Either way, there was no actual historical Jesus. So that’s not really an issue. If a mythical earth-death is at all plausible, it just increases the probability of non-historicity. Because the probability-space occupied by that option will be added to the probability-space occupied by the celestial-death theory.

In my next book I have a note acknowledging the possibility. But there is no support for it in the background evidence, or indeed any evidence at all, as opposed to the celestial death theory, which has both (as I extensively document in my next book). It therefore is far more defensible. That doesn’t mean the earth-death theory is false. It just means it’s far easier to defend the celestial-death theory.

Personally, I don’t know for certain if Paul himself believed in a purely spiritual Christ (along the lines of the savior in the original Ascension of Isaiah, who descends through successive layers of heavens by dying and rising again in each one) as Earl Doherty argues convincingly; or if Paul thought Jesus was on earth in some unspecified time in the past as a covert messiah, who “made of himself no reputation” (Phillip.2:7) and was unwittingly crucified by demons.

You admit, like Fitzgerald, at leat as mere possibility, that the crucifixion of Son, and only that, was believed to be happened on the terra firma as thinks Roger Parvus, too?

In this way, if the archontic reame was the terra firma, the sarx for Paul had only a negative value, then were only later Christians to re-value the material world by inventing an historical Jesus.

I know that you like argue for a minimal form of mythicism, but, even to the cost of committing the fallacia of possibiliter, you are opened to the possibility that the first Christians as Paul were only ”crucifixion-historicists” (i.e. they believed that the Son switched place with an anonymous condemned to the roman cross only for the few hours of his agony, and this fact was revealed to them only via revelation) and then only the later Christians became, after the Gospels, ”life & post-life” historicists? Parvus doesn’t think that the deat of anonymous had causal effect on the first vision, but instead the opposite: they knew that the Son was crucified on terra firma only per revelation. Before the celestial revelation, after their thinking of themselves as ”crucifixion-historicists”.

So Parvus:

Transformation and crucifixion, then, are almost exclusively the elements of the Lord’s visit to earth that can be found in the uncontroversial parts of the Pauline letters.

And it is not just that there is no public ministry. As Earl Doherty pointed out in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, pretty much the rest of the passion narrative as found in the canonical gospels is missing too. No scourging or crowning with thorns, no betrayal by Judas, or denials by Peter, or abandonment by the disciples, or preference of Barabbas over Jesus. Besides the crucifixion, arguably the only other reference to a passion incident is the mention of “insults” in Rom. 15:3.

The insults of Rom 15:3 obviously are taken from Psalm, but they can be clues of a presumed historical crucifixion (even if that crucifixion was not historical because known as such ony via revelation).

I confess to be divided 🙂 between your (and Doherty’s) view of a celestial crucifixion and the Parvus’view that I find very suggestive.

What do you think about?
Very thanks,
Giuseppe

For those who are interested in that subject, you can see my comments on Facebook here. But in short, (a) all the real scholars studying this admit the text bears not at all on any true facts about a historical Jesus (e.g. no one but cranks uses this as evidence Jesus was actually married) and (b) none of the attempts so far to authenticate the document against the claim of forgery are capable of doing so (conspicuously, in fact; yet the evidence it’s a modern forgery is nearly conclusive, IMO). Just FYI.

You need to be more specific. And also help people out with a link or two.

I likely will. I’m finding the book interesting enough to state the problems with it (and its merits).

Doesn’t work in context. Paul elsewhere compares himself to a monster (an aborted fetus: 1 Cor. 15:8) because he persecuted the church and thus had no right to expect God to choose him to be an apostle (1 Cor. 15:9). That is pretty explicit that he means persecute and not pursue. And that’s equally clear from Galatians 1:22-24:

And I was still unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ, but they only heard say, He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once made havoc; and they glorified God in me.

So clearly even in Galatians 1:11-16 he means wreak havoc on, not try to join. Even there he says he “tried to destroy it” (Gal. 1:13). To suggest this means “plunder” makes no sense in context (and context is everything). He clearly means that the churches were surprised that he was converted, not that he went from stealing their stuff to preaching their creed. No one who merely mooched off the church would be so famous for it as to be known as doing it across all the churches of Judea. It would also make no sense for him to be “pursuing” and “stealing from” the church without ever preaching its creed.

Moreover, one cannot plunder a “faith” (pistis). One could conceivably plunder a “church” (ecclesia, as in Gal. 1:13), but since Paul says he means the faith (1:23), he clearly is not using the word “destroy” in its connotation of “loot” (and loot does not mean steal from: there were other words for the latter; the former means plunder as in utterly strip and ruin). And on top of all that, he elsewhere says he is like a monster and does not deserve to be called an apostle because he “persecuted” the church, he clearly does not mean because he zealously pursued the church (and he does not use there any word that could imply looting it).

There just isn’t any plausible way to change what all this means. Paul himself clearly says he was a persecutor, who was then converted, not a moocher who then became a giver.

If I hit Calgary this year, it will be early June.