maxfreakout
Active Member
my claim is that mythicism is the denial of Jesus' historicity. Doherty says that:
So there is a quote from Doherty that mirrors my claim. Doherty further elaborates that mythicism claims that:
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Jesus or Christ Myth Theory
- Thread starter steeltoes
- Start date
my claim is that mythicism is the denial of Jesus' historicity. Doherty says that:
So there is a quote from Doherty that mirrors my claim. Doherty further elaborates that mythicism claims that:
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
You must be getting confused. You were claiming that they said Jesus was 100% myth, or that there is no evidence for a historical jesus.
Those are the claims I am asking you to support with a quote.
maxfreakout
Active Member
i have multiple provided quotes which clearly indicate what the "mythicist" position entails, it is the denial of jesus' historicity. This is the position held by the mythicist writers such as Doherty and Carrier, none of these mythicist writers believe that the historical Jesus ever existed.
Per the OP, this thread is about opposing or supporting the christ-myth theory, but before the mythicist theory can be opposed or supported, it must first be understood. Yet there are clearly people posting in this thread such as yourself who do not grasp what the mythicist writers are actually saying - ie that historical Jesus never existed, that the bible stories are mythological not literal history
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
maxfreakout
Active Member
i said nothing about percentages, and i said nothing about "evidence".
My point was that the mythicist position is a denial of the historicist position, the mythicist theory explicitly denies the existence of historical Jesus, every mythicist writer has this basic point in common, they all emphatically deny the existence of historical Jesus.
Several posters on this thread including yourself indicated that they did not understand this crucial fact about Jesus mythicism, so i clarified it including quotes from Doherty (one of the leading mythicist proponents)
Mythicism explicitly denies the existence of historical Jesus, that is the crux of the whole issue, either Jesus was a single historical person, or else he is a myth. The debate here is over which of these two mutually exclusive options is the truth
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Sure and I am asking you for just one quote.
maxfreakout
Active Member
i am only making the first of these ^ two claims, but without any meaningless reference to percentages, as i said before this issue is all-or-nothing, it has no relation to percentages or proportions, a person is either fully real, or else fully unreal, there are no other possible options.
I am claiming that jesus mythicism is a denial of Jesus' historicity, and this is what every mythicist writer claims.
Per Doherty:
ie Jesus mythicists such as Doherty claim that historical Jesus never existed.
It is very revealing of the state of so-called "online debate" that it takes so long to make such a simple point, and that the people who participate in such a "debate" don't even understand what they are debating. Mythicism = anti-historicism, the mythicist claim is logically incompatible with the historicist claim.
maxfreakout
Active Member
Doherty provides a perfect quote to illustrate the point that Jesus mythicism is a denial of Jesus historicism where he says:
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
You keep changing your claim
Whether or not a real historical Jesus is existed has yet to be firmly established.
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maxfreakout
Active Member
You read Doherty's book, and you came away from it with the idea that Doherty believes in historical Jesus? I struggle to understand how that would be possible, given how the entire book centres around the idea that historical Jesus never existed.
The entire book is an argument against the historical Jesus, Doherty is a firm proponent of the mythicist position, that there was no historical Jesus, the sub-title of the book is "the case for a mythical Jesus"
From the publisher's blurb:
pay particular attention to the underlined part, it says that Doherty claims the nonexistence of historical Jesus, is that clear enough or do you still need more quotes?
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maxfreakout
Active Member
my only claim has always been that mythicism denies the historical reality of Jesus.
If you havent yet understood that, then you do not understand the entire debate that this thread revolves around - the reality or unreality of historical Jesus
Either Jesus is a historical person (historicism) or else Jesus was a mythic character (mythicism)
Historicists believe the former, mythicists (such as Doherty etc.) believe the latter.
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maxfreakout
Active Member
There are two different ways of interpreting the Jesus character, either as a single historical man, or as a mythological character.
Historicists believe the former, mythicists believe the latter
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Covered that before mate.
maxfreakout
Active Member
You indicated before that you had misunderstood the central mythicist claim, because you hadnt realised that the mythicists like Doherty were denying the existence of historical Jesus (despite having read his book which makes this clear denial consistently right throughout).
However that is false, and a radical misunderstanding of what the whole debate is about.
Mythicism, and all mythicist writers such as doherty, clearly and explicitly deny that there ever existed a historical Jesus
It is absolutely crucial to understand this basic point before anyone can meaningfully discuss the issue.
It is very simple:
position 1 - Historical Jesus existed (= historicism)
position 2 - Historical Jesus didnt exist (= mythicism)
These are the only two fundamental positions that it is possible to hold in this debate, and all the mythicist writers like Doherty hold position 2, that the historical Jesus never existed
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
As I said, your claim is changing. Not sure what the point of doing so is.
We could move on, but you won't back your claims - and just change the claim instead.
Nice talking, catch you another time,
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maxfreakout
Active Member
From what to what? My first post here made the simple claim that mythicism denies the historical Jesus, and that is still what i am saying. So my claim hasnt changed at all. By contrast you have been wriggling all over the place with your claims, and you have made some blatant and ridiculous errors, such as claiming that Doherty believes in historical Jesus (fortunately you seem to have backtracked from that absurd claim since you first made it).
My claim never changed, All i have been claiming is that mythicism is the denial of the historical Jesus. You previously denied that this was the case, and you even tried to suggest that the mythicist writer Doherty believes in historical Jesus. Fortunately you have now stopped making these various absurd claims which hopefully means that you have read and understood my posts.
You indicated previously that you had not understood what "mythicism" entails, and i clarified it for you. Mythicism is the denial of the existence of historical Jesus. The various myhticist writers do not believe that historical Jesus ever existed. It is crucial to understand this simple point, Doherty argues at great length that historical Jesus never existed, as do all other mythicist writers.
You denied earlier that mythicists like Doherty were claiming the nonexistence of historical Jesus (despite claiming to have read Doherty's book), so i provided quotes from doherty that clearly establish that he is denying the existence of the historical Jesus.
The major point that needs to be understood is that the mythicist claim is that historical Jesus never existed. Every mythicist writer like Doherty denies that historical Jesus ever existed. Without understanding this basic point, it is impossible to talk meaningfully about the whole issue of historicism versus mythicism
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maxfreakout
Active Member
It is impossible to "move on" with any debate until the participants clearly understand what the basic ideas that are being debated consist of.
So until you have clearly understood that the mythicist versus historicist debate concerns the existence or nonexistence of historical Jesus, then it would not be possible to "move on"
you indicated that you have not understood this basic point until now, you have been thinking all this time that the mythicist writer Doherty (and others) believes in historical Jesus, when in fact this is the precise opposite of what Doherty believes, and has clearly stated innumerable times in his books (which you claim to have read, highly dubiously)
maxfreakout
Active Member
The following is a duplication of my first post, to demonstrate that my claim has not changed at all:
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Doubting Jesus' historicity IS mythicism!
there are two scenarios:
1 - Jesus is a historical person
2 - Jesus is a mythological character
a person subscribing to (1) is a historicist (a believer in historical Jesus), a person subscribing to (2) is a mythicist.
Why are people saying that doubting Jesus' historicity isn't mythicism?
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My only claim, which has remained entirely unchanged since my first post which i have duplicated here^, is the simple point that mythicism denies that historical Jesus ever existed. I find it astonishing that this so-called "debate" has raged on for so long, when the main protagonists in the debate were profoundly ignorant of the basic subject matter of the debate in the first place. It is a tragic indictment of the nature of internet pseudo-intellectualism.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doubting Jesus' historicity IS mythicism!
there are two scenarios:
1 - Jesus is a historical person
2 - Jesus is a mythological character
a person subscribing to (1) is a historicist (a believer in historical Jesus), a person subscribing to (2) is a mythicist.
Why are people saying that doubting Jesus' historicity isn't mythicism?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My only claim, which has remained entirely unchanged since my first post which i have duplicated here^, is the simple point that mythicism denies that historical Jesus ever existed. I find it astonishing that this so-called "debate" has raged on for so long, when the main protagonists in the debate were profoundly ignorant of the basic subject matter of the debate in the first place. It is a tragic indictment of the nature of internet pseudo-intellectualism.
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Bunyip
pro scapegoat
I understand, but am not a mythicist, I just don't believe that the historicity of Jesus has been so well established, As I said from the outset - I am not a mythicist, and nobody here seems to be defending mythicism.
Looking forward to the quote if everv you find it.
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maxfreakout
Active Member
your position seems to be a non-commital, jumbled and logically incoherent mix of mythicism and historicism, which is hardly surprising since you didnt even know what "mythicism" actually meant until i carefully explained it to you earlier. Mythicism is the position that Jesus didn't exist, this is the position taken by scholars such as Doherty and Price, and several posters here.
Now that you actually understand what mythicism is, if you now go back and read through the thread again, you will see there are in fact several posters here who are defending the mythicist position. Some posters here are also extending the mythicist position to include characters like Paul and Peter as mythic, non-historical characters rather than single historical individuals. So there are different extents to which a person can adopt the mythicist position, but at the very least a mythicist would hold that Jesus was a nonexistent, mythic character.
What do you want a quote for?
I already provided multiple quotes that clearly establish my point that mythicism is the denial of Jesus' historicity (which you didnt understand earlier), and that Doherty is a mythicist who doesn't believe in Jesus' historicity (which you denied earlier), so what else do you want quotes for?
If you read some of these books yourself, you wouldnt need other people to spoonfeed quotes to you, i recommend you start with Doherty as his writing is accessible and easy to grasp.
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