Archeologists have gradually concluded that much of the early history of the Bible is purely mythical. The Patriarchs are mythical, the Exodus is mythical, and the Conquest is mythical. The main debate nowadays is over how historical the Biblical accounts of Kings David and Solomon are. But the debate over mythicism is not likely to proceed much past them, since the Dual Monarchy period is reasonably well-supported from outside sources, even though the Biblical account of that period is rather editorialized.
The Exodus and the Conquest not having happened as described in the Bible has a certain consequence that archeologists have not talked much about.
That Moses was largely or entirely mythical.
That is because much of his biography, if not most of it, is tied to events that never happened, meaning that a historical Moses could not have confronted the Pharaoh and led the Israelites to freedom. So if there was a historical Moses, was he some now-obscure local leader who got embellished by generations of mythmakers?
That would also explain why Moses's burial site has never been found; even Deuteronomy's writer(s) did not claim to know where it was ("He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.", Deut. 34:6).
The School of Alexandria adopted the allegorical interpretation of the Holy Scripture, believing that it hides the truth and at the same time reveals it. It hides the truth from the ignorant, whose eyes are blinded by sin and pride, hence they are prevented from the knowledge of the truth. At the same time it always reveals what is new to the renewed eyes of believers. St. Clement of Alexandria is considered the first Christian theologian (writer) who uses allegorical interpretation, giving a cause of using it in a practical way. He says that the Bible has hidden meanings to incite us to search and discover the words of salvation, which are hidden from those who despise them. The truth is in the pearls which must not be offered to the swines. His disciple, Origen, adds other justifications of using allegorical interpretation to the Scriptures.
1] Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel story cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only toward the end of the first century CE.
[2] There is no non-Christian reference to Jesus earlier than the second century. The two references in Flavius Josephus (end of the first century) are unreliable and can be dismissed in their entirety as later Christian insertions.
[3] The early epistles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus (Messiah Savior) as a spiritual, heavenly being, one revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man. Paul is part of a new salvation movement acting on revelation from the Spirit.
[4] Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world based on Platonic and Semitic cosmology, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.
[5] The ancients viewed the universe as finite and multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world of the heavens was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, where spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things were located. Paul's Christ operates within this system.
[6] The pagan "mystery cults" of the period worshiped savior deities who had performed salvific acts. Under the influence of Platonism, these acts came to be interpreted by the cults as taking place in the supernatural/mythical world, not on earth or in history. The Pauline Christ was similarly regarded as undergoing death and resurrection in the heavenly realm. This new Christ belief also shared other mythological concepts current in the ancient world.
[7] The most prominent philosophical-religious concept of the period was the intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the ultimate transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish personified Wisdom were models for Paul's heavenly Christ and Son, who took on an additional, sacrificial role under the inspiration of scripture.
[8] All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: the Gospel of Mark, the first one composed. Subsequent evangelists reworked Mark in their own interests and added new material. None of the evangelists show any concern for creating genuine history. The Acts of the Apostles as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement is historically unreliable, a second century piece of legend-making.
[9] The Gospels were not written as historical accounts, but present a symbolic representation of a Galilean kingdom-preaching sect, combined with a fictional passion story set on earth, probably meant to allegorize the heavenly Christ's death and resurrection in the supernatural realm. They are constructed through the process of "midrash," a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture, and has nothing to do with "history remembered."
[10] "Q" is a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, and made no reference to a death and resurrection, or soteriological role for its Jesus. It can be shown to have had no Jesus figure at its roots: some of which roots were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the imminent coming of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the heavenly Son of Man, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was combined with the spiritual Christ Jesus of the Pauline type in the Gospel of Mark. The case for the existence of Q is much superior to any alternative explanation for the common material in Matthew and Luke.
[11] The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual heavenly Christ and Son of God, some with a revealer role, others with a sacrificial one, shows that this broad movement began in many different places, a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the Jewish scriptures and other religious expressions of the time, not as a response to a single individual or point of origin.
[12] Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a past human man as an element of their faith. The type of Christ belief which became later orthodoxy developed only through the course of the second century, to eventually gain dominance toward its end. Only gradually did the
Tuesday, February 4th 2014 at 11:05PM
DAVID JOHNSON
