The Christ Myth Theory

[Learner]

The usual Christian babble. The non Jewish Christians in the 1st 2nd century rejected Jews and took the Jewish scripture as their own. Ever since then antisemitism has been a part of Christianity.

It's really quite intriguing to see, as I see it, the portrayal of a 'desperate-like' insistence to "separate and disassociate" the Christian from the Jewish scripture. Are you a secret closet Secular Jew with some sort of sectarian grudge?

Anti-Semitic, oddly...is liken to your anti-christian ranting.

Jesus was a Jew preaching Mosaic Law, at least according to the gospels.

Follow Jesus. Keep kosher and go to a temple.

I see... then according to gospels, who did Jesus stone for breaking the Mosaic laws that he was preaching?
Who stones or kills people today for breaking the commandments? According to your reading of the gospel, this apparently is still happening today in the Jewish community.

Who today is following the Mosaic laws again?

 

[steve_bank]

A conensus by historians lacking physical evidence is not the same as a scientific consensus based on observation and experiment.

Given what we do know of the times a gospel HJ minus the supernatural would have been one among several was covered in a comparative religion class I took, taught by a Christian. The Jewish murky prophesy was a leader in the line of David. IOW a king.

The Jews did not want somebody telling them to love their enemies, they wanted the Romans out.

Masada. Suicide rather than be taken by Romans.

The idea that Jesus fulfilling a Jewish prophesy was sent to relieve the sins of all humanity present and future is a gentile Christian invention.

In the context of the times and Jewish writings, apocalypse and end of the world would mean the fall of Israel.

 

[Janice Rael]

There may have been a Jesus/Yeshuah who had a brother named James, but that does nothing to help establish the truth of the supernatural elements of the story of Jesus the Saviour who died for our sins.

But it's a matter of faith, is it not?

 

[DBT]

There may have been a Jesus/Yeshuah who had a brother named James, but that does nothing to help establish the truth of the supernatural elements of the story of Jesus the Saviour who died for our sins.

But it's a matter of faith, is it not?

Good 'ol Faith.


"Faith is like a piece of blank paper whereon you may write as well one miracle as another." ~ Charles Blount (1654-1693)

 

[Swammerdami]

You are entitled to your opinion; You are putting up a spirited defence of it. But it remains a mere opinion, because the question is one for which no un-corrupted evidence survives; And is of little import anyway.

The answer to the question of whether an historical Jesus ever existed is "Nobody knows, and as he didn't perform any miracles, it literally doesn't matter".

One could turn this observation around. If it "doesn't matter", then why are you and others here so adamant about his non-historicity?
LOTS of things "don't matter." Should I be ashamed that most of the books on my bookshelves are just escapist fiction? And most of the non-fiction is about history or science that will have zero effect on my actual life.

Serious Shakespeare fans may be seriously affected to discover who really wrote the works of "Shakespeare," but not me. I'm just intrigued by puzzles.

We know that many Judeans disliked Roman occupation. So there were many "Jesus-like" people. Did one of them have uniquely Jesus (but secular) qualities? Nobody knows, and it wouldn't make any difference to anything anyway.

You keep missing the point here. The cult of Christianity in Jerusalem began VERY SOON after the death of the Nazarene. There WAS NOT time for the elaborate mythicizations and conflations you and others posit. During his life Jesus may have been "only" a charismatic preacher, of a sort relatively plentiful in Judaea and Galilee during that era. But these preachers were specific people who attracted specific followings; and their martyrdoms, if any, were specific witnessed events.

To punctuate the point, consider Paul Revere, an American noted for alleged actions just prior to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. His exploits may be exaggerated. His fame might derive in part simply because "of Paul Revere" is an iambic diameter that suited the needs of a particular poet. But regardless of any exaggerations or fictions, Paul Revere did EXIST.

Maybe this "brother James" character adds a hint (even a strong hint) that there was just a single "Jesus". But it's insufficient, and smacks of far too much effort for anyone (without a religious motivation) to pursue.

So... You've not bothered even to read the relevant paragrah by Josephus? Figures.

My disagreement is not with your conclusion at all; It is with your fervor, and your misplaced certainty. To insist that the question is closed is as absurd as the insistence that it is important (to non-Christians) at all.

"Certainty"?? Just as the Hyper-atheists make up lies about the early Christians, now we're stating untruths about me? I think I rated the historicity hypothesis at 95% a few hundred posts ago (although that number has gone up somewhat).

And the question is "important" to me ONLY because puzzles intrigue me. (I composed some puzzles just for IIDB -- good puzzles, I thought -- and learned that most IIDBers didn't like and/or couldn't work puzzles. (You were an exception, bilby, and I'm sure you would have done much better with my puzzles if you were a puzzle lover willing to devote long minutes to them.)

What has become ESPECIALLY puzzling -- now MUCH more interesting to me than the Jesus/James quandary -- is the adamant refusal of the hyper-atheists to insist Jesus was a fiction. Just exactly like a Fundie who insists that all evidence dinosaurs are more than 6000 years old be ignored, the hyper-atheists here cannot tolerate the historical TRUTH that there was once a man called "Jesus of Nazareth."

Infidels here ridicule Fundie Christians but fail to realize their fictions are just as ... fictional. That is what intrigues me now about this "debate." Do the hyper-atheists here also deny the historicities of the Buddha? Mohammed the Prophet? They refuse to answer even such a simple question. I guess they're waiting for Richard Carrier the Prophet to divulge his Revealed Answer to such questions.

 

[bilby]

One could turn this observation around. If it "doesn't matter", then why are you and others here so adamant about his non-historicity?

FFS, I am NOT. I am saying don't know, AND NOR DO YOU.

And, of course, it really doesn't matter.

 

[bilby]

There WAS NOT time for the elaborate mythicizations and conflations you and others posit.

Why, how much time do such things take??

Minutes? Hours? Maybe a few days?

Certainly not more than that. Humans are nothing if not spinners of tall tales. It's basically our entire schtick - making up shit, to persuade other people to do stuff we want, rather than stuff they want.

There's your history. Right there. If your story is based on real events, so much the better. But that's far from being the norm.

 

[Janice Rael]

To @Swammerdami - apologies if this has been covered, but, how do you feel about comparing Jesus Christ of a Bible (not sure whose) to other legendary literary characters using what I've seen called "The Lord Raglan Mythic Hero Scale"?

This site seems unbiased, so, here's a quote and description:

Rank-Raglan mythotype

About:​

An Entity of Type: Thing, from Named Graph: http://dbpedia.org, within Data Space: dbpedia.org

In narratology and comparative mythology, the Rank–Raglan mythotype (sometimes called the hero archetypes) is a set of narrative patterns proposed by psychoanalyst Otto Rank and later on amateur anthropologist Lord Raglan that lists different cross-cultural traits often found in the accounts of heroes, including mythical heroes.

... Lord Raglan developed his concept of the "Mythic Hero" as an archetype, based on a ritualistic interpretation of myth, in his 1936 book, The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. It is a set of 22 common traits that he said were shared by many heroes in various cultures, myths and religions throughout history and around the world. Raglan argued that the higher the score, the more likely the figure's biography is mythical. Raglan did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at, rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical. The "Hero's Journey" (or monomyth) is a common story structure explored by anthropologists and mythologists. ...

The monomyth or Hero's Journey consists of three separate stages including the Departure, Initiation, and Return.

Heyyyyyy... hmm, I happen to have had an (ha, "an") epic journey that began here on IIDB, I was assassinated, but now I'm back, and I'm badder than ever, or, something.

Rank–Raglan mythotype - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Otto Rank​

Otto Rank, in 1909, developed a Hero pattern that was very much based on Oedipus' legend, followed Freudian psychoanalytic thought in that the pattern lingered on the Hero's relations with the parents and was limited to the first half of the life of the Hero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_mythotype#cite_note-In_Quest_of_Hero-2"

1. Child of distinguished parents
2. Father is a king
3. Difficulty in conception
4. Prophecy warning against birth
5. Hero surrendered to the water in a box
6. Saved by animals or lowly people
7. Suckled by female animal or humble woman
8. Hero grows up
9. Hero finds distinguished parents
10. Hero takes revenge on the father
11. Acknowledged by people
12. Achieves rank and honors

Lord Raglan​

Lord Raglan, in 1936, developed a 22-point myth-ritualist Hero archetype to account for common patterns across Indo-European cultures for Hero traditions, following myth-ritualists like James Frazer and S. H. Hooke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_mythotype#cite_note-In_Quest_of_Hero-2"

1. Mother is a royal virgin
2. Father is a king
3. Father often a near relative to mother
4. Unusual conception
5. Hero reputed to be son of god
6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
7. Hero spirited away as a child
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
9. No details of childhood
10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
13. Becomes king
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
15. He prescribes laws
16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
17. Driven from throne and city
18. Meets with mysterious death
19. Often at the top of a hill
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
21. His body is not buried
22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs

When Raglan's 22 point outline is used, a Hero's tradition is considered more likely to be mythical the more of these traits they hold (a point is added per trait). Raglan himself scored the following Heroes: Oedipus (21 or 22 points), Theseus (20 points), Romulus (18 points), Heracles (17 points), Perseus (18 points), Jason (15 points), Bellerophon (16 points), Pelops (13 points), Dionysos (19 points), Apollo (11 points), Zeus (15 points), Joseph (12 points), Moses (20 points), Elijah (9 points), Watu Gunung (18 points), Nyikang (14 points), Sigurd (11 points), Llew Llawgyffes (17 points), King Arthur (19 points), Robin Hood (13 points), and Alexander the Great (7 points). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_mythotype#cite_note-In_Quest_of_Hero-2"

There was always criticism of the hero pattern or scale when I learned of it, too.

New Testament researcher James McGrath argues that fictional non-royal figures will score low on the scale and thus would be misclassified as "historical", while historical rulers will start off with a number of points automatically which would make them more likely to be misclassified as "mythical", for instance, Czar Nicholas II was historical and scored high and Harry Potter was clearly fictional and yet scored lower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_mythotype#cite_note-McGrath-8"

Since the Rank and Raglan scales depend on the narratives about individuals, there is also an inherent problem in that sources will depict the same individual in a contradictory light as in the case of political figures who have supporters and opponents who wish to push contradictory narratives. ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_mythotype#cite_note-McGrath-8"

Some people accept RationalWiki as a source; their page has a section about how Jesus fits in here (or, didn't).

In Raglan's book, Oedipus is the highest, scoring 21.<a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hero_pattern#cite_note-wpraglan-2[2]

Another source gives the following scores: ... The highest figure here, Mithridates, was a real person, although his life is heavily mythologised. Nicholas II is another high-ranking real person.

We don't discuss Mitrahism (?) much on IIDB.

Application to Jesus​

Raglan omitted Jesus from his book reportedly to avoid conflict with his publisher.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hero_pattern#cite_note-wpraglan-2[2] However, the metric has been used by Jesus myth theorists to demonstrate that Jesus is likely an archetypal mythical figure rather than an actual human being. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hero_pattern#cite_note-wp-1[1] This does not prove that Jesus did not exist, but does suggest an extra-historical origin.

Click the link to read about the debate.

RationalWiki concludes:

Robert Price scored him 20; Jesus fails on having closely-related parents and marrying a princess.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hero_pattern#cite_note-reltol-5[5]

Dennis MacDonald in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark has argued that the Gospel of Mark, describing Jesus, is derived from the Aeneid.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hero_pattern#cite_note-6[6]

This shows the problem of ascribing the metric exactly to any individual as a certain degree of interpretation is involved. However, Jesus clearly scores highly. But so do some people we know were real.

I am interested in everyone's thoughts about this. Twenty years ago, I read a bit of Joseph Campbell on myths, and appreciated if not incorporated his views.

 

[Swammerdami]

To @Swammerdami - apologies if this has been covered, but, how do you feel about comparing Jesus Christ of a Bible (not sure whose) to other legendary literary characters using what I've seen called "The Lord Raglan Mythic Hero Scale"?

This HAS been covered. Not just ALL OVER the 'Net, but right here, by me, at IIDB. I'll just make two points:

(1) Raglan (and perhaps Rank as well) specifically warned AGAINST using the "Raglan score" as a way of guessing historicity.

(2) There is a non-trivial CRAFT to estimating probabilities. One of my 30+ U.S. patents deals specifically with this. Matching criteria like "Raglan scores" is not completely fallacious, if there's no better alternative, but to estimate probabilities the way Carrier does is too laughable to even be called "amateurish." Many months ago I started a thread or subthread on the topic, featuring a very trivial example where Carrier's method has no chance. The other participant had nothing but the equivalent of "I know nothing about nothing, but boy I think Carrier is the smartest man ever!"

 

[Swammerdami]

One could turn this observation around. If it "doesn't matter", then why are you and others here so adamant about his non-historicity?

FFS, I am NOT. I am saying don't know, AND NOR DO YOU.

And, of course, it really doesn't matter.

Some people are ADAMANT about J of N's historicity. Some are even ADAMANT that he was a miracle worker. Some here at IIDB seem ADAMANT that he didn't exist.

And you are ADAMANT about your agnosticism on the topic. But insist that others be agnostic about it too!

What I am ADAMANT about is that objective fact-based reasoning is to be preferred over uninformed prejudiced gobbledy-gook.

(1) That Jesus "of Nazareth" was crucified circa 30 AD is a FACT^*.​

(2) That George Washington was born in 1732 AD is a fact.​

If there were George Washington Deniers here at IIDB, I'd review their evidence and then, perhaps, defend Washington's existence ADAMANTLY.
(* - Professional historians often treat inferences with certitude as low as 98% as factual, and -- depending on definition of the "Minimal Jesus" -- the FACT of his existence may be as low as 98%. Washington's existence is probably well over 99.9%. So what?)

I might rate the certitude of J's historicity as less than 98% were it not for the "smoking gun" -- James the Brother. Is it curious that YOU, @bilby , are so ADAMANT about your agnosticism yet have no intelligent comment, as far as I've seen, to make sense of that "smoking gun"?

There WAS NOT time for the elaborate mythicizations and conflations you and others posit.

Why, how much time do such things take??

Minutes? Hours? Maybe a few days?

Certainly not more than that. Humans are nothing if not spinners of tall tales. It's basically our entire schtick - making up shit, to persuade other people to do stuff we want, rather than stuff they want.

There's your history. Right there. If your story is based on real events, so much the better. But that's far from being the norm.

There you go again, missing the whole point. Nobody in 33 AD would concoct a myth about a fictitious crucifixion in 30 AD, as well as a vibrant (but fictitious) ministry in 29 AD. People would KNOW it was a fiction. Even if you imagine that, by chance, all the people that COULD protest "Untrue! Fiction!" were, by coincidence, rendered mute, Simon Peter couldn't be sure of that; he would choose a REAL person with a REAL ministry and who REALLY was crucified. (There were plenty to choose from.) Capische?

(I pulled the "33 AD" date out of my ass; we can't pin such a date down; It was most probably much earlier, the same year as the Crucifixion. We can infer that Saul of Tarsus was already actively persecuting Christians at the time of Stephen's martyrdom, believed to be no later than 36 AD.

As the fame of Jesus "Christ" grew, charges were leveled against him: He wasn't really resurrected; the whole Arimathea/tomb story was fiction. Judas Iscariot was a hero, not a villain, etc. etc. But the one charge that, as far as is known, was NEVER made -- despite that it would be the Number One charge to make if your scenario were sensical -- is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

 

[Swammerdami]

There may have been a Jesus/Yeshuah who had a brother named James, but that does nothing to help establish the truth of the supernatural elements of the story of Jesus the Saviour who died for our sins.

Hunh? Off-topic. This thread is NOT to discuss any alleged miracles or "supernatural elements". The debate here is between two positions:

(1) Jesus was a common ordinary man who did NOT work any miracles; and​

(2) Jesus never even existed at all, ordinary or otherwise.​

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There may have been a Jesus/Yeshuah who had a brother named James, but that does nothing to help establish the truth of the supernatural elements of the story of Jesus the Saviour who died for our sins.

There probably was such a pair, likely quite a few. That is not an argument for historicity. One such pair may well have helped inspire an author to write a story. Neither does that confer historicity even aside the supernatural claims.

It's pretty obvious people can believe crazy things. We have Scientology and Mormonism to prove that, two belief packages that are no less weird than Christianity. That over centuries another religion began, an offshoot of Judaism is a no brainer. The thing about the Jesus tale is that all our sources are hearsay or come from persons who's testimony is not credible and who's alleged writings are disputed as genuine.

The fact is if you're gonna make money in the Jesus industry you gotta have some kind of seminal, real Jesus. That's why there is one.

 

[dbz]

The fact is if you're gonna make money in the Jesus industry you gotta have some kind of seminal, real Jesus. That's why there is one.

• Winner winner chicken dinner!

• I introduced my students to historical Jesus research (HJR).

HJR ask the classic historical and biographical questions: Who was Jesus? What did he do? What did he say? What happened to him? How did he see himself?

---

--Tite (28 January 2020). "Reflections on the Mythicists and the Historical Jesus". Philip Tite, Ph.D.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I wonder what Christology prevails among the Caucasian throngs that come to Trump rallies to chant, cheer, groan, boo, guffaw.
But...ask them? No thank you.

 

[dbz]

I wonder what Christology prevails among the Caucasian throngs that come to Trump rallies...

Probably not their first choice

 

[bilby]

Nobody in 33 AD would concoct a myth about a fictitious crucifixion in 30 AD, as well as a vibrant (but fictitious) ministry in 29 AD. People would KNOW it was a fiction.

How? From cable TV? Newspapers? Facebook? Twitter?

Some people, local to the area it was alleged to have happened, would know it was a fiction. Most people would not.

I used to see this with UK tabloid newspapers (and still do, occasionally, with their websites) - they would "report" some bizarre happenng, and say that it happened in Australia. Meanwhile, a similar report would appear in the Aussie press - attributed to "a man in England".

Making shit up is the quintessence of humanity. Or, as the Royal Society prefer to phrase it, "Nullius in Verba".

Simon Peter couldn't be sure of that; he would choose a REAL person with a REAL ministry and who REALLY was crucified. (There were plenty to choose from.)

See, there's an example right now. You are speculating, in the form of a statement of fact. People do that so often that they don't even notice.

You don't know what Simon Peter thought; What he worried about; or what he did to allay any worries he might have had. You just made up something that sounded plausible to you, and that you hoped would sound plausible to your audience.

And you did that because that's what humans do. It's our species' speciality.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Nobody in 33 AD would concoct a myth about a fictitious crucifixion in 30 AD, as well as a vibrant (but fictitious) ministry in 29 AD. People would KNOW it was a fiction.

How? From cable TV? Newspapers? Facebook? Twitter?

Some people, local to the area it was alleged to have happened, would know it was a fiction. Most people would not.

I used to see this with UK tabloid newspapers (and still do, occasionally, with their websites) - they would "report" some bizarre happenng, and say that it happened in Australia. Meanwhile, a similar report would appear in the Aussie press - attributed to "a man in England".

Making shit up is the quintessence of humanity. Or, as the Royal Society prefer to phrase it, "Nullius in Verba".

And supernatural woo is the quintessence of bullshit so add some of that.

I heard the exact same urban legend from two people in different states, both sincerely believing the tale. The first time I heard it I thought it was pretty cool what happened. The second time I knew it was bullshit. Don't recall if I admonished the teller.

 

[Learner]

The fact is if you're gonna make money in the Jesus industry you gotta have some kind of seminal, real Jesus. That's why there is one.

Bought any new books from Carrier or Dawkins lately?

(I'll have a chicken dinner too)

 

[Tharmas]

Swammer, you frequently assert that “99%” of all biblical scholars believe Jesus was a real, historical person, and you confidently believe that this alleged fact gives you license to explore the gospel accounts essentially as history, with, of course, a few miracle stories thrown in as fluff and embellishment.

The truth is that many, if not most, contemporary biblical scholars take a much more nuanced view than the binary “existed/didn’t exist.” Instead, they try to determine the nature of Jesus in his real life, and to what extent he existed as described in the gospel stories.

I’ve already mentioned above an eminent Biblical Scholar, the late Burton Mack. In his book Who Wrote the New Testament he doesn’t deal with a historical Jesus at all, but rather explores the gospel accounts as layered with different communities’ concepts of who Jesus was and what he taught.

Another eminent Biblical scholar, the atheist Robin Lane Fox, in The Unauthorized Version; Truth and Fiction in the Bible, almost reluctantly accepts the historicity of Jesus, based on a single line of text in The Gospel of John, which calls John “the beloved disciple,” and which strikes Fox as emotionally genuine.

Finally, there’s the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar]Jesus Seminar[/url], a group of fifty recognized Biblical scholars and one hundred lay readers who worked their way through the gospels trying to determine (by a relatively complex system of voting) which were the genuine sayings of Jesus and events of his life, and which were later additions. They conclude that the idea of the historical Jesus as a failed apocalyptic preacher points mostly to John the Baptist. In terms of the “burden of proof,” one must understand the gospels “to be so thoroughly embellished that one needs evidence to suppose that anything in them is historical” (quoting from Wiki).

None of this is meant to claim that Jesus did or didn’t exist, but just to point out that the gospels are not “history” in any modern sense, and that the historical Jesus is lost in the mists of time and myth.

 

[Swammerdami]

Swammer,

My friends call me Swammi.

you frequently assert that “99%” of all biblical scholars believe Jesus was a real, historical person, and you confidently believe that this alleged fact gives you license to explore the gospel accounts essentially as history, with, of course, a few miracle stories thrown in as fluff and embellishment.

There is much more in the Gospels that is probably fiction besides just the miracles. When did I write otherwise?

The truth is that many, if not most, contemporary biblical scholars take a much more nuanced view than the binary “existed/didn’t exist.” Instead, they try to determine the nature of Jesus in his real life, and to what extent he existed as described in the gospel stories.

I’ve already mentioned above an eminent Biblical Scholar, the late Burton Mack. In his book Who Wrote the New Testament he doesn’t deal with a historical Jesus at all, but rather explores the gospel accounts as layered with different communities’ concepts of who Jesus was and what he taught.

Another eminent Biblical scholar, the atheist Robin Lane Fox, in The Unauthorized Version; Truth and Fiction in the Bible, almost reluctantly accepts the historicity of Jesus, based on a single line of text in The Gospel of John, which calls John “the beloved disciple,” and which strikes Fox as emotionally genuine.

Finally, there’s the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar]Jesus Seminar[/url], a group of fifty recognized Biblical scholars and one hundred lay readers who worked their way through the gospels trying to determine (by a relatively complex system of voting) which were the genuine sayings of Jesus and events of his life, and which were later additions. They conclude that the idea of the historical Jesus as a failed apocalyptic preacher points mostly to John the Baptist. In terms of the “burden of proof,” one must understand the gospels “to be so thoroughly embellished that one needs evidence to suppose that anything in them is historical” (quoting from Wiki).

None of this is meant to claim that Jesus did or didn’t exist, but just to point out that the gospels are not “history” in any modern sense, and that the historical Jesus is lost in the mists of time and myth.

Everything you write is very reasonable. It might be a good study guide were I intending to become an amateur New Testament scholar.

But I am not. I am a retired computer scientist with a wide variety of interests; I stumbled across a message-board where most(?) of the participants doubt the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. This left me astounded and led me to wonder about the reasons for their belief, and to wonder if they'd studied any of the evidence.

If the Historicity is treated as not much more than a logic puzzle, with more interesting Biblical scholarship left behind, one simple clue becomes a key "smoking gun" -- the evidence for James the Brother. Sources include (but are not limited to) Acts, Galatians, Josephus. Mythical men do not have flesh-and-bones brothers.

Since, as I said, my main motive in the first place was to probe this peculiar fringe belief that the most obvious claims about the Historic Jesus were probably fictions. I challenged these "Infidels" to explain a LIKELY scenario in which Jesus was NOT at all historic despite James the Brother. Few if any produced any adequate answer.

How about you, Tharmas? I didn't see any solution to the James enigma in your post.