Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[Hokulele]

I'm not getting any of this but at my age one does get confused. Are all the atheists on here saying they believe in a HJ? Is Dejudge religious? Aaarrrggghhh

As an atheist, I think that the claims there was some form of a historical Jesus are more plausible than the claims Christianity was invented from whole cloth at a much later time. I do not believe any of the miracle or supernatural claims are true, However, I do agree that Paul is the most likely source of a lot of the supernatural claims associated with Jesus, and I further agree that it is unlikely we will ever know the very first roots of Christianity with any certainty.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Are all the atheists on here saying they believe in a HJ?

It's divided. Some lean toward history, some myth. But most admit that either prospect is plausible. It's just a matter of which seems most likely.

Is Dejudge religious?

He seems to have a religious zeal for certain ideas.

 

[Foster Zygote]

As an atheist, I think that the claims there was some form of a historical Jesus are more plausible than the claims Christianity was invented from whole cloth at a much later time. I do not believe any of the miracle or supernatural claims are true, However, I do agree that Paul is the most likely source of a lot of the supernatural claims associated with Jesus, and I further agree that it is unlikely we will ever know the very first roots of Christianity with any certainty.

Until the invention of time travel becomes the worst thing to ever happen to every major religion.

 

[mstricky]

But how can an atheist believe in an HJ? I am an atheist and do not believe there is a God and believe that Jesus is Greek mythology. Invented by Greeks because they hadn't got a son of this new invisible God as they had a God and sons of their Gods for everything else.
It was Akenarten that made his people worship a new invisible God because the moon and sun weren't working. This new belief was then taken by Moses and the new invisible God was 'born'

 

[jond]

I can't tell if you are deliberately ignoring the fact that people can believe false things about a real person, or if you really aren't capable of understanding something so simple. Either way, it's just sad.

Indeed. It's been an astounding thing to watch.

Frankly I don't understand why the reasonable position (it's plausible that Jesus was a real guy about whom some very big porkies were told; but it's also plausible, if less likely, that someone, say James or Paul, made it all up) gets met with such hostility from all sides. I sort of get that some HJ proponents appear to be the sort for whom the words "I don't know" are an unacceptable statement to them. (one in particular who hasn't been around for a while) But what I really don't get is the equally vitriolic opposite position from the myther. (And, there is but one, here.) It's really annoying, and adds nothing to the position or the discussion. [end rant]

 

[tsig]

Indeed. It's been an astounding thing to watch.

Frankly I don't understand why the reasonable position (it's plausible that Jesus was a real guy about whom some very big porkies were told; but it's also plausible, if less likely, that someone, say James or Paul, made it all up) gets met with such hostility from all sides. I sort of get that some HJ proponents appear to be the sort for whom the words "I don't know" are an unacceptable statement to them. (one in particular who hasn't been around for a while) But what I really don't get is the equally vitriolic opposite position from the myther. (And, there is but one, here.) It's really annoying, and adds nothing to the position or the discussion. [end rant]

Hjers seem to be fixed on the dichotomy that either there was an HJ or it had to be deliberately made up by someone. The possibility that it just developed naturally isn't even on the table.

 

[jond]

Hjers seem to be fixed on the dichotomy that either there was an HJ or it had to be deliberately made up by someone. The possibility that it just developed naturally isn't even on the table.

Which adds even more "we don't know" to the mix. At least, until FZ invents his time machine.

 

[I Ratant]

There have been and can be no time machines in our universe.
What's past is past, and unchangeable.
How could it change?

 

[jond]

There have been and can be no time machines in our universe.
What's past is past, and unchangeable.
How could it change?

Um, I hope you know there was a nod and a wink in there...

 

[Brainache]

Hjers seem to be fixed on the dichotomy that either there was an HJ or it had to be deliberately made up by someone. The possibility that it just developed naturally isn't even on the table.

Sure it is, if you can make a plausible argument for how that happened which takes into account everything we already know about the formation and spread of the Christian religion.

Go for it.

What have you got?

No one can tell if it's a good idea or not until we see the details, so don't be shy tsig, lay it on us...

 

[mstricky]

Was Jesus a Christian or a Jew? In John 4. 22 he says...For salvation is from the Jews

 

[sleepy_lioness]

He was a Jew. Christianity hadn't been invented yet.

 

[mstricky]

He was a Jew. Christianity hadn't been invented yet.

But he was Christened/baptised by then. I know that born of a jewish mother one is always a jew even though he was baptised by then, he said that he had been baptised as a christian but he is not acknowledging that by what he says

 

[mstricky]

He was a Jew. Christianity hadn't been invented yet.

It was invented when he was baptised by John

 

[NekoTheCat]

Was Jesus a Christian or a Jew? In John 4. 22 he says...For salvation is from the Jews

Jesus was a Jew.

ETA: late

 

[I Ratant]

It was invented when he was baptised by John

.
I baptise you in the name of the father, you, and the holy ghost...

 

[I Ratant]

Jesus was a Jew.

ETA: late

.
Oh no!
In "Little Big Man", Crabbe is being bathed by the wife of the preacher who is putting him up, and she explains to Crabbe that Jesus was a Gentile. His mother was Jewish.

 

[Delvo]

Atheists must know that the Bible is considered God's Word.

Yes. We also know that that fact doesn't make it useless as an indicator of what was going on in the world its authors lived in and what the authors were thinking when they wrote it.

When Young Earth Creationist use the Bible they are ridiculed for using God's Word as history yet some atheists now are directly relying on the same God's Word to argue that Jesus--God Creator--was really a figure of history.

Actually, no, the case for a historical Jesus is not based on the Bible. It's based on a bunch of sources of anthropological and historical information, of which the Bible is one.

Also, you're trying to equate believing exactly what the Bible says with believing that both its inaccuracies and it accuracies, along with its internal and external contradictions, can all be informative in that wider context of other evidence & documents. They're two different things.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

But he was Christened/baptised by then. I know that born of a jewish mother one is always a jew even though he was baptised by then, he said that he had been baptised as a christian but he is not acknowledging that by what he says

1. Please cite where Jesus is ever quoted as saying that "he had been baptised a Christian".

2. Baptism (which is simply Greek for "dipping in water", originally with no religious overtones at all) was an initiation ritual in certain sects of Second Temple Judaism, that is, Judaism at the time of Christ. John the Baptist wasn't doing anything particularly unusual, and definitely not particularly un-Jewish, in 'baptising' or 'dipping' people as a sign of their repentance of their sins.

3. The term 'Christian' was first used in Antioch, according to Acts 11:26, where it was applied to the associates of Paul and Barnabas. Obviously this was several years after Jesus lived. It may well have been used originally as a derogatory designation. In any case, it hadn't been coined at the time of Jesus.

Jesus was a Jew. It tends to be people with a particularly nasty agenda who try to deny this (I'm not accusing you of any agenda other than confusion, Mstricky, but I think you should be aware that the history of denying Jesus's Jewishness is not a happy one).

 

[davefoc]

If Paul was the originator of Christianity, where did all those supposed Christians he was persecuting before his conversion come from?

...

I think I know the likely answer but my evidence is weak *.

I think the people that founded Christianity were part of a religion that morphed into Christianity. I think the group was probably the God-fearer group that is mentioned in Acts and by Josephus a few times and for which there is some small amount of other evidence. This idea, if true, would explain a few things:
1. Who Paul was preaching to?
My view is that they were probably God-fearer groups and Paul was either pitching the idea of a crucified and risen God to them as the prime promoter of that idea or I think more likely the idea already was beginning to gain traction before Paul hops on the band wagon and he exploits an emerging market for information about this crucified and risen god.
2. How did the NT authors develop such a deep knowledge of the Septuagint (early Greek version of Old Testament) before there was even a Christian religion available to drive interest in the Septuagint?
An answer is that there was a group of priests in the proto-Christianity that had immersed themselves in Old Testament minutia. When the idea of the crucified and risen God began to take hold they used their deep knowledge of the Old Testament to work parts of the Old Testament into the stories they were writing about Jesus.

The idea of a proto-Christian group could be used to provide support for either the idea that an HJ existed (the HJ story was the seed that initiated the transition in the proto-Christian Group) or it could be used to support the idea that an HJ didn't exist (Christianity already existed in some form by the time of the hypothetical HJ so there was no need that an HJ exist for the formation of the Christian Religion). I don't think it does either. I think it provides support for the idea that it is unknowable whether an HJ existed or not. There just isn't enough information about this early group to know what happened as proto-Christianity morphed into Christianity.

As an aside I think this idea goes along with what eight bits said above about the use of the Gospels as a source of information about early Christianity. I think he was saying that the Gospels as a source of data about the nature of the HJ is of limited value (I would say of no value), but that the main value of the Gospels as historical documents is that they exist and that they can provide clues to the origins of Christianity.

ETA:
* It was Craig B in an earlier thread's challenge of my ideas about this that made me aware that the evidence behind my ideas on this was weak. I realize now it is weak, but I have now developed confirmation bias behind the idea so I am unlikely to change my mind unless there is some pretty good evidence that it is false.