The Christ Myth Theory

[neilgodfrey]

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?

That's not how historians use Bayes. The questions you have raised for probability estimates actually beg the question of historicity. They assume situations that would exist if the core of the gospel story is historical -- which is what we are trying to determine, so we can't begin with that assumption.

Bayesian reasoning is applied to the actual evidence before us. That is what Carrier has done and in that respect, for all his faults in other areas, he has applied Bayesian reasoning in history correctly.

 

[Swammerdami]

That's not how historians use Bayes. The questions you have raised for probability estimates actually beg the question of historicity. They assume situations that would exist if the core of the gospel story is historical -- which is what we are trying to determine, so we can't begin with that assumption.

Bayesian reasoning is applied to the actual evidence before us. That is what Carrier has done and in that respect, for all his faults in other areas, he has applied Bayesian reasoning in history correctly.

The questions I showed, whose likelinesses must be assessed for a valid Bayesian analysis, were just examples. In fact we would need to introduce multiple mythicist models. As I implied several days ago, the task would be inescapably difficult.

I don't know if you're correct that historians in general apply Bayesian analysis incorrectly, as Carrier does. Perhaps so. That would make their approach incompatible with what any competent statistician or mathematician means by "Bayesian analysis."

Examine the fundamental Bayes equation which I wrote out in LaTeX. Do you think the expression can be evaluated properly if relevant likelihoods (of which I outline a few examples) are not estimated? If that's your position . . . I am disappointed in you.

 

[neilgodfrey]

That's not how historians use Bayes. The questions you have raised for probability estimates actually beg the question of historicity. They assume situations that would exist if the core of the gospel story is historical -- which is what we are trying to determine, so we can't begin with that assumption.

Bayesian reasoning is applied to the actual evidence before us. That is what Carrier has done and in that respect, for all his faults in other areas, he has applied Bayesian reasoning in history correctly.

The questions I showed, whose likelinesses must be assessed for a valid Bayesian analysis, were just examples. In fact we would need to introduce multiple mythicist models. As I implied several days ago, the task would be inescapably difficult.

I don't know if you're correct that historians in general apply Bayesian analysis incorrectly, as Carrier does. Perhaps so. That would make their approach incompatible with what any competent statistician or mathematician means by "Bayesian analysis."

Examine the fundamental Bayes equation which I wrote out in LaTeX. Do you think the expression can be evaluated properly if relevant likelihoods (of which I outline a few examples) are not estimated? If that's your position . . . I am disappointed in you.

The questions you posed can only be assessed by a Bayesian application to the evidence.

Take your first question

• Are people more likely to be fervent about a charismatic healer or preacher they saw with their own eye? Or a fable told them about a personality from the previous century? And, more specifically, what are the relative likelihoods?

Such a binary overlooks the full extent of the evidence that raises a host of other possibilities beyond the simple two options you are advancing.

On what evidence do you base the hypothesis that anyone was fervent about a charismatic healer/preacher they witnessed? I don't know of any. On what evidence do you base the hypothesis that people were fervent about a fable told about a person from a previous century? Again, I don't know of any.

The evidence that we have is so much more elusive and opens up so many other alternatives than that binary allows. In fact, your binary is begging the question because it is obvious that people are more likely to latch on to a figure they have seen do impressive things -- that is, the binary assumes the conclusion that is in fact the question. Your binary points to a no-brainer of an answer because it assumes the historicity of Jesus and a historical core to the gospel narratives in the first place.

What we have are gospels that have been dated anywhere between ca 35 and ca 170 CE. And letters that are not independently attested until the mid-second century. Bayesian analysis has to ask questions about the evidence to see what comes closest to a particular hypothesis. You are asking questions about a hypothesis that assumes historicity -- which is the opposite of how it really works.

 

[Swammerdami]

Examine the fundamental Bayes equation which I wrote out in LaTeX. Do you think the expression can be evaluated properly if relevant likelihoods (of which I outline a few examples) are not estimated? If that's your position . . . I am disappointed in you.

The questions you posed can only be assessed by a Bayesian application to the evidence.

Take your first question

• Are people more likely to be fervent about a charismatic healer or preacher they saw with their own eye? Or a fable told them about a personality from the previous century? And, more specifically, what are the relative likelihoods?

Such a binary overlooks the full extent of the evidence that raises a host of other possibilities beyond the simple two options you are advancing.

On what evidence do you base the hypothesis that anyone was fervent about a charismatic healer/preacher they witnessed? I don't know of any. On what evidence do you base the hypothesis that people were fervent about a fable told about a person from a previous century? Again, I don't know of any.

The evidence that we have is so much more elusive and opens up so many other alternatives than that binary allows. . . .

It's hard for me to tell whether we are in agreement or if you are missing the whole point! Bayesian analysis involves a priori probabilities. I did NOT assert there was a charismatic preacher; rather I inquired about CONDITIONAL probabilities. These are scenarios of the form If A then B (with probability P(B|A)).

You're very correct about "The evidence that we have is so much more elusive and opens up so many other alternatives than that binary allows. " I've tried to hint at this, and indeed wrote "As I implied several days ago, the task would be inescapably difficult" in the post you quoted.

But let us do not imitate the man who looked under a lamp-post for his missing keys though he dropped then across the street! ("The light is better here!") But such misplaced looking is inevitable in any simplistic Carrier-like Bayesian application.

Let me paraphrase what I wrote in this thread a few days ago. I believe in Bayes Theorem BUT realize it cannot be applied with any confidence to difficult questions of this type. One must rely on intuition and guesswork.

That's why I've tried to focus comment on Nero and the Chrestians. The mythicists were so proud to note the Christ/Chrest discrepancy; yet none have answered my question. It would give us a chance to guesstimate some probabilities in a simple context. Care to take a stab at it, Neil?

 

[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!

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.

That's an interesting take on the Herod thing, trying to kill a Jewish bastard as backstory.

There are apocalyptic street preachers in my own city.

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

FDI, Marvin was the one who ordered the salad, not me.

 

[Politesse]

That's not how historians use Bayes.

No professional historian whose name isn't Richard Carrier would use Bayesian "logic" for anything at all.

 

[dbz]

I've tried to focus comment on Nero and the Chrestians. The mythicists were so proud to note the Christ/Chrest discrepancy...

Have the mythicists/amalgamists arguing here actually shown us a list of these other Jesuses? I'm not going to do all your work for you, but I recall one Jesus (NOT executed IIRC) sometimes conflated with the Nazarene who thrived nearly a century before the alleged Nazarene, and perhaps one insurrectionist decades later. There are a small number of 1st-century Jesuses mentioned in histories but who were not insurrectionists and not executed.

Have the mythicists/amalgamists arguing here actually shown us a list of these other Jesuses?

• NO, after all, how many Romans mention Hillel or Shammai, the two most famous Jews of the day? And you wonder why they don't list insignificant nobodies put to death! I do not offer any "proof" for this historicity besides Occam's Razor: There were thousands of men named Jesus in every generation of Jews. It was one of the most common Jewish names (it’s actually, in fact, the name Joshua).

1. Paul only used ΧΣ as a name and not as a title, and ΧΣ likely stood for the name Chrestus i.e. "good god/slave".
2. 99+% of the Hellenistic world would of understood the term Chrestus as a name meaning "good god/slave".
3. 99+% of the Hellenistic world would of understood the term Christos as a word meaning perfumed hair oil or wet plaster or similar.

~30+ Jewish sectarian movements have been identified, some being counterculture anti-temple hippies who like Paul may of worshiped Lord Chrestus.

Like the name Joshua, the same goes for the name Chrestus, I do not offer any "proof" for this historicity besides Occam's Razor: There were thousands of men named Chrestus in every generation of the Hellenistic world . It was was a familiar name to all.

Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. pp. 99f. The myth theory as stated by J. M. Robertson does not exclude the possibility of an historical Jesus. “A teacher or teachers named Jesus” may have uttered some of the Gospel sayings “at various periods.” (J. M. Robertson [1910], Christianity and Mythology, revised edition, p. 125.) The Jesus ben-Pandera of the Talmud may have led a movement round which the survivals of an ancient solar or other cult gradually clustered. [Robertson (1910) 284f.] It is even “not very unlikely that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs.” [Robertson (1910) 287.]

• Robertson, John MacKinnon (1910). Christianity and Mythology. Watts & Co. p. 125. All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods, presumably after the writing of the Pauline epistles.

 

[atrib]

There is only theology to argue.

As this thread ably demonstrates, the historical certainties about Jesus are an empty set. We can guess, speculate, and try to assign relevances to the surviving tall tales after their 1500+ years of corruption by both accidental errors and deliberate politically motivated alterations, but ultimately it is not, and never will be, possible to say for sure whether a real Jesus ever lived.

And, more importantly, it doesn’t matter one iota either way, to anything other than the entirely self referential mythology. The only real effects Jesus and the stories about Jesus have had on anything non-fictional are themselves fictions. Christians behaving in ways that are predicated on their beliefs in the myths.

Jesus the historical person has no more influence on reality than Marx had on the Holodomor - People being total cunts to each other (or being unaccountably kind, for that matter) because they interpret a bunch of writings as saying something that they wanted to say anyway, and as providing some kind of authoritative backing for their actions, is utterly unremarkable human behaviour.

If Jesus didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. If he wasn’t a God, or at the very least a prophet, then he was just one of millions of irrelevant people of his time. And Gods and prophets are solely theological in scope.

Take the theology away, and what are people left wasting their lives on here? Debating a meaningless question for which no evidence will ever exist might be entertaining, but it’s not worth shit beyond what little entertainment we extract from participating in the debate. It’s of no more value to humanity than any other light entertainment.

If the scientific and technological development of humanity had been held back by a millennium of diverting almost all scholarly effort, and the minds of almost every literate person, into analysis of a different light entertainment - the minute study of every aspect of Ross from the TV show Friends, for example - it would be no less stupid and futile.

Jesus is an irrelevant bit of mindless entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with mindless entertainment, but when people take it seriously, other people get hurt - just ask anyone who’s been caught up in football hooliganism. We shouldn’t encourage that.

The entire and complete discussion of the non-theological history of Jesus is simple:

Might have existed. Doesn’t matter in any way whether he did or not. We will never know anyway.

Anything and everything else is theology.

Is this your view about historical study in general, or just Jesus in particular? I don't find such questions meaningless; humanity is nothing of interest if it is not a conversation about itself, and the conversation stretches across the millennia. I think it matters greatly what stories we tell about our history, and why, and on what basis. Or if it does not matter, it matters as much as most anything else. The thing that offends me most about conspiracy theories is the disdain they engender for the power of evidence and the value of learning, and I think societies that come to champion anti-intellectual attitudes generally come around to a very sticky end - as history has shown us many times.

I think the point he was making is that there is no way to conduct any kind of meaningful historical analysis on whether the Jesus stories are based on a single, unique individual, or a group of individuals in history, or whether the stories are fabricated out of whole cloth because there is virtually no data to support such an analysis. I don't understand how you jump from this statement of fact to a discussion about championing anti-intellectual attitudes, since bilby is clearly not advocating for the latter, and his statements cannot be reasonably construed that way.

 

[Politesse]

There is only theology to argue.

As this thread ably demonstrates, the historical certainties about Jesus are an empty set. We can guess, speculate, and try to assign relevances to the surviving tall tales after their 1500+ years of corruption by both accidental errors and deliberate politically motivated alterations, but ultimately it is not, and never will be, possible to say for sure whether a real Jesus ever lived.

And, more importantly, it doesn’t matter one iota either way, to anything other than the entirely self referential mythology. The only real effects Jesus and the stories about Jesus have had on anything non-fictional are themselves fictions. Christians behaving in ways that are predicated on their beliefs in the myths.

Jesus the historical person has no more influence on reality than Marx had on the Holodomor - People being total cunts to each other (or being unaccountably kind, for that matter) because they interpret a bunch of writings as saying something that they wanted to say anyway, and as providing some kind of authoritative backing for their actions, is utterly unremarkable human behaviour.

If Jesus didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. If he wasn’t a God, or at the very least a prophet, then he was just one of millions of irrelevant people of his time. And Gods and prophets are solely theological in scope.

Take the theology away, and what are people left wasting their lives on here? Debating a meaningless question for which no evidence will ever exist might be entertaining, but it’s not worth shit beyond what little entertainment we extract from participating in the debate. It’s of no more value to humanity than any other light entertainment.

If the scientific and technological development of humanity had been held back by a millennium of diverting almost all scholarly effort, and the minds of almost every literate person, into analysis of a different light entertainment - the minute study of every aspect of Ross from the TV show Friends, for example - it would be no less stupid and futile.

Jesus is an irrelevant bit of mindless entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with mindless entertainment, but when people take it seriously, other people get hurt - just ask anyone who’s been caught up in football hooliganism. We shouldn’t encourage that.

The entire and complete discussion of the non-theological history of Jesus is simple:

Might have existed. Doesn’t matter in any way whether he did or not. We will never know anyway.

Anything and everything else is theology.

Is this your view about historical study in general, or just Jesus in particular? I don't find such questions meaningless; humanity is nothing of interest if it is not a conversation about itself, and the conversation stretches across the millennia. I think it matters greatly what stories we tell about our history, and why, and on what basis. Or if it does not matter, it matters as much as most anything else. The thing that offends me most about conspiracy theories is the disdain they engender for the power of evidence and the value of learning, and I think societies that come to champion anti-intellectual attitudes generally come around to a very sticky end - as history has shown us many times.

I think the point he was making is that there is no way to conduct any kind of meaningful historical analysis on whether the Jesus stories are based on a single, unique individual, or a group of individuals in history, or whether the stories are fabricated out of whole cloth because there is virtually no data to support such an analysis. I don't understand how you jump from this statement of fact to a discussion about championing anti-intellectual attitudes, since bilby is clearly not advocating for the latter, and his statements cannot be reasonably construed that way.

There is a significant difference between "We cannot answer this question reasonably" and "Don't ask questions you can't answer". Inability to resolve the question of Jesus' historicity does not render the discussion of said question "meaningless", as bilby has said in the quoted post.

But I am not interested in beating a dead horse here, I've spoken my piece.

And for what it's worth, I am well aware that bilby is not, on principle, generally anti-intellectual in outlook, hence why I was trying (perhaps clumsily) to point out that he probably would probably not make the same argument about other historical topics. We all have blind spots. I certainly do.

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally, I make the same argument of all historical topics: there was something that happened, these are the artifacts of what happened, certainty of what happened is not possible lacking the original conditions of the universe and a universe of time to calculate forward on them, and the truth is most likely an amalgamation of myths, tales, and historical facts associated with more than one personages named in the viscinity of Jesus, Chrestus being one of them and possibly the first of any significance in the Jesus series.

As to Alexander or a number of other topics, I make similar observations of these. People existed (not necessarily the ones referenced exactly) the acts immediately necessary to artifacts most certainly happened, and the veracity of any thing is merely that someone wrote it down and the immediate state of reality, as far as it agrees with the account, supports the conclusion.

 

[Swammerdami]

I've tried to focus comment on Nero and the Chrestians. The mythicists were so proud to note the Christ/Chrest discrepancy...

Have the mythicists/amalgamists arguing here actually shown us a list of these other Jesuses? I'm not going to do all your work for you, but I recall one Jesus (NOT executed IIRC) sometimes conflated with the Nazarene who thrived nearly a century before the alleged Nazarene, and perhaps one insurrectionist decades later. There are a small number of 1st-century Jesuses mentioned in histories but who were not insurrectionists and not executed.

Have the mythicists/amalgamists arguing here actually shown us a list of these other Jesuses?

• NO, after all, how many Romans mention Hillel or Shammai, the two most famous Jews of the day? And you wonder why they don't list insignificant nobodies put to death! I do not offer any "proof" for this historicity besides Occam's Razor: There were thousands of men named Jesus in every generation of Jews. It was one of the most common Jewish names (it’s actually, in fact, the name Joshua).

1. Paul only used ΧΣ as a name and not as a title, and ΧΣ likely stood for the name Chrestus i.e. "good god/slave".
2. 99+% of the Hellenistic world would of understood the term Chrestus as a name meaning "good god/slave".
3. 99+% of the Hellenistic world would of understood the term Christos as a word meaning perfumed hair oil or wet plaster or similar.

~30+ Jewish sectarian movements have been identified, some being counterculture anti-temple hippies who like Paul may of worshiped Lord Chrestus.

Like the name Joshua, the same goes for the name Chrestus, I do not offer any "proof" for this historicity besides Occam's Razor: There were thousands of men named Chrestus in every generation of the Hellenistic world . It was was a familiar name to all.

Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. pp. 99f. The myth theory as stated by J. M. Robertson does not exclude the possibility of an historical Jesus. “A teacher or teachers named Jesus” may have uttered some of the Gospel sayings “at various periods.” (J. M. Robertson [1910], Christianity and Mythology, revised edition, p. 125.) The Jesus ben-Pandera of the Talmud may have led a movement round which the survivals of an ancient solar or other cult gradually clustered. [Robertson (1910) 284f.] It is even “not very unlikely that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs.” [Robertson (1910) 287.]

• Robertson, John MacKinnon (1910). Christianity and Mythology. Watts & Co. p. 125. All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods, presumably after the writing of the Pauline epistles.

And once again, you go on and on, telling us what you've said before and what we already knew anyway.

I didn't ask you to summarize the evidence for your myth model (although you seem to espouse no SPECIFIC myth model). I didn't ask you to present evidence. I just want to hear, in 25 words or less, a capsule summary: Did the Chrestians and/or Christians in 60 AD Rome even exist? Were they the same people? What are the relevant provenances of the writings of Paul and Tacitus/Suetonis? Among the (dozens of?) possible mythologization models select any single model you wish, according as it is easy to defend, easy to explain, most probable, or whatever criteria you choose.

You do SEEM to be hinting at a certain model, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

If this task is troublesome, and there are zero specific myth models you wish to expound, just say so.

If, despite my best efforts, your latest recapitulation is what you thought I was asking for, I apologize.

 

[No Robots]

Personally, I make the same argument of all historical topics: there was something that happened, these are the artifacts of what happened, certainty of what happened is not possible lacking the original conditions of the universe and a universe of time to calculate forward on them, and the truth is most likely an amalgamation of myths, tales, and historical facts associated with more than one personages named in the viscinity of Jesus, Chrestus being one of them and possibly the first of any significance in the Jesus series.

As to Alexander or a number of other topics, I make similar observations of these. People existed (not necessarily the ones referenced exactly) the acts immediately necessary to artifacts most certainly happened, and the veracity of any thing is merely that someone wrote it down and the immediate state of reality, as far as it agrees with the account, supports the conclusion.

And yet you do not postulate a plurality of Alexandrii. I am sure that you might be able to find a few non-standard spellings of his name with which to indulge your amalgamania.

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally, I make the same argument of all historical topics: there was something that happened, these are the artifacts of what happened, certainty of what happened is not possible lacking the original conditions of the universe and a universe of time to calculate forward on them, and the truth is most likely an amalgamation of myths, tales, and historical facts associated with more than one personages named in the viscinity of Jesus, Chrestus being one of them and possibly the first of any significance in the Jesus series.

As to Alexander or a number of other topics, I make similar observations of these. People existed (not necessarily the ones referenced exactly) the acts immediately necessary to artifacts most certainly happened, and the veracity of any thing is merely that someone wrote it down and the immediate state of reality, as far as it agrees with the account, supports the conclusion.

And yet you do not postulate a plurality of Alexandrii. I am sure that you might be able to find a few non-standard spellings of his name with which to indulge your amalgamania.

Mostly, I do not pose the multiplicity of such because of the continuity of the campaign, for the same reason I pose amalgamation for Jesus because of the noted and clear discontinuity, both of histories and of details from later Jesuses being assigned to earlier historic contexts than we're possible.

If you found evidence that "Alexander" were in fact an amalgam of two different generals who sucked at administration and were brilliant military commanders existing both near or at the head of that army and campaign, I would not reject it but add it to my list of possibilities.

One or more military commanders with such skill and strategy moved through the region, and left a swath of poorly managed, temporarily conquered areas in their wake.

We have plenty of evidence of multiple crazy Yeshu's all of which spawned followers and cultish behaviors and all of which would have bled into each other over time.

This happens much more among peasants than among conquerer generals, of copy/repeats.

 

[No Robots]

Mostly, I do not pose the multiplicity of such because of the continuity of the campaign, for the same reason I pose amalgamation for Jesus because of the noted and clear discontinuity, both of histories and of details from later Jesuses being assigned to earlier historic contexts than we're possible.

These alleged discontinuities are entirely spurious and serve only to bolster your predetermined case. All sources indicate a single powerful personality.

This happens much more among peasants than among conquerer generals, of copy/repeats.

I am Spartacus!

 

[Jarhyn]

Mostly, I do not pose the multiplicity of such because of the continuity of the campaign, for the same reason I pose amalgamation for Jesus because of the noted and clear discontinuity, both of histories and of details from later Jesuses being assigned to earlier historic contexts than we're possible.

These alleged discontinuities are entirely spurious and serve only to bolster your predetermined case. All sources indicate a single powerful personality.

This happens much more among peasants than among conquerer generals, of copy/repeats.

I am Spartacus!

Alleged? Jesus Ben Stada son of Miriam wasn't born until after Ananus died!

The fact that Ben Stada's origin story was attributed to Chrestus and the times of Herod and Pilate attests to this discontinuity!

It is almost certainly an amalgamation of several historical figures in a fiction.

If you had evidence of as much for Alexander, I would accept Alexander as an amalgamation, too. Jesus can absolutely be attributable to a "Dread Pirate" effect, too.

Good of you to recognize it happens, though, Spartacus.

 

[No Robots]

Alleged? Jesus Ben Stada son of Miriam wasn't born until after Ananus died!

The fact that Ben Stada's origin story was attributed to Chrestus and the times of Herod and Pilate attests to this discontinuity!

It is almost certainly an amalgamation of several historical figures in a fiction.

Here is Constantin Brunner on the notion of two Jesuses in the Talmud:

Some passages seem possibly to refer to a different Jesus, who would have lived approximately a hundred years before Jesus Christ, and who is confused with the latter in Sanhedrin 107b, where Yehoshua ben Perakhia is described as the teacher of our Jesus rather than of this other Jesus. But I regard this as improbable, the result, more likely, of anachronistic obscurantism.

 

[Jarhyn]

Alleged? Jesus Ben Stada son of Miriam wasn't born until after Ananus died!

The fact that Ben Stada's origin story was attributed to Chrestus and the times of Herod and Pilate attests to this discontinuity!

It is almost certainly an amalgamation of several historical figures in a fiction.

Here is Constantin Brunner on the notion of two Jesuses in the Talmud:

Some passages seem possibly to refer to a different Jesus, who would have lived approximately a hundred years before Jesus Christ, and who is confused with the latter in Sanhedrin 107b, where Yehoshua ben Perakhia is described as the teacher of our Jesus rather than of this other Jesus. But I regard this as improbable, the result, more likely, of anachronistic obscurantism.

But we see Chrestus as living more than a hundred years before Miriam's boy.

And as for a Kabbalist and gnoatic who sees Jesus as an idea rather than a single person, and the story Mark told more as a testament to this idea ESPECIALLY if it is an amalgamation, I don't see why so much utter resistance to the idea.

 

[No Robots]

But we see Chrestus as living more than a hundred years before Miriam's boy.

Not sure how you are getting your dates. Here is Brunner again.

According to Suetonius, in his life of Claudius (c.25), the latter "banished from Rome"—in the year 51—"the Jews who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus." (The author of this statement seems to think that Christ lived in Rome in the reign of Claudius; the form "Chrestus" for Christus occurs frequently, as does "Chrestiani" for Christiani.)

And as for a Kabbalist and gnoatic who sees Jesus as an idea rather than a single person, and the story Mark told more as a testament to this idea ESPECIALLY if it is an amalgamation, I don't see why so much utter resistance to the idea.

And I do not understand how a materialist can fail to see that an idea is only real to the extent that it is materialized. The idea here is personality itself. Personality is a real idea only to the extent that it is actually personified ie., made manifest in a real person. This is the main achievement of Jesus. See John Macmurray's The Clue to history.

 

[Jarhyn]

But we see Chrestus as living more than a hundred years before Miriam's boy.

Not sure how you are getting your dates. Here is Brunner again.

According to Suetonius, in his life of Claudius (c.25), the latter "banished from Rome"—in the year 51—"the Jews who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus." (The author of this statement seems to think that Christ lived in Rome in the reign of Claudius; the form "Chrestus" for Christus occurs frequently, as does "Chrestiani" for Christiani.)

And as for a Kabbalist and gnoatic who sees Jesus as an idea rather than a single person, and the story Mark told more as a testament to this idea ESPECIALLY if it is an amalgamation, I don't see why so much utter resistance to the idea.

And I do not understand how a materialist can fail to see that an idea is only real to the extent that it is materialized. The idea here is personality itself. Personality is a real idea only to the extent that it is actually personified ie., made manifest in a real person. This is the main achievement of Jesus. See John Macmurray's The Clue to history.

The power of an idea is not in fact only reliant on the extent of instantiation.

Read anything of what I have to say on Last Thursdayism. The concept is clearly not only not material, it is utterly unfalsifiable and an altogether unexplainatory model for discerning why anything happens; indeed picking it up and looking through that lens at real history renders one blind as to rhyme or reason or cause.

Yet it is still a powerful idea in terms of understanding the concepts of "can" and "could" separate from "will" and "must".

So too is the idea of someone who sees radical love, comes to the understanding that this wisdom is something important, does, and raises from the dead is impossible and silly...

Yet it is still an unbelievably powerful idea, this idea of radical love. The death happened several times, as does the resurrection of the idea in the next mystic who actually sees through the murk to pick out this idea of radical love whole and perfect.

It is the reality not of some specific person's death and resurrection, but of an idea's death and resurrection across people that holds the power and this reification of the story need not be more than metaphorical, and is made more powerful when seen that way.

 

[No Robots]

The power of an idea is not in fact only reliant on the extent of instantiation.

This is like saying that the electric light is more powerful as an idea than as a device.

For an idea to be true, it must be instantiated. Once instantiated, it remains an eternal and universal truth.