The Introduction to Earl Doherty’s Jesus: Neither God Nor Man

Last updated on: May 6, 2011 at 11:29 am by James F. McGrath

The Introduction to Earl Doherty’s Jesus: Neither God Nor Man 2011-05-06T11:29:00-04:00 James F. McGrath

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Reading the first twelve pages, the introduction to Earl Doherty’s book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus has done nothing to ease the concerns I expressed nor change the impression I received in reading the preface, and the first sentence. If this were a scholarly book, the author would be trying to outline the argument that will be offered in the remainder of the book, indicating an awareness of points that will be controversial or are simply new, and seeking to persuade the reader that a persuasive case will follow, and it is worth their time to keep reading.

Doherty, on the other hand, makes assertions that sound like they are intended to be taken as self-evident, or which, once offered, will at least be equally plausible to traditional scholarly interpretations of the evidence. Since I plan to keep reading, I will delay judgment on whether this is simply a stylistic issue, or an indication that Doherty hopes readers will simply take him at his word, or perhaps an indication that questions that naturally arise for a scholar looking at this subject did not occur to him.

Let me give one example of the sort of thing I am talking about. Doherty helpfully outlines his view of the development of early Christianity from two originally independent strands, one a counter-cultural Galilean Jewish movement with teaching (as found in the Q document) but no central figure, the other a more eclectic or syncretistic religious movement focused on a celestial mediator/savior figure.

In connection with the latter, Doherty writes of their message as follows (p.4):

That message was about a heavenly Son and emanation of God who was both an intermediary between God and the world, and a Savior figure. To some extent he was inspired by the traditional expectation of a Messiah; he was a new ‘take’ on that concept. He was variously called Jesus, or Yeshua (meaning “Yahweh saves” in Hebrew), the Christ (Greek for the Hebrew “Mashiach,” or Messiah, meaning “Anointed One”), and the Son.

This is simply asserted, without any qualification such as “In the pages that follow, I will defend these claims.” But what will occur to the scholar of ancient Judaism and/or early Christianity who reads what Doherty wrote is the following: While there are exalted patriarchs and named individuals from the Jewish Scriptures who may be encountered on heavenly journeys, apart from them, celestial figures such as angels tend not to be given any old ordinary human names. Some of the names given to angels by ancient Jews and Christians have since turned into names given to people (Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are just a few), but the reverse process is not, to my knowledge, evidenced in ancient literature. Angels are as a rule given names with the theophoric element “-el” at the end, or other unusual names, and not ones in common use as names for humans.

And so why should we think that a figure who has a relatively common human name, and is described as “anointed” which is a reference to the practice of anointing the human kings and priests in ancient Israel and Judah, is a purely celestial one?

Presumably this reflects a misunderstanding resulting from a lack of familiarity with relevant ancient naming conventions, ancient beliefs about the celestial realm, and the ancient Jewish practice of anointing with oil. I think there is strong reason to doubt that any ancient Jewish reader of Paul’s letters would have understood them in the way Doherty does.

Doherty ends the introduction with confidence, stating to those who suggest that there could be a real historical human at the base of the later myths and legends: “wait until all the pieces of the puzzle have been examined. You will find that they cannot be assembled in such a fashion” (p.12).

I will keep reading, but thus far my impression remains that the pieces of the puzzle can and should be interpreted as mainstream scholarship does, and I expect that as Doherty offers more and more of his views and claims, it will become increasingly clear that it is to mythicists that one must protest that, even though puzzle pieces can be forced together in countless ways, they should not be arranged in the ill-filling configuration mythicism offers, when other arrangements allow those pieces we have (many must be presumed to be missing) to be fit together without the use of scissors.

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