Jesus or Christ Myth Theory

[outhouse]

But when this didn't happen, and when churches were being formed in places outside Jerusalem and outside Palestine then they saw the need for documentation of some kind.



.

The real apostles would have had no clue about the house people were worshipping in, out on the Diaspora.

They were not churches, they were houses, pater familias.


For these apostles, their movement died with Jesus. Or we would have writing from these people in oral traditions, we don't.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It is not my task to disprove the unproven

You are a scientist, no? True, we have come a long way from the simplistic post-positivist falsification philosophy of science of Popper, but not in the direction the above suggests. After all, even the logicism/foundations of mathematics that Hilbert identified as preeminent were shown to be utterly unattainable and the idea that science can do more that disprove (if that) is highly questionable among those of us who practice research. The task of scientists is to disprove. Historians (like some other academics) formulate theoretical frameworks that are explanatory but cannot be tested the way scientific results can. The trials of Socrates, Jesus, Andokides, etc. are not repeatable. We cannot replicate them the way we can the predicted final states of prepared quantum systems or response-time experiments in neuroimaging studies. And we can't really prove anything outside of closed discourse universes as they exist within formal systems (which science isn't, nor are other academic fields outside logic, mathematics, etc.).

Apart from your made-up "two-source" criterion and a complete lack of reference to any historical scholarship, can you substantiate your view with reerence to specialists?

 

[Sapiens]

If your best argument is to suggest that we engage in a battle of appeals to authority ... well, that's a level that even I will not sink to.

 

[steeltoes]

The Minimal Jesus Myth Theory

1. At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.

2. Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration (such as prophecy, past and present).

3. Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.

4. As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.

5. Subsequent communities of worshipers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only 'additionally' allegorical). Richard Carrier
​

 

[outhouse]

The Minimal Jesus Myth Theory

1. At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.

2. Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration (such as prophecy, past and present).

3. Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.

4. As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.

5. Subsequent communities of worshipers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only 'additionally' allegorical). Richard Carrier
​

This is true.

For anyone worshipping the Jesus in heaven.

Does not discount a historical core at all.

 

[Bunyip]

This is true.

For anyone worshipping the Jesus in heaven.

Does not discount a historical core at all.

What historical core? There is hardly a shred of evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is wishful thinking. You keep demanding a better explanation of the data - well the best explanation of the data is that it is insufficient to establish the historicity ofJesus.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If your best argument is to suggest that we engage in a battle of appeals to authority ... well, that's a level that even I will not sink to.

You already have:

Actually, I am told, that rules out very few people.

I am told by historians the the conventional requirement to demonstrate a named individual's historicity is two contemporaneous cross-references.

Two contemporaneous cross-references are required.

Having appealed to imaginary authority ("historians" who require a standard of evidence someone made-up who is completely unfamiliar with historiography), and unable to support your appeal, you suddenly won't sink to a level you started with? Interesting. Your field is...?

 

[Bunyip]

You already have:





Having appealed to imaginary authority ("historians" who require a standard of evidence someone made-up who is completely unfamiliar with historiography), and unable to support your appeal, you suddenly won't sink to a level you started with? Interesting. Your field is...?

Well my field is history. Sapeins is correct.

 

[Sapiens]

My fields are biology and oceanography, but I have many friends in other disciplines since I have wide interests and indiscriminate reading habits.

 

[steeltoes]

This is true.

For anyone worshipping the Jesus in heaven.

Does not discount a historical core at all.

Historical core? Really?

The gospels are fiction placed in a fictional time setting evidenced by the fact that the epistle writers have no knowledge of a Jesus of Nazareth that was supposedly executed by the Roman authorities in their recent past.

No one informed Paul that his Christ was crucified on earth by a Roman ruler in his recent past evidenced by what he states:

Romans 13:3Rulers hold no terrors to those who do right. . . If you wish not to fear the authorities, then do what is good and you will have their approval, for they are God’s agents working for your good. [NIV/NEB]

 

[nash8]

The Minimal Jesus Myth Theory

1. At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.

2. Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration (such as prophecy, past and present).

3. Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.

4. As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.

5. Subsequent communities of worshipers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only 'additionally' allegorical). Richard Carrier
​

My question to this would be: Why would a celestial deity be assigned a common name within the Jewish community?

Are there other examples of deities being assigned common names within a culture?

 

[steeltoes]

My question to this would be: Why would a celestial deity be assigned a common name within the Jewish community?

Are there other examples of deities being assigned common names within a culture?

Jesus means God saves, the meaning might have something to do with the author's choice.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well my field is history. Sapeins is correct.

Fantastic. Then perhaps you can supply some sources that indicate there is anything to this "two contemporaneous source" nonsense. I tried going through some of my sources but I couldn't seem to locate a single historian, classicist, Near-Eastern scholar, archaeologist, NT scholar, or any other specialist in any relevant field who mentions this made-up criterion:

Akenson, D. H. (2000). Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus. Oxford University Press.

Barnard, A. (2000). History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge University Press.

Buckley, T. (2010). Aspects of Greek History 750–323BC: A Source-Based Approach. Routledge.

Byrskog, S. (2002). Story as History, History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Brill Academic.

Chantraine, P. (1984). Morphologie Historique du Grec. Klincksieck.

Dillon, M., & Garland, L. (2000). Ancient Greece: Social & Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. (3rd Ed.). Routledge.

Erskine, A. (Ed.). (2009). A companion to Ancient History. Wiley-Blackwell.

Forsythe, G. (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. University of California Press.

Freedheim, D. K., & Weiner, I. B. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of Psychology: History of Psychology (Vol. I). Wiley-Blackwell.

Grant, M. (1977). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scriber's.

Habermas, G. R. (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Press.

Kretzmann, N., & Kenny, A. (Eds.) (1982). The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600. Cambridge University Press.

MacDonald, M. Y. (2004). The Pauline Churches: A Socio-Historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutrero-Pauline Writings (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Vol. 60). Cambridge University Press.

Marincola, J. (Ed.). (2009). A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Vols. I & II). Wiley-Blackwell.

Meier-Brügger, M. (2002). Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. Walter de Gruyter.

Orser, C. E. Jr. (2002). Encyclopedia Of Historical Archaeology. Routledge.

Patrich, J. (2011). Studies in the archaeology and history of Caesarea Maritima: Caput Judaeae, Metropolis Palaestinae (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Vol. 77). Brill.

Price, B. (Ed.). (1997). Ancient Economic Thought (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Vol. 13). Routledge.

Rheinberger, H. J. (2007). Historische Epistemologie:Zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.

Shanske, D. (2006). Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History. Cambridge University Press.

Schaps, D. M. (2011). Handbook for Classical Research. Routledge.

Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. Harvard University Press.

Theißen, G., & Merz, A. (2011). Der historische Jesus: ein Lehrbuch. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Tucker, A. (2004). Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. Cambridge University Press.

Tucker, A. (Ed.) (2011). A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Wiley-Blackwell.

Watkins, C. S. (2007). History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought- Fourth Series). Cambridge University Press.

Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. Routledge.

We could keep going. There's the several volume Cambridge Ancient History series, countless Handbooks & Companions (Blackwell's, Routledge's, Cambridge, etc.), ~60,000 books on the historical Jesus written in the 19th century (and many, many times that written in the past century), innumerable peer-reviewed papers in journals & sources like conference proceedings, graduate textbooks and reference materials for historians on historical methods, etc. Yet nowhere do we find such a simplistic, dogmatic, and utterly baseless criterion like "two contemporaneous sources" (especially given that "contemporaneous" is improperly defined; a contemporaneous source, particularly in antiquity, refers to the author/witness not the date of composition).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My fields are biology and oceanography, but I have many friends in other disciplines since I have wide interests and indiscriminate reading habits.

Commendable. I find that sticking to research in my own fields is very restricting. What, though, in your admirable research outside not only of your field but outside of the sciences has given your description that your appeal to (anonymous) authority about what is and isn't required by "historians" to consider a figure like Jesus as historical?

 

[Bunyip]

Fantastic. Then perhaps you can supply some sources that indicate there is anything to this "two contemporaneous source" nonsense. I tried going through some of my sources but I couldn't seem to locate a single historian, classicist, Near-Eastern scholar, archaeologist, NT scholar, or any other specialist in any relevant field who mentions this made-up criterion:

Akenson, D. H. (2000). Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus. Oxford University Press.

Barnard, A. (2000). History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge University Press.

Buckley, T. (2010). Aspects of Greek History 750–323BC: A Source-Based Approach. Routledge.

Byrskog, S. (2002). Story as History, History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Brill Academic.

Chantraine, P. (1984). Morphologie Historique du Grec. Klincksieck.

Dillon, M., & Garland, L. (2000). Ancient Greece: Social & Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. (3rd Ed.). Routledge.

Erskine, A. (Ed.). (2009). A companion to Ancient History. Wiley-Blackwell.

Forsythe, G. (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. University of California Press.

Freedheim, D. K., & Weiner, I. B. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of Psychology: History of Psychology (Vol. I). Wiley-Blackwell.

Grant, M. (1977). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scriber's.

Habermas, G. R. (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Press.

Kretzmann, N., & Kenny, A. (Eds.) (1982). The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600. Cambridge University Press.

MacDonald, M. Y. (2004). The Pauline Churches: A Socio-Historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutrero-Pauline Writings (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Vol. 60). Cambridge University Press.

Marincola, J. (Ed.). (2009). A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Vols. I & II). Wiley-Blackwell.

Meier-Brügger, M. (2002). Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. Walter de Gruyter.

Orser, C. E. Jr. (2002). Encyclopedia Of Historical Archaeology. Routledge.

Patrich, J. (2011). Studies in the archaeology and history of Caesarea Maritima: Caput Judaeae, Metropolis Palaestinae (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Vol. 77). Brill.

Price, B. (Ed.). (1997). Ancient Economic Thought (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Vol. 13). Routledge.

Rheinberger, H. J. (2007). Historische Epistemologie:Zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.

Shanske, D. (2006). Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History. Cambridge University Press.

Schaps, D. M. (2011). Handbook for Classical Research. Routledge.

Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. Harvard University Press.

Theißen, G., & Merz, A. (2011). Der historische Jesus: ein Lehrbuch. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Tucker, A. (2004). Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. Cambridge University Press.

Tucker, A. (Ed.) (2011). A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Wiley-Blackwell.

Watkins, C. S. (2007). History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought- Fourth Series). Cambridge University Press.

Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. Routledge.

We could keep going. There's the several volume Cambridge Ancient History series, countless Handbooks & Companions (Blackwell's, Routledge's, Cambridge, etc.), ~60,000 books on the historical Jesus written in the 19th century (and many, many times that written in the past century), innumerable peer-reviewed papers in journals & sources like conference proceedings, graduate textbooks and reference materials for historians on historical methods, etc. Yet nowhere do we find such a simplistic, dogmatic, and utterly baseless criterion like "two contemporaneous sources" (especially given that "contemporaneous" is improperly defined; a contemporaneous source, particularly in antiquity, refers to the author/witness not the date of composition).

Notice how there are no books with claims like 'Julius Ceaser's historicity proven!' - mainly because historians never make such silly claims - except when it comes to Jesus, for whome the evidence is pitiful in comparison to that for Ceaser.

 

[nash8]

Jesus means God saves, the meaning might have something to do with the author's choice.

Good point, but are there other sources where a deity was given a name that was common in the culture in which the myth arose?

 

[outhouse]

The gospels are fiction placed in a fictional time setting evidenced by the fact that the epistle writers have no knowledge of a Jesus of Nazareth that was supposedly executed by the Roman authorities in their recent past.

So much wrong in such a small place. Desperation kicking in?

The gospel authors were writing to a Roman audience, and wanted to divorce Judaism. They could not trash the Romans, when they were Roman citizens, and did not want to be oppressed like Jews were.

This above was one of your more desperate displays, you feeling OK?

 

[fantome profane]

Jesus means God saves, the meaning might have something to do with the author's choice.

Ok, but why call him Jesus of Nazareth?

 

[Sapiens]

Fantastic. Then perhaps you can supply some sources that indicate there is anything to this "two contemporaneous source" nonsense. I tried going through some of my sources but I couldn't seem to locate a single historian, classicist, Near-Eastern scholar, archaeologist, NT scholar, or any other specialist in any relevant field who mentions this made-up criterion:

Akenson, D. H. (2000). Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus. Oxford University Press.

Barnard, A. (2000). History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge University Press.

Buckley, T. (2010). Aspects of Greek History 750–323BC: A Source-Based Approach. Routledge.

Byrskog, S. (2002). Story as History, History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Brill Academic.

Chantraine, P. (1984). Morphologie Historique du Grec. Klincksieck.

Dillon, M., & Garland, L. (2000). Ancient Greece: Social & Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. (3rd Ed.). Routledge.

Erskine, A. (Ed.). (2009). A companion to Ancient History. Wiley-Blackwell.

Forsythe, G. (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. University of California Press.

Freedheim, D. K., & Weiner, I. B. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of Psychology: History of Psychology (Vol. I). Wiley-Blackwell.

Grant, M. (1977). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scriber's.

Habermas, G. R. (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Press.

Kretzmann, N., & Kenny, A. (Eds.) (1982). The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600. Cambridge University Press.

MacDonald, M. Y. (2004). The Pauline Churches: A Socio-Historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutrero-Pauline Writings (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Vol. 60). Cambridge University Press.

Marincola, J. (Ed.). (2009). A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Vols. I & II). Wiley-Blackwell.

Meier-Brügger, M. (2002). Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. Walter de Gruyter.

Orser, C. E. Jr. (2002). Encyclopedia Of Historical Archaeology. Routledge.

Patrich, J. (2011). Studies in the archaeology and history of Caesarea Maritima: Caput Judaeae, Metropolis Palaestinae (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Vol. 77). Brill.

Price, B. (Ed.). (1997). Ancient Economic Thought (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Vol. 13). Routledge.

Rheinberger, H. J. (2007). Historische Epistemologie:Zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.

Shanske, D. (2006). Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History. Cambridge University Press.

Schaps, D. M. (2011). Handbook for Classical Research. Routledge.

Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. Harvard University Press.

Theißen, G., & Merz, A. (2011). Der historische Jesus: ein Lehrbuch. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Tucker, A. (2004). Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. Cambridge University Press.

Tucker, A. (Ed.) (2011). A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Wiley-Blackwell.

Watkins, C. S. (2007). History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought- Fourth Series). Cambridge University Press.

Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. Routledge.

We could keep going. There's the several volume Cambridge Ancient History series, countless Handbooks & Companions (Blackwell's, Routledge's, Cambridge, etc.), ~60,000 books on the historical Jesus written in the 19th century (and many, many times that written in the past century), innumerable peer-reviewed papers in journals & sources like conference proceedings, graduate textbooks and reference materials for historians on historical methods, etc. Yet nowhere do we find such a simplistic, dogmatic, and utterly baseless criterion like "two contemporaneous sources" (especially given that "contemporaneous" is improperly defined; a contemporaneous source, particularly in antiquity, refers to the author/witness not the date of composition).

As I said, history is not my profession, I am strictly an amateur.

The two source rule and its application was pointed out to me by a professional historian, and is supported by a professional historian here, are you a professional historian?

I assume that one would learn about this in a class in historical research methods at the undergraduate level, but I really don't know.

I deeply resent the implication that I made it up, especially when it seems far more likely that someone made up your Jesus.

I expect that this rule was not applied to the historicity of Jesus because in the past any competent scholar knew that Jesus would fail it, but that that was just one of those things that you didn't point out because it seemed absurd within the tenor of those times.

 

[outhouse]

Ok, but why call him Jesus of Nazareth?

Oh its the Nazareth in heaven


These people choose quack amateur's, who appeal to ignorance, and claim Nazareth did not exist at that time.

Ignoring that 20,000 people moved into the area, that required massive amounts of agrarian villages and wagon trains to support it. Ignoring that it had water and had been a settlement off and on since people existed there.

Ignoring that Herodians displaced massive amounts of people off local farms, creating a tenant farming system, leaving many peasants looking for a place to live.



But why study history and anthropology and actually learn about what one debates when appealing to ignorance is so much fun.