Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[MattusMaximus]

He is displeased by hubris.

Psst... Zeus isn't real.

 

[dejudge]

Nobody misrepresents what you write. They merely disagree that the false or mythical stories about Jesus' birth necessarily mean that he never existed. Some people believed that Alexander the Great had divine parentage, but he most certainly existed.

We already know that BILLIONS of people believe Jesus existed.

These forums and threads were set up for those billions of people to present the EVIDENCE from antiquity--not just to repeat what they believe.

What you believe about Jesus is actually irrelevant if you are not prepared to present any evidence from antiquity.

Telling me about Alexander the Great is worthless. Alexander the Great may or may not have existed and needs a separate and independent inquiry and the results cannot be transferred to the Jesus of Nazareth.

Do you have any evidence from antiquity for what you believe about Jesus?

Yes or No?

Let us not waste any more time. Present the evidence if you have any.

I conclude Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of Mythology like Romulus and Perseus because it is documented that he was born of a Ghost, was God Creator, was made a Spirit, that he walked 3 miles on the sea, and transfigured before he was raised from the dead and ascended in a cloud. See Matthew 1, Luke 1, Mark 6. Mark 9, Acts 1 and the Pauline Corpus.

 

[Brainache]

... needs a separate and independent inquiry...

Tell me dejudge, what is your opinion of Larry Silverstein?

 

[dejudge]

The general consensus among the majority of New Testament academic scholars is, "Most likely, yes".

Your claim is a fallacy. There is no consensus and never was any consensus for HJ of Nazareth . There has been an ongoing quest for an historical Jesus for hundreds of years.

Please, I am afraid you have no idea of the Quest for an HJ and what prompted the quest.

There was a consensus that Jesus of the NT is a FIGURE of FAITH--essentially a Literary concept.

Please just go and find out about the Quest for an HJ and you will find that it has always ended in a disaster. HJ of Nazareth has never ever been found.

For hundreds of years it has been argued and documented that Jesus was born of a Ghost and God Creator. There is no other Jesus but Myth Jesus--a Jesus of FAITH.

See the writings of Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Minucius Felix, Origen, Eusebius, Lactantius, Jerome, Alexander of Hippo, Optatus, Rufinus and Chrysostom.

 

[marplots]

Psst... Zeus isn't real.

Shhh... he'll hear you.

 

[ShadowSot]

For what it's worth Gawdzilla, I sympathize. I didn't come out though, I got outed by my sister. Caused me hell.

 

[Robrob]

Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

I find this funny, how does story "X" being a myth = someone never existed, isn't that a classic "proving a negative?" Every story about someone could be fake or myth and they still might have been a real person (doubtful but still).

 

[lpetrich]

Assuming any validity to the methodology, we would expect the Jesus of the gospels to have many mythical qualities because he was, without a doubt, at least largely made up by the authors.

Why would that be?

But I fail to see how that weighs against there having been an historical person who's life was the inspiration for the mythical stories. Just think about the mythical qualities of Santa Clause. But that doesn't change the fact that the mythology ultimately traces back to Nicolas of Myra.

Something similar has happened more recently with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Half a century ago, the Rastafarians of Jamaica turned him into a messiah figure.

But that sort of claim seems to me to be grasping at straws. It's conceding that there's a lot that is unhistorical in the Gospels.

 

[Brainache]

...
But that sort of claim seems to me to be grasping at straws. It's conceding that there's a lot that is unhistorical in the Gospels.

That is a basic starting assumption, not conceding anything.

 

[ddt]

That is a basic starting assumption, not conceding anything.

Yes. Serious scholars (that excludes Christian apologists like William Lane Craig or Norman Geisler) acknowledge that the Gospels contain a mighty lot of embellishment. Their Historical Jesus is nothing like the Gospel Jesus. Historical Jesus - if he existed - was an insignificant Galilean wandering preacher with a small following who got crucified by the Romans under Pilate. Beyond that, all scholars widely diverge in their opinion what Jesus might have preached etc.

That Gospel Jesus fits in nicely in Lord Raglan's myth scoring, is a vindication of his scoring system rather than a proof that there was no Historical Jesus.

 

[David Mo]

I conclude Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of Mythology like Romulus and Perseus because it is documented that he was born of a Ghost, was God Creator, was made a Spirit, that he walked 3 miles on the sea, and transfigured before he was raised from the dead and ascended in a cloud. See Matthew 1, Luke 1, Mark 6. Mark 9, Acts 1 and the Pauline Corpus.

The evangelists told legendary stories. That's for sure. But this finding does not necessarily is followed by Jesus was a myth. One can also conclude that it was a real person mythologized. There is very little distance between one thing and another.

The minimalist historians, that is to say, those who think that Jesus existed but was strongly mythologized by his disciples, have an argument against mythicism. If someone had invented the myth would have made it differently. He wouldn’t have invented a Jesus dead by a shameful punishment as crucifixion was to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire.

I don’t know if the argument is strong, but it is non negligible.

Your claim is a fallacy. There is no consensus and never was any consensus for HJ of Nazareth . There has been an ongoing quest for an historical Jesus for hundreds of years.

I’m sorry; there is an academic consensus about Jesus: he was a Jewish preacher in Palestine in the first Century who was crucified by Romans. You can count on the fingers academic historians who do not support this consensus. Yes, you need another hand for extra-academic historians, but the final scoreboard will be an overwhelming result: much more than a thousand to one. This is signifiant consensus.

The quality of this consensus is another matter. But you can not deny that a consensus exists.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

For what it's worth Gawdzilla, I sympathize. I didn't come out though, I got outed by my sister. Caused me hell.

Yep, very Christ-like of them, wasn't it?

 

[Craig B]

Your claim is a fallacy. There is no consensus and never was any consensus for HJ of Nazareth . There has been an ongoing quest for an historical Jesus for hundreds of years.

Please, I am afraid you have no idea of the Quest for an HJ and what prompted the quest.

There was a consensus that Jesus of the NT is a FIGURE of FAITH--essentially a Literary concept.

Please just go and find out about the Quest for an HJ and you will find that it has always ended in a disaster. HJ of Nazareth has never ever been found.

For hundreds of years it has been argued and documented that Jesus was born of a Ghost and God Creator. There is no other Jesus but Myth Jesus--a Jesus of FAITH.

See the writings of Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Minucius Felix, Origen, Eusebius, Lactantius, Jerome, Alexander of Hippo, Optatus, Rufinus and Chrysostom.

dejudge, you've been churning out EXACTLY the same material for days and days now, including the huge lists of the names of ancient authors with no citation of their works; and you pay no attention whatsoever to anything that anyone else writes about these things. For the last time, the fact that myths attach to the birth of Jesus doesn't necessarily mean that there was no historical core around which these myths may have accreted. I used Alexander as an example of where that is known to have taken place.

We don't know if there's a historical person behind the stories about King Arthur. But we can't say: the stories tell us he had a magic sword; magic swords don't exist; therefore there is no historical reality behind the stories. Another scholar might say: maybe there was a person, but the story about the magic sword is an invention that was added in later. Now that is the argument, and I invite you either to address it - even to refute it - or to fall silent.

 

[pakeha]

It is completely frightening when people advocate multi-attestation in the Bible for reliable historical accounts of Jesus of Nazareth.

You mean like Bart Ehrman did in his latest book, when he did the miraculous multiplication of independent attestation, by claiming the following
1. gMark
2. Q
3. the material unique to Matthew
4. gMatthew
5. the material unique to Luke
6. gLuke

Something like that, I daresay.

 

[Belz...]

Your claim is a fallacy.

I sense a pattern, here.

 

[Foster Zygote]

For hundreds of years it has been argued and documented that Jesus was born of a Ghost and God Creator. There is no other Jesus but Myth Jesus--a Jesus of FAITH.

Actually, the above argument is fallacious. The fact that people in a very superstitious culture made up and believed magical stories about religious figures does not prove that those figures never existed. Read James Randi's The Faith Healers for an example of the sorts of supernatural powers that are attributed to contemporary, living persons. Look at the numbers of people who believe that John Edward can communicate with the dead, or that Sylvia Browne could offer them spiritually derived truths about missing children. Look at the number of "god men" in India, who are essentially magicians and conjurers and convince large portions of the superstitious and uneducated populace that they have magical powers.

I order to dismiss the idea that there could have been an historical Jesus, you are going to have to provide a rational argument why the following scenario is implausible:


A member of the Jewish apocalyptic movement begins teaching his own version of apocalyptic prophecy and gathers at least a modest following.

Eventually he and his inner circle head off to Jerusalem during the Passover festivities with the expectation that he will initiate a fairly standard apocalyptic scenario in which the faithful, good Jews are led in revolt against the Roman occupiers (and the unfaithful collaborators) by a descendant of King David, who will then reclaim the throne of Israel and reestablish its sovereignty as a kingdom of God.

But, like so many other deluded prophets (including previous apocalyptic revolutionaries who have tried exactly the same thing), his protests at the Temple fail to spark the powder keg of revolution that he expects and he is promptly arrested by the Romans and sentenced to die the very painful and public death of a seditionist.

His followers are stunned, yet they strongly resist the most parsimonious conclusion: that their rabbi was merely a very imaginative, but none the less deluded man, who, even if their beliefs regarding prophecy are correct, was not the heir to the throne of David that they are waiting for. And so they begin to rationalize the complete and utter failure of their cosmic revolution. They reinvent their doctrine so that their leader's death was part of the plan all along. In fact he isn't even dead, they say. He came back to life long enough to tell them the new plan then headed up to be with God and prepare for his glorious return when he will complete God's plan and set everything right.

Stories about this new narrative are spread by word of mouth, changed and embellished by successive narrators who alter it to suit their own ends.
"Could he do miracles?"
"Oh heck yeah! He... he... walked on water! And he... brought dead people back to life!"
"Wow!"

Eventually, many different versions of the fictionalized accounts of the man's life are circulating, although some elements of his original apocalyptic teachings remain, even if their context is forgotten or simply missed by those who are unfamiliar with that school of religious thought. Generations after his death, people begin to write their versions of the story down. Eventually, the cult surrounding his legend grows to become a religion of its own (several squabbling religions, actually), even to the point that he is deified by many and worshipped by beople who never practiced Judaism. Ironically, it's hard to say what would have infuriated the real man more: the blasphemous claim that he was a god, or the fact that this blaspheming religion based on him would one day become the official religion of the Roman Empire that he hated so much.


So please point out what aspects of the above narrative are logically implausible.

 

[Foster Zygote]

If someone had invented the myth would have made it differently. He wouldn’t have invented a Jesus dead by a shameful punishment as crucifixion was to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire.

The very fact that the narratives have Jesus being executed by crucifixion tell us something very important. Jesus is said to have been executed because he offended the Temple high priests with what they regarded as blasphemy. But the Romans honestly couldn't have cared less if someone contradicted the theology of the these priests. Contrary to many modern impressions of 1st Century Judaism, there were numerous groups arguing vociferously about matters of "correct doctrine". The Romans put people to death by crucifixion to make an example of them. And they made a point of writing their crimes out in order to make an impression on those who saw them put to death. "Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum" says it all. "This man said he was the king of the Jews and challenged our authority. Look what happened to him."

 

[pakeha]

...A member of the Jewish apocalyptic movement begins teaching his own version of apocalyptic prophecy and gathers at least a modest following.

Eventually he and his inner circle head off to Jerusalem during the Passover festivities with the expectation that he will initiate a fairly standard apocalyptic scenario in which the faithful, good Jews are led in revolt against the Roman occupiers (and the unfaithful collaborators) by a descendant of King David, who will then reclaim the throne of Israel and reestablish its sovereignty as a kingdom of God.

But, like so many other deluded prophets (including previous apocalyptic revolutionaries who have tried exactly the same thing), his protests at the Temple fail to spark the powder keg of revolution that he expects and he is promptly arrested by the Romans and sentenced to die the very painful and public death of a seditionist.

His followers are stunned, yet they strongly resist the most parsimonious conclusion: that their rabbi was merely a very imaginative, but none the less deluded man, who, even if their beliefs regarding prophecy are correct, was not the heir to the throne of David that they are waiting for. And so they begin to rationalize the complete and utter failure of their cosmic revolution. They reinvent their doctrine so that their leader's death was part of the plan all along. In fact he isn't even dead, they say. He came back to life long enough to tell them the new plan then headed up to be with God and prepare for his glorious return when he will complete God's plan and set everything right.

Stories about this new narrative are spread by word of mouth, changed and embellished by successive narrators who alter it to suit their own ends.
"Could he do miracles?"
"Oh heck yeah! He... he... walked on water! And he... brought dead people back to life!"
"Wow!"

Eventually, many different versions of the fictionalized accounts of the man's life are circulating, although some elements of his original apocalyptic teachings remain, even if their context is forgotten or simply missed by those who are unfamiliar with that school of religious thought. Generations after his death, people begin to write their versions of the story down. Eventually, the cult surrounding his legend grows to become a religion of its own (several squabbling religions, actually), even to the point that he is deified by many and worshipped by beople who never practiced Judaism. Ironically, it's hard to say what would have infuriated the real man more: the blasphemous claim that he was a god, or the fact that this blaspheming religion based on him would one day become the official religion of the Roman Empire that he hated so much.


So please point out what aspects of the above narrative are logically implausible.

The very fact that the narratives have Jesus being executed by crucifixion tell us something very important. Jesus is said to have been executed because he offended the Temple high priests with what they regarded as blasphemy. But the Romans honestly couldn't have cared less if someone contradicted the theology of the these priests. Contrary to many modern impressions of 1st Century Judaism, there were numerous groups arguing vociferously about matters of "correct doctrine". The Romans put people to death by crucifixion to make an example of them. And they made a point of writing their crimes out in order to make an impression on those who saw them put to death. "Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum" says it all. "This man said he was the king of the Jews and challenged our authority. Look what happened to him."

If there was indeed an historical Jesus, I'd put my money on your scenario, Foster Zygote.
The titulus is the key to the event, after all.

 

[dejudge]

dejudge, you've been churning out EXACTLY the same material for days and days now, including the huge lists of the names of ancient authors with no citation of their works; and you pay no attention whatsoever to anything that anyone else writes about these things. For the last time, the fact that myths attach to the birth of Jesus doesn't necessarily mean that there was no historical core around which these myths may have accreted. I used Alexander as an example of where that is known to have taken place.

You have been churning out the same un-evidenced claims about HJ. For the umpteenth time the Bible is not a credible historical source. The Bible is a known source of fiction, forgeries, implausibility, historical problems, contradictions and discrepancies.

I use the Bible to expose Myth not for history.

You do not have any evidence for your Jesus and is just wasting time.

Why are up upset because I show the evidence from antiquity for Myth Jesus?

Does not the Bible say Jesus was baptized, crucified but was the Son of a Ghost and God Creator that walked on the sea for three miles before he transfigured?

You are not interested in the biography of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[Foster Zygote]

If there was indeed an historical Jesus, I'd put my money on your scenario, Foster Zygote.
The titulus is the key to the event, after all.

And it's not that I (or any of the historians specializing in this field) am arguing that Jesus certainly existed as a real man. It is impossible to be certain of his real or imaginary status as yet, and it may well be impossible to ever know with epistemological certainty. But of the two possibilities, the idea that the Jesus myths originated with the events of a real person's life are easier to explain than the mythological scenario.