Historical Hercules

[The Grand Nudger]

The only fundamental difference between the two positions is which came first.  A christ myth.  Or some guy.  

Personally.  I think it was the myth.  Let's start right off the bat by noting that the whole messianic (and herculean) spiel is that the guy fit into a preexisting myth.  I think that our legendary figures (both real and imagined) are a bridge between the world of our lived experience and the world of our mythological cultures.  Was there a greek strongman?  Sure.  Plenty.  Maybe hercules has his eyes, or his nose, or his ears.  Or maybe the author was daydreaming about his own boyfriend when he described the demi-god.

I still don’t see that it matters. If the myth came first, there’s no reason that characteristics of an actual person couldn’t have been appended to it. If the guy came first, there’s nothing to prevent mythic - or even divine - elements being added to his story.

A difference which makes no difference is no difference.

Boru

At some point, anything like this about any subject is entirely academic - and there are multiple roads to the same destination.  The two are very different with respect to the historic development of both the literary tradition and the religion, though.    Without a singular "historic jesus"...for example, the story of early christianity is not one of a bunch of simpletons and halfwits trying to make sense of the death of their local witchdoctor, nor is it an issue of unscrupulous operators selling gullible rubes on magic beans. The story, then, and all of it...becomes parable - intentionally so and from the very begining. A story that's not about a palestinian who was strung up by rome but a story about how life could have been, should be, and may yet become.