Corpus-Paul

[Zeba Crook <zeba.crook AT utoronto.ca>]

"David C. Hindley" wrote:

> My own take on this is that it would be hard to explain how Christianity
> could have been synthesized from all those similar pagan myths and beliefs,
> in the 1st century CE historical context, without there having been a real
> person around which these traditions condensed.

I find this point interesting (and Eric made a similar point):  "it would be 
hard
explain how Christianity could have been synthesized from all those similar 
pagan myths
and beliefs, in the 1st century CE historical context, without there having 
been a real
person."

This is true to a certain extent, but it has no probative value when it comes 
to the
question of Jesus' existence.  The fact that we can't explain such a 
profoundly complex
phenomenon as the origins of Christian belief does lead logically to the 
conclusion
that Jesus must have existed.  First of all, this is because that alone 
doesn't account
for it in the first place.  Secondly, do all religious myths have their 
foundation in
some bit of concrete history?  Take the myth of Adam and Eve's being expelled 
from the
Garden of Eden as the myth of origins of human suffering (or a number of other
things).  The development of religious myth is incredibly complex (and well 
beyond my
speciality), but it seems that it is not logically necessary for there to 
have been a
real person for a complex mythical structure to have developed around the 
name.

I'll clarify again, I suspect Jesus was real, but I'm not sure the fact that 
there is a
grand religious structure built up around him is how we know that.  I also 
wonder if
the value of books like the ones being rejected here is not so much to 
present a
serious and flawless argument, but to illustrate and emphasise how little we 
know about
the beginnings of Christianity.  Said another way, it is the nature of the 
very vague
evidence that justifiably allows books like this to be written.

Cheers,

Zeb

***

Zeba Antonin Crook (Ph.D. Cand)
University of St. Michael's College
Faculty of Theology
81 St. Mary Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S 1J4

(416) 964-8629
http://individual.utoronto.ca/zeba_crook