Does Literary Imitation Suggest Christ Never Existed: The Trump Lens (2/2)?

John MacDonald | October 26, 2024

Previous Posts in this Series:

(1/4) Christianity, A Question of Reasoning: The Continental/Analytic Philosophy Divide

(Part 2 of 4) Christianity, A Question of Reasoning: The Continental/Analytic Philosophy Divide

(Part 3/4, AFTERWORD) Christianity, A Question of Reasoning: The Christ Myth Theory and the Lord’s Supper

(Part4/4 Appendix) Christianity, A Question of Reasoning: The Christ Myth Theory and the Lord’s Supper

Last Time: Does Literary Imitation Suggest Christ Never Existed?

Now, the Conclusion:

Do the imitations in writing (typologies) the New Testament like Jesus as the New Moses in Matthew mean the gospel narratives are simply invented out of whole cloth, or do they contain a trace of the historical Jesus in them? Probably both, and it is very tricky to pinpoint where on that spectrum a real story may reside. So, McGrath notes some of the proposed typologies are very poor fits and so not the kind of story you would invent out of whole cloth if your primary interest was pointing to an Old Testament text with your Jesus story. Another issue, as Walsh notes, is that ancient scrolls weren’t read like modern annotated texts and so we have to be careful in how we determine an older text was a source of a newer one.

Ehrman notes in the 7th of 10 parts of his interview with Ben Witherington on his book Did Jesus Exist :

Q. Robert Price’s argument that the stories of Jesus are a giant midrash on OT stories about Moses and others, and so are completely fiction seems to ignore the fact that midrash is a hermeneutical technique used for contemporizing pre-existing stories. Talk briefly about the difference between how stories are shaped in the Gospels and whether they have any historical substance or core or not. (N.B. It appears that Crossan has recently made the same kind of category mistake arguing that since there are parables in the Gospels, that whole stories about Jesus may be parables, pure literary fictions).

A. In Did Jesus Exist? I try to make a major methodological point that there is a very big difference between saying that a story has been shaped in a certain (non-historical) way and saying that the story is completely non-historical. I make this point because authors like Robert Price have claimed that all the stories about Jesus in the Gospels are midrashes on stories found in the OT. By that he means, roughly, that the story of Jesus is shaped in such a way as to reflect a kind of retelling or exposition of stories about persons and events in the Old Testament. For example, the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel shapes the stories about Jesus to make Jesus appear to be a kind of “second Moses.” Like Moses, Jesus is supernaturally protected at his birth when the ruler (Pharaoh/Herod) seeks to destroy him; like Moses he goes down to Egypt as an infant; like Moses he comes up out of Egypt to the promised land; like Moses he passes through the waters (the parting of the Red Sea; the baptism); after which he spends time in the wilderness being “tested” (40 years; 40 days); after which he goes up on the mountain to receive/deliver the Law (Mount Sinai; Sermon on the Mount). The story of Jesus has evidently been “shaped” in light of the author’s knowledge of the story of Moses in order to say something: Jesus is the new Moses.

It is true that a number of stories about Jesus in the Gospels (not all of them though!) have been shaped as a kind of midrash on the OT. But the key point to make is that there is a difference between shaping a story and inventing a story. As I argue in my book, it is very easy indeed for us today to shape stories of important historical figures when we tell about them. And so we have standard sets of motifs: for example, the “rags to riches” story (which presidential candidates often like to use in telling their own autobiography); or the “tragic hero” story. It would be oh so easy to tell the story of Richard Nixon as the tragic hero, whose tragic flaw led to his spectacular downfall.

But would that mean that Richard Nixon never lived? No, you would need to use other criteria (the ones I’ve enumerated) to decide whether he lived or not. So too with Jesus. Even if you could show that all the stories about him were shaped in light of the OT (you can’t show this; but suppose you could): that would have no bearing on whether he existed or not.

We see for example in this USA election cycle on the internet widely circled propaganda art and memes from both the left and right situating Trump as a type of a prior famous figure, e.g., the new George Washington, the fictional hero Rocky, or by the left, Hitler:

The left identifies very real authoritarian tendencies and language in Trump from those who served with him, and frame him as fascist. This is the kind of propaganda literature Mark’s “gospel” is, propaganda trying to “sell” Jesus as the new and greater Caesar. Helms notes:

The syncretic flavor of Mark is at once evident from his reproduction of a piece of Augustan imperial propaganda and his setting it beside a tailored scripture quote. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” closely matches the formula found on a monument erected by the Provincial Assembly in Asia Minor (1st century BCE): “Whereas… Providence… has… brought our life to the peak of perfection in giving us Augustus Caesar… who, being sent to us and to our descendants as a savior…, and whereas… the birthday of the god has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euaggelion) concerning him, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth.” (Helms, p. 24)

A “gospel” is propaganda, the “good news” associated with someone. This is why we also see pagan typology in the gospels, such as Jesus as the new and greater Dionysus as Dennis MacDonald shows in the gospel of John.

MY ESSAYS