Some of us appreciate as myths (meaningful stories):
Adonis's seasonal descent into and return from the Underworld;
the death of Balder and his return after the Ragnarok;
the hanging of Odin on the Tree and his later death at the Ragnarok;
the death and resurrection of Christ -
- although I do not appreciate the details of impalement.
Christians differentiate themselves from all other religions by insisting on the historicity of their retelling of the death and resurrection story.
Poul Anderson's character, Plik, straddles both the mythological and the historicist perspectives. He calls himself a Nicene Christian and regards Gaeanity as "'...the newest version of the Pelagian heresy.'" (3, p. 255) However, when Iern wonders whether his new Gaean friend, Vanna, might be right, Plik, instead of repeating that Gaeanity is heretical, responds:
"'Is a poem right or wrong? Hers is a powerful myth, yes.'" (5, p. 269)
Plik's view of myths might occupy us for a while longer.
17 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We do have evidence, independently of the Gospels of Christ existing, in the works of Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius. And my opinion still remains that the Shroud of Turin shows something very STRANGE, at the very least, happened with or to the body of Christ.
Of course the details of a crucifixion will be unpleasant, because the Romans were so often a cruel people. But crucifixions were real and HAPPENED. It's better for us to face up to such things.
And if you can stand it, I want to comment again about Russell Kirk. I "rediscovered" (I thought I had lost or misplaced it) my copy of the May 1979 issue of the MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. It not only contains Kirk's story "Fate's Purse" but also Anderrson's "House Rule"! Which means it's probable both Kirk and Anderson read each other's stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I accept that Jesus/Yeshua existed. Myths can have varying degrees of historical content.
I will be happy to read some Kirk. My inquiries are taking some time but there is no hurry.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And Christ was and is far more than merely "mythical."
I just hope you enjoy whichever of Kirk's collections of short stories you get!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think you still think of myths as falsehoods, not as meaningful stories. Dunkirk happened. People make it mean something.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
To some degree, yes. I don't believe myths about Odin, Jupiter, Baal, etc., were based on anything REAL in the supernatural sense. Altho I can see how worshipers of those gods believed the stories about them, altho later generations treated them as merely meaningful stories.
By the time of the Late Republic, I don't think most educated Romans truly BELIEVED in the Olympians as actual supernatural beings. One character in Anderson's THE GOLDEN SLAVE dismissed them as "those children."
But Christianity can only make sense if Christ was truly what He and His said He was: the literally Incarnate Son of God who became man, died on the Cross, and rose from the dead for our salvation. Either that, or He was a madman. Christianity as a "myth" and "meaningful," but not literally true story does not make much sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't think he was mad. He preached the coming of the kingdom, like John the Baptist, and healed. He gained such a large following that he began to wonder about his own role in the kingdom. He asked, "Who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am?" Peter was impulsive and answered in the most extravagant terms available to him. Accepting Peter's proclamation of him as a revelation, Jesus adopted the Suffering Servant model of Messiahship instead of the military leader and Davidic monarch. He thought that his own vicarious suffering would initiate the kingdom and died realizing that it had not. This makes him misguided, not insane.
Christianity as a myth makes as much sense as any other death and resurrection story.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But the Kingdom our Lord preached was of GOD, not something merely in this world. And it took time for the Apostles to grasp that, seeing how Christ rebuked or scolded them more than once for not understanding Him. Indeed, not till our Lord literally rose from the dead.
I cannot agree Christianity is a "myth," a mere meaningful story. No, it was and is literally true.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have also though about how the proclamation of the resurrection arose, of course.
Paul.
To the Baptist and Jesus and his disciples, "the kingdom" meant God reimposing His direct rule over the whole Earth through a theocracy based in Jerusalem. The kingdom came to be "not of this world" only when the promised Second Coming was indefinitely delayed. Paul expected Second Coming, "rapture" and resurrections as soon as, or even before, he had completed his mission to the Gentiles. Some people would not have to be resurrected because they would not have died. Some present-day sects say this kind of thing now because they are reading the NT and applying it to now.
Sean: note that Paul got mistaken for Zeus at one point. Atheism was present in late-Hellenistic society, but it was never very common even among the philosophically educated.
Most educated pagans were more like Julian the Apostate -- they thought the traditional stories were true, but were also aspects of a more complex higher reality.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Unfortunately, we can't agree about the "nature" of Christianity. You favor a view which denies the truth of there being anything literally SUPERNATURALLY true in its claims and teachings. Meaning we have reached an impasse.
Mr. Stirling: I remember how Paul (and, I think, his companion Barnabas[?]) were confused with one of the pagan gods in Acts.
One of the oddities of Classical "atheism" was how the early Christians were sometimes accused of being atheists themselves, because of denying belief in the pagan gods.
I thought, by Julian's time, most educated non Christians did not really BELIEVE in the Olympian gods. That is, they leaned more to a philosophical concept of moonotheism.
Ad astra! Sean
There are different "atheisms": the Indian one is different again.
I think that it is easy to account for the proclamation of the Resurrection without believing in a physical resurrection so Occam's Razor applies. The alternatives are:
Paul's idea of a spiritual resurrection;
the disciples reinterpreting scriptures as prophesying suffering, death and resurrection as the way to Messiahship.
Or, rather, there are two or three Indian atheisms.
Kaor, Paul!
No, based on the actual evidence we have, in this case the letters of Paul, it was not an either/or matter, rather it was both X and Y. That is, St. Paul preached a spiritual view of the Resurrection AND believed that Christ literally rose from the dead. Paul stated over and over that he had met the RISEN Lord on the road to Damascus. And he also took pains to search out eyewitnesses who had seen and met Christ. Christianity makes no sense if there was no actual resurrection of the Lord Jesus, as Paul makes clear in 1 Cor. 15.12-19.
And Poul Anderson would agree, IMO, as this bit from his story "A Chapter or Revelation" shows: "First Corinthians," Dick said. "By now I have the passage memorized. He [St. Paul] realized that the Resurrection is the central fact of Christianity. If you can believe that a corpse rose from its tomb, walked and talked, ate and drank and lived for forty days, why, then you can swallow anything, ancient prophecies, virgin birth, wedding at Cana, instant cures of leprosy--those are mere detail. The Resurrection is what matters. 'And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.' Paul went to considerable trouble to find eyewitnesses; he names them and lists the reasons for trusting them" (DIALOGUE WITH DARKNESS, Tor 1985, page 41).
My view, in addition, is that many who deny the Resurrection of Christ and the supernatural claims of Christianity do so from the uncomfortable realization that to assent to belief in the Resurrection would, if they were honest, necessarily lead to a complete change of mind, belief, ways of living, etc. They would have to renounce many cherished beliefs that they would prefer not to give up and reject as false.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Oh, yes. Paul believed that the Resurrection happened. My only point here is that his account of a dead physical body going into the earth like a seed and a completely different kind of spiritual body rising like a plant grown from the seed is very different from the Evangelists' account of a tomb burial, an empty tomb and a tangible resurrected body even eating food.
Many who deny the Resurrection? Some. People can have all sorts of creditable or discreditable motives for either denying or accepting a belief. How many believe just because they have been told from infancy that they believe? Some are honest enough to change their minds, beliefs and ways of living through ways other than acceptance of Christianity.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but you had been stressing ONLY the spiritual aspect of the Resurrection of Christ while apparently ignoring or minimizing how the Apostles emphatically believed as well in the actual resurrection of Christ. Nor do I think that spiritual interpretation of the Resurrection contradicts what the earlier Apostles taught, it was a natural development or extension of that teaching. Not a Protestant "either/or" thing, but a Catholic "both/and."
And some can be just as honest and come to believe they were wrong and Christianity to be right. Which has to mean accepting that many of their prior ways of living, ideas, beliefs, etc., were wrong.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes, some.
Paul.
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