What Abe finds wrong with "The God Who Wasn't There" -- Episode 1: Hebrews 8:4
Offline The God Who Wasn't There on YouTube
The trouble begins on 13:17, where Flemming introduces the Pauline epistles.
These documents represent almost all we have of the history of Chrisitanity during this decades-long gap. And here's the interesting thing: if Jesus was a human who had recently lived, nobody told Paul. Paul never heard of Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, Herod, John the Baptist, he never heard about any of these miracles, he never quotes anything that Jesus is supposed to have said. He never mentions Jesus having a ministry of any kind at all. He doesn't know about any entrance to Jerusalem, he never mentions Pontius Pilate or Jewish mob or any trials at all. Paul doesn't know any of what we would call the story of Jesus, except for these last three events [Christ put on the cross, the resurrection and the ascension], and even these--Paul never places on Earth. Just like the other savior gods of the time, Paul's Christ Jesus died, rose and ascended all within a mythical realm.
There are many problems with this set of assertions (some of them are correct, others are bald-faced falsehoods). But, the real trouble comes right after that--a Bible verse then flashes up on the screen (emphasis his):
"If Jesus had been on earth, he would not even have been a priest." Hebrews 8:4
Like any good docugandist, Flemming never explains his point, but, presumably, the argument is that Paul himself implied that Jesus never walked the Earth.
- The main problem is that Paul most certainly did not write Hebrews. If we are talking about the writings of Paul, then we should be focusing on the writings of Paul, not all of the traditional epistles. Six of them were apparently forgeries, and Hebrews was one of them. If you include all of the traditional epistles among the letters of Paul, then even more of the above listed assertions become falsehoods. For example, 1 Timothy 6:13 mentions Pontius Pilate (1 Timothy is also a forgery).
- The second problem is that the Greek wording is not necessarily past tense. If the author was writing about a hypothetical scenario of the present, then how would he write it? Answer: exactly the same way. Almost all English translations use the word, "were," not "had been" ("were" is more commonly used in English for a present-tense hypothetical). ALL of the English translations--and that includes the NRSV, the translation preferred by critical scholars. Except one--the Bible in Basic English. It uses "had been." The Bible in Basic English was written by one guy in 1941 for people with limited eduction or for people who speak English as a second language.
- Finally, if Flemming uses Hebrews to advance his point that the author did not believe that Jesus ever walked the Earth, then he must also include for consideration the times with the Epistle to the Hebrews where Jesus clearly is an Earthly figure. Here is an especially troubling example
Hebrews 5:7 -- "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission."
Flemming is trying to have us believe that the author of Hebrews (Paul?) believed that Jesus was never on Earth, and at the same time the author claims that Jesus once had days in his flesh when he offered up tearful supplications to God.
Am I picking at straws? This particular point matters, because there are mythicists (i.e. Earl Doherty) who make the claim that the earliest Christian belief was that Jesus never walked the Earth. It is an extraordinary claim, and there is no direct evidence for this assertion.
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First, I'm not as confident with Flemming's presentation as I am with the original arguments put forth by Doherty, Carrier, and Price. The reason I recommend TGWWT is because it's a good overall presentation of the argument. But you have to go a little further than TGWWT. It's a good intro (better than Zeitgeist by far). The interviews with Carrier and Price are the meat of the movie (if I recall; it's been a couple years since last time I saw it). Check out the extended interviews from the DVD extras if you can find them.
Second, Doherty has a thorough discussion of Jesus' 'flesh'. Long story short, when Paul mentions Jesus' flesh, he's speaking about a spiritual/mythological world/flesh. In other words, Jesus was incarnated as spiritual flesh, and was crucified as a sacrifice, but this event did not take place on Earth. Doherty is the one to read for this issue.
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Oh, I forgot the last point. IMO, the purpose of this conjecture is not to show that it is certain that this is what they believed, only that it is a plausible explanation of the language used by Paul. As I mentioned in another thread, I had a friend a while back who believes in a spiritual world that is just as real as our mundane world. It's not implausible to me that superstitious Jews would have similar beliefs. Think of it like the beliefs in the realm of the gods on Mt Olympus, or in Hades or whatever. Seven levels of heaven and whatnot.
The point is that arguments against mythicism that "it's totally implausible that Jews could believe in a purely mythical person without it being based on a historical person" are not good counter-arguments because these kinds of beliefs are actually rather common and certainly not as implausible as critics would like to pretend.
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The DVD extras with the extended interviews are not online, but I did find Richard Carrier's critical brief on the film.
Critical Notes on the Movie The God Who Wasn't There; Researched and Compiled by Richard C. Carrier in 2005.
It is a set of criticisms that match many of my own, and it saves me the trouble of writing more episodes.
Richard Carrier wrote a blog post about the film in March 2009, and it is a discouraging read, from my perspective. Richard Carrier is a smart guy. On the one hand, he praises the film as "awesome entertainment." On the other hand, he writes a brief that demonstrates a dozen historical falsehoods contained within the film. But, he says, "they aren't that excessive."
In my opinion, the errors are excessive. Many of them are central to the director's main points. If we are serious thinkers, then we don't get our entertainment from this sort of material. We get our entertainment from Monty Python, Spongebob Squarepants and House. If they lie to us, then at least we know regardless that we are not supposed to trust them.
You said, "Second, Doherty has a thorough discussion of Jesus' 'flesh'. Long story short, when Paul mentions Jesus' flesh, he's speaking about a spiritual/mythological world/flesh. In other words, Jesus was incarnated as spiritual flesh, and was crucified as a sacrifice, but this event did not take place on Earth. Doherty is the one to read for this issue."
Yeah, and I think Carrier would agree. If Doherty's model of a mythical spiritual world really did fit any of the ancient historical evidence, then that would be great. It would make just about anything Paul says about a seemingly human physical Jesus also fit Doherty's explanation, but maybe Doherty's explanation really does fit. Doherty's historical model is bizarre, it is seemingly not shared by any other scholars, so we need to find out exactly what Doherty's evidence is for this model and we need to carefully evaluate whether or not Doherty's model explains that evidence best. My friend from another forum GakuseiDon read Doherty's books and wrote detailed reviews, including analyses of Doherty's "World of Myth." I have not investigated Doherty's claims in great detail, but this may be a good place for me to start. Do you care to join me?
Fortunately, I found an MP3 file online that contains the DVD extra of the interview with Earl Doherty.
Earl Doherty with Brian Flemming - The God Who Wasn't There -- www.TheGodMovie.com .mp3
The first few minutes seem to be a repetition of the same false claims--the Pauline epistles don't mention a historical human Jesus. He went a step further--there isn't even any room for a recent historical man. I suppose he will go on to talk about how the handful of seemingly very plainly human Jesus passages in the Pauline epistles, such as the account of the last supper, or the "born of a woman" and "descended from David" passage, actually falls under the "world of myth" descriptions. If so, there seemingly can be nothing that Paul could have said that would qualify Paul's Jesus as being described as a human. I would love to find out if Earl Doherty actually has fitting evidence for this theory. GakuseiDon apparently failed to find that evidence, but maybe you and I can have a go.
As I said, TGWWT is an intro, not the primary source of the arguments. You need to judge Doherty on his best, clearest presentation of his argument, not on a brief interview.
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Wait, are you saying that 'we don't get our entertainment' from movies? Well, I don't know about you, but I see nothing wrong with mixing 'serious' thinking with 'awesome entertainment'. I mean, your point seems rather.... hoity toity, I suppose.
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Glen beck was "entertaining, too."
But what I really wanted to say is that Flemming seriously undermines his own credibility with such tricks. Which is why it's called disparagingly "docuganda"...which is an awful name because it sounds like something about Idi Amin. Perhaps "propumentary" would be a better portmanteau. When you make arguments you know to be false or unsupported you are no longer engaging in legitimate intellectual debate.