Jesus or Christ Myth Theory

[Bunyip]

Agreed on all points. And Gospels are certainly not "biographies" as some people have claimed. They are theological works designed to convince people about theological ideas. Gleaning historical information from these kinds of works is certainly problematic, but it is not impossible. We can compare different sources, we can look at them in the context of what we know about the culture and the politics of that time, and we can consider the motives and biases of the authors. And we can make determinations about what parts are more likely to be historically accurate and which parts are less likely to be historically accurate.

And as I have said before, these are the best sources we have for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. It doesn't make sense for historians to ignore them.

Nobody is suggesting that we ignore them, they are just not sufficient to reliably establish historicity.

 

[Sapiens]

...
And as I have said before, these are the best sources we have for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. It doesn't make sense for historians to ignore them.

Sounds like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

 

[Bunyip]

Naw homie. As mentioned earlier, many of the leading antiquities and NT scholars are not religious in any sense of the word.

Even at the beginning, the whole reason why Christianity and subsequently Jesus became prevalent in the first place was because a person, who was in all likelihood a non Christian, felt as though the religion was important for a variety of reasons, most of which not related to zealous reasons or "God Blindness".



And as Legion pointed out to you already, Paul was a contemporary of Jesus, so anything he wrote was contemporary, regardless of you own personal opinion on "who or what" he was actually writing about.

Paul never met Jesus mate, you guys seem to forget that. Sure Paul is contemporary with the life of Jesus - but he is not persuasive evidence for the historicity of Jesus because he never met the dude.

All of the Gospels save for John were originally compiled by contemporaries of Jesus. Look at the dates of original composition. They all fall within the timeframe of what, you yourself qualified as "contemporary" which was 40 years from the event.

That is just a guess, we do not know if the gospels were written by contemporaries of Jesus. We do not know who wrote them or when.

Dating the Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Josephus was a contemporary of Jesus as well, as he was born within a decade of the events as well. This is where you missed what Legion was saying to you.

Josephus was an infant when Jesus died and lived in Rome thousands of miles away. The testimony of Josephus is also hotly contested. I did not miss what Legion was saying - most of it was whining.

Just because the document was recorded a generation after the events doesn't matter. What matters is that the person who composed the document lived during the time period where people were still alive to give first hand accounts of the events.

Yes but you do not have any such first hand accounts - that's the point YOU seem to miss. You have no eye witness accounts for ANY of the events in the NT.

Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Josephus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For all your talk about things being "factual", you do throw the word around a lot about things that are not actually "factual".

Example?

Why were they written? Either A, they were written to document the life of a man, to celebrate his life, and possibly to begin a new religion centering around this man and his life, or they were written about a man to express a code of morals, or for some other cause.

OR

They were written as a fictional story to entertain, begin a new religion, express morals, or for some other cause.

I don't see there being any other options, unless you would like to present one.



First, I was talking about documents being written in the early 2nd century that question Jesus' existence, not ones that support his existence.

Secondly, as mentioned numerous times, all of the gospels save for John were proposed to be written as early as 25-30 years after the events, and John, 40 years after the events, all by people who lived at the same time as Jesus. The same goes for Paul regardless of your personal opinion of who he was writing about.




As stated numerous times, there are.



No, I said there are early documents that say it didn't happen, but they are not contemporaneous. But yes, I would expect more than one document to arise within a century of the Jesus' life stating that he was not actually a living person. Especially considering the view of Early Christianity within Rome. I would expect that more than 1 anti-Christian writer, which there were many in the first and second century, to write something along the lines of:

"These Christians are so dumb, they believe this guy was the son of God, when the guy never even really existed."

If I were to start a religion tomorrow stating that Bob Christ was the son of God, that he really existed, and he died in a car wreck so that we can live in paradise forever when we die, and the religion actually caught on amongst the masses, would you not expect for people to write and/or say stuff denying that this Bob guy did in fact exist?



Or maybe it's about time you actually started stating your argument more clearly? Or even better yet, how about it's about time that you switched your argument to something that you could defend easier?



More like 7 Billion at this point in time.



No one said anything about a virgin birth. But it's not totally impossible for Jesus to be both the son of God, and Joseph's son as well. At least not impossible from the concept of a child having two fathers, not from the point of view that God can actually impregnate a woman. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130727072105AANWbsR



It's just like the probability in science. If we have one experiment demonstrating evidence for the cause of one phenomenon, while another experiment demonstrating evidence that something else is the cause for the same phenomenon, then we say there's a 50% chance that one reason is the cause for the phenomenon, and a 50% chance that the other reason is the cause for the phenomenon.

This is of course a very rudimentary example and things like study design, bias, and numerous other factors would come and to play. Also since we can't test a hypothesis, we are relying on evidence that already exists. So, through analytical methods, Archeological, anthropological, cultural, etc. etc. We determine a probability of an event happening this way or that on a sliding scale of percentages.

It's not the same as in science, but it is similar, save for the repeated testing of hypothesis.



This is your own personal opinion of what a person's intent, who in reality, you really have no idea of the culture, literary style, or anything else in regard to the culture in which Paul wrote in order to make any sort of case for knowing the intentions of what he wrote.

In other words, you have no idea what Paul's intent was when writing what he wrote, and people much more versed in what he might have meant have generally expressed opinions in stark contrast to the one you express.

 

[Sapiens]

Christ myth theorists are science's version of Christianity's intelligent design advocates.

I, for one, am not a Christ myth theorist, I can see that there is nothing there sufficiently concrete to make it worth theorizing on, historically, mythically or any other way.

 

[Prophet]

Then perhaps you could successfully attack the "weak simplistic argument worthy of a caveman" rather than attacking me?

Oops I missed this. I obviously did that because summarizing the simplistic argument interwoven between your long-winded, obnoxious bragging was, in itself, a successful attack on it. To think I must go beyond this to show how awful your argument is is to think that my audience here is full of imbeciles.

SCIENCE GOOD! RELIGION BAD!

 

[Bunyip]

Oops I missed this. I obviously did that because summarizing the simplistic argument interwoven between your long-winded, obnoxious bragging was, in itself, a successful attack on it. To think I must go beyond this to show how awful your argument is is to think that my audience here is full of imbeciles.

SCIENCE GOOD! RELIGION BAD!

Forget the silly insults, try to stay on topic. You do a lot of mud flinging - why not present some evidence and discuss it instead?

 

[fantome profane]

I, for one, am not a Christ myth theorist, I can see that there is nothing there sufficiently concrete to make it worth theorizing on, historically, mythically or any other way.

But be honest with us, have you really studied the material, from a historical perspective? Have you read what scholars and textual critics have to say on the matter? I really mean no disrespect, just asking.

 

[Sapiens]

Probably not at the level you have, I had an extensive undergraduate background in the classics and history (Tussman Tutorials at UC Berkeley) and have maintained a passing interest since. I mean, really, how much time are you going to spend on a field that is run by emotion and preconceived notions, a field that rejects the very rules of play that it's siblings are ruled by? That's my real point ... most of the folks here seem to argue about the content of the documents ... I really don't care about the detail of what is what the materials contain until their provenance is confirmed and the rules are met, and all I see, with respect to either, is confusion or faith based clap trap.

 

[outhouse]

Probably not at the level you have, I had an extensive undergraduate background in the classics and history (Tussman Tutorials at UC Berkeley) and have maintained a passing interest since. I mean, really, how much time are you going to spend on a field that is run by emotion and preconceived notions, a field that rejects the very rules of play that it's siblings are ruled by? That's my real point ... most of the folks here seem to argue about the content of the documents ... I really don't care about the detail of what is what the materials contain until their provenance is confirmed and the rules are met, and all I see, with respect to either, is confusion or faith based clap trap.

I would have loved your feedback on the link I posted pages back.


It took the current state of study from every angle, who says what, and why, is looked at in a nonobjective way just to help determine the current state of study.

 

[nash8]

The entire field is god-blinded.

As has been stated numerous times, many of the leading scholars in NT studies are agnostic/atheistic. How in the world does that qualify them as "god-blinded"?

Why should they get to operate outside of the rules that other historians are bound by?

They don't. Who says they do? Granted, I will give you that many of the "criterion" that many Christian scholars use is milarky, "the criterion of embarrassment" is one such example in my opinion. But most of the methods are legitimate, and on many occasions historical Jesus research has set the standard for other fields of history.

From what I've seen Antiquity Scholars are not too bad a log, but when the word "Biblical" or "NT" is used as the preceding adjective rationality is replaced some form of faith and scholarship by semantics.

You must not have done very much research then. Ehrman is one of the leading NT/Biblical scholars and he is agnostic.

No, contemporaneous mean "at the same time" not "decades later."

Contemporaneous can also mean "at the same time period" which the gospel accounts definitely fall under that category, Josephus not so much, but considering he was born within a decade of the event, he could definitely be considered a contemporary on some accounts. Paul on the other hand was definitely a contemporary source.

I disagree, human memory being what it is I'd give you a couple of years for "primary sources." "Eyewitness" reports that are decades old are notoriously erroneous, since the memory is changed and re-written every time it is trotted out and stored back.

MMmh, I would agree with you on specific details, but on whether or not a man actually lived. I don't think that gets "hazy".

No, Josephus was born after Jesus' alleged death.

Within 5-10 years. Contemporary yes, Primary no. I would consider a generation gap to be contemporary, your opinions may differ.

The usual reason, to make a buck, to carve a new life out of a gullible public.

So your arguing that the reason is more likely that the story was created to make money off the public?

That's not how science works, in a 50/50 case we'd say we have no idea. You are illustrating the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy.

Um kinda, but not really. In reality there is no 100% fact because we can not demonstrate something enough times to prove that it is true in all cases at all times. It's literally impossible. I only used the case of 2 experiments for simplicity. In reality we would probably have numerous studies providing evidence for the same phenomenon. The percentage that we would say supports said cause, would be representative of many factors concerning each experiment. I only limit it to 2 cases for simplicity, in reality there are numerous explanations for the same phenomenon, each backed with their own evidence. If you want to look at if from a confidence value in statistics it would be the same thing. How confident we are that are hypothesis is the correct one.

So what about a 51/49 case? Would you say you are more confident in one or the other, or that we still don't know.

Paul never met Jesus mate, you guys seem to forget that. Sure Paul is contemporary with the life of Jesus - but he is not persuasive evidence for the historicity of Jesus because he never met the dude.

It doesn't matter, he's still a contemporary source. Secondly, he also met Jesus' brother, which directly implies that Jesus was living in order to have a brother.

That is just a guess, we do not know if the gospels were written by contemporaries of Jesus. We do not know who wrote them or when.

We don't "know" when anything was written from antiquity. Just like with Caesar, Socrates, or any other figure from antiquity, we don't have the actual original sources for them. We just guess what the date of the original sources would have been. The same as with the Gospels.

Josephus was an infant when Jesus died and lived in Rome thousands of miles away. The testimony of Josephus is also hotly contested. I did not miss what Legion was saying - most of it was whining.

Josephus was a leader of the Zealot rebellion in Galilee. Does that ring any bells with regard to Jesus? The fact that you don't know that Josephus lived very close to where Jesus lived makes me doubt your knowledge in this subject area.

The testimony of Josephus is hotly contested, EXCEPT for the fact that most scholars agree that the main nucleus is authentic, and consists of a reference of a man named Jesus being crucified by Pilate.

Yes but you do not have any such first hand accounts - that's the point YOU seem to miss. You have no eye witness accounts for ANY of the events in the NT.

You say this, but how do you know that the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts embellished for religious/political reasons? They were written within the time frame where eyewitness accounts were very much possible.

 

[Sapiens]

As has been stated numerous times, many of the leading scholars in NT studies are agnostic/atheistic. How in the world does that qualify them as "god-blinded"?

Kinda like the same way that most psychiatrists I have know socially I'd describe as "nuts."

They don't. Who says they do? Granted, I will give you that many of the "criterion" that many Christian scholars use is milarky, "the criterion of embarrassment" is one such example in my opinion. But most of the methods are legitimate, and on many occasions historical Jesus research has set the standard for other fields of history.

Clearly that's horse pucky ... that would make fiction like the Flashman series the paragon of absolute believability, here's that plot as presented in wiki:

Plot introduction
Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days. The book begins with an explanatory note saying that the Flashman Papers were discovered in 1965 during a sale of household furniture in Ashby, Leicestershire. The papers are attributed to Harry Paget Flashman, who is not only the bully featured in Thomas Hughes' novel, but also a well-known Victorian military hero (in Fraser's fictional England). The papers were supposedly written between 1900 and 1905. The subsequent publishing of these papers, of which Flashman is the first, contrasts the previously believed exploits of a (fictional) hero with his own more scandalous account, which shows the life of a cowardly bully. Flashman begins with his own account of expulsion from Rugby and ends with his fame as "the Hector of Afghanistan", detailing his life from 1839 to 1842 and his travels to Scotland, India, and Afghanistan. It also contains a number of notes by the author, in the guise of a fictional editor, giving additional historical information on the events described. The history in these books is quite accurate; most of the people Flashman meets are real people.

Plot summary
Flashman's expulsion from Rugby for drunkenness leads him to join the British Army in what he hopes will be a sinecure. He joins the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons commanded by Lord Cardigan whom he toadies in his best style. After an affair with a fellow-officer's lover, he must fight a duel, but wins after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent a blank load in his gun. He does not kill his opponent but instead delopes and accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away, an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of the Duke of Wellington. However, once the reason for fighting emerges, the army stations Flashman in Scotland. He is quartered with the Morrison family, and soon enough he takes advantage of one of the daughters, Elspeth. After a forced marriage, Flashman is required to resign the Hussars due to marrying below his station. He is given another option, to make his reputation in India.

By showing off his language and riding skills in India, Flashman is assigned to the worst frontier of the British Empire at that time, Afghanistan. Upon arrival, he meets a soldier who relates the narrow escape he made in November 1842, on the first night of the Afghan Uprising. After Akbar Khan proclaims a general revolt which the citizens of Kabul immediately heed, a mob storms the house of Sir Alexander Burnes, one of the senior British political officers, and murder him and his staff. The soldier, stationed nearby, manages to get flee in midst of the confusion. This tale sets the tone for Flashman's proceeding adventures, including the retreat from Kabul, Last Stand at Gandamak and the Siege of Jalalabad, in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Despite being captured, tortured, and escaping death numerous times, and hiding and shirking his duty as much as possible, he comes through it all alive and with a hero's reputation ... although his triumph is tempered when he realizes his wife might have been unfaithful while he was away.

Reception
When the book was published in America, several reviewers thought it was true.[2]

Reviews were generally positive.[3] By 1970 the book had sold over 200,000 copies in paperback and its success enabled Fraser to leave journalism and become a full-time writer.[4]

See what I mean?

You must not have done very much research then. Ehrman is one of the leading NT/Biblical scholars and he is agnostic.

Peoples professed belief system is meaningless, you don't go into "biblical" studies unless, as a preconception you don't think that there's something there ... unless you're a complete troll.

Contemporaneous can also mean "at the same time period" which the gospel accounts definitely fall under that category, Josephus not so much, but considering he was born within a decade of the event, he could definitely be considered a contemporary on some accounts. Paul on the other hand was definitely a contemporary source.

No, the intent of "contemporaneous" is to be ever-so-little more liberal than "eye-witness."

So your arguing that the reason is more likely that the story was created to make money off the public?

In one sense of another ... I rather doubt, if you could really get back to origins, you'd find folks more concerned with saving your mortal soul than they were with dealing with the difficulties of everyday life. Money comes in many forms.

Um kinda, but not really. In reality there is no 100% fact because we can not demonstrate something enough times to prove that it is true in all cases at all times. It's literally impossible. I only used the case of 2 experiments for simplicity. In reality we would probably have numerous studies providing evidence for the same phenomenon. The percentage that we would say supports said cause, would be representative of many factors concerning each experiment. I only limit it to 2 cases for simplicity, in reality there are numerous explanations for the same phenomenon, each backed with their own evidence. If you want to look at if from a confidence value in statistics it would be the same thing. How confident we are that are hypothesis is the correct one.

So what about a 51/49 case? Would you say you are more confident in one or the other, or that we still don't know.

No, most fields have rules about the probability and the confidence interval. Most biological questions are answered at 90% or 95% with a narrow confidence interval.

It doesn't matter, he's still a contemporary source. Secondly, he also met Jesus' brother, which directly implies that Jesus was living in order to have a brother.

Again, I'd say: no, unlikely, and no.

We don't "know" when anything was written from antiquity. Just like with Caesar, Socrates, or any other figure from antiquity, we don't have the actual original sources for them. We just guess what the date of the original sources would have been. The same as with the Gospels.

As I demonstrated we can get down to the monthly scale for Caesar, so a different example might serve you better.

Josephus was a leader of the Zealot rebellion in Galilee. Does that ring any bells with regard to Jesus? The fact that you don't know that Josephus lived very close to where Jesus lived makes me doubt your knowledge in this subject area.

The testimony of Josephus is hotly contested, EXCEPT for the fact that most scholars agree that the main nucleus is authentic, and consists of a reference of a man named Jesus being crucified by Pilate.

Do "most scholars" give the same treatment to Hercules, who gets more complete treatment in Josephus than Jesus does?

You say this, but how do you know that the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts embellished for religious/political reasons? They were written within the time frame where eyewitness accounts were very much possible.

Could be, if there is any historicity to it I suspect that is the case, face it, religious/political reasons all just add up to cash in one form or another.

 

[Bunyip]

As has been stated numerous times, many of the leading scholars in NT studies are agnostic/atheistic. How in the world does that qualify them as "god-blinded"?



They don't. Who says they do? Granted, I will give you that many of the "criterion" that many Christian scholars use is milarky, "the criterion of embarrassment" is one such example in my opinion. But most of the methods are legitimate, and on many occasions historical Jesus research has set the standard for other fields of history.



You must not have done very much research then. Ehrman is one of the leading NT/Biblical scholars and he is agnostic.



Contemporaneous can also mean "at the same time period" which the gospel accounts definitely fall under that category, Josephus not so much, but considering he was born within a decade of the event, he could definitely be considered a contemporary on some accounts. Paul on the other hand was definitely a contemporary source.



MMmh, I would agree with you on specific details, but on whether or not a man actually lived. I don't think that gets "hazy".



Within 5-10 years. Contemporary yes, Primary no. I would consider a generation gap to be contemporary, your opinions may differ.



So your arguing that the reason is more likely that the story was created to make money off the public?



Um kinda, but not really. In reality there is no 100% fact because we can not demonstrate something enough times to prove that it is true in all cases at all times. It's literally impossible. I only used the case of 2 experiments for simplicity. In reality we would probably have numerous studies providing evidence for the same phenomenon. The percentage that we would say supports said cause, would be representative of many factors concerning each experiment. I only limit it to 2 cases for simplicity, in reality there are numerous explanations for the same phenomenon, each backed with their own evidence. If you want to look at if from a confidence value in statistics it would be the same thing. How confident we are that are hypothesis is the correct one.

So what about a 51/49 case? Would you say you are more confident in one or the other, or that we still don't know.



It doesn't matter, he's still a contemporary source. Secondly, he also met Jesus' brother, which directly implies that Jesus was living in order to have a brother.



We don't "know" when anything was written from antiquity. Just like with Caesar, Socrates, or any other figure from antiquity, we don't have the actual original sources for them. We just guess what the date of the original sources would have been. The same as with the Gospels.



Josephus was a leader of the Zealot rebellion in Galilee. Does that ring any bells with regard to Jesus? The fact that you don't know that Josephus lived very close to where Jesus lived makes me doubt your knowledge in this subject area.

The testimony of Josephus is hotly contested, EXCEPT for the fact that most scholars agree that the main nucleus is authentic, and consists of a reference of a man named Jesus being crucified by Pilate.



You say this, but how do you know that the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts embellished for religious/political reasons? They were written within the time frame where eyewitness accounts were very much possible.

So what? What is your point?

 

[outhouse]

Josephus was a leader of the Zealot rebellion in Galilee.


.

Was he there or a leader?

Sources please

 

[outhouse]

Could be, if there is any historicity to it I suspect that is the case, face it, religious/political reasons all just add up to cash in one form or another.
.

That is what made this one popular and different in the beginning.

It was not about money.

It was a religion the poor and hungry could follow with no money, and they would always run out those pesky demons for free.



It was a working mans religion.

 

[Sapiens]

Then perhaps that rather revisionist treatise about the Romans setting it up and encouraging it has a grain of truth. I firmly believe, in all things political or religious that it is hard to go wrong with two clear foci, "follow the money" and "it's the economy stupid."

 

[Bunyip]

Nash8

I'm trying to figure out what you are arguing here - it seems that you take exception to the normal definition of 'contemporary evidence of Jesus' and instead are insisting that 'contemporary' includes works from a decade or so after the death of the person in question, and in the case of Josephus not only long after the death of Jesus, but in a different city.

Ok, so I accept your definitions here if that is what you wish.

Just understand that when I said that there was no contemporary evidence of Jesus, I meant 'contemporary' as the dictionary defines it.

Also,I accept that you believe Paul interacted with the half brother of Jesus and so you count that as contemporary evidence of the historicity of Jesus also.

Ok, I accept that definition also if you wish.

Just understand that not only was I referring to the standard definition of contemporary - when I said 'no contemporary evidence of Jesus', I meant Jesus, not his half brother.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

We have had a lot of threads about historical Jesus but not so much about Jesus myth theory, so here is a chance to pound away at such a theory. I hope we can focus on the theory itself rather than the people that propose it.

Jesus myth theory:



Those that propose the best Jesus myth theory source mainstream biblical scholarship. There is nothing fringe about that other than to say that they do not necessarily come to the same ultimate conclusions about Jesus' historicity as many, but not all, scholars do.


A good place to start in my opinion is with an analogy, any copy and paste I present will be short and to the point, it's a time saver for me, so here we begin;





I will continue as time permits but I think this is something to chew on for those that would like to oppose or add to Christ or Jesus myth theory. Please agree or disagree with the above analogy for starters.

First off, Richard Carrier was already intellectually destroyed by the likes of WLC in their debate regarding the Resurrection...and he should still be licking his wounds from that whooping.

Second, there is no 'Jesus myth'. The existence of the historical Jesus is corroborated by both internal and external biblical sources, which is why the vast majority of historians all agree that Jesus did in fact exist, and do deny this is to deny established history.

 

[outhouse]

Then perhaps that rather revisionist treatise about the Romans setting it up and encouraging it has a grain of truth. I firmly believe, in all things political or religious that it is hard to go wrong with two clear foci, "follow the money" and "it's the economy stupid."

Which is what we don't see in this religion. Romans set nothing up.



It started out anti government with jesus. Then the Hellenistic movement wanted to avoid this rebellious movement, and wrote to and for the Romans, and even then they were persecuted for hundreds of years.

What your talking about did not take place, until after 325 BC when it started being a national religion controlled by governements

 

[Sapiens]

Horse pucky, if it wasn't set up by the then government it was set up by people who were in opposition to to said government. Either way lucre and power are at that bottom of the well no matter how nice the window dressing.

 

[Prophet]

Horse pucky, if it wasn't set up by the then government it was set up by people who were in opposition to to said government. Either way lucre and power are at that bottom of the well no matter how nice the window dressing.

Was that what Nero, Marcus Aurelius, etc. were doing during Christianity's first 200 years when they were killing off Christians to either satisfy their own taste for blood or appease the Roman mob? They were setting Christianity up?

Of course! It's so clear now! That persecution was all just made up by Roman history books, too, to make sure we don't find out the truth!