The Christ Myth Theory

[Trebaxian Vir]

Dear Dragon Ball Z,

Be a Genghis-Khan-agnostic.

 

[dbz]

• At least the historical methodology applied to Genghis-Khan is normative, but some trite cranks appear to think normative historical methodology is also applied to Yesus.

Mythicism, the claim that the gospel stories were not based on an actual human being, is what happens when bad scholarship meets conspiracy theory.
Simply using normal historical methods leaves no real doubt to the vast majority of biblical scholars and historians that the gospel stories were based on an actual historical person named Jesus.

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—“Was there an historical Jesus aka what is Mythicism?”. Helpful Humanist.

Quite some years ago when I first encountered the suggestion that Jesus did not exist I plunged into a prolonged period of trying to understand and learn how it was that we know what we know about the remote past. (It was hard enough coming to disbelieve in god, but not to believe in Jesus at the time was surely a bridge too far!)

The reason the answer was not obvious was the simple fact that historians work with sources that they "take for granted" because they have inherited them on the basis that they are of known provenance, authorship, function, etc etc. They don't have to keep wondering "who wrote the treaty of Versailles and when?" "was it really Julius Caesar who wrote about the conquest of Gaul?" "how did Arrian know anything about Alexander the Great?" etc.

The answers to those questions are well established because, in the main, they have independent confirmation. Cicero knew Julius Caesar, Josephus Vespasian, and so on.

And historians are able on the basis of such independently confirmed sources as well as on the identification of their authors, their reasons for production, and so forth, -- on those grounds historians are able to use contemporary evidence to know what events happened, who participated, etc.

We don't get the whole picture but we get enough confirmed facts from which to reconstruct some narrative historical outline. No-one reads in their history books that Julius Caesar was probably assassinated, or "Alexander appears, on the basis of how we interpret the sources, conquered the Persian empire, with some good probability".

Where the probabilities enter is in our attempts to explain the known facts. What was it that led to the evolution of Athenian democracy or the fall of the Roman republic? What motivated Alexander to wage war against Persia? Those are not "fact" questions but attempts to understand processes with meagre evidence open to divergent interpretations.

Contrast historical Jesus studies. We have four gospels of unknown provenance and authorship, dated possibly anywhere between 70 and 140/170 CE, written for reasons open to divergent interpretations, to audiences we can only identify by means of educated guesses, and based on sources open to debate. Paul looks good until we remember that his works don't emerge on the scene until mid-second century in the midst of controversy over what he wrote and who was doctoring his words.

Historians in other fields simply don't base historical reconstructions on sources like those. (Someone will prove me wrong and point to an exception or two, and I would like to see them. But I think my point will stand.)

The historical reconstructions that claim to be based on the gospels, Acts and Paul are nothing but a reading of church and cultural dogma into them. The narratives in the gospels are assumed to be derived from real events via oral transmission, written by persons dedicated to honouring the historical memory of Jesus. The reconstructions are circular -- they know they are "probable" because the church believed they were sincere records of Jesus, etc. and they wouldn't have "lied" or had some other function or origin.

In other words, we simply don't have any sources to give us a handle on the historical Jesus. If historians conclude there was a historical Jesus who started it all then it will be because that explanation makes the most sense of the sources we have. It will not be because we know on the basis of contemporary sources of known provenance and authorship that Jesus existed. Jesus will instead by a hypothesis some might propose as the best explanation to the sources we have. Others may have a different hypothesis to explain them.

I've quoted other historians - in particular Akenson and Finley -- often enough with their critical remarks about the methods of bible scholars for reconstructing history. Criteria of authenticity are not how they go about determining the "facts" of the past. We have heard of "history wars". In Australia they have been about determining exactly what happened between Europeans and aboriginals here -- not what probably happened on the basis of criteria. One of our prime ministers gave an official apology to the aboriginals not for what our ancestors and even our own generation probably did to them but for what in fact they/we did do.

Historical Jesus scholars talk in terms of probability. All history is probabilistic, they say -- to justify their approach to Jesus studies. On the basis of imperfect "criteria". But they are alone in that respect by the standards of most historians in other fields. They do history differently from how non-biblical historians do it.

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Post by neilgodfrey » Wed Mar 15, 2023. EarlyWritings

 

[dbz]

• I believe that Paul believed: ?

YouTuber:BraveNewHistory has a come to Jesus moment when John G. makes it clear what Paul likely believed per the available evidence!

[1:26:16]
BraveNewHistory >>> ...I would expect them to expect something physical.

John G. >>> Okay right, at what point in what I've explained so far as far as the Messiah or Jesus goes was not physical ?

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"Why Jesus Probably Existed w/ @BraveNewHistory". @time:01:26:18 YouTube. Godless Engineer. 21 March 2023.

[7:31] ...when we're reading the letters of Paul, is he talking about events that they believed occurred on earth or is he talking about events that he believed occurred somewhere else... [7:41]

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"Why People Don't Understand Mythicism? MUST WATCH!". YouTube. MythVision Podcast. Oct 9, 2022

[...I] devote a chapter in JFOS to outlining how Christianity could have evolved from a revelatory religion to a historicizing one and how the timeline of evidence supports that very transition. In the process, I demonstrate that there is no pertinent difference between accepting this happened for Jesus altogether and accepting it happened for his post-mortem imaginary counterpart, “the risen Jesus,” who began solely in isolated, private dreams or visions (1 Corinthians 15; Galatians 1). However, by the end of the first century, the only version of the risen Jesus promoted or even mentioned is a physically reanimated corpse who hung out with the Apostles for weeks at dinner parties (John 20-21; Acts 1). If a historical, post-mortem Jesus could be invented and eclipse the original in so short a time so could a historical pre-mortem Jesus. The process would be the same.

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-- Carrier, Richard (2020). "Jesus from Outer Space?". The Bible and Interpretation.

 

[dbz]

Surpassing Paul’s vision of 2Corinthians where he only reached the third heaven, Isaiah ascends to the seventh (AscI): ‘I indeed say unto thee, Isaiah: No man about to return into a body of that world has ascended or seen what thou seest or perceived what thou hast perceived and what thou wilt see’ (AscI VIII 11). Isaiah explicitly states that he saw ‘the holy Abel and all the righteous’ in the seventh heaven, and also that he ‘saw Enoch and all who were with him, stript of the garments of the flesh, and... in their garments of the upper world, and they were like angels, standing there in great glory’, but he does not simply contradict Marcion’s oppoinion [sic.], but adds that Enoch and those with him ‘sat not on their thrones, nor were their crowns of glory on them’ (AscI IX 8-10).


(p. 92)

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--Vinzent, M. (2010). Give and Take amongst Second Century Authors: The Ascension of Isaiah, the Epistle of the Apostles and Marcion of Sinope. Studia Patristica, 50, 105-129. see: Vinzent. 6881279. academia.edu.

Xenocrates divided the sensible universe into the realm above the moon (the supra-lunar) and the realm below the moon (the sub-lunar). It is unclear whether he added a further division to include a purely intelligible realm, or considered the One and the Dyad as occupying the highest sphere above the stars. Above the moon there exists the seven planets, which Xenocrates considered to be divine, along with the stars and the pure fire that is the base element of the universe. The realm below the moon he believed to be occupied by daemons.

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"Platonism, Middle", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy".

[M]ortals can attain to nature of “demons” or demigods and live in the “sublunar realm” and some of these can go further to become divine and live in the highest plane.

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--Godfrey, Neil (9 March 2010). "Ancient beliefs about heavenly realms, demons and the end of the world". Vridar.

[T]he ‘firmament’ (also known as the aēr or ‘sublunar sphere’) extending above the highest visible clouds all the way to the orbit of the moon . . . Most people of the time thought the aēr extended all the way to the moon (while everything beyond that was filled with a breathable ‘ether’), when in fact (as we now know) the real atmosphere extends only a minuscule fraction of that distance.

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--Carrier (16 October 2022). "M. David Litwa, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Problem of Incompetent Scholarship". Richard Carrier Blogs.

In a similar fashion to the Middle Platonists and the Oracles, Plotinus viewed the material world to be the domain of Hades. Like those of the Platonic tradition before him, he considered the stars and planets to be visible gods, beneath whom—in the sublunary sphere—existed hosts of aerial daimons who bridged the gap between mankind and the gods.

(p. 70)

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Curry, Patrick; Rowlandson, William (2013). Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-5012-4.

By occupying the middle space between divinity and mortality, the daimonic realm establishes a clear hierarchy and separation between gods and humans and highlights the gap between them. Humans cannot interact directly with the gods; but through the intermediate position of daimons, the two realms are bound together (Plato, Symp. 202e). Platonic writers of the Roman era expand on Plato’s description of daimons as intermediaries between gods and mortals. Apuleius describes daimons as “living beings (animalia) by species, rational ones by nature, emotional in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time” (Apuleius, De deo Socr. 13.3 [Jones, LCL]). The first three of these features they share with humans, the last they share with the gods, and the fourth—occupying the middle space between heaven and earth—is unique to them.

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Sharp, Matthew T. (2022). "Courting Daimons in Corinth: Daimonic Partnerships, Cosmic Hierarchies and Divine Jealousy in 1 Corinthians 8–10." (PDF) In Demons in Early Judaism and Christianity, pp. 112-129. Brill.

Most of the Jewish and Christian works discussed so far presuppose that there are three or seven heavens. The main options for the origin of the notion of three heavens are: (1) it is an inner Jewish development, based on the phrase “heaven of heavens” in the Hebrew Bible, or (2) it was borrowed from one of the typical Babylonian pictures of the universe. Given the basically rhetorical use of the Hebrew phrase and the extensive contact of Jews with Babylonian culture, the second option is more likely. The use of the terms “lower” and “upper heaven” and the presence of a heavenly sea in the Testament of Levi support this conclusion. The major options for the origin of the motif of seven heavens are: (1) it was borrowed from the Greek world-picture involving seven planetary spheres, or (2) it was borrowed from Babylonian magical tradition. Since the later recension of the Testament of Levi and the other relevant works discussed do not connect the seven heavens with planetary spheres, the second option is more likely. I would now like to turn to texts that explicitly link the seven heavens and the seven planets.

(p. 46)

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Collins, Adela Yarbro (1996). Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-10587-4.

Aristotle takes up Plato’s four elements as constituents of the sensually perceptible world. According to their respective natural weight, they arrange themselves one over the other in four concentric sublunar spheres, with Earth as the heaviest and lowermost, Fire as the lightest and uppermost clement, and Water and Air in between. Additionally, the immutable Aether. performing a circular movement, creates the supralunar sphere of the stars (Aristotle 1960)...
[...]
[In] the pseudo-platonic dialogue Epinomis, written in the fourth century BC. This text proposes a model in which the cosmos is made up of the elements arranged in concentric spheres. Each element accommodates specific creatures deriving from it for the most part... Fire is the uppermost sphere, home to the “visible gods,” or stars; next is Aether, home to the “divine spirits,” or demons, who act as go-betweens between gods and humans, in accordance with Plato's concept of daimon; next is Air, home to an “Air-born race” with functions resembling those of the demons; next is Water, home to “semi-divine” creatures, possibly the nymphs (Taran 1975: 287); the lowermost sphere is that of the Earth, home to man (Plato 1955: 984b-985b).

(pp. 4–5)

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Kramer, Anke (2017). "Cultural History of the Four Elements §. THE FOUR ELEMENTS FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD". In Duerbeck, G; Stobbe, U; Zapf, H; Zemanek, E (eds.). Ecological Thought in German Literature and Culture. Lexington Books. pp. 3–16. ISBN 978-1-4985-1493-4.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

Check out this fun short (8 min) video Ed and I just did about Jesus and Satire, which also speaks to the historicity of Jesus question:

 

[dbz]

Philosophy does arrive at the point of unity, the One, the same end point as Judaism.

Scholars sometimes object to the term ‘Middle Platonism’ as being rather loosely defined. The term is used to cover the period between the Old Academy and Plotinus, but Platonists of this period do not conform to a single category. This period has failed to generate much academic interest…

Gaston, Thomas E. (July 2009). "The Influence of Platonism on the Early Apologists". The Heythrop Journal 50(4): 573–580. doi :10.1111/j.1468-2265.2008.00448.x.​

Middle Platonism conventionally refers to a group of philosophers from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE who may be described as Platonists by virtue of their allegiance to a nucleus of Platonic doctrines. More precisely, this allegiance can be presented as the attempt to develop a systematic and theological interpretation of Plato’s philosophy. This suffices to prove its importance, philosophically and historically, for two reasons: (1) because the commitment to the view that Plato’s philosophy can be reduced to a system proved very influential in the history of philosophy, and (2) because in this period monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy, and this confrontation was greatly influenced by the theological speculations of these authors. Unfortunately, most of the works of Middle Platonists are now lost, but the material that remains enable us to reconstruct the basic features of their thought.

Bonazzi, Mauro (30 March 2015). "Middle Platonism". Classics. doi:10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0190.​

[Per Middle Platonists] The general characteristics of this revised Platonic philosophy (and the closely related Neo-Pythagoreanism) were the recognition of a hierarchy of divine principles with stress on the transcendence of the supreme principle, which was already occasionally called “the One”; the placing of the Platonic forms in the divine mind; a strongly otherworldly attitude demanding a “flight from the body,” an ascent of the mind to the divine and eternal; and a preoccupation with the problem of evil, attributed either to an evil world soul or to matter.

"Platonism | Britannica". www.britannica.com.​

God and matter, supplemented by the Platonic Forms, which Middle Platonists typically identified with God’s thoughts. . . . There was also an increasing focus on the intermediary role played by daemons in the functioning of the world.

Dillon, John (2016). "Platonism, Early and Middle". Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-A089-1.​

Philo expressed his philosophical religion in the form of lengthy allegorical commentaries on the Jewish Scriptures, especially on Genesis. In these he showed to his own satisfaction that the ancient revelation given to Moses accorded with the teaching of the best Greek philosophers, which, in his view, was later and derivative. The Greek philosophy that he preferred and found to be most in accordance with revelation was an early form of Middle Platonism.

"Platonism - Platonism in the world of revealed religions | Britannica". www.britannica.com.​

Most of what we know about Hellenistic Judaism is drawn from Philo (some from Josephus), his writings supplying valuable data for the philosophical eclecticism of Platonist, Stoic, and Pythagorean elements known as Middle Platonism…

Williams, D. (29 October 2016). "The Career of the Lógos: A Brief Biography". Philosophies 1(3): 209–219. doi :10.3390/philosophies1030209.​

[04:50] What Middle-Platonism does decisively .. is to push from dualism in a monistic direction...

"A History of Philosophy | 18 Middle and Neo-Platonism". YouTube. @time:00:04:50.​

What Middle-Platonism does decisively .. is to push from dualism in a monistic direction!​

 

[No Robots]

Middle Platonism is part of the move of Hellenism toward Judaism, from dualism to monism.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

So, for whoever is following this, mythicist Richard Carrier has responded to my critique of him here

Links to my articles/posts can be found here

 

[1Heidegger1!]

So, for whoever is following this, mythicist Richard Carrier has responded to my critique of him here

Links to my articles/posts can be found here

I've posted a short reply to Carrier here. It's unclear what else I can do. The Christ Myth Theory fails from so many angles and on so many levels it's unclear what else can be said?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So, for whoever is following this, mythicist Richard Carrier has responded to my critique of him here

Links to my articles/posts can be found here

I've posted a short reply to Carrier here. It's unclear what else I can do. The Christ Myth Theory fails from so many angles and on so many levels it's unclear what else can be said?

Why do people consider Paul a credible source of information, assuming there was an actual Paul? This Paul to me comes across as bipolar, given to bouts of mania. My experience with bipolar individuals is that they are not credible. They say a lot of things that aren't true because their behavior is driven by their emotions. As such, everything this character Paul has allegedly written ought to be written off as bipolar mania and should not be used to attempt to prove or disprove an HJ.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

I'm not going to provide a fuller response to Carrier's article about me as there is little reason in doing so. I think my arguments stand well on their merits, so I invite the reader to decide for themself. As Ehrman says, when you reply to Carrier all you accomplish is an endless cycle of Carrier responding at twice the length.

As for Carrier calling my defense of historicity "bizarre," this isn't something to get offended at as this is how Carrier characterizes people who disagree with him: crazy and irrational. For instance, Bart Ehrman characterizes Carrier's response to him in the following way:

Richard Carrier, as many of you know, has written a scathing review of Did Jesus Exist on his Freethought Blog. He indicates that my book is “full of errors,” that it “misinforms more than it informs” that it provides “false information” that it is “worse than bad” and that “it officially sucks.”

The attacks are sustained throughout his lengthy post, and they often become personal. He indicates that “Ehrman doesn’t actually know what he is talking about,” he claims that I speak with “absurd” hyperbole, that my argument “makes [me] look irresponsible,” that I am guilty of “sloppy work,” that I “misrepresent” my opponents and “misinform the public,” that what I write is “crap,” that I am guilty of “arrogantly dogmatic and irresponsible thinking,” that I am “incompetent,” make “hack” mistakes, and do not “act like a real scholar.”

Throughout Carrier's writing we see such irresponsible rhetoric, such as when he goes after McGrath:

I schooled McGrath on this, and that he in fact was shown to have blundered–badly–and to have not even understood basic facts about ancient history

In the end, it is aggravating Carrier labeled my research "bizarre," but this is the sort of thing he does, so it really isn't something to lose sleep over.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In the end, it is aggravating Carrier labeled my research "bizarre," but this is the sort of thing he does, so it really isn't something to lose sleep over.

100% agree. One should deal with the observations, not get into making personal judgements.

My "bipolar" Paul is way out in left field for sure. But if the stories are to be believed, Paul's "conversion" is quite typical bipolar behavior. That Paul travels so much, always needs to be on the move and in control, is also another bipolar trait. It is why anything attributed to this source I discount as credible. It's just whatever the author was thinking and has no factual credibility. I say this because I have seen this behavior in bipolar individuals.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

I did a short blog post Psychologizing Jesus today, check it out!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I did a short blog post Psychologizing Jesus today, check it out!

It's a pretty sure bet that anything we claim to know about the jesus character is ultimately fictional. As for Paul, who tells us about Jesus and in doing so is telling us about himself, an observation can be made and a brain condition can be determined. What you are referring to as imputing an emotional state is a moot point. The behavior betrays a brain condition and the condition can be theorized based on the observations, the evidence. This is what doctors do when they make a bipolar diagnosis. It's scientific and rational. Paul certainly fits the bipolar diagnosis.

Like you say, the ancients didn't have our knowledge, but that doesn't mean we cannot say anything about the condition of individuals based on their behaviors. Is there anything out there from a medical perspective on Paul's behavior? There ought to be.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

I finally finished my Christian Origins Web Project! Check out my super cool title page here:

 

[dbz]

"Refuting Bart Ehrman's Case For Historicity ft. Rebecca Watson". YouTube. Godless Engineer. 17 April 2023. "In this video, I will point out the issues with Bart Ehrman's case for the historical Jesus. Bart Ehrman is a prominent Textual Critic who has written one non-peer-reviewed book on the historical Jesus. His case for the historical Jesus is based on ad-hoc assertions about the Gospels, other books in the new testament, and Roman sources. Ehrman argues that Jesus was a real historical figure who lived in Palestine during the first century CE and that he was a Jewish teacher and preacher who attracted a following of disciples. Ehrman believes that Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities, likely for political reasons, and that his followers continued to proclaim his message and teachings after his death. One of the key pieces of evidence for the historical Jesus, according to Ehrman, is the existence of multiple independent sources that attest to his life and teachings. These sources include not only the Gospels but also non-Christian writers such as the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus, who mention Jesus and his followers in their writings. Ehrman also argues that the Gospels are not simply mythological or legendary accounts, but are based on real historical events and eyewitness testimony. While acknowledging that the Gospels contain elements of literary genres, such as parables and miracle stories, Ehrman maintains that they are rooted in historical reality and can be used to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus. Overall, Ehrman's case for the historical Jesus is based on ad-hoc claims about the evidence and lacks real historical information that we have. However, it is important to note that there are differing opinions among scholars regarding the historicity of Jesus and that this is an ongoing area of research and debate within the field of New Testament studies."

 

[dbz]

The Christ Myth Theory fails from so many angles...

On the assumption that Chrestianity came to be hijacked by Christianity.

• Perhaps a better proposal for the order of gospel authorship is: Thomas, John, Marcion - and then Mark, and Luke\Matthew.

Chrestianity is a fact, and it has been a fact for almost two millennia. How biblical academic has managed to be oblivious to that is something that must be asked and answered by the field itself - yet I question whether that will be addressed in a satisfactory or timely manner without outside aid. The deliberate obfuscation of Philip, demonstrated via the complete and utter absence of even noticing the various distinctions in the text, is fully in line with that of Thomas, and the NHL amply attests to what I call Christification: blind confirmation bias drives the Christian "translators" of these texts, and even Philip Schaff doesn't hesitate to falsify the Latin of Tertullian where and when it serves Schaff. It is not a question whether the manuscripts that we have can be trusted: the very question is whether those that handle them, inspect them, present them and "translate" them for us can be trusted, or relied upon - and the answer to that last question is an unequivocal 'no'

Chrestianity precedes Christianity, such is for sure. Mark started the movement that countered what Thomas, John and then Marcion had set in motion, and as we can see it wasn't until around 500 CE that texts testify to Christianity gaining the upper hand over Chrestianity - and it has also become evident how, well over 500 years after that, the latter still was a legacy that got attested to at will, freely and openly

Will all this upset or even stir research into Christian origins, New Testament studies, or Second Temple Judaism, to name just a few?

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—Martijn Linssen

Iotacism undoubtedly is a thing, and Coptic attests to that in abundance, check e.g.

https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C10993

Yet iotacism can not, does not and will not explain the change from Chrest to Christ (or vice versa, if you like) simply because these are, were, and always have been two existing words at any time

If iotacism were a true explanation then we would e.g. have a word Chrest meaning blahblah and we would see over time that the word would change into Christ and still mean blahblah - but that surely is not the case.
What we do see in the Coptic example above is that we have either i or ei and those are used interchangeably without effecting the meaning of the word.
What we see in the entire Chrest-Christ evolution is that the first centuries predominantly if not solely use the word Chrest, and we don't see the appearance of the word Christ until 4th/5th CE - and after that we don't see any appearance of Chrest, and we find ourselves not only with a new word but also with a new meaning

Needless to say, the whole iotacism fallacy is one of the many feeble attempts to explain away the fact that there was something prior to Christianity, and that such wasn't anything like Judaism, Essenism or whatnot: it was full blown Chrestianity and one could refer to it as Marcionism, Gnosticism or whatever

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—Martijn Linssen

1. The Odes is located after Chrestianity came to be hijacked by Christianity, and it precedes Philip unless there's talk of a virgin birth: yet it is written by outsiders to both Chrestianity and Judaism, I think: there is no fighting for or against either of the two, there's only talk of blending one into the other. Basically, the spiritual new and the Judaic old gets combined, and one applied into the context of the other. It's mere symbols being exchanged

2. What Paul introduced is endebtment, the guilt trip, full-blown dualisation. Christianity pulls the age-old trick of giving you two very bad choices to pick from, making sure that their preferred choice is the better option - we usually call that psychopathic behaviour, extortion, manipulation, but the essence here is that Paul forced a choice onto people, and he continues the line that Matthew started (and that sometimes shines through in his editorial work in Luke): carrot and the stick. The Odes are at the point where they merely continue after exchanging the symbols: pureness from Chrestianity ('holy' really is the wrong word, inherited via the fact that most if not all Coptic sources to the Coptic Dictionary are xtian), and righteousness from Judaism. On a superficial level there are merely core aspects, medals to be earned, pole positions to be attained

3. The clash is still absent, there are no contradictions: if you stay at a distance then all's well, and all of us on this forum would and do agree to the same set of core and base values: basic honesty, politeness, all that jazz - on a conceptual level almost everyone always agrees; it's when the details are discussed that discord arises

4. The clash has come and all of it has now become an either-or scenario, and supersessionism is a fact. This is the "you're with us or against us" moment where the dynamics are at their highest

5. Christianity has redefined most if not everything, and now needs massive volumes of apologetics to fix all the contradictions, and to make their lies seem credible. The cross is invented, Tanakh gets falsified in order to fulfil their "prophecies", and so forth

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—Martijn Linssen

 

[Swammerdami]

"Refuting Bart Ehrman's Case For Historicity ft. Rebecca Watson". ...

I DID watch (against my own better judgement) the first 7 minutes of that YouTube and saw ZERO of interest, or anything that didn't seem like "padding". I gave up. (Is there a minute or two worth watching somewhere in the long video?) I've mentioned before that a brief summary in Infidel's own words would be more useful in this forum than links to long Youtubes or screeds.

I tried to hunt for a video I watched recently; maybe 1Heidegger11 knows the one I mean. The frame shows three windows for speaking; the large one at the bottom does most of the talking. It is summary of relevant evidence for (pro- and) anti-Mythicism by a top professional historian. I like one quote: "The job of the historian is to determine what is most likely."

Fundamentalist Christians -- fortunately there are none here -- may invent stretches (or even invoke the supernatural) when asked to explain the trip to Bethlehem or the empty tomb.

Some adamant atheists -- I'll call them Carrierites -- mimic those fundamentalists. For example there are 15 different writers from the 1st or early 2nd century who confirm the crucifixion of Jesus, and none that dispute it. Yet some Mythicists seem to reject or just ignore most of the 15 and even focus on Talebot Yeshu or whatever it's called -- despite that it came later and and also failed to call Jesus fictional.

We saw this fanaticism in a recent thread on Probability Estimation. When it was pointed out that, among other faults, the simplistic approach espoused by Carrierites couldn't solve a trivial toy problem, defendant pled ignorance but advised us to read ... other Carrier books!

 

[1Heidegger1!]

I was asked about the reception of the Christ Myth Theory in the academy, so let’s back track a little.

What we now Call the Christ Myth Theory had the inception of its contemporary iteration with GA Wells, but even more so with Earl Doherty’s Jesus Puzzle book/website. It is Doherty who seems to have inspired Carrier and Price the most.

The controversy really seems to have began when the recognized New Testament experts/specialists teaching at accredited secular universities began to review Doherty’s work. For instance, Bart Ehrman said Doherty’s work was so riddled with errors that it would take a work of enormous size just to address them all. Similarly, James McGrath concluded that Jesus Mythicism was the Religious Studies version of Young Earth Creationism. Why?

The textual evidence concerning Jesus is often ambiguous and tricky to navigate, and so has produced an embarrassment of riches of Jesus portraits such as Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish messiah, prophet of social change, and rabbi. Why can’t we throw historicized mythical being onto that pile?

Mythicism seems to be viewed by the experts as an hypothesis in search of confirmation rather than one generated out of the evidence. Scholarship is referenced, but is cherry picked out of context to support the myth theory, such as Dennis MacDonald’s mimesis work being appropriated by Price and Carrier.

When mythicists are referred to as Young Earth Creationists by experts, it doesn’t mean they are being called crazy or stupid, but rather the intelligence and creativity of being able to spin the evidence to fit the mythicist theory. McGrath thus speaks of the brilliance of mythicists. Similarly, the best Young Earth Creationists like Ian Juby are highly intelligent, creative, and scientifically literate, and so can talk circles around the educated layperson. This raises the question of public academia. How does the academy view the public on the Christ Myth issue?

I think such an academic would ask: why on earth would we poll a layperson audience after an academic debate to see who they think won? Analogously, why would we randomly pick 12 “non-legal-specialists” to make up a jury and decide highly technical legal issues? Also, why would we take a general populace with little understanding of political science to participate in a popularity contest choosing a political leader? Would you randomly poll 12 people on the street to determine how to fix your car or what your medical treatment should be? I think that's what mainstream Jesus scholarship is thinking, and so isn't concerned with the popularity of mythicism.

Carrier published his major work on Mythicism about a decade ago and as far as I’m aware no major New Testament expert/specialist teaching at an accredited secular university has endorsed mythicism as a credible way of interpreting the evidence.

I'm not sharing my opinion on the issue, which is more neutral, as I'm just trying to suggest how the academy views thinkers like Doherty.

 

[SIB]

For me, Flat Earth = died, woke up, and flew away = a bit of reflection on just how we justify our beliefs.

If they said my God takes who ever but I use Jesus as my frame work ... I am in. Or if they said "yeah, they thought [that] then. Now we think [this]." I would be more receptive. They need to tell others "Its ok to change our minds based on new information."

The question is how to get a person to understand that "It just makes me feel better" is not reliable. It is a popularity contest, lets try and be reasonable.