The Christ Myth Theory

[dbz]

Back to evidence for JC. Sorry about that.

evidence?​

English​

Noun​

Optimist (plural Optimists)

1. A small sailing dinghy designed to train and introduce young children into sailing.

Synonym: Oppy

 

[dbz]

What makes more sense is that the cult's were born first, grew, shifted interests with the times, and then solidified when Roman interest sparked around a new "cult" classic that made the rounds that amalgamated all the much more relatively recent history about the Jesus cult phenomena into a single story that told the idealized version of what followers attest from their legends that their Messiah had done.

• Yes, "cult's"!

Borborites engaged in a version of the eucharist in which they would smear their hands with menstrual blood and semen and consume them as the blood and body of Christ respectively.[9]

Scholars on Pre-Christian myth​

Jonathan Z. Smith spent a lifetime trying to get us beyond the taboo of suggesting Christians may have borrowed some customs and beliefs from contemporaneous pagan religions. Smith said we should look for analogies and comparisons and we should shun the apologetic, untenable idea of uniqueness. Stop worrying about who borrowed from whom, and start looking for shared ideas and cross-fertilization. However, the Bauckham camp seems to have won decisively. For any facet of Christianity, if a modern scholar finds any possible link to Judaism, that must be where it came from. If it sounds remotely close to something in the OT or any Jewish writing, you can stop looking. There are never any Christian precursors in the pagan traditions, and anyone who says differently must be laughed out of the room.

—Tim Widowfield[49]

Smith held that the famous “dying and rising god” mytheme was a modern myth—not an ancient one.[50] However Carrier asserts that per the Dying-and-Rising God Mytheme, Smith “didn’t even address 99% of the evidence for it, but flat out ignored almost all of it”.[51]

While Smith clearly retreated from the “dying and rising god” mytheme, Widowfield observes that, "Smith doubted the usefulness of the dying-and-rising-god motif because it was too Christian-centric and carried too much historical baggage — with scholars who worried about who adopted what from whom instead of what it all meant to adherents."[52]

One of the leading scholars on pre-Christian myth, John Granger Cook, asserts—contra Smith—that the continued use of the category of dying and rising gods is justified,[53] writing:

The resurrection of Osiris is the closest analogy to the resurrection of Jesus, although Osiris remains in the netherworld—wherever it is located. Horus’s resurrection is a clear analogy. The rebirth or resurrection of Dionysus also provides a fairly close analogy to the resurrection of Jesus. The revival of Heracles and probably that of Melqart are also strong analogies.[54]

 

[dbz]

People confuse the amalgamation as an original and older account (perhaps it's presented that way, much like The Princess Bride is...), It's accepted as such.

Fanfics happen, some letters of dubious originality show up, and a religion is born.

We do not know all the player's names: Yĕhōšúa (whence Joshua), Yēšū́a (whence Jeshua). It is even possible that a bastard son of a Roman soldier was given the name ἀνατολή (anatolḗ, “sunrise”); became insane and later was killed after which their name was changed to Jesus!

 

[Jarhyn]

People confuse the amalgamation as an original and older account (perhaps it's presented that way, much like The Princess Bride is...), It's accepted as such.

Fanfics happen, some letters of dubious originality show up, and a religion is born.

We do not know all the player's names: Yĕhōšúa (whence Joshua), Yēšū́a (whence Jeshua). It is even possible that a bastard son of a Roman soldier was given the name ἀνατολή (anatolḗ, “sunrise”); became insane and later was killed after which their name was changed to Jesus!

Well, we could fill a billion libraries about the things we don't know.

I would expect that some of the Jesuses at the time might even have changed their names to such before they were killed or died, just to bank on some of the older urban legends/myths/cults.

 

[dbz]

Well, we could fill a billion libraries about the things we don't know.

@Swammerdami, But fill this thread with things we 'totes' know for sure.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, we could fill a billion libraries about the things we don't know.

@Swammerdami, But fill this thread with things we 'totes' know for sure.

There is this phenomena wherein more people than we know what to do with are convinced, due to the structure of what I expect goes all the way back to Chrestus, wherein that Yeshu said he would be back (in spirit) and they can never truly kill the Messiah, and then a Mytheme was born that would see constant stream of Jesuses stepping forward from that point to the current day.

There are apocalyptic street preachers in my own city. They tend to congregate the northeast corner of 8th and Nicolette downtown, because it's an open foyer elevated as a high step and can't be made "unpublic" in any substantive way.

Because it's near two major bus stops, it forms a natural focal point for the behavior.

I bet if I asked enough of them, maybe 3-4, I would catch at least one Jesus claimant.

The idea that "I represent an idea that cannot be killed" is in fact a very Kabbalah way of looking at particular things.

What I know for sure is that this is clearly an amalgamation and cult-expansion phenomena riding on a veritable "wave" of comers to "messiah" status named Jesus or thereabouts, and the wave never ended.

 

[No Robots]

The idea that "I represent an idea that cannot be killed" is in fact a very Kabbalah way of looking at particular things.

That is actually the core of the idea underlying Christianity. "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass."

And Constantin Brunner has this to say:

The mystic does not want to be a Christian: he wants to be Christ. He finds his treasure in Jesus, the true Christian. The spirit of the mystic recognizes itself in the thought, the person and the life of Christ.

 

[dbz]

Gary says: @ 2022-07-14 15:19:29 GMT+0000 at 15:19
For what it’s worth, maybe nothing, I read a book by Craig Evans on the Essenes and Dead Sea Scrolls, where he mentioned Isaiah 40:3 “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God”…
He used that as a reason that perhaps the Qumran’s location was chosen, in the desert, at the base of a gorge (highway) to the Dead Sea, that would be made straight, and a paradise at the coming of the Lord.

Assuming Mark was written well after 73AD, when Qumran and the Essenes were destroyed by the Romans, Mark wouldn’t want to quote Isiah exactly, leaving out “Make straight in the desert a highway”, especially when connecting John the Baptist to Jesus, because Mark might not have wanted to associate directly Qumran/Essenes with John and Jesus. Trying to disassociate the failed Essenes movement from Jesus, maybe? By 73 AD, I expect it was we’ll known that the Essenes highway for the Lord was a failure.

"A Portrait Of Jesus' World - The Essenes And The Dead Sea Scrolls | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE | PBS". www.pbs.org.

The third major type of material found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, though, in some ways is the most interesting insight into the life of the community that lived there, because this material includes their own sectarian writings, that is, their rules of life ... their prayer book. Included then, is the book of the rule of the community or sometimes called "The Manual of Discipline", which talks about how one goes about getting into the community. The rules for someone who wants to be pure and a part of the elect community. We also have something called "The War Scroll" and the War Scroll seems to be their own battle plan for the war that will occur at the end of the present evil age. And so this is something that really is real in their mind ... that this coming end of the age will be a cataclysmic event in their view.

 

[No Robots]

And here is Harry Waton:

And now a great revolution is taking place in the Christian world. This revolution marks the approach of the Christian to the centre. They now begin to perceive that Jesus is right within them. And who is Jesus? Jesus is nothing else than their own soul, the I am I of God. When the Christians will at last attain to this perception, then they will discover that which the Jews discovered nearly three thousand years ago, namely: all are the sons of God. Then the Christians will no longer have to pray to Jesus, they will no longer imagine a Jesus sitting in heaven, but they will perceive that salvation lies within themselves. Thus we see that Christianity is only a preparation for Judaism. The translation of the Bible into the vernaculars of the Christians brought the Christians nearer to the Old Testament, and this resulted in the Reformation. And now the foremost thinkers in the Christian world turn back to Judaism. They call it the Judaism of Jesus, but it is Judaism pure and simple. And this will result in a great revolution in the Christian world. The Christians will reach the centre. Only then will they reach the height and depth of the Jews at the time of Jesus.​

 

[No Robots]

This is the thing that our historical Jesus pundits are upset about: the study of the historical Jesus is exactly the same as the study of Judaism.

 

[Jarhyn]

The idea that "I represent an idea that cannot be killed" is in fact a very Kabbalah way of looking at particular things.

That is actually the core of the idea underlying Christianity. "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass."

And Constantin Brunner has this to say:

The mystic does not want to be a Christian: he wants to be Christ. He finds his treasure in Jesus, the true Christian. The spirit of the mystic recognizes itself in the thought, the person and the life of Christ.

And in many ways this explains why Yeshu was such a Mytheme that was fallen into by so many even before the gospels were written that tied them into a core format.

Indeed, the goal is not to accept the words, but to figure out why to say them in the first place free of authority.

In many ways this can only happen when you completely abandon the book. I don't think as the Kabbalists and Gnostics do though, of augmenting it. Rather, I am on the path of entirely abandoning the book and finding the source of radical love, from axioms and hard, crunchy math.

 

[dbz]

How about independent empirical research on the topic. As I understand current scholarship we have developed that capability now. Yano actual evidence.

@fromderinside, Then the following debate is just what you want!

• "Did Jesus Exist? Dr. Richard Carrier Vs. PhD Candidate Jack Bull". YouTube. History Valley. 1 July 2022.

Al Cannistraro
9 days ago
Bull, despite being a self-described practicing Catholic, seems to be a sane and (apparently) independent-thinking scholar of Christian origins — one who is able to collegiality engage with Richard Carrier. I know of no others like him.

 

[No Robots]

Forthcoming book from James Crossley and Robert J. Myles: Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict.

 

[No Robots]

Here's one more:

Thus the union with Christ imparts an inner exaltation, comfort in suffering, calm trust, and a heart full of love for humankind, open to everything noble, everything great, not out of ambition but for the sake of Christ. Thus the union with Christ imparts a joyousness which the Epicurean in his frivolous philosophy and the deep thinker in his most arcane science have vainly tried to snatch at, but which the soul can attain only through its unrestrained and childlike Union with Christ and God, which alone makes life more beautiful and exalted. "Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged [John 16:11]."

Spoiler: Guess who?

The Union of the Faithful with Christ / Karl Marx

 

[dbz]

People confuse the amalgamation as an original and older account (perhaps it's presented that way, much like The Princess Bride is...), It's accepted as such.

Fanfics happen, some letters of dubious originality show up, and a religion is born.

We do not know all the player's names: Yĕhōšúa (whence Joshua), Yēšū́a (whence Jeshua). It is even possible that a bastard son of a Roman soldier was given the name ἀνατολή (anatolḗ, “sunrise”); became insane and later was killed after which their name was changed to Jesus!

He even could of been a grandson of Herod! As novelized by Robert Graves (1981). King Jesus : a novel. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. ISBN 978-0374516642. see book review: “The paternity of Jesus”. RHEDESIUM.

“Pantera”. RationalWiki. “Pantera may possibly have been the father of Jesus. The “Jesus son of Pantera” hypothesis has been promoted by James Tabor, who defends it primarily on textual grounds.”

• "Robert Eisenman: "Paul as Herodian"". depts.drew.edu.
• Tabor, James. (2006). The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. Simon & Schuster. p. 69. ISBN 074328724X.
• Raymond, Joseph (2010). Herodian messiah : case for Jesus as grandson of Herod (2nd ed.). St. Louis, MO. ISBN 978-0615355085.

 

[Swammerdami]

I get so wrapped up in the argument, I get loud and even rude. I apologize. Let me see if I can make some essential points more calmly.

Although Richard Carrier claims to uses Bayesian analysis, I think his method is sadly lacking. In Bayesian analysis, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person is given by [edited]

\(P_{J,N,is,historic} = \frac{P(P_g|H) P(H)}{P(P_g|M) P(M) + P(P_g|H) P(H)}\)​

where P_g is the probability that Christianity became an active 1st-century religion.

But what are the actual values of P(P_g|H) or P(P_g|M) ? To address this, we must answer questions like

• Are people more likely to be fervent about a charismatic healer or preacher they saw with their own eyes? Or a fable told them about a personality from the previous century? And, more specifically, what are the relative likelihoods?
• Would a fisherman, let's call him Peter, be more likely to preach a new religion if he were inspired by a real person? Or if he were playing out his role in a drunken game of 'Truth or Dare'?
• If Peter asked his pal Mark to compose a story about a crucifixee, would Mark be more likely to pick a real one — there were many to choose from — or just compose a fiction?

Obviously I've chosen these example questions to "advance" my case, but don't get hung up on that. There are dozens of other likelihoods we'd need to consider, and some of them would favor the mythicists. The above examples were just to give an idea of how real, valid Bayesian analysis MUST work.

The point is that no "Bayesian analysis" can be done without incorporating these likelihoods into the equation. I do not pretend to know what these probabilities would be, but I HOPE it's clear that we cannot apply Bayes unless we have some estimates for these likelihoods. Richard Carrier babbles about Bayes but does not even understand this much! It's difficult for me to even look at the probability-estimation parts of his writings without thinking "What an ignorant pretentious twit."

Whether a crucifixee came from Nazareth or not had little if any effect on mythologisms of the 2nd century. Anything from the 3rd or 4th century is completely off-topic in this thread, and even 2nd-century writings are of interest only if they shed light on specific 1st-century witnessing. This is why I ask mythicists here to help me understand their view of the Christians and/or Chrestians in Rome during the reign of Nero, only a few decades after the alleged crucifixion.

I do not expect mythicists to provide a detailed summary of the exact myth-making — it could have played out in many different ways. But it doesn't seem like too much to ask for the mythicists to present at least ONE (1) scenario. Let the scenario begin by discussing the Chrestians of Rome.

Yet ZERO of the mythicists here have deigned to say a word about that, or at least offered a view that doesn't fall apart on inspection. Would it be rude to say this is disappointing?

 

[bilby]

Pantera may possibly have been the father of Jesus

I find it implausible that Jesus was a descendant of any of the Thundercats, though I guess it’s not something we can completely rule out.

 

[fromderinside]

There are apocalyptic street preachers in my own city.

R U rich? Take a pittance, isolate it. Magnified. Something else entirely.

 

[fromderinside]

I get so wrapped up in the argument, I get loud and even rude. I apologize. Let me see if I can make some essential points more calmly.

Although Richard Carrier claims to uses Bayesian analysis, I think his method is sadly lacking. In Bayesian analysis, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person is given by

\(P_{J,N,is,historic} = \frac{P(P_g|H)}{P(P_g|M) + P(P_g|H)}\)​

where P_g is the probability that Christianity became an active 1st-century religion.

But what are the actual values of P(P_g|H) or P(P_g|M) ? To address this, we must answer questions like

• Are people more likely to be fervent about a charismatic healer or preacher they saw with their own eyes? Or a fable told them about a personality from the previous century? And, more specifically, what are the relative likelihoods?
• Would a fisherman, let's call him Peter, be more likely to preach a new religion if he were inspired by a real person? Or if he were playing out his role in a drunken game of 'Truth or Dare'?
• If Peter asked his pal Mark to compose a story about a crucifixee, would Mark be more likely to pick a real one — there were many to choose from — or just compose a fiction?

Obviously I've chosen these example questions to "advance" my case, but don't get hung up on that. There are dozens of other likelihoods we'd need to consider, and some of them would favor the mythicists. The above examples were just to give an idea of how real, valid Bayesian analysis MUST work.

The point is that no "Bayesian analysis" can be done without incorporating these likelihoods into the equation. I do not pretend to know what these probabilities would be, but I HOPE it's clear that we cannot apply Bayes unless we have some estimates for these likelihoods. Richard Carrier babbles about Bayes but does not even understand this much! It's difficult for me to even look at the probability-estimation parts of his writings without thinking "What an ignorant pretentious twit."

Whether a crucifixee came from Nazareth or not had little if any effect on mythologisms of the 2nd century. Anything from the 3rd or 4th century is completely off-topic in this thread, and even 2nd-century writings are of interest only if they shed light on specific 1st-century witnessing. This is why I ask mythicists here to help me understand their view of the Christians and/or Chrestians in Rome during the reign of Nero, only a few decades after the alleged crucifixion.

I do not expect mythicists to provide a detailed summary of the exact myth-making — it could have played out in many different ways. But it doesn't seem like too much to ask for the mythicists to present at least ONE (1) scenario. Let the scenario begin by discussing the Chrestians of Rome.

Yet ZERO of the mythicists here have deigned to say a word about that, or at least offered a view that doesn't fall apart on inspection. Would it be rude to say this is disappointing?

You've not been following the Trump Saga. It's more like people see something they like and try to identify with it. What's truth or statistics got to do with it - thanks TinaTurner.

 

[Swammerdami]

. . . rude to say this is disappointing?

You've not been following the Trump Saga. It's more like people see something they like and try to identify with it. What's truth or statistics got to do with it - thanks TinaTurner.

So you failed to comprehend a single word in my post, not even a single syllable.