JohanRonnblom wrote:I would say I'm fairly close to Carrier. I'll outline my basic theory, a lot of this is speculation and I'm not at all sure about all the details:
Hi Johan. Well you upfront acknowledge that a lot of your presentation on the origin of Christianity is speculation, so it's not really evidence based which is what historians would generally be looking for.
JohanRonnblom wrote:1. A Jewish, proto-Christian sect in Jerusalem have a belief in a heavenly teacher Jesus/Josua, who is a sort of link or messenger between God and the humans, preparing them for the imminent end of the world.
What historical evidence do you have for this Jewish proto-Christian sect who have a belief in a heavenly teacher Jesus/Joshua? You seem to be following Richard Carrier here. There are fatal objections to his claimed basis for this. Carrier cites Philo and goes from there to Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 6.
But this Joshua is clearly an earthly not celestial high priest who receives a crown from named returnees from the Babylonian captivity.
It would be absurd to posit a parallel sub-lunar world with another Babylon and doppelganger returnees from a parallel celestial captivity. The branch prophesied is not Joshua but one who is to come.
Certainly there is messianic prophecy of the pre-existent son of God such as in Psalm 2 but he is never named in the O.T. as Joshua/Jesus. I think Carrier is often though not always correct when he recognizes O.T. messianic prophecies. Can you provide a single example of a Jewish religious group of the time who did not expect the messiah to come to earth and Israel, but to Carrier's sub-lunar world?
Is there even a single O.T. prophecy you can point to that sugggests the messiah would come to this sub-lunar world to redeem humanity? Is there anyone on record from any Jewish religious group of the time who stated that the messiah would be born in a parallel sub-lunar Bethlehem,to take one example?
http://www.historical-jesus.info/17.html
JohanRonnblom wrote:2. Paul converts to this sect and starts recruiting other non-Jewish adherents. He notices that they are not always receptive to the core ideas, speaking in his letters how new converts must be fed 'milk' before they are ready for 'solid food' (the deeper religious truths). Or in modern language, exoteric and esoteric material.
JohanRonnblom wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
do you agree with him that it was hallucinations or do you have some other theory?
I'm not quite so charitable. I think that known examples of how religions develop show that there is pretty much always an element of deliberate fabrication. Joseph Smith with Mormonism, Mary Baker Eddy of Christian Science and L Ron Hubbard of Scientology I believe are sufficiently documented that we can be pretty sure they were not just innocently repeating some random 'hallucinations'. While hallucinations may well have played a role, I think it must be recognized that to form and lead a sect, a leader must have an understanding of power, how to wield it in order to recruit members, maintain their loyalty and fend off usurpers. Random hallucination will not serve this purpose, a prophet offering that would quickly get outmanoeuvered. So while they no doubt convinced themselves that what they preached was in some higher sense true, I'm fairly certain that on a more day-to-day level they were quite aware that they were making stuff up that they needed politically.
You hedge your bets here between possible hallucinations and cynical making stuff up for political and selfish ends. The obvious question is how could Paul a zealous persecuter of Christianity have suddenly changed his mind and converted to that which he despised and considered a threat to true Judaism and it's traditions. How do you explain this?
But in fact it was not a bed of roses for Paul or the other Christian leaders since Paul had many conflicts and was executed by Nero,James the brother of John was beheaded by Herod, James the brother of Jesus was executed by the Jewish high priest, and John was deported and exiled to the isle of Patmos.
It's hard to see this as L Ron Hubbard style stuff.
As for esoteric stuff there is often a misconception I think about what Paul means when he talks about mysteries. He says that they are now revealed and pretty much spells out what they are for all to see in his letters.
http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/mystery/
JohanRonnblom wrote:3. For Paul it was important that Jesus was fully human, in order to act as a link to the humans. As a Jewish convert, Paul was convinced that the flesh was associated with sin and temptation. Thus, in his theology Jesus had to be crucified by Satan in heaven, and then resurrected, cleansed from these flaws. This may have been inspired by the Egyptian passion plays dealing with the dismemberment and resurrection of Osiris.
I think it would conflict with Paul's theology if he thought that Christ's human nature was a problem. Because if his human nature was inherently sinful he would inevitably sin and since Paul says that the wages of sin is death he would only be receiving the penalty for his own sins in dying. He could not make atonement for the sins of others which is the central teaching of Paul's gospel.
But of course he fulfiiled the law and all righteousness to redeem those under the law as Paul says that this was why he was under the law in Galatians.
Paul doesn't say Jesus was crucified by Satan in heaven. Some interpret I Corinthians about the rulers of this age in this way. Archons means rulers and can be human or spiritual rulers. There is a specific Greek word for demons which is used elsewhere in the N.T. which Paul could have used if he wanted to say this.
The contrast in 1 Corinthans first three chapters is between human and divine wisdom where he speaks of scribes and debaters and the Greeks seeking wisdom but that this was vain in the wisdom of God.
He says that if the rulers of this age had known the wisdom of God they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. The demons certainly knew he was the Lord of glory, but this would not be so obvious to the human rulers since he came incarnate.
We see in the gospels that Satan was involved but I don't think this is Paul's major point in 1 Corinthians.
JohanRonnblom wrote: The Roman-Jewish wars completely disrupt Palestine and the sect in Jerusalem is destroyed or weakened into irrelevance. Only Paul's converts in the diaspora are able to keep the sect going.
You would need to provide evidence that this was so. According to some Christian accounts many Christians managed to flee Jerusalem in recognition of Christ's prophecy that when they would see Jerusalem surrounded by armies they should get out,and apparently many did.
JohanRonnblom wrote:5. As a result of the Roman-Jewish wars, the anti-Semitism first noticeable in the Gospels start appearing, as a way for the Christians to distance themselves from the troublesome Jews. However, for some time Romans generally still recognize them only as a Jewish sect, if they are noticed at all.
Some anti-Semitism does emerge in the second century. I don't think the gospels are anti-Semitic. The O.T. and N.T. books are almost exclusively written by Jews and Jesus was a Jew. Paul in Romans chs 9 to 11 does not evince anti Semitism but to the contrary. Indeed the gospel was to be preached to the Jews first.
JohanRonnblom wrote:. The Gospels are written in the form of religious fables, to be used for recruiting new members. The resurrected heavenly Jesus is not immediately appealing to Greek and Roman converts, who are used to having fleshy gods running around meddling physically with the human world. So they need some of Paul's 'milk' to feed them and get them going with the general idea. In the story, they place Jesus in history just before Paul joined the sect, because his are the earliest records they possess. No one expects thinking people to take these stories about walking on water, burning bushes etc as literal truth.
You seem to be influenced by Carrier with the myths or fables line. The article I linked previously provided a broad response to Carrier's main points. Franky his youtube talk on the gospels as myth is poor in my estimation. He talks about improbabilities and what real people would do etc. He's not very observant of real human behaviour in my opinion,and seems to imagine that humanity consists entirely of clones of Mr Spock.
Much of it is the jaded stock in trade stuff of self styled infidels websites with their improbabilities and supposed contradictions. It may be superficially persuasive but I think if anyone takes the trouble to check the Christian commentators on Biblehub for instance, on many of his supposed improbabilities from the gospels, they will find satisfactory responses.
These are old commentaries and so are Carrier's imagined improbabilties. It depends on your wordview whether you take miraculous accounts seriously or not.
I do agree with him that there is some thematic arrangement of materials in the gospels, but I think he goes well overboard with many of his claimed parallels some of which are quite absurd.
Also the physical resurrection of the body was antithetical to pagan and Greek thought and would not have appealed to them whether on earth or in some other world.
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/2016/04/05/ ... urrection/
JohanRonnblom wrote: Due to the destruction of the Jewish temple, the sect--as all of Judaism--underwent an immense crisis. The response to this was to develop a theology where the crucifixion of Jesus was reinterpreted as a replacement for the temple sacrifice. This was a classic 'sour grapes' manoeuvre: because they had lost their most sacred tradition, they conveniently discovered that they really did not need it anyway.
Carrier and Doherty are not so hasty to cry interpolation or forgery when it comes to the book of Hebrews as they see it as an important plank for their sub-lunar Jesus thesis
But N.T. scholars think it was written before the destruction of the temple as it speaks of it and the sacrificial system as still operating and the Hebrew recipients of the letter were suffering persecution with the temptation to revert to Orthodox Judaism as a way out.
But it's Hebrews pre-eminently that elucidates the superiority of Christ's sacrifice and this while the temple was still operating under the Levitical system.
The sacrifices too had to consist of lambs and other animals without blemish typifying the purity necessary and there is no suggestion that Christ had to be crucified to deal with any problem relating to his human nature being defective in purity. Hebrews says he was tempted yet without sin.
I could go on I suppose but you don't claim that what you say is not including a lot of speculation, so that's honest at least. As a matter of interest where do you get the idea of a parallel sub-lunar world populated by humans,cats,dogs plants etc? It's certainly no part of mainstream Judaism or Christianity and their canons of books. Carrier tends to trawl through pseudepigraphical and apocryphal writings for a lot of his stuff.
He talks about fake gospels and letters but then uses obviously fake stuff for many of his arguments. Fakes of course imply that something authentic is being faked.
I also don't see that Paul was enthusiatic for syncretizing pagan religions with Christianity. How anyone could actually read Paul's letters and think this, is baffling. Likewise the early Christians under threat and infliction of torture and death,refused to worship the image of Caesar as god, so historically speaking there is a lot of nonsense being peddled about pagan syncretism and early Christianity.
I don't see that Acts is somehow a different genre to Luke's gospel but it transitions pretty seamlessly and reads to me like a clear continuation from the gospel narrative continuing the account from Christ's resurrection and ascension to the outworking of their commission by him to preach the gospel beginning at Jerusalem and Judea and eventually to the Gentiles. Or that Acts fits Carrier's travesty of it.
http://www.reknew.org/2007/12/13/is-the ... s-reliable
Again I think Carrier is wrong and moulding the facts to fit his thesis. There are various kinds of mythicism and Carrier is critical of the astro-theological version epitomised in the movie Zeitgeist. It has problems too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azE5baeWTMk