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The Christ Myth Theory

 
 
 
As I note in the comment section of the Hoffmann post I mentioned above, it's now more mainstream to acknowledge that the NT writers were rewriting OT scripture to flesh out the biography of Jesus, and so we have Mark create his crucifixion narrative out of Psalms and Isaiah since Paul doesn't record any details. Matthew presents Jesus as the New and greater Moses.

Spong had actually written about this for years prior. Mark says “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; as it is written in the prophets.” Mark immediately interprets John the Baptist as a forerunner of the Messiah (a la Elijah in II Kings 1:8). Mark then clothes John similar to Elijah (Mark 1:6. II Kings 1:8.) He then says John ate locusts and wild honey,the food of the wilderness in which Elijah lived (and so on and so on).

Dr. Kipp Davis recently noted the Dead Sea Scrolls writers did the same thing to flesh out a biography of their Teacher of Righteousness (who obviously existed) rewriting scripture because they saw their Teacher of Righteousness as realizing them.

How did the Christians do it? Again, I think Spong is on the right track:

In the synagogue people heard scriptures read, taught, discussed, or expounded. The vast majority of first century people could not read. So people didn`t own bibles. The Jews had access to their sacred stories in the synagogue. The memory of the historical Jesus could have been recalled, restated, and passed in the synagogue. And the gospel stories may also be shaped in terms of Jewish liturgy. The crucifixion may be shaped against the passover. The transfiguration echoes Hanukkah. Many things are reminiscent of Rosh Hashanah.. So as it says in Acts, they would read from the Torah, then from the former prophets (Joshua through Kings), and finally from the latter prophets (Isaiah through Malachi). At that point the synagogue leader would ask if anyone would like to bring any message or experience that might illumine the readings. So followers of Jesus may have then recalled their memories of him which that Sabbath elicited. This could be where all the midrash/imitation/mixing is coming from. This is what Paul does in Acts (13:16b-41). They went through this process for about forty years before the gospels were written (Spong, Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World).
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We see mainstream acceptance of the NT writers rewriting scripture to describe Jesus such as in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, though back when Spong was writing these ideas he was considered a radical.
 
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One last thing I wanted to say about how the gospels imitate older Jewish (and sometimes Greek) writings is that this process doesn't suggest mythicism but rather is actually exactly the kind of thing we would expect to see if Jesus was a real historical figure the gospel writers wanted to proselytize (convert) you to. I just wrote this short argument up as a quick blog post HERE. Check it out! I think the analogy I use in the post with Donald Trump and the current election cycle is helpful. Bradley and I really appreciate it when you visit us at Secular Frontier, which is the official blog of Internet Infidels / Secular Web. This is also Internet Infidels donation season so if you like what we are doing please consider a small donation! :cool:
 
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[...]
“We have absolutely no information, no evidence for communities that stand behind the Gospels, for example,” says Braun. Nonetheless, scholars posit that there are communities behind the gospels for little reason beyond blind assumption.

Stan Stowers’ “The Concept of ‘Community’ and the History of Early Christianity,” which appeared in the journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion in 2011, offers a convincing critique of the gospel communities hypothesis. I attempted to build upon Stowers’ thesis in my own recent book The Origins of Early Christian Literature (CUP, 2021).
--Response essay by Robyn Faith Walsh "A Jesus Before Paul?". The Religious Studies Project.
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Cf. Willi Braun & Andie Alexander discuss the importance of critical approaches in the study of religion. www.religiousstudiesproject.com?powerpress_p...
 
GakuseiDon said:
The theory of evolution doesn't have to engage with, say, peer-reviewed works supporting intelligent design (they exist!)...
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Like Ehrman's non engagement with peer-reviewed works published by an academic press? (they exist!)...
 
Challenging the consensus understanding of early Christianity
By reexamining the relationship between Paul and the Gospel writers, one can hypothesize a novel perspective on the formation of the New Testament.

Robyn Faith Walsh challenges the traditional narrative of early Christianity and challenges scholars to consider alternative explanations for the origins of the Gospels.

Walsh argues that the Gospel writers may have drawn significantly from Paul's letters, rather than relying solely on oral traditions or other sources.

Key points:
  • **Central Role of Paul** Traditional scholarship often positions Paul as a pivotal figure in early Christianity, leading a diverse and expansive movement. Walsh questions this portrayal, suggesting that Paul's influence may have been overstated.
  • **Gospel Writers and Paul's Influence** Walsh proposes that the Gospel writers may have utilized Paul's letters as a source for information about Jesus. This challenges the common assumption that the Gospels were primarily based on oral traditions or eyewitness accounts.
  • **The Last Supper Narrative** The similarities between Paul's account of the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 and the Gospel accounts hint at a potential connection. Walsh suggests that the Gospel writers may have incorporated elements from Paul's narrative into their own accounts.
  • **A Simplified Approach** Walsh advocates for a more straightforward interpretation of early Christian literature's origins, focusing on available written sources rather than complex theories of oral transmission and community development. She argues that by overcomplicating the process, scholars often overlook the simplest and most likely explanation.
 
pood said:
I misread this thread as the Crystal Meth Theory. :sadcheer: Now I’ll give it a read.
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Well, check out Acts 9 and tell me if Saul/Paul didn't have a hit off of something when he got religion. He fell over and couldn't stand up (codeine, opioids), heard a disembodied voice (opioids, antidepressants, Ambien, Zyprexa), had temporary vision loss (poppers, heroin, cocaine.) And Acts 9:11 has him recovering on...Straight Street (no, I didn't make that up; consult scripture.) This was one hopped up doper.
 
1Heidegger1! said:
Regarding the question of the historical Jesus, I will be blogging about the major new athology "The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (2024)" so check the posts out on Secular Frontier, the blog of Internet Infidels / The Secular Web
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My posts relating Jesus mythicism to historical knowledge and methods were prompted by Richard Carrier’s publications and posts arguing that historical methods, properly done, make the existence of Jesus an unlikely prospect. I have held off from doing these posts for a long time, partly because I do not want to be seen as adding any fuel to an already and often overly heated polemic against Carrier personally. I have long wanted to “set the record straight” re the place of history in the question.

My position is, ironically, the same as that of many biblical scholars. I seek to do no more than ever address the Jesus we have, which is the Jesus of the literary and theological texts. All the efforts of scholars to arrive at a historical Jesus through form criticism, criteria or authenticity, memory theory are all — ALL (no exaggeration) — based on circular reasoning. And that circular reasoning is erroneously justified by many of them by reference to the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer. I have seen biblical historians misread and/or misapply so many authorities in other fields — Vansina, Halbwachs, Ricoeur, Hobsbawm ….. They can’t even get positivist history right when they claim to reject it. They are in a club of their own but they have a huge audience and I try to do my little bit to leave a record of correction where I can. (I have addressed this question many times, but for the benefit of anyone not familiar with the history of blog posts here, even an ancient figure like Alexander the Great is known in large part from contemporary sources since we know those sources were covered and addressed by centuries later authors whose writings we do have.)

For me, the question of the historicity of Jesus does not even arise. There is simply no contemporary evidence for the figure. The sources we have are all late and often of questionable authenticity. The canonical texts are all found in the independent record no earlier than the second century. They may be earlier, but it hardly matters since they meet none of the characteristics of sources historians deem appropriate for determining the historicity of any ancient person.

The only Jesus we have is the Jesus of theology and literature. He is the only Jesus that matters. It is that Jesus that “changed history”.

--Godfrey, Neil (18 November 2024). "Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History". Vridar.
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[H]istoricity is a bankrupt paradigm: they never have a sound or valid argument for it. Instead, they kneejerk oppose it emotionally, doing no work to even understand the peer reviewed studies questioning it (they rarely even bother reading them, and typically don’t even know what they argue), and then botch facts and even logic when they try to insist mythicists are the ones who don’t know what they are doing. That would be true for many amateur mythicists. But it’s not true for professional, peer-reviewed mythicists. Yet conflating the two is also a typical fallacy critics employ—Matt Kovacs now included (whom I believe is the same guy as here or here).

That after ten years this is all they have is now strong evidence that there is no sound defense of the historicity of Jesus. The irony is that these atheists are now acting like Christian apologists: eating their own foot with a misinformed, badly argued traditional position, staking out an emotional rather than a rational argument, and leaning on ad hominem rather than actually checking the facts, while arrogantly claiming the people who actually know what they are talking about (the actual experts who did the actual studies, and thus endeavored to not be misinformed or lean on fallacies) are the ones doing all this. They aren’t. (Nor are they claiming Christianity is false because Jesus didn’t exist, which I suspect is the emotional trigger here.)
--Carrier (12 November 2024). "Matt Kovacs Demonstrates What's Wrong with Atheists Clinging to the Historicity of Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.
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When Tim O'Neil posts scurrilous content on social media, it is incumbent for civil debate to moderate the rhetorical excesses of Tim O'Neil.
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    <em>When Tim O'Neil is being a shrew on social media</em> » by dbz » Nov 19, 2024 » <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12931">"The Lounge [Account Login Required] - Biblical Criticism &amp; History Forum"</a>. <i>earlywritings.com</i>
 
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Hi dbz

Yes, I'm familiar with Walsh and wrote 3 essays on her:

Gospels, Classics, and the Erasure of the Community: A Critical Review Testing the Hypothesis of Robyn Faith Walsh’s The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Part A

Gospels, Classics, and the Erasure of the Community: A Critical Review Testing the Hypothesis of Robyn Faith Walsh’s The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Part B

Gospels, Classics, and the Erasure of the Community: A Critical Review Testing the Hypothesis of Robyn Faith Walsh’s The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Part C

I shared the first one with her and she replied:

John, I read the first installment and was so impressed and flattered with your engagement with my work—it’s amazing how you’re advancing the conversation and if I can be the catalyst for your brilliant thinking, I’m so pleased! I look forward to reading the next installment this weekend—congrats!!!! Please keep in touch! Best, Robyn.
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I don't know if she read the other two articles or whether she still feels that way about the first essay but that's what she said at the time. This was an email shared with multiple people at once so I don't think she intended to keep it private so I'm sharing it here.

I will post on her essay in the Next Quest anthology on the Secular Frontier Blog when I get to it. I'm doing them in order.

I'm not really sure what to make of Carrier. He's so overconfident about his position and demeaning of historicity that he sounds like a conservative political candidate whose arguments are painfully obvious him and everyone else unless you are a liberal. The truth about Carrier is he published his major work on mythicism a decade ago and the reception history is that there are still no New Testament specialist teaching New Testament at accredited secular universities who teach that a credible reading of the evidence is that Jesus never existed.

Of course for career academics it is important to publish peer reviewed books and essays. But, there is also nothing impressive about it because academics do it all the time. Peer review doesn't mean the reviewer found the work persuasive, just that it was a scholarly treatment of the inquiry question. You need to keep in mind too that Carrier published with Sheffield who also published Thomas Brodie' mythicist The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings, and his mythicist biography Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. So Sheffield likes to publish that sort of thing. Brodie once told me the Oxford reviewer of his Birthing book called it delerium. It's a core text according to Carrier, but then he ... Anyway, I can only reiterate what Ehrman and McGrath concluded: I don't find Carrier to be polite and have no interest in discussing ideas with him.
 
Which came first the chicken or the dinosaur egg...

**The Pauline Direction:**
  • Emphasizes the theological and spiritual aspects of Christianity.
  • Draws heavily from the Old Testament and Greek philosophy.
We learn much more from Josephus—than we learn from the Marcionite edition—about the first century.
--"Marcion was First! and The New Testament Was Fabricated | Dr. David Trobisch". YouTube. History Valley. 17 November 2024.
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**The Gospel Direction:**
  • Centers around the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
"Did Paul and Jesus Have the Same Religion? | Dr Bart Ehrman". YouTube. Emma Thorne. 14 June 2023.
 
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1Heidegger1! said:
Hi everyone,

Regarding the question of the historical Jesus, I will be blogging about the major new athology "The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (2024)" so check the posts out on Secular Frontier, the blog of Internet Infidels / The Secular Web

View attachment 48497
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Quick update. I've finished blogging on 7/10 essays from the first half of the book. There are 24 essays in the second half which I'll be starting soon. Here is my post on the last essay in the first half called "Myth and Mythmaking" by Stephen Young. I just finished editing the post.
 
I'm happy to say I've finished blogging about the collection of essays in "The Next Quest For the Historical Jesus (2024)" and just finished editing the posts. I learned a lot and there was lots of material relevant to other writing I've done. I ended up blogging on 23 of the essays. Here is the blog posts index if anyone is interested: Complete Index Blogging The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus Anthology Of Essays
 
Screenshot 2024-12-05 Did Jesus Exist Jacob Berman and Dr. Jack Bull Versus Dr. Aaron Adair an...png
--"Did Jesus Exist? Jacob Berman and Dr. Jack Bull Versus Dr. Aaron Adair and Neil Godfrey". YouTube. History Valley. 3 December 2024.
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  • Mark 1:9 uses "Nazareth" Ναζαρὲτ.
  • Mark 1:24 uses Nazarene Ναζαρηνέ
Is this Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Nazarene?
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This is a spelling deviation/word-play of "Jesus the sprout/rising/dawn(anatole)-Essene". The Essenes were an ascetic Jewish sect that flourished from the second century BCE through the first century CE, and are credited with the technique for "Essene style bread". Sometimes called Sprout/Anatole Bread.

Given a counter culture sect that was—also against the temple_cult—similar to (or schismatic from) the "Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi". And who revered the netzer/anatole redeemer-angel/second-god.
  • Thus Jesus the "anatole-essene" --> Jesus the Nazarene
NSR.png

The Bible doesn't mention the Essenes and there have been scholars who pointed this out. That's kind of weird, that like you have Josephus for example, this Jewish author who wrote the history of the Jews for pagans to understand the Jews and he talks about his own life and he says I went through all the major sects and he lists them: the Essenes, the Pharisees, and Sadducees. And he talks about them to try to explain to pagans about how Jewish societies organizes it's the Essenes the Pharisees and Sadducees also on this fourth philosophy the zealots. But but the main ones the the good ones were the Essenes the Pharisees and Sadducees it's always the Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees. Then you go into the Gospels and suddenly there's Pharisees and Sadducees but there's no Essenes, like why? Where did the Essenes go and scholars will point out like well that's Jesus right this is that's the the perspective of these authors is the Essenes that's where the Essenes are. That you're watching them and are engaged with the Sadducees and the Pharisees and that's a compelling argument it certainly is an argument for when someone like Mark is writing his gospel it's an argument for him believing that that's the case that he thinks that he is the inheritor of the true Essene doctrine.

--"The Gospel According to Carrier (Full unedited interview/no music)". YouTube. 11thstory. 15 April 2019. 20:00 / 55:05
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rgprice post_id=182633 time=1733409507 user_id=7462 said:
There is not one exemplar of a Hebrew word containing tsade which was regularly transliterated into Greek with a zeta. (Burkitt's work is the principal analysis of the transliteration of tsade in Greek. While no-one seems to give Burkitt his due, no-one else seems to have done the work to challenge his analysis.)

As there does not seem to be a convincing explanation as to why each and every New Testament example of the words Ναζωραιος, Ναζαρηνος, Ναζαρεθ and Ναζαρα contains a zeta rather than the expected sigma, it would be fruitful to consider the possibility that the zeta in these words may be derived from an underlying zayin (z) rather than a tsade (ș). Klaus Berger delineates four possible sources for Ναζωραιος considered by philologists:

a) נצר, the Hebrew word for "shoot",
b) nașurayya, a Mandaean self-reference,
c) the town of Nazareth, and
d) נזיר, "Nazirite".

Each of the first three features a tsade as the second consonant, leaving only נזיר with its zayin as the phonological best choice as a candidate source behind the Greek forms.
  • I think the case is very clear at this point:
[box=white]23 Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” 25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!”[/box]

[box=white]Judges 13: 5 for behold, thou art with child, and shalt bring forth a son; and there shall come no razor upon his head, for the child shall be nazir to God from the womb; and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines. 6 And the woman went in, and spoke to her husband, saying, A man of God came to me, and his appearance was as of an angel of God, very dreadful; and I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name. 7 And he said to me, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bring forth a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat no unclean thing; for the child shall be holy to God from the womb until the day of his death.[/box]

[box=white]Judges 11: 12 Now Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the sons of Ammon, saying, “What is between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” 13 The king of the sons of Ammon said to the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land when they came up from Egypt, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and the Jordan; therefore, return them peaceably now.”[/box]

[box=white]Judges 11: 5 When the sons of Ammon fought against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob; 6 and they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our chief that we may fight against the sons of Ammon.” 7 Then Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me from my father’s house? So why have you come to me now when you are in trouble?” 8 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “For this reason we have now returned to you, that you may go with us and fight with the sons of Ammon and become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Judges 11: 30 Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” … 34 When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” … 39 At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made;[/box]
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This is clearly a typical Markan literary allusion to the Jewish scriptures. Nazarene is the modification of nazir into "one who is nazir". Why is it "Nazarene" instead of "Nazirene"? I don't know, but this is positively a literary allusion to Judges 11-13, without question, and it had originally had anything to do with any place called "Nazareth".

Every other instance of "Nazareth" or "Nazarene" in Mark is a later addition that was not written by the original author.
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Per Isaiah 11:1 and the Hebrew word נצר (netzer) meaning, “branch” or “shoot, sprout, rising, etc.” The word occurs only here but its messianic significance is well attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In 4Q161, the pesher commentary on Isaiah 11: 1-5 we encounter a reference to the Davidic branch whom God will raise up in the last days to deliver the faithful and rule over the nations: “[Interpreted, this concerns the Branch [sprout, rising, etc.]] of David who shall arise at the end [of days] …”
--Rabinowitz, Noel (April 7, 2020). "The Branch of David". jerusalemseminary.org.
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The "נצר (i.e. anatole) of David" is a central figure in Jewish messianic beliefs. He is often seen as a redeemer who will restore Israel's glory and bring the rule of God to the world. The concept of a Messianic descendant of David is also found in the New Testament.
[W]hat does “Nazareth” or “Nazarene” have to do with נצר (netzer)? Although the name seems so familiar to us, “Nazareth” should actually be spelled “Natzeret.” The English spelling is a transliteration of the Greek word Ναζαρέτ (Nazaret), which is itself a transliteration of the Hebrew word נצרת (Natzeret). The Greek alphabet does not have a letter which corresponds to the Hebrew צ (Tzade) and uses the Greek letter ζ (Zeta) or “z,” instead.
--Rabinowitz, Noel (April 7, 2020). "The Branch of David". jerusalemseminary.org.
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  • Ναζωραιος (Nazoraios) is spelled in Greek as follows:
Ν (nu)
α (alpha)
ζ (zeta)
  • The Hebrew word "נצר" (netsar) is spelled as follows:
**נ** (nun)
**צ** (tsadi)
**ר** (resh)
pronounced "neh-tsar".

Carrier argues that there are two possible ways a scripture (attested by gMatthew) about Hebrew NZR (neh-tsar)—when rendered in Greek—could have gotten into Christian lore and subsequently informed the Markan author(s),
  • Christian's reading the Greek as having some special other meaning (Netzer, “The Branch,” and so on).
  • Translators of the Scripture into Greek themselves having intended some special other meaning (which must be lost to us now) that the Christians then picked up on.
 
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