The Christ Myth Theory

[dbz]

Josephus is writing hearsay. He thought Jesus was a real person based stories he heard of perhaps things he read about.

Yes! and most trained historians, familiar with "Historical Methods", understand this. But I guess de Nile is not just a river in Egypt

 

[Swammerdami]

Josephus is writing hearsay. He thought Jesus was a real person based stories he heard of perhaps things he read about.

Yes! and most trained historians, familiar with "Historical Methods", understand this. But I guess de Nile is not just a river in Egypt

So: This is one topic on which you do NOT agree with Richard Carrier, PhD.

The quote is from Carrier PhD 10 years ago. It's likely he's flipped or flopped since then but I doubt he's flipped all the way to the Moogly-Dbz hypothesis.

Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to “Christ” in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus.

My proof of that is pretty conclusive.[sic]

 

[Tharmas]

Interestingly, both the Catholic and Orthodox churches deny that the Josephus passage refers to a literal, biological brother of Christ. They claim that on theological grounds, which as a methodology contains obvious flaws. Two thousand years of theological scholarship have certainly muddied the waters. Belief in the existence of a Jesus Christ who lived and died according to the Gospel accounts is required for most conservative Christians. Apologists like C.S. Lewis could hardly allow themselves to believe otherwise.

 

[Politesse]

If anyone genuinely wishes to sharpen their appreciation of the mythical Jesus question they ought to research Paul Bunyan. It's a fascinating read complete with oral tradition finally making it into poetry and verse anonymously, and then refined over time. The surname "Bunyan" is often associated with a French logger named Bon Jean. Is that our historical Paul Bunyan or is he an amalgam including Fabian Fournier, aka "Saginaw Joe" and nameless other tall tales? And even Babe has her own interesting development.

Even the language of the original stories was edited over time to appeal to a wider audience, removing lumberjack slang and jargon, replacing it with widely understood phrase and verse.

Of course, no one worships Paul Bunyan as a god so people are willing to write it all off as folklore or even "fakelore" as it was once labeled. There is certainly abundant "fakelore" associated with the Jesus tale.

Yes, but... there isn't a whole network of angry websites and rogue scholars dedicating all of their time to a desperate attempt to disprove the "Historical Bunyan". It's just a topic of conversation among historians and folklorists.

You aren't a conspiracy theorist just because you're willing to entertain the thought that JFK was shot by someone other than Oswald. You graduate to conspiracy theorist when you become certain that Marilyn did it, have every piece of evidence implicating her memorized and an explanation ready for every inconsistency someone might point out.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If anyone genuinely wishes to sharpen their appreciation of the mythical Jesus question they ought to research Paul Bunyan. It's a fascinating read complete with oral tradition finally making it into poetry and verse anonymously, and then refined over time. The surname "Bunyan" is often associated with a French logger named Bon Jean. Is that our historical Paul Bunyan or is he an amalgam including Fabian Fournier, aka "Saginaw Joe" and nameless other tall tales? And even Babe has her own interesting development.

Even the language of the original stories was edited over time to appeal to a wider audience, removing lumberjack slang and jargon, replacing it with widely understood phrase and verse.

Of course, no one worships Paul Bunyan as a god so people are willing to write it all off as folklore or even "fakelore" as it was once labeled. There is certainly abundant "fakelore" associated with the Jesus tale.

Yes, but... there isn't a whole network of angry websites and rogue scholars dedicating all of their time to a desperate attempt to disprove the "Historical Bunyan". It's just a topic of conversation among historians and folklorists.

You aren't a conspiracy theorist just because you're willing to entertain the thought that JFK was shot by someone other than Oswald. You graduate to conspiracy theorist when you become certain that Marilyn did it, have every piece of evidence implicating her memorized and an explanation ready for every inconsistency someone might point out.

It's best to leave emotion out of these discussions which is hard to do when a person's religious interests are involved. You're literally fucking with their identity so they don't play nice. But then again the christian religion hasn't played nice either so it's difficult to find fault with persons disagreeing with christian orthodoxy. In the end, religions really aren't very nice things. If there are things nice about them it's because they've merely appropriated certain cultural behaviors and stamped themselves as the owners.

 

[Politesse]

You're literally fucking with their identity so they don't play nice. But then again the christian religion hasn't played nice either so it's difficult to find fault with persons disagreeing with christian orthodoxy.

You can disagree with Christian orthodoxy all you like, without embracing pseudohistorical methods. If opposing Christianity requires unreasoned argumentation, the worth of doing so is rather in question I think. Polemicize all you like, just don't throw the social sciences out with the bathwater.

If Christianity is evil, is it evil because the certain truth of its origins is no longer accesible to historians? Or are there more substantive arguments to be made? If the former, Christianity is no more or less evil than any other ancient worldview.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If Christianity is evil, is it evil because the certain truth of its origins is no longer accesible to historians? Or are there more substantive arguments to be made? If the former, Christianity is no more or less evil than any other ancient worldview.

Derail

I'm not fluent in pagan religions or other religions generally. but within that milieu that birthed christianity did other gods of other religions commit genocide? Did they have evil gods too? I don't know.

/Derail

 

[steve_bank]

If anyone genuinely wishes to sharpen their appreciation of the mythical Jesus question they ought to research Paul Bunyan. It's a fascinating read complete with oral tradition finally making it into poetry and verse anonymously, and then refined over time. The surname "Bunyan" is often associated with a French logger named Bon Jean. Is that our historical Paul Bunyan or is he an amalgam including Fabian Fournier, aka "Saginaw Joe" and nameless other tall tales? And even Babe has her own interesting development.

Even the language of the original stories was edited over time to appeal to a wider audience, removing lumberjack slang and jargon, replacing it with widely understood phrase and verse.

Of course, no one worships Paul Bunyan as a god so people are willing to write it all off as folklore or even "fakelore" as it was once labeled. There is certainly abundant "fakelore" associated with the Jesus tale.

Yes, but... there isn't a whole network of angry websites and rogue scholars dedicating all of their time to a desperate attempt to disprove the "Historical Bunyan". It's just a topic of conversation among historians and folklorists.

You aren't a conspiracy theorist just because you're willing to entertain the thought that JFK was shot by someone other than Oswald. You graduate to conspiracy theorist when you become certain that Marilyn did it, have every piece of evidence implicating her memorized and an explanation ready for every inconsistency someone might point out.

It's best to leave emotion out of these discussions which is hard to do when a person's religious interests are involved. You're literally fucking with their identity so they don't play nice. But then again the christian religion hasn't played nice either so it's difficult to find fault with persons disagreeing with christian orthodoxy. In the end, religions really aren't very nice things. If there are things nice about them it's because they've merely appropriated certain cultural behaviors and stamped themselves as the owners.

With relgion in general we do not get tolerance in return for tolerance.

 

[Politesse]

If Christianity is evil, is it evil because the certain truth of its origins is no longer accesible to historians? Or are there more substantive arguments to be made? If the former, Christianity is no more or less evil than any other ancient worldview.

Derail

I'm not fluent in pagan religions or other religions generally. but within that milieu that birthed christianity did other gods of other religions commit genocide? Did they have evil gods too? I don't know.

/Derail

That sounds like a derail, alright. If the charge is genocide, and if that charge is credible, Jesus' existence or non-existence have nothing to do with that. As a polemic strategy, arguing about the historic status of religious founders really is not all that effective. Is anyone actually going to abandon their faith because some crackpot on the internet has a dubious historical hypothesis they don't want to let go of? And is that the reason you want them to abandon their faith? Not because genocide is wrong but because they embraced a new model of historiography? Seems a bit dangerous to me, what happens when they meet their next crackpot amateur historian and they talk them back into genocide again?

 

[steve_bank]

If Christianity is evil, is it evil because the certain truth of its origins is no longer accesible to historians? Or are there more substantive arguments to be made? If the former, Christianity is no more or less evil than any other ancient worldview.

Derail

I'm not fluent in pagan religions or other religions generally. but within that milieu that birthed christianity did other gods of other religions commit genocide? Did they have evil gods too? I don't know.

/Derail

That sounds like a derail, alright. If the charge is genocide, and if that charge is credible, Jesus' existence or non-existence have nothing to do with that. As a polemic strategy, arguing about the historic status of religious founders really is not all that effective. Is anyone actually going to abandon their faith because some crackpot on the internet has a dubious historical hypothesis they don't want to let go of? And is that the reason you want them to abandon their faith? Not because genocide is wrong but because they embraced a new model of historiography? Seems a bit dangerous to me, what happens when they meet their next crackpot amateur historian and they talk them back into genocide again?

Yes, but...religious actions toay and over history are based on the alleged historicity of Jesus.

Without the belief a Jesus existed there s no Christianity. Without a v belif in a gd telling them what to do there would be no religious conflict and oppression.

Debate on Jesus is indeed pointless in that it is not gong to sway believers.

 

[atrib]

I answered a question in the "Historical Karen" thread. My response really belongs here.

Carrier employs Bayes ridiculously but nobody complains about THAT, except for me.

What is ridiculous about his assumptions? Do you have a better way to analyze the historicity of the Jesus claims?

I've no problem with the principle of Bayesian analysis, but I think it is impossibly difficult to apply in many complicated cases.

If its too difficult to reliably estimate the parameters used in a Bayesian analysis, it is too difficult to make kind of assertion about the truth of the proposition.

Does Mark's narrative read like it's based on a flesh-and-blood man (as C.S. Lewis insists) or like it's pure fiction (as some others insist)? I don't know. Do you?

I haven't read Mark's narrative; I have read a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of unknown provenance. I have no way to verify the claims made in Mark's narrative, nor the ability to estimate even that the claims we read today are the claims originally made by the author of Mark. For all I know, the gospels could be fan fiction.

The analyst would get very different results from different opinions, but Carrier avoids the issue by simply crossing apparent authenticity of narratives completely off the list of evidence to be examined.

Here's a clearer example. In his Book XX, Josephus confirms the identity of the "Lord's brother" Paul describes in Galatians 1:19:

So [Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Mythical men do NOT have flesh-and-blood brothers. If Josephus really wrote this, it would show that he thought Jesus called Christ was a real historical person. The evidentiary value would be HUGE. But was this Josephus text doctored in the 3rd or 4th century by a Christian? I don't know; do you?

We don't know Josephus wrote this. Even if we were to accept Josephus as the author, we have no way to verify his sources.

And what if the original was "brother of Jesus whose name was James" with only "who was called Christ" interpolated? It would still have some evidentiary value. (Yes, Jesus was a common name — that's why suffixes like "the son of Damneus" or "who was called Christ" are appended — but why mention the brother at all?)

What are the odds?

I don't know what the odds are because there is insufficient information. That is the point.

I don't know. Maybe — wild guesses — 5% that the original Josephus never mentioned this James at all; 25% that he mentioned James but no brother; 40% that he mentioned the brother but not "called Christ", 30% that the paragraph is as Josephus originally wrote it? And there are plenty of other relevant facts. The head gets dizzy imagining the complicated flow graph that defines the Bayesian calculations required.

So what weight does Richard Carrier give Josephus' writing in his Bayesian flow graph? Zero. With a Z.

As would I. For the reasons stated above.

(That approach DOES avoid a lot of unpleasant arithmetic! ). "Your Honor, the entirety of Josephus' writings are inadmissable. I will move for a mistrial if opposing counsel shows any James or Jesus mention in Josephus to the jury again." ZERO. Carrier decides that Josephus' mentionS of Jesus were probably interpolations, but probably morphs into 100% certainty BEFORE he ever trots out Bayes' Theorem.

Do you understand my objection? Raise your hand if you do; you'll be the first one.

Feel free to produce Josephus for cross examination, and we can take it from there. Your analogy is flawed because witnesses testifying in trials can be cross examined.

 

[Politesse]

Yes, but...religious actions toay and over history are based on the alleged historicity of Jesus.

No, they aren't. Why would simply accepting that a historical figure existed necessitate religious actions? You're skipping over a lot of steps to paint your slippery slope.

Without the belief a Jesus existed there s no Christianity.

Highly doubtful, considering the history of this very conversation, but even if that were the case, the reverse would not be true; there's no reason that accepting the historical consensus concerning Jesus the person would force one to believe in Christianity, or to accept any sort of moral claim based on his teachings.

Debate on Jesus is indeed pointless in that it is not gong to sway believers.

Perhaps you're just not very good at it. It is entirely possible to change someone's mind about something. Even if a person isn't willing to convert to your religion right now, that doesn't mean you can't have a reasonable conversation with them about particular topics. Whether genocide is a moral wrong, for instance, or when it is or is not acceptable.

 

[steve_bank]

Yes, but...religious actions toay and over history are based on the alleged historicity of Jesus.

No, they aren't. Why would simply accepting that a historical figure existed necessitate religious actions? You're skipping over a lot of steps to paint your slippery slope.

Without the belief a Jesus existed there s no Christianity.

Highly doubtful, considering the history of this very conversation, but even if that were the case, the reverse would not be true; there's no reason that accepting the historical consensus concerning Jesus the person would force one to believe in Christianity, or to accept any sort of moral claim based on his teachings.

Debate on Jesus is indeed pointless in that it is not gong to sway believers.

Perhaps you're just not very good at it. It is entirely possible to change someone's mind about something. Even if a person isn't willing to convert to your religion right now, that doesn't mean you can't have a reasonable conversation with them about particular topics. Whether genocide is a moral wrong, for instance, or when it is or is not acceptable.

I am surprised at your response.

The Christian justification for actions is always god/Jesus says or wants us to do this. Your personal experience with Christians must be limited.

Somw may be swayed. If yiu are paying attntion to global current events religio is in full swing. Not just Christians in the USA.

I have had long running conversions with Christians and experienced multiple attempts at my having a conversion experience. Belief in bible among many is absolute.

I got invited to a private Evangelical meeting and saw it first hand. Visions, laying of hands, interpretation of scripture. My Evangelical frind thout I;d have a come to Jesus moment.

My Evangelical friend and hs wife had a family business. When I was consulting for them they had grayer meetings. They tyeded to substiute prayer for business planning.

The guy had gotten into high end audio and had a design form someone who died.. The wife believed I came along because god provides for them. Their daughter was headed to Billy Gram's alma mater Weaton College. They home schooled their kids. There is a well established national Christian home schooling network on line.

They asked me to be a judge at a regional Chrtian home school debate where kids comted to go to a national debate where they coud win scholarships.

I listend to a doze or so teens make aruments. There were individual dissertations and defense, and two party pro con debates.

They were all articulate and well read, and not just Christian literature.

There will be a few, but no secular debate is going to make a dent.

It is emotional not academic and logical based on facts.

 

[Politesse]

I am surprised at your response.

The Christian justification for actions is always god/Jesus says or wants us to do this. Your personal experience with Christians must be limited.

Somw may be swayed. If yiu are paying attntion to global current events religio is in full swing. Not just Christians in the USA.

I have had long running conversions with Christians and experienced multiple attempts at my having a conversion experience. Belief in bible among many is absolute.

I got invited to a private Evangelical meeting and saw it first hand. Visions, laying of hands, interpretation of scripture. My Evangelical frind thout I;d have a come to Jesus moment.

My Evangelical friend and hs wife had a family business. When I was consulting for them they had grayer meetings. They tyeded to substiute prayer for business planning.....

Your personal anecdotal experiences do not define the boundaries of the possible. Obviously, considering that the majority of the scholars involved in the study of the historical Jesus are faithful or agnostic to some degree, the issue is not an automatic deal-breaker for all Christians. I am familiar with the atheist habit of defining Christians primarily by the standard of American evangelicalism and ignoring all other permutations of the faith, but I do not particularly respect it.

I also don't think breaking the faith of an evangelical through logical reasoning concerning the historical Jesus question, were that even possible, would reap many dividends in terms of their capacity for moral reasoning. People are attracted to authoritarian faiths in the first place because they don't like thinking critically about their beliefs and actions; a debate about the historicity of Jesus isn't going to alter their fundamental habits of thought, even if you "win" them over to your side.

You're surprised at my "limited personal experience with Christians"? Well, I am rather annoyed with yours, because I don't believe it. I've read with my own eyes your conversations with liberal, gnostic, and esoteric Christians on this very forum. Myself included, at times. If we don't exist to you still, that can only be explained as willful ignorance, or a conspiracy theory in the present to match the one in the past.

And this is all, still, a derail anyway, because a person's faith orientation has no logical connection to whether or not there is demonstrable evidence for a historical conspiracy theory to invent a messiah or not.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And this is all, still, a derail anyway, because a person's faith orientation has no logical connection to whether or not there is demonstrable evidence for a historical conspiracy theory to invent a messiah or not.

FWIW I've never met a christian who didn't think Jesus rose from the dead, heaven is real and that they are going to fly away to experience both one day. These are the people easily won over by conspiracy theories and authoritarianism. Their brains are operating emotionally, not rationally and is why they can embrace such nonsense as fact.

There's no doubt that lots of "scholars" mouth the party line that GJ was a real dude for the sake of personal gain. But you've got to remember that for the most part all of this silliness has been spoon fed to them forever. Many do not have a choice if they wish to remain in their positions and sell their books, probably most. If it didn't matter whether they embraced mythicism or historicity the debate would be honest.

Maybe they should be debating Paul Bunyan and not a god.

 

[Swammerdami]

I answered a question in the "Historical Karen" thread. My response really belongs here.

Carrier employs Bayes ridiculously but nobody complains about THAT, except for me.

What is ridiculous about his assumptions? Do you have a better way to analyze the historicity of the Jesus claims?

I've no problem with the principle of Bayesian analysis, but I think it is impossibly difficult to apply in many complicated cases.

If its too difficult to reliably estimate the parameters used in a Bayesian analysis, it is too difficult to make kind of assertion about the truth of the proposition.

Does Mark's narrative read like it's based on a flesh-and-blood man (as C.S. Lewis insists) or like it's pure fiction (as some others insist)? I don't know. Do you?

I haven't read Mark's narrative; I have read a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of unknown provenance. I have no way to verify the claims made in Mark's narrative, nor the ability to estimate even that the claims we read today are the claims originally made by the author of Mark. For all I know, the gospels could be fan fiction.

The analyst would get very different results from different opinions, but Carrier avoids the issue by simply crossing apparent authenticity of narratives completely off the list of evidence to be examined.

Here's a clearer example. In his Book XX, Josephus confirms the identity of the "Lord's brother" Paul describes in Galatians 1:19:

So [Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Mythical men do NOT have flesh-and-blood brothers. If Josephus really wrote this, it would show that he thought Jesus called Christ was a real historical person. The evidentiary value would be HUGE. But was this Josephus text doctored in the 3rd or 4th century by a Christian? I don't know; do you?

We don't know Josephus wrote this. Even if we were to accept Josephus as the author, we have no way to verify his sources.

And what if the original was "brother of Jesus whose name was James" with only "who was called Christ" interpolated? It would still have some evidentiary value. (Yes, Jesus was a common name — that's why suffixes like "the son of Damneus" or "who was called Christ" are appended — but why mention the brother at all?)

What are the odds?

I don't know what the odds are because there is insufficient information. That is the point.

I don't know. Maybe — wild guesses — 5% that the original Josephus never mentioned this James at all; 25% that he mentioned James but no brother; 40% that he mentioned the brother but not "called Christ", 30% that the paragraph is as Josephus originally wrote it? And there are plenty of other relevant facts. The head gets dizzy imagining the complicated flow graph that defines the Bayesian calculations required.

So what weight does Richard Carrier give Josephus' writing in his Bayesian flow graph? Zero. With a Z.

As would I. For the reasons stated above.

(That approach DOES avoid a lot of unpleasant arithmetic! ). "Your Honor, the entirety of Josephus' writings are inadmissable. I will move for a mistrial if opposing counsel shows any James or Jesus mention in Josephus to the jury again." ZERO. Carrier decides that Josephus' mentionS of Jesus were probably interpolations, but probably morphs into 100% certainty BEFORE he ever trots out Bayes' Theorem.

Do you understand my objection? Raise your hand if you do; you'll be the first one.

Feel free to produce Josephus for cross examination, and we can take it from there. Your analogy is flawed because witnesses testifying in trials can be cross examined.

Do you have the slightest clue what Bayesian analysis even is?

 

[Swammerdami]

Let's recapitulate a bit. This thread is about "The Christ Myth Theory" — the theory that the Gospels derived ZERO material from the life of an historic Galilean named Jesus who was executed under Pontius Pilate.

We are NOT debating whether this Jesus walked on water; we are NOT debating whether he or Lazarus (a Galilean name, by the way) rose from the dead; we are NOT debating whether this Jesus delivered "the Sermon on the Mount" — that poetry may come from another preacher, who may or may not also have been named Jesus.

Given this, one may well ask Why do we care? Mythical or real-but-inconspicuous, might not the effect of this Jesus be about the same either way? Maybe. I don't care much, but got sucked into this rabbit-hole out of astonishment: that people really doubted that James the Just had a brother.

It was only a few weeks ago that I even became aware of the Christ Myth Theory: Maybe it's a 21st-century thing like Obama's birth in Kenya or Jewish space lasers!

I had fun doing my own thinking on the subject, zeroing in on the references to James the Brother as a key piece of evidence, and am flattered now to see that others agree! Had I earlier done the Googling I did just now, I could have saved myself a lot of typing and linked to this article, which is Tim O'Neill's comment on Richard Carrier’s article: Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200.

I found this only because I could not find a non-paywalled copy of Carrier's article. I found O'Neill agreeing with me all the way, even down to this sarcasm:

... the inevitable Dr. Richard Carrier PhD (who has a doctorate) ...

To refresh your memory, here are the relevant quotes

So [Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.. ... [But] it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without [King Agrippa's] consent. ... On which account King Agrippa took the High Priesthood from [Ananus], when he had ruled but three months; and made Jesus, the son of Damneus High Priest

I have struck out the four words Carrier and others believe to be interpolations. Carrier thinks the rest of the paragraph is authentic Josephus. He also considers the interpolation to be "accidental" rather than deliberate Christian doctoring.

Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to “Christ” in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus.

So ... What do Infidels think? Try to forget, if you can, that "your team" treats Carrier as a Great Prophet and is rooting for Josephus' text to have been thoroughly doctored in the 3rd century. DO recall, please, that "Jesus" was a very common name. Was the new High Priest the brother of the James who was stoned? What about Paul's James/Jesus? Two different Jameses and two different Jesuses? Or did some 3rd century scribe notice the accidental interpolation in Josephus and decide to exploit it by doctoring Galatians?

PLEASE ADDRESS THIS SPECIFIC ISSUE. The question isn't about Paul Bunyan, or whether Judas Iscariot flew through the air and defeated Yeshu the Evil. The issue at hand is to rate the plausibility of Carrier's solution to a quandary in Antiquities XX. Was the Jesus who was made High Priest the very same Jesus whose brother James had been stoned three months earlier?

 

[Swammerdami]

I will SPOILER this digression into probabilistic thinking to avoid distracting from the question I just posed about Carrier and Josephus.

Spoiler: Probabilitic Analysis

Re-reading my recent post addressed to atrib, it seems almost rude. But I get frustrated: People ask about Bayesian analysis, then ignore that concept and focus on specific evidence. Let's crawl before we try to walk. For this post, let's ignore anything we think we know about specific Jesus evidence and focus just on the method of Bayes. I'll start with a very simple application. Consider it a thought experiment.

You and a strange woman are the only customers at a graveyard-shift crap table. The lady has just made a pass-line bet and you toss a $100 chip on the table saying "Any Craps." But the chip rolls over toward the stickman. At the same time the dice are rolled.

Perhaps startled by the size of the bet, the stickman asks you if you want change or what. He deliberately blocks your view of the dice with his body waiting for your answer, but you catch a glimpse of a single die: It shows an Ace. The shooter can see both dice and is jumping up and down in apparent excitement.

What is the chance you will win the Any Craps bet? Never mind if you've forgotten the rules of Craps; I'll do the arithmetic for you.
(A) 11.1%. It was wrong of me to glimpse the Ace, so I'll assume it didn't happen.
(B) 33.3%. Easy-peasy. Two chances in six.
(C) Zero. The woman is jumping up and down! She's won her pass-line bet.
(D) 33.3%. The woman hasn't even looked at the dice. She is jumping up and down because she urgently needs to go to the bathroom.
(E) P×33.3%, where P is my weighted probability estimate of the woman's motive for jumping.
(F) 33.3% I don't know why the woman is jumping, so must ignore that clue.
(G) Zero. Too complicated. Whatever it is, I must assume it didn't happen.
(H) I don't know.

Here's a clearer example. In his Book XX, Josephus confirms the identity of the "Lord's brother" Paul describes in Galatians 1:19:

So [Ananus] assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Mythical men do NOT have flesh-and-blood brothers. If Josephus really wrote this, it would show that he thought Jesus called Christ was a real historical person. The evidentiary value would be HUGE. But was this Josephus text doctored in the 3rd or 4th century by a Christian? I don't know; do you?

We don't know Josephus wrote this. Even if we were to accept Josephus as the author, we have no way to verify his sources.

You don't know if Josephus wrote this, or the probability he wrote it is Zero? Those are NOT the same two things. (If you're not sure why the shooter is jumping does that compel you to disregard that clue?)

What are the odds?

I don't know what the odds are because there is insufficient information. That is the point.

So: Returning to the thought experiment, you have insufficient information to be sure why the woman is jumping up and down so you ignore that clue. Is this because you don't understand probabilities? Or you do know a little about them, but the estimations and calculations are too tedious?

 

[Jarhyn]

Let's recapitulate a bit. This thread is about "The Christ Myth Theory" — the theory that the Gospels derived ZERO material from the life of an historic Galilean named Jesus who was executed under Pontius Pilate

No, it is not. Mythicism, at least among Mythicists, is the hypothesis that ZERO of the material describing the life about a Galilean named Jesus executed under PP can be treated as "historical".

What you are describing would be "whole-cloth fictionalism" or "hard Mythicism".

All the Mythicists in this thread are soft Mythicists, as per the correction.

 

[Swammerdami]

Let's recapitulate a bit. This thread is about "The Christ Myth Theory" — the theory that the Gospels derived ZERO material from the life of an historic Galilean named Jesus who was executed under Pontius Pilate

No, it is not. Mythicism, at least among Mythicists, is the hypothesis that ZERO of the material describing the life about a Galilean named Jesus executed under PP can be treated as "historical".

What you are describing would be "whole-cloth fictionalism" or "hard Mythicism".

All the Mythicists in this thread are soft Mythicists, as per the correction.

I am NOT sure what distinction you are making. What does your "historical" mean here?

I think an historic Jesus existed with probability 95%. Would that have to be 100% for me to be an "historicist"?

IIUC, Carrier thinks an historic Jesus existed with probability 33%. Would that have to be 0% for him to be a "hard mythicist"?