The Christ Myth Theory

[dbz]

 Dennis MacDonald will be publishing his magnum opus: A three volume reference work on the gospels. MacDonald will explain the obvious compositional layers of the gospel of John. Which will possibly help many (assuming they can read) to then understand why “Papyrus Egerton 2” is likely just a redaction of John (or vice versa). Because we do not have the MSS of the previous compositional layers, thus we do not know what content was previously removed by later writers.

"Interview with Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald & Edouard Tahmizian". YouTube. Freethinker Podcast. 3 June 2022. @time:00:03:30

[3:24] ...the third is a synopsis of the three layers of the gospel of John arguing that the earliest version is an imitation of  The Bacchae. I intend this work to be . . . the most important work ever written on the gospels. [3:45]

 

[dbz]

But how any "Resurrection Discrepancy" in the original Markan narrative "serves as evidence that the Crucifixion itself was historic", is speculative at best and is presupposing a HJ Crucifixion at worst.

Let me repeat my point: This Markan discrepancy . . . serves as evidence that the Crucifixion itself was historic.

Even when one says that the Gospels can give us “nothing but the bare fact of the crucifixion” as absolutely certain, one is still doing nothing more than paraphrasing part of the plot of an untestable narrative.

Godfrey, Neil (6 August 2022). ""Some Underlying Tradition" -- a review of Writing With Scripture, part 10". Vridar.​

If the historicity of any part—and all [is]—of the Gospel narratives is untestable then the best a historian can do is to leave the question of the narrative’s historicity aside.​

One does not have to take sides in a theological war between conservatives and radicals over whether a literal historical tale is more worthy of belief than a spiritual parable.

[Belief] in Jesus’s historicity has come a priori of many scholars’ historical study of him, and the argument that their acceptance of the ability to study him historically proves his historicity is mere circularity.

Just as significantly, the existence of a critical mass of scholars who do believe in Jesus’s historicity will almost certainly have shaped the way that all other scholars write about the subject. Unless they are strongly motivated to argue that Jesus was not real, they will not arbitrarily provoke colleagues who do believe in his historicity by denying it casually. After all, as academics, we ought to want to advance arguments that persuade our colleagues — and getting them offside by needlessly challenging a point not directly in contention will not help with that.

Pattenden, Miles (19 January 2022). "Historians and the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion & Ethics.​

 

[Swammerdami]

Coming from people who pretend to believe in a "Bayesian approach," the paragraph just quoted from Neil Godfrey is utter gibberish.

Instead one should consider alternatives and form estimates of a priori chances. This is of course impossible to do when the mythicist persists in quoting useless gibberish while presenting a total of ZERO alternative scenarios.

Even when an absurdly minimal scenario was asked for — eight Yes/No answers to eight trivial easily-answered questions — the two mythicists arguing most vociferously refused to answer. Instead we see purposeless posts bouncing from one irrelevant argument or digression to another, often contradictory, argument.

This thread should be printed out, framed, and placed on the wall as a celebration of the  Gish gallop. How did the town of Nazareth get its name? "Who cares!" Did James even have a brother? "Who knows!" Were the Chrestians and Christians different groups? "Don't forget the Chrustians; maybe there were three groups!"

 

[steve_bank]

Wrote a three volume reference text on the gospels? I guess people have to find something to occupy their time with.

 

[Swammerdami]

Case in point:

If the historicity of any part—and all [is]—of the Gospel narratives is untestable then the best a historian can do is to leave the question of the narrative’s historicity aside.​

First of all, writing something in a large font does NOT change its validity!

But more importantly what does this silly sentence even mean? Change "Gospel narrative" to "Shakespeare biography" and let the untestable claim be the £1000 allegedly given the Bard by the Earl of Southampton. So, if your bold-faced large-font aphorism has any purpose at all, it means that we cannot assess the historicity of any part of any Shakespeare biography that mentions the £1000.

@ dbz — In the unlikely event you actually want to engage with me, please answer simple questions in your own simple words. No quotes, no URLs. I don't even want to hear your "evidence" for some point; I just want to know What the F**k your point is!

And, by the way, I suppose you were never a math major but is it really hard to understand that if there is at least one articulable mythologization scenario, then you should be able to articulate at least one of them?

 

[Politesse]

I'm surprised all the anti-Stratfordians haven't swarmed this thread yet!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And, by the way, I suppose you were never a math major but is it really hard to understand that if there is at least one articulable mythologization scenario, then you should be able to articulate at least one of them?

I wish to remind the HJers that my question about historicity has not been answered either. It's a pretty simple question and asks how we know which bits of narratives are historical. For starters if I read a story about a man that flies, dies and comes back to life I figure it isn't history. If I assign such details as hyperbole, what's next?

 

[dbz]

...if I read a story about a man that flies, dies and comes back to life I figure it isn't history. If I assign such details as hyperbole, what's next?

If you dismiss accounts of such events (i.e. "a man that flies, dies and comes back to life") simply because they are impossible isn’t much help, as we can always imagine the story minus the miraculous. Would that make the less miraculous more historical? Two different accounts, one with a miracle and the other without, cannot be distinguished in their power to be evidence for history.

Removing the unbelievable and the impossible, correcting what is clearly wrong and tendentious, and reconstructing what remains in a more or less coherent account is hardly adequate and fails to deal with the Bible’s unhistorical qualities. Removing miracles or God from the story does not help an historian, it only destroys narratives. One can never arrive at a viable history with such an approach.

Reasonableness or plausibility, or any argument that attempts to show that an event in a story was possible, does little to distinguish ancient stories from ancient fiction. Nor does it do to use the occurrence of miracles and divine acts as criteria of the obviously fictional. The wonder of divine action is, after all, the very reason that many of these narratives were written and preserved.

 

[dbz]

"Who knows!" Were the Chrestians and Christians different groups? "Don't forget the Chrustians; maybe there were three groups!"

Do not forget, they were all likely worshiping the same LORD I$
“The Jewish Myth Of Jesus – Stephan Huller”. YouTube. History Valley. 2 August 2022.

When we read in the opening chapter about Jesus being in the wilderness for forty days we can readily understand the author imagining Jesus to be a personification of an ideal Israel; [i.e. Israel/ισραηλος (ΙΣΡΑΗΛΟΣ) thus LORD I$] would it not be reasonable to picture Jesus crucified then placed in a tomb hewn from rock (a metaphor for the temple in Isaiah 22) as a personification of the nation of Israel destroyed by the Romans?

 

[steve_bank]

Warning: Sarcasm

P:LEASE STOP SHOUTING!!!!

Can;t we be like Jesus and just love each other????

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

“The Jewish Myth Of Jesus – Stephan Huller”. YouTube. History Valley. 2 August 2022.

Another fascinating conversation. Thanks for the link.

What I always get from listening to these things is reminded of how little I know about the times and writers that produced the gospels. After listening to that discussion it is pretty easy to imagine GMark as not a historical story about a preacher named Jesus but a statement about Israel based on scripture. Or perhaps more succinctly not the embellishment of actual physical events that occurred but a metaphorical message, a kind of midrashic statement meant to teach.

I liked Huller's speculation about the beginnings of Christianity. It reminded me of the beginnings of Mormonism and how different Christian sects have come into being based on items of scriptural importance to certain people.

edit: I typically only listen to these things, I do not watch them. I get too distracted watching them, lose focus on the material being discussed.

 

[Swammerdami]

I wish to remind the HJers that my question about historicity has not been answered either. It's a pretty simple question and asks how we know which bits of narratives are historical. For starters if I read a story about a man that flies, dies and comes back to life I figure it isn't history. If I assign such details as hyperbole, what's next?

We DON'T "know." We GUESS. We try to GUESS intelligently.

There are impossible miracles in the story of Muhammed ibn Abdullah, pbuh, the 5th Ulul Azmi. Does this imply that we must reject all the stories and treat Muhammed as fictional? Joseph Smith (the 6th Ulul Azmi?) witnessed miracles; I guess he was a fiction also. Heck, even Confucius performed miracles according to the tales of some of his followers. Creating such stories is what people do when trying to promote a religion.

And how about Davy Crockett? I don't think he kilt him a b'ar when he was only three; I guess that therefore he didn't die at the Alamo either.

So . . . Why do I GUESS that certain parts of the Gospels are PROBABLY true? I've addressed that extensively in this thread, and earlier threads, with LOTS of specific arguments. But it all comes down to Occam's Razor. I think John the Baptist and his disciple, both from Galilee, gave inspiration and hope to some people in Judaea and led them, with much help from Paul the Apostle, to develop a cult. That does NOT strike me to be as unlikely as it seems to strike you.

I'd say my scenario is less far-fetched than the mythicists' scenario but the mythicists have not presented a scenario, not even a single one. Sammy Chrestus had a following in Rome, but Paul pretended they were worshiping his guy, Sammy Christ. Two centuries later, Jews that hated Sammy changed his name to "Yeshu the Bastard" as an insult. Josephus had mentioned Sammy's brother James, but the revisionists rounded up all copies of Josephus' book and penciled in "Yeshu" over "Sammy." Is that what mythicists believe? Unlikely, but you wouldn't know it from this thread.

If I were on the O.J. Simpson jury, I'd have been the hold-out: "Prattle all you want about the crooked cop, but until you have an alternate scenario that explains the physical evidence, I'm going with Guilty." Mythicists in this thread have spent some effort impugning the crooked cop, but have presented ZERO alternate scenarios.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I'd say my scenario is less far-fetched than the mythicists' scenario but the mythicists have not presented a scenario, not even a single one. Sammy Chrestus had a following in Rome, but Paul pretended they were worshiping his guy, Sammy Christ. Two centuries later, Jews that hated Sammy changed his name to "Yeshu the Bastard" as an insult. Josephus had mentioned Sammy's brother James, but the revisionists rounded up all copies of Josephus' book and penciled in "Yeshu" over "Sammy." Is that what mythicists believe? Unlikely, but you wouldn't know it from this thread.

If I were to offer my explanation for the existence of the gospels and their general protagonist I would go back to GMark and find it as Huller has, a statement on the Jewish condition at the time. It's a story meant to illustrate, teach, explain, convince, etc. The characters and events are symbolic but understood by those who heard it. It's hardly a story about a preacher being killed by Romans.

I for example didn't know that competing Jewish sects and theologians were so prominent at the time. That's important to know. It lets me understand that at the time there was a very big difference between being anti-jewish and anti-semitic. I think your details offered re historicity of the protagonist don't appreciate the historical reality that existed at the time.

And it of course could be my literary background, reading too many novels, finding symbolism, etc. But I know that's what writers do. Their narratives are not unlike great paintings, something that happens over years. So I see GMark as a story that evolved and can appreciate what I see as symbolism and arguments about Jewish theology, not a story about a preacher. Quite frankly the bit of literature iss too polished to be just about that. Do you really think that Hemingway wrote Old Man and the Sea to tell us a story about an old fisherman?

 

[Swammerdami]

Just for starters, what about James? Was his brother Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Cobbler?

 

[Politesse]

I'd say my scenario is less far-fetched than the mythicists' scenario but the mythicists have not presented a scenario, not even a single one. Sammy Chrestus had a following in Rome, but Paul pretended they were worshiping his guy, Sammy Christ. Two centuries later, Jews that hated Sammy changed his name to "Yeshu the Bastard" as an insult. Josephus had mentioned Sammy's brother James, but the revisionists rounded up all copies of Josephus' book and penciled in "Yeshu" over "Sammy." Is that what mythicists believe? Unlikely, but you wouldn't know it from this thread.

If I were to offer my explanation for the existence of the gospels and their general protagonist I would go back to GMark and find it as Huller has, a statement on the Jewish condition at the time. It's a story meant to illustrate, teach, explain, convince, etc. The characters and events are symbolic but understood by those who heard it. It's hardly a story about a preacher being killed by Romans.

I for example didn't know that competing Jewish sects and theologians were so prominent at the time. That's important to know. It lets me understand that at the time there was a very big difference between being anti-jewish and anti-semitic. I think your details offered re historicity of the protagonist don't appreciate the historical reality that existed at the time.

And it of course could be my literary background, reading too many novels, finding symbolism, etc. But I know that's what writers do. Their narratives are not unlike great paintings, something that happens over years. So I see GMark as a story that evolved and can appreciate what I see as symbolism and arguments about Jewish theology, not a story about a preacher. Quite frankly the bit of literature iss too polished to be just about that. Do you really think that Hemingway wrote Old Man and the Sea to tell us a story about an old fisherman?

It doesn't matter what their claim is, only the conclusion. It's like watching Ancient Aliens. Most viewers probably realize that the aliens can't be doglike creatures in flying pyramids and grey little ET dudes who masqueraded as both Napoleon and Wellington and gave humanity wagons and cell phones but not both at once for some reason, etc, etc. But if there are so many arguments in favor of ancient human-alien contact, a certain kind of thinking leads a person to conclude that at least some of those claims must hold water. Especially since they've felt all their life that something has been held back from them, that the orthodoxy they were raised with is flawed somehow, if not an outright lie. Historical conspiracy theories are as much about the believer's distrust in the authorities that created the standard narrative as they are about the "facts at hand", even when these are well known. We all know that history is on some level a lie, a tool of institutional propaganda. Conspiracy theories are always trying to call out the lie, and sometimes they even get it right. But usually after throwing an awful lot of darts at the board. A lot of people who correctly believed that the US was flying effectively invisible spy planes at very high altitudes during the Cold War also believed that the conspirators were also faking an entire space program, using telepathic children to influence Soviet leaders, and/or secretly running both governments via a secret Jewish extragovernmental cabal.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Just for starters, what about James? Was his brother Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Cobbler?

I'm not as far along in my knowledge and experience as Huller and others who see the gospels as symbolic literary narratives. GMark ended with the disappearance of the body. That's a message meant to illustrate and recall something else in scripture. Only once the story became literalized was the ending changed to match the prevailing orthodoxy.

So to answer your question, within the gospels, I don't know. There's lots of discussion out there as to what exactly Jesus symbolized to early readers and listeners. I'm speculating that with time I will be able to understand the symbolic relationship between James and Jesus as well as lots of other things. For example, is forty days in the desert meant to recall to listeners the forty years of wandering in the wilderness for the Jews? These are things I've never appreciated before or even thought about. The strange part is that the beginnings of Christianity are still not known other than that it probably began as another Jewish sect or had its beginnings within another Jewish sect.

Sorry to disappoint...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The gospels as literature

At first glance, the New Testament Gospels seem strange and difficult. Each tells the story of Jesus’ life, but only half of each Gospel is narrative in form. The rest of the material is what we might call “discourse” — speeches, parables, theological dialogues and debates, satire, and proverbs (also called “sayings” in the text). This diverse hodgepodge makes the Gospels seem unconventional — and even unliterary.

Structurally, the Gospels are story cycles, a common format in the ancient world but not well known to modern readers. Their plots are episodic and, in some ways, disjointed — events do not build on each other by cause and effect, but are brief and self-contained mini-stories within the story. Once an episode is finished, it drops out of sight forever. (In part, this may be due to the fact that the Gospels were originally circulated orally.)

The Gospels’ style often seems too plainspoken to be considered literary. They use simple, unembellished language. (An exception to this rule is the Gospel of John, which employs poetic imagery.) One sign of how spare the Gospels are: There is not a single physical description of the main character, Jesus, in any of the four Gospels.

Perhaps what most makes the Gospels most seem unliterary is their heavily didactic (“having the intention to teach”) content. While the entire Bible is religious, the Gospels are even more so. Unlike the richly human stories of the Old Testament, the Gospels focus intensely on doctrinal teaching.

 

[Swammerdami]

The mythicist position is based on prejudice, not fact. Mythicists want to believe the Gospels are 100% fiction. Actual facts are of no interest to them.

Just for starters, what about James? Was his brother Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Cobbler?

. . . I don't know. . . .

Interesting. I've asked the question about the dual James references till I'm dizzy and received zero answers. (Zero with a 'Z'.) Mythicists have linked to zillions of books, articles, and videos but never found a mythicist with an opinion about James' brother? Amazing!

But what else would you expect from Gish gallopers? You see the same thing in the Shakespeare authorship debates. Startfordians are eager to mention Oxford's alleged fart, but have no interest in explaining, e.g. the prefaces to Troilus or to the Sonnets.

Why would the mythicists care about FACTS? They already have their answer.


Mr. Moogly asked me if I had written fiction. Am I qualified to separate fact from fiction? No, I'm not. But would Cambridge's Chairman of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature qualify?

I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this [gospel] text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage…or else, some unknown [ancient] writer…without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic realistic narrative.

 

[steve_bank]

The gospels as literature

At first glance, the New Testament Gospels seem strange and difficult. Each tells the story of Jesus’ life, but only half of each Gospel is narrative in form. The rest of the material is what we might call “discourse” — speeches, parables, theological dialogues and debates, satire, and proverbs (also called “sayings” in the text). This diverse hodgepodge makes the Gospels seem unconventional — and even unliterary.

Structurally, the Gospels are story cycles, a common format in the ancient world but not well known to modern readers. Their plots are episodic and, in some ways, disjointed — events do not build on each other by cause and effect, but are brief and self-contained mini-stories within the story. Once an episode is finished, it drops out of sight forever. (In part, this may be due to the fact that the Gospels were originally circulated orally.)

The Gospels’ style often seems too plainspoken to be considered literary. They use simple, unembellished language. (An exception to this rule is the Gospel of John, which employs poetic imagery.) One sign of how spare the Gospels are: There is not a single physical description of the main character, Jesus, in any of the four Gospels.

Perhaps what most makes the Gospels most seem unliterary is their heavily didactic (“having the intention to teach”) content. While the entire Bible is religious, the Gospels are even more so. Unlike the richly human stories of the Old Testament, the Gospels focus intensely on doctrinal teaching.

Ancient pulp fiction?

 

[Swammerdami]

The Toledot Yeshu is being cited as a reference for the true Jesus. [insert emoticon of someone gagging and pounding their head on the floor.]

The Toledot Yeshu, with Judas Iscariot on wings chasing Yeshu the Bastard through the sky. Yeshu was a bastard, a liar, and could be beaten in battle by Judas . . .

. . . But notice ONE charge NEVER made against Jesus in the Toledot. A charge that would have devastated the Christian religion, but that the anti-Christians never made: that Jesus was a fiction, that he never lived.

Mythicists would have us believe that the sources of the Toledot date all the way back to the 1st century, when Jesus would have been memorable, or not. Yet the charge of non-existence was never made.