Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
True Origins of Christianity, Gradual Literalization
Contents
Need for a Positive Explanation of
Actual Christian Origins
Doherty's mythic-Jesus work is
uniquely relevant because of method, style, and worldview
Alternative paradigms of Christian
origins
Alternative histories of
Christianity
"Exoterism to esoterism"
fallacy
From Theological to Esoteric/Historical View of Christian Origins
Why Alexanandrian Jews designed
Jesus figure unappealing to Jews
Patchwork origins of Christianity
What is Edwin Johnson's book
Antiqua Mater about?
Harvard's First Century History
Dating Gospel of John. Gnostic vs. orthodox frameworks.
"The
Foundations of Christianity" by Quentin David Jones
http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/
Quentin
wrote:
>There
is no mention of "The Jesus Mysteries" on my site. Anyway, the book is well-known and covers
the main ground, it deserves a mention ... Did you have any suggestions on how
it might be fitted in?
The book
The Jesus Mysteries is only half a book; the other half is Jesus and the Lost
Goddess. To understand and characterize
the first, one should understand the second as well. The first book focuses on explaining what the Jesus figure
*wasn't* originally about, and the second focuses on explaining or proposing
what the Jesus figure actually *was* originally about.
I have
characterized these as negative and positive coverage of mythic-only Jesus
research. Together the books imply that
an accurate understanding about Jesus requires a full understanding of both
aspects; not just discarding the Literalist man Jesus but replacing the
Literalist understanding of Jesus by a robust understanding of the Jesus figure
as a mythic figure. The requires a far
deeper understanding of what "myth" is really all about.
Like other
religious myths, the Jesus figure is a mythically allegorized metaphor
describing primary religious experience as was commonplace and universally
available in the mystery religions. The
greatest thing propping up the dominance of the received, Literalist view of
Jesus is the modern inability to appreciate how routinely commonplace religious
experiencing was in late antiquity and thus how vivid the presence of the
mythic Jesus was.
This robust
positive understanding (as I call it) of the Jesus figure finally enables a
suitably compelling possible *alternative* explanation as an alternative to the
overly familiar and entrenched received view.
Today is the era of striving to formulate plausible alternative
candidate positive explanations of what the Jesus figure *did* mean and how
Christianity actually *did* spread.
There is
too much emphasis on the negative: the Literalists, as always, assert that
Jesus did exist, and the mythic-only Jesus researchers deny he did, but we need
a more intense focus on a positive alternative to the received view, not merely
a more intense denial and disproof of our grounds for assuming a Historical
Jesus. To many researchers leave us
hanging.
A stack of
typical mythic-only Jesus books proves beyond a reasonable doubt that we have
no more grounds for postulating a Historical Jesus than we have for postulating
a Historical Dionysus -- but there we are left dangling without resolution, and
may say that Jesus is a myth, but still fail to know anything about what a myth
amounts to. For late antiquity, myth
expressed psyche-overthrowing intensity of primary religious experience that
deeply transformed the mind's way of thinking about personhood (including self,
time, and control).
Myth was
not only something more than empty falsehood; myth was more present and full of
meaning than tangible reality. Moderns
stand within the nonmythic realm and peer into the mythic; the Hellenists stood
within the mythic realm and peered out into the non-mythic realm.
Modernity
completely misunderstands what myth is for and what it is doing, so it
completely misses the point when saying Jesus was mythic, and modernity only
comes a little closer when saying that the Jesus myth was spiritually
meaningful.
Myth
remains essentially a mysterious black box with a question mark, for moderns,
so even if we say that Jesus was a spiritually meaningful mythic figure, we
still fail to understand Jesus: we now merely know that instead of Jesus being
a man, he was something else, which we don't understand and can only label as
somehow meaningful in some sort of spiritual way.
Such a
vague kind of understanding of Jesus fails to provide an alternative
possibility that can seriously threaten the hegemony of the entrenched
Literalist way of thinking about Jesus.
I see the
purpose of the JesusMysteries discussion group as being centered in what I call
the negative project: textual proof of whether Jesus did or did not exist. Serious brainstorming on the positive
project of formulating candidate alternative paradigms for consideration
remains for another discussion group.
The JesusMysteries discussion group can lean toward the latter project,
in a way consistent with the group's history and method, by rigorous yet
open-ended approaches such as the Deconstructing Jesus project.
I imagine
that the JesusMysteries moderators have the world's hardest job, shaping and
guiding postings constructively for substantial results that make progress in
the investigation. I am especially
hopeful that the structured DJ project approach can make tangible progress by
organizing the interpretations of the Jesus figure and asking what exactly each
kind of Jesus character is really all about.
This provides an open-ended approach enabling positive discovery of
meaning, rather than just a simple refutation of the received view.
Earl
Doherty's work has a weakness that also may be a strength relative to Christian
Literalists. I've read about 50% of his
published work, and skimmed more, and the coverage of mystic experiencing seems
vanishingly small, as I would expect from such a "scientific"-styled
researcher. Scientific demythologizers
throw out the baby with the bathwater: when Christianity is discovered to be
myth, it vanishes altogether for them.
But this lack of coverage of Christ-shaped religious experiencing, of
oneself experienced as crucified with and as Jesus, enables Doherty to focus on
scientific refutation of the Historical Jesus and do an effective job of this
for an audience that is accustomed to placing their Literalist Christology on a
scientific footing.
It is
harder for such Literalists to dismiss Doherty than to dismiss Acharya S (The
Christ Conspiracy) or Freke & Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries, Jesus and the
Lost Goddess), who in addition to scientifically refuting the Historical Jesus
also put forth a theory of astrotheology and Gnostic mystic experiencing, respectively.
All three
-- the Jesus-myth work of Acharya, Freke & Gandy, and Doherty -- provide
uniquely valuable and urgently needed work, in different ways. The more I read of mainstream Christian
scholarship, the more I realize that Doherty's work stands in most intense
contrast and contradiction with almost the whole of it. Practically *every* mainstream scholar
assumes that Jesus existed -- that point is out of bounds as an investigation
for them; for them, the only question is about the details. The mythic Jesus books by Acharya and Freke
& Gandy may be more radical and more relevant in the long run, into the era
that will be familiar with the no-HJ alternative.
But at the
moment, Doherty seems to be the most relevant, the most glaringly opposite of
the wave of recent Historical Jesus and Early Christianity studies. The more mystical mythic-only Jesus scholars
are "opposite" of mainstream scholars, and Doherty is also
"opposite" of mainstream scholars, but in different ways.
In some
respects, the most forceful alternative to the Historical Jesus
unexamined-assumption is not just negative (disproving HJ) but also positive
(providing a full, rich alternative picture of Christianity as mystic
initiation, which I happen to portray as initiation into the mystic altered
state of deterministic ego sacrifice).
However, such a twofold move, of negation of the conventional paradigm
together with a positive alternative paradigm, is too complex for
scientific-minded Christian scholars, whether they are supernaturalists (Literalists),
atheists, antisupernaturalist ethicists (Liberal Christians), or
antisupernaturalist spiritualists (Spiritual Christians).
Not even a
New Age Christian is likely to readily follow the move of both discarding the
accustomed assumption of the Historical Jesus (assumed by them to be a perfect
spirituality expert) *and* retaining
Christ as a vivid, profoundly meaningful myth that describes their own mystic
experiencing.
To make
the proposed positive, mystic-experiencing alternative even more complicated, I
additionally ask people to also accept a certain kind of frozen-future cosmic
determinism -- yet not the reigning standard conception of determinism --
together with entheogens as flesh of this now entirely mythic, yet also
molecular and physical, Christ.
And, as I
have vividly found, such positive speculation about the meaning of the Christ
figure, when the anchor of the Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption is
discarded, can explode with richness, becoming a confusing entire *realm* of overloaded,
multiple mythic meanings (just as it was designed to do, as a way of
encapsulating any and all central religious mythemes). Christologies are problematically multiple
now, but after discarding the anchor of the Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption,
many additional viable meanings of the Christ figure are revealed.
Doherty's
method and proposition is easier to follow.
How many people, at this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in
dispute with Doherty?
How many
people, at this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in dispute with
Acharya S' Christ Conspiracy and her forthcoming book Suns of God?
http://www.truthbeknown.com/introduction.htm
How many
people, at this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in dispute with
The Jesus Mysteries & Jesus and the Lost Goddess?
When I
read any recent book about Christianity, a frequently occurring thought is
"Doherty has refuted this Historical Jesus assumption this author
thoughtlessly buys into, and thus has rendered this entire book deeply
problematic." The most glaring
contrast is between scientific Christian historical scholarship, which adheres
to the Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption, and Doherty's similarly
scientific-style scholarship. Acharya
and Freke & Gandy are obviously outsiders, obviously different than the
Christian scholars, and are currently easy for Christian scholars to dismiss
because they are so different in method, style, and overall concerns.
Doherty
may have more of an immediate impact because his is *so similar* in his method
and many aspects of his style, to the Christian scholars. Doherty has infiltrated the methodology,
using the method and style of the Christian scholars to refute the unexamined
foundation of their entire system.
Most books
about Christianity are not mystic-experiencing oriented enough for me to think,
"Freke & Gandy have refuted this Historical Jesus assumption this
mystic author thoughtlessly buys into, and thus has rendered this entire book
problematic." The most mystical
books, such as The Beginnings of Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic
Revelation and the Christian Vision, by Andrew Welburn, seem to be completely
unruffled by anything the mythic-only Jesus scholars can propose. Welburn, as normal, adheres to the
Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption, but that is already in contrast with
his deeply mythical, mystic-experiencing portrayal of what proto-Christianity
was all about. Perhaps there is no
great contrast between mystical Christian writers who, as normal, adhere to the
Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption, and those mythic-only Jesus scholars
who positively assert that Christianity was essentially about initiation
experiencing in which one was mystically crucified and resurrected.
Mystical
mythic-Jesus scholars point the way past the Historical Jesus confusion, but
for most Christian scholars today, Doherty's work is in the position to be more
relevant and influential, because its style is limited to that of scientific
scholarship about Christianity, and focused on that methodology. In the longer term, I would expect and hope
that the positive mystic-experiencing hypotheses are influential. Of course Christianity has always been many
things and has spread many ways. Rodney
Stark provides some non-religious explanation of the rapid spread of the
Christian religion, but as a sociologist, he does as the scientists do,
omitting the mystic-experiencing initiation aspect at the same time as he
abandons the assumption that people adopt Christianity for theological and religious
reasons (he asserts that the real driving reasons are social and practical,
even if the converted later assume they were motivated by religious/theological
reasons).
The
liberal Christians formed "religionless Christianity" meaning a
system of ethics more than of religious experiencing; similarly, scientific
scholars of Christian origins are inclined to consider early Christianity as a
political and social movement without considering the mystic experiencing of
Christ.
Using a
Ken Wilberian "integral studies" approach, we may find that even if
mystic Christian experiencing is the highest form of Christianity, and even if
the history of Christian mystic experiencing is the most lofty kind of history
of Christianity, other, non-mystical threads of Christian history (such as
social or political) are even more important if we measure in terms of sheer
quantity of influence. There's no way
we can say "esoteric Christianity is real Christianity", any more than
Theology and Creedalism is real Christianity. Christianity may be best thought of as a free-floating nexus of
power and meaning, which any group with any goal may harness to their own
end. We tend to assume people identify
with Christ in order to secure eternal life, but that's just the simple official
story.
Thus I do
not quite go so far as to say that Doherty clears away false, Literalist
Christianity so that the more mystic-initiation oriented mythic-Jesus scholars
can at last present the real, mystic Christianity. Christianity is what Christianity is: predominantly exoteric,
largely social and political, and at an elite level, a hidden tradition of
esoteric initiation and mystic experiencing.
I propose that Christianity should be considered a 2-level system of
Literalist/exoteric and fully esoteric/mythic/mystic-experiencing, but the
exoteric level may be considered as more than one thread:
1. Social
2. Political
3. Religious in the familiar sense. This familiar sense is exoteric religiosity,
which solidified and justified the egoic moral self and guided that self by a
promise of eternal temporal duration, on the one hand, and the moral ballast of
punishment and reward, on the other.
Starks'
theory of religion is that people adopted Christianity because it worked for
them, but that theory only covers exoteric religion: it explains that
Christianity "worked" successfully to give egoic people what they
needed; that egoic, Literalist, exoteric Christianity served to effectively
prop up the egoic, freewillist, morally culpable (and empowered) agent.
4.
Christianity has also served, though as poorly as other religions, to provide
esoteric religious experience of ego transcendence. I get the impression Start overlooks this dimension of ways in
which "Christianity spread because it worked (socially and
psychologically)".
Doherty
refutes thread 3 above, which also affects or weakens thread 1 and 2 as we've
known them, but doesn't affect thread 4 much if at all. The mystic mythic-Jesus scholars ultimately
build up thread 4. In shifting from
Literalist to mythic-only Jesus, we move from emphasizing exoteric to esoteric
Christianity. Doherty focuses on
reducing exoteric; others focus on increasing esoteric Christianity. But I'd hesitate to say that esoteric is
"real" Christianity; rather, it's "higher". Portraying esoteric as "higher"
Christianity is justified because esoteric happens after learning the
exoteric. My further detailed portrayal
of this 2-level system accords with Pagels' Gnostic Paul: exoteric naive
freewill morality comes first, and esoteric determinism is discovered later
(and is quasi-transcended), in mystic experiencing. Lower Christianity is not so much "false", as a needed,
stage-appropriate fairy tale to prop up the miraculous delusion of independent
egoic sovereignty; exoteric moral religion provides and nourishes our seeming
ability to change what our own future will be (a sloppy, confused notion
inherent in the initial, egoic worldmodel).
>Glenn
wrote:
>Thanks,
Michael, for such a good overview. Doherty does read much better than Acharya.
He makes even me consider Jesus as a figment of Paul's imagination. I surfed a
bunch of his web pages listed below, best ranking pages first.
>http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/supp10.htm
Here is a
near-final draft of my Amazon.com review of Doherty's Jesus Puzzle book. It is actually a general framework for
categorizing *all* the Historical Jesus books.
This framework is more valuable than a review of any single book in
isolation.
__________
If reading
The Jesus Puzzle along with some other similar books doesn't convince you that
we have no more evidence for a Historical Jesus than for a Historical Dionysus,
then you cannot be convinced. There are
at least some 20 books on the mythic-only Christ. I conclude that Jesus was originally a 2-layer mythical,
allegorical figure loosely based on a variety of political, ethical, and
religious figures of the era. Here is a
framework for you to use to categorize Historical Jesus researchers, including
Doherty.
The
mythic-only Christ books can be evaluated in terms of how they describe Jesus
on the exoteric level (was he first of all a healer, prophet, ethicist,
exorcist, or rebeller against the power establishment?), on the esoteric level
(did the mythic-allegorical Jesus figure represent a spirit-plane way-shower, a
personified entheogen, one's own higher self, or one's own transcended lower
sacrificed self?) and as an integrated combination of the two levels.
There are
several distinct approaches taken by Historical Jesus researchers:
1.
Supernaturalist esoteric Historical Jesus researchers -- Orthodox mystics. They do Historical Jesus studies as part of
seeking direct mystical experiences of the supernatural Christ, which
manifested as the actual Historical Jesus.
They think Jesus was supernatural and also can be experienced
mystically.
2.
Supernaturalist non-esoteric Historical Jesus researchers -- Orthodox Literalists. These do some Historical Jesus studies as
part of worshipping the Christ of Faith.
The assume there was a real, single, towering supernatural Historical
Jesus who performed miracles, was resurrected from death, and is God. Even if they let go of some or all miracles,
they maintain that Jesus is holy, is uniquely God, and is the Savior.
3.
Non-supernaturalist, esoteric Historical Jesus researchers -- Modernist
mystics. Andrew Welburn's book The
Beginnings of Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the
Christian Vision. He assumes that Jesus
was a mystery-religion initiator who was unfortunately crucified. This approach so well explains mythic
allegorical Christianity, Jesus tends to become irrelevant, though by habit of
tradition, such theorists try to find something for the supposed Historical
Jesus to do as part of the mystery religion -- he spent time with the Essenes
as the Teacher of Righteousness or was an even more towering and ethically
influential man.
4.
Non-supernaturalist, non-esoteric Historical Jesus researchers -- Moderate
demythicizers. These are today's
mainstream Jesus scholars. These focus
on Historical Jesus studies to regain a supposed liberal ethical teacher. They assume there was a real, single,
towering but not supernatural Historical Jesus, upon whom many myths were
piled. They treat Jesus as a largely
unique figure, though not a unique holy savior.
5.
Non-supernaturalist, non-esoteric mythic-only Christ researchers -- Radical
humanist debunkers. Classic scientific
humanists such as Doherty who neglect or dismissively belittle esoteric
religious experiencing. They assume
religion is all superstition and deceptive myth to manipulate weak and
irrational minds. Doherty is against
religion, doesn't feel that exoteric religious practice or esoteric religious
experiencing has anything significant to offer. He doesn't seriously investigate original Christianity as an
esoteric, experiential mystery-religion.
He is a typical scientific debunker who sees the false aspect of
Christianity and concludes that religion in general is false and harmful --
religion is only myth, in a purely negative sense of "myth". Doherty is purely a debunker with nothing
truly positive to say about religion.
He equates all religion with exoteric religion, and focuses on
dismissing religion, without giving special coverage of esoteric religion and
its claims to provide transcendent knowledge, insight, or wisdom beyond what
scientific humanism provides. Doherty
denies that religion conveys wisdom, and in doing so, he does not differentiate
between exoteric and esoteric religion -- he does not focus on interpreting the
Jesus figure as a mythic personification of esoteric initiation experience that
reveals transcendent knowledge. The
exoteric mythic-only Christ approach has a weakness that also may be a strength
relative to Christian Literalists. As I
would expect from a scientific historian-styled researcher, Doherty neglects
mystic experiencing, . Scientific demythologizers throw out the esoteric
(experiential insight) baby with the exoteric bathwater: when Christianity is
discovered to be myth, Christianity vanishes altogether for such scorched-earth
debunkers.
6.
Non-supernaturalist, esoteric/allegorical mythic-only Christ researchers -- The
complete allegorical mystics. They have
a deep respect for esoteric religious experiencing. They consider religions at their best as providing valuable,
transcendent enlightenment as well as sophisticated ethics. They consider exoteric religion as being a
more or less necessary vehicle to lead the masses toward the true, esoteric,
experiential core of religious insight and spiritual, mental, and ethical
transformation. Freke and Gandy,
authors of the book The Jesus Mysteries and the book Jesus & The Lost
Goddess, propose a Gnostic esoteric allegorical mystic experiencing theory of
the origin of Christianity. They are
positive, committed promoters of religion: esoteric religion, sometimes
conveyed appropriately by exoteric, surface myth. Acharya S, author of The Christ Conspiracy, seems to fit in
between approaches 3 and 4. She
proposes an astrotheology explanation for the origin of Christianity. I don't think she defines or glorifies
esoteric religion, but she largely dismisses and criticizes popular exoteric
religion. I think she respects esoteric
religion but is only a moderate promoter of it as providing wisdom and
transcendent knowledge. These positive
esoteric theorists, in addition to scientifically refuting the Historical
Jesus, also put forth a positive replacement theory, of Jesus as conveying
wisdom about astrotheology or wisdom about Gnostic insight.
Mainstream
scholarship is now predominantly using approach #4 (moderate
demythicizing). Doherty, as a
researcher using approach #5 (radical humanist debunking), may have more of an
immediate impact because his is *so similar* in his method and many aspects of
his style, to the Christian scholars. Doherty has infiltrated the methodology,
using the method and style of the Christian scholars to refute the unexamined
foundation of their entire system.
Approach #6 (complete allegorical mysticism) is too great a jump for the
mainstream at this point. The
mainstream of Jesus researchers may need to slowly transition through Doherty's
approach before proceeding forward to the fully allegorical esoteric approach.
It is
harder for the moderate demythicizers to dismiss Doherty than to dismiss
Acharya S or Freke & Gandy. They
all provide uniquely valuable and urgently needed work, in different ways.
Doherty's work stands in most immediate contradiction with mainstream
scholarship, which simply takes it for granted that some single Jesus or
another existed -- the question of *whether* such a single man existed is out
of bounds as an investigation for them; for them, the only question is about
the details.
The
esoteric mythic-only Christ books may be more relevant in the long run, into
the era that will be familiar with the no-Historical-Jesus alternative. But at the moment, Doherty seems to be the
most relevant, the most glaringly opposite of the wave of recent Historical
Jesus and Early Christianity studies.
Doherty
has refuted this Historical Jesus assumption all mainstream authors
thoughtlessly assume, thus he has rendered all mainstream books deeply
problematic. Acharya and Freke &
Gandy are obviously outsiders, obviously different than the Christian scholars,
and are currently easy for Christian scholars to dismiss because they are so
different in method, style, and overall concerns.
Doherty's
lack of coverage of Christ-shaped esoteric religious experiencing, of oneself
experienced as crucified with and as Jesus, enables him to focus on scientific
refutation of the Historical Jesus and do an effective job of this for an
audience that is accustomed to placing their Literalist Christology on a
scientific footing.
I don't
think Doherty clearly describes either level of the allegorical-only Jesus
figure, or their integrated relationship.
On the esoteric layer of religion, Jesus is a mythic allegorical figure
serving the same purpose as the mythic dying/rising savior figure in other
Hellenistic mystery-religions.
Mystery-religions are entheogenic (see James Arthur's Mushrooms &
Mankind, and Clark Heinrich's books), experiential (see Andrew Welburn's The
Beginnings of Christianity), and determinism-transcending (see Luther Martin's
Hellenistic Religions). The Jesus
figure is distinctive among mythic savior figures in that his exoteric, surface
dramatic story, instead of being set in the obviously mythic realm, is more or
less reality- and history-based; his dramatic life story is about political
rebellion against the power establishment that tried to use religion to justify
the oppressive status quo. This theme
of political liberation proved so popular, the power establishment took it over
to defuse it by making it a supernaturalist exoteric-only religion rather than
an esoteric religion conveyed through an exoteric allegory of socio-political
rebellion and liberation.
For more
books about the above themes, see my Amazon book lists: Mythic-only Christ
theory; Christianity as political rebellion against "divine" Caesar;
Original, experiential, mystical Christianity; Entheogen theory of the origin
of religions; Block-universe determinism, Necessity, divine
predestination."
>Two
good books on the David/Solomon/OT myths are "The Mythic Past," by
ThomasThompson and "The Bible Unearthed," by Finkelstein and
Silberman.
The Mythic
Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel
Thomas
L. Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465006493
I snapped
up the hardcover used because it appeared to be an Old Testament equivalent of
the mythic-only Jesus studies. I was
wondering if it is really worth putting near the top of my reading list, and
have read about comparable books online.
Although the reviews of The Mythic Past aren't all as favorable as of
some fairly comparable book, I have concluded that it is more right-on in its
approach than the others I've found.
Another, old book I'm reading is:
Legends of
the Bible
Louis
Ginzberg
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0827604041
as part of
my study of the identity of religion, myth, and mystic experiencing.
The Bible
Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its
Sacred Texts
Israel
Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684869128
The best
and most insightful books often garner very negative reviews and very positive
reviews. It would be interesting to see
point spreads on reviews. Some books
have a very split distribution of extreme positive and negative ratings, as
opposed to less controversial books that have a narrow spread of fairly
favorable and moderately reserved reviews -- especially in the field of the
mythic study of religion.
Finishing
my second reading of The Jesus Mysteries, I'm certain that this is one of the
best, most important books ever written.
The artificiality of its popular presentation is irrelevant and can be
completely bracketed off, with no doubt about the insight and specific clarity
of the substantial content that is delivered through the stiff, fake, artificial
style of popular lens the authors happened to use.
If that
writing style helped the authors attain the clarity which they certainly did,
then the book has achieved the goal that matters. It has the best content, the clearest presentation, though a fake
and stilted style of reporting the process of the authors' discovering their
thesis. Excelling in two of these three
aspects is a tremendous success.
A
comparable book is Godel, Escher, Bach -- some people felt the style rubbed
them the wrong way: it was light-hearted and whimsical, annoyingly silly
playfulness, a playful style of intellectual work. But it seems dubious to criticize such a grand book for such an
arbitrary and distinct aspect, the mere writing style.
Also on
top of my reading list is this picture-book summarizing the Bible stories:
The DK
Illustrated Family Bible
Claude-Bernard
Costecalde (Editor), Peter Dennis (Illustrator)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789415038
because I
need a *clear* and *fast* and memorable run-through of the Bible stories. This publisher has been excellent at
providing a quick yet deep introduction to religion and philosophy.
I've been
diving in far too advanced books while lacking the elementary foundation of the
Bible stories -- it's a perfect characterization of me to say that I was by
nature inclined to rush straight through levels 1 and 2 of Freke & Gandy's
3-level Gnostic Christianity and aim, from the start, directly at level 3,
resulting in something like experiencing union into Christ before I've even
heard the basic Gospel storyline.
I flunk
Bible trivia, have no idea how many apostles Jesus had or who Paul is, don't
know that there were several competing forms of Christianity called Gnostic,
Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant, don't know the difference between
OT and NT, can't name the first or last book of the Bible, but I can rattle off
esoteric and explicit theoretical explanations of the Christ unity experience.
So as
happens often in my pursuits, I've arrived at a point where I need to stop
post-graduate studies and enroll in grade school, learning the basic Bible
stories. Also, it makes a certain
amount of sense to study mythic, de-literalized Christian stories through a
summarizing picture-book. It was a
perfect project reading the DK picture-books about world religions,
Christianity, and Philosophy.
It was
easy to see the experiential-mythic nature of world religions when they were
reduced, smartly simplified, and summarized into the form of pictures with
text. Simplification done well, as DK
usually does, *can* lead to enlightenment.
There are
good simplifications and bad -- like The Jesus Mysteries, DK Publications is
sometimes suspected of reducing subjects by so clarifying them and simply
presenting them, but that is only a common prejudice: we assume that if a book
is clear, it must not be profound; it's too easy. We assume that profundity has to be difficult to communicate --
but profundity correlates with some kind of simplicity.
The Jesus
Mysteries is a much simpler explanation of the origin of Christianity than the
convoluted unlikely histories, requiring endless "epicyclic
corrections", pressed upon us by Literalism.
I have
read some histories of Christianity and the history of Theology, but what
struck me most of all was the unfathomable amount of authoritarianism in the
history of Western, Christian culture where the Church and State colluded to
oppress the commoners, justified by the need to retain social order.
What also
struck me hard was the supposed theological debates in early Christianity, that
are not told as simply power-politics scheming, yet don't make any sense unless
they really were nothing but power-politics scheming. That is, I was surprised by the degree to which the history of
early Christianity *is* the history of political power-struggles barely
disguised as theological disputes.
Reading
these conventional histories of Christianity convinced me of one thing: the
history of early Christianity needs to be completely rewritten because the
story we're told is distorted beyond redemption; the conventional received
history of Christianity is entirely contrived and all the motives, locales, and
players, and figures of early Christianity need to be completely rewritten in
an entirely different framework or paradigm, as some of the most radical
revisionists have been doing, such as Freke & Gandy, Michael Conley, and
Max Rieser.
The Jesus
Mysteries: How the Pagan Mysteries of Osiris-Dionysus Were Rewritten as the
Gospel of Jesus Christ
by
Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy
http://www.egodeath.com/jesusmysterieschapsumm.htm
- study guide
Michael
Conley
http://thecosmiccontext.de/christianity.html
- the tactical, power-politics, monopolistic, authoritarian takeover of
original Gnostic Christianity via strategic Literalism. Whereas Freke & Gandy treat the
Literalists as merely misguided, Conley has a better feel for the sinister,
strategic, *deliberate* fabrication of Literalist dogma.
On the
other side, much like Doherty, Conley has less of a feel for the experience of
Gnosis, tending to reduce Christianity only to power-politics rather than
grasping why the Gnostic Christianities were so popular that the authoritarians
decided to forcibly co-opt them and crunch them down into a single, forcefully
limited, Literalist religion -- Christianity in chains.
Max Rieser
The True
Founder of Christianity and the Hellenistic Philosophy
by Max
Rieser
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/9062960812
None of
these individual framework-breaking scholars has a fully compelling alternative
paradigm, but they easily add up to one.
Combine:
o The hard-hitting tactical strategy of Conley
o The highly developed mysticism of Freke
& Gandy
o The dry historical case made by Doherty
o The true-to-culture astrotheology emphasis
of Acharya S, with her mythic-only Paul, David, and Solomon
o Rieser's sober and practical story of how
Christianity was born among diaspora Hellenized Jews and went, transformed,
through Hellenists to Rome, before finally (by the way) to Jerusalem
... and
finally, truly a new alternative paradigm comes together.
There is a
huge difference between assuming religion to be 50% mythical and essentially
100% mythical -- these really are two completely different paradigms, and the
50% mythical thinkers have much more in common with the fundamentalist
Literalists than they realize. The 50%
mythical framework of thinking is really just the fundamentalist Literalist
paradigm with endless layers of corrective epicycles added on.
The move
from 50% to 100% mythical is a true paradigm shift (from Literalist to Gnostic
thinking), unlike the move from fundamentalist literalism to 50% mythical
assumptions, whether the latter framework is considered
"conservative" or "liberal".
Fundamentalist
Literalism, Conservative Literalism, Liberal Literalism, and even
World-Religion Literalism: in the end, they are all essentially just the same
thing: Literalism -- as Ken Wilber says, that kind of conceptual framework is
merely "translative", exoteric religion rather than "transformative",
high, core, esoteric religion.
>How
does the book "The Bible Fraud" by Tony Bushby compare with Acharya
S' book "The Christ Conspiracy", Freke & Gandy's "The Jesus
Mysteries", and others?
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+Bible+Fraud%22+%22Tony+Bushby%22
It should
be routine for researchers of the true origins of Christianity to read many
critical, skeptical, radical, or alternative books on the subject. I haven't found many books like this, but I
imagine that it would be possible to put together a list of 25 comparable
books. It's important to learn a great
array of possibilities and speculative scenarios. Only then are you qualified and equipped to put together the
puzzle pieces in a way that feels most right.
You need
to absorb a hundred heresies before you can begin critical thinking.
Even an
average alternative book is likely to present many facts that the official
history suppresses. My strategy is to
suppose that all the radical histories are correct and fit together after
certain adjustments are made to each of them.
The problem then becomes that of figuring out which adjustments to make
to each theory to enable them all to fit together.
Most
theories are largely correct and insightful, but somewhat off-base. For example, the sibling relationship of
Judas and Jesus makes good sense, for mythic symmetry. In the Old Testament, it's always the
last-born son, not the first-born son, who is blessed or preserved. The firstborn is negated, the lastborn is
affirmed. Jesus is jarringly odd and
unbiblical in the official Christian story, because he has no brothers.
We should
look for, most likely an *older* brother.
Candidates may be John the Baptist (half a year older) or Judas. A theory of Jesus as literal man with
literal twin may be in error about the facts of mundane history, but may
inadvertantly be on the right track for mythic-religious truth and for the most
correct and symmetrical telling of the story of Jesus. *If* you are prepared to selectively process
and modify the theories in radical books, they can lead to the true history of
Christianity.
In some
sense, esotericism often *does* come temporally after exotericism; first a
person thinks exoterically and then esoterically; the child learns religious
literalism, and then is initiated with a series of sessions with visionary
plants, to reconceive religion as being purely allegorical of entheogenic
experiential insights. However, there
is a common fallacy that considers exotericism as the real and given and
preexistent version of a religion, with mystics later inventing fantastic
improvisations that deviate, and invent interpretations upon the literalist
actual themes in the scriptures.
Against
that fallacy, in some important sense it is actually mysticism/esotericism that
comes first, temporally, with exotericism being a compromised, later,
distorted, co-opted degeneration of the true, original allegorism. The result is yet more complex: religion
comes to be a product of long-term ongoing tension between the forces of
exotericism and esotericism, each coming first in some sense and second in some
other sense.
Scholem
attempts to detail the relationship; I immediately find objectionable
assumptions of his (like many do) but the good thing is that Scholem is raising
the right kinds of questions and is being critical of received views on the
subject he smartly raises -- even if I reject certain key
tendencies/assumptions of his. Reading
scholars of myth-religion-mysticism critically is always like this: they
generally all have a mixture of insight and erroneous assumptions.
On the
Kabbalah and Its Symbolism
Gershom
Scholem
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805210512
1960
Moving from a Theological to an integrated Esoteric and Historical conception of the foundation and origins of Christianity
The various approaches to studying the origins and meaning of Christianity and Jesus studies can be reduced to 3 main conceptions of the formation of Christianity: Theological, Historical, and Esoteric.
The 3 main conceptions of the formation of Christianity:
o Theological -- characterized by intellectual theology, apologetics, commentaries, justification through law vs. faith, liturgy, supernaturalist assumptions & explanations, emphasis on salvation from eternity in Hell, common exoteric religious moralism.
o Esoteric -- mystic-state experiential allegory including penetrating allegorical mapping of initiation experience to political and theological concepts; experiential, Hellenistic mystery- religions, initiation, entheogenic. A degraded but dominant subcategory is Mysticism, which includes personal devotional relationship, medieval mysticism, ecstatic, Pentacostal emotional hysteria.
o Historical -- characterized by social-political, Palestine & Roman Empire "backgrounds", Rodney Stark's explanation of sociological reasons Christianity spread, N.T. Wright (sans supernaturalist explanations) and Borg's explanation of the meaning of the Cross as symbol of rejecting Rome's accustomed assumption of divinity of military power, concern with social justice and ethics.
The Theological approach was dominant from about 600 to 1980. After the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hamadi discoveries, the Historical approach became dominant -- the Historical approach is where most of the change and novelty is. The Esoteric approach is also on the rise as Historical research progresses and people realize that the early Christians were not 16th-century dogmatic, confessional Calvinist theologians from the "Protestant scholasticism" era.
Although the canonical scriptures are not predominantly Theological, they have been interpreted and primarily studied that way.
Traditions of conceiving Christianity, and their blend of the 3 main conceptions:
o Catholic -- 75% Theological, 20% Esoteric, and 5% Historical.
o Protestant -- 80% Theological, 5% Esoteric, and 15% Historical.
o Eastern Orthodox -- 50% Theological, 35% Esoteric, and 15% Historical.
o Historical Jesus, Post-Scrolls studies -- 25% Theological, 10% Esoteric, and 65% Historical.
o Contemporary Mystical, Jungian, Steinerian, and entheogenic approaches -- 30% Theological, 55% Esoteric, and 15% Historical.
o Entheogenic cybernetic allegorical approach -- 15% Theological, 60% Esoteric, and 25% Historical.
The latter, my approach, puts a firm emphasis on esoteric experiential allegory, combined with an accurate contextual, historical, social-political understanding of the Jesus story and what that story meant to, not just the Palestianian Jews or diaspora Jews, but the Hellenistic world of the Roman Empire overall. Although the Historical approach is providing exciting new insight into what the idea of Jesus meant to the whole Hellenistic Roman Empire, by no means is this the main or complete understanding of the formation of Christianity.
The Historical approach is correct to lessen the Theological emphasis and increase the accurate socio-political, contextual, understanding. However, in doing so, when Historical thinkers remind themselves not to forget the religious aspect as such, their mistake is that they retain the Theological, exoteric religious aspects when they should instead emphasize the Esoteric allegorical aspect of religion.
Religious experience must have priority over Theological religion. The *main axis* in the formation of Christianity is a "vector" from esoteric experiencing to historical, socio-political events. Christianity's origin was not Theology, or turning politics into religion, but rather, esoteric religion expressed as socio-political allegory. The Historical background is of primary importance, and the Esoteric foundation of religious experiencing is of primary importance; what is *not* of primary importance is medieval-to- modernist era Theological conception of the "Christian Religion".
On the whole, our accustomed thinking about the origins of Christianity was predominantly Theological with only a weak grasp of the Historical and Esoteric origins, and instead we need to replace that by reducing such Theological conception of the origins of Christianity by a primary emphasis and firm grasp on the Historical *in combination with* the Esoteric conceptions. The first-century Roman Empire did not conceive of Christianity with our accustomed Theological conception, but rather, with an integrated combination of the Historical and Esoteric conceptions.
The Theological conception of the origins and formation of Christianity needs to be replaced by an integrated Esoteric/Historical conception, with a full grasp of the socio- political context and background, combined with a full grasp of Esoteric experiential allegory. The mistake of most recent attempts to reconceptualize the origins and formation of Christianity is that people either de-emphasize the Theological conception to propose an Esoteric conception, *or* de-emphasize the Theological conception to propose a Historical conception. What they don't do, but need to do, is de-emphasize the Theological conception to propose an Esoteric conception tightly integrated with a Historical conception.
Alexandrian
Jews wanted and so created a Jewish-styled version of the Hellenistic godman
mystery-religion, by gradually assembling and constructing the Jesus
figure. Why would the creators of Jesus
add details to the story that make the character less appealing to the intended
audience -- the Jews?
We can't
assume such a monolithic picture of "the Jews" as though they all
felt the same way. "The intended
audience" wasn't necessarily all Jews, given that Jews had many deep
disagreements among themselves, it was clearly inherently impossible to craft a
Jewish-styled godman-based mystery-religion that would meet the approval of all
groups of Jews.
Many
features of the Jesus story, which gradually developed from around 150 BC to
250 AD, were deliberately incorporated because of their resonance and
equivalence to Hellenistic mythic godmen.
Many mythic features are allegorized experiential reports of the intense
mystic altered state that follows upon ingesting the sacred meal such as in the
Seder and other sacred meals, the Eucharist, agape meal, and pagan sacred
meals.
These
classic mystic experiences include the temporary feeling of insanity, and the
feeling of being frozen helplessly into the spacetime block -- a feeling of
hanging and being pulled about in spacetime.
The
undistinguished disciples represent the initiates of the Jesus mysteries and
hearken back to the lame-o crew around Odysseus (if I have the right
myth). Only after the
apostles/disciples receive and ingest sacred food and drink from the
Dionysus-like provider, do they get a clue, awaken, "recognize"
Jesus, and become venerable.
From Will
and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_:
>>Christianity
did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind dying, came to a
transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek
language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of
Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the
impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures contributed to the
syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last
Judgment, and a personal immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the
adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed; there, too,
Christian monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia
came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of
Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god.
From Persia came millenarianism, the "ages of the world," the
"final conflagration," the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and
Light; already in the Forth Gospel Christ is the "Light shining in the
darkness, and the darkness has never put it out." The Mithraic ritual so
closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers
charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds.
Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.
Generally,
religions are made from elements of other religions and idea systems. This by itself does not imply fraud. If the Church lied about its origins, that
lie is fraudulence, but the resulting religion might or might not have a great
deal of legitimacy of some type. It is
grossly simplistic to think that Christianity is totally legitimate or totally
illegitimate and the moment we find some illegitimacy we can confidently and
automatically pronounce the entirety to be illegitimate.
Like a
nation, Christianity is a mix of good and bad.
People want a simple, easy assessment of Christianity -- either accept
it fully as totally good, or reject it fully as totally bad. It's just as lazy, irrational, and
intellectually immature to consider Christianity, or religion in general,
totally bad as to consider it totally good.
I'm not
defending religion, but am defending what religion is ineptly pointing to --
what it is reflecting. Religious myth
is severely distorted, garbled, inept, primitive, fumble-fingered expressions
of higher philosophy.
We should
have a balanced judgment on any topic.
It's easy, lazy, and oversimplistic to characterize a person, country,
or religion as entirely good or bad.
Insofar as Christianity is harmful, much of that harm is a result of
misunderstanding it and abusing it.
Christianity might be more abusable than other religious systems.
The first
step is for scholars to understand the real origin and the real esoteric
meaning of Christianity -- I'm focusing entirely on that step, and completely
differentiating that work from the issue of the harm that has been done by
abusing the Christian myth-system or mythic initiation system. You could think of my strategy as
demolishing Christianity by truly comprehending Christianity.
To
demolish Christianity, there are two different main approaches among
mythic-only Jesus researchers: the Doherty/Acharya approach and the Freke &
Gandy approach which I use. The
Doherty/Acharya approach, focused fully on demolishing, negating, and
disproving Christianity, cannot be the final word -- an approach that affirms
and understands the real initiatory or transcendent meaning behind all
religions must be the final word. These
two approaches partly overlap; partly support each other.
Ruler
Cult, not Christianity, created the idea that the celebrated governor is
superior to the gods because unlike them, he is here in the flesh. This honorary factor was just one more
attribute to co-opt into the Jesus figure: Jesus has all the attributes of the
other godmen but unlike them, he is here in the flesh.
Proving
that Christianity was constructed by patching together existing components and
claiming historicity, does not automatically demonstrate that Christianity as a
whole is nothing but a fraud.
I can't
get my hands around why Antiqua Mater is such a classic book of the Radical
school of scholarship about Christianity.
What does the book say?
http://www.radikalkritik.de/antiqua_mater.htm
Harvard's
First Century History
John
Duran
http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/institutional_analysis/histchr1.html
Version
1.2
COPYRIGHT
1987, 1992
"'HARVARD'S
1ST CENTURY HISTORY' is the most complete (overall), yet concise,
reconstruction of the events that occurred in the 1st & 2nd century that is
currently available to the public. The bulk of information on this disk is from
a book by John Duran titled 'THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY'. However, this disk
gets its title from 'the place' from which the bulk of 'source' material was
obtained - the 'HARVARD' UNIVERSITY PRESS."
The Gospel
of John has sometimes been characterized as simultaneously older and more
recent than the synoptics.
Many
scholars put John first, at least in some respects. John as the earliest Gospel is a minority view, yet it is one of
the major positions, as highlighted even by the scholarly coverage in the NIV
Study Bible, which generally expresses the traditional, even if somewhat critical,
view.
NIV Study
Bible 10th ed., 1995.
Kenneth
Barker, general editor
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0310929555
Introduction
to John, page 1588: My expanded
clarifications are in square brackets.
My critical comments are signed.
"Date
"In
general, two views of the dating of this Gospel have been advocated:
1. The
traditional view palaces it toward the end of the first century, c. A.D. 85 or
later (see Introduction to 1 John: Date).
2. More
recently, some scholars have suggested an earlier date, perhaps as early as the
50s and no later than 70.
"The
first view may be supported by reference to the statement of Clement of
Alexandria that John wrote to supplement the accounts found in the other
Gospels (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6.14.7), and thus his Gospel is
later than the first three. It has also
been argued that the seemingly more developed theology of the fourth Gospel
indicates that it originated later.
"The
second view has found favor because it has been felt more recently that John
wrote independently of the other Gospels.
This does not contradict the statement of Clement [according to the
official proto-Catholic Church historian Eusebius -mh] referred to above. Also, those who hold this view point out
that developed theology [the assertion that "John's highly developed
theology is evidence for its being written later than the synoptics"] does
not necessarily argue for a late origin. [... by the following comparison and
argument:] The theology of Romans
(written c. 57) [according to some scholars -mh] [even though earlier than the
date of the synoptic writings according to those scholars] is every bit as
developed as that in John [showing that the high degree of development of
John's theology doesn't necessarily imply that John was written later than the
synoptics]. ..."
Introduction
to 1 John, page 1905:
"Date
"The
letter is difficult to date with precision, but factors such as (1) evidence
from early Christian writers (Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria), (2) the
early [this claim implies a traditional dating framework -mh] form of
Gnosticism reflected in the denunciations of the letter and (3) indications of
the advanced age of John suggest the end of the first century. Since the author of 1 John seems to build on
concepts and themes found in the fourth Gospel (see 1Jn 2:7-11) [shown below],
it is reasonable [according to a traditional dating framework -mh] to date the
letter somewhere between A.D. 85 and 95, after the writing of the Gospel, which
may have been written c. 85 (see Introduction to John: Date)."
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=1Jn+2%3A7-11
--
"Dear
friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had
since the beginning. This old command
is the message you have heard. Yet I am
writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the
darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
"Anyone
who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the
darkness. Whoever loves his brother
lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the
darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going,
because the darkness has blinded him."
____________________
The
Complete Bible Handbook: An Illustrated Companion
John
Bowker
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0789481545
2001
page 313:
"DATE:
It is thought by some to be the latest of the Gospels (written at the end of
first century CE). … Yet … others …
think of John's Gospel as an early way of telling the Gospel …
The theory
that it must be a later reflection on a simpler story is an assumption. John 21:22 ['Jesus answered, "If I want
him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? ..."'; from the
passage shown below] suggests that at least one of the early followers was
still alive awaiting the return of Jesus.
"o Epilogue, chapter 21: this is thought by
many to be a later addition [making a single date for the writing of John
oversimplistic -mh] as it concerns an additional Resurrection appearance and
the fate of Peter."
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=John+21%3A18-23
--
Jesus
said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you
dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch
out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not
want to go." Jesus said this to
indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to
him, "Follow me!"
Peter
turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was
the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said,
"Lord, who is going to betray you?")
When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"
Jesus
answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to
you? You must follow me." Because
of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die.
But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, "If I want him
to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"
John's
narrative is close in its christology to that of the "authentic"
Pauline letters. Can we assign a
chronology such as: Pauline epistles, John, Mark, Matthew, Luke?
Christianity
began both from Jewish thinking becoming more paganized (perhaps suggesting
John's Gospel is earlier than the Pauline letters), and as a mystery cult in
Roman house churches (eucharistic meal gatherings) that became Judaized while
appropriating the legacy of the Hebrew scriptures (perhaps suggesting that the
Pauline letters are earlier than John's Gospel).
If these
books of the canon were repeatedly revised over the first few centuries, in
some tug-of-war of rewriting based on politics, poetry, mystic allusion, or
literary considerations, it becomes problematic to treat them as whole simple
atoms each having a single date which can then be arranged in order.
The
reality could be something along the lines of the following, which would make
it necessary, if one is to speak accurately, to talk in terms more flexible and
detailed than "A is older than B, having been written in the year X as
opposed to the year Y".
20 CE -
Roots of John
30 CE -
Roots of Luke
40 CE -
Roots of Mark
50 CE -
Roots of Matthew
60 CE -
Roots of Paulines
70 CE -
Redaction 1 of Luke
80 CE -
Redaction 1 of John
90 CE -
Redaction 1 of Mark
100 CE -
Redaction 1 of Paulines
110 CE -
Redaction 1 of Matthew
120 CE -
Redaction 2 of Mark
130 CE -
Redaction 2 of Paulines
140 CE -
Redaction 2 of Matthew
150 CE -
Redaction 2 of John
160 CE -
Redaction 2 of Luke
170 CE -
Redaction 3 of Paulines
180 CE -
Redaction 3 of Luke
190 CE -
Redaction 3 of Mark
200 CE -
Redaction 3 of Matthew
210 CE -
Redaction 3 of John
220 CE -
Redaction 4 of Matthew
230 CE -
Redaction 4 of John
240 CE -
Redaction 4 of Paulines
250 CE -
Redaction 4 of Luke
260 CE -
Redaction 4 of Mark
To account
for the politics of dating, we have to ask "What group would benefit if
John were officially held to have been written first? What group would benefit if John were officially held to have been
written last?" If John is supposed
to represent the Gnostic egalitarian view, while the synoptics are supposed to
represent the proto-Catholic hierarchical church, we can immediately expect the
Gnostics to claim John was written first, while naturally the proto-Catholic
view would hold John to have been written last.
Either
view is oversimplistic, shedding little accurate light on the sequence of
writing, if all these books were heavily redacted over an extended period. Another related division of views could be
that the anti-orthodox camp may assert that there was complicated gradual heavy
redaction over time, while the orthodox camp asserts that each book was simply
written at a particular point in time, in some simple sequence, with no
significant redaction occurring.
Similarly,
the gnostic-sensitive reading of the canon highlights the canon as clearly and
explicitly portraying conflict such as between gnostic (docetic?) and orthodox
(literalist?) churches, whereas the orthodox reading portrays the canon as
reflecting a single united view.
Does a
clear look at the canon show a loud argument and tug-of-war between two camps,
such as some Mary/John vs. Peter camp -- or does it show a basically uniform,
united view of what Jesus was about?
The gnostic answer is that the canon clearly portrays a tug-of-war
between two camps. The orthodox answer
is that the canon portrays a basically united view.
Related
books:
Mary
Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority
Ann
Brock
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0674009665
2002
Peter
vs. Mary as a consistent opposition inside and outside the canon
The
Gnostic Gospels
Elaine
Pagels
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0679724532
Ch. V:
Whose Church Is the "True Church"?
Search
for "whose church true"
Lost
Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart
Ehrman
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0195141830
2003
The
Unfinished Gospel: Notes on the Quest for the Historical Jesus
Evan
Powell
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0963965069
1994
Conflict
between Peter vs. beloved disciple as reflected in Mark vs. John. "John 21 [the tacked-on, superfluous
ending that may somewhat contradict the body of the Gospel of John] was
originally written by the author of Mark as a conclusion to his gospel [the
missing original ending of Mark; perhaps replaced by Mark 16:9-20] ... evidence
that these two gospels were subsequently edited by the early church to bring
them into harmony."
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=John+21
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=Mark+16%3A9-20
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)