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Is Christ Myth Theory Credible?

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
Probably. However Jesus as a Transcendent Spirit Being, would also have the same religious implications.

Think so? I don't.

According to me.
Though, yes, there are some arguments and beliefs that would change, so forth.

Do ya' think? :D

It wouldn't be the 'same religion'.

I agree. Not the same by a long shot.

Before re-rolling the video and rewriting the script, I feel obliged to point out that it seems very unfair to limit ourselves to replacing Jesus with a Transcendent Spirit Being and skip an opportunity to replace (1) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (2) Mohammed, and (3) Siddartha Gautama with Transcendent Spirit Beings. And that's just the beginning of the list of replacements one might propose.

Another concern comes to mind. steveb1, the OP author, proposes replacing the historical Jesus with a mythical Jesus. You propose an alternative: replace the historical Jesus with a Transcendent Spirit Being. Now, if I'm not mistaken: a mythical Jesus is not the same as a Transcendent Spirit Being. You and steveb1 can arm-wrestle over which is preferable, but from where I sit, it seems very likely that non-theists are going either give you both a hard-time or ignore you both. steveb1 tells me that he recognizes that his proposal, if extended to include Judaism's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Islam's Mohammed, and Buddhism's Siddartha Gautama, would result in "a spiritual ghost-town", and I agree.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your proposal, if extended likewise, would result in something like "a spiritual pantheon", no?

Now, I welcome your attempt to rewrite the existing script [i.e. traditional Christian scriptures], replacing the historical Jesus with your Transcendent Spirit Being (TSB). I have no clue how to start.
 
I don't see "mythical Jesus" and "historical Jesus" as mutually exclusive.

They are by definition.

One says Jesus existed as a human and attempts to identify what we can about his life by (secular) critical historical enquiry, the other says Jesus was purely a literary construct.

Looking at the "historical Jesus" by definition aims at demythologising his life, so what you describe is historical Jesus.
 

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
I don't see "mythical Jesus" and "historical Jesus" as mutually exclusive.

Given that you're a self-acknowledged atheist, I'm not surprised that you don't see a "mythical Jesus" and a "historical Jesus" as mutually exclusive. But I think you missed the OP's fundamental proposal which, if I'm not mistaken, is that the "real historical figure at the core of the Biblical character" be replaced with "a genuine mythical Jesus". In other words, the OP proposed that not only are all "the miracle claims" bogus but so is the notion that there ever was an actual human being. Although, from where I sit in my beanbag of bias, the OP does not appeal to me, I do find its consistency noteworthy; your proposed alternative? not so much. Besides, Nikos Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1955), Robert Graves' "King Jesus" (1946), and Reza Aslan's "The Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" (2013) have been written already. Perhaps you might find your own attempt to "de-mythologize" Jesus worth your time and effort.

That said, I'll repeat my question expressed elsewhere in this thread: Why focus on the historical Jesus alone? Spread the love around and de-mythologize (1) Judaism's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (2) Islam's Mohammed, and (3) Buddhism's Siddartha Gautama. I'm sure Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists would find your effort as entertaining as I would. :)
 
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How plausible is Jesus's existence in view of Christ Myth claims?

Jesus almost certainly existed. Other than there being multiple, independent near-contemporary references in historical sources, which is more than we have for a whole raft of historical events we don't question, the myth theory still has major problems.

For example, no ancient sources question his existence, even though there would be a strong motivation to do so (and records to check on executions).

Also, if you were going to invent a messiah out of thin air, why on earth would you invent one who fit the archetype as badly as Jesus?

He was supposed to be from Bethlehem so they had to make some convoluted story to get him to be from there when he was called Jesus of Nazareth.

They had to make him of royal lineage via Joseph who wan't even his father

The messiah was supposed to be a powerful warrior

He was crucified making him cursed in the eyes of many Jews

etc.

It is exponentially more probable that this reflects a real person shoehorned into a preexisting narrative than people inventing a mythical construct out of thin air. If he's a myth you can just give him whatever features you like that perfectly fit the expectations rather than botch it so badly you have to do some ham-fisted, contradictory retrofitting.

Also, cults that sprung up around purely mythical figures, did not do so concurrently with that person's life. The central figure was always much older, giving an air of tradition to the cult. That proto-Christianity had a reasonable following so close to Jesus' purported life is solid evidence it was based around a real person.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I agree. Not the same by a long shot.

Before re-rolling the video and rewriting the script, I feel obliged to point out that it seems very unfair to limit ourselves to replacing Jesus with a Transcendent Spirit Being and skip an opportunity to replace (1) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (2) Mohammed, and (3) Siddartha Gautama with Transcendent Spirit Beings. And that's just the beginning of the list of replacements one might propose.

Another concern comes to mind. steveb1, the OP author, proposes replacing the historical Jesus with a mythical Jesus. You propose an alternative: replace the historical Jesus with a Transcendent Spirit Being. Now, if I'm not mistaken: a mythical Jesus is not the same as a Transcendent Spirit Being. You and steveb1 can arm-wrestle over which is preferable, but from where I sit, it seems very likely that non-theists are going either give you both a hard-time or ignore you both. steveb1 tells me that he recognizes that his proposal, if extended to include Judaism's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Islam's Mohammed, and Buddhism's Siddartha Gautama, would result in "a spiritual ghost-town", and I agree.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your proposal, if extended likewise, would result in something like "a spiritual pantheon", no?

Now, I welcome your attempt to rewrite the existing script [i.e. traditional Christian scriptures], replacing the historical Jesus with your Transcendent Spirit Being (TSB). I have no clue how to start.
I take it you're a Christian. Shalom in the name of Yeshu Jah .

Now, I already believe that the Sacrifice is purely spiritual. Purely spiritual, not a literal sacrifice at all.

So, this isn't about whether Jesus is a Transcendent Spirit Being, He is already, as far as I'm concerned. The church completely goofed this, making it a literal sacrifice by either, a bizarre entity, or a priestly sacrifice, even more bizarre.
Anyways, no the spiritual pantheon would not occur beside from what we already have, since Jesus [incarnation form, is usually considered a distinct person, anyway. That is another argument, I believe.

For me,
'Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord'

Is already calling Jesus God, and the Lord, even in incarnation. He is already a Transcendent Spirit Being, even before incarnation.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
[My own bias is that it's credible, even to the point of it becoming the wave of the future.
However, I still keep the question of the historical Jesus on the back burner because at any time a discovery could be made of eyewitness testimony from Jesus, his original disciples, or better yet, from hostile sources. In which case Christ Myth theory would be stood on its head.]
I agree with @9/10ths Penguin that it wouldn't be surprising if a real human about whom we know very little was on the scene somewhere.

If there was, then it's possible that some or all of the basic outline is more or less correct: he was a Jew, he was baptized by JtB, he was a small-time apocalyptic preacher preaching JtB's message, Get ready, the Kingdom is at hand, he fought with his mother and family, and for some routine and unrecorded offense he was executed by the Romans.

Going the other way, there's not even a tiny scrap of evidence from his purported lifetime to support any of that, not a contemporary reference to him anywhere. For instance, if he'd actually generated a political crisis between the Sanhedrin and the Roman governor of the magnitude reported in the gospels, it's hard to imagine that it escaped the notice of the various Jerusalem commentators whose works have survived.

And we don't need an historical Jesus to account for Paul or the gospels. Paul flatly states that he never met an historical Jesus. The author of Mark, writing the only purported biography of Jesus that we have (the other gospels being simply versions of it) devised his story after the fall of the Temple 70 CE, by moving his hero through a series of episodes that can be mapped onto the Tanakh (and Ted Weeden points to 24 points of identity between the account of the trial of Jesus son of Ananus / Ananias in Josephus' The Jewish Wars, Bk 6 Ch. 5.3 and the trial of Jesus in Mark).

Both an historical Jesus and no historical Jesus are possible on the evidence we have at present. There's no clincher either way, so I think of it as 50-50. (And much as I admire Bart Ehrman's books, I was unpersuaded by his Did Jesus Exist?)
3. Thus the historian is thrown back, and narrowly, on Paul.
One possibility in the gospels that might satisfy the historian's 'criterion of embarrassment' is that in every scene but one in which Jesus talks with or about his mother, he disparages her: Mark 3:31, Mark 6:3, Mark 15:40, Matthew 10:35, Luke 11:27. John 2:3, the sole exception being John 19:26.
 

David J

Member
[My own bias is that it's credible, even to the point of it becoming the wave of the future.
However, I still keep the question of the historical Jesus on the back burner because at any time a discovery could be made of eyewitness testimony from Jesus, his original disciples, or better yet, from hostile sources. In which case Christ Myth theory would be stood on its head.]

Christ Myth - central tenets:

1. There is no unambiguous reference to a historical, or a Gospel Jesus in the earliest known Christian texts, namely, the seven authentic letters of Paul.

2. There are no relevant historical sources for Jesus in non-Christian sources, because these have either been debunked (e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in its several versions);
or
are simply too late (Pliny-Tacitus, Celsus, etc.). These latter merely explain what their contemporary Christian peers were saying about Jesus, and do not use early sources from Jesus's own lifetime.

3. Thus the historian is thrown back, and narrowly, on Paul.

4. Paul was citing the earliest christology, which was shared by James, John and Cephas, "the Jerusalem Pillars".

5. Pauline christology held that "Jesus" never had a historical existence, but did have a completely real spiritual existence in heaven as an angelic figure.
This is why Paul does not know of, and never cites, the life or example of a historical Jesus.
He had no historical Jesus to cite.


6. Paul says that this celestial figure "emptied himself" (Paul calls it "kenosis") and entered the sphere of the lower heavens, where he was "found" (probably by Satan) to be "in the likeness or form" of a man and of a servant. This is the Pauline "Incarnation", but it happened in the sublunar celestial sphere, not on geophysical earth.

7. The original Gospel or "Good News" was announced via a series of mystical experiences in which Jesus himself made it known that he had "incarnated", suffered, died, had been buried (again, this transpired in the lower heaven, not earth), and then been raised back to his previous position at God's "right hand".

8. The risen Jesus originally did not involve a resuscitation of the corpse of a dead Galilean carpenter-sage, but rather the raising up of a preexistent spiritual Jesus as "heavenly Adam".
If there was ever an empty tomb, it was located in the lower heaven, not in the suburbs of ancient Jerusalem.

9. Heaven was considered to be the grand model of creation, the earth only being a kind of shadowy duplicate of heaven. Heaven had residents, gardens, temples, rivers, and soil (wherein Adam was said to be buried, and where Jesus was temporarily buried prior to his resurrection).
This is supported by the Letter to the Hebrews which depicts the risen Jesus entering the heavenly city of Jerusalem, entering the heavenly Temple with its heavenly sanctuary.

10. Because there was no historical Jesus who died and rose again, there was originally no tradition of a risen Jesus who walked with disciples, broke bread with them, or permitted them to prove his crucifixion wounds.

11. Such material resurrection narratives only arose with the first Gospel, Mark.

12. Mark's Gospel is the first known expression of a process of historicizing an originally heavenly, non-material Christ into a biographical person with a personal history and career. This process of concretization, reification and solidification created the Jesus of the Christ Myth theory out of the spiritual Jesus of the earlier celestial Christ revelations. This process is called "euhemerization".

13. To the commonplace objection by mainstream/historicist exegetes, namely, that "No mainstream scholars accept Christ Myth theory!", mythicists retort that - as has been said of the sciences generally - knowledge proceeds one funeral at a time. That is, the issue is not the popularity of the mythical Jesus model, or about the number of scholars who support it. The issue is only about serious, relentless searching for evidence. So far, no such evidence for a historical or a Gospel Jesus has been disclosed.

What do you think?

How plausible is Jesus's existence in view of Christ Myth claims?
[Recall that Paul never mentions Jesus's supposed miracles, cures, exorcisms, the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the raising of the dead, his Torah teaching, his conflicts with Pharisees, priests, and his own family and disciples, his trial and arrest, etc.]


What would Christianity look like without a historical Jesus?

If you're a Christian, could you, like the ancient Gnostic and Docetic Christians, revere a wholly non-material Christ who never lived on earth "in the flesh"?


The myth is plausible. There's no contemporary evidence of Jesus.

He had thousands of followers, he raised people from the dead. There were tombs opened of dead people walking around when he was crucified. The Sun got dark (no astronomical evidence of an eclipse)...

Apparently, nobody bother to document this.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Given that you're a self-acknowledged atheist, I'm not surprised that you don't see a "mythical Jesus" and a "historical Jesus" as mutually exclusive. But I think you missed the OP's fundamental proposal which, if I'm not mistaken, is that the "real historical figure at the core of the Biblical character" be replaced with "a genuine mythical Jesus". In other words, the OP proposed that not only are all "the miracle claims" bogus but so is the notion that there ever was an actual human being.
I didn't miss it; I just think it's mostly irrelevant. It's like arguing about whether there's a grain of sand or a fleck of mother-of-pearl at the centre of the pearl.

Although, from where I sit in my beanbag of bias, the OP does not appeal to me, I do find its consistency noteworthy; your proposed alternative? not so much.
It wasn't me to propose it; I mainly accept the consensus of the Jesus seminar on the existence and nature of a historical Jesus.

What consistency do you see in the idea of an entirely mythic Jesus?

... and which Jesus myth are you talking about? The only one I've really looked into in depth was the one that Tom Harpur have in The Pagan Christ. That hypothesis seemed positively goofy; "consistent" is not the first word I would use to describe it.
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Going the other way, there's not even a tiny scrap of evidence from his purported lifetime to support any of that, not a contemporary reference to him anywhere. For instance, if he'd actually generated a political crisis between the Sanhedrin and the Roman governor of the magnitude reported in the gospels, it's hard to imagine that it escaped the notice of the various Jerusalem commentators whose works have survived.
Why is that hard to imagine? I'm not sure why a minor heretical cult leader would get much mention, and the whole region devolved into chaos a generation or two later with the Jewish-Roman Wars.

And I think it's overstating things to say that Jesus "generated a political crisis."

... but as it happens, we do have one reference to Jesus: Flavius Josephus.

... not the forged Testimonium Flavianum, but the other much more mundane reference where Josephus writes about the trial of "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ."
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Why is that hard to imagine? I'm not sure why a minor heretical cult leader would get much mention, and the whole region devolved into chaos a generation or two later with the Jewish-Roman Wars.

And I think it's overstating things to say that Jesus "generated a political crisis."
He keeps the whole Sanhedrin out of bed, the Roman governor gets personally involved in his case, a crowd forms and by the politicking of the Sanhedrin they prefer Barabbas, and no one notices?

Sure. it's possible, but it isn't probable.
... but as it happens, we do have one reference to Jesus: Flavius Josephus.

... not the forged Testimonium Flavianum, but the other much more mundane reference where Josephus writes about the trial of "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ."
But Josephus wasn't born in Jesus' purported lifetime, and that mention is in Antiquities in the first half of the 90s CE, so more than 60 years after the purported crucifixion. It may be accurate information, or it may be information from the Christians, which may nor may not be accurate information.

As I said, there's no clincher either way, so I think of an historical Jesus as 50-50.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
This is why Paul does not know of, and never cites, the life or example of a historical Jesus.
He had no historical Jesus to cite.


How is this explained?
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4).

"…concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3; cf. Galatians 3:16).

In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul recounts Jesus’ final night with his disciples in some detail. Paul first mentions that this is a tradition that he received and is now delivering to the Corinthians
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
He keeps the whole Sanhedrin out of bed, the Roman governor gets personally involved in his case, a crowd forms and by the politicking of the Sanhedrin they prefer Barabbas, and no one notices?
What makes you think that episode actually happened?

Personally, I think that the name of Barabbas ("Son of the Father") seems too symbolic to be accidental, which suggests to me that this part of the story was a made-up addition.

Edit: believing that there was historical Jesus doesn't necessarily mean assuming that everything but the miracle claims literally happened as described in the Gospels. A lot of the stuff that doesn't involve miracles and magic may be fabricated, too.

Sure. it's possible, but it isn't probable.

But Josephus wasn't born in Jesus' purported lifetime, and that mention is in Antiquities in the first half of the 90s CE, so more than 60 years after the purported crucifixion. It may be accurate information, or it may be information from the Christians, which may nor may not be accurate information.
Sure, but the fact that he would throw "the so-called Christ" in like he did means that he got the idea of a man named Jesus who claimed to be a messiah and had a brother named James from somewhere. Where did he get it from?

I think it's entirely likely that he got it from stories handed down in the community about events that had happened a few decades earlier.

If Jesus was entirely mythical, how would Josephus have known about him to mention him, and why would he have thought this Jesus had a familial relationship to a real person (James)?

As I said, there's no clincher either way, so I think of an historical Jesus as 50-50.
I put the odds of there being no historical figure at all at the root of any of the Jesus story to be pretty low, but like I've said a few times, I think it's largely irrelevant. The existence of a historical Jesus wouldn't make the fantastical elements of the story suddenly plausible.

Confirming that Abraham Lincoln was a real person doesn't mean we can use Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter to confirm the existence of vampires.
 

wizanda

One Accepts All Religious Texts
Premium Member
How plausible is Jesus's existence in view of Christ Myth claims?
Regardless of historical records, what is within the Synoptic Gospels, compared to what came after in John, Paul, and Simon the stone (petros) is too profound to be made up by mortals; Yeshua's words and teachings interlink across the whole of the Tanakh, like a beautiful sinister tapestry to catch out the whole world in their lack of Dharma.

In my opinion. :innocent:
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
[My own bias is that it's credible, even to the point of it becoming the wave of the future.
However, I still keep the question of the historical Jesus on the back burner because at any time a discovery could be made of eyewitness testimony from Jesus, his original disciples, or better yet, from hostile sources. In which case Christ Myth theory would be stood on its head.]

Christ Myth - central tenets:

1. There is no unambiguous reference to a historical, or a Gospel Jesus in the earliest known Christian texts, namely, the seven authentic letters of Paul.

2. There are no relevant historical sources for Jesus in non-Christian sources, because these have either been debunked (e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in its several versions);
or
are simply too late (Pliny-Tacitus, Celsus, etc.). These latter merely explain what their contemporary Christian peers were saying about Jesus, and do not use early sources from Jesus's own lifetime.

3. Thus the historian is thrown back, and narrowly, on Paul.

4. Paul was citing the earliest christology, which was shared by James, John and Cephas, "the Jerusalem Pillars".

5. Pauline christology held that "Jesus" never had a historical existence, but did have a completely real spiritual existence in heaven as an angelic figure.
This is why Paul does not know of, and never cites, the life or example of a historical Jesus.
He had no historical Jesus to cite.


6. Paul says that this celestial figure "emptied himself" (Paul calls it "kenosis") and entered the sphere of the lower heavens, where he was "found" (probably by Satan) to be "in the likeness or form" of a man and of a servant. This is the Pauline "Incarnation", but it happened in the sublunar celestial sphere, not on geophysical earth.

7. The original Gospel or "Good News" was announced via a series of mystical experiences in which Jesus himself made it known that he had "incarnated", suffered, died, had been buried (again, this transpired in the lower heaven, not earth), and then been raised back to his previous position at God's "right hand".

8. The risen Jesus originally did not involve a resuscitation of the corpse of a dead Galilean carpenter-sage, but rather the raising up of a preexistent spiritual Jesus as "heavenly Adam".
If there was ever an empty tomb, it was located in the lower heaven, not in the suburbs of ancient Jerusalem.

9. Heaven was considered to be the grand model of creation, the earth only being a kind of shadowy duplicate of heaven. Heaven had residents, gardens, temples, rivers, and soil (wherein Adam was said to be buried, and where Jesus was temporarily buried prior to his resurrection).
This is supported by the Letter to the Hebrews which depicts the risen Jesus entering the heavenly city of Jerusalem, entering the heavenly Temple with its heavenly sanctuary.

10. Because there was no historical Jesus who died and rose again, there was originally no tradition of a risen Jesus who walked with disciples, broke bread with them, or permitted them to prove his crucifixion wounds.

11. Such material resurrection narratives only arose with the first Gospel, Mark.

12. Mark's Gospel is the first known expression of a process of historicizing an originally heavenly, non-material Christ into a biographical person with a personal history and career. This process of concretization, reification and solidification created the Jesus of the Christ Myth theory out of the spiritual Jesus of the earlier celestial Christ revelations. This process is called "euhemerization".

13. To the commonplace objection by mainstream/historicist exegetes, namely, that "No mainstream scholars accept Christ Myth theory!", mythicists retort that - as has been said of the sciences generally - knowledge proceeds one funeral at a time. That is, the issue is not the popularity of the mythical Jesus model, or about the number of scholars who support it. The issue is only about serious, relentless searching for evidence. So far, no such evidence for a historical or a Gospel Jesus has been disclosed.

What do you think?

How plausible is Jesus's existence in view of Christ Myth claims?
[Recall that Paul never mentions Jesus's supposed miracles, cures, exorcisms, the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the raising of the dead, his Torah teaching, his conflicts with Pharisees, priests, and his own family and disciples, his trial and arrest, etc.]


What would Christianity look like without a historical Jesus?

If you're a Christian, could you, like the ancient Gnostic and Docetic Christians, revere a wholly non-material Christ who never lived on earth "in the flesh"?
This might have been plausible, except for the probability that many of Jesus’ quotations, preserved in both Q and Thomas, have origins very, very close to the Jesus Event — much closer than the 15 year spread for 1Thess. Since these predate Paul, it makes it much less likely that Paul’s mythic Christ began the whole belief. It’s much more likely that there was a man named Jesus around whom legends grew up.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
The myth is plausible. There's no contemporary evidence of Jesus.

He had thousands of followers, he raised people from the dead. There were tombs opened of dead people walking around when he was crucified. The Sun got dark (no astronomical evidence of an eclipse)...

Apparently, nobody bother to document this.
Not really surprising in a culture that was largely oral; histories were told, not written. And we do have evidence of very early (probably oral in origin) transmitted quotations of Jesus.
 

David J

Member
Not really surprising in a culture that was largely oral; histories were told, not written. And we do have evidence of very early (probably oral in origin) transmitted quotations of Jesus.

What is the evidence of very early transmitted quotations of Jesus?
 
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