"Was Jesus a Myth?"

[oldbadger]

In other words you have nothing of substance to say. Kind of figured you wouldn't, but thought I'd give you a shot at it]

It would be better to just chuck the vid in the bin and debate the historicity of Jesus.
To film a clutch of stories that we all dismiss just avoids the real question.
The vid is junk.

 

[taykair]

Of course Jesus is mythical. Alexa says so. And Alexa is omniscient.

By the way, God is a myth, too.

All hail Alexa! Hail, I say!

 

[Skwim]

It would be better to just chuck the vid in the bin and debate the historicity of Jesus.
To film a clutch of stories that we all dismiss just avoids the real question.
The vid is junk.

When I said

"I can't vouch for its accuracy, so don't blame me if it's gotten something wrong. However, if it has, fair play requires that the error be explained and supported by evidence."​

in my OP I figured one or two members wouldn't be able to do it, but simply resort to inane deprecations and name calling. Thanks for volunteering to head the list.

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[ChristineM]

That's right, most, meaning not all historians considered that passage to be a forgery.

I'll go with the vast proportion who have actually studied the writing style and all other content of Josephus work and his life , i.e. scholars of Josephus rather than those saying "oh look, confirmation of my belief, yipee"

 

[shunyadragon]

I only looked at the video in terms of the historical facts, references to scripture, and the time line of these events, Except for the reference to 1 AD I found the other events used were accurate supporting the view that the miraculous Jesus Christ is embellished by myth, and the historical accounts of events in the gospels were inconsistent, confusing and inaccurate making it difficult to believe that the authors were witnesses of the life of Jesus.

There is abundant evidence that the gospels are compiled, edited and redacted form earlier sources, and third party testimony, with embellishments which is common for literature of the time.

There are better sources than this. The advantage of this reference is the simplicity of the time line relating the events to the life of Jesus and conflicts between the gospels.

For a more academic accurate comprehensive approach to the issues concerning the historical Jesus I recommend Bart D Ehrman at UNC in nearby Chapel Hil, NC. I have most of his books, followed his blog, and have listened to his talks at UNC.

 

[BilliardsBall]

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Not according to the video. But what recording witnesses do you have in mind?




Hey, if I'm so upsetting you can always put me on "ignore."

Now if you want to continue I suggest you address shunyadragon's question: "Is there anything in the video that is not factually accurate concerning the known history, and the references in the scripture?"

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I may choose to answer shunya's question, but I don't understand why you would take a view that less than 1% of history and ANE scholars would take? You did read the Wikipedia details I posted, yes?

 

[oldbadger]

When I said

"I can't vouch for its accuracy, so don't blame me if it's gotten something wrong. However, if it has, fair play requires that the error be explained and supported by evidence."​

in my OP I figured one or two members wouldn't be able to do it, but simply resort to inane deprecations and name calling. Thanks for volunteering ]

Duh. But I Said that the points were correct, just that they can't disprove HJ.
That's why the vid is junk.
You need to pick on the points that do show that HJ was a real bloke
The vid is rubbish at that.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I wasn't arguing that the Gospels represent an accurate portrayal of the life and times of Jesus the Christ, just that there was some Jewish chap from Nazareth who was probably an eschatological preacher and who surprised his followers by being killed before the eschaton forcing a new narrative to be created.

The stories about his birth were necessary to match prophesy of the Messiah being born in Bethlehem, whereas Jesus was from Nazareth.

The conflicting narratives are an attempt to backfit this into the story. The inconsistencies obviously didn't bother people back then as history tended to serve a narrative purpose rather than being similar to the modern academic discipline normatively concerned with objective factual realities.

But none of this is the stuff that people actually care about with Jesus. The historicity of Jesus-the-executed-itinerant-preacher doesn't do Christians any good unless we can link it to Jesus-the-miracle-working-resurrected-God-man.

There's scant evidence of even Jesus-the-itinerant-preacher in the historical record, but I suppose the one offhand comment in Josephus (where he mentions "James, brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ") is enough for me to tip the needle slightly toward "he probably did exist." However, I don't think the existence of Christians really demands a literal Jesus, since that generally gets traced back to Paul, who says he never met Jesus in the flesh.

But the miracle-weilding Jesus that's the focus of the Christian religion? There's no evidence of him at all.

 

[shunyadragon]

I may choose to answer shunya's question, but I don't understand why you would take a view that less than 1% of history and ANE scholars would take? You did read the Wikipedia details I posted, yes?

What is your basis for 1% of ANE scholars. The majority do not take your view of Bible scholarship. If you are referring to the number of scholar that believe no such person as Jesus (Yeshua) existed you may be closed, but many of not most scholars consider the Divine miracle working Jesus Christ is a mythical person.

 

[Skwim]

Not according to the video. But what recording witnesses do you have in mind?

I may choose to answer shunya's question, but I don't understand why you would take a view that less than 1% of history and ANE scholars would take? You did read the Wikipedia details I posted, yes?

No I didn't read it. It's 3,083 words long, (I did a word count) and I wasn't about to go digging for whatever you thought was germane. If you won't bother to construct your argument yourself, I'm certainly not going to do it for you.

So, as it stands, I didn't think you had any such witnesses. Just a lot of empty talk.

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[Augustus]

But none of this is the stuff that people actually care abour with Jesus. The historicity of Jesus-the-executed-itinerant-preacher doesn't do Christians any good unless we can link it to Jesus-the-miracle-working-resurrected-God-man.

In most cases that's correct, which is why I find the prevalence of Jesus mythicists among New Atheist types so strange. Whether he existed as a person or not is largely irrelevant to the overall debate. Yet, people who pride themselves on their rationality suddenly start subscribing to conspiracy theory type narratives as long as they make religion look bad.

It's not enough that it's not true, it has to be some kind of devious creation by mendacious figures (Paul, Constantine, etc.) to fool the people and keep them in chains of ignorance.

Their credulity knows no bounds when it comes to anything that makes religion look bad. If you want to criticise religions then there are plenty of actual things that one could criticise without resorting to fantasy.

But the miracle-weilding Jesus that's the focus of the Christian religion? There's no evidence of him at all.

To be annoyingly pedantic, there is evidence, just not any credible evidence.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In most cases that's correct, which is why I find the prevalence of Jesus mythicists among New Atheist types so strange. Whether he existed as a person or not is largely irrelevant to the overall debate. Yet, people who pride themselves on their rationality suddenly start subscribing to conspiracy theory type narratives as long as they make religion look bad.

It's not enough that it's not true, it has to be some kind of devious creation by mendacious figures (Paul, Constantine, etc.) to fool the people and keep them in chains of ignorance.

Jesus doesn't have to be the product of a conspiracy to be unhistorical.

Their credulity knows no bounds when it comes to anything that makes religion look bad. If you want to criticise religions then there are plenty of actual things that one could criticise without resorting to fantasy.

It's not "fantasy" to acknowledge that there are plausible ways that the Jesus myth could have arisen that don't involve a historic, literal Jesus. The trick is filtering through what's plausible to get to what's likely.

The stuff I find most interesting are the claims for a literal Jesus that negate important aspects of the Gospel story... like when Simcha Jacobovici was claiming to have found the bones of Jesus. While the whole thing was ridiculous for a number of reason, I was perplexed when I heard Christians pointing to this as some sort of "win," not realizing that, if the claim was true, it would mean that the Resurrection didn't happen.

To be annoyingly pedantic, there is evidence, just not any credible evidence.

Fair enough: there's evidence of varying quality both for and against a supernatural Jesus (and for and against a historical Jesus).

 

[Augustus]

Jesus doesn't have to be the product of a conspiracy to be unhistorical.

In theory perhaps, among new atheist sorts it almost always relates to someone inventing him for their own personal gain though.

It's not "fantasy" to acknowledge that there are plausible ways that the Jesus myth could have arisen that don't involve a historic, literal Jesus. The trick is filtering through what's plausible to get to what's likely.

Again, possibly in theory, but generally not in the reality of the reasonably sizeable subsection of New Atheists who see religions as conspiracies to control the masses.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In theory perhaps, among new atheist sorts it almost always relates to someone inventing him for their own personal gain though.

I've never seen that. I think your bias is colouring your opinion here.

Again, possibly in theory, but generally not in the reality of the reasonably sizeable subsection of New Atheists who see religions as conspiracies to control the masses.

Which New Atheists? Be specific and give some quotes.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I may choose to answer shunya's question, but I don't understand why you would take a view that less than 1% of history and ANE scholars would take? You did read the Wikipedia details I posted, yes?

If you're into the consensus of scholars, then you must love the Jesus Seminar, right?

Jesus Seminar - Wikipedia

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

BTW, @Augustus - you do realize that many of the main advocates of the Christ myth theory aren't atheists at all, don't you?

I first got introduced to the idea from Tom Harpur, who drew from Kuhn, Massey & Higgins, none of whom were atheists. In fact, Harpur was a theologian, former priest, and lifelong Christian who hoped that recognizing the mythic nature of Christ could re-invigorate Christianity.

 

[Augustus]

I've never seen that. I think your bias is colouring your opinion here

Which New Atheists? Be specific and give some quotes.

None of the significant figures that I'm aware of, as I said it's a particular subset. Go to Reddit or some atheist discussion boards, youtube or Facebook pages and you will find plenty of such views.

 

[sealchan]

I came across this interesting video a few minutes ago and thought it worth sharing. I can't vouch for its accuracy, so don't blame me if it's gotten something wrong. However, if it has, fair play requires that the error be explained and supported by evidence.

I strongly suggest you access the "full Screen" function. Enjoy.

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Good little video...

Well, it certainly helps us to understand that the authors of the gospels were not eyewitnesses but referenced common and unique source material for the composition of their gospels. The inconsistencies between the gospels suggest there was freedom for individual creative contribution to the story or independent research of unreliable source material.

One has to wonder why gospels took so long to be produced? It suggests to me that the life of Jesus (real or imagined) became seen as significant to many people only well after the time he was present. This suggests that it was not so much the facts of the life of Jesus himself that were of interest but the stories which arose describing him that were the source of interest in him.

I think that given there were churches before the gospels, there must have been either an oral teaching about Jesus or there was truly a Jesus who taught some core or part of what has since become the religion constructed out of inspiration in his teachings. It may be that this Jesus was merely a starting point for the inspirations of many others.

In my examination of the gospel of Matthew, it seems that thae author of Matthew's gospel was interested in placing the coming of Jesus in the context of other religions. He explicitly mentions Zoroastrianism, he contrasts Jesus with the Jewish worshipers and priests of his day and he seems to have borrowed some basic motifs from the story of the Buddha in constructing his gospel.

 

[Augustus]

BTW, @Augustus - you do realize that many of the main advocates of the Christ myth theory aren't atheists at all, don't you?

I first got introduced to the idea from Tom Harpur, who drew from Kuhn, Massey & Higgins, none of whom were atheists. In fact, Harpur was a theologian, former priest, and lifelong Christian who hoped that recognizing the mythic nature of Christ could re-invigorate Christianity.

All sorts of people have all sorts of views, but as I said in my first reply "which is why I find the prevalence of Jesus mythicists among New Atheist types so strange."

For a group that puts a high stock on evidence and scholarly expertise, it is quite a common view despite probably 99% of scholarly experts disagreeing with them.

 

[Baroodi]

when documentation was not existent or poor, dates are lost and events would be located by approximation. hence mistaken chronicle take place