Thread: Whence arose the "There Was No Historical Jesus" assertion? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Does anyone know how, when, and by whom the notion that Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional character got started? I'm seeing this assertion increasingly on internet fora and social media. It contrasts markedly with the long-established position held by many persons that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical, purely human figure, absent any divinity.
I do note that this seemingly new position that Jesus of Nazareth is entirely mythology seems to be associated with a generally derisive attitude toward religion, and with a rather militant or at least aggressively vociferous atheism.
I don't recall coming across this position before a couple of years ago (more or less), certainly not to any great extent. Now it seems increasingly common. When and how did it arise?
Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on
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I believe it arises because people are ignorant but they get the opportunity to inflict their ignorance on others via social media. Said people lack knowledge of Christianity and history and believe that their claim that Jesus didn't exist is just as good as any academic, scholar/historian who claims he did. They are incapable of assessing the truth of any historical claim and they influence others who are as ignorant as themselves.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
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The best known proponent which predates the internet is G.A. Wells. I think I'm right in saying his position has become slightly more nuanced over the years (which isn't to say it has become any more convincing) and moved from a position of 'the historical Jesus never existed', to a position of 'there may have been a Rabbi called Jesus but St Paul and the early evangelists covered this figure with so much Hellenistic legend and myth that he might as well not existed for all the difference it makes'.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
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Sorry - double post. The starting point for people like Wells and internet pushers of the same idea (e.g. Earl Doherty - although he has written books as well)tends that the historical evidence of Jesus outside the NT isn't reliable i.e. is secondary, corrupt or merely repeats what Christians later said, and the Gospels and Acts are too filled with the miraculous and contradict other historians and archeologically relevant finds of the time.
[ 29. June 2013, 14:48: Message edited by: Yonatan ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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It is very much linked with various atheists, in fact, anti-theists, and is also a largely internet phenomenon.
I used to take part in debates on it, but eventually wearied of anti-theists making idiotic statements, which just revealed a lack of understanding of how historical method works.
For example, you often find a confusion between historical Jesus and the Biblical Christ. Thus some mythers will say stuff like, 'how could a man walk on water?', which shows a lamentable muddle.
Some of the arguments for mythicism also seem remarkably convoluted - see for example, Doherty's stuff about the spiritual realm, where Christ is crucified. Eh?
I see it as rather analogous to creationism and 9/ll 'truth'.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
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Perhaps reading the Wikipedia Article on the quest for the historical Jesus may be useful. The statement is not as far reaching as it seems.
Jengie
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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This is one of the well-known debates on an atheist forum. It runs the gamut from sensible stuff, written by people with historical training, to barmy stuff written by anti-theists, who just think that abolishing Jesus from history will strike a blow for atheism, or something. Caution, it ran for years, and is still running! 1700 pages at the last count, and over 30, 000 posts, many just repeating stuff from two years ago. Bizarre really. In fact, it goes back longer than that, as this is the reincarnation from the old Dawkins forum, which was shut down.
It was through debates like this that I realized how irrational some atheists could be.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/christianity/historical-jesus-t219.html
[ 29. June 2013, 15:10: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I believe it arises because people are ignorant but they get the opportunity to inflict their ignorance on others via social media.
I think this is right on-target as far as it goes. My sense is that some folks have felt quite put-upon by ignorant Christians taking every opportunity to inflict their ignorance on them, and are striking back in a way that they think will achieve parity of irritaion.
--Tom Clune
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
quetzalcoatl: It was through debates like this that I realized how irrational some atheists could be.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/christianity/historical-jesus-t219.html
I've only read the first two pages, and I've seen some restrained, intelligent posts in those. Does it get worse after that?
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I believe it arises because people are ignorant but they get the opportunity to inflict their ignorance on others via social media.
I think this is right on-target as far as it goes. My sense is that some folks have felt quite put-upon by ignorant Christians taking every opportunity to inflict their ignorance on them, and are striking back in a way that they think will achieve parity of irritaion.
--Tom Clune
I think the mythicists (and note not all atheists are mythicists, I'm certainly not one) are beguiled by a beautiful idea but are ignorant or ignoring the evidence against. Lord, Liar, Lunatic, or Legend. Personally I think there is a lot of legend but a basic historical core does exist.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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It also follows the pattern of some other figures. Homer, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Prester John were all thought by some to be real people, but today are more generally considered to be unhistorical, or largely so.
There is no limit to how much of the bible can be doubted, and questioning the historicity of Jesus is an attractively dramatic move.
Posted by Stephen (# 40) on
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It all sounds very 1930s to me when this idea had a sound airing
Wasn't it Albert Schweitzer who opined that the quest for the historical Jesus was almost impossible - I forget now......but one of you Kergmania people might know?
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
For example, you often find a confusion between historical Jesus and the Biblical Christ. Thus some mythers will say stuff like, 'how could a man walk on water?', which shows a lamentable muddle.
I find this fascinating. I would make the assumption that most Christmas believe that Christ preformed miracles of some sort. Can you unpack this for me? Surely if Jesus existed he was either just a man or man and God?
Posted by Stephen (# 40) on
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I don't know as it's such a long time when I was reading about it now, but I think that was what Schweitzer was getting at - the historical Christ is intermingled with the miracle performing Christ
Of course if you reject his miracles - or their reports - it still doesn't necessarily follow that the former did not exist - the gospels are then seen as more of a biography rather than a Trevelyan or an Elton....
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
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I've always wondered what the point of this claim was. Especially when it's just asserted, and has no real compelling reason to be believed other than the lack of evidence outside the NT. Why would there be any? It's not like he had a Social Security number and a facebook page.
I wonder what kind of external evidence people who make this assertion think there ought to be.
The NT makes Jesus look pretty spectacular, but we all know that's polemic. The author of John's Gospel even states outright that his point in writing is "so that you may believe," and Luke says something similar to his intended reader. But clearly both Jesus and his early followers were pretty easy to miss, or ignore, for most folks. Even the governments weren't going to take much note of them - aside from an execution here or imprisonment there, but there were so many "messiahs" and revolutionaries around at the time, why would the governments keep records about them, especially after their deaths? It was in their best interest to make these people go away, not retain their stories. So what external evidence is there supposed to be?
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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The point of the claim - where I'm seeing it crop up on the internet - just seems to be to express a fundamental hostility toward religion in general and Christianity in particular. I found the suggested Wikipedia reading to be interesting and informative about some of the origins - the more scholarly ones - of the notion of a completely mythic Jesus. However, I tend to see the assertion of this claim on the internet - again where I'm finding it - to come across as a more emotionally weighted rejectionist stance, also in which all types of Christians are ignorantly lumped together as intellectually lacking or worse.
It's just interesting to me that things have gone from a non-divine, rather trouble-making historical Jesus who might even warrant admiration in some ways for being a counter-cultural agitator, to an unsupported assertion that the guy never existed at all. I find the latter position to be intuitively implausible, if nothing else. This does seem to go hand in hand with caricaturing Christian belief and approach to the scriptures in a way that would only apply to extreme fundies, and which doesn't even begin to grasp the nuanced, questioning faith of large numbers of Christians.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Stephen:
It all sounds very 1930s to me when this idea had a sound airing
Wasn't it Albert Schweitzer who opined that the quest for the historical Jesus was almost impossible - I forget now......but one of you Kergmania people might know?
Yes, Schweitzer said something like that. Bultman also famously said that he thought we could know almost nothing concerning the historical Jesus. What was important, was the faith and proclaimation of the early church and the challenge to believers today.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
quetzalcoatl: It was through debates like this that I realized how irrational some atheists could be.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/christianity/historical-jesus-t219.html
I've only read the first two pages, and I've seen some restrained, intelligent posts in those. Does it get worse after that?
It's a reasonable thread at first - watch out for Tim ONeill, a well-known atheist, who was historically academically trained, and is completely contemptuous of mythers, but also is very detailed in his critique of them. He also has a good web-site somewhere.
But later on, it becomes very repetitive, and you also get the silly stuff, basically just anti-theists saying 'isn't Christianity awful?'
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
For example, you often find a confusion between historical Jesus and the Biblical Christ. Thus some mythers will say stuff like, 'how could a man walk on water?', which shows a lamentable muddle.
I find this fascinating. I would make the assumption that most Christmas believe that Christ preformed miracles of some sort. Can you unpack this for me? Surely if Jesus existed he was either just a man or man and God?
Well, the question of historicity is separate from stuff like miracles and so on. Most historians won't even look at this kind of material, as history is basically a naturalistic discipline.
But you find mythers saying, Jesus can't have existed, because no-one can walk on water. This is a complete mash-up of historicity and non-historicity.
Thus Caesar was seen as a god - does this mean he didn't exist?
Sai Baba, the famous guru, who died recently, has an incredible number of miracles accredited to him - levitation, miracle cures, materialization of objects out of nowhere, etc. - but he certainly existed.
So this is a well-known process - historical figure with legendary accretions. Elvis lives!
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on
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We should not rationalize any miracles. We need to interpret all Scripture in the context of its times, listening for God's message to us now. Some miracles may be healings of psychological illnesses; others of physical affliction. Lazarus was raised from a real death.
Each miracle points to God's power and love, inviting repentance and faith in God's desire to save. Jesus, for example, healed the paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12) revealing that God is able to forgive sins. Other miracles reveal God's generosity or power over destructive evil.
Whenever we see people healed both in body and soul (miracles still happen) we know God is at work, revealing the kingdom and making it a present reality.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Stephen:
rather than a Trevelyan or an Elton....
You're showing your age - which is obviously about the same as mine!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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Schweitzer didn't so much dismiss the historicity of Jesus as such, as he did the various versions of the "Historical Jesus" thrown up by the Questers.
He then went on and produced his own version - the ethically noble but ultimately deluded figure who throws himself on the wheel of history in an attempt to force God's hand, and then realises on the cross that he has been mistaken ("My God, my God..")
The last and best word on the Quest was that of George Tyrell who said, of Harnack in particular, that he looked at the Jesus of history down a deep well and saw his own face reflected at the bottom.
Posted by ProgenitorDope (# 16648) on
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As for the "when" of this, it's an old idea. If what they told me in college is true, Voltaire believed Jesus was myth so at least as old as The Enlightenment.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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The real issue is how much continuity exists between the Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith.
If that's the issue, then people who deny the existence of Jesus of Nazareth are the polar opposite of fundamentalist.
Fundamentalist: "The Christ of faith is the same as the Historical Jesus, so all we should learn about is the Christ of faith."
Radical atheist: "There is no Historical Jesus, so all we have is the Christ of faith."
There is a surprising similarity between the two.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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I know this is a little off topic, although it is somewhat related, but I do find it very curious that so many of the more militant and aggressive atheists seem to focus solely on Christianity. It's as if there isn't any other religion in the world, or they simply aren't aware of the wider world. I don't think I've ever come across an urge to demythologise Mohammed or Buddha, or even aggressively attack any other religion at all for that matter.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
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Well Buddha is already a myth. Even those bits which are historical are treated by many buddhists as myth ie teaching a profound universal truth. I don't think the truths of Buddhism rely on history in the same way as they do in Christianity.
Mohammed wrote things, conquered places etc, so the 'not historical' argument has even less traction than with Jesus. The other main difference is that Mohammed didn't work miracles so there isn't that problem to overcome.
Possibly people have the urge to attack or debunk the faith they were brought up in which for many in Europe, USA and Canada would be Christianity.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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ISTM that it probably goes back 2000 years. This is just another manifestation of it.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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@quetzalcoatl
Lets say I was having a debate with a Christian. And they claimed that Jesus preformed miracles. If later in the debate I referenced those miracles in relation to the existence of Jesus and was told that actually for the sake of that argument I should ignore the previous claims about Jesus it would seem odd to me.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
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quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I know this is a little off topic, although it is somewhat related, but I do find it very curious that so many of the more militant and aggressive atheists seem to focus solely on Christianity. It's as if there isn't any other religion in the world, or they simply aren't aware of the wider world. I don't think I've ever come across an urge to demythologise Mohammed or Buddha, or even aggressively attack any other religion at all for that matter.
Not sure I'd concur with that, at least not as far as the "New Atheists" are concerned. Dawkins never misses a chance to bash Islam, and of course Hitchens' views on the religion of Muhammed were well known. Hitch also dedicated an entire chapter of his book God Is Not Great to trashing Hinduism and Buddhism.
Granted, the NAs don't speak for all atheists, but they're certainly the most prominent avatars of the idea at the present time, and are much imitated by their followers on the internet and elsewhere.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
@quetzalcoatl
Lets say I was having a debate with a Christian. And they claimed that Jesus preformed miracles. If later in the debate I referenced those miracles in relation to the existence of Jesus and was told that actually for the sake of that argument I should ignore the previous claims about Jesus it would seem odd to me.
Well, again this is just a muddle. The question of historical Jesus is not a religious question, but a historical one, and is therefore, subject to historical method.
It is nothing to do with Christianity, although some anti-theists probably feel that getting rid of Jesus will serve them well!
But most of them know diddley-doddle about history, to be quite frank, and especially ancient history. It's just a fact that there are often few documents or coins or monuments for many figures - see for example, Boudicca, known only by hearsay really.
The best argument for HJ is parsimony really - that the simplest explanation for all the documents and so on, is that a Jewish preacher called Jesus did exist, and was killed by the Romans. All the stuff about miracles is irrelevant to this argument. HJ is not a religious thesis.
[ 30. June 2013, 08:45: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Another way of expressing this is that many atheists accept that Jesus existed, but not as God. Thus you can split HJ from the theological Christ - and this is what historians do in the main.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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Ah I think I understand. So it's rational to say the son of God never existed but not to say a man called Jesus existed?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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George, I think there are too many nots there, aren't there?
Historians generally accept that there was a Jewish preacher called Jesus. They don't investigate stuff like miracles or the resurrection, although they may investigate people's beliefs in those things.
Similarly they accept that Boudicca existed, although there seems to be one piece of hearsay about her, from Tacitus, who claims that his father-in-law fought against her, possibly in the Legio II Augusta - this was the well-known Agricola. The commander of this legion is supposed to have committed suicide after a defeat by Boudicca.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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There are some interesting books on this - Ehrman's book 'Did Jesus Exist?' is available on kindle; and E. P. Sanders 'The Historical Figure of Jesus' is good.
If you want to look at the mythers, then Doherty's books are available, e.g. 'The Jesus Puzzle'; also a ton of stuff on-line - see the web-site cited above (RatSkep).
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yonatan:
Mohammed wrote things, conquered places etc, so the 'not historical' argument has even less traction than with Jesus. The other main difference is that Mohammed didn't work miracles so there isn't that problem to overcome.
The claim of Islam is centred more on the character of the Koran (as given from God) than the historicity of Mohammed. There are the beginnings of higher critical scholarship (Luxenberg, Ibn Warraq and others), which tend to contradict many of the traditional claims made about the character of the Koran.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ProgenitorDope:
As for the "when" of this, it's an old idea. If what they told me in college is true, Voltaire believed Jesus was myth so at least as old as The Enlightenment.
IIRC, there was a movement during the Enlightenment that assumed that practically all classical history was myth, or at least argued that the evidence for most classical historical figures is so scanty that they might as well be mythical.
(That's also based on something I read at university - I can't remember any more details.)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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That's one of the jokes about some of the mythers, that if you follow their guidelines on ancient history, hardly anybody existed except Caesar!
Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's one of the jokes about some of the mythers, that if you follow their guidelines on ancient history, hardly anybody existed except Caesar!
Well, the population of the world WAS much smaller then, but I wouldn't go that far. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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I also have doubts about the reasoning "We'll only believe that person X existed if we have a person Y that knew him directly and reported on him".
How do we know that person Y really existed, that he didn't make the report up, or that the report wasn't made up by someone else?
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Does anyone know how, when, and by whom the notion that Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional character got started? I'm seeing this assertion increasingly on internet fora and social media.
...
I don't recall coming across this position before a couple of years ago (more or less), certainly not to any great extent. Now it seems increasingly common. When and how did it arise?
I think it derives from two things. The first is backlash from inerrancy. If you are brought up to believe the bible is either all true or all false and find one bit of it is false, you can follow the logic to it all being. And a lot of Old Testament history turns out to not be true under serious investigation, and that the Testamonium Flavianum is very probably an interpolation, possibly by Eusebius of Caesarea.
The second is quite simple wishful thinking by certain hardline atheists. It makes the whole of Christianity look ridiculous.
My take, for what it's worth, is quite simple. Why would anyone bother to invent an apocalyptic preacher in Palestine in that sort of time period?
And the joke about the mythers I heard was the two Oxford dons sitting in a courtyard, each one proving that the other was a myth.
Posted by David (# 3) on
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I'm not entirely sure where the whole Christ-myth thing originated, but I do know one thing for certain: the people spouting this stuff are either really bad historians (Doherty comes to mind) or not historians at all (eg. Wells). The fact that no real scholars of the period in question - regardless of their faith or lack thereof - give their theories any credence whatsoever should give these people a reason to reconsider.
But no, they plough ahead with their ridiculous historical fantasies and conspiracy theories as if anyone with a clue took them seriously. I've heard it sells a lot of books to the pig-ignorant, maybe there's something in that.
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on
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I remember seeing ads in the classified sections of magazines (Harpers, The Nation) back in the '70s, inviting you to write to them for evidence that Jesus was a fictional character invented by Josephus (or something like that). I don't think it was new even then.
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on
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If Jesus isn't the person recorded on the Gospels then he might as well have never existed. So for me, at least, it makes no difference if an unbeliever says Christ never existed, for if we can show that such a person existed by itself that proves nothing of whom we believe him to be. So, let the unbelievers, or at least some of them, cling on to their foolish claims.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I also have doubts about the reasoning "We'll only believe that person X existed if we have a person Y that knew him directly and reported on him".
How do we know that person Y really existed, that he didn't make the report up, or that the report wasn't made up by someone else?
Yes, the requirement for contemporary evidence is too strong for ancient history. For example, I think there are no accounts of Hannibal at the time. See also Boudicca.
Historians have to work with fragmentary evidence in ancient history compared with later periods. So the mythers are able to argue that there are no Roman records of Jesus and so on; true, but then there are no Roman records for tons of stuff.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And a lot of Old Testament history turns out to not be true under serious investigation, and that the Testamonium Flavianum is very probably an interpolation, possibly by Eusebius of Caesarea.
There's two references in Josephus though. The second is uncontroversial.
And with the first, while scholars generally concur that this was edited by later Christians, the 1970 find of an Arabic source that quotes this phrase in Josephus in a seemingly pre-interpolated form is good evidence that the only change made was to amend the original phrase "Jesus was believed by his followers to have been the Messiah" to read "Jesus was the Messiah". This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
It's very hard to argue against these passages if you're a Myther. Most fudge the issue as best they can, or deny the evidence.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
So it's rational to say the son of God never existed but not to say a man called Jesus existed?
'X never existed,' is not an intuitive way of expressing what you think if you think, 'Y existed and X is a false description of Y.'
Non-existence claims produce all kinds of philosophical muddles except in the clearest and most unambiguous cases.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And a lot of Old Testament history turns out to not be true under serious investigation, and that the Testamonium Flavianum is very probably an interpolation, possibly by Eusebius of Caesarea.
There's two references in Josephus though. The second is uncontroversial.
And with the first, while scholars generally concur that this was edited by later Christians, the 1970 find of an Arabic source that quotes this phrase in Josephus in a seemingly pre-interpolated form is good evidence that the only change made was to amend the original phrase "Jesus was believed by his followers to have been the Messiah" to read "Jesus was the Messiah". This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
It's very hard to argue against these passages if you're a Myther. Most fudge the issue as best they can, or deny the evidence.
Same with Jesus' brother James - have you seen the wriggles which the mythers get into to deny that 'brother of the Lord' means the brother of the Lord?
I suppose if you are a root and branch myther, you might argue that not only was Jesus invented, but so was his family, and his brother, leader of the church in Jerusalem, and executed later, also described in Josephus. Wow, what powers of invention!
Somebody said to me that maybe the forgers inserted the James passage in Josephus, so that 1800 years later Jesus mythicism could be refuted (irony alert).
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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Someone mentioned Tim O'Neill upthread. This is his blog, with a very good review of the Myth and its development. He appears very well-read and provides a very good analysis and refutation of it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Yes, Tim is well-known in myther circles, as he brings to his critique of them a background in academic history, and a forensic ability to discern non sequiturs, non-evidenced claims, and just plain rubbish.
He is also an atheist, which tends to dispel arguments that critics of mythicism are all covert Christian apologists. Tim also understands historical method, which many mythers don't seem to.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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I was impressed by Tim O'Neill's answers too. I'll have a look at his blog.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
If Jesus isn't the person recorded on the Gospels then he might as well have never existed. So for me, at least, it makes no difference if an unbeliever says Christ never existed, for if we can show that such a person existed by itself that proves nothing of whom we believe him to be. So, let the unbelievers, or at least some of them, cling on to their foolish claims.
I think you're missing what I take to be an essential point here, i.e. there seems to have been a cultural shift from "unbelievers" largely saying that they believe Jesus of Nazareth to have been a great moral teacher, an itinerant rabbi, a prophetic figure,or what have you, but not the Incarnate God, to a position espoused by a seemingly considerable number of people that Jesus is nothing more than a mythological figure who had no historical existence at all. It's the cultural shift, or the catching on of this mythicism position, that I find noteworthy.
Apart from the foregoing, I must say that I don't believe there is a veridical one-to-one correspondence between the Jesus represented in the gospel accounts and the historical figure who walked the land of 1st Century CE Palestine. Parts of the accounts may give us a very good reflection of the personality of Jesus, and other parts may be misleading (not necessarily intentionally so), contradictory, unfactual, embellished, etc. Accepting the faith of the Church doesn't mean that we need to think that either the scriptural accounts or the patristic formularies represent a perfect fit to the reality of Jesus either as a human person or in what we recognise as his identity as the Incarnate Word.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Very good points there. I take mythicism to reflect partly a polarization amongst skeptics, so that it's not enough to say that Jesus was just a teacher/preacher, but now it's necessary to abolish him from history completely. In other words, it's the new improved version of anti-theism, removing all known stains from your ultra-Kleen skeptical disbeliefs. No sleeping with the enemy!
Posted by David (# 3) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Someone mentioned Tim O'Neill upthread. This is his blog, with a very good review of the Myth and its development. He appears very well-read and provides a very good analysis and refutation of it.
It's pretty good - as an added bonus he writes very clearly.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
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quote:
I take mythicism to reflect partly a polarization amongst skeptics, so that it's not enough to say that Jesus was just a teacher/preacher, but now it's necessary to abolish him from history completely. In other words, it's the new improved version of anti-theism, removing all known stains from your ultra-Kleen skeptical disbeliefs.
The really funny thing is that it's happened before... many, many times. And yet they think they're being terribly post-modern and radical.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Although I think the docetists and Gnostics were mainly theists, weren't they? Today's mythicists tend to be anti-theists, and have developed the elegant argument, no God - good; no Jesus - better.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
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That's true, but the idea that there was no such person as Jesus at all dates back to at least the 18th century. ISTR C S Lewis thought it necessary to refute this suggestion in one of his books (Mere Christianity?) so it was a fashionable point of view in the earlier part of the 20th century as well.
What goes around comes around... did I link to the wrong Wikipedia article? It seems I did. This is the one I was looking for.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Gotcha.
It's interesting that in the first few centuries AD, there were a ton of 'heresies' and different views about Christ, but as far as I have read, no-one ever suggested that he didn't exist. So the docetists argued that Christ was purely spiritual, but they didn't deny his existence.
Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on
:
I once engaged Tim O'Neill in debate over on RatSkep. He struggles with basic politeness. And I see from his blog he's unlikely to challenge that assessment.
[ 02. July 2013, 22:00: Message edited by: Sarah G ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I never really noticed him struggle. He's a very sweary Australian.
Posted by David (# 3) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
I once engaged Tim O'Neill in debate over on RatSkep. He struggles with basic politeness. And I see from his blog he's unlikely to challenge that assessment.
Politeness would be wasted on most of the morons he gets to deal with.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
I do find some of his blog posts a bit long.
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on
:
Those above who have associated the "never existed" approach with the Enlightenment are correct. The Enlightenment placed its (I believe) misguided emphasis on empirical evidence, for which it can easily be argued, there is none for the existence of the man we call Jesus. Of course just exactly what constitutes "empirical" is another story entirely. Is a birth certificate or a photo or Great Aunt Mary's remembrances "empirical"?
In fact I have little rational doubt that this dude existed, but entirely acknowledge the implicit difficulties. It was popular in the 1930s to argue that Jesus was a fabrication of Paul or a Pauline school - Paul never (almost ... as a Pauline scholar I would argue a handful of exceptions) quotes Jesus directly, and seems to know little of the incarnational detail of his life. In any case I argue that the existence debate misses the point entirely: we will never know the Christ of Faith (to borrow a famous wedge) from empirical evidence (nor the Trinity, but let's leave that!).
In fact I would argue that this points to the opposite conclusion: that the oral traditions surrounding both JC and his teachings were quite widely known and did not need repeating in the hurly-burly argumentative discourse of the Pauline and other early writings. But that's another matter. Sort of.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's two references in Josephus though. The second is uncontroversial.
I was pointing out where it came from. People know the source is doctored and therefore throw it all out.
quote:
And with the first, while scholars generally concur that this was edited by later Christians, the 1970 find of an Arabic source that quotes this phrase in Josephus in a seemingly pre-interpolated form is good evidence that the only change made was to amend the original phrase "Jesus was believed by his followers to have been the Messiah" to read "Jesus was the Messiah". This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
I believe that one's been traced back through Eusebius as well.
quote:
Same with Jesus' brother James - have you seen the wriggles which the mythers get into to deny that 'brother of the Lord' means the brother of the Lord?
No. But I have seen the ones that Roman Catholics and a certain form of Anglo-Catholic get into to deny Jesus' brother James due to twists in Marian theology. I imagine that about half of them are lifted wholesale...
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's two references in Josephus though. The second is uncontroversial.
I was pointing out where it came from. People know the source is doctored and therefore throw it all out.
That was by me, not Quetz.
And yes, people do throw it all out based on the editing. It's a shame but it shows their bias. They aren't interested in the truth, just excuses to discard evidence they disagree with.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
And with the first, while scholars generally concur that this was edited by later Christians, the 1970 find of an Arabic source that quotes this phrase in Josephus in a seemingly pre-interpolated form is good evidence that the only change made was to amend the original phrase "Jesus was believed by his followers to have been the Messiah" to read "Jesus was the Messiah". This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
I believe that one's been traced back through Eusebius as well.
Do you mean the 1970 Arabic source, or the Syriac source? Interesting if either, I haven't heard that. Do you have a source for this?
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by David:
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
I once engaged Tim O'Neill in debate over on RatSkep. He struggles with basic politeness. And I see from his blog he's unlikely to challenge that assessment.
Politeness would be wasted on most of the morons he gets to deal with.
The comments on his posts are amusing. One guy writes a pretty scathing, yet ignorant post aginst him but Tim's response was surprisingly polite I thought. It was only after the poster continued to be impolite and ignorant that he was given a swift kick to the goolies. I think Tim's allowed a bit of forthrightness on his own blog and its quite amusing to see him do it, since he generally fights blunt instruments with quite a sharp blade.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
I believe that one's been traced back through Eusebius as well.
For a value of 'trace back' that means 'attempt to trace back' I assume.
The argument I've seen that fingers Eusebius goes like this:
There's a passage in one manuscript of Eusebius that, although corrupt, describes a version of Herod's death that differs from the account in Acts. Eusebius quotes Josephus as corroborating the Acts account. (Conventional textual scholarship would here say, someone, either Eusebius or a previous Christian scribe, has found a corrupt passage and instead of just preserving it has attempted to emend it.) Aha, goes the argument, Eusebius is not above faking passages of Josephus; therefore, Eusebius faked the Testimonium Flavianum.
The problem here is that our independent manuscript also records the Testimonium Flavianum (T.F.). Therefore, according to conventional textual scholarship, the T. F. assumed the form in which we know it prior to the divergence between the version recorded by Eusebius and the version with the older account of Herod's death.
Now, the people who want to pin the T.F. on Eusebius would argue that the independent manuscript is only partially independent, or Eusebius faked the T.F., had a copy made, and only then faked the Herod account or so on. It's true that those are not impossible. But they're supplementary hypotheses introduced to make the evidence fit a preconceived theory. They're epicycles. In the absence of any independent evidence for any of those supplementary hypotheses, textual scholarship goes with the simplest account, which is that the T.F. predates the divergence between Eusebius' account and the independent tradition.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
It seems that Tim O'Neill has just embarked? That's something to look forward to!
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It seems that Tim O'Neill has just embarked? That's something to look forward to!
I hope he takes time to become familiar with the ship though for all we know he might have been lurking for years (though probably not since he is using his real name [unless someone else is using his name]).
Posted by TimONeill (# 17746) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It seems that Tim O'Neill has just embarked? That's something to look forward to!
Yes, I've just come aboard after traffic to my blog alerted me to this thread. Though I have lurked on and off in the past. I am at work at the moment, so will respond to several things in this thread when I get home.
I found the claim above that I "stuggle with basic politeness" pretty amusing. Most people who read what I had to endure on that RatSkep thread say I actually have the patience of a saint. Suffice it to say I give back what I get, though not always in equal measure. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
More soon ...
Posted by David (# 3) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It seems that Tim O'Neill has just embarked? That's something to look forward to!
Someone with a clue? How will we cope?
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TimONeill:
Yes, I've just come aboard after traffic to my blog alerted me to this thread. Though I have lurked on and off in the past. I am at work at the moment, so will respond to several things in this thread when I get home.
Welcome to the Ship Tim. I've been working through your blog with interest over the last couple of days. I must say I'm greatly impressed with your rigorous approach to history and very much enjoying your reviews. So many books on my wishlist now!
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
TimONeill: I am at work at the moment, so will respond to several things in this thread when I get home.
Alright, welcome.
Soo, are we going to open a poll of how long it will take us to convert Tim O'Neill to Orthodoxy?
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
:
Ditto the welcome, Tim - following quetzalcoatl's link, I've also got through around 1% (so far) of the ridiculously long ratskep thread, and perused a wee bit of your blog. All good stuff - looking forward to your contributions on the Ship.
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Soo, are we going to open a poll of how long it will take us to convert Tim O'Neill to Orthodoxy?
Haven't you been accused of unorthodoxy yourself at some point? Most of us have...
Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on
:
I've been having my doubts about a historical Jesus because I've never really had evidence pointed out to me to suggest he was real.
I know some people quote Joseph of Arimathea as one of the earliest recordings. I have also heard that Joseph of Arimathea was Flavius Josephus who was in line with the Caesar of the time. In fact most of the earliest Saints supposedly were Flavians and worked for Rome. It has been suggested that Christianity to some degree was concocted to make the Caesar appear to be the second coming of Christ as he performed the signs of his arrival. It's been suggested that Josephus' writings are backdated.
I am not saying it is true, nobody can ever KNOW the truth of God. Otherwise we wouldn't need faith which is what most people claim is necessary to know God in the first place.
I however feel the only way for me to truly understand God is to explore all possibilities and not just what men who claim to have more knowledge, morality, or authority tell me.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
Have you actually explored those claims thoughs? Because if you had you'd realise there's no historical evidence for them at all.
Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on
:
I have explored a lot of claims but never found many answers. People believe what they want to believe. I've had it argued that there was really a man named Jonah who lived in the belly of a fish for days because the bible said so. That is not a sound argument.
Otherwise I could argue the historical proof that Zeus sits on mount Olympus because men said they saw him. I have none of the answers. But neither does anybody else. Thats just my opinion.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I know some people quote Joseph of Arimathea as one of the earliest recordings. I have also heard that Joseph of Arimathea was Flavius Josephus who was in line with the Caesar of the time.
I am not aware that Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have written anything. His main claim to fame is that he offered his tomb as a place to lay Jesus' body.
I have also never heard that Joseph of Arimathea and Flavius Josephus were supposed to be the same person.
Moo
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I've been having my doubts about a historical Jesus because I've never really had evidence pointed out to me to suggest he was real.
The simplest reason for believing there was a historical Jesus is that there exists a movement that claims to have been founded by him. And if it wasn't founded by Jesus, so to speak, it may have been founded by someone with the same name.
That doesn't mean that the stories with supernatural elements weren't subsequently made up. But in the absence of evidence that Jesus didn't exist, the simplest assumption is that the stories are based around someone who actually existed.
quote:
I know some people quote Joseph of Arimathea as one of the earliest recordings. I have also heard that Joseph of Arimathea was Flavius Josephus who was in line with the Caesar of the time. In fact most of the earliest Saints supposedly were Flavians and worked for Rome. It has been suggested that Christianity to some degree was concocted to make the Caesar appear to be the second coming of Christ as he performed the signs of his arrival. It's been suggested that Josephus' writings are backdated.
I'm not quite following. I haven't come across this confusion between Joseph of Arimathea and Flavius Josephus before. I don't believe anyone remotely serious has ever conflated the two figures. When you say most of the earliest Saints supposedly wer Flavians, what do you mean by 'Flavian'? And what evidence is there for that?
Who suggests that Christianity was concocted to make the Caesar appear to be the second coming of Christ? And what evidence is there for that?
Most accounts accepted by historians state that early Christianity was persecuted by the Romans from the end of the first century (before Flavius Josephus wrote) until the beginning of the fourth century. It's odd to see such a movement as beginning in pro-Imperial propaganda.
If Flavius Josephus' writings are backdated, backdated from when to when? You agree that he's writing to support the Emperor Vespasian; his writings are I believe explicitly dated at the time of the Emperor Vespasian. So if he's backdated them, then he's not really writing to support the current Emperor; if the Emperor he says he's writing to support is really the current Emperor they're not backdated.
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
I've always wondered what the point of this claim was. Especially when it's just asserted, and has no real compelling reason to be believed other than the lack of evidence outside the NT. Why would there be any? It's not like he had a Social Security number and a facebook page.
I wonder what kind of external evidence people who make this assertion think there ought to be.
................ So what external evidence is there supposed to be?
Is this relevant?
Absence of evidence is, of course, not evidence of absence; but sometimes it can raise eyebrows. There were, apparently, (I’m no expert) historians living and working in the area at the time. Philo Judaeus, 20 B.C.E.- 50 C.E. is said to be regarded as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the right area at the right time. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the area around Jerusalem. Apparently he makes no reference, in all of his volumes of writings, to a Jesus “the Christ.” Neither, apparently, do we find any reference to Jesus in Seneca’s (4? B.C.E. – 65 C.E.) writings, nor in the works of Pliny the Elder (23? – 79 C.E.).
more at
When it comes to the historical question about the Gospels, I adopt a mediating position– that is, these are religious records, close to the sources, but they are not in accordance with modern historiographic requirements or professional standards. -David Noel Freedman, Bible scholar and general editor of the Anchor Bible series (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p.34)
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I know this is a little off topic, although it is somewhat related, but I do find it very curious that so many of the more militant and aggressive atheists seem to focus solely on Christianity. It's as if there isn't any other religion in the world, or they simply aren't aware of the wider world. I don't think I've ever come across an urge to demythologise Mohammed or Buddha, or even aggressively attack any other religion at all for that matter.
Ever bought a new car of a model you've seldom seen on the road and suddenly realised you're surrounded by others who have the same vehicle?
Speaking for myself – the problem I perceive is with superstition – of which religion is a part, and christianity but a large sub-part.
Atheists and agnostics (in the USA at least) outperformed all other groups in the accuracy of their responses to the religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
link
A suggestion is that atheists and agnostics reach their position after considering the alternatives, whilst it is generally accepted that, worldwide, 80% of those who claim a religious affiliation follow the example set by their parents.
FWIW I don’t think it matters whether Jesus of Nazareth is a Robin Hood like amalgam, a fiction or an actual modernising, peripatetic rabbi. It’s the claim of divinity, and the consequent misuse of our evolved susceptibility to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) that I consider harmful to humanity.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
In relation to Philo, it's interesting that not only does he not mention Jesus, he doesn't mention Christianity.
Possible reasons for this: 1. He'd never heard of it; 2. He didn't like it; 3. The early history of Christianity has been invented.
I think (1) isn't as weird as it sounds, since he lived in Alexandria, and Christianity may not have reached there before his death.
Ironically, of course, his ideas are said to have influenced the early development of Christology.
Posted by David (# 3) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Absence of evidence is, of course, not evidence of absence; but sometimes it can raise eyebrows. There were, apparently, (I’m no expert) historians living and working in the area at the time. Philo Judaeus, 20 B.C.E.- 50 C.E. is said to be regarded as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the right area at the right time. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the area around Jerusalem. Apparently he makes no reference, in all of his volumes of writings, to a Jesus “the Christ.”
Just picking this bit out of your dreadful quoting practice ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I may be showing my ignorance, but as far as I know nobody calls Philo an historian. He just wasn't one. He didn't really live in the right area (there were no flights between Alexandria and Jerusalem in those days) and I am completely unaware of him writing "detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the area around Jerusalem".
Seneca? He wrote plays. Pliny? FFS, his history work isn't even extant. That link you provided is, unfortunately the worst kind of stupid, it even has quotes from Pagels and Spong at the bottom.
Avoid.
ETA:sp
[ 05. July 2013, 06:41: Message edited by: David ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Arguments from silence are very dodgy in relation to ancient history.
Two interesting examples: there are no contemporary references to Hannibal.
The eruption near Pompeii is (I think), mentioned only by Pliny the Younger, but then probably this was because his uncle was killed in the eruption.
So arguing that Jesus didn't exist because X, Y and Z didn't mention him is a poor historical argument.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by David:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Absence of evidence is, of course, not evidence of absence; but sometimes it can raise eyebrows. There were, apparently, (I’m no expert) historians living and working in the area at the time. Philo Judaeus, 20 B.C.E.- 50 C.E. is said to be regarded as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the right area at the right time. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the area around Jerusalem. Apparently he makes no reference, in all of his volumes of writings, to a Jesus “the Christ.”
Just picking this bit out of your dreadful quoting practice
I may be showing my ignorance, but as far as I know nobody calls Philo an historian. He just wasn't one. He didn't really live in the right area (there were no flights between Alexandria and Jerusalem in those days) and I am completely unaware of him writing "detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the area around Jerusalem".
Seneca? He wrote plays. Pliny? FFS, his history work isn't even extant. That link you provided is, unfortunately the worst kind of stupid, it even has quotes from Pagels and Spong at the bottom.
Avoid.
ETA:sp
On Philo, I don't think he wrote about any Jewish preachers or messianic claimants, did he? He tended to write about upper class people, so I don't see why he would write about rural Jewish preachers.
As already mentioned, he doesn't talk about Christianity at all, either because he wasn't interested in it, or hadn't heard of it.
Posted by TimONeill (# 17746) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
This is backed up by a Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian which also has the passage saying "he was believed to be the Messiah".
I believe that one's been traced back through Eusebius as well.
For a value of 'trace back' that means 'attempt to trace back' I assume.
Justinian seems to be referring to the way the Mythers try to avoid the implications of the textual variants of Josephus' TF found in Agapius and Michael the Syrian. In 1971 Sholmo Pines noted the existence of versions of Josephus' first mention of Jesus in Antiquities XVIII.3.4 (the so called Testamonium Flavianum or TF) found in the Arabic chronicle of Agapius of Hierapolis (Tenth Century) and that of Michael the Syrian in Syriac (Twelfth Century). He argued that Agapius' version lacked the overtly Christian elements of the textus receptus of the TF. Instead of saying "he was the Messiah", his version says "he was perhaps the Messiah". Instead of "he appeared to them alive again the third day" Agapius' version has "they reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion". Pines argues that Agapius' version represents something closer to the original passage written by Josephus and that later Christian scribes simply tweaked these phrases to make them more Christian than the originals. This means Josephus did mention Jesus at this point and the passage was merely altered, not added wholesale.
Pines supports this with reference to Michael the Syrian's version, which also differs from the textus receptus. This also has "was thought to be the Messiah" rather than "he was the Messiah". Furthermore, Jerome's Fifth Century Latin translation of the TF also has "[he] was believed to be Messiah" ("credebatur esse Christus"). Pines argues that these variants all show that the textus receptus represents a later Christianised tweaking of what Josephus wrote. See S. Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Arts and Humanities, 1971).
In 2008 Alice Whealey re-examined the issue of how Agapius and Michael the Syrian's variants stand in relation to the textus receptus of the TF (A. Whealey, "The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic", New Testament Studies 54.4, 2008, p. 576). She draws on several decades of work done on the relationships between Agapius and Michael's chronicles and their likely sources done by textual scholars of early Islam in the years since Pines' monograph. Through some very meticulous and detailed textual analysis, Whealey argues persuasively that it is actually Michael the Syrian's version that is most likely to be more closely influenced by a pre-doctored original of Josephus' TF, though the variants in Jerome and Agapius support this conclusion in useful ways.
She argues strongly that both Michael and Agapius' version of the TF is taken not from an early Greek text of Josephus, but from a Syriac translation of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica, which contains the TF in quotation. But the Syriac version of the quote they used differed from what we find in Eusebius today and reflected the early, pre-doctored TF.
Whealey's article is dense, complex and closely argued, with plenty of quotes in Greek, Latin and Syriac to support her points. Anyone who has actually read it can see that while she says that Agapius and Michael's versions of the TF are derived from a Syriac translation of (a version of) Eusebius, they still clearly indicate a pre-Christian version of the TF.
But most online Mythers don't actually bother to read the scholarship. They get their arguments third or fourth hand, a bit like Creationists getting their grasp of evolutionary biology via an online summary of Ken Ham's popularisation of some book by Duane Gish.
So we get blithe dismissals of the implication of the textual variants of the TF in Jerome, Agapius and Michael the Syrian with hand-waving like "that one's been traced back through Eusebius as well", as though Whealey's careful argument undermines the idea of an original, pre-Christian Josephean TF when it actually does precisely the opposite.
Welcome to online Mytherism. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TimONeill:
most online Mythers don't actually bother to read the scholarship. They get their arguments third or fourth hand
Part of the price we pay for using the internet is exposure to the worst kind of intellectual amateurism, as well as to the more middling kind which is probably an inevitable consequence of there not being enough time or resources for every intelligent person to have a more than shallow acquaintance with the subjects that interest them.
Posted by TimONeill (# 17746) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
On Philo, I don't think he wrote about any Jewish preachers or messianic claimants, did he? He tended to write about upper class people, so I don't see why he would write about rural Jewish preachers.
As others have noted already, this is where the Mythers' attempt at arguments from silence always fail.
The argument usually goes like this:
1. Jesus is not mentioned by {insert First Century writer here}
2. [First Century writer} should have mentioned Jesus if he has existed
3. Therefore Jesus didn't exist.
The problem with this argument lies in the second premise - the Myther has to show that the writer in question should have mentioned Jesus. Unless they do so, the argument fails.
Most of the time they don't even bother to try, especially when they just choose a First Century writer at random without bothering to explain why the hell they would have any interest in someone like Jesus or where in their works we should expect this mention of a Jewish preacher. Most of the writers they claim "should" have mentioned Jesus come from the list drawn up by the American "freethinker" John Remsberg way back in 1909, many of which are highly fanciful. Why exactly, for example, Lucanus - a writer whose works consist of a single poem and a history of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (in the century before Jesus' time) "should" have mentioned Jesus is hard to see. And the same can be said for most of the other writers on Remsberg's list.
HughWillRidmee links to the laugbably bad amateurish Myther screed by the notorius Jim West which tries to argue that Philo "should" have mentioned Jesus. But since Philo also makes no mention of any of the many other Jewish preachers, prophets, wonder workers and Messianic claimants of the time, several of whom were much more prominent than Jesus, this argument fails. Why "should" Philo be expected to mention this particular peasant preacher when he shows no interest at all in any of the others?
West's claim that Seneca and Pliny should have mentioned Jesus makes even less sense, since their writings demonstrate even less interest in Jewish affairs than Philo.
It's bizarre that in some of the stupider corners of the internet - the /r/atheism board on reddit springs to mind - any mention of a historical Jesus is immediately met with "he was not mentioned by any contemporary historian so he didn't exist". And this is treated as though it's some kind of killer argument rather than recognised as sophomoric nonsense.
Such is the world of internet Mytherism.
Posted by David (# 3) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TimONeill:
The problem with this argument lies in the second premise - the Myther has to show that the writer in question should have mentioned Jesus. Unless they do so, the argument fails.
IME not only do they fail to explain why they should have mentioned him, they also ignore the fact that in most cases we've retained two-fifths of sweet FA of what they wrote anyway, and large chunks of it in secondary sources. This is why experienced, qualified people have to spend decades pissing about with tiny fragments of dubious text in order to come to any decent conclusion at all.
ETA: thanks for posting the TF info, very interesting read. Things have moved on a little bit since I last had time to spend on this sort of discussion - still no time but.
[ 06. July 2013, 07:24: Message edited by: David ]
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on
:
Two-fifths sounds high to me. We are missing most of even the ancient 'best sellers' much less official records (almost none), letters (almost none), and so on.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
I think it is also a mistake to assume that Jesus would be the hot topic every First Century Jew (or person writing about them) would be talking about. I'm not very well informed about this period, but I can imagine that for quite some time it was just one of the sects that existed at the fringes of Judaism.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Two-fifths sounds high to me. We are missing most of even the ancient 'best sellers' much less official records (almost none), letters (almost none), and so on.
Um, I think the full quote was two fifths of sweet Fanny Adams ...
(Or whatever FA stands for.)
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I think it is also a mistake to assume that Jesus would be the hot topic every First Century Jew (or person writing about them) would be talking about. I'm not very well informed about this period, but I can imagine that for quite some time it was just one of the sects that existed at the fringes of Judaism.
Very true. There were also other Charismatic Rabbis like Hanina Ben Dosa and Honi the Circle Drawer who performed exorcisms and other miracles and who were seen as sons of God. Our perspective of Jesus is very different from that of 1st Century Jews.
Posted by TimONeill (# 17746) on
:
quote:
Very true. There were also other Charismatic Rabbis like Hanina Ben Dosa and Honi the Circle Drawer who performed exorcisms and other miracles and who were seen as sons of God. Our perspective of Jesus is very different from that of 1st Century Jews.
Mythers have remarkably little interest in First Century Jews or what they believed. The New Age/'Zeitgeist" wing of the Myther movement has no conception of Second Temple Judaism and so constructs a bizarro world scenario where somehow Jesus arises out of Egyptian and Greek polytheistic mythology with no regard for the cult's rigidly monotheistic and devoutly Jewish context. The Doherty/Carrier Mythers assume an early Christianity that immediately thought of Jesus as divine, even though there is a solid, mainstream scholarly case, based on meticulous peer-reviewed work, that the first Jesus sect members did not see Jesus as God at all and spoke of him in purely Jewish terms right up until the very end of the First Century.
Regardless of your views on who or what Jesus was, the more you understand the Judaism of the Second Temple Period the less coherent and convincing Mytherism is.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I wonder if the Dead Sea Scrolls have also been important here, as they seem to demonstrate that some Jewish sects had apocalyptic views, about the present evil age, and a coming new kingdom. I don't mean that Jesus thought (and talked) like them, but that we can place his apocalyptic ideas within a Jewish context. This seems also to counter those ideas that Jesus is somehow similar to Mithras/Horus, and so on. Well, he was a devout Jew.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I wonder if the Dead Sea Scrolls have also been important here, as they seem to demonstrate that some Jewish sects had apocalyptic views, about the present evil age, and a coming new kingdom. I don't mean that Jesus thought (and talked) like them, but that we can place his apocalyptic ideas within a Jewish context. This seems also to counter those ideas that Jesus is somehow similar to Mithras/Horus, and so on. Well, he was a devout Jew.
What the Dead Sea Scrolls do is show that an ethical dualism was present within Judaism at the time of Jesus which is particularly relevant to the Fourth Gospel which has the same ideas. Before the DDS were discovered, scholars often looked for influences on the Fourth Gospel in the Mystery Religions, Gnostic redeemer myths and other Hellenistic thought - usually in the form of metaphysical as opposed to ethical dualism. The DDS performed an important corrective on this. It's similar to when the term Son of Man was linked to non Jewish influences and people like Geza Vermes and Barnabas Lindars pointed out that the term was a common Aramaic idiom. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Ockham's razor and all that.
Posted by gorpo (# 17025) on
:
There isn´t any difference in sayng that there was no historical Jesus, and sayng that there was some historical Jesus who did not perform any miracles or said the words the gospels claim He has said (which is pretty much the standard opinion of theologians from mainline denominations...). In any case, the Jesus of the Gospels would not have been a real person, and the "real Jesus" who supposedly lived 2000 years ago would be entirely unimportant.
Posted by TimONeill (# 17746) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
There isn´t any difference in sayng that there was no historical Jesus, and sayng that there was some historical Jesus who did not perform any miracles or said the words the gospels claim He has said (which is pretty much the standard opinion of theologians from mainline denominations...).
There's an enormous difference between those things, actually.
quote:
In any case, the Jesus of the Gospels would not have been a real person, and the "real Jesus" who supposedly lived 2000 years ago would be entirely unimportant.
Unimportant? How could the human who was turned into a god worshipped by billions be historically "unimportant"? I can't think of anyone who could be more historically important.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yonatan:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I wonder if the Dead Sea Scrolls have also been important here, as they seem to demonstrate that some Jewish sects had apocalyptic views, about the present evil age, and a coming new kingdom. I don't mean that Jesus thought (and talked) like them, but that we can place his apocalyptic ideas within a Jewish context. This seems also to counter those ideas that Jesus is somehow similar to Mithras/Horus, and so on. Well, he was a devout Jew.
What the Dead Sea Scrolls do is show that an ethical dualism was present within Judaism at the time of Jesus which is particularly relevant to the Fourth Gospel which has the same ideas. Before the DDS were discovered, scholars often looked for influences on the Fourth Gospel in the Mystery Religions, Gnostic redeemer myths and other Hellenistic thought - usually in the form of metaphysical as opposed to ethical dualism. The DDS performed an important corrective on this. It's similar to when the term Son of Man was linked to non Jewish influences and people like Geza Vermes and Barnabas Lindars pointed out that the term was a common Aramaic idiom. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Ockham's razor and all that.
It's both an ethical and a cosmic dualism, isn't it? After all, the ethical dualism is already found in Judaism - 'behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death', (Jer. 21: 8). But now it achieves cosmic proportions, and there are armies belonging to the light, and those belonging to the darkness. I suppose in eschatological terms, this translates as that which has been, and that which is to come, in historical terms, as well as personal ones.
Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on
:
Indeed it is both ethical and cosmic dualism, but not metaphysical dualism which is important. The creator of the world is also the redeemer of it in the Fourth Gospel. There's no evil demiurge behind the scenes as there is in some of the Gnostic and Hellenistic myths. Nor is there any thought that matter is evil or pre-existent.
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