Nailed

[born1ce]

I just finished reading Nailed: 10 Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All by David Fitzgerald. He makes the point that Paul never believed in a real human Jesus, just that he was spirit, and that Paul never heard of miracles and events of Jesus' life. I found the arguments compelling except the problem I see is that in Romans Paul says "for we know that our old self was crucified with him.. " Romans 6:6.

So obviously Paul was aware of a crucifixion? How then can scholars say that Paul was not aware of a crucifixion? Or where am I wrong?

[mymistake]

Romans did not invent crucifixion nor were they the only ones who could crucify.

 

I'm no longer sure if the myth argument works.  It depends highly on exactly which parts of the Pauline letters are authentic and that is hard to determine.  Paul certainly was plagiarized a lot.

[Mythra]

Not sure about the book "Nailed" and what that author claims.

 

Here is a cut and paste from a little summary in the christ myth thread in General Theological Issues:

 

Your opening question is flawed.  There is no single christ myth theory.  There are lots and lots of them. Most are bunk and easily shown to be someone's fantastic idea.  I've studied it a lot over the years, and I am indeed someone who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth never existed.  But there's only one hypothesis that I find credible.  The one expounded first (that I'm aware of ) by Earl Doherty (the Jesus Puzzle) and more recently by Richard Carrier (On the Historicity of Jesus)

 

While it's true that most historians don't doubt the historicity of Jesus, Richard Carrier does.  And most would consider him a respected scholar of ancient history.

 

Most historians say that Jesus was a man who became mythologized and legendary after his death.  

 

There's a pretty plausible theory that says Jesus was first worshipped as the son of god who's sacrifice took place in the spiritual dimension. And the earliest of christians developed these ideas because of the way they interpreted the scriptures.  Passages from Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and the Wisdom of Solomon were used (through midrash and pesher both) to develop the idea that the Messiah had come.  Even the dead sea scrolls and Philo's writings support the idea that these were all concepts that were present and being developed during this time.

 

And so, the earliest writings in the New Testament are the Pauline Epistles.  And Paul makes no mention at all of an earthly Jesus. No mention at all of any of the teachings of Jesus.  Even when those teachings would have supported a point that Paul was trying to make.

 

The gospel according to Mark hit the scene perhaps 30  years after Paul wrote his epistles.  Mark used OT prophecies as well as the Homeric writings(such as the Iliad)  to pattern his Jesus.  

 

Matthew and Luke follow Mark's lead, with some revisions and some additions.  The gospel of John is a departure of course, and not many scholars accept the gospel of John as anything other than a theological treatise.

 

So, that's the nutshell version from the top of my head.  Here is a review of Carrier's book that gives a much fuller explanation

: http://www.nobeliefs.com/Carrier.htm

 

See the christ myth thread for the full discussion, and check out the link above for a little outline of the most scholarly and plausible (in my opinion) of the Jesus myth theories.

[Mythra]

The christ myth position espoused by Carrier and Doherty and I assume, Fitzgerald would say that Paul's visions of crucifixion and the eucharist were both things that occurred in a spiritual realm. Which is quite consistent with many mystery religions of the time (Such as my namesake - Mithras).

[born1ce]

Thank you---that is what I was trying to understand: if Paul was referring to an actual crucifixion or a spiritual one.  Although I don't understand why he would be referencing  a spiritual crucifixion vs. a literal one.  But then again, I'm not yet versed in the mystery religions.

[Mythra]

It sounds far-fetched because of the traditional way we learned about the developments in the new testament. If you read the books in the NT chronologically in the order they were written, this theory might seem more plausible.

 

At the time Paul wrote his epistles, he mentions "the gospel". What gospel was he talking about? Mark had not yet been written.

So was Paul talking about an oral gospel, stories that were circulating about the man jesus who had been born of a virgin, raised the dead, fed the thousands, made the blind see, walked on water, and recently died and then resurrected and was seen by lots of his followers who then watched him ascend back to heaven? If so, why doesn't he mention anything remotely like that?

 

Instead Paul talks about theological ideas. Things like sin and righteousness and salvation, tying them in with things from the OT. Ideas like a messiah who would come and rescue the house of israel. Since it was clear that no rescue was possible in the physical realm, (because the Romans were a formidable force) - it began to be envisioned as a messiah that conquered sin and death in the same manner as the sacrificial system that the jews already had in place. Only a son of god, or son of man, became the object of the sacrifice.

 

If you read some of the things written during the time between the OT and the NT, like some of the ideas in the dead sea scrolls, the theological concepts of Philo of Alexandria, etc. You'd see that these kinds of beliefs and conclusions were swirling around. Josephus writes about several other people who claimed to be the messiah and developed a following. People back then searched the scriptures (the OT prophets) for clues and insights about hidden meanings. And from those, along with hellenistic philosophical thought and mythology and things they adopted from the Persians (Zoroastrians) right after the Babylonian Captivity, it led to the earliest cult of christianity, followed by Paul's conversion and Paul's theological ideas, supposedly based on visions he had.

 

Then somewhat later, up to 30 years later, a greek writer came up with the earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark - giving the story a human face and a compelling narrative, using OT prophecies and the Homeric Epics as a guide.

 

We can't conceive of it happening like this, because of a lack of understanding about how gullible and ignorant people were back then. Most were illiterate and followed all nature of myths and legends and fantastic stories of miracles. By the time Mark was fleshed out, (probably after the fall of Jerusalem) there was no way to disprove or to verify any of the things (like the miraculous feeding of the thousands) that are in the story.

 

That's my shoot-from-the-hip version of christ myth theory, based on some of the books I've read. Hope that makes it a little clearer.

[Mythra]

So, born 1ce, how does this version compare to the one in the book "Nailed"?

[born1ce]

You could have written "Nailed"...lol. Thank you for all the explanation. I think I'm having such a hard time reconciling the fact that Paul would just become a Christian after being such an ardent Jew. And he was living very close to the time that people would have been still living when Jesus had lived so this is where I find it hard to believe it is made up. I have studied other religions and it is easier to see how they are made up. I believe in evolution. I believe the earth is billions of years old. Basically I believe in science--- I watch Cosmos etc...and it never messed with my Christian belief because I thought the stories in the Bible were allegotical. At least that's what I gathered from the Catholic church. Also the Catholic Church had toned down its hell and made it a place of separation from God. BUT then I started going to Protestant churches and they made hell real ( except for the 7th Day Adventist church I tried--they don't believe in a literal hell)and then seeing people really believing the young Earth stories and frankly feeling afraid that people could so willingly believe what makes no sense. I mean these are doctors and educated people. I wish I had never left the Catholic Church to tell the truth, because I was blissful in my ignorance about other Christian beliefs.

[Blood]

I just finished reading Nailed: 10 Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All by David Fitzgerald. He makes the point that Paul never believed in a real human Jesus, just that he was spirit, and that Paul never heard of miracles and events of Jesus' life. I found the arguments compelling except the problem I see is that in Romans Paul says "for we know that our old self was crucified with him.. " Romans 6:6.

So obviously Paul was aware of a crucifixion? How then can scholars say that Paul was not aware of a crucifixion? Or where am I wrong?

 

I don't think Fitzgerald is arguing that Paul wasn't aware of a crucifixion. He's just saying that said event is as mythical as Attis's self-emasculation or Hercules' 12 labors. 

 

Because somebody wrote something down doesn't mean that what they describe actually happened. The probabilities in fact go way down once you bring religion into the story. 

[Mythra]

Romans did not invent crucifixion nor were they the only ones who could crucify.

 

I'm no longer sure if the myth argument works.  It depends highly on exactly which parts of the Pauline letters are authentic and that is hard to determine.  Paul certainly was plagiarized a lot.

The myth position has a few things that are problematic, but not impossible, to reconcile.

 

But so does every single historicist theory too.  There isn't any single narrative about Jesus in which all of the pieces fit.  

 

Not even the literalist position, since the gospel writers were more concerned about making their story sensational and inspirational than making sure it squared up with the other gospel accounts.  And the literalist position definitely suffers from a very loud sucking sound coming from any supporting documents of the time.