Ducktown wrote:
I always equated euhemerization with deification, and apparently most people still do.

eg. Christians have used it to besmirch things they wanted to be called heresies.

Ducktown wrote:At it's simplest, euhemerization is the creation of a fictional historical account of a god, and not the deification of an historical person, as most people assume.

Ducktown wrote:This is precisely what we have with the gospels and the proliferation of gospel accounts about this Jesus. Hence the need to clean things up and canonize only certain stories as acceptable. This euhemerization even continued after the golden age of Jesus gospels and had Jesus surviving his execution. All good stuff.

Euhemerization also best explains the numerous contradictions in the NT concerning the nature of the Jesus, especially when Paul is included. "According to the scriptures" takes on actual meaning.

2. Bruce says
August 1, 2015 at 2:07 am

"To be blunt about the implications in OHJ, if I understand you, all this makes it quite plausible that Jesus was Euhemerized very much as Osiris was. That is to say, the original Jesus was some sort of angel or good-sky-demon, who wasn’t born of a virgin or anyone else, but simply lived where he was created, in outer space near the moon and below where the dome of the sky holds up all the rain. It was there that he “lived”, was crucified by bad demons, died, and was resurrected back to a new sky-body, as equally non-fleshy as Jesus’s original body. And it is possible that this is the only concept of Jesus that had ever existed through the lifetime of Paul.

"The real kicker of your blog post is the further implication that some time after Paul and before Mark, or possibly the author of “Mark” itself, he did as they did with Osiris. That is, the Christian leader(s) took a sky God and created a Euhemerized Jesus man, set in the Jewish homelands. And this “human Jesus” may have been deliberately created to fool the masses, while the core inner group was allowed to know the secret. The secret was that the real Jesus had never been a man, but was always a pure sky God. Unfortunately, at some point, either the core inner group died off without passing on their secret, or else the fake story became so popular that nobody would accept the “true” sky God story. So by 120 or 150 a.d., nobody was left who knew that Jesus had been Euhemerized from a sky story."

"We may never know which of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John’s authors “knew the truth”, and which ones literally believed that a fleshy Jesus once existed. But clearly all four authors wanted their lay readers to believe that Jesus was a real dude.

"The key to Jesus as being Euhemerized is found everywhere in the New Testament where it says it happened “according to the scriptures”. To modern readers, this sounds as if it refers to the four gospels. But to first century people, it clearly meant Old Testament books such as Daniel and Isaiah ... So they read the old books, imagined a sky Jesus, then pretended he was a dude to fool the commoners, then got overridden by the commoner tea party types of the day. So everyone who knew Jesus was really just a sky God got condemned for heresy by the first-century tea party Euhemerization-dupes, and now the fake story is the only history permitted."

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... nt-1057518

Reply

Richard Carrier says
August 1, 2015 at 1:05 pm

"Yep. You have sussed every point correctly, IMO.

"Readers should read Elements 13, 14, 15, 29, and 31 in OHJ to see why this is all likely in context. And Chapter 12.3 has the best complete summary.

So by 120 or 150 AD, nobody was left who knew that Jesus had been Euhemerized from a sky story.

"Or, as you also suggest, many were left, but had been marginalized as “heretics” ..."

.

The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High.

And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time ago was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it.

This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished.

But he himself was pierced by the Jews, and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven.

Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness. And hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians, and they have become famous.

dejuror wrote:It always amuses me when it is claimed the Gospels were written to historicise a heavenly Jesus.

How in the world can stories which claim Jesus was born of a Ghost historicise a heavenly character??

ie. they attribute human characteristics to the re-vamped entity

dejuror wrote:"The Gospels confirm the mythology of Jesus"

... the Pauline Corpus states Jesus was the Son of God from heaven who was Killed by the Jews.

It is clear that the Pauline Corpus has brought Jesus down to earth.

The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God most High.

And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh*; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time ago was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it.

* he was clothed in flesh by the story-writers

.

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us...

Ducktown wrote:FWIW the Jesus Tales have Gnostic written all over them. There was a lot of harmonizing and redaction after the tale was initially invented. It really isn't important to know which particular writing came first to appreciate how the folklore became historicized.

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

RealityRules wrote:.
This is interesting -

Dating sacred manuscripts

I have noticed how those arguing most determinedly against my efforts usually claim to be atheists, or skeptics, yet the counter-arguments they make support the Christian apologists. The one I find most odd is to deny the historicity of the NT while using and openly supporting the textual tradition, which is largely fraudulent. The common claim is to trust authority, which is the antithesis of the scientific method. We need to date texts reliably; nothing less will do and those arguing against this are on the wrong side.

We need C14 dating, both absolute and relative, for multiple samples and by multiple laboratories, for Christian, Chrestian, Gnostic and Manichaean sacred texts.

RealityRules wrote:.
Richard Carrier discusses the 'humanization' of gods in a recent blog-post -

"Euhemerus took celestial (ahistorical) gods (Zeus and Uranus) and then turned them into 'historical men'. Not the other way around. Therefore, anyone who does that is doing what Euhemerus did. They are therefore 'euhemerizing' a god. Just as Euhemerus 'euhemerized' Zeus and Uranus."

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/8161

His comments addressing others' comment at the bottom are interesting, too.

We need C14 dating, both absolute and relative, for multiple samples and by multiple laboratories, for Christian, Chrestian, Gnostic and Manichaean sacred texts.

duvduv wrote:Not to mention the reality of older parchments being saved up or reused by erasing the ink on them. It's a shaky situation.

dejuror wrote:

duvduv wrote:Not to mention the reality of older parchments being saved up or reused by erasing the ink on them. It's a shaky situation.

The re-use of older parchments is indeed problematic with C-14 dating since the specimen to be tested will be a blank part with neither the original or later text.

C-14 dating only gives the date of the lifetime of the organic material on which texts were written.

If effect, C-14 only gives us the earliest time which texts may have been written for a given blank specimen.

On the other hand, paleography dates the ACTUAL Texts.

Ducktown wrote:

dejuror wrote:

duvduv wrote:Not to mention the reality of older parchments being saved up or reused by erasing the ink on them. It's a shaky situation.

The re-use of older parchments is indeed problematic with C-14 dating since the specimen to be tested will be a blank part with neither the original or later text.

C-14 dating only gives the date of the lifetime of the organic material on which texts were written.

If effect, C-14 only gives us the earliest time which texts may have been written for a given blank specimen.

On the other hand, paleography dates the ACTUAL Texts.

C14 helps date an artifact. It's just another piece of information. Paleography is much more subjective. C14 at least sets an age limit or window on how early something could have been written. It's nice to have.

dejuror wrote:
People here seem not to understand that C-14 is also problematic since it is more likely to give an EARLIER date than the actual composition of the texts.

As with Paleography the margin of error is very large for C-14.

Perhaps someone can explain a better method for dating ACTUAL Texts.

ADParker wrote:

dejuror wrote:
People here seem not to understand that C-14 is also problematic since it is more likely to give an EARLIER date than the actual composition of the texts.

As with Paleography the margin of error is very large for C-14.

Perhaps someone can explain a better method for dating ACTUAL Texts.

It's not "problematic" as long as you understand what it offers. Which is a "no older than..." date, with given error bars, for that manuscript. The only "problem" with it giving an older date is to those who desperately want it to be shown to be more recent. As it stands it is one or any number of pieces of information to work with.

It almost sounds like you think it should be tossed because it isn't perfect, even though we don't have anything perfect.

dejuror wrote:If a blank piece of papyrus or vellum was produced between the 1st and the 2nd century based on C-14 dating such information is of little value if it can be shown by Paleography that the TEXTS were written in the 21st century.

duvduv wrote:There are so many things that are complicated, but some things aren't ....

Justin Martyr allegedly wrote an Apology in the mid 2nd century to the Emperor in which he didn't mention a single Christian settlement or leader in his appeal for his suffering brethren. He didn't even know about Paul, and then a mere 30 years later comes along Irenaeus, who allegedly lived in a community in Lyons, and knows all about Paul and the canon, but of course doesn't say how the canon was developed or by whom ...

And of course the mainstream scholars don't even wonder aloud (maybe it would cut back their funding) "WHAT EVIDENCE there is for Christian communities in Galata, Rome, Thessalonika, and the rest"?, or even "what evidence there is that a guy named Paul wrote them or that they were received by anyone"?.

Then we are told all about a guy named Marcion with no evidence. Not even any description of him by the guy who allegedly lived in the same town as he did at the same time; Justin Martyr. And Marcion [supposedly] only had a gospel of "Luke" and "collected" epistles, etc. etc. etc.

No evidence at all, just speculation becoming "fact."

ADParker wrote:

dejuror wrote:If a blank piece of papyrus or vellum was produced between the 1st and the 2nd century based on C-14 dating such information is of little value if it can be shown by Paleography that the TEXTS were written in the 21st century.

Um sure. But of course lacking such paleography it would prove that any claim to the manuscript being written prior to the 1st century CE is erroneous. Both methods have value, that is all I was saying, nothing more, nothing less.