Is Christ Myth Theory Credible?

[oldbadger]

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.

Rubbish.
The Josephus passage, despite being obliterated by Christian editing, is easily argued to be genuine. Why would Christians have snuck such a passage in to that position, amongst troublemakers? Mythers are so inept.

G-Mark is probably based upon the memoirs of Cephas, and if the Christian hype and editing is removed the report is almost all genuine.

But Historical Jesus does not support Christianity, imo. The Baptist's mission against a corrupted Temple and priesthood is the mission which Jesus tried to carry forward, but only for about one year.

 

[Moz]

We are not going to get anywhere if you keep making the mistake of thinking that people have to be lying if they are wrong. Now that may be true for creationists and believers of the other early myths of the Bible, but that is another topic.

Oh No don't you dare. You are accusing someone of lying somewhere here.
If i have missed something could you please explain the "more outrageous miracles and claims of Jesus." comment that i was responding too. If you are not implying that someone used the Apostolic authority of John to introduce innovations into the religion then i apologize for the assumption. If you are saying that John was recording widely known stories of Jesus not recorded in the other gospels then that's fine. I thought that your point was that these stories were later additions to the original oral traditions.

IF your comment about Revelation being the second century equivalent of Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and they appeared to be right. Is to be believed then aren't you accusing someone of dishonesty (that is LYING) in claiming Apostolic authority for the author?

Also....You implied that the resurrection was them just seeing their dear friend out of some sort of psychological reaction to grief. The idea that the teaching about the resurrection was in reality a ptsd induced group delusion that was embellished over the next 50 years smacks of dishonesty somewhere. See your claim of emotional distress is a short term manifestation, these beliefs fade and are dismissed over time by people that have these sort of experiences, the first century people doubled down time and again right to the point of being executed rather than recant. That is not the work of emotionally unstable people believing a group delusion in my estimation.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oh No don't you dare. You are accusing someone of lying somewhere here.
If i have missed something could you please explain the "more outrageous miracles and claims of Jesus." comment that i was responding too. If you are not implying that someone used the Apostolic authority of John to introduce innovations into the religion then i apologize for the assumption. If you are saying that John was recording widely known stories of Jesus not recorded in the other gospels then that's fine. I thought that your point was that these stories were later additions to the original oral traditions.

IF your comment about Revelation being the second century equivalent of Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and they appeared to be right. Is to be believed then aren't you accusing someone of dishonesty (that is LYING) in claiming Apostolic authority for the author?

Also....You implied that the resurrection was them just seeing their dear friend out of some sort of psychological reaction to grief. The idea that the teaching about the resurrection was in reality a ptsd induced group delusion that was embellished over the next 50 years smacks of dishonesty somewhere. See your claim of emotional distress is a short term manifestation, these beliefs fade and are dismissed over time by people that have these sort of experiences, the first century people doubled down time and again right to the point of being executed rather than recant. That is not the work of emotionally unstable people believing a group delusion in my estimation.

You do not understand how memory works. One can honestly remember things wrong. Especially with time and age. You could claim dishonesty, though even that may be wrong since the tellers of the myth may honestly believe it to be fact.

But by your standards at least some of the Gospels"lied" because of the vast differences between them. Also you made a very large error when you tried to claim that the uniformity that we do see is somehow evidence for Jesus. Do you know what part of Bible history you conveniently forgot or perhaps never learned?

 

[Moz]

You do not understand how memory works. One can honestly remember things wrong. Especially with time and age. You could claim dishonesty, though even that may be wrong since the tellers of the myth may honestly believe it to be fact.

But by your standards at least some of the Gospels"lied" because of the vast differences between them. Also you made a very large error when you tried to claim that the uniformity that we do see is somehow evidence for Jesus. Do you know what part of Bible history you conveniently forgot or perhaps never learned?

I don't know where you are going with all this..... So are you now implying that the Hundreds of people who were claimed to have seen the risen Jesus were just remembering things wrong?
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Myths tend to grow naturally over time. No need to lie.
This is what got me into this quagmire. Your idea of myths growing over time is a multi-generational thing. It DOES not happen within a single generation of organized people dispersed over thousands of miles. If stories were added within the first generation then this is NOT myth evolving but deliberate modification or addition.

You have tried to explain the resurrection sightings as a mass psychological delusion and now as faulty memory among hundreds of people.... neither makes any real sense.
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I don't understand how memory works... that is funny. My Paternal line comes from a very particular part of Lebanon. They come from the Kadisha Valley of Bsharri , they were custodians of the Last remaining pockets of the "Cedars Of God" that Solomon used to build the first temple. Due to some very interesting political machinations between the newly established caliphate and Justinian II in 687 the Christian Marionites were settled in the Kadisha valley as custodians of the forest. Locked within an Islamic ocean that ostracized them an incredible internal narrative was begun and handed down for the next 1400 years. My grandfather and his contemporaries, who were born in the 1890's and therefore grew up in that milieu had the most INCREDIBLE facility of memory. I have also had dealings with traditional Aboriginal peoples in central Australia and MEMORY is actually an incredibly powerful thing and i think that it is you who misunderstands the capacity of pre-modern people to store huge amounts of information reliably in their heads.
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I suppose the bottom line is that i reject any of ideas that you have proposed... from PTSD to foggy memory your claims are just wrong. The scriptures are true and accurate accounts of the events they describe

Let's go back to the Elvis thing you seem to like so much. Now the Elvis sightings were not of Elvis hanging out with his buds for a month before ascending to heaven. They were of random people saying they had seen Elvis years after his death..... NOT the same in any way shape or form. By 40 ce the resurrection story had spread outside the Empire and there was NO way that the story could have been coordinated and edited over these vast distances. When the christian communities began to receive written accounts these accounts MUST HAVE reflected the original oral teachings that had been received decades earlier or they would not have been accepted by those people.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know where you are going with all this..... So are you now implying that the Hundreds of people who were claimed to have seen the risen Jesus were just remembering things wrong?
.............................................

There is no reason to believe that hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus. You are making a gross error again. The person that made that claim never saw Jesus himself and put very low value on eyewitnesses. You should study your Bible some more.

Myths tend to grow naturally over time. No need to lie.
This is what got me into this quagmire. Your idea of myths growing over time is a multi-generational thing. It DOES not happen within a single generation of organized people dispersed over thousands of miles. If stories were added within the first generation then this is NOT myth evolving but deliberate modification or addition.

You have tried to explain the resurrection sightings as a mass psychological delusion and now as faulty memory among hundreds of people.... neither makes any real sense.

Wrong again. Elvis.

.........................................
I don't understand how memory works... that is funny. My Paternal line comes from a very particular part of Lebanon. They come from the Kadisha Valley of Bsharri , they were custodians of the Last remaining pockets of the "Cedars Of God" that Solomon used to build the first temple. Due to some very interesting political machinations between the newly established caliphate and Justinian II in 687 the Christian Marionites were settled in the Kadisha valley as custodians of the forest. Locked within an Islamic ocean that ostracized them an incredible internal narrative was begun and handed down for the next 1400 years. My grandfather and his contemporaries, who were born in the 1890's and therefore grew up in that milieu had the most INCREDIBLE facility of memory. I have also had dealings with traditional Aboriginal peoples in central Australia and MEMORY is actually an incredibly powerful thing and i think that it is you who misunderstands the capacity of pre-modern people to store huge amounts of information reliably in their heads.

Clearly. And the rest of your post is a worthless detour.

............................................
I suppose the bottom line is that i reject any of ideas that you have proposed... from PTSD to foggy memory your claims are just wrong. The scriptures are true and accurate accounts of the events they describe

Let's go back to the Elvis thing you seem to like so much. Now the Elvis sightings were not of Elvis hanging out with his buds for a month before ascending to heaven. They were of random people saying they had seen Elvis years after his death..... NOT the same in any way shape or form. By 40 ce the resurrection story had spread outside the Empire and there was NO way that the story could have been coordinated and edited over these vast distances.

When the christian communities began to receive written accounts these accounts MUST HAVE reflected the original oral teachings that had been received decades earlier or they would not have been accepted by those people.

Yes, you are not able to reason rationally when your religious beliefs are involved.

Why is there any difference in the Elvis sightings? Yes, there are no records of his buds saying that they saw him, but they probably had a firm grounding in reality. They were not mindless followers. That is not the case when one is talking religious beliefs. Mindless followers "see" the dead quite often after the fact. It really is not very impressive evidence. If you had non-believers that saw him that would be something. Paul does not count. A closet homosexual that was fighting his own desires and reacting to unjustly killing people is apt to see things too.

Saying that something "must" have happened just because you can't bear the alternative is not a proper argument either.

And once again you are all over the place. If you could focus on a point at a time instead of going into endless detours we might get somewhere.

Here is a hint. If you have to break up a post excessively, I have merely followed your breaks, then you are probably doing something wrong.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don't know where you are going with all this..... So are you now implying that the Hundreds of people who were claimed to have seen the risen Jesus were just remembering things wrong?

^ this kind of excuse for reasoning is just embarrassing ...

 

[Subduction Zone]

^ this kind of excuse for reasoning is just embarrassing ...

One writer of the Bible, Paul, made that claim. He made that claim while far away from the city that it supposedly happened in at a time when very few people traveled any significant distance at all. If a person wanted to check his claim how would he do it? Go to Jerusalem and ask someone if he saw Jesus? It was a fair sized city. Even if a hundred people had seen him one might have to ask quite a few people before he got one "yes". And that person may have merely been lying, deluded or who knows what. It is a claim that could not be verified then and is all but worthless. Yet some believers lap it up without question.


@Moz The proper way to evaluate a claim when you read it in the Bible is to ask yourself if you would accept when a Muslim or Hindu made a similar claim with as flimsy evidence. Do you believe that Mohammed took a trip to the Moon and back on a winged horse? Why or why not? Here is a list of Hindu miracles, do you believe them?

Hindu List of Miracles

For the same reason that I do not believe the Christian claims I do not believe the Muslim or Hindu ones. I do not think that you can be consistent.

 

[Sand Dancer]

It's not the Bible that's the problem. It's the spiritually challenged.

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Corinthians 2:14

So it's not the negativity, misogyny, errors, outdated info, plagiarism, inconsistencies in it. Nah... Go ahead and make excuses for it. It's got some good stuff in it, but it's also got crap in it.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Maybe it is that way so only the worthy can see it. It was only Simon and Anna that recognized the baby as the Messiah.

 

[Moz]

There is no reason to believe that hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus. You are making a gross error again. The person that made that claim never saw Jesus himself and put very low value on eyewitnesses. You should study your Bible some more.



Wrong again. Elvis.



Clearly. And the rest of your post is a worthless detour.



Yes, you are not able to reason rationally when your religious beliefs are involved.

Why is there any difference in the Elvis sightings? Yes, there are no records of his buds saying that they saw him, but they probably had a firm grounding in reality. They were not mindless followers. That is not the case when one is talking religious beliefs. Mindless followers "see" the dead quite often after the fact. It really is not very impressive evidence. If you had non-believers that saw him that would be something. Paul does not count. A closet homosexual that was fighting his own desires and reacting to unjustly killing people is apt to see things too.

Saying that something "must" have happened just because you can't bear the alternative is not a proper argument either.

And once again you are all over the place. If you could focus on a point at a time instead of going into endless detours we might get somewhere.

Here is a hint. If you have to break up a post excessively, I have merely followed your breaks, then you are probably doing something wrong.

There is no reason to believe that hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus. You are making a gross error again. The person that made that claim never saw Jesus himself and put very low value on eyewitnesses. You should study your Bible some more.

Well the reason i believe it is that Paul wrote it and none of the other writers disputed the statement.

But if you are saying that hundreds of people did not see the risen Christ then what are you getting at....did Paul lie?
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Polycarp, a disciple of John, did not dispute Paul's words. John who was a friend of Jesus did not dispute Paul's words, Where is my GROSS error in believing what was written?

 

[Moz]

^ this kind of excuse for reasoning is just embarrassing ...

It was not me who was claiming that group faulty memory is the explanation for the stories about Jesus. that sort of reasoning applied to a people with a deep history of accurate transmission of their thoughts over millennium is the embarrassing claim in my estimation.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It was not me who was claiming that group faulty memory is the explanation for the stories about Jesus.

No, you were claiming that a story penned roughly two decades later by a Christian apologist is somehow probative. That claim is simply nonsense.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There is no reason to believe that hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus. You are making a gross error again. The person that made that claim never saw Jesus himself and put very low value on eyewitnesses. You should study your Bible some more.

Well the reason i believe it is that Paul wrote it and none of the other writers disputed the statement.

But if you are saying that hundreds of people did not see the risen Christ then what are you getting at....did Paul lie?
........................................
Polycarp, a disciple of John, did not dispute Paul's words. John who was a friend of Jesus did not dispute Paul's words, Where is my GROSS error in believing what was written?

To what purpose would there be to dispute it? And at that time were there even any of the twelve around?

And can you show that John even knew of Paul's words? There was fragmentation in the early Church. Paul had his own views and though he and Peter apparently reconciled many of the other earliest followers did not:

Paul vs Apostles

The Christianity you follow was the version that arose from a process where texts were rejected for various versions. They were ignored or even destroyed. Surely you have heard of the Gnostic Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, etc.. Didn't you earlier try to claim that there was only one version of Christianity and try to use that as evidence? That was not the case.

And once again let's drop the lying claim. Unless you want to admit that all believers of the Genesis myths are liars.

 

[Moz]

To what purpose would there be to dispute it? And at that time were there even any of the twelve around?

And can you show that John even knew of Paul's words? There was fragmentation in the early Church. Paul had his own views and though he and Peter apparently reconciled many of the other earliest followers did not:

Paul vs Apostles

The Christianity you follow was the version that arose from a process where texts were rejected for various versions. They were ignored or even destroyed. Surely you have heard of the Gnostic Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, etc.. Didn't you earlier try to claim that there was only one version of Christianity and try to use that as evidence? That was not the case.

And once again let's drop the lying claim. Unless you want to admit that all believers of the Genesis myths are liars.

And can you show that John even knew of Paul's words?

Fair enough .... If that is the level we are going to play at the i don't think i want to play the game.
John was an Elder in asia minor among the congregations founded by Paul to not accept that John would have been fully aware of pauls writings and ask for proof when it is bleedingly obvious just from the geographic context of both individuals is just a level of pedancy that i ain't gonna engage in.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And can you show that John even knew of Paul's words?

Fair enough .... If that is the level we are going to play at the i don't think i want to play the game.
John was an Elder in asia minor among the congregations founded by Paul to not accept that John would have been fully aware of pauls writings and ask for proof when it is bleedingly obvious just from the geographic context of both individuals is just a level of pedancy that i ain't gonna engage in.

So you cannot support your claim. There goes your argument when you do that. If you knew anything of the history of Christianity you would know that there were quite a few versions before it was consolidated. It appears that you are assuming modern communications. That was simply not the case back then.

 

[Moz]

So you cannot support your claim. There goes your argument when you do that. If you knew anything of the history of Christianity you would know that there were quite a few versions before it was consolidated. It appears that you are assuming modern communications. That was simply not the case back then.

I know the geography of Asia minor. John was living among the church's Paul founded.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I know the geography of Asia minor. John was living among the church's Paul founded.

That does not mean that they communicated. The Bible does support that Peter and Paul communicated, why not Paul and John? Are you trying to say that John was not an important Christian at that time? Perhaps they disagreed with each other too much.

By the way, you never answered if you were aware of the books that were rejected from the Bible/ They showed that there was a huge range of belief of who and what Jesus was. Just as you predicted would be the case if he were mythical.

 

[Spartan]

So it's not the negativity, misogyny, errors, outdated info, plagiarism, inconsistencies in it. Nah... Go ahead and make excuses for it. It's got some good stuff in it, but it's also got crap in it.

The fact that you STILL haven't put two and two together about Jesus confirms it's not the Bible, but you.

 

[Moz]

That does not mean that they communicated. The Bible does support that Peter and Paul communicated, why not Paul and John? Are you trying to say that John was not an important Christian at that time? Perhaps they disagreed with each other too much.

By the way, you never answered if you were aware of the books that were rejected from the Bible/ They showed that there was a huge range of belief of who and what Jesus was. Just as you predicted would be the case if he were mythical.

That does not mean that they communicated. The Bible does support that Peter and Paul communicated, why not Paul and John? Are you trying to say that John was not an important Christian at that time? Perhaps they disagreed with each other too much.

What?
Are you saying that because the Bible does record any communication between Paul and John they must have been unaware of each other?
Are you saying that John, a bishop in the area where Paul had established congregations may have been unaware of Paul's teachings?
It seems it is you who is unaware of the excellent communications through out the Roman Empire of the first century.
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By the way, you never answered if you were aware of the books that were rejected from the Bible/ They showed that there was a huge range of belief of who and what Jesus was.
Yep fully aware of the pseudo apocrypha and the Gnostic writings. Have read most of it actually. The Gospel of Thomas, Mary, The Infancy gospel and all that CRAP.
i also know what criteria was used to sort them and i am fully in line with the method used. Apostolic Authority.
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Just as you predicted would be the case if he were mythical
So now were back to Jesus being mythical. But no one lied when creating the myth they were rmisremembering a ptsd invoked vision. Yep airtight case there.
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Your innuendo of a fractured and waring christianity based on the disagreement between Peter and Paul is drawing a very long bow.

 

[Sand Dancer]

The fact that you STILL haven't put two and two together about Jesus confirms it's not the Bible, but you.

There are enough contradictions about and from Jesus to make a sane person question.