Jesus was Myth

[Jayhawker Soule]

"That is not sufficient reason to discount him" but you discounted him non the less.

Where?

 

[steeltoes]

Well Jesus was also resurrected. Even if he had been crucified, coming back to life would have been kinda of an F.U. to the Romans as well as the Jews.

John the Baptist's head was presented on a platter yet his high regard remains intact. The embarrassment criteria was invented to be applied to Jesus in order to garner the desirable results.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

John the Baptist's head was presented on a platter yet his high regard remains intact. The embarrassment criteria was invented to be applied to Jesus in order to garner the desirable results.

What were the results? To set up the resurrection?

 

[steeltoes]

What were the results? To set up the resurrection?

It goes like this; the crucifixion must have really happened because it was otherwise an embarrassment for our hero to have died in such a shameful manner. The story wouldn't have been written that way if it wasn't true.

We have nothing to corroborate the story so this criteria and others like it were invented.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

It goes like this; the crucifixion must have really happened because it was otherwise an embarrassment for our hero to have died in such a shameful manner. The story wouldn't have been written that way if it wasn't true.

We have nothing to corroborate the story so this criteria and others like it were invented.

Ah I was thinking of it as its entirety. The Crucifixion alone would be an embarrassment but since the resurrection follows the crucifixion, it goes to show that though they tried to bring Jesus down, they couldn't.

It also would be a great encouragement for martyrdom, because it shows that even if you "die" you will be brought back. When promised a place in heaven, promised to be brought back to life, death in and of itself does not seem so scary, especially if it will bring you to where you truly want to be.

So the crucifixion + the resurrection go hand in hand and would work regardless if Jesus was a myth or historical.

 

[steeltoes]

Ah I was thinking of it as its entirety. The Crucifixion alone would be an embarrassment but since the resurrection follows the crucifixion, it goes to show that though they tried to bring Jesus down, they couldn't.

It also would be a great encouragement for martyrdom, because it shows that even if you "die" you will be brought back. When promised a place in heaven, promised to be brought back to life, death in and of itself does not seem so scary, especially if it will bring you to where you truly want to be.

So the crucifixion + the resurrection go hand in hand and would work regardless if Jesus was a myth or historical.

Yes, the criteria is easily refuted just as you have demonstrated. The author had the Son of God suffer and die just as the people of Israel that he was representing suffered and died.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Really, do you never tire of the ego boasts and personal insults?

[God, I so love to do smug!]

Rationality is my forte. Illustrating logical fallacies comes easily to me

Because of this, I'm in a much superior position than the average biblical scholar (or even the advanced biblical scholar) to make a judgment about why first-century folk found the Jesus story so exciting

Well, it's true that I don't think much of many biblical scholars, but I hardly think that's a reason to receive raw scorn.

How many times have you declared yourself the victor of some debate on this forum alone? How many times have you praised your own rationality and debating power? I've lost count.

I am 22 times more aware of my framework and 36 times more aware of cognition's link to culture and language than you are.

Common sense, mostly, along with my deep study of the human psyche. While all the biblical scholars were arguing over the proper declension of some exotic adjective in a long-dead language, I was out in the world putting my fellow minds under the microscope, listening to their words, their inflections -- then going away to muse long hours and days about them, writing about them, going back to them and listening again, asking them questions, watching how they answered.

Quite impressive, especially as you have 0 familiarity with the decades of studies on this in various sciences, and I'd be surprised if you were familiar with a single non-Indo-European language (let alone familiar with the links between cognition and language). Of course, you can't actually demonstrate this other than your repetitive insistence that your "study" of the "human psyche" has made you somehow aware of...well, whatever it is you think you know thanks to your subjective experiences.

What on earth does any of this have to do with our discussion?

You are judging evidence based on an arrogant assumption that your super-human rationality (and the subjective evaluations you can make that magically become objective) enables you to understand culture ~2000 years before you were born. That's your evidence. Your subjective experience and contradictory claims about how exciting and powerful a story was despite the fact that we have evidence it wasn't seen as either and the 300 years it took for these "primitive" people (primitive? really?) to realize how exciting the story really was.

What use are fancy words if you're unable to follow a rational discourse and write relevant responses?

"Exciting" is not a fancy word. You claim a story is exciting, claim to know about the human psyche (which is a "fancy" word, as it is a direct transliteration of the Greek word ψυχ&#942, and claim that this knowledge provides you with ability to understand both the details behind Mark and its reception and the cultures that rejected it for centuries and then accepted it. All because you observe people.

I realize that's just my opinion of your behavior, but I know a bit about language and logic, and I find you strangely off-kilter in your dialogues.

You've made no references to any other language than English, and made no use of either logical formalisms, systems, or even terminology specific to the field. When you wish to delve into any of these and apply actual expertise instead of your vague references to your own authority (garnered by years of observation in the 20th and 21st century that somehow gave you insight into the Hellenistic era ~2000 years earlier), feel free. I've given you precise arguments, references, and details. You've insulted thousands and thousands of academics and given nothing but your claims about antiquity you've acquired through subjective observation.

What's it got to do with our discussion?

I have a professional-level sense of what drives people, why they behave as they do. I've spent my life at it. Because of this, I'm in a much superior position than the average biblical scholar (or even the advanced biblical scholar) to make a judgment about why first-century folk found the Jesus story so exciting.

You insult experts and their knowledge and claim to know more because you have a "professional-level" sense of people, let as you know next to nothing about how language, culture, and cognition interact (still less of long-studied human cognitive errors), you are content to act like the illogical, arrogant, and self-professed omniscient individuals do, whether their claims are based in religious faith or rest safely upon pure ego, that they have no need of actual knowledge to write off the sum total of several millennia of study by thousands upon thousands of people.

I have no idea why you are posting this kind of material here in our dialogue.

Mainly because you claim to possess abilities to judge what humanity ("people") do, think, believe, etc., such that you can ignore any study of expertise and even insult the experts (whether you know who they are or not) because of your personal, subjective experience. However, I actually have studied how completely inadequate that kind of knowledge is. Not just by reading books, but actually observing controlled experiments and even observing neural activity. So you can spout all you want about the expertise you have because you have sensory systems like everyone else on the planet, but until you come up with more than your current contradictory explanation for Mark and substantiate it with more than your vague references to you 6th sense, you're just another person we've studied for longer than you've been alive, using the same perceptual faults, the same cognitive errors, and religious-like faith in these that we've known about for many decades.

look how they have all failed in comparison to Christianity. Their weakness is the historical person at their origin

Sorry, try again. There were plenty of historical people credited with divinity by writers in antiquity, including emperors with far more exciting stories. But then, as you can't be troubled to study, you've no idea which Greco-Roman biographers wrote about legendary heroes that were divine or semi-divine and yet nobody reacted as you describe. Nor can you explain the Jewish origin framework and how the messiah who never existed or whom nobody knew anything of somehow not only lived on in the talk of people (not Jewish, because that wouldn't make any sense, and not non-Jewish, because that wouldn't make any sense, but apparently non tertium datur wasn't covered where you learned "logic").

Mormonism is the only successful religion I can bring to mind with an historical prophet

Mormonism requires Jesus as understood through dialogue and texts for almost 2000 years. So if you want to compare Jesus with a Christian denomination which requires Jesus in order to explain Jesus, well I must admit you've definitely developed an interesting personal "logic".

What do you find especially significant about this guy's opinion?

The fact that he, and others like him (even after Christianity was legal), were considered by the Christians so dangerous that their arguments required responses so that these Christians could protect their dogma, and yet nowhere do we find any hint of your unsubstantiated claims about how "exciting" Mark was that you realized after watching people for a while.

I've read quite a bit and then used the same thing everyone else uses -- my experiences with the world and with people.

1) You've consistently refused to provide any sources
2) Everyone else doesn't use that. Because some know that subjective experiences come with inherent biases. And you're the first I've met who thinks that knowing a bunch of people living in the modern era enables you to understand the multi-cultural reception of a text you can't even read from a time period you haven't studied.

Smith made the Huge Claim to start Mormonism. Mark made the Huge Claim to start Christianity.

Who is Mark? Where is there evidence this claim was ever made? Where is the human equivalent of Smith (as all we know is that there is a document that was later identified to be written by John Mark, Peter's follower)?

And I have told you about the nature of the gospels, the nature of orality, the ways in which your assumptions are wrong

You haven't mentioned anything about orality, and as for anything else, all you've offered is "I observe the human psyche so I'm a scholar of the heart!"

If you can't speak with common courtesy, I won't take you seriously as a debater.

When you don't mock thousands of people who spent years and years studying, then why should you receive more courtesy than you expel?

 

[nash8]

The argument that Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or God is meant to be the argument against people that accept Jesus as just a nice spiritual teacher. Jesus`s words in the gospel do not make that possible. It is not an argument of the existance of Jesus. That is a completely different topic and other evidence would be used to prove this.

Totally agreed, my argument for a HJ is not trying to say that any of what's in the Bible is neccessarily true (not saying it's not either). My argument is that almost all works of fiction are based on a real person. And this character is the HJ. I personally believe that there was a man named Yeshua who lived somewhere between 10 B.C. and 50 A.D. Is it possible that it was based on a person who lived sometime a lot longer ago, of course. But it doesn't explain why Christianity gained prominence within Rome, and a charismatic HJ does.

If the entire religion of Christianity was based off someone that wasn't around during that time, there is nothing that would seperate it from other existing cults at that time. The existence of a real person that people actually had contact with is what, in my opinion, seperated Christianity from the other cults of the time, and what made it gain popularity so quickly and prominently. I don't see any other explanations, that would logically explain how Christianity gained popularity and prominence within Rome. There are a lot of tenets of Christianity that have already been mentioned that would make it non-desirable for most of that time period.

But it is a story so why not leave it at that? People obviously took to the story, they liked it, and the story ended up being used as a basis for a religion to form upon. People believed every word of it, the Son of God, the miracles and the resurrection. When did it become a question of historical merit and why then did it become necessary to establish it as such? Why the need for a best explanation for a story? Why the criteria of embarrassment?

That people believed every word of it is a huge assumption. It's been argued that the Son of God idea did not even originate until long after the early years of Christianity. The Miracles and the Ressurection as well.

The question of historical merit, and the best explanation for the story, in my opinion don't come in to til much later. Do you forget that a council of Roman leaders (not all neccessarily "Christian"), decided what went into the Gospels. As you stated earlier, Constantine probably picked the religion that was most likely to succeed. But as the emperor of Rome, you can't just pick the religion that was most likely to succeed, you have to pick the religion that is most likely to succeed and then form it to suit your needs. I think you assume that Roman leaders neccessarily cared about the "truth" of the origins of the religion. The truth is, more often than not, what causes the destruction of the governmental structure.

I think you can also look at it in this way as well. Why do most American's call themselves Christians today. Not because they neccessarily beleive in the tenets of Christianity (although many surely do) or because they follow the guidelines set forth in Christianity (many surely don't), but because it's what everyone else is doing. Do the majority of people conform to norm, or oppose it? Once Christianity became popular enough to be the state religion of Rome, all elements of the truth of its formation went out the window in my opinion. At this point noone cared about the true foundations of Christianity, they just cared about calling themselves Christians "to be cool". This is partially what I believe gave the Roman authorities to do with the foundations of Christianity, what they felt best suited their needs. Because noone except the people that were directly linked to the foundations of Christianity cared anymore. They just cared about being in the "in crowd".

That assumes that deliberate forgery was the motive rather than innocent but inaccurate revelations. Surely many ancient religious writings were the results of innocent but inaccurate revelations.

If the copies of the Gospels that we have today are largely similar to the original Gospels, the Romans obviously had nothing to do with them.

Assuming that the copies of the gospels are largely similar to the original copies is a HUGE assumption in my book. The earliest copies of the gospels that I know of are at least 100 years after Jesus. Even those were probably translated through numerous languages, from oral record, and from gathered and compiled from numerous different sources with conflicting agendas. Then you have to consider the agenda of the person/people compiliing the Gospels. Did they wan't it to read like an biography? Where they trying to expand the religion, thus instituting literary devices that would make it more appealing to the masses? Since we really have no clue who compiled these early writings, we really have no clue what their objectives were.

Then on top of all this you have to factor in 2000 years of Roman Catholic oppression. Once the institution of paying for salvation came into the fold, do you honestly think that the Roman Catholic church would want people finding out that the basis of Christianity wasn't really about Jesus dying on the cross for their sins? Do you think that Roman Catholic leaders would not have done everything in their power to keep this truth from getting out?

 

[nash8]

Originally Posted by infidels.org

Dr. Richard Carrier

01. Who Would Buy One Crucified?
A lot of people, crucifixion was a display for people who opposed Roman control. If Jesus was not actually crucified it would have been easy for a large number of people to know this, as his crucifixion would have most likely been a fairly public event.

02. Who Would Follow a Man from Galilee?

Depends on how Charismatic he was. Who would follow a short dark headed man with a funny mustache who called for the extermination of an entire race of people, and suppoused the supremecy of a specific race of people that were the total opposite of what he was.
03. Was Resurrection Deemed Impossible?

I don't even know what this has to do anything.
04. Was the New Always Bad?

This either
05. Who Would Join a Moral Order?

This assumes that Christianity was a "moral" order. I personally assume that early Christianity engaged in many practices that would not have been considered moral by todays Christian standards. The true morality of Christianity was fair treament of all peoples, not the "false" morality that we have today that judges people based on their view of wrong. Jesus accepted those people that were considered immoral during those times. This is part of what made Christianity a cult of the common man. Which most people in Rome were.

06. Who Would Join an Intolerant Cult?

Lot's of people, if it was the "cool" thing to do.

07. Was Christianity Highly Vulnerable to Inspection and Disproof?

This sounds like a mathematics, proof is for mathematics, evidence is for historical observations. But I would say no, due to the authoritive Roman dominance of the religion both pre and post Nicean council. Remember they killed Christians before Christianity became the state religion, and they killed certain groups of Christians after it became the state religion. This environment does not lend itself well for determing the true foundations of Christianity for me.

08. Who Would Want to be Persecuted?

People who believe strongly enough in their beliefs. I think this lends itself more to a HJ than not. If I had met a man who inspired my beliefs, or had a strong foundation for believing he was a real man I would be much more likely to be persecuted for my beliefs. If I followed a religion that had no recent evidence for the leader being a real person, I would be a lot less likely to be persecuted for my beliefs associated with it.

09. Was the Idea of an Incarnate God Really Repugnant?

Definitely not, the Emperor of Rome and the Egyptian Pharaohs were considered incarnate Gods. Consequently they were all most likely, historical figures.
10. Would Groupthinkers Never Switch Groups?

Most definitely. But it depends on what type of group they were. Esoteric groups not so much as they prided themselves being different than everyone else. But generally speaking groupthinkers, act just like everyone else, they go to what suits them the best.

11. Did No One Trust Women?

In Jewish circles I would say no, women were not generally trusted. In Roman circles, I would say no as well, but to a lesser extent, although I am not as familiar with Roman policies towards women as I am with Jewish policies toward women.

12. Did No One Respect the Opinions of Uneducated Laymen?

Definitely not, accept when it concerned elite leaders political prowess. Do people respect the opinions of uneducated laymen in America today. Hell no, except when it comes to matters of politicians getting elected. But when it comes to things that really matter: taxes, education, minimum wage, gun right, etc etc, their opinions don't matter at all. And on this notes politicians have a great way of directing public opinion toward things that are less important in my opinion. Gay marriage for example, I fully support gay marriage by the way, and it should have been legal along time ago. But by keeping gay marriage legislation on the front of the political agenda for so long, how many more pressing issues, in my opinion, were disregarded.

13. Would the Facts Be Checked?

No, they would be hidden due to the oppression of the Roman Catholic church. And those who did trie to check the facts would have faced persecution or even death. And honestly people probably had more pressing matters than to check the facts about the foundations of Christianity.

14. Was the Apparent Ignorance of Jesus a Problem?

I don't understand this, please explain.

15. Who Would Follow an Executed Criminal?

People who met him, or had heard direct accounts from people they trusted. And it also depends on what the criminal was executed for. If he was executed for raping children, I don't think many people would have followed him. If he was executed for trying to empower the lower class, it is much more likely that a lot of people would have followed him

16. Were Christian Teachings Too Radical for Anyone to Buy?

Depends on what your view of what original Christian teachings were. I have a substantially different view of what early Christian teachings were, at least at the deeper levels. On the basic level, no. Equal treatment of all humans is not hard for anyone to buy, especially for those groups of people who feel they are being treated unfairly.

I base my historical beliefs on how many questions a particular belief logically answers in regard to a specific subject. HJ seems to answer a lot more questions logically than a MJ

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

LegionAmbiguousAmbiguous is right, Smith = Mark.

Although we often interchange "Mark", the title of an anonymous work, with "John Mark", the author according to religious tradition, we have almost 0 evidence who wrote this work. So, if "Smith = Mark", then Smith is the name of text, not a person.

Yes, the criteria is

FYI- criteria is plural. Criterion is singular ("the criterion is..." vs. "the criteria are..."). That's not a criticism (my posts are filled with spelling errors), just something in case you didn't know.

The author had the Son of God suffer and die

"The author". Which author? Because before we had any gospels we had letters about this suffering and dying, and as you haven't demonstrated that the authors of Luke and Matthew relied entirely on Mark for this information, then what basis do you have underlying your claim?

just as the people of Israel that he was representing suffered and died.

The people of Israel suffered, and represented many people as suffering and dying. In this case, the representation was widely rejected by the people of Israel, and was supposed to correspond to a particular role: the messiah. Jesus didn't fill that role until it was re-interpreted so that he would.

The mythicists have a point

Which ones? Because the origins of current mythicist arguments can be found in 19th century texts and have their origin in 1830s. Can you read German? If you can't, then the most well-informed mythicists with the most convincing arguments are inaccessible to you.

Skeptics aren't required to explain away anything, what is presented without evidence may rightfully and summarily be dismissed without evidence.

Whether it is the historicity of the Iliad or the "climate skeptics", there is evidence. You have read next to nothing on the subject, but just because you can't be troubled to do research before making sweeping claims doesn't mean evidence isn't there. Now, if you were able to evaluate this evidence in context (both ancient and modern) and present a cogent argument, that would be worth something. You can't. You have referred to "evidence" that fails your own criteria for being trustworthy in order to refute the position held by almost every single historian of the ancient world on the planet regarding the historicity of Jesus. You didn't know this, of course, because like so many mythicists you don't actually study history, read scholarship, or have even a passing familiarity with how academia operates. Yet you don't hesitate to dogmatically proclaim your evaluation as somehow informed (by what is anybody's guess).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I don't have church fathers.

Sure you do. You're just another fundamentalist Christian relying on Christian scholars with Christian biases to understand this clearly mythical Jesus. The fact that one can peruse your thousands of posts, or merely look at your stated religion in each and every post, is clearly part of the vast "historicist" conspiracy. You're probably one of the programmers of Bart Erhman v 2.0 (author of that latest piece of trash on the historical Jesus, and just when I thought he couldn't produce something poorer than his first work on the historical Jesus years ago).

I mean, if you really weren't Christian, then clearly you'd be a mythicist. It's, like, totally obvious. Just observe people for a while, and when you reach professional-level observation abilities. you'll totally understand how things worked in a variety of cultures 2 millennia ago.

 

[nash8]

Sure you do. You're just another fundamentalist Christian relying on Christian scholars with Christian biases to understand this clearly mythical Jesus. The fact that one can peruse your thousands of posts, or merely look at your stated religion in each and every post, is clearly part of the vast "historicist" conspiracy. You're probably one of the programmers of Bart Erhman v 2.0 (author of that latest piece of trash on the historical Jesus, and just when I thought he couldn't produce something poorer than his first work on the historical Jesus years ago).

I mean, if you really weren't Christian, then clearly you'd be a mythicist. It's, like, totally obvious. Just observe people for a while, and when you reach professional-level observation abilities. you'll totally understand how things worked in a variety of cultures 2 millennia ago.

LMAO, you fundamental Christian ***, you.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

LMAO, you fundamental Christian ***, you.

NOOOOO!!!!! You've revealed my deep dark secret! How could you!? Now I will have to make a full report to the Bayesian Left Wing Islamic-Mormon conspiracy leaders. May John Mark/Smith have mercy on your soul!

 

[nash8]

I'm on to you legion, I'm on to you.

 

[steeltoes]

Although we often interchange "Mark", the title of an anonymous work, with "John Mark", the author according to religious tradition, we have almost 0 evidence who wrote this work. So, if "Smith = Mark", then Smith is the name of text, not a person.


FYI- criteria is plural. Criterion is singular ("the criterion is..." vs. "the criteria are..."). That's not a criticism (my posts are filled with spelling errors), just something in case you didn't know.


"The author". Which author? Because before we had any gospels we had letters about this suffering and dying, and as you haven't demonstrated that the authors of Luke and Matthew relied entirely on Mark for this information, then what basis do you have underlying your claim?



The people of Israel suffered, and represented many people as suffering and dying. In this case, the representation was widely rejected by the people of Israel, and was supposed to correspond to a particular role: the messiah. Jesus didn't fill that role until it was re-interpreted so that he would.

Which ones? Because the origins of current mythicist arguments can be found in 19th century texts and have their origin in 1830s. Can you read German? If you can't, then the most well-informed mythicists with the most convincing arguments are inaccessible to you.

Whether it is the historicity of the Iliad or the "climate skeptics", there is evidence. You have read next to nothing on the subject, but just because you can't be troubled to do research before making sweeping claims doesn't mean evidence isn't there. Now, if you were able to evaluate this evidence in context (both ancient and modern) and present a cogent argument, that would be worth something. You can't. You have referred to "evidence" that fails your own criteria for being trustworthy in order to refute the position held by almost every single historian of the ancient world on the planet regarding the historicity of Jesus. You didn't know this, of course, because like so many mythicists you don't actually study history, read scholarship, or have even a passing familiarity with how academia operates. Yet you don't hesitate to dogmatically proclaim your evaluation as somehow informed (by what is anybody's guess).

Now I am a mythicist again? This is hilarious. Other than reminding me that criteria is plural, which I appreciate, the rest is Legion being Legion who has a serious problem with anyone that isn't a fundamentalist when it comes to the historical Jesus. Yes, the author of Mark is otherwise unknown but for arguments sake lets call him Mark and equate him with another author known as Smith, do you have a problem with that?

 

[outhouse]

Well Jesus was also resurrected.
.

I dont even think thats up for debate.

I vote thrown in a pit for the dogs to eat like Crosson posits

Mythology is just that

 

[outhouse]

Originally Posted by infidels.org

Dr. Richard Carrier

01. Who Would Buy One Crucified?
A lot of people, crucifixion was a display for people who opposed Roman control. If Jesus was not actually crucified it would have been easy for a large number of people to know this, as his crucifixion would have most likely been a fairly public event.

This is how bad Carriers work has become, over what I used to think as quality work.

If it was a public event, and I agree there. This would go against a MJ.

These legends were written in a lifetime where people could claim they were there at the Passover and say that this was all fiction. But NO early people questioned that Jesus was a man who was crucified that Passover.


The large amount of people that would witness this also explains the rapid spread of the movement throughout the Diaspora.


AS Paul travels he tells us he was not the only teacher far removed from Israel

 

[outhouse]

*edit*

Maybe you fail to understand how prevelant oral traditions were during this time.

Which cannot be applied to Smith

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I dont even think thats up for debate.

I vote thrown in a pit for the dogs to eat like Crosson posits

Mythology is just that

Well my point is that part is why the crucifixion wouldn't matter. As embarrassing as it is as long as its followed up with Jesus came back. People will not only be willing to believe but willing to die. It also helps the foundation for the dying for our sins. The embarrassment on the cross would serve to show that this person who was innocent has taken on our penalty of embarrassment and death.

These would be strong motivators, how many people today have converted to Christianity because they feel terrible for Jesus taking on a punishment they believe they deserved? I know I did.

 

[outhouse]

Well my point is that part is why the crucifixion wouldn't matter. As embarrassing as it is as long as its followed up with Jesus came back. People will not only be willing to believe but willing to die. It also helps the foundation for the dying for our sins. The embarrassment on the cross would serve to show that this person who was innocent has taken on our penalty of embarrassment and death.

These would be strong motivators, how many people today have converted to Christianity because they feel terrible for Jesus taking on a punishment they believe they deserved? I know I did.

I think the point of scholars is that todays context of the crucifixion is night and day different from the time period it happened in.

What they posit is that if you were going to create a mythical character, one could still achieve your goals in mythology by death, without such a embarressing and humiliating death.

being kiled by a Roman guard in a battle for the common man, or even a mythical battle, or simply beheaded by herod.


What we do see is a punishement and crime that fits perfectly with the cultural anthropology of the time period which isnt needed for mythology, but its there.