The irony is almost too much to bear!

[Goat]

[This may be what you said, but as I said earlier Paul’s letters are our least problematic source of information about Jesus. I didn’t say that they are the only source. There are also gospels, like Thomas or Mark, that are independent of Paul, and of each other.

When you look at the Gospels of Thomas and Mark, there is so much mysticsm there I don't see how you can extract a jesus existing at all. Nor can you show them independent of Paul, since they were several decades after Paul

It comes down to Paul.. it comes down to 'how do we verify the letters of Paul, and all your sources point to the letters of Paul as self verification.

This is known as 'circular logic'. Not very convincing.

[melodious]

[This may be what you said, but as I said earlier Paul’s letters are our least problematic source of information about Jesus. I didn’t say that they are the only source. There are also gospels, like Thomas or Mark, that are independent of Paul, and of each other.

When you look at the Gospels of Thomas and Mark, there is so much mysticsm there I don't see how you can extract a jesus existing at all. Nor can you show them independent of Paul, since they were several decades after Paul

It comes down to Paul.. it comes down to 'how do we verify the letters of Paul, and all your sources point to the letters of Paul as self verification.

This is known as 'circular logic'. Not very convincing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Gnositc Christians did not believe in a historical Jesus Christ. Therefore, citing Gnostic gospels as evidence for historical Jesus is erroneous. This is proven by the heresy hunters who mention the Gnostics' heresy of not believing in a "Christ of flesh and blood." So the Gnostic gospels would actually be evidence against historical Jesus and for mythical Jesus. This obviously is still an oversight of Lotan's.

However, when you have received the gift of gnosis, you need not any evidence on either side to know the truth of the Christ. Amen.

In the spirit if truth - M

[Morghana]

I find the idea of an historical Jesus about as far-fetched as, say, Santa Claus and his spritely elves... but for some reason, just as the heart and mind of a people can be captured by a hero in a screenplay (Superman...Batman... etc), so goes the story of Jesus and his die-hard fans.

I mean, here's a classic story of a martyr-for-a-cause conceived of a virgin, who has an oh-so-clever adversary, starts with a small fan base of twelve, heals all woes and loves kids. Who couldn't love him? And yet... what about all the others?

It certainly wasn't the first story of it's kind in human history, and hasn't been the last. So why Jesus? What is the fixation on this guy? What makes this story so much more believable than the ones preceding it?

I say humankind fell victim to the Jesus media centuries ago, and like other media myths taken as truth, for many, it's simply too hard to let it go.

[Lotan]

When you look at the Gospels of Thomas and Mark, there is so much mysticsm there I don't see how you can extract a jesus existing at all.

Of course you don’t. Thomas might be little more than a collection of sayings, but they are presented as the sayings of a real human teacher, to real human disciples. They even have names. Mark, on the other hand, is more biographical and contains details that not only serve no apologetic purpose, but are actually counter to an apologetic purpose, one example being Jesus’ subordination to John the Baptist.

"Mark’s portrayal of Jesus is strikingly different from other, earlier images, whether of the Christ or of Jesus the teacher. His story of Jesus was not a gospel of the Pauline kind, proclaiming an event and interpreting it as a message of justification. His portrait of Jesus was also quite different from those created by small sets of stories about a divine man or an imposing sage as some Jesus people had imagined him. And his portrayal differed from the person behind the voice of a collection of sayings such as Q or the Gospel of Thomas. Mark’s story was what the Greeks would have called a "life" (bios). It was a biography. Just as the Greeks would have done, Mark took the many little sayings and stories of Jesus that were available to him from earlier traditions and used them to create a new image of Jesus." – Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament, pg. 152

Nor can you show them independent of Paul, since they were several decades after Paul

That’s not even logical. Simply because they were written at different times doesn’t mean that the later works are derivative of the earlier ones. Besides a few points of convergence the gospels are dissimilar from Paul and from each other. There are no signs of literary dependence like we find in the synoptics.

It comes down to Paul.. it comes down to 'how do we verify the letters of Paul, and all your sources point to the letters of Paul as self verification.
This is known as 'circular logic'. Not very convincing.

No, it’s known as ‘multiple attestation’. You haven’t shown that these separate sources are derivative at all, you just keep saying that they are. Not very convincing.
................................................

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Gnositc Christians did not believe in a historical Jesus Christ. Therefore, citing Gnostic gospels as evidence for historical Jesus is erroneous. This is proven by the heresy hunters who mention the Gnostics' heresy of not believing in a "Christ of flesh and blood." So the Gnostic gospels would actually be evidence against historical Jesus and for mythical Jesus. This obviously is still an oversight of Lotan's.

Here’s an (allegedly) Gnostic gospel…

These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke…

Sorry, melodious, but simply labeling late gospels Gnostic doesn’t make them true. It just shows that the Gnostics subordinated Jesus' story to express their religious beliefs just like other interpreters before (and after) them. As I mentioned, the question of Jesus’ existence is an historical one, not a religious one.

However, when you have received the gift of gnosis, you need not any evidence on either side to know the truth of the Christ. Amen.

I knew you didn’t need evidence. That’s no surprise. Thanks for the sermon.

.....................................

I find the idea of an historical Jesus about as far-fetched as, say, Santa Claus and his spritely elves...

Hi Morghana, welcome to DC&R.

Your comparison between HJ and Santa misses the mark. The historical Jesus is analogous to the historical St. Nicholas, on whom the Santa myth is based. The magical Jesus Christ is the proper analogy for the magical Santa.

[melodious]

Sorry, melodious, but simply labeling late gospels Gnostic doesn’t make them true.

You see, Lotan, the only knowledge we had for a long time of many of the noncanonical gospels was through the writings of such heresy hunters as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Eusebius. This would include the newly published Gospel of Judas and much of the Nag Hammadi library (which includes Thomas). These gospels were also associated with Christian groups that were considered gnostic and are cited as being heretics in the above mentioned church fathers' writings in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. So not only did Gnostic groups claim them as being part of their own initiatory material, but we have early church fathers' writings that back this up, saying that they were not "orthodox" proper Christian gospels. This is a reasonable amount of evidence to prove that they were Gnostic gospels.

Also, not to mention, if you knew anything about Gnostic dogma you would recognize immediately that such gospels as Thomas, Philip, and Judas are full of Gnostic doctrines and philosophies - the language in Judas is so far from the mainstream that the average Christian today would be bumfuzzled when reading it. These gospels were nothing like Mark, which was an early gospel written to initiate the outer mysteries (this is why the original version of Mark ends with the empty tomb). Notice Thomas begins with the sayings of the "risen savior." This was a gospel to initiate one into the inner mysteries and lead one to gnosis. There is no contest when it comes to these writings being Gnostic in origin.

In the spirit of gnosis - M

[Lotan]

Sorry, melodious, but simply labeling late gospels Gnostic doesn’t make them true.

You see, Lotan...

...This is a reasonable amount of evidence to prove that they were Gnostic gospels.

That’s all very nice, but entirely beside the point. Gnosticism is a religious philosophy that can be applied to just about anything. I was only making an allusion to the fact that there is some scholarly disagreement as to which early Christian writings should be considered 'Gnostic', in part because Gnostic Christianity came in a variety of flavors. The point is that if some 2nd century Gnostics held a docetic view of Jesus, that view was based on their supernatural belief system, not history. The earliest, best sources view Jesus as entirely human.

Also, not to mention, if you knew anything about Gnostic dogma you would recognize immediately that such gospels as Thomas, Philip, and Judas are full of Gnostic doctrines and philosophies...

Who said they weren’t? The gospel of John is "full of Gnostic doctrines and philosophies" too. That doesn’t make it true, either.

Notice Thomas begins with the sayings of the "risen savior."

I never noticed that. Probably because it doesn’t. (Hint; go look it up.)

There is no contest when it comes to these writings being Gnostic in origin.

If you say so. That doesn’t tell us much about Jesus. Gnostic Christian faith claims have no more historical value than those of Pauline Christianity, or any other religious belief system.

[melodious]

Notice Thomas begins with the sayings of the "risen savior."

I never noticed that. Probably because it doesn’t. (Hint; go look it up.)

I apologize about that. You are right, and I don't know why I wrote it as if it were actually written that way - I suppose I had my head up my arse when I wrote that and personally can't believe I did (I'm usually more careful than that). However, the opening phrase of "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke" presupposes the resurrection. Likewise, whenever Jesus appears in the Gnostic Gospels - whether he is called “Jesus,� “Lord� or “Savior� - it is always the risen Jesus who dialogues with his disciples. Such designations as "secret book," "revelation," and "dialogue" in Christian (gnostic) texts connote this. That is what I was referring to above and in my explanation of the different levels of initiation.

No offense, Lotan, but I can tell that you do not have much understanding of the material in question. As a Gnostic Christian it is important to understand the spiritual concepts and esoteric interpretations of the gospels. We do not treat them like a dead body being examined on a laboratory table, though we might "disect" their spiritual meaning. We all debate for a bit of sport here, but take into consideration that debating these type of things in a dry, analytical way leads one's attainment of enlightenment no where, and proving that Jesus was a historical figure does not lead one to Gnosis, or spiritual knowledge, of the "Living Jesus" - it merely leaves one spiritually empty and believing in a cold calculated "fact" of history.

Carry on, though, with you calculations of history, while I engage in a meditation of Cosmic Truth.

In the spirit of gnosis - M

[Goat]

When you look at the Gospels of Thomas and Mark, there is so much mysticsm there I don't see how you can extract a jesus existing at all.

Of course you don’t. Thomas might be little more than a collection of sayings, but they are presented as the sayings of a real human teacher, to real human disciples. They even have names. Mark, on the other hand, is more biographical and contains details that not only serve no apologetic purpose, but are actually counter to an apologetic purpose, one example being Jesus’ subordination to John the Baptist.

"Mark’s portrayal of Jesus is strikingly different from other, earlier images, whether of the Christ or of Jesus the teacher. His story of Jesus was not a gospel of the Pauline kind, proclaiming an event and interpreting it as a message of justification. His portrait of Jesus was also quite different from those created by small sets of stories about a divine man or an imposing sage as some Jesus people had imagined him. And his portrayal differed from the person behind the voice of a collection of sayings such as Q or the Gospel of Thomas. Mark’s story was what the Greeks would have called a "life" (bios). It was a biography. Just as the Greeks would have done, Mark took the many little sayings and stories of Jesus that were available to him from earlier traditions and used them to create a new image of Jesus." – Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament, pg. 152

Nor can you show them independent of Paul, since they were several decades after Paul

That’s not even logical. Simply because they were written at different times doesn’t mean that the later works are derivative of the earlier ones. Besides a few points of convergence the gospels are dissimilar from Paul and from each other. There are no signs of literary dependence like we find in the synoptics.

It comes down to Paul.. it comes down to 'how do we verify the letters of Paul, and all your sources point to the letters of Paul as self verification.
This is known as 'circular logic'. Not very convincing.

No, it’s known as ‘multiple attestation’. You haven’t shown that these separate sources are derivative at all, you just keep saying that they are. Not very convincing.
................................................

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Gnositc Christians did not believe in a historical Jesus Christ. Therefore, citing Gnostic gospels as evidence for historical Jesus is erroneous. This is proven by the heresy hunters who mention the Gnostics' heresy of not believing in a "Christ of flesh and blood." So the Gnostic gospels would actually be evidence against historical Jesus and for mythical Jesus. This obviously is still an oversight of Lotan's.

Here’s an (allegedly) Gnostic gospel…

These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke…

Sorry, melodious, but simply labeling late gospels Gnostic doesn’t make them true. It just shows that the Gnostics subordinated Jesus' story to express their religious beliefs just like other interpreters before (and after) them. As I mentioned, the question of Jesus’ existence is an historical one, not a religious one.

However, when you have received the gift of gnosis, you need not any evidence on either side to know the truth of the Christ. Amen.

I knew you didn’t need evidence. That’s no surprise. Thanks for the sermon.

.....................................

I find the idea of an historical Jesus about as far-fetched as, say, Santa Claus and his spritely elves...

Hi Morghana, welcome to DC&R.

Your comparison between HJ and Santa misses the mark. The historical Jesus is analogous to the historical St. Nicholas, on whom the Santa myth is based. The magical Jesus Christ is the proper analogy for the magical Santa.

Well, yes, mark does have some biographical stories.. but that is what it is. Stories.

Here you have a book written by someone who never was in Jerusalem, written 20 to 30 years after the letters of Paul , that added on a lot of details, but has a lot of impossible things going on too. Have you noticed one detail. The farther away in time from the event, the more details get added? Classic development of a myth.

While there MIGHT have been a historical Jesus, pointing to any of the Gospels, or the letters of Paul does not make that case. Lots of stories, but no convergence of evidence.'