Jesus Mythical and Real?

[Thomas]

Like I said, I’m not looking for agreement, but I’ll admit that I do like it when it happens. I’m glad to see that we have some common ground in what we’re thinking about Paul’s high Christology.

OK, in the same spirit, I don't disagree with everything you say.

I think that he was a real person... Those prescriptions for living start with recognizing and accepting Him as our Lord and the ruler of God’s kingdom. Part of what that means to me is learning together to live the way He says to live.

That all rather depends on how we choose to read the texts.

But recognising Jesus as Lord and the ruler of God's kingdom is asking a lot of the Jews – and many would say 'too much' – without strong evidence to that effect, and smart referencing of the Sacred Scriptures or to speculative cosmological mysticism is not going to cut it – the Jews had a strong tradition of biblical discourse, and the Greeks were lovers of dispute, so both Jew and gentile are going to need 'hard evidence' if they're going to invest in this teaching as anything more than, say, social justice, or mystical maybe.

I mean, Jesus made the claim, and nearly got Himself killed for it, more than once. In Galilee they walked away, and that was His home turf.

My point is that most or all of the features called “high Christology are associated in Second Temple Diaspora cosmology with OT passages that are also applied explicitly or implicitly to Jesus, by Jesus Himself.

But associating those prophetic utterances and cosmological speculations with a specific person is a whole other thing. It's massive.

And Paul and John's High Christology says more than both the Scriptures and the Cosmologies combined.

At the very least, Paul makes all those Scriptures and Cosmologies subject to Jesus. John does the same.

Also, I’m not thinking that everything in high Christology is true about Jesus. It’s all human interpretation and therefore partly misunderstood, but it’s all based on OT passages that Jesus applies to Himself.

I disagree on all three points, in that:
I think the High Christology is true;
Human interpretation is not necessarily wrong – you're assuming misunderstanding as a given, so that's not really sufficient argument.
I think they understood, but it's evident that that we might misunderstand them.

 

[Ahanu]

OK, in the same spirit, I don't disagree with everything you say.


That all rather depends on how we choose to read the texts.

But recognising Jesus as Lord and the ruler of God's kingdom is asking a lot of the Jews – and many would say 'too much' – without strong evidence to that effect, and smart referencing of the Sacred Scriptures or to speculative cosmological mysticism is not going to cut it – the Jews had a strong tradition of biblical discourse, and the Greeks were lovers of dispute, so both Jew and gentile are going to need 'hard evidence' if they're going to invest in this teaching as anything more than, say, social justice, or mystical maybe.

I mean, Jesus made the claim, and nearly got Himself killed for it, more than once. In Galilee they walked away, and that was His home turf.


But associating those prophetic utterances and cosmological speculations with a specific person is a whole other thing. It's massive.

And Paul and John's High Christology says more than both the Scriptures and the Cosmologies combined.

At the very least, Paul makes all those Scriptures and Cosmologies subject to Jesus. John does the same.


I disagree on all three points, in that:
I think the High Christology is true;
Human interpretation is not necessarily wrong – you're assuming misunderstanding as a given, so that's not really sufficient argument.
I think they understood, but it's evident that that we might misunderstand them.

Which high Christology do you think is true?

When I read Jesus made the claim and nearly got killed for it (John 10.33?), I only know he claimed to be a divine being (a second god as some early writers would describe it), not the High God (which is something many Christians want John to say but he does not actually say it). In John 10.33, the Jewish opponents accuse Jesus, saying:

“ὅτι σὺ ἄνθρωπος ὢν ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν θεόν.”
“hoti su anthrōpos ōn poieis seauton theon.”
“because you, a mere man, claim to be a god/divine.”

If the author of John wanted the Jewish opponents to accuse Jesus of claiming to be the God of Israel, Greek grammar allowed him to do so easily, but he chose not to do so.

 

[Thomas]

... and mostly you seem to be arguing for the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus as unique to Christianity, and its defining feature.

No, 'resurrection' is not unique, although the Christian version of it is, I think.

... and I don't think that it's what originally made Christianity a separate religion from Judaism.

I think that – the claim of Jesus as one who had overthrown Death – was a significant factor.

I think that what made it a separate religion from Judaism was accepting people as part of it without them becoming Jews. When you don't have to be Jewish to be part of it, then obviously it isn't Judaism anymore.

I can agree, but I'm not so sure it's as clear-cut as that.

Acts 21:28 records Jews 'of Asia' (believed Ephesus) making false claims against Paul: "This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place", none of which was true, but caused a riot.

On the other hand, we have Jewish-observant Christians (and presumably Christian-observant Jews) into the 4th century CE, and it's Rome which drives a wedge between Christian and Jew (not exonerating the Christians for allowing it, or even rejoicing in it).

So I don't see that as ground for separation. I see it more a social process.

The destruction of the temple (c70CE) didn't help. 2nd Temple Judaism was robust enough to contain different theologies: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, whatever. Even Christians preached at Jerusalem, and James was the focus of Temple practice. With its destruction, Judaism had to reshape itself to survive, and 'Rabbinic' authority emerges (largely Pharisaic). The Sadducees, even though embedded in the institutional infrastructure, are sidelined and disappear.

Meanwhile the Christian churches are established. They initially paid their respects to the Mother Church, but increasingly, with the Temple gone and the Apostolic era over, Jerusalem is sidelined. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem is largely an honorific, the larger congregations in Antiochia, Alexandria, Ephesus and Rome gain strength under gentile influence.

Around 100CE, the "birkat haminim" is added to synagogue prayers, aimed at heterodox versions of Judaism, including Christianity, and such Jewish-Christian groups as Nazoreans or Ebionites.

Then the Bar Kochba revolt, 130CE. Bar Kochba is assumed a messiah, but thew Christian refuse to acknowledge him, or support the uprising.

I don't know what to think about the resurrection of Jesus. I don't consider anything impossible, but I can't find any way to think about it that explains everything that I see the Bible saying about it. I don't think that believing it is a requirement for salvation or for anything that Jesus made possible for us or is offering us.

Well, again, I'm with Paul (and the Gospels, and the NT): If there's no resurrection, there's no salvation.

but just to spell out some more what I'm thinking about Capernaum, my story is that Jesus went to work and live there.

Did He live there? The house in Capernaum belonged to Peter's mother-in-law. It could well be that Jesus stayed with whoever in Galilee offered him a roof. It's assumed He had family there, Cana, Capernaum, Bethsaida ...

There was plenty of work for carpenters, especially in fishing. Peter offered a place for Him to live, and that became the center of a new kind of community life, people learning together, under His care and guidance, to live the way He taught them to live.

Well OK, but that's all speculation without substance.

That became the model for disciples everywhere.

Did it? based on what, though? It's nowhere spoken of as such?

In the early centuries, Martha and Mary are held as something of a model, although that's more to do with the relation of the two women than the location of the house.

 

[Thomas]

Which high Christology do you think is true?

That Jesus is a divine being who took on human form to deliver a fallen humanity from its fate.

 

[Ahanu]

That Jesus is a divine being who took on human form to deliver a fallen humanity from its fate.

What kind of divine being? A divine being not identical to the essence of God the Father and of the same substance? I wonder why later scribes actually added the definite article to John 10.33 . . . Surely they did not try to justify the Trinity, did they?

 

[muhammad_isa]

If there's no resurrection, there's no salvation..

I'm not sure what you mean by that..
Can't people be saved (guided away from a sinful life), without somebody dying?

 

[muhammad_isa]

What kind of divine being? A divine being not identical to the essence of God the Father and of the same substance? I wonder why later scribes actually added the definite article to John 10.33 . . . Surely they did not try to justify the Trinity, did they?

Ah .. back to the subject of essence.
I see that God is of an infinite nature .. and that "a part" of God is in each and every one of us.
i.e. our souls

..so did Jesus have a soul? Yes .. he was a man with a soul.
Was that soul, G-d's soul? Makes no sense .. how could G-d wander in the wilderness for
40 days, tempted by satan .. G-d cannot be tempted by satan .. He is Holy.

Jesus is reported to have said "Why do you call me good? Only God is good."
Jesus did not want people worshipping him .. only the father. (our father, whom art in heaven)

 

[RabbiO]

Thank you again for your posts. I've gone through them and mostly you seem to be arguing for the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus as unique to Christianity, and its defining feature. I'm skeptical about it being unique to Christianity, and I don't think that it's what originally made Christianity a separate religion from Judaism. I think that what made it a separate religion from Judaism was accepting people as part of it without them becoming Jews. When you don't have to be Jewish to be part of it, then obviously it isn't Judaism anymore.

Huh?

 

[RabbiO]

The destruction of the temple (c70CE) didn't help. 2nd Temple Judaism was robust enough to contain different theologies: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, whatever. Even Christians preached at Jerusalem, and James was the focus of Temple practice. With its destruction, Judaism had to reshape itself to survive, and 'Rabbinic' authority emerges (largely Pharisaic). The Sadducees, even though embedded in the institutional infrastructure, are sidelined and disappear.

The institutional infrastructure was the Temple. When the Tenple was destroyed the Sadducees became irrelevant.

 

[RabbiO]

But recognising Jesus as Lord and the ruler of God's kingdom is asking a lot of the Jews – and many would say 'too much' – without strong evidence to that effect, and smart referencing of the Sacred Scriptures or to speculative cosmological mysticism is not going to cut it – the Jews had a strong tradition of biblical discourse, and the Greeks were lovers of dispute, so both Jew and gentile are going to need 'hard evidence' if they're going to invest in this teaching as anything more than, say, social justice, or mystical maybe.

Two thousand years of Jewish spiritual exploration. Two thousand years of scholarship, examination, dialogue and debate. Some people have no appreciation of that. Some people think that Jewish thought ceased to develop, to expand its understandings after 70 C.E.

 

[Thomas]

What kind of divine being?

Ah! That is the question!

A divine being not identical to the essence of God the Father and of the same substance?

Or perhaps exactly that ...

I wonder why later scribes actually added the definite article to John 10.33 . . . Surely they did not try to justify the Trinity, did they?

Did they 'add' the article?

I suppose in a sense one could argue they did, contextualising the Greek to imply God the Father (ho theos), whereas the definite article is not there.

But, as ever, this has to be read in context, not only of John 10, but the preceding chapters. In John 8 His rebuke of His challengers is caustic, saying He is from God and they are from the devil (8:44) and ends with them seeking to stone Him for claiming that Abraham "was eager to see my day, and he saw and rejoiced" (8:56) and then, when questioned, caps that with "Amen, amen, I tell you, before Abraham came to be, I AM" (v58) – at which they intended to stone Him.

Chapter 9 is the healing of the man born blind, and Jesus' accusation of the Pharisees that they, too, are blind to the truth.

Chapter 10 opens with the Good Shepherd discourse. John says Jesus' audience did not get the point, so He says again: "Amen, amen, I tell you that I am the sheeps’ gate. All who came before me are thieves and bandits" (10:7-8) and "I am the gate; if anyone enters in through me he will be saved, and he will go in and will go out and will find pasture." (v10). The implication throughout this discourse is that He is the Good Shepherd, whilst others (who claim authority), are mere "hirelings" (v12) who will abandon the flock to its fate. He goes on: "I am the shepherd who is good, and I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;" (12-15) and furthermore:
"and I lay down my soul for the sake of the sheep." (v15).

(Verse 16 references that 'other flock' which one might reasonably assume to be the gentiles.)

" 'For this reason the Father loves me: that I lay down my soul, so that I may take it up again. No one has taken it from me; rather I lay it down by myself, and I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again; this command I received from my Father.' Again there was a division among the Judaeans on account of these words." (v18-19)

So we have a flow of increasingly acrimonious confrontations, and this is the background when they confront Him again in the Temple:
"so the Judaeans encircled him and said to him, 'For how long are you going to keep a grip on our soul? If you are the Anointed, tell us forthrightly.'" (10:24)

" 'I have told you, and you do not have faith; the works that I perform in my Father’s name, these testify concerning me; but you do not have faith, because you are not from among my sheep [, as I have told you]. My sheep hearken to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them life in the Age, and they most certainly do not perish unto the Age, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.' " (10:25-29)

Now Jesus says:
ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν egō kai ho Patēr hen esmen "I and the Father are one." (10:30)
And as a result "Again (as per 8:59) the Judaeans picked up stones so that they could stone him." (10:31)

The following argument is from the Hermeneutics StackExchange:
The Greek for "one" here is hen, as opposed to monos, which means one numerically. The word hen can mean numerically, but it can imply a collective one, as in 'one people', united as one. Jesus is saying He and the Father are one, in that what He says and what He does is what the Father wills. This, of course, can be read in a moral sense, to imply divine endorsement, 'I'm just a man, doing the right thing, and I have God's backing because I'm doing what He would want me to do' – but if that is the case, the Judaeans would not have sufficient grounds to stone Him, because that is what they would claim for themselves.

So, it might well be that they are angry with Him for seeking to displace them, and so want Him dead on any grounds, or they actually see that He's claiming more than any man can legitimately claim for himself, in relation to the divine. He asks them why they should want to stone Him:
" 'We stone you not on account of a good work, but rather on account of blasphemy, and because you who are a man make yourself out to be a god.' " (10:33)

They are not saying that Jesus claims to be God, but that He is assuming a divine status in His unity with the Father. Not that He is claiming coequality, coessentiality or consubstantiality, but they do see that He is claiming some order of divinity.

Jesus counters with a reference to Psalm 82, the benei ha’Elohim or the sons of God. It's a technical point, as the hermeneutics-stackexchange points out, no-one understood "sons of God" to be men, there are no human elohim in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus presses the point: "do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?" (‭10:36)‬ , but then presses on again, as if setting out to offend them "but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and have faith that the Father is in me and I am in the Father'." (‭10:38‬) At which point, "So they again sought to seize him, but he slipped out of their hands." (‭10:39)

To say 'God is in someone' wasn't offensive, because God could be over someone, in someone, working through someone, that wasn't an issue for the Judaeans. Clearly, however, Jesus is making a claim beyond the prophetic idea of a spirit being 'in' or 'on' or 'over' a person – Jesus was claiming a two-way process, a statement of equality.

Had He claimed to be 'a Son if God' then there might have been leeway, but He doesn't, He claims "I am" and speaks in that sense profoundly and exclusively. It's an unmistakable claim to Divine unity.

 

[Thomas]

I'm not sure what you mean by that..
Can't people be saved (guided away from a sinful life), without somebody dying?

They can be guided away from a sinful life for sure, but that does not mean they attain eternal life in God, or rather that they are not slave to death, the Archon of the Cosmos.

 

[Thomas]

I see that God is of an infinite nature .. and that "a part" of God is in each and every one of us.
i.e. our souls

Well souls are created, but I do agree there is a continuity between the soul and the Divine.

..so did Jesus have a soul? Yes .. he was a man with a soul.

Yes, that's true.

Was that soul, G-d's soul? Makes no sense ...

No, as you say, that makes no sense, nor is it anywhere said. God does not have, nor is God, as soul.

how could G-d wander in the wilderness for 40 days, tempted by satan .. G-d cannot be tempted by satan .. He is Holy.

But man can be tempted, although the holy man is unassailable.

It's a given that Jesus is a man to whom the Divine has joined in a specific union towards a specific purpose.

Jesus is reported to have said "Why do you call me good? Only God is good."

Was Jesus not good?

 

[Ahanu]

Jesus counters with a reference to Psalm 82, the benei ha’Elohim or the sons of God. It's a technical point, as the hermeneutics-stackexchange points out, no-one understood "sons of God" to be men, there are no human elohim in the Hebrew Scriptures.

No human elohim?

“The term [elohim] was also occasionally used in reference to humans with special authority or relationships with deity, as in the vocative references to the king ’ĕlōhîm in Ps 45:7–8, or in Exod 7:1 (nǝtattîkā ’ĕlōhîm lǝpar‘ōh, ‘I have made you a deity to Pharaoh’), Isa 9:5 (šǝmô pele’ yô‘ēṣ ’ēl gibôr, ‘his name will be called Counselor of Wonder, Mighty Deity’), and Exod 4:16 (wǝ’attâ tihyeh-lô lē’lōhîm, ‘and you will be to him a deity’). Lest the lamed prefix in the final example be interpreted to be qualifying the divinity attributed to Moses (i.e., ‘you will be like a deity’; Wardlaw 2008, 108), note the lamed prefix in YHWH’s promise to Israel to be, lǝkā lē’lōhîm, ‘to you a deity’ (Gen 17:7; Deut 26:17; 29:12).
This suggests deity was fundamentally understood as a relational designation and not an ontological one.”
-Daniel O. McClellan

Even the dead were described as an elohim. In 1 Samuel 28.13, when the necromancer sees the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel rising from the underworld, she describes him as an elohim.

Ah .. back to the subject of essence.
I see that God is of an infinite nature .. and that "a part" of God is in each and every one of us.
i.e. our souls

..so did Jesus have a soul? Yes .. he was a man with a soul.
Was that soul, G-d's soul? Makes no sense .. how could G-d wander in the wilderness for
40 days, tempted by satan .. G-d cannot be tempted by satan .. He is Holy.

Jesus is reorted to have said "Why do you call me good? Only God is good."
Jesus did not want people worshipping him .. only the father. (our father, whom art in heaven)

Paul and John make Jesus subject to the High God - a clear subordination. Later Christian tradition obscures this fact.

Ah! That is the question!


Or perhaps exactly that ...

Or perhaps later Christian tradition just misunderstood John?

Did they 'add' the article?

I suppose in a sense one could argue they did, contextualising the Greek to imply God the Father (ho theos), whereas the definite article is not there.

In a sense? P75, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus all uniformly read θεόν (theon) without the definite article. Some later interpolations appear. A small number of later Greek manuscripts eventually included the definite article, changing the reading. Adding the article changed the text. Surely such scribes knew that. But then again, maybe they were simply clueless about John’s nuances. It is like some scribes did not know Philo’s discussion about the article in relation to the word God, which I am sure John shows familiarity with. Why? John follows Philo’s logic. John’s “the Word was god” lacks the article in the earliest manuscripts. So does John’s reference to god in 10.33. These deliberate grammatical choices reflect clear subordination, undermining any later claim of ontological identity.

 

[muhammad_isa]

They can be guided away from a sinful life for sure, but that does not mean they attain eternal life in God..

Why?

 

[muhammad_isa]

It's a given that Jesus is a man to whom the Divine has joined in a specific union towards a specific purpose.

Yes, Jesus was no ordinary man, in the sense you describe.

Was Jesus not good?

Yes, but not worthy of worship.
The context of that quote was as follows:

17 And as he is going forth into the way, one having run and having kneeled to him, was questioning him, `Good teacher, what may I do, that life age-during I may inherit?'
18 And Jesus said to him, `Why me dost thou call good? no one [is] good except One -- God;
- Mark 10 -

..notice the man "kneeling to him".

 

[wil]

Mark 10 -

..notice the man "kneeling to him".

Yes after 50 years of retelling stories when they finally wrote them down they did elevate him to really mythical!

 

[Longfellow]

Yes after 50 years of retelling stories when they finally wrote them down they did elevate him to really mythical!

Do you have some reasons for thinking that the Jesus teaching network was different from other teaching networks? All the others had people writing things down as they happened, and recopying them as needed.

 

[Thomas]

No human elohim?

No. And from your quote, I don't think McClellan thinks so, either. He says: "The term [elohim] was also occasionally used in reference to humans with special authority or relationships with deity ... This suggests deity was fundamentally understood as a relational designation and not an ontological one."

Paul and John make Jesus subject to the High God - a clear subordination. Later Christian tradition obscures this fact.

Well that debate goes way back, doesn't it? And if you're not going to accept it on the strength of Scripture and Tradition, then nothing I can say will change that ...

Or perhaps later Christian tradition just misunderstood John?

Or understood him better?

In a sense? P75, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus all uniformly read θεόν (theon) without the definite article. Some later interpolations appear.

Quite likely. How many later interpolations I cannot trace, you'd have to tell me.

It seems to me, reading a lower-case 'g' god, that the Judaeans are accusing Jesus of claiming divine authority, if not divine status. I don't think they were accusing Him of importing an alien god – a Baal or a Greco-Roman deity – in which case claiming divine authority, within a Jewish context, brings us round to the elohim question again.

His accusers clearly don't think He is any kind of god, indeed more than once they question whether he is possessed by a demon (eg John 10:20), and so they denounced Him as a blasphemer.

Claiming to be a god warrants the same treatment as claiming to be God. It's blasphemy.

So we're making rather a big deal out of something that is, in context, of little relevance.

Especially when Jesus tips them into a frenzy again at 10:38.

Surely such scribes knew that. But then again, maybe they were simply clueless about John’s nuances.

Or they were clarifying the nuances.

It is like some scribes did not know Philo’s discussion about the article in relation to the word God, which I am sure John shows familiarity with. Why? John follows Philo’s logic.

He does to a point, but Philo was working with the Hebrew Scriptures. John was informed by the Incarnation (1:14). That has a significant impact in how he interpreted Philo.

+++

These are age-old debates, @Ahanu, and as such you know that for every objection you raise, there is sufficient answer.

 

[Thomas]

Yes, Jesus was no ordinary man, in the sense you describe...

Yes, but not worthy of worship.

"For which reason God also exalted him on high and graced him with the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee—of beings heavenly and earthly and subterranean—should bend, and every tongue gladly confess that Jesus the Anointed is Lord, for the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)