Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[abaddon]

I am very delighted that you admit that "one possibility is pure fiction, based on nobody and nothing".

I am even happier that you admit that even if Jesus existed the " true unembellished story is now unavailable".

I am also extremely pleased that you admit the fact that the Bible contains "ghost stories

You seem awfully surprised to find this on a skeptics forum populated by an overwhelming majority of atheists.

You have identified the fundamental problem with the HJ argument. It cannot be maintained because NO evidence is available. You have exposed the hopelessness and utter weakness of the HJ argument--the supposed true story of Jesus is unavailable.

The HJ argument is based on supposition of history, assumptions, imagination, blind faith, speculation, logical fallacies and Chinese Whispers.

The consensus among scholars is that a personage did in fact exist at the time upon whom the later inventions and embellishments were later pasted.

Somehow, they are all wrong and you are right?

You don't know and have no evidence from antiquity that there were ever true stories of Jesus. Your assumptions are worthless without evidence.

So are yours.

The fact that there are Ghost stories in the Gospels and Pauline Corpus do not mean that there were true stories of Jesus.

The ONLY stories of Jesus in the NT are Ghost stories so I will consider that Jesus was as a Ghost until new evidence is found.

Humans have been creating fiction for many thousands of years, often using real, but mundane, events for inspiration. This is news to you?

I cannot go outside the Ghost stories and make assumptions.

That is your limitation. Jefferson managed it.

Jesus was the Son of a Ghost that Walked on the sea until new evidence is found.

There will never be any actual evidence for such an event. Oddly, even if it had actually happened, there would be no hard evidence. How could there be?

My conclusion that Jesus was a figure of mythology is directly based on the present available evidence.

Nope. It is based on the lack of evidence in your opinion.

If you can present evidence from antiquity that Jesus of Nazareth was even a real idiot claiming he was God which was blasphemy and punishable by death then I may review my position.

While the scholarly consensus is that an individual existed who was the basis of the later Christian myths, there consensus ends. The details cannot be and will never be resolved.

All you really have is a tempest in a teacup of your own making.

 

[AdMan]

Gosh, what shrill, incoherent posts from dejudge.

Can anyone make sense of what he is actually trying to say?

 

[Brainache]

Gosh, what shrill, incoherent posts from dejudge.

Can anyone make sense of what he is actually trying to say?

It's all fake!

Everything written about Jesus before about 200 AD was faked by Tertullian and his mates or something.

He hasn't told us what the Christians that Pliny tortured were all about, but I'm sure he will any day now...

 

[zugzwang]

@ian S

Look at what you write. I could equally well write The one is as good as the other. But both are absurd, because the Bible Jesus is depicted both as a human being and as a supernatural figure.

Now, what the "historicists" notice is this: Jesus is most "human" in the Mark account. In Mark 3 his family even treat him as insane. (The Mother of God thinks the Second Person of the Trinity has gone bananas, eh? No, it makes sense only of a human Jesus.) Then the later Synoptics add in more supernatural material, like miraculous birth stories - different ones - and miraculous resurrection stories - different ones - that are missing from Mark. Then John gives us a Jesus who spends his time spouting grandiose verbiage about his own supernatural singularity. Finally, a few decades later, we have Pliny who is able to tell us that Christians sing hymns to the Messiah, "as to a god". The process is complete.

Thus, we can see a clear process over time, resulting in the reinforcement of the supernatural, and finally divinised, aspects of the Jesus figure. The human element is not merely not absent, as you quite absurdly suggest, but it is not mixed indiscriminately with the miraculous and divine, either. No, the latter is constantly developed and reinforced as time passes. What do you conclude from that: Jesus was originally seen as divine and then humanised; or Jesus was originally a human teacher and exorcist who was divinised in proportion as his followers were increasingly drawn from ex-pagan non-Jews?

Your point about madness is interesting, and I have come across the view that Jesus' mission is a shambolic failure. Thus, as you say, his family think he's mad; his disciplines often don't have a clue what he is on about; many Jews think he's blaspheming; and of course he is killed, and feels abandoned by God.

In fact, this could be incorporated into mythicism, I think, in the sense that a failing messiah could be shown to precede a resurrected one, but the idea of a failing messiah who is celestial or purely spiritual is certainly piquant!

 

[Craig B]

Your point about madness is interesting, and I have come across the view that Jesus' mission is a shambolic failure. Thus, as you say, his family think he's mad; his disciplines often don't have a clue what he is on about; many Jews think he's blaspheming; and of course he is killed, and feels abandoned by God.

In fact, this could be incorporated into mythicism, I think, in the sense that a failing messiah could be shown to precede a resurrected one, but the idea of a failing messiah who is celestial or purely spiritual is certainly piquant!

Jesus as Mad Mullah! But we don't need to invent such characters: they are regrettably abundant in the real world. Also, people rarely turn them into gods.

 

[zugzwang]

I was thinking more in terms of abject failure really; but as I said, it's not incompatible with mythicism, sort of a from failure to glory trajectory. But psychologically, it sounds like a real man, who got it wrong.

 

[mstricky]

When he appeared three days after his death he could have been incarnate. They can only appear for about 15 minutes before disappearing. They don't have teeth or feet

 

[Parsman]

I think Dejudge does a diservice to his argument by concentrating only on the Bible and the New Testament. These were of course chosen by followers of a particular branch of Christians beginning in the 2nd Century AD and reaching some for of finality in the 4th Century (though of course different sects of Christians still think the Bible contains different books). However there are other writings out there by Christians who didn't follow the eventual winning version. A good example would be the Nag Hammadi texts, which seem to be from a Gnostic sect. They seem to present a picture of a more human Jesus, a teacher or Rabbi. I guess what I am saying is we can't make the definitive claim Dejudge is based on the fragmentary surviving records we have, especially those which have become part of the establishment. And, I think humans often spin their tales based on real people or persons who become "gods" or "heroes". I think this probably happened for King Arthur, I think it probably happened for Robin Hood, I think it probably happened for Jesus (or Jeshua Ben Jospeh).

 

[Craig B]

I was thinking more in terms of abject failure really; but as I said, it's not incompatible with mythicism, sort of a from failure to glory trajectory. But psychologically, it sounds like a real man, who got it wrong.

Yes agreed. And he's not the same kind of being as gJohn's Jesus.

 

[pakeha]

...Now, what the "historicists" notice is this: Jesus is most "human" in the Mark account. In Mark 3 his family even treat him as insane. (The Mother of God thinks the Second Person of the Trinity has gone bananas, eh? No, it makes sense only of a human Jesus.) Then the later Synoptics add in more supernatural material, like miraculous birth stories - different ones - and miraculous resurrection stories - different ones - that are missing from Mark. Then John gives us a Jesus who spends his time spouting grandiose verbiage about his own supernatural singularity. Finally, a few decades later, we have Pliny who is able to tell us that Christians sing hymns to the Messiah, "as to a god". The process is complete.

Thus, we can see a clear process over time, resulting in the reinforcement of the supernatural, and finally divinised, aspects of the Jesus figure. The human element is not merely not absent, as you quite absurdly suggest, but it is not mixed indiscriminately with the miraculous and divine, either. No, the latter is constantly developed and reinforced as time passes. What do you conclude from that: Jesus was originally seen as divine and then humanised; or Jesus was originally a human teacher and exorcist who was divinised in proportion as his followers were increasingly drawn from ex-pagan non-Jews?

If we take the story from Mark, your progress is reasonable.
But, if we take it from Paul, things change.
1 Corinthians 15

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

How much more mythological can you get?
For Paul, it wasn't the preaching or sayings of Jesus that were of prime importance, but rather the resurrection, correct me if I'm wrong.

Wasn't the resurrection the prime selling point of christianity as preached back in the day, rather than the sayings?

From a bit further on in the same chapter

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[h]

55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What a pitch!
And that's in translation.
In the original, it must have brought down the house.

Paul always stands in the way of those reasonable progressions from a human figure to Christ in Glory, at least for me.

Perhaps it's time for another coffee.

 

[pakeha]

I was thinking more in terms of abject failure really; but as I said, it's not incompatible with mythicism, sort of a from failure to glory trajectory. But psychologically, it sounds like a real man, who got it wrong.

Interesting speculation, this.
Not for the first time, I'm reminded of the miserable end of Theseus, or even Heracles.
Their wretched deaths didn't impede them being savious-figures, IIRC.

 

[Brainache]

...
They can only appear for about 15 minutes before disappearing. They don't have teeth or feet

Sorry, you'll have to explain this.

Are you quoting Pink Floyd?

If we take the story from Mark, your progress is reasonable.
But, if we take it from Paul, things change.
1 Corinthians 15

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

How much more mythological can you get?
For Paul, it wasn't the preaching or sayings of Jesus that were of prime importance, but rather the resurrection, correct me if I'm wrong.

Wasn't the resurrection the prime selling point of christianity as preached back in the day, rather than the sayings?

From a bit further on in the same chapter

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[h]

55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What a pitch!
And that's in translation.
In the original, it must have brought down the house.

Paul always stands in the way of those reasonable progressions from a human figure to Christ in Glory, at least for me.

Perhaps it's time for another coffee.

Quite a punch-line there too:

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The power of sin is The Law?

Without the Law, there is no sin. OK.

There is a passage somewhere in the DSS about the "Lying Spouter" who apparently "walks with the spirits" and speaks in "Delusions" and of course the old fave: "Preaches against the Law in the Midst of the Congregation".

I still say that describes Paul.

 

[eight bits]

pakeha

But, if we take it from Paul, things change.

How so? In what you quoted, Paul is telling a ghost story. What he says about the man whose ghost is seen (just about nothing in that passage, except that a man died and time passed before his ghost was seen, and then lots of people corroborate, supposedly, what the star reporter, the last in the tale to see the ghost, Paul, tells us) parallels Pliny's ghost story, from about the same time, very nicely.

http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/Pliny/Pliny07-27-E.html

(Third paragraph and following in the letter to Sura, "To this story, let me add...") The star reporter in Pliny's case is Athenodorus.

Trajectory = Jesus is of local transient interest, at best, when and where he lived, who became more interesting as a ghost, and then the success of the ghost story leads to a wider interest in his biography, which improves with the retelling.

Paul documents an early step in the progression.

For Paul, it wasn't the preaching or sayings of Jesus that were of prime importance, but rather the resurrection, correct me if I'm wrong.

That's right. Paul shows as much interest in the everyday life of his ghost as Pliny shows in his ghost's earthly life. All the indications in Pliny that a real man is being discussed (whether or not the man actually lived) are incidentals that come up: that the man died, that "his" remains were discovered, that he had owned a house, lived in Athens, etc. Many questions are left unanswered: Why exactly was the man killed? What was his attitude to the Romans who were absorbing his culture, enslaving Greek scholars to teach Roman children? For that matter, when exactly did he live and die? Etc.

ETA - Pliny and Paul also place the action just far enough away and just far enough in the past that it would be impractical or impossible for (almost) any contemporary reader to investigate either of the stories with any assurance of conclusive results. For us? Impossible, no "or" about it.

What a pitch!

Yes, it is. Jesus did not do one damned thing that you personally will not do, or else you will do Jesus one better (for example, you probably won't be nailed to a board).

How much less mythological can you get?

 

[Craig B]

If we take the story from Mark, your progress is reasonable.
But, if we take it from Paul, things change.

I agree, and it had thought of including some words on that in my post. But it would have made it too long.

Paul was a visionary who had never personally known any living Jesus, and he treated as rivals and opponents James and Peter who (I am certain of this!) Paul believed or knew had derived their knowledge of Jesus from personal experience. Paul was concerned to show that his visions were more authoritative than Jesus' surviving companions' memories. He had no access to any material about a living Jesus except through the apostles, whom he deprecated; and his personal inclinations were to preach a heavenly Jesus, the one with whom Paul had a monopoly of contact, and against which no argument could be made. You can't argue with a talking light in the sky.

Nevertheless Paul in my opinion knew or believed that Jesus had been a real person alive recently, in the "flesh", and that he had acquired his supernatural attributes and powers from god on the occasion of the resurrection, as Paul states in Romans 1.

 

[pakeha]

pakeha...

Nice comparison of Paul's Jesus with Pliny's 'ghost'!
I enjoyed that very much and it'll be something to take my mind off just how dreadful work is going to be this afternoon.
The one factor all in my profession most hate will be unleashed upon us with full powers for a session of fear and loathing. Fortunately we've lined up a drinking session after so at least there'll be the catharsis of shared lacerated sensibilities and general angst and embarrassment.

 

[pakeha]

...You can't argue with a talking light in the sky.

Nevertheless Paul in my opinion knew or believed that Jesus had been a real person alive recently, in the "flesh", and that he had acquired his supernatural attributes and powers from god on the occasion of the resurrection, as Paul states in Romans 1.

Yes, that makes sense.
A twisted ghost story seems plausible to me.

May Isig the hilited, please?

 

[Craig B]

... there'll be the catharsis of shared lacerated sensibilities and general angst and embarrassment.

That's what happens where I drink too. We must go to the same pubs. Except that in mine it's sometimes more than sensibilities that get "lacerated".

 

[mstricky]

Sorry, you'll have to explain this.

Its a long story and you wouldn't believe me anyway

 

[Brainache]

Its a long story and you wouldn't believe me anyway

Probably shouldn't have brought it up then.

I just know you are itching to tell us another amazing tale from the supernatural world of Ms Tricky, but please don't.

 

[mstricky]

Probably shouldn't have brought it up then.

I just know you are itching to tell us another amazing tale from the supernatural world of Ms Tricky, but please don't.

I assumed others would know what incarnate means