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  • From: Zeba Crook <zeba.crook AT utoronto.ca>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Corinthian Correspondence
  • Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 11:03:04 -0400


"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





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