Greetings Deut.32.B
Thanks for your comments and questions :-)
quote:
Iasion, I'd be curious to hear your views of the Jerusalem church. Specifically, if you view it as fictive, what was the purpose of the elaborative fiction. Conversely, if you view it as historical, would you suggest why the default inference would not be that it evolved around some charismatic cult leader - or, if you accept this as a reasonable inference, why we should not accept Yeshu'a as that leaders name. Thanks.
Well,
I would agree that Acts is mostly mythical,
and that the Twelve probably did not exist.
But, I'd say Paul existed, and almost certainly James and Peter too.
I see the first Jesus as originally inspired by the dying and rising son of god figure, re-interpreted as the Son-Of-God mediator figure - the being that stood between God and Man. I note the prominance of the layered neo-platonic universe model in this period - such as the Hermetic books or the forming Kaballah or the later schemes of the Gnostics.
So, in this sense Iesous Christos was a real being - a spiritual entity who lived on a higher plane, the being one met in an out-of-body experience when initiated into the cult.
I would compare the initiation scene in the Transformations :
"I saw the sun shining at midnight, I stood amongst the gods and worshipped them"
with Paul's experience :
"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise ... and he heard things that cannot told, which man may not utter..."
These are initiatory revelations from an out-of-body experience.
Now compare 1 John :
"That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life 1:2(and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 1:4 And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled. "
This was written by a man who just had a revelatory experince with filled him with great joy that he wanted to share with others - a feeling not un-common in such situations.
So,
I think there was a new religious ideology growing in Paul's time around the related concepts of the Logos (e.g. as being developed by Philo) and the idea of the mediating son-of-God.
The leaders of the forming "Jerusalem church" were those who had ben through the Iesous Christos experience - Paul goes on and on about spiritual matters, rarely mentioning the earthly Jesus, visiting Jerusalem without any interest in Gospel places and events, explicitly claiming to be as good as apostle as James and Peter, and as having "seen" Jesus just as they did - in a vision.
The early Christian writings all show focus on the spiritual risen Christ, with no mention of an earthly Jesus of Nazareth - there is no clear sign even of BELIEF in an earthly Jesus of Nazareth until 2nd century.
The real founder of Christianity was Paul who from his visions, crafted a grand analogy -
Cross = physical body
Christos = immortal soul
Crucixifion = (the limitations of) physical life
Consider how Clement explains it -
' "For the minds of those even who are deemed grave, pleasure makes waxen," according to Plato; since "each pleasure and pain nails to the body the soul" of the man, that does not sever and crucify himself from the passions.
...
For if you would loose, and withdraw, and separate (for this is what the cross means) your soul from the delight and pleasure that is in this life, you will possess it, found and resting in the looked-for hope '
So,
in sum, I see no room for a human leader Jesus - there is no sign of such a person in the early Christian writings. Not Paul, James, Peter, Jude, Acts, Rev, Didakhe, Clement, nor Hebrews shows any clear sign of a human leader Jesus - just beliefs about a spiritual being, the Risen Christ.
Later,
the masterpiece of literature we now call the Gospel of Mark was produced anonymously. It recast the pagan god-man story into a Jewish milieu by crafting the story of Jesus from parts of the Tanakh such as the Elijah cycle (have you read Michael Turton's Commentary on Mark? its a modern online masterpiece.)
Finally,
after two wars, the desctruction of Jerusalem, the razing of the Temple, the dispersal of the Jews and the complete erasing of Judea from the map - a CENTURY after the alleged events - THEN some people started saying Jesus was real.
The argument about a physical/historical Jesus raged for almost a century with Christians arguing AGAINST a physical, historical Jesus -
2 John warns of those who don't "acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh".
Marcion denied Jesus was a real man.
Polycarp mentions those who do not agree Jesus came in the flesh.
Basilides denied Jesus was physical.
Bardesanes denied Jesus was physical.
Minucius Felix, in mid 2nd century, explicitly denies the incarnation and crucifixion are Christian beliefs.
Celsus claimed the Gospels were myths, and that Jesus was a "shadow"
Hegesippus reports sects that did not believe in the resurrection.
Sadducees, doubted the resurrection (according to Tertullian.)
By 3rd century it was all over bar the shouting -
Jesus was historical and physical, on pain of death for dis-belief.
Iasion
™ Version 4.2
