Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[mstricky]

There are no records of Jesus after his birth other than he was taken to Egypt until he was twelve. A very convenient plot for the story tellers. There's one reference when he was twelve when he was found in the synagogue and then nothing until he reaches his thirties. Surely such an important son of God would have had many records/ documents written about him.
There would have been many too who were against him that would have left records of his time on earth.

 

[pakeha]

Indeed. Look at the claims of Joseph Smith regarding the Book Of Mormon and the Book Of Abraham:

The former is flat out contradicted by archaeology, paleontology, linguistics and genomics, and the latter is shown to be a complete fraud by actual egyptological translation of the Egyptian funerary text from which it was "translated". These facts have barely put a dent in Mormonism.

Too true.
I seen Mormons here argue that the 'spiritual benefits' of believing that stuff outweighs the cognitive dissonance required to ignore the facts of the matter.

...Books like this one are trying to lead beyond baseless speculation and find the real history behind the stories. One on the reasons the Jesus Myth is becoming more popular is the scepticism engendered by having so many "real Jesus" theories - there are DOZENS of them.

See David's "Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up" :

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/01/will-the-real-jesus-please-stand-up/


Kapyong

Thanks for the link!

...All he is trying to say is that the Jesus Myth is plausible, not ridiculous.

Because a standard apologist meme is that the Jesus Myth is ridiculous crackpottery like creationism. ...

Yes.
I've seen this meme spouted over and over again across the web.
The implication is that the NT is as reliable as geology or genetic analysis.
Spooky.

 

[Brainache]

Now that's very interesting reasoning, indeed.
I agree with you in that the first point would indicate an individual. It's one of the points in which I'm agreement with Stone, actually.

And yes, though I'd never considered that Paul's act could imply an historical Jesus, I think it's a reasonable deduction.

You could, of course, also argue that, Paul has simply made up the opposition to his preaching.
It's a technique modern scammers use to devastating effect on their vics and I myself don't think religious hucksterism has changed much in 2,500 years.
...

I'm sure we've talked about this before. About how the audience for those letters doesn't need to be introduced to these earlier Apostles. They already know who Paul is talking about.

He has competition in the Jesus business, so I don't see how he invented it.

 

[Craig B]

I'm sure we've talked about this before. About how the audience for those letters doesn't need to be introduced to these earlier Apostles. They already know who Paul is talking about.

He has competition in the Jesus business, so I don't see how he invented it.

Moreover, why would he invent a nasty "Lord's Brother" James, and a Cephas, declare that they both had visions of the risen Jesus before Paul himself did, and then go to the trouble of fighting with them? The implication is these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did, and this was so well known that Paul was obliged to admit it. Thus, at the very least, Paul believed that Jesus had recently been a human being on earth. This is fatal to the "strong" mythicism that contends that Paul considered Jesus to have been an entirely supernatural being, dwelling and being crucified in a spiritual, or non-material, domain of reality, at some unspecifiable time.

"Weak" mythicism, which holds that we know so little about Jesus that we may reasonably doubt his historical existence, thereby making him, by default, a myth, is more plausible.

 

[Brainache]

Gday,



Fair point.

I think he wrote a popular book for the popular audience - i.e. normal Christian believers and those who are unsure.

We'll have to wait for Carrier's book for a more scholarly work.


Kapyong

G'day Kapyong, long time no see.

Yes, i'll be interested to see how Carrier can have so much confidence in a method which gives him chances of anywhere between 1 in 3, and 1 in 12,000, just by massaging the inputs.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

...
I conclude that, using probability estimates as far against my conclusion as are at all reasonably possible (probabilities I believe are wildly too generous), there could be as much as a 1 in 3 chance that Jesus existed. When using what I think are more realistic estimates of the requisite probabilities (estimates I believe are closer to the truth), those chances drop to around 1 in 12,000...

GIGO, or what?

 

[catsmate]

Too true.
I seen Mormons here argue that the 'spiritual benefits' of believing that stuff outweighs the cognitive dissonance required to ignore the facts of the matter.

Religion as a tool of social control. There's a thread around where someone's arguing that without religion civilisation would fall; that says more about him than anything else.

 

[pakeha]

I'm sure we've talked about this before. About how the audience for those letters doesn't need to be introduced to these earlier Apostles. They already know who Paul is talking about.

He has competition in the Jesus business, so I don't see how he invented it.

Very possibly, Brainache, but as far as I know, that argument isn't written in stone.
The thing is, I've seen professional contemporary scammers follow a frighteningly similar line to Paul's.

When you have the ¹⁴C dating sources, I'd be very pleased to look them over.


Craig B wrote:

Moreover, why would he invent a nasty "Lord's Brother" James, and a Cephas, declare that they both had visions of the risen Jesus before Paul himself did, and then go to the trouble of fighting with them? The implication is these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did, and this was so well known that Paul was obliged to admit it. Thus, at the very least, Paul believed that Jesus had recently been a human being on earth. This is fatal to the "strong" mythicism that contends that Paul considered Jesus to have been an entirely supernatural being, dwelling and being crucified in a spiritual, or non-material, domain of reality, at some unspecifiable time.

"Weak" mythicism, which holds that we know so little about Jesus that we may reasonably doubt his historical existence, thereby making him, by default, a myth, is more plausible.

I can see your point, Craig B, about Paul, but on the other hand, what do we really know about the beliefs among those communities in Thessaly, Athens and so on?
That disputed correspondence between Pliny and Trajan would point to a certain confusion about early beliefs.

And pointing back to scammers through the ages, an imaginary enemy is a powerful recourse in the scammers' basic kit.

And yes, of course I agree with you about "weak" mythicism.

 

[Brainache]

...
I can see your point, Craig B, about Paul, but on the other hand, what do we really know about the beliefs among those communities in Thessaly, Athens and so on?
That disputed correspondence between Pliny and Trajan would point to a certain confusion about early beliefs.

...

Wasn't that Pliny-Trajan stuff from the early second century?

If so, that's two or three generations after Paul.

 

[Craig B]

Wasn't that Pliny-Trajan stuff from the early second century?

If so, that's two or three generations after Paul.

And during that time the number of Christians was so small that a provincial governor like Pliny had very little knowledge of them until he ran into them in the course of his work investigating illegal private assemblies in his province of Bithynia. Just as there are all kinds of small religious fringe groups here and now characterised by the "depraved superstition" noted by Pliny among the Christians, but which are unknown to all but a few people. The Christians had only recently ceased in the public mind, when they were known at all, to be thought of as one of the many sects of Jews. They became an item of general common knowledge only much later.

 

[IanS]

The way Paul goes out of his way to explain why his readers should believe him even though people who actually knew Jesus in life are saying that he's wrong about his message, for another.

Somebody knew Jesus in real life before Paul wrote about him? Really? Who was that? Who was it that wrote about Jesus at an earlier date than Paul's letters?

 

[zugzwang]

Gday Zugzwang,



His point is that the Gospels are NOT consistent and give wildly different views of Jesus -

G.Mark - a fallible suffering human

G.Matthew - a new Jewish take on Jesus with various errors fixed up and many stories added and Jesus made more perfect

G.Luke - a serene, beatific, and unflappable Jesus - a happy nativity story, a new genealogy

G.John - a Superman Jesus, large and in control, openly the Messiah and who knows he is God

Various differences found in the Gospels include :

* Why did the Jews want to kill Jesus?

* Why did Judas betray him ?

* When was Jesus born ?

* When did Jesus die ?

Historian Paul Winter noted :


All attempts to sift through textual criticism to find the real Jesus face one nagging problem - the Gospels present different Jesi, and appear to do so deliberately - the sign of mythmaking, not history.





Some apologist like to claim that Jesus brought a NEW message to the world that swept through it like wildfire. Nothing could be further from the truth.


Kapyong

Ah well, you see how differently people approach things! For me, the inconsistencies indicate that there was somebody real, since it is notorious that for example, witnesses to a crime given wildly inconsistent versions of it. Why would a made up myth show such differences? I suppose it might happen, if different versions of the myth were circulating, but this seems to redouble the ifs - if there was a Jesus myth, and if there were different versions of it.

The other point is quite weird, since it seems to be an argument against fundies and evangelicals, not historians. Isn't this the old confusion between HJ and gospel Jesus? Which is being argued against?

 

[Craig B]

Somebody knew Jesus in real life before Paul wrote about him? Really? Who was that? Who was it that wrote about Jesus at an earlier date than Paul's letters?

It's inconceivable, unless some parts of the Q Sayings had been written down at such an early date, but that seems most improbable. The only claimed earlier writing is the titulus allegedly put by Pilate on Jesus' cross. But as all four gospels disagree on the exact wording of that inscription, it is of little help to us. Needless to say, it supposedly exists as a relic in the possession of the RCC, and the credulous Carsten Peter Theide has promoted its authenticity.

 

[IanS]

Moreover, why would he invent a nasty "Lord's Brother" James, and a Cephas, declare that they both had visions of the risen Jesus before Paul himself did, and then go to the trouble of fighting with them? The implication is these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did, and this was so well known that Paul was obliged to admit it.

Paul writes that James and Cephas had seen visions of a risen Jesus (ie supernatural claim), and from that you conclude it "implies these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did"? How on earth do you conclude any such thing?

In that brief sentence from 1-Corinthians, all that Paul says is that he believes that others before him had seen a supernatural vision of a “Christ” (ie “messiah”), risen from the dead, and where Paul apparently thinks that messianic rising from the dead has for centuries been prophesised by OT scripture.

There is nothing there to show that Paul or anyone else ever knew any earthly living Jesus. Paul is talking about peoples religious visions of the supernatural (according, he says, to scripture).

 

[Brainache]

Somebody knew Jesus in real life before Paul wrote about him? Really? Who was that? Who was it that wrote about Jesus at an earlier date than Paul's letters?

You know when you apply for a job, and they tell you they'll call...?

 

[lpetrich]

That book is a bit beyond my budget at the moment, but I may eventually get it.

However, here's something I consider strong evidence that Jesus Christ was largely mythical if not completely mythical: how well he fits Lord Raglan's mythic-hero profile.

I have composed a big list of Lord Raglan evaluations at List of Lord Raglan evaluations - Atheism, though these are mostly by myself. Other evaluations may differ.

Out of a maximum score of 22, I find a score of 18.5 for the four canonical Gospels taken together, close to what Alan Dundes had found. Treating them separately, I find
Matthew: 19
Mark: 11
Luke: 16
John: 13

Jesus Christ is way up there, alongside Krishna (17), Zeus (14.5 out of 16), Hercules (15), Perseus (17), Oedipus (13), Romulus (19), King Arthur (14.5), etc.

He even scores higher than the Buddha, who scores 13.

Looking at the Old Testament, Moses scores 15, while King David scores 4.

Alexander the Great scores 9, Julius Caesar 9.5 and Augustus Caesar 10, but real people in modern times typically score much less. People like George Washington (6), Napoleon (8), Abraham Lincoln (6), Charles Darwin (5), Winston Churchill (5), Adolf Hitler (4), JFK (7, with controversies about his death, 8), Muammar Khadafy (or any of the numerous other Roman-alphabet spellings of his name, 5.5).

I included MK because he's one of the few notable leaders in recent centuries to have been repudiated by many of his followers late in his career. Richard Nixon and Mikhail Gorbachev may also qualify. RN in the Watergate scandal and MG by the Soviet Union's republics voting the Soviet Union out of existence and him out of a job.


Lord Raglan had neglected to include another criterion: prophecy fulfillment, especially with attempts to thwart it. That's a common Christian apologetic, what prophecies Jesus Christ had fulfilled, but Jesus Christ was far from alone in fulfilling prophecies. Krishna, the Buddha, Zeus, Oedipus, Perseus, Romulus, King Arthur, even some historical people like Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar.

 

[Craig B]

Paul writes that James and Cephas had seen visions of a risen Jesus (ie supernatural claim), and from that you conclude it "implies these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did"? How on earth do you conclude any such thing?

That circumstance, of which I am very mindful, makes it even worse for Paul. He is concerned to establish that his visionary relationship with Jesus is the best kind that can be had, so why does he ascribe a prior such exalted vision to James and Peter? Thus, he didn't invent these people.

 

[IanS]

Somebody knew Jesus in real life before Paul wrote about him? Really? Who was that? Who was it that wrote about Jesus at an earlier date than Paul's letters?

It's inconceivable, unless some parts of the Q Sayings had been written down at such an early date, but that seems most improbable. The only claimed earlier writing is the titulus allegedly put by Pilate on Jesus' cross. But as all four gospels disagree on the exact wording of that inscription, it is of little help to us. Needless to say, it supposedly exists as a relic in the possession of the RCC, and the credulous Carsten Peter Theide has promoted its authenticity.

What? You are saying that somebody has the actual cross of Jesus? And that on that real cross of Jesus, Pontius Pilate himself wrote something naming Jesus?

 

[Brainache]

What? You are saying that somebody has the actual cross of Jesus? And that on that real cross of Jesus, Pontius Pilate himself wrote something naming Jesus?

If you bothered to read what he actually wrote, you'll see he didn't say that at all.

 

[Craig B]

What? You are saying that somebody has the actual cross of Jesus? And that on that real cross of Jesus, Pontius Pilate himself wrote something naming Jesus?

Sorry, I said absolutely nothing of the sort. You must have read someone else's post by mistake.

 

[dejudge]

Moreover, why would he invent a nasty "Lord's Brother" James, and a Cephas, declare that they both had visions of the risen Jesus before Paul himself did, and then go to the trouble of fighting with them? The implication is these guys really knew Jesus before Paul did, and this was so well known that Paul was obliged to admit it. Thus, at the very least, Paul believed that Jesus had recently been a human being on earth. This is fatal to the "strong" mythicism that contends that Paul considered Jesus to have been an entirely supernatural being, dwelling and being crucified in a spiritual, or non-material, domain of reality, at some unspecifiable time.

"Weak" mythicism, which holds that we know so little about Jesus that we may reasonably doubt his historical existence, thereby making him, by default, a myth, is more plausible.

Again, the Pauline Corpus, along with Acts and the Gospels are sources of forgeries, fiction and without external non-apologetic corroboration so for you to rely on the very worst sources for your Jesus is just laughable.

You must find external non-apologetic corroboration for your Jesus or else you might as well stop talking.

The Bible mentions several characters like Pilate, Tiberius, Caiaphas, King Herod, John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, Peter and Paul.

We can find Pilate, Tiberius, Caiaphas, King Herod, and John the Baptist in external non-apologetic sources.

No-one can find Jesus of Nazareth, Peter and Paul outside of Apologetics.

We know why. They are figures of Fiction.