The Christ Myth Theory

[steve_bank]

There is no archeological evidence of Egyptian captivity, the flood, parting the Red Sea, and wandering in the desert for 40 years.

There is evidence of Hebrews. Archeological evidence in Jerusalem.

None of it is proof Jesus existed or of the supernatural events in the gospels.

I wattled a good show a few years back presented modern archeological evidence matching the bible.

It looks like the story of the exodus from Egypt, a battle, and crossing a se are a conflation of dferent events at different times.

 

[steve_bank]

How did the Christ myth start?

An example. An evangelical Christian creating a self serving narrative Trump is sent by god. It catches on. A flesh and blood amoral Trump becomes an agent of god sent to help Christins through a crisis.

Watch CBS Evening News: Why Trump is garnering support from evangelicals - Full show on CBS

Lance Wallnau, a business consultant and a firebrand influencer in the growing Christian nationalist movement, gave a rare interview to CBS News about his efforts to promote former President Donald Trump among evangelicals. Major Garrett has more.

www.cbs.com

 

[dbz]

David Strauss (1808–1874), at [highlight=yellow]the age of 27 years[/highlight], pioneered the search for the "Historical Jesus" by rejecting all supernatural events as mythical elaborations. His 1835 work, Life of Jesus, was one of the first and most influential systematic analyses of the life story of Jesus, aiming to base it on unbiased historical research. Strauss viewed the miraculous accounts of Jesus' life in the gospels in terms of myths which had arisen as a result of the community's imagination as it retold stories and represented natural events as miracles.

Albert Schweitzer wrote in The Quest of the Historical Jesus that Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so".

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--"Quest for the historical Jesus". Wikipedia. Retrieved 6 September 2024.

[T]hree minimal facts on which historicity rests:

1. An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod).

That all three propositions are true shall be my minimal theory of historicity.

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--Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. 34. [NOW FORMATTED].

Plausible points in a hypothetical sequence of events:

1. Highly plausible. This really would have been a typical cult for this time and place.
2. Also plausible. Crucifixion was a standard Roman means of executing rebels, and having a crowd loudly claim you were the true King of the Jews come to kick out the Romans was the sort of thing about which the Romans would probably not have been all that happy.
3. Possible. This sort of rationalisation is in line with how people have been known to react to events that should theoretically shatter their most deeply held beliefs.
4. Possible. While it’s highly doubtful that early Christianity showed the massive rate of growth that Luke tried to depict in Acts, there are always plenty of people around in search of passionate leaders who give them a dream to follow.
5. Plausible, since this hypothesis fits very smoothly with what we know about one particularly famous and influential Hellenised member of the early church; Paul. We know that he taught a theology that he believed he’d learned from visions, that he saw these visions as a better and more valid source of information than the teachings of the existing church, and (from Galatians) that he had at least one clash with the existing church over differences in teachings. We don’t know the details of the theological differences (because we have no pre-Pauline writings from the original church) and so can’t confirm whether ‘Paul reinterpreted the crucifixion as a sin sacrifice when the original church hadn’t seen it that way at all’ was the actual point of contention, but this is, at the least, a very plausible point at which that belief could have arisen.

• Britt, Matthew; Wingo, Jaaron (2024). "Christ Before Jesus: Evidence for the Second-Century Origins of Jesus". Cooper & Samuels Publishing.

[21:55]
M>>> Scholars have known for a long time that especially the Pastoral Epistles which is first Timothy second Timothy and Titus were not written by the same person that wrote the rest and there are only seven that they generally attribute to this Paul figure so when we look at it we're able to see if that's true or not and if it's not true then every letter you take away from Paul even the the ones that aren't authentic that takes away a little bit of biographical information about him because each one has a little bit of info and the way we get we Whittle it down to a point where there's very little and we can talk about that in a bit.

More importantly we can look at the gospels and the reason the gospels are important is because right now you know people generally date Mark to 70 to 80 or so somewhere in that range sometimes they'll say 67 to 70 or something uh but it's right after the fall of Jerusalem in the first uh Roman Jewish War when we look at the Gospel of Luke we actually able to tell that a certain claim that was made at the end of the second Century about the authorship of the text is either true or false and it turns out that Luke looks like it was written in the 130s to 140s and if that's the case then you know the others would probably be around that time we know that John looks like it was relying at least in part on parts of Luke um Matthew seems to be in response to some aspects of this this uh I guess you could call it Proto gospel but at the time it was probably the first gospel written in the 130s or 140s.

The claim is uh that Marcion wrote the first gospel and that he that was his claim and that later Christians added the first three or four chapters of Luke and the last chapter of Luke and other content in there around the year 144 he either wrote it or or published it you know that part's a bit disputed and not clear the heresiologist especially uh Irenaeus said that no actually Marcion cut those chapters out and so what we're able to see is that when we look at a chapter level we would be able to tell did the same person write all of that text and then that would make Irenaeus's claim true and that would mean that the text was older than Marcion when it was published and so it would date back prior to 144 or is it actually the case where those first chapters were added by later Christians. It turns out those first three or four chapters were added by later Christians and the first Claim about the authorship of that gospel or at least the core content is dated to the 130s or the 140s and that turns out to also line up with the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Mark 13 is used to date Mark to the Jewish Roman war in the first century. That's actually very likely to be about the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 130s and then so that pushes pretty much all the gospel material into the 130s 140s and later. To tie that back into mythicism if you're not just looking at the first gospel story written 30 years or so or 60 or so years after Jesus you're looking at a 100 plus years before you get the first written story about Jesus

[25:10]
[highlight=cornsilk]J>>> Not only that, but we see the evolution of the religion because the earliest attestation to the Christians that seems reliable and to be fair uh the attestation is from Pliny the Younger and there's already some questions using stylometry. There's already some questionable material there um but if it's authentic the first attestation to the Christians would be from Pliny the Younger in 111 and he doesn't mention anything about them that's in connection to Judaism uh to Judea any Jewish man that they worship he doesn't even say that it's a man doesn't say the name Jesus uh just connects them with a Christ figure um and so over time we see this character evolve not only does the First Gospel that's published would be evangelin from Marcion um in the like the early 140s maybe late 130s at at earliest um at at that particular point the gospel didn't have a birth story it just it kind of had Jesus as a demigod who came down descended out of heaven and over time he gets a birth story he gets a genealogy and there's you know 40 plus gospels that are written around this time to the third century and they just each one is more Fantastical than the rest you know it just gets more and more Bolder crazier claims.[/highlight]

[27:15]
M>>> So with Mark 13—that is paralleled in Matthew 24 and Luke 21—it's called the little apocalypse or the Olivet discourse. That is generally assumed to be talking about the fall of the Temple and it on the face value it is talking about the fall of the temple. But we can identify that the author of that is not the same author as the rest of Mark which is problematic uh even that aside there is very clear reference to something standing on the Temple mount the abomination of desolation uh St Jerome was writing on his commentary on Matthew that the Matthew version and also Mark and Luke by extension was either talking about when Pilate put pictures of um the emperor in the Temple or something like that which there's no evidence for and there may be one other claim for or it was a spiritual thing or it was talking about the Bar Kokhba revolt. So people knew it even back then that one of the possible things I was talking about was the Bar Kokhba revolt which happens in 135 and that destroyed all of Judea and we think that Mark 13 is using the same approach that Daniel does.

If you're familiar with the Book of Daniel, it is probably written in the 160s BCE but it's cast back about 400 years more uh but we know it's about 160 BC because it's talking about the original first destruction of the temple uh by the Greeks and they use the same language abomination of desolation when they put a statue in there and that's why they use it in Mark is because in 135 or around that time period after emperor Hadrian more or less wiped out the entire population of Judea and had Jerusalem there he put up a statue of Jupiter and himself and we have attestation to the statue in multiple sources.

When we tie that in with the fact that we can tell that the first three or four chapters of Luke were written by a different author than the rest of Luke and that the claim was that either this was from the same author and Marcion stole it or Marcion originally wrote the first chapters 4 through 23 or so and then other Christians tacked on to it around the same time as the Bar Kokhba revolt you start putting these things together the fact that the first collection of Paul's letters that we have comes from the 130s or 140s also with Marcion um you know we don't have really any attestation to Paul prior to that aside from you might say uh first Clement which we can get into the dating and the letters of Ignacius and Polycarp which again we can get into the dating.

It all seems to just happen around this 130 area and that's when we start seeing you know responses to Christianity you know Celsus starts replying probably 30 years after that it all starts to happen around this one time and we have evidence from multiple angles that it looks like that's when this really kicked off not to say that there weren't Christians before but that the story of Jesus and the early Apostles came from that era.
[30:08]

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:21:55 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

[30:09]
...there's three iterations of Christianity in the second century:

1. The earliest form of Christianity which would be like a mystery cult, so to speak, that doesn't have a gospel or Jesus really concept .
2. Then there's more of like the you could say gnostic period where it's almost a blend between this mystery cult or a pretty good blend between the mystery cult and Christianity as we know it.
   and
3. The third would be well Christianity, as we know it, with the gospels and everything like proto Catholicism...

[30:42]

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:30:09 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

31:20
GE>>> The question of Jesus existing as a mythical person rather than as a real physical person on Earth .

J>>> Part of the issue is the fact that a lot of the [highlight=yellow]information even in the natural sense for Jesus is either lifted from you know some kind of Prior work[/highlight] uh or just doesn't really make much sense at all.

For instance in reality there's no evidence whatsoever or no good evidence to put Nazareth as an actual Community or actual town city there in the first three decades of the first century um there's evidence of you know human civilization in the area sure but I mean I can go out into the woods here in rural Texas and find money and forks and tires that doesn't mean that there's a city there um it just means that people are in the area of it um it Nazareth never shows up in any lists or Maps uh until oh my gosh I think from a non-Christian standpoint I don't think it shows up until the third or fourth Century um Josephus himself is From Galilee never mentions uh never mentions Nazareth but mentions a town that's pretty much right next to it it's not very big called sephus he mentions that multiple times um or never yeah yeah now another but part of the issue there is that within the gospels uh Nazareth is referred to as a place that has a synagogue which is already another an anachronistic kind of issue there uh but on top of that it's referred to in a negative sense as if people know uh they don't like it they say oh what good can come from Nazareth but that doesn't even line up with what Matthew says which he claims that there's a prophecy that says Jesus comes from Nazareth to fulfill what the prophets say but we don't have a prophecy that mentions Nazarene or Nazareth or anything it's not a town or a city that's mentioned in the Old Testament.
33:23

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:31:20 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

36:51
[highlight=cornsilk]M>>>We think that the Marcionite branch or some Proto Marcionite branch is more or less the origin for the Christian beliefs and they believed that Jesus was more or less a demigod like jiren was saying his first appearance is actually in Luke four what we call Luke 4 now at least where he descends into capernium he went down into capernium is how it's translated now but in the original version marcion's version he literally descends from the sky we have multiple attestations to this.

And you can see in the Gospel of Luke where the editors the later Christian editors in the 140s 150s 160s actually flip verses and they get the they mess the whole story up and you don't really see it it's not talked about a lot but it's Luke 4 let's see 23 right Jaren [/highlight]

J>>>Yes Luke 4:23 is the in you you can notice that or you can see in the English version of the Bible you can see where it's that's where it's more or less starting to stitch together with marcion's prior gospel

[highlight=cornsilk]M>>>Right so what happens there is it's that line you know physician heal thyself um they say do here in your hometown because he just arrived at Nazareth again what you did in capernium well two problems with that first off in the story of Luke he has not been to capernium yet he doesn't go to capernum until 4:31 and on top of that he hasn't performed any Miracles or signs or healings yet because he doesn't do that until later in Luke but what happened is the later proto Catholic editors of what we have of Luke today messed up the order in marcion's gospel and so we can see that textual evidence there on top of the fact that we can see the prior three chapters were added on by a later author so the original Gospel of Luke at least was marcion's version and it's very possible that it was the original gospel and that's exactly when we start seeing attestation to all these figures for example Justin Martyr writing in the 150s and 160s never says the name Paul one time.

So he doesn't have access to gospels he he has what he calls Memoirs of the Apostles and maybe they're textual gospels at that point but he doesn't have our four gospels he seems to use some variation of the Gospel of Peter and before that we don't have anybody talking about gospels even if you attribute like ignacius and Clement to earlier they don't talk about any gospels so like you said you know the gospels might have been based on Paul whether it was that way or the other way around it's clear that nobody's really talking gospels until much later [/highlight]

J>>>Right so in order for the Jesus to be a historical figure uh that people are following and somehow connected to this Christianity it would have to be something that after 30 would have been so small that we don't see any sign of them whatsoever uh but somehow the story lives on and once Pliny runs into them up in Northern Asia Minor which means they spread so far from Judea that they go all the way to Northern Asia Minor uh that he doesn't even find a connection with Judaism or really anything there

There is a letter um quoted by a former slave of emperor hadrien that mentions that uh the Christians live exist in Alexandria this is in the 130s um and he says he's writing to a friend in Alexandria he says hey there's Christians in Alexandria Egypt but there's also uh there's also Christians up in the northern part of the Roman Empire and they worship Serapis Christus.

Now Serapis, in specific, was a God that was worshiped in Asia Minor um as well as you know Marcion comes from Sinope as Matthew stated that is the biggest city in the specific province that Piny the Younger was governor in 111 so it it's just there's no there's no evidence of connection between a Jesus figure and Christianity and the earliest form of Christianity.
A good 80 80 years after the supposed death of this person it just it's not just an argument of Silence from for Jesus it's for Jesus it's for Paul it's for the disciples it's for thousands of supposed Christians there's just nothing there but we do see it later as part of an evolution

And that's that's I guess where I'm coming from that I understand that people say hey how does dating the text later prove that Jesus doesn't exist and it's like okay if you understand how religions evolve if you understand how thought evolves over time we can see that in a much clearer view if things are in the second century that's why people like Bart Ehrman don't exactly want to um assume that Jesus is is uh fictional because if we have texts that are in the first century if we have texts that are dated with these mainstream dates then it's you know it's not that far off from the supposed death we don't see that Evolution like we're talking about as clearly.
42:16

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"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:36:51 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

For me the question is very simple. Were the Gospel narratives based upon the life of a real person named Jesus? Are they accounts of the ministry teachings of a real person named Jesus?

If the answer is no then "Jesus did not exist."

• If yes. Then Jesus, a H. sapien on Earth, is defined as one whose historicity is > 50 percent on a methodologically correct Bayesian approach to the putative valid evidence.

 

[FievelJ]

I just went back to the Wikipedia page on the Christ myth theory, which I haven't looked at in years, to find it is basically being portrayed as analogous to Young Earth Creationism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory . And, Internet Infidels/Secular Web gets a mention:

Ehrman notes that "the mythicists have become loud, and thanks to the Internet they've attracted more attention".[380] Within a few years of the inception of the World Wide Web (c. 1990), mythicists such as Earl Doherty began to present their argument to a larger public via the internet.[note 35] Doherty created the website The Jesus Puzzle in 1996,[web 24] while the organization Internet Infidels has featured the works of mythicists on their website[381] and mythicism has been mentioned on several popular news sites.[382]

Since its resurgence in the 1970's, proponents of the Christ Myth Theory have only managed to publish one peer reviewed book on the topic, "On The Historicity Of Jesus" by Dr. Richard Carrier, with the footnote that this was published by Sheffield, who also published Thomas Brodie's mythicist autobiography, so they seem to like that sort of thing. The only related peer reviewed publication was by Dr. Raphael Lataster, arguing for Jesus Agnosticism. I have interviewed Richard before and find his argument rigorous and plausible, though I ultimately disagree with mythicism on interpretive grounds.

What do others think of Jesus Mythicism? Do you find it plausible, or finge/crank? Would anyone be interested in discussing the recent Loftus/Price mythicist book Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist.

View attachment 38791

I realize I'm raising this in the context of Internet Infidels / Secular Web, where Richard used to work, and he has a significant online following, so there may be some interesting discussions to be had!

I understand and can see the first post here is rather old. But if this is a book I am kind of interested, one main reason is as after I left it all for atheism this kind of a question does linger in my mind. Did Jesus Christ ever exist, the says, "Did he even exist." I do wonder that, and one of the things to which I have had chats with other people suggested actually. If he did exist at all, he was probably really just an ordinary human being.

Still the question whether or not he existed in the first place does go around my mind, and I believe that is probably a natural thing too.

Weird question, and kind of OT, would I be able to learn and except everything out there when being this open, in a 1,000 years span, if I lived that long? For some reason I feel that I still would only achieve 5% and no more anyways.


Sorry, back On Topic, yeah really though, I often do wonder if he ever existed in the first place.


Thanks For Reading. PS, my name should almost be Nubs the Pooba right now, he's my current number 1, but I still do try to fit Fievel in there. I hope it is okay to include a pic of Nubs, it is G Rated.

 

[dbz]

• HJ==Jesus existed in the first place.

[If we don't have any evidence] I often do wonder if he ever existed in the first place.

If we don't have any evidence for unicorns, I often wonder if ever unicorns...

If neither gospels+Paul speak of a historical Jesus then there is no evidence from the time of the gospels and Paul for a historical Jesus.

If there is no evidence for a HJ, then that counts, quite reasonably many would say, as evidence against an HJ having existed.

By then elaborating what happened in generations after the time of the supposed HJ does not add anything to an argument for an HJ.
[...]
If we don't have any evidence for unicorns we cannot say whether they exist or not -- because, to complete the circle -- we have no evidence.

The MSS are not HJ evidence:

Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: the order of books according to Jesus Chri st
[...]
Sample first chapter and Table of Contents

 

[FievelJ]

• HJ==Jesus existed in the first place.

[If we don't have any evidence] I often do wonder if he ever existed in the first place.

If we don't have any evidence for unicorns, I often wonder if ever unicorns...

Of course Unicorns are real.
LOL.

If neither gospels+Paul speak of a historical Jesus then there is no evidence from the time of the gospels and Paul for a historical Jesus.

If there is no evidence for a HJ, then that counts, quite reasonably many would say, as evidence against an HJ having existed.

By then elaborating what happened in generations after the time of the supposed HJ does not add anything to an argument for an HJ.
[...]
If we don't have any evidence for unicorns we cannot say whether they exist or not -- because, to complete the circle -- we have no evidence.

Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: the order of books according to Jesus Chri st
[...]
Sample first chapter and Table of Contents

 

[dbz]

Host @37:51, "What about the slightly more modest claim that the gospels are still rooted in eye and ear witness testimony..."

Dr. Robyn Faith Walsh @38:59, "I think that's a fair portrait of what may be going on. The caveat..."

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Did Eyewitnesses Write the Gospels? YouTube

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[dbz]

If so much could be believed with total conviction of such a mythical person (the “Jesus” who predates and post-dates his Earthly life), then why would it take any more effort to believe it of a wholly mythical person? After all, no mainstream scholar believes any such Jesus exists who predates and post-dates his Earthly life.

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--Ahistoricity Agnosticism

The “I am not persuaded” line:

How might we recognize inappropriate doubt masquerading as valid criticism? Such doubt generally does not attend to the actual data and its explanation, falsifying it directly. It begs the question. Or, more commonly, it suggests a comparative situation but fails to supply the comparison; a given argument might be pronounced insufficient to convince, but what exactly establishes argumentative sufficiency is not stated (and usually cannot be). Of course, such judgments are meaningless without an overt standard or measure of sufficiency. And that measure is the data itself in relation to the broader object under investigation and the current explanation in play! Do these actually match up, or is a problem discernible in their relationship(s)? If the latter, the appropriate critical process should elicit doubt, along with the modification or abandonment of the hypothesis. Modification or the clear provision of an explanatory alternative is a signal that the appropriate critical method and doubt are operative. Without these elements, a doubting critic runs the danger of merely posturing.

Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2014. p. 18

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--Godfrey, Neil (27 August 2024). ""I am not persuaded" -- valid criticism or merely posturing?". Vridar.

 

[dbz]

Two different (a)historicity hypotheses:

1. The view that, given a sect raising Moses to archangelic heights for the his role in Exodus, another sect raised Joshua to archangelic heights as superior to Moses (=the Law).
2. The view that YHWH, meant as the Jewish "Second Power in Heaven", was (soon or late) called Jesus before that celestial creature was euhemerized, i.e. when said creature was initially conceived as an entirely celestial being and later given a historical narrative.
   • Jesus is therefore "YHWH-saves" in a concrete sense: Jesus is developed out of YHWH previously saving Jacob/Israel in the holy scriptures.
   • This hypothesis maintains a glimmer of the desperately needed HJ (for HJ-devotees and HJ-cranks). Since it is possible that original devotees had perceptions of the dead historical human (i.e. the post mortem HJ) as a pre-Christian angel. Said angel had the common Jewish personal name Jesus—among other names—as attested by Philo.

Philo tells us (repeatedly) that this [celestial] creature is also God’s high priest.

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--Carrier (22 January 2023). "Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

Second Temple texts in which it appears both Adam and the high priest are objects of such worship. (p. 18)

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--Wilhite, David E.; Winn, Adam (2024). "Israel's Lord: YHWH as "Two Powers" in Second Temple Literature". Rowman & Littlefield.

 

[FievelJ]

Two different (a)historicity hypotheses:

1. The view that, given a sect raising Moses to archangelic heights for the his role in Exodus, another sect raised Joshua to archangelic heights as superior to Moses (=the Law).
2. The view that YHWH, meant as the Jewish "Second Power in Heaven", was (soon or late) called Jesus before that celestial creature was euhemerized, i.e. when said creature was initially conceived as an entirely celestial being and later given a historical narrative.
   • Jesus is therefore "YHWH-saves" in a concrete sense: Jesus is developed out of YHWH previously saving Jacob/Israel in the holy scriptures.
   • This hypothesis maintains a glimmer of the desperately needed HJ (for HJ-devotees and HJ-cranks). Since it is possible that original devotees had perceptions of the dead historical human (i.e. the post mortem HJ) as a pre-Christian angel. Said angel had the common Jewish personal name Jesus—among other names—as attested by Philo.

Philo tells us (repeatedly) that this [celestial] creature is also God’s high priest.

---

--Carrier (22 January 2023). "Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

Second Temple texts in which it appears both Adam and the high priest are objects of such worship. (p. 18)

---

--Wilhite, David E.; Winn, Adam (2024). "Israel's Lord: YHWH as "Two Powers" in Second Temple Literature". Rowman & Littlefield.

Either way I doubt Jesus was every real, just one of them many things I already wondered about things.
Just like how certain chapters were suppose to have been written by a certain disciple if you will. And that Jesus never even wrote his own words. Too many consistencies all together, that's all the bible.

God made us from some dirt in his own image, as if we were always human. LOL. Evolution is the real truth of course. But Jesus ever existing, yeah truthfully I seriously doubt it.

 

[FievelJ]

Two different (a)historicity hypotheses:

1. The view that, given a sect raising Moses to archangelic heights for the his role in Exodus, another sect raised Joshua to archangelic heights as superior to Moses (=the Law).
2. The view that YHWH, meant as the Jewish "Second Power in Heaven", was (soon or late) called Jesus before that celestial creature was euhemerized, i.e. when said creature was initially conceived as an entirely celestial being and later given a historical narrative.
   • Jesus is therefore "YHWH-saves" in a concrete sense: Jesus is developed out of YHWH previously saving Jacob/Israel in the holy scriptures.
   • This hypothesis maintains a glimmer of the desperately needed HJ (for HJ-devotees and HJ-cranks). Since it is possible that original devotees had perceptions of the dead historical human (i.e. the post mortem HJ) as a pre-Christian angel. Said angel had the common Jewish personal name Jesus—among other names—as attested by Philo.

Philo tells us (repeatedly) that this [celestial] creature is also God’s high priest.

---

--Carrier (22 January 2023). "Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

Second Temple texts in which it appears both Adam and the high priest are objects of such worship. (p. 18)

---

--Wilhite, David E.; Winn, Adam (2024). "Israel's Lord: YHWH as "Two Powers" in Second Temple Literature". Rowman & Littlefield.

Either way I doubt Jesus was every real, just one of them many things I already wondered about things.
Just like how certain chapters were suppose to have been written by a certain disciple if you will. And that Jesus never even wrote his own words. Too many consistencies all together, that's all the bible.

God made us from some dirt in his own image, as if we were always human. LOL. Evolution is the real truth of course. But Jesus ever existing, yeah truthfully I seriously doubt it.

That one word, (Every) is suppose to be (Ever). LOL, cannot fix it anymore.

Made a couple errors. Consistencies should be inconsistencies. LOL.

 

[BH]

If you expected to accept Jesus resurrection because of 'eyewitnesses" why not accept medieval accounts of revenants that have many witnesses for individual incidents?

 

[FievelJ]

If you expected to accept Jesus resurrection because of 'eyewitnesses" why not accept medieval accounts of revenants that have many witnesses for individual incidents?

Other than the supposed Disciples who are they then? The people who saw Jesus hung on the cross?

 

[Person19960]

If you expected to accept Jesus resurrection because of 'eyewitnesses" why not accept medieval accounts of revenants that have many witnesses for individual incidents?

Other than the supposed Disciples who are they then? The people who saw Jesus hung on the cross?

John 19:25-27
​

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,”

and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

 

[dbz]

Abstract: The evidence for Jesus' historicity is complex and multifaceted. While there are reasons to believe in his existence, the available evidence is not definitive, and further research is necessary to reach a more conclusive understanding. The challenges posed by the nature of the sources, the limitations of hearsay evidence, and the ongoing debates surrounding the interpretation of these texts underscore the need for a cautious and critical approach to historical inquiry.

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--"The Best Case for Jesus". Peter Kirby. 22JAN2015

[T]he historicity of Jesus is really only defended today on the back of purely hypothetical sources and interpretations . Not actual evidence; imaginary evidence. Ehrman says we can trust the Gospels report true facts about Jesus because “Q” and “M” and “L” really existed, and we can assume “they” are reliable…for some reason never explained. But we don’t even have any evidence those sources did exist; much less were recording any history at all, rather than just myth and legend, fiction about a cult’s magnificent, often celestial founder, no different than fiction about Osiris, Romulus, Hercules, Moses.

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--Carrier (25 May 2020). "Lataster v. McGrath: Jesus Must Be Real...Because, Reasons". Richard Carrier Blogs.

• Bart Ehrman and many other biblical scholars embrace a hypothesis—that is described by Raphael Lataster as:

The generally unreliable, untrustworthy, and fiction-filled Gospels can occasionally be considered excellent sources of objective and accurate historical information because of their foundational written sources, which do not exist, which contained many fictions if they did, and which cannot now be scrutinised for authorship, age, genre, intent, and so forth. These hypothetical written sources are themselves based on oral traditions, that also cannot be scrutinised, that changed over time, and that may well have been made up whole cloth. Therefore we have conclusive proof that Jesus definitely existed.

(p. 57)

---

--Lataster, Raphael (2019). Questioning the Historicity of Jesus: Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse. Brill-Rodopi.

Before the evaluation between mainstream historicity and mythicism can be started, a mainstream Theory of Historicity needs to be determined, and AFAIK it simply hasn't been done.

• Historicity is simply assumed to be true AFAIK (again).

That's a rather large hole that only Carrier seems to have addressed. So I'm with jasonrollins on this: I'd also be interested in anyone in mainstream academia has proposed a historicity hypothesis or theory. Is Carrier the only one?

[A] mainstream "theory of historicity" doesn't seem to exist at all.
[...]
I think there is enough evidence to create a mainstream Theory of Historicity that is "a robust and widely accepted explanation" on what we see in the early texts. It just hasn't been done yet (again, AFAICS. I'd love to know otherwise!) Carrier's theory of historicity seems to be the only one out there at the moment. It's one of the things I like about his OHJ book.

I do not assert that Jesus did not exist. I am a Historical Jesus agnostic. That is, I am unconvinced by the case for the Historical Jesus, and find several reasons to be doubtful. To compare these terms to those often used when discussing the issue of God’s existence, the ‘historicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘theist’, and the ‘mythicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘strong atheist’ or ‘hard naturalist’. The oft-forgotten ‘Historical Jesus agnostic’ is the equivalent of, well, the ‘God agnostic’.

I'd like to throw one more term into the mix. Not all ‘atheists’ are ‘strong atheists. Some are simply ‘agnostics’. I would like to propose, then, that we use the term ‘ahistoricists’ to encompass both the ardent ‘mythicists’ and the less certain ‘agnostics’. This avoids the false dichotomy, which I think historicists (much like theists) have been taking advantage of. They often frame the debate as only being between the right and the wrong, the reasonable and righteous historicists versus the silly mythicists, ironically appearing as unnuanced and dogmatic fundamentalists in the process. (As with the common false dilemma, presented by apologists, of ‘the truth’ being found in ‘Christianity’ or in ‘strong atheism’.)

(pp. 2–3)

---

--Lataster, Raphael (2019). Questioning the Historicity of Jesus: Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse. Brill-Rodopi. ISBN 978-9004397934.

 

[steve_bank]

'Abstract: The evidence for Jesus' historicity is complex and multifaceted.'


Uhhhh no....the evdence for an HJ as depicted in the gospels is weak and mostly supposition.

The complexity cones from a thousand years of invented mythology. One theologian quotes another theologian and so on for a thousand years. None if based inn factual reporting.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Raphael Lataster said:
I do not assert that Jesus did not exist. I am a Historical Jesus agnostic. That is, I am unconvinced by the case for the Historical Jesus, and find several reasons to be doubtful. To compare these terms to those often used when discussing the issue of God’s existence, the ‘historicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘theist’, and the ‘mythicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘strong atheist’ or ‘hard naturalist’. The oft-forgotten ‘Historical Jesus agnostic’ is the equivalent of, well, the ‘God agnostic’.

I'd like to throw one more term into the mix. Not all ‘atheists’ are ‘strong atheists. Some are simply ‘agnostics’. I would like to propose, then, that we use the term ‘ahistoricists’ to encompass both the ardent ‘mythicists’ and the less certain ‘agnostics’. This avoids the false dichotomy, which I think historicists (much like theists) have been taking advantage of. They often frame the debate as only being between the right and the wrong, the reasonable and righteous historicists versus the silly mythicists, ironically appearing as unnuanced and dogmatic fundamentalists in the process. (As with the common false dilemma, presented by apologists, of ‘the truth’ being found in ‘Christianity’ or in ‘strong atheism’.)

I like the word ahistoricist but we may be inventing a word simply because the gospel protagonist is immensely popular due to religion. The word would certainly apply non-religiously so maybe it's not a case of special attention being given. But I do like it as it softens the edge between the two positions.

 

[ideologyhunter]

'Abstract: The evidence for Jesus' historicity is complex and multifaceted.'


Uhhhh no....the evdence for an HJ as depicted in the gospels is weak and mostly supposition.

The complexity cones from a thousand years of invented mythology. One theologian quotes another theologian and so on for a thousand years. None if based inn factual reporting.

By way of comparison with weak supposition, there is actually a branch of (mostly Catholic) theology called Josephology, devoted to study of JC's supposed stepdad. Centers for Josephology are located in Canada, Spain, and Italy. Somewhere along the line, a tradition started that Joseph was a lifelong virgin (this is mentioned in wikipedia, with no discussion of its adherents today.) When I read that you could actually concentrate your faith calling on Josephology, I had to wonder what the texts are like and what the conferences consist of. You could write everything the NT says about Joseph on a 3" x 5" file card. What's to study? You should be able to obain a degree in Josepholgy in 45 minutes, which includes the final exam. No, it has got to be a process of chain theology, as mentioned above. With great dollops of imagination. If it's done with enough solemnity, you can take any religious whimsy and transform it into bedrock dogma.

 

[steve_bank]

Mary: Joseph I swear it was not another man, god did it.
Joseph: I believe you honey, really I do. Uhhh I'm going out to get some milk, don't wait up for me.

Yet another possible twist. Jesus as a bastard son turned into a miraculous birth.

Mamzer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, a mamzer (Hebrew: ממזר, lit., "estranged person"; plural mamzerim) is a person who is born as the result of certain forbidden relationships or incest (as it is defined by the Bible), or the descendant of such a person. Mamzer status (ממזרות, mamzerut) is not synonymous with the traditional western definition of illegitimacy, since it does not include children born to unmarried mothers.[1]

 

[FievelJ]

'Abstract: The evidence for Jesus' historicity is complex and multifaceted.'


Uhhhh no....the evdence for an HJ as depicted in the gospels is weak and mostly supposition.

The complexity cones from a thousand years of invented mythology. One theologian quotes another theologian and so on for a thousand years. None if based inn factual reporting.

Into like 10,000 religions, like those sort of things too I would assume.

Raphael Lataster said:
I do not assert that Jesus did not exist. I am a Historical Jesus agnostic. That is, I am unconvinced by the case for the Historical Jesus, and find several reasons to be doubtful. To compare these terms to those often used when discussing the issue of God’s existence, the ‘historicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘theist’, and the ‘mythicist’ is the equivalent of the ‘strong atheist’ or ‘hard naturalist’. The oft-forgotten ‘Historical Jesus agnostic’ is the equivalent of, well, the ‘God agnostic’.

I'd like to throw one more term into the mix. Not all ‘atheists’ are ‘strong atheists. Some are simply ‘agnostics’. I would like to propose, then, that we use the term ‘ahistoricists’ to encompass both the ardent ‘mythicists’ and the less certain ‘agnostics’. This avoids the false dichotomy, which I think historicists (much like theists) have been taking advantage of. They often frame the debate as only being between the right and the wrong, the reasonable and righteous historicists versus the silly mythicists, ironically appearing as unnuanced and dogmatic fundamentalists in the process. (As with the common false dilemma, presented by apologists, of ‘the truth’ being found in ‘Christianity’ or in ‘strong atheism’.)

I like the word ahistoricist but we may be inventing a word simply because the gospel protagonist is immensely popular due to religion. The word would certainly apply non-religiously so maybe it's not a case of special attention being given. But I do like it as it softens the edge between the two positions.

Like Christianity being popular? Don't believe in it just guessing.

IDK, where am I. Oh is this the Christ myth?

Sorry I got mixed up.
Honestly I might study Japan's religion, just wondering what religions about what. But part of it Earth Wind And Water and such. Gods of the elements. I don't believe in the Christ thing at all I don't believe. Jesus like never existed. I guess I shouldn't try when I am high.