‘Deciphering the Gospels’, by R. G. Price, argues the case for Jesus mythicism, which is the view that Jesus never existed on earth in any real form but was an entirely mythical figure in the same way as Hercules or Dionysus. (The author is not the same person as Robert Price, also a Jesus mythicist author.) I’m an atheist who holds the opposing (and mainstream) view that Jesus was originally a human being of the 1st century about whom a later mythology grew up. I’m therefore reviewing Price’s book to discuss his arguments and my reasons for disagreeing.
The first post in this book review is here. All subsequent posts will be linked at the end of that post as they go up.
Chapter Eight: Apocalyptic and Messianic Stories That Preceded Jesus
Price starts off with a pertinent question:
If the real-life Jesus is a fictional invention of the author of Mark, who was the Jesus being worshiped prior to the writing of that story? We know that Paul was worshiping someone named Jesus before the Gospel of Mark was written, so what was Paul talking about?
That would indeed be a useful question for Price to address in this chapter, but unfortunately he doesn’t do so. He did, however, briefly give his views on the subject back in the introduction, so let’s skip back to what he says there:
What set the Jesus cult apart was their belief that the kingdom established by the messiah would not be on earth, but rather it would be in heaven. They believed that the material world was hopelessly corrupt and that the “kingdom of God” could never be established on earth. Thus, they believed that an immaterial heavenly messiah would be required to destroy the evil material world and establish a perfect kingdom in heaven. The creation of an immaterial heavenly kingdom required an immaterial heavenly messiah.
Although Price has been vague about how the belief in a crucified messiah, or a messiah as sin sacrifice, fitted in with this, the implication so far seems to have been that this belief would also have been part of the original or early cult (and we do know for certain that such a belief was there by Paul at the latest as it’s in his letters, although we can’t rule out the possibility that it originated with Paul, who very much went his own way where theology was concerned). So, as far as I can see, under Price’s hypothesis the original cult would have also a) believed in the crucifixion (though presumably believing it took place in heaven rather than on earth), and b) interpreted it as a sin sacrifice. I’m open to correction if Price has a different hypothesis regarding that point.
So, on to the next question, which is the topic that Price does in fact try to address in this chapter. How likely would it be that Jews of the time would come up with such a cult?
Well, Price believes the answer is ‘very likely’. To support this, he quotes various stories of the time and lists the many points of similarity between those stories and the Jesus story, concluding that ‘nothing really distinguished the pre-Gospel Jesus cult from many other similar cults in the region’. Unfortunately, this is once again the equivalent of looking for white swans instead of black ones; Price is so busy focusing on the similarities that he’s missing the fact that there are important differences.
Judaism and the origins of Christianity: where Christianity differed
Here is a list of significant points on which the hypothetical cult Price has described differs from typical Judaic beliefs of the time:
- The belief that the material world was hopelessly corrupt and evil and would need to be destroyed. Judaism’s view of the material world has typically been strongly positive, with much emphasis on the joys of earthly pleasures; the longed-for Messianic age has normally been pictured as an improved physical world with the harmful parts removed, not as a heavenly world.
- The belief that all humans are so hopelessly mired in sin that they cannot be saved from damnation without a sin sacrifice. While sin sacrifice was obviously a key part of the Judaism of the time, this was within the context of a strong belief that humans have the ability to become ever closer to heaven by their own efforts in keeping God’s laws, that the good we do will be counted to our credit when we are judged, and that individuals have the ability to live good enough lives to achieve favourable judgement and heavenly reward.
- The belief that this sin sacrifice must be a once-and-for-all uber-sacrifice which will wipe out all necessity for the Temple sacrifices from then on. The Jewish scriptures clearly taught that the Temple sacrifices were required by law and should continue permanently.
- The idea of a heavenly being as a sacrifice. The sacrificial system in Judaism has always used animals. The idea of sacrificing a heavenly being would have seemed shocking and pagan.
- The idea of sacrifice taking place by crucifixion. Sin sacrifices in Judaism were carried out by cutting the throats of animals carefully selected to be physically perfect specimens. That was the mental image of sacrifice for practicing Jews of the time. Crucifixion, on the other hand, was associated with humiliating punishment.
Now, one very obvious point which should be made here is that Christianity clearly did somehow develop or acquire all of the above beliefs at a fairly early stage. Beliefs 2 – 5 are certainly present in Paul’s letters, and I would say that at least some degree of 1 is also there, although I’m open to correction on that one if anyone wants to make a case to the contrary; in any case, it certainly seems to have become a part of Christianity as time went by. So the question is not whether a cult of the time and place could have developed such beliefs – clearly, this one did – but whether the fact that this did happen is better explained by a historicist or a mythicist scenario.
How did the differences start?
Firstly, how might Christian beliefs have developed under a historical-Jesus scenario? Here’s the theory that makes the most sense to me:
- An actual charismatic rabbi gains followers convinced he’s the Messiah.
- He’s then crucified, leaving his shocked and grieving followers trying to make sense of this turn of events.
- Rather than give up their belief in him as the Messiah, they conclude that his crucifixion must also have been part of God’s great plan, and that God has miraculously restored him to life with a view to returning him to finish the job.
- The cult gradually acquires more followers over the next few years, including some with more Hellenised backgrounds (either Hellenised Jews or pagans) whose mental images of sacrifice and divine forgiveness would have been formed in the context of more pagan backgrounds and beliefs.
- One of these people reinterprets the crucifixion as a once-and-for-all sin sacrifice and the only way in which humanity can be saved from otherwise irredeemable sin.
How plausible are each of the points in that hypothetical sequence of events?
- Highly plausible. This really would have been a typical cult for this time and place.
- Also plausible. Crucifixion was a standard Roman means of executing rebels, and having a crowd loudly claim you were the true King of the Jews come to kick out the Romans was the sort of thing about which the Romans would probably not have been all that happy.
- Possible. This sort of rationalisation is in line with how people have been known to react to events that should theoretically shatter their most deeply held beliefs.
- Possible. While it’s highly doubtful that early Christianity showed the massive rate of growth that Luke tried to depict in Acts, there are always plenty of people around in search of passionate leaders who give them a dream to follow.
- Plausible, since this hypothesis fits very smoothly with what we know about one particularly famous and influential Hellenised member of the early church; Paul. We know that he taught a theology that he believed he’d learned from visions, that he saw these visions as a better and more valid source of information than the teachings of the existing church, and (from Galatians) that he had at least one clash with the existing church over differences in teachings. We don’t know the details of the theological differences (because we have no pre-Pauline writings from the original church) and so can’t confirm whether ‘Paul reinterpreted the crucifixion as a sin sacrifice when the original church hadn’t seen it that way at all’ was the actual point of contention, but this is, at the least, a very plausible point at which that belief could have arisen.
(Some interesting supporting evidence for this last point, by the way, comes from the second half of Acts 21, in which Luke describes an incident in which the council tell Paul of their concerns about the reports that he’s been telling Jews to abandon Jewish law. In Luke’s account, the council assure Paul that all that’s needed to solve the problem of these accusations is for Paul to undergo a purification rite at the Temple to indicate his continued commitment to the Jewish law, which Paul does. However, Luke’s story of a council who clearly would find it a big problem for someone to be teaching Jews to abandon the Jewish law, put together with the evidence we now have from Paul’s letters that Paul was indeed teaching precisely that, gives us indirect but strong evidence that this was indeed a point of contention between them. And, since Paul’s belief that the Jewish law can be abandoned stems directly from his belief that the crucifixion was a once-and-for-all sin sacrifice that rendered it obsolete, this makes it likely that he and the Jerusalem church differed on that vital point as well.)
So, overall we have a sequence of events under historicity that seems plausible. If anyone disagrees, please let me know why. Two key points to note about it are that a) this sequence of events gives us an actual crucifixion, meaning that we don’t have to look at why someone would have invented that part, and b) the reinterpretation of this crucifixion as a once-and-for-all sin sacrifice could have happened at a slightly later stage once the movement contained more members from Hellenistic or pagan backgrounds who would have been interpreting the story through a somewhat different cultural lens.
Historicity gives us a plausible theory. How does Price’s theory hold up as an alternative?
Based on this chapter, not well. Price shows no sign he’s even recognised that most of the above are issues; he probably hasn’t. However, he does address one question, which is the question of how people of the time could have come to believe in a crucified Messiah. So, I’ll now look at Price’s explanation, which he finds in martyr stories of the time such as 2 Maccabees.
Price’s theory and the Maccabean martyrs
2 Maccabees, written in the second century BCE, tells the story of a family of seven sons and their mother who were successively tortured to death for their refusal to break kosher laws. 4 Maccabees is a later commentary which interprets the family’s commitment to their faith as highly pleasing to God. Price believes that this indicates that Judaism of the time did have a concept of human sin sacrifice:
Four Maccabees, written after 2 Maccabees and by a different author, comments on the seven martyrs in 2 Maccabees and states that their sacrifice was a “ransom for the sin of our nation.”
[quotes from 4 Maccabees 17]
We see in the stories of the Maccabees the torture and sacrifice of people at the hands of foreign rulers presented as scarifies [sic] to God for the atonement of sins. This shows that the concept of human “sin offerings” was certainly one that existed in Jewish thought and theology shortly prior to the rise of the Jesus cult.
There are quite a number of problems here.
Firstly, Price has a fairly fundamental misunderstanding here of the difference between sin sacrifice and martyrdom. In sin sacrifice, the animal in question was killed because Yahweh directly wanted it killed and because its blood would magically expiate sins. In martyrdom, a person dies for their commitment to a cause; their commitment to their belief is so strong that even death is preferable to violating their belief. What’s pleasing to Yahweh (or other deity) in martyrdom narratives isn’t the death for its own sake, but the level of commitment to Yahweh’s cause that it indicates.
In 2 Maccabees, the boys and their mother were’t killed because of some abstract belief that their blood would be pleasing or appeasing to God; they were killed because of their refusal to break Jewish dietary law. And it’s clear that the author of 4 Maccabees interprets it in this light. In his interpretation, their blood was pleasing to God because it indicated their level of commitment to the law; they were so strongly committed to keeping the Torah commandments that they were willing to be tortured to death rather than go against God’s will by breaking Torah law, and that is what was supposedly pleasing to God. Price has mistaken this for an indication that human sin sacrifice was considered desirable, but that isn’t the case. (Judaism, in fact, historically made quite a big thing out of being against human sin sacrifice in contrast to all those clearly inferior backwards religions that required it.)
Secondly, another key point Price has missed is that the author of 4 Maccabees seems to have believed that 2 Maccabees was a true story. Whether or not it was, the 4 Maccabees author seems to have been responding to it on that basis. What this passage shows, therefore, is that, in response to a story of martyrdom that could easily be interpreted as a meaningless tragic waste of life, a Jewish author came up with this interpretation as a way of retrospectively making it meaningful; an actual story of torture and murder was retconned into ‘but this was pleasing to God’. The author’s starting point was not to show how sin can better be expiated; it was to attempt to make sense out of what would otherwise be a tragedy. Again, this does not fit well with mythicism, which requires that the founders of what would become Christianity came up with the idea spontaneously. Under historicity, there would have been an actual story of a specific executed human to retcon; mythicism wouldn’t have had that head start.
And thirdly, let’s remember once again that Price’s theory is that the original cult believed Jesus to be an immaterial heavenly being. That doesn’t fit well with the Jesus-as-martyr theme that Price is trying to argue here. Martyrs are humans who suffer and/or die for a cause in a way that lets other followers of the cause hold them up as an example to emulate. It doesn’t make sense, therefore, to think in terms of an immaterial heavenly martyr. Price thinks that because Judaism of the time had stories about heavenly beings and stories about martyrs they could easily have combined the two, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed that these are two themes that it doesn’t make sense to combine.
Summary
The mythicist theory requires some person or group spontaneously to come up with several ideas that would have been very unusual within Second Temple Judaism:
- That God wanted a once-and-for-all uber-sacrifice to do away with the need for the Law
- That this sacrifice was to take place via a method that was completely conceptually different from the sacrifices that everyone of the time was used to
- That this was to take place up in the heavens rather than on Earth:
- That all of this had now happened already (in other words, the belief system somehow jumped from ‘this needs to happen’ to ‘good news, this has all happened!)
Under historicity, however, at least some of these problems vanish. If the original group were following an actual man who was believed to be the Messiah and was crucified, then the third point isn’t an issue at all and the second and fourth are straightforwardly explained by the group having had to deal with their supposed Messiah having actually been crucified (in other words, they were having to make sense out of an actual situation facing them). We’re still left with the question of how the crucifixion was so dramatically retconned into ‘sin sacrifice’, but we now have only one strange and unprecedented event to explain in this context rather than a combination of them, and we have, in what we know of Paul’s story, a plausible potential explanation of how this could have happened.
So, once again, historicity provides a plausible sequence of events for something that seems more difficult and complicated to explain under mythicism.
The mythicist theory doesn’t require one group to have all of those ideas at the same time. Only that they all migrated to one person or group eventually, and even that is open to some argument. Many Christian groups have put emphasis on different parts of that, ignored parts or even rejected parts entirely. Christians are still arguing about why Jesus’s sacrifice had to happen, what it meant and where Jesus’s kingdom is/was going to exist.
Someone could write a story of the physical life of Jesus, taking second hand stories according to their religious belief that Jesus had a physical life. Somebody else could then later reinterpret that to add more elements. That Jesus was crucified seems unlikely as an invention by a Jew but makes sense for a proto-Christian cultist. They would be imagining a physical life for Jesus under Roman occupation. That the Romans would crucify Jesus makes sense, the cultist would likely have heard several stories of people claiming to be the Messiah being crucified by the Romans. It’s easy to see them coming to the conclusion that Jesus had been crucified and then going and looking for a religious justification for why this happened.
…either Hellenised Jews or pagans…
Which, to my mind anyway, raises the question of how we define “pagans”. The word literally means “country people” (see “peasant”, “peon”, “paisano”, etc), and in a religious context I’ve always thought of it as an (urban) Christian concept used to distinguish themselves from the polytheistic traditionalists around them. Did the Jews of the 1st century use that word, or that idea, in some way specifying something besides “non-Jew”? Did they distinguish Greek polytheism from long-standing Palestinian polytheism (itself comprising a stew of Semitic/Ugaritic/Philistine/Samaritan/Egyptian/Babylonian/Canaanite/etc mythologies)?
… plenty of people around in search of passionate leaders who give them a dream to follow.
Such people tend to look for live passionate leaders – who filled that role? Doesn’t this require hypothesizing someone whose name and actions then got totally erased?
… having a crowd loudly claim you were the true King of the Jews come to kick out the Romans …
Who claimed that? I don’t recall such an assertion anywhere in the New Testament except from John the Revelator (and even he wrapped it in metaphor); the Gospel accounts tiptoe around that by putting it in Pilate’s mouth (and those of the Roman troops).
Under historicity, there would have been an actual story of a specific executed human to retcon; mythicism wouldn’t have had that head start.
The story of Yeshua bin Ananias comes close to meeting those specifications, though YbA experienced “only” flogging (sfawk – just how he died during the Jerusalem revolt afterwards remains unclear).
It doesn’t make sense, therefore, to think in terms of an immaterial heavenly martyr.
“Making sense” ranks fairly low among religious requirements. Of the contemporary mythologies, we know the most about the Greeks’ – and stories such as the punishment of Prometheus indicate (quasi-)gods could indeed suffer ferocious wrath.
JM@1,
Yes, they are doing that because it really doesn’t make a lot of sense, if you believe that Jesus was the Messiah, sent by God to achieve something wonderful, let alone if you go the whole Christian hog and believe he was God (and his own son).
Paul of Tarsus was (a) a Jew, (b) a (one might even say the) proto-Christian cultist, and (c) clearly believed in a Jesus who had lived an earthly life and been crucified.
No, it really isn’t.
Pierce R. Butler@2,
But he can hardly be the original for the Jesus of Christianity (it wasn’t clear to me whether you were suggesting this), since Paul was already writing about the latter as someone who had already been crucified, before YbA came to anyone’s notice.
Sure, religious beliefs need not make sense, but one still needs to explain why they fail to make sense in the specific ways they do. Christianity fails to make sense in all sorts of ways, many of which can be explained in terms of trying to turn a human being who was executed in a particularly painful and humiliating way into a divine being. Incidentally, Prometheus obviously wasn’t immaterial, since he had a liver.
KG @ # 3: … Paul was already writing about the latter as someone who had already been crucified…
Good point. I wonder if anyone built up a cult around Spartacus & Company?
… Prometheus obviously wasn’t immaterial, since he had a liver.
Moreover, he came to Earth, since he got chained up somewhere in Scythia/the Caucasus Mountains (approximately the furthest eastward point known to the pre-Alexandrian Greeks). But P, and the Titans in general, dated so far back that we might as well call it the Dreamtime rather than the historic-world-as-we-(and-they)-know-it.
What’s your point?
You mentioned Prometheus in response to Dr. Sarah’s point that an immaterial heavenly martyr doesn’t make sense, but since Prometheus as described in the myth was not immaterial, and (as you point out) came to earth, it’s not clear why you think him relevant.
@JM, #1:
I suppose it doesn’t actually require them to originate at the same time, but that still leaves us with the question of how this combination of ideas might have arisen. Did they start with the idea that the Messiah was going to be a sacrifice, and only after that come up with the idea that it was going to be in heaven/the idea that it was going to be by crucifixion? It’s still a strange jumble of ideas. People of the time were expecting the Messiah’s arrival to involve the Romans getting kicked out and a wonderful new world order being set up; that was why the idea was so popular. Obviously Christianity went off in a new direction… but how? Whichever way I look at it, the scenario ‘someone from a Hellenised background retconned a story of an actual Messianic claimant who’d been crucified’ still works out more likely than the idea that a group managed independently to come up with, and combine, all of those ideas including the crucifixion.
Which, again, leads us back to the question of why multiple people from a group that taught that Jesus had lived in the heavens would develop the belief that Jesus had recently had a life on earth.
Why?
Crucifixion was generally seen as a clear indication that the person in question wasn’t the Messiah, since he’d died without all the promised glory of the Messianic age coming to pass. (In Jesus’s case, some of his followers became convinced that God had miraculously resurrected him, and hence were able to go on believing in him as Messiah because they believed he was going to return and do all these things; however, the general opinion was that a dead Messianic claimant had failed in his mission.) It’s hard to see how a cultist could have heard these stories linking Messiah and crucifixion and yet somehow completely missed the context of ‘therefore he clearly wasn’t the Messiah’.
@Pierce R. Butler, #2 and #3:
Ah, thanks, some excellent questions.
In this specific context, I meant ‘people from a non-Jewish background’.
Peter et al, who apparently took over the group and made passionate speeches about how their Messiah had been miraculously raised from the dead and would come back to bring the promised kingdom. They were substitute leaders, obviously, but enough conviction on their part plus the promise of a bigger and better leader imminently about to come back would have been enough to convince several people.
It was mostly implicit in the term ‘Messiah’, which, while literally just meaning ‘anointed one’, was (and is, for that matter) generally understood by Jews as referring to the prophecied Davidic king who will rule over Israel in a wondrous future in which all enemies and oppressors have been defeated. Opinions differed among Jews as to the extent to which the enemy-defeating was to be done by the Messiah in question and the extent to which it was to be done by divine smiting, but there seems to have been enough of the former opinion around that having a crowd declare that one of their rebellious rabbis was the new Messiah would have been seen as fighting talk.
I think KG answered your other points in #3 nicely (thank you, KG).
Yes. And, according to Carrier, that’s typical of mythical stories about real characters; the story is set far back in the distant past. This sort of pattern of ‘detailed story with clearly miraculous elements set only a few decades earlier than the time of writing’ is much more typical of real characters whose stories have been embroidered, so the fact that we see this in the Jesus stories is one of the things pointing us towards historicity rather than mythicism.
KG @ # 5: What’s your point?
Well, if you want a historically-genuine, actually-crucified, widely-known, working-class-hero martyr-figure, who else?
… Prometheus …, it’s not clear why you think him relevant.
In the context of a “heavenly” (in this case, mythic immortal) horrifically-punished-for-good-deeds (“good” from the mortal perspective) entity, Prommy comes closest to Jesus, at least in generally known Western lore (or my incomplete knowledge thereof). Note that in some versions, Prometheus also created “man” from clay, just like JC’s alter ego.
Sfaik, xianity’s primary innovation involves deifying a commoner – though the usual really-a-prince-in-disguise retconning popped up promptly. The miracles, teachings, martyrdom, resurrection, etc, have countless parallels in and out of the Judeo-Xian framework, but just about all those stories trace back to authority-supporting priesthoods eager to talk up the innate/exclusive virtue of aristocrats, not to a grassroots grapevine (so to speak).
Dr Sarah @ # 7: Peter et al, who apparently took over the group …
Which raises other questions, such as why Pete would even have lasted long enough for a trip to Rome before getting nailed up.
… the term ‘Messiah’, which, while literally just meaning ‘anointed one’, was (and is, for that matter) generally understood by Jews as referring to the prophecied Davidic king who will rule over Israel …
If we exclude, e.g., Cyrus, described as “anointed” as an actual liberator of Jews (though I doubt he let any of their priests smear their goo on his person). However, that happened several centuries previous to the time under discussion, so I have to concede your definition probably prevailed in Roman Palestine.
… having a crowd declare that one of their rebellious rabbis was the new Messiah would have been seen as fighting talk.
Kicking ass and disturbing the peace in a properly subservient, tax- and bribe-paying Temple would arguably have the same effect (though opinions seem divided among historicists about the authenticity of that episode as well).
… according to Carrier, that’s typical of mythical stories about real characters; the story is set far back in the distant past.
Dunno if the “ancients” really distinguished much between “mythical” and “distant past”, particularly when concocting midrashim.
This sort of pattern of ‘detailed story with clearly miraculous elements set only a few decades earlier than the time of writing’ is much more typical of real characters whose stories have been embroidered…
I’d like to see some examples of such stories from that era – the only one I can think of concerns the comet allegedly seen after the death of Caesar, and I have no idea of its first telling. With a little stretching, we might include the purported miracle of Alexander’s conception – but apparently Big Al’s own propagandists spread that around during his lifetime.
Pierce R. Butler@8,9
The main extant sources for Spartacus are Appian, Plutarch and Florus, who all wrote considerably longer after his supposed crucifixion than the main sources for Jesus did after his. So why should he be described as “historically-genuine” (personally, I don’t doubt that he was), and Jesus not?
It’s a pretty distant parallel, and the relevance to whether Jesus was a historical figure is completely absent as far as I can see.
Why does it? There’s no reason to think Jesus’s crucifixion was followed by any systematic attempt to hunt down his main followers. They did not, quite clearly, pose any significant threat to Roman rule. Presumably Peter didn’t make enough fuss to get himself crucified until he went to Rome (if he ever did – the earliest reference to him even travelling to Rome seems to be from Ignatius, around CE 110).
There’s Tacitus’s account of two healing miracles by Vespasian, written a few decades after the latter’s death.
KG @ # 10: … why should [Spartacus] be described as “historically-genuine” …, and Jesus not?
The documentary history for S seems much stronger than that for JC – has anyone proposed Spartacus mythicism?
… the relevance to whether Jesus was a historical figure is completely absent as far as I can see.
See my/Dr Sarah’s dialog above – did crucifixion fit into lore of folk heroes?
There’s no reason to think Jesus’s crucifixion was followed by any systematic attempt to hunt down his main followers.
I have the impression that Romans got systematic about that sort of mischief, but perhaps only intermittently. Having workers get ideas about The End Is Coming Soon could cause problems with building up Gross Imperial Product and other priorities.
… Tacitus’s account of two healing miracles by Vespasian, written a few decades after the latter’s death.
Which does pertain, but with at least two caveats: the idea of considering emperors as (demi-?)deities had already begun, and V’s family no doubt maintained significant wealth, and may have found Tacitus willing to pioneer the role of paid influencer even before the official invention of social media. Street-level folk stories might tell us much more about the tropes wrapped around (or constituting) accounts of Jesus, but of course very little of those remain.
Pierce R. Butler @2:
From Mishnaic and Talmudic sources, which are later than the period in question, the most common term for people adhering to other religions was ‘ovdei kokhavim umazalot’ (aku”m for short) – literally ‘worshipers of stars and (astrological) signs’. And no, I don’t recall the rabbis caring which non-Jewish religion was in question. Another common term is ‘avoda zara’ – literally foreign worship. Though I’m not sure Samaritans were included in either of these terms.
As for terms that translate something close to ‘commoner’ or ‘peasant’ – that would be ‘am haaretz’ – literally ‘people of the land’, which was a term used for Jews who lacked Torah education.
I have the impression that Romans got systematic about that sort of mischief, but perhaps only intermittently.
I don’t recall anyone other than Jesus himself being accused of such mischief, or being accused of being part of any sort of organized political insurgent group. Both the Romans and the local Judean authorities might have figured the “movement” would die with its charismatic leader. Also, neither of those two groups would have wanted to risk stirring up more anger in an already-volatile place by killing more people than they demonstrably had to.
If any surviving disciples had organized any sort of retaliation against the authorities, then yeah, there surely would have been more crucifixions.
anat @ # 12 – more ways to say “Gentile” or “Goy”!
I guess the Jews can claim some sort of prize for the first to free themselves from astrology – pity the West in general still hasn’t figured that out.
Presumably the Haaretz newspaper wants itself seen as representing commoners more than the Torah-free: either that, or they represent one of the strongest humanist stances in the world.
Raging Bee @ # 13 – Your perspective makes sense, which does not necessarily mean either the Romans or the Sanhedrin saw it that way.
The Romans in particular may have calculated that (what they would see as) an intra-Jewish division would work in their favor (perhaps not unlike the 20th-c Mossad helping out the early forms of Hezbollah as a means of undermining Arafat and the PLO, though we’ll have to check back in a few centuries to see if “The Party of God” takes over Palestine entirely to say whether the parallels really hold…
Why? As I pointed out, the main sources come from considerably further in time from his reported existence and activities than is the case for Jesus. Now maybe you know of sources closer in time (I don’t pretend to be an expert here), but you haven’t mentioned any.
Not to my knowledge. But then, nobody would have proposed Jesus mythicism based simply on the available evidence. The evidence for his existence isn’t conclusive, but nor is that for more than a small minority of the people of that period whose existence is generally accepted.
My impression is that that overestimates both their ability and their motivation to do so. From the gospel accounts, it looks like Jesus deliberately cocked a series of snooks at the Romans, IOW “He was asking for it”, and so he got it. If they thought about it at all, the Romans may have thought making an example of the leader would be enough – as indeed it was. The gospels are very keen to blame Jesus’s death on Jewsih leaders rather than the Romans, or once you get to the latest of them, gJohn, on “the Jews”, and there’s no evidence at any time of a Christian uprising against the Empire.
KG @ # 16: … the main sources come from considerably further in time …
I don’t claim familiarity with the literature of that period, but feel that if the experts had doubts about, say, that part of the Crassus story, we’d see more caveats in the histories.
… nobody would have proposed Jesus mythicism based simply on the available evidence.
The J-mythicists cite (inconsistencies in) such evidence all day long. We all know of the problems with “evidence of absence”.
… it looks like Jesus deliberately cocked a series of snooks at the Romans,
Seems to me like the snooks got cocked at the Temple honchos and the Pharisees; the J of the Gospels somehow adopted the exact same “not political, nosir, not at all!” forelock-tugging attitude of nearly everybody in the NT.
… there’s no evidence at any time of a Christian uprising against the Empire.
Only the very carefully coded, and veiled in psychedelic incoherence, mutterings of John of Patmos, which led nowhere (at least during the time of the Empire). As an underclass movement, Christians individually and collectively survived by cultivating the servility faithfully, if fictionally, embodied by Uncle Tom 18 centuries later (except that he ultimately defied his master and paid the price, while the Xians kissed ass all the way up the political pole).
Pierce R. Butler @14: Haaretz (used to?) advertise itself as ‘the newspaper for thinking people’, not commoners. Never had a very broad readership, which may have saved it from Netanyahu’s press shenanigans.
anat @ # 18: …Haaretz (used to?) advertise itself as ‘the newspaper for thinking people’, not commoners.
So either “non-believer” took on a more cerebral connotation, or some other linguistic transformation snuck in.
And here we are trying to figure nuances of remnants of in-group literature from 19-27 centuries ago!
@19 Pierce R. Butler says, “And here we are trying to figure nuances of remnants of in-group literature from 19-27 centuries ago!”
An example of “how the sausage is made”:
• “Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say? Biblical Criticism & History Forum”. earlywritings.com.
OP: “In sin sacrifice, the animal in question was killed because Yahweh directly wanted it killed and because its blood would magically expiate sins. In martyrdom, a person dies for their commitment to a cause; their commitment to their belief is so strong that even death is preferable to violating their belief.”
The Hebrew scriptures appear to be awash in atoning blood:
• Godfrey, Neil (4 January 2019). “Why a Saviour Had to Suffer and Die? Martyrdom Beliefs in Pre-Christian Times”. Vridar.
“The blood of the martyr atones for the sin of his people — Deut. 32.43; II Mac. 7.37 f; IV Mac. 1.11; 6.28 f; 12.7 f; 17.21 f; SB, II, 274 ff; 281 f; MidrHL. on 7.9; MidrPr. on 9.2”
• Godfrey, Neil (15 January 2019). “Salvation through a Saviour’s Death — Another List”. Vridar
“[T]he blood of Jewish martyrs was believed to purify and cleanse the nation; the martyrs’ blood led to God’s forgiveness of the sins of the nation and the salvation of all.”
OP: “The mythicist theory requires some person or group spontaneously to come up with several ideas that would have been very unusual within Second Temple Judaism: . . . That this was to take place up in the heavens rather than on Earth:”
“[T]he ‘firmament’ (also known as the aēr or ‘sublunar sphere’) extending above the highest visible clouds all the way to the orbit of the moon . . . Most people of the time thought the aēr extended all the way to the moon (while everything beyond that was filled with a breathable ‘ether’), when in fact (as we now know) the real atmosphere extends only a minuscule fraction of that distance.”
(Carrier 2014, OHJ, p. 63)
“[T]he daimonic realm establishes a clear hierarchy and separation between gods and humans and highlights the gap between them. Humans cannot interact directly with the gods; but through the intermediate position of daimons, the two realms are bound together (Plato, Symp. 202e). Platonic writers of the Roman era expand on Plato’s description of daimons as intermediaries between gods and mortals. Apuleius describes daimons as “living beings (animalia) by species, rational ones by nature, emotional in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time” (Apuleius, De deo Socr. 13.3 [Jones, LCL]). The first three of these features they share with humans, the last they share with the gods, and the fourth—occupying the middle space between heaven and earth—is unique to them.” Sharp, Matthew T. (2022). “Courting Daimons in Corinth: Daimonic Partnerships, Cosmic Hierarchies and Divine Jealousy in 1 Corinthians 8–10.” In Demons in Early Judaism and Christianity, pp. 112-129. Brill.
“[M]ortals can attain to nature of “demons” or demigods and live in the “sublunar realm” and some of these can go further to become divine and live in the highest plane.”
Godfrey, Neil (9 March 2010). “Ancient beliefs about heavenly realms, demons and the end of the world”. Vridar.
OP: “Price’s theory is that the original cult believed Jesus to be an immaterial heavenly being.”
The the original cult’s conception of their Second-god may of been similar to what is found in the Latin and Slavonic “Vision” component of the composite document Ascension of Isaiah.
My idiosyncratic translation of 10.29–31 in the Latin and Slavonic.
29. And he descended into the firmament.
30. And to the angels who were in this air, he was one of them.
31. And he gave them no sign, and they did not sing.
Then after dying in the “air” realm, Second-god sets free the souls of the dead and takes them to heaven.
“The original “good news” was “the Beloved will come from heaven to free the souls of the dead and take them to heaven. Believe it now or believe it later. The end.” (Asc. Is. L2)” James Barlow says: 2020-06-11. Vridar comment per “Ascension of Isaiah: Questioning Three of Earl Doherty’s Arguments”.
OP: “Yahweh directly wanted [animal blood] . . . because its blood would magically expiate sins.”
“Hebrews 9 is an accurate and actual representation of the original Christian atonement theory that formed the religion. And it matches very closely Jewish atonement theology generally from the time, as one would expect. That is why this is what I discuss in OHJ. Everything there is based on what actual ancient Christians and Jews said, as interpreted historically…”
Carrier @ comment-31255 (3 October 2022) “Open Thread On the Historicity of Jesus”.
“When attention is given to the Old Testament ideas standing behind Luke’s account, it becomes evident that Jesus is interpreting his death as a sacrifice that atones for the sins of God’s people so that they might enter a new eschatological covenant with God.” Kimbell, John (2014). “CH:2 THE NEW COVENANT SACRIFICE”, The Atonement in Lukan Theology. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-6856-3.
•
If I were to make my own case for, “[S]ignificant points on . . . the hypothetical cult…”
Inconsistencies in the accounts of ancient individuals are quite normal:
Something we both missed: Spartacus was not crucified!
• Carrier (5 July 2015). “Okay, So What about the Historicity of Spartacus?”. Richard Carrier Blogs.
OP: “Now, one very obvious point which should be made here is that Christianity clearly did somehow develop or acquire all of the above beliefs at a fairly early stage.”
Yes, a company of Hellenistic Jews came up with this.
As did another company of Hellenistic Jews wrestle in gymnasium and receive the Greek arts.
Yet another company of Hellenistic Jews accepted, or were at least familiar with, the mythology of Tartarus and the Titans and Giants.
Burnett, Clint (2013). “Going Through Hell; ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΣ in Greco-Roman Culture, Second Temple Judaism, and Philo of Alexandria”. Journal of Ancient Judaism. 4 (3): 352–378. doi:10.30965/21967954-00403004.
Oddly enough, I don’t take an assertion by Carrier as necessarily true.
KG @ # 26: Something we both missed: Spartacus was not crucified!
I was about to (yet again) lambaste Hollywood, but then realized Howard Fast takes the blame this time.
The Britannica squib on Spartacus offers a little more detail:
Which leaves me still wondering where Fast came up with his repeated description of S as “sheep-faced”…
OP: “…the hypothetical cult Price has described differs from typical Judaic beliefs of the time…”
It is possible that “the hypothetical cult” splintered from the parent cult that produced the G.Thomas, G.Philip and similar ‘apocryphal’ texts. And originally worshiped the celestial “IS the Chrest”, the demiurge second god/angel/redeemer.
One could imagine that if Marcion and early Marcionites were early, and Paul was based on the LXX-OT and elaborated on by the Marcionites; and the Gospel attributed to Mark was based on Paul; and Matthew, Luke and Acts, were based on the Marcionite Euangelion and Mark +/- Paul; and people were variably reading and reacting to the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the early and evolving Sethians and Valentinians; and several or many other ‘traditions’ and texts, including G.Thomas (because others had used it); then a one can seen how G.Philip and similar ‘apocryphal’ texts were part of that milieu.
• Linssen, Martijn (2021). “Complete Thomas Commentary, Part I & II (logion 0-55)”. Academia.edu.
• Linssen, Martijn (2022). “Jesus the Chrest – Nomina Sacra in the Nag Hammadi Library 2.0”. Thomas Miscellaneous, Part V. Academia.edu.
• Linssen, Martijn (2022). “From Chrestian to Christian – Philip beyond the grave”. Thomas Miscellaneous, Part VI. Academia.edu.
@30 [Pierce R. Butler] says: “[W]here Fast came up with his repeated description of S as ‘sheep-faced’…”
No telling, his other options may of been:
sheepish + abashed = sheepibashed
sheepish + diffident = sheepiffident
In which case Jared Leto should should be S in the next movie remake 🙂
@29 [KG], Do you deign to accept the minim history of slave rebellion characterized as the:
“Servile Wars”. Wikipedia.
• First Servile War (135−132 BCE) — in Sicily.
• Second Servile War (104−100 BCE) — in Sicily.
• Third Servile War (73−71 BCE) — on mainland Italy.
db@33,
I’m not a Spartacus mythicist, as you appear to imagine. I’m disputing whether a mere assertion by Richard Carrier establishes that “the evidence for Spartacus is way better than for Jesus”. Only the 3rd Servile War involved Spartacus, so I don’t know what relevance the 1st and 2nd have, and the point is that all the sources for Spartacus date from well over a century after his death, assuming he did indeed live when those sources say he did. The main ones, Arrian and Plutarch, differ significantly in their description of events, just as the accounts of Jesus’ life do.
Dulk, Matthijs den (2018). Between Jews and Heretics: Refiguring Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-24347-6. (available online @ Academia.edu)
@34 [KG] says: “Only the 3rd Servile War involved Spartacus…”
OK, the Servile Wars occurred and each rebellion was led by one or more leaders. Thus the probability that the 3rd Servile War was led by one or more leaders is > 50%.
What is the relevance that one or more leaders be named “Spartacus”? When you admit slave rebellion was a thing circa. 135-71 BCE.
db@36
What on earth are you on about?
@34 [KG] says: “What on earth are you on about?”
The minimum historicity of Spartacus is established if evidence exists that supports the likelihood that one or more leaders be named “Spartacus” during the period of the Servile Wars. But you appear to not accept such a minimum historicity of Spartacus.
Nonsense. I’ve already said I’m not a Spartacus mythicist. If you’re unable to read and understand what’s placed in front of you in plain English, why should anyone take your views on the historicity of Jesus seriously?
Carrier >>> “But if all you want is to be assured of historicity, the evidence for Spartacus is way better than for Jesus.”
KG >>> “Oddly enough, I don’t take an assertion by Carrier as necessarily true.”
KG >>> “I’m not a Spartacus mythicist.”
During the Servile Wars each rebellion was led by one or more leaders. An actual man at some point named Spartacus was a rebellion leader. This shall be the minimal theory of historicity of Spartacus.
OK, KG is not not a mythicist. And KG does not understand that the evidence for the minimal historicity of Spartacus is way better than for the minimal historicity Jesus. KG does not understand minimal mythicism, because KG does not understand Carrier.
Carrier says the sky is blue! KG says “What sky?”
KG does not understand why Life of Crassus by Plutarch of Chaeronea, and the Civil Wars by Appian of Alexandria (with both likely using non extant older accounts), are superior evidence for the minimal historicity of Spartacus in comparison to the evidence for the minimal historicity Jesus.
db@40,
It’s quite clear you are defining very different conditions for a “minimal theory of historicity” for the two cases, which you would not do if you, or Carrier, had a strong case. The rest of your comment is very little more than a series of unevidenced assertions. I conclude that you cannot actually support your contention that evidence for the historicity of Spartacus is stronger than that for the historicity of Jesus.
With regard to the above discussion, I would also like to point out that there is no contradiction between the statements ‘I believe that Jesus and Spartacus were both historical’ and ‘I don’t believe the evidence for Spartacus’s historicity to be greater than that for Jesus’s historicity’. Or, for that matter, between ‘I believe that Spartacus was historical’ and ‘I don’t automatically trust Carrier as a good source of information’. Since those appear, IIUC, to be KG’s views on the matter, and since none of them are contradictory, I think you’re arguing against a strawman here, db.
By the way, as someone currently in a British winter, I can tell you that ‘What sky?’ is a perfectly reasonable response to ‘The sky is blue’. I’m sure there are skies somewhere in the world at this moment that are blue. There are also a lot that are grey. Right now, ours happens to be dark, as it’s night-time. If you want to know the colour of the sky, it’s entirely appropriate to specify which bit of sky you’re talking about.
Dr. Sarah@42,
Thanks – those are indeed my views! Although I’m open to argument that the evidence for Spartacus’s historicity is stronger than that for Jesus’s historicity. One point in favour of that is that Plutarch and Appian are themselves well-attested individuals concerning whom many biographical facts are a matter of consensus among relevant experts, while the actual identity of the gospel writers is uncertain (but that of Paul of Tarsus, the earliest source for Jesus’s historicity, is not, although there is doubt about whether some of his supposed letters were actually written by him).
I would note that db’s “minimal historicity” criterion for Spartacus: “During the Servile Wars each rebellion was led by one or more leaders. An actual man at some point named Spartacus was a rebellion leader. This shall be the minimal theory of historicity of Spartacus” is extraordinarily weak (that he quotes for Jesus’s historicity from Carrier is reasonable). It is implicit in Carrier’s criterion for Jesus’s historicity (I would actually prefer to make it explicit) that there be a causal connection between the real life of a Jesus who acquired followers, and the stories later told about him (which does not mean everything in those stories must be true). That requirement is absent in db’s criterion for Spartacus. Suppose there was a leader named Spartacus in the First Servile War, about whom nothing was ever written by anyone, and about whom no information was passed down orally from those who knew him or of him; while both Plutarch and Arrian based their accounts of “Spartacus” in the Third Servile War on a lost work of fiction (which was in no way based on the forgotten Spartacus of the First Servile War) which they mistook for history; and there was no-one named Spartacus in any way involved in the Third Servile War. According to db, that would suffice for Spartacus’s historicity!
FYI:
The Discussion has been launched today, December 21st 2022
https://www.academia.edu/s/faa7f58532
I invite everyone to participate in what is one of my most important Discussions ever regarding Christian origins
N.B. per the above announcement “one of my most important Discussions ever” is by Linssen not dbz.
Have you & others who might be interested here seen PZ Myers latest video & thread on this here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/12/25/i-had-to-say-what-i-think-of-jesus-mythicism/
PER “…the most reasonable explanation for the start of Christianity, only weirdly deluded fanatics argue otherwise.”
GIVEN: The “start of Christianity” and that any post 70 CE Manuscripts do not meet the standards of the field of history to be reliable evidence for the “start of Christianity”.
An oft misunderstood topic: βίβλος (bíblos, “book”), from βύβλος (búblos, “papyrus”) (from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported this writing material). N.B. κανών (kanṓn, “measuring rod, standard”) and the Catholic canon was set at the Council of Rome (382) not Nicaea (325).
• “Early Christian Schisms – The Council of Nicaea – Extra History – #3”. YouTube. Extra Credits. 14 May 2016.
The term “extant second temple period scriptures” would be more apropos per the origin of the Jewish sub-culture sect that we term as the original Christian cult.
“The earliest documents we have from Christians are the authentic letters of Paul (only seven; the rest are now known to be later forgeries), and perhaps a few other letters in the New Testament, like 1 Peter, James, Jude, and Hebrews, and possibly the first letter from Clement of Rome.” [ Carrier 2020, pp. 17–18. ]
At time time 10:12, Carrier explains the old world order as understood by Christians (i.e Jewish sub-culture) before Paul, contra the new world order advocated by Paul. In short, the law of the old world order was death & decay and held sway for all (gentiles and Jews) unless you were torah observant. In the new world order of Paul’s cult not so much.
• “Jesus Was Born of A Woman, Born Under The Law In The Heavens Mythicist?”. YouTube. MythVision Podcast. 21 November 2022. @time:00:10:12
StevoR, #46:
I had not! Thank you for this, and thank you for mentioning me in the thread! (Thanks also to Pierce R. Butler for the same, if you’re reading this.) As you might have seen, I have now jumped into the fray.
• John MacDonald (January 1, 2023). “A Critique Of The Christ Myth Theory: My New Article Has Been Published | The Secular Frontier”. secularfrontier.infidels.org.
Upcoming:
Vinzent, Markus (2023). Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-29048-7.
See:
“Marcion And The Dating Of The Synoptic Gospels – Professor Markus Vinzent”. YouTube. History Valley. 27 May 2022. Vinzent @time:01:00:04 notes that a core of the Pauline material may have been authored by Marcion and Co.
“Marcion’s Origins – Dr. Markus Vinzent”. YouTube. History Valley. 30 September 2022. “Marcion of Sinope was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new and distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created the world.”
Vinzent (17 November 2014). “What is the relation between Mark, ‘canonizer of Paul’, and Marcion’s Gospel?”. Markus Vinzent’s Blog.
“A New Theory for Christian Origins – Biblical Criticism & History Forum”. Earlywritings. Dec 26, 2022.
Cf. “The Jewish Myth Of Jesus – Stephan Huller”. YouTube. History Valley. 2 August 2022.
Per Vinzent:
“Is Marcions Gospel First? – Dr. Markus Vinzent Vs. Dr. Dennis MacDonald”. YouTube. History Valley. 6 January 2023. “In this video, Dr. Markus Vinzent and Dr. Dennis MacDonald debate on rather Marcions Gospel was written prior to the four canonical Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Marcion of Sinope was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new and distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created the world.”
Per Walsh:
N.B. Walsh also argues that Paul uses “middle platonic” philosophy. Cf. Walsh, Robyn Faith (2021). The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-83530-5. (Middle Platonism & Paul the Apostle: pp. 7, 126, 192)
• “Did The Greco-Roman Elite Class Write The Gospels?! – Professor Robyn Faith Walsh”. YouTube. History Valley. 24 May 2022.
• “Book Talk with Robyn Walsh: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture”. YouTube. UMHumanities. 18 October 2021. “Videos produced by the College of Arts and Sciences Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami. Series of Book Talks, Insight Tracks, and Roundtable discussions during conferences and symposia.”
• “Robyn Walsh, ‘The Origins of Early Christian Literature'”. YouTube. Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. 21 March 2022.
Dr Sarah,
“In 2 Maccabees, the boys and their mother were’t killed because of some abstract belief that their blood would be pleasing or appeasing to God; they were killed because of their refusal to break Jewish dietary law.”
The sixth son says “Do not deceive yourself in vain. For we are suffering these things on our own account, because of our sins against our own God.” 2 Maccabees 7:18b
And the seventh son says, “For we are suffering because of our own sins” (2 Macc 7:32) and “through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty which has justly fallen on our whole nation.” (2 Macc 7:38)
From this it seems that the suffering of the Jewish people was because God was unhappy with them because of their sins and sent Antiochus IV to punish them (as he has sent other foreign kings to punish them in the past). It also seems that the seventh son is saying that their deaths are to bring to an end to God’s punishment of the Jewish people. This seems to imply that God will be satisfied with these deaths and so forgive the Jewish people.
“Price has mistaken this (in 4 Maccabees) for an indication that human sin sacrifice was considered desirable, but that isn’t the case.”
“and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation (4 Macc 17:21bc) seems to be a justifiable summary of what the seventh son said in 2 Maccabees.
2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees are evidence that within Jewish thought and belief there was the idea that a human can die, and their death would atone for the sins of the Jewish people. This does demonstrate how it was possible for Jewish people to see someone’s execution as an atonement for the sins of the Jewish people. Therefore it become possible for Jesus’ Jewish followers after his crucifixion to see his death in this way.
This idea of Jesus as a ransom for the many is included in Mark’s gospel – “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Mk 10:45 and Mt 20:28. Paul also has this idea he writes, “that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Roms 5:8c).