I'm sorry. I think you're being unfair. There's nothing wrong with the scale. My objection is to stretching the meaning of royalty to include Mary. Do you honestly think they intended the first item on the list to be blood relation to a royal family? That doesn't define royalty. And being on a hill 3 times. That's not an indicator of anything. And the kingdom of god in the gospels isn't the type of kingdom that Rank-Raglan intended. Yahweh isn't a king in the way that they intended either.
Again. If the precision needs to be lowered, and these similarities need to be exaggerated, why include them in the argument? If the argument requires these exaggerations. That means it's weak claim.
But are there? I came up with 5. You came up with 11. That's not enough to say the story as derived from anywhere. See, there's another exaggerated claim. No evidence? Yes! A myth? Maybe. Dervied from a plethora of pagan myths? There's not enough evidence for that. the first order of business is confirming that 2 authors could not have come up with the same elements of the story independently. And that's very difficult to do. There are archetypes for reasons.
Posts got deleted. One response on Hellenism remains, the other is in the celestial realm.
I counted 19 on the RR scale.
I don't remember the rest except for a list of subjects that are each expanded upon with examples and so on, that are some of the criteria used to determine prior probability on mythicism. RR being just one.
Carrier
Prior probability considerations, 3 groups:
RR comes from the chapter on the background of Christianity. There are several elements considered broken into in 3 parts, each with a long detailed discussion with sources, examples and so on.
Background of Christianity
1)Judaism was highly sectarian and diverse
2)When Christianity began Jews had been long expecting a messiah.
3)In the 1st century Palestine was experiencing a rash of messianism
5)Before Christianity some Jews expected one of their messiahs heralding the end times would actually be killed
6)The suffering and dying servant of Isaiah 52/Daniel 9 may already have been seen by some Jews as the same person. Connections with a man in Zac 3 and 6 named "Jesus Rising" who is confronted by Satan in God's abode in heaven and there crowned king, holds office of high priest, will build up God's house. The name is Branch/Rising, not literally "Jesus".
7)Pre-Christian book of Daniel, a key messianic text, laid out much of what would happen
8) Messianic sects of Jews were often practicing searching the scriptures for secret messages or pesherism
9) Pesherism back then was using different texts and variants than we have today
10)Early messianic cults who came to believe a certain Jesus was an eschatological Christ and was already a preexistent being
11)The earliest form of Christianity was a Judeo-Hellenistic mystery religion. Four trends given last post
12)Like all mystery religions Christianity had secret documents that initiates were sworn to never reveal
13)Mystery cults spoke of their beliefs in public through myth and allegory, which symbolized a more secret doctrine
14)Christianity began as a charismatic cult where visions, dreams, voices were divine communications
15) Earliest Christians knew some facts from revelation and Paul claimed this was a more reliable source Rom 16.25-26
16) The fundamental features of the gospel story can be read out of Jewish scripture. The Gospel may have been discovered and learned from scripture
17)Paul did not know a living Jesus
18)Earliest Christians proselytized Gentiles but required them to convert to Judaism.Paul was the first to discard this. Paul is never able to cite the authority of a living Jesus
19)PAul and others attest there were many rival sects
20)We have no record of what happened between 64 and 95 CE
Then another chapter of context background information
1)Incarnate sons/daughters of a god who died and rose to become living gods granting salvation to their followers were a common peculiar feature. of Pagan religion when Christianity arose
2)Cynicism, Stoicism and Platonism influenced Christian teachings.
3)Christianity is a syncretism of pagan and Jewish salvation ideology. Influences from Pharisees, R. Hillel, Essenes, Baptists
4)Popular cosmology held the sub-heavens, the firmament, was a region of corruption, change, decay while the heavens were pure, changeless.
Paul uses this Platonic view.
5)Because of this division religious cosmologies required intercessory beings, who bridge the gap between worlds.
6) In this cosmology there were 2 Adams, one perfect celestial version of which the earthly version is just a copy. The first Christians appear to have connected their Jesus to that original celestial Adam. (Revelation of Moses, Philo- On the Creation of the World)
7)The "son of man" was another being forseen in the visions of Enoch to be a preexistent celestial superman whom God will one day put in charge of the universe.
8)A parallel tradition of a perfect celestial priest named Melchizedek.
9)voluntary human sacrifice was seen by pagans and Jews as the most powerful salvation and atonement magic available.
Literary context
1) Fabricating stories was the norm
2)euhemerization - taking a cosmic God and placing him at a specific point in history, trending
3)hero narratives, 20 ways Jesus matches these
4)Ascension to Godhood tale common in pagan religions
5)Romulus narrative and Jesus share 20 parallels
6)RR hero type. 14 in Mark, 20 in Matthew. I count 19.
