Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[sleepy_lioness]

Thank you for that; yes, I did miss your citation of Robin Fox.

And thank you for your polite remark to my slightly snarky post.

 

[dejudge]

Not taking them at face value the way he does, completely devoid of context. He shows no understanding of Jewish Theological tropes or early Christian beliefs. Plus he disregards every single historian's opinions on this subject, Richard Carrier included.

Your statement is utterly false. I have accepted Richard Carrier's claim that Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" is a failure of facts and logic.

 

[davefoc]

The fact that people are arguing whether or not there is a HJ means that nothing is ruled out.

What is certain is that the re is NO mention of Jesus of Nazareth by non-apologetics. The HJ argument is unsustainable--there is NO evidence.

All we have are hundreds of manuscripts, Codices and Apologetic writings about a character that was born of a Ghost , was God Creator, that walked on the sea, transfigured and ascended.

That character called Jesus as described is a myth.

There is evidence for a mythological Jesus but none for HJ.

An argument can only be sustained with evidence.

The HJ argument is dead until new evidence surfaces.

This seems to be a pretty good encapsulation of your whole view on this with the straw man arguments and the antagonism removed.

Most people participating in this thread agree with a good part of it.

I disagree that there is no evidence of an HJ. I agree that that evidence is not reliable enough to develop a provable theory about the nature of a hypothetical HJ. And I agree that even the available evidence can't be proven to be true. I think there is a mystery about the origins of Christianity which can not be solved with the evidence available today. It is a true historical void for which the speculation of thousands of people that have studied it have not been able to illuminate with anything more than their unproven speculation, including the unprovable speculation that an HJ didn't exist.

 

[Belz...]

The original claim was that there was a Consensus of opinion among Historians that an HJ existed. When names were produced they proved to be Christian theologians not Historians so the original claim is still not proved.

Even given that, if most of them agree that Jesus was a human upon whom supernatural stories were added, you'd think they are actually agreeing that the supernatural stuff is made up. If so, sounds to me like they have managed to ignore their beliefs.

 

[Belz...]

Again, it is completely illogical to assume that the mundane are historical accounts.

Indeed. Who has been doing that, now ?

 

[Craig B]

You have assumed you know the true parts WITHOUT corroboration.

I cannot accept the Bible is true based on your assumptions.

There is corroboration in non-apologetic sources for King Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas, Tiberius and John the Baptist but none for Jesus of Nazareth , the disciples and Paul.

I will consider that Jesus, the disciples and Paul were 2nd century invented characters until new evidence surfaces.

Well, one would expect there to be more evidence for kings, emperors, governors and high priests than for a peripatetic apocalypticist and exorcist. In life, John may have been much more important than Jesus, since Jesus went to him to be baptised, a circumstance that causes the post-Marcan gospel writers some embarrassment. Matthew 3

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

 

[zugzwang]

I respectfully disagree. I'm not the one claiming that Biblical scholars are all biased Christian apologists and 'real, secular mainstream' ancient historians would agree that the HJ is fiction.

It's all a bit ad hom, as well, isn't it? If Professor X, who is a Zoroastrian, puts forward an argument, I can consider his argument qua argument, can't I? Focusing on somebody's biography seems to go into a cul de sac to me. Do we all have to state our biographical details and interests, before our arguments are assessed?

 

[The Norseman]

Not taking them at face value the way he does, completely devoid of context. He shows no understanding of Jewish Theological tropes or early Christian beliefs. Plus he disregards every single historian's opinions on this subject, Richard Carrier included.

So are dejudge's arguments about closet fundamentalists and the 100% mythical nature of the Bible.

My goal isn't to defend dejudge so I'll leave you to the last word on that with my comment that you could very well be correct.

But people doing that take the trouble to familiarise themselves with the Scholarship before they challenge it. Tsig seems totally unaware of any of the Historical research and bases her position on her own prejudice.

She can correct me on this by showing awareness of how Historians reach their conclusions. Saying: "they just take out the miracles", is nothing more than an admission of ignorance.

Is tsig female? Whups. Thank you, I'll use the correct personal pronoun from now on.

Tsig is rejecting their work on the basis of nothing more than personal prejudice.

Again, I fail to see what you are describing. I'm hesitant in asking you for some direct quotes but only because I think this is a derail.

There have been other historians mentioned in these threads. We have even had actual Historians themselves posting here. None of them agree with the MJ idea.

I do not take internet statements of professional capacities at face falue; I didn't see any bona fides presented so that any of us can verify it. If it has been posted, can you provide a link please?

As far as other historians, there's been two so far as I know of and have been told about -- that's Carrier and Fox.

And once again I will point out that being a Bible Scholar doesn't necessarily mean you can't think logically. I wish people would stop poisoning that well.

I'm not talking about if they can or cannot think logically. It's the position from where they start in the discovery of Jesus that provides too much of a barrier to overcome. In other words, I think that the bias in favor of a corporeal Jesus is not taken into consideration in determining as much of a truth value as can be gotten at this time with the meager evidence that we have.

How about we put our assumptions and presumptions aside, and look at what the texts can tell us. That is what Historians do.

One has to start from somewhere, yes? Aren't Historians interested in utilizing the scientific method? It's been demonstrated over and over that the scientific method is the best way we have found to discover any kind of truth value. In my understanding that means that the null is where we begin.

It has been posted. You mustn't have been paying attention.

Yes, that must be it. In half-a-dozen threads, I must have never been paying attention long enough to see "the actual evidence and most likely, polite and enthusiastic explanations of such". I recognize that, at minimum, CraigB, TimCallahan, and most of the rest of the posters are polite; any data that has been given is pretty scattered, though. I remember that Piggy had said about a year ago in another Jesus thread that he was going to collate all of the data that he believed supported an HJ. I am hoping that someone could link to a blog or post in a bulleted fashion the case for their version of an HJ.

I'll be interested to see it.

Yes, I will endeavor to be prompt and read the book so I can contribute to these threads.

It is a lot more than we have for most ancient people who weren't Kings or something like that.

It's more than we have for all those Greek Philosophers combined. How often do you doubt the existence of Socrates or Pythagoras?

I had once provisionally believed in an HJ before I started reading these threads and because of a few posters such as HansMustermann and Kapyong mainly helped me understand these main points:

• there were were people who could have written about Jesus or we could have had the actual words of Jesus (through a scribe or another person who was literate and saw these miracles or spoke to Jesus personally)
• one must begin with the null hypothesis because one can provide evidence of existence while it's a tad more difficult to provide evidence of non-existence
• most people (probably including myself) don't really understand probabilities or how they are applied which produces faulty results

As for Socrates or Pythagoras, I haven't read any information about them that would give me a more informed position on whether or not they were real. Are Socrates or Pythagoras written in holy books? I don't know is why I'm asking.

So -- back to Jesus. Here are two points raised according to the wiki of the historical method:

• A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source which is more reliable than a tertiary source, and so on.
• If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.

What are the primary sources for an HJ?

What sources for an HJ are independent of the rest?

Also according to the wiki, I had raised these points earlier:

• The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
• If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

So, the "historians" who are mainly bible... enthusiasts let's say... and/or deep into religious beliefs and who often teach religious classes seem to get hung up on those two points as I have pointed out.

One other point I'm most curious about: you personally have said you believe in Jesus the Zealot with a 90% confidence level, yes? But you are posting here on behalf of a vague handwavey Jesus and treat this vague Jesus as what all historians agree existed. To me, this is somewhat of a contradiction. Why do you not argue for a ZJ?

 

[The Norseman]

And thank you for your polite remark to my slightly snarky post.

You're welcome. I scrolled back a bit to try and find your post in which you talk about Fox. It's okay if you don't want to, but could you please provide a link or the number of the post? Since I missed it, I'd like to read what you had said.

 

[The Norseman]

Indeed. Who has been doing that, now ?

Who's assuming that the mundane are historical accounts? Isn't that what the HJ side is doing (at least partially)?

 

[sleepy_lioness]

There's no distinction between 'holy book' and 'other book' in Antiquity. Yes, the writings that describe Pythagoras are 'holy books' in the same sense that the Gospels are, in that they describe a man thought to have divine powers and give lessons from his life.

The split between 'religion' and 'culture' or 'religion' and 'science' or 'religion' and 'philosophy' is a modern one. The Biblical books have to be read with an eye to their particular biases and agendas - working out what these are is largely what comprises the discipline of Biblical Studies - but so does every other text from the ancient world.

Josephus, to give one name that has come up frequently in this thread, is hardly an unbiased source. He was a Jewish rebel leader who defected to the Romans and wrote his 'historical' accounts of the Jews for a Roman audience. When he didn't know stuff, he made it up. This is the MO of all 'historical' writers in antiquity, and the Biblical authors are no worse, better, nor even particularly different, from all the others.

 

[The Norseman]

It's all a bit ad hom, as well, isn't it? If Professor X, who is a Zoroastrian, puts forward an argument, I can consider his argument qua argument, can't I? Focusing on somebody's biography seems to go into a cul de sac to me. Do we all have to state our biographical details and interests, before our arguments are assessed?

No. The only exception is if someone claims to have a certain level of expertise in the topic, then I think it's legitimate to ask for bona fides. In other words, they would be asking us all to give more credence to their posts because of their expertise in the topic.

 

[The Norseman]

There's no distinction between 'holy book' and 'other book' in Antiquity. Yes, the writings that describe Pythagoras are 'holy books' in the same sense that the Gospels are, in that they describe a man thought to have divine powers and give lessons from his life.

The split between 'religion' and 'culture' or 'religion' and 'science' or 'religion' and 'philosophy' is a modern one. The Biblical books have to be read with an eye to their particular biases and agendas - working out what these are is largely what comprises the discipline of Biblical Studies - but so does every other text from the ancient world.

Josephus, to give one name that has come up frequently in this thread, is hardly an unbiased source. He was a Jewish rebel leader who defected to the Romans and wrote his 'historical' accounts of the Jews for a Roman audience. When he didn't know stuff, he made it up. This is the MO of all 'historical' writers in antiquity, and the Biblical authors are no worse, better, nor even particularly different, from all the others.

Yes, I agree with this. In fact, it underlines one of my main problems I have in general with degrees of confidence of 90% or more and that is based on the fact that we have no idea to a great extent on what people would have believed or what their culture was like 2000 or more years ago. We sometimes have issues today trying to deal with separate cultures -- it strikes me as being just slightly arrogant to think that we can successfully place ourselves in a culture that ancient and make proclamations regarding why people did what they did.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

You're welcome. I scrolled back a bit to try and find your post in which you talk about Fox. It's okay if you don't want to, but could you please provide a link or the number of the post? Since I missed it, I'd like to read what you had said.

It's post no. 653 in this thread. To expand a bit: Here's Lane Fox's page on the Oxford Classics Department website:

http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/robinlanefox.html

He's perhaps most well-known as the author of Pagans and Christians, which is a scholarly but also popular introduction to the relationship of the two groups in the early Christian centuries and is ubiquitously prescribed as introductory reading in courses on late antiquity in the UK. But the book I meant was The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible. Curiously, neither book is mentioned on his Oxford page, I guess either because they're at the more 'popular' end of his oeuvre or because his page lists the most current. I can't cite from The Unauthorized Version because I read it years ago and don't own a copy (it's pretty mundane stuff to anyone who's done Biblical studies), but he definitely assumes a historical Jesus.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

Yes, I agree with this. In fact, it underlines one of my main problems I have in general with degrees of confidence of 90% or more and that is based on the fact that we have no idea to a great extent on what people would have believed or what their culture was like 2000 or more years ago. We sometimes have issues today trying to deal with separate cultures -- it strikes me as being just slightly arrogant to think that we can successfully place ourselves in a culture that ancient and make proclamations regarding why people did what they did.

I largely agree with this. It's the main reason I love studying history: it's such a challenge to my assumptions about how the world works and how people think. Sometimes I get just a small glimpse of how it must have been to think differently, and that's mind-expanding and great fun. I also think, however, that either we throw our hands up and say, well, we can never know for sure what happened so any theory's as good as any other (technically we can't really know for sure what happened last week, never mind in 30CE), or we do the best we can to sift sources and come up with plausible theories. The more I read about Second Temple Judaism the more Jesus and early Christianity seem to fit right in, or at least, to grow organically out of it. There is no plausible theory I can think of as to where the Gospels and stories about Jesus came from if not from a human being who happened to be one of very many charismatic leaders, healers, and messiah figures around at the time preaching apocalypse and renewal of Israel.

 

[Brainache]

My goal isn't to defend dejudge so I'll leave you to the last word on that with my comment that you could very well be correct.

OK.

Is tsig female? Whups. Thank you, I'll use the correct personal pronoun from now on.

I saw Lionking mention it to someone just the other day. I assume he knows what he's talking about (possibly a mistake? I don't know, but he bought me a beer once...).

Again, I fail to see what you are describing. I'm hesitant in asking you for some direct quotes but only because I think this is a derail.

Yes it is. Suffice to say that the questions asked betray a basic ignorance. I don't know how else to hold an uninformed opinion, other than by prejudice.

I do not take internet statements of professional capacities at face falue; I didn't see any bona fides presented so that any of us can verify it. If it has been posted, can you provide a link please?

As far as other historians, there's been two so far as I know of and have been told about -- that's Carrier and Fox.

And Eisenman. And all of the unnamed Historians who work in History departments in Universities all over the world. Did you forget them?

I'm not talking about if they can or cannot think logically. It's the position from where they start in the discovery of Jesus that provides too much of a barrier to overcome. In other words, I think that the bias in favor of a corporeal Jesus is not taken into consideration in determining as much of a truth value as can be gotten at this time with the meager evidence that we have.

OK then, what is your alternative? You don't have one? Then I'll stick with the experts, thanks.

One has to start from somewhere, yes? Aren't Historians interested in utilizing the scientific method? It's been demonstrated over and over that the scientific method is the best way we have found to discover any kind of truth value. In my understanding that means that the null is where we begin.

Yes. It is, for the experts studying the subject. For slobs like me, who don't know their Hegesippus from a hole in the ground, listening to the experts is the option if we don't want to look stupid.

Yes, that must be it. In half-a-dozen threads, I must have never been paying attention long enough to see "the actual evidence and most likely, polite and enthusiastic explanations of such". I recognize that, at minimum, CraigB, TimCallahan, and most of the rest of the posters are polite; any data that has been given is pretty scattered, though. I remember that Piggy had said about a year ago in another Jesus thread that he was going to collate all of the data that he believed supported an HJ. I am hoping that someone could link to a blog or post in a bulleted fashion the case for their version of an HJ.

How can you still be saying this honestly at this point?

Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Yes, I will endeavor to be prompt and read the book so I can contribute to these threads.

No rush.

I had once provisionally believed in an HJ before I started reading these threads and because of a few posters such as HansMustermann and Kapyong mainly helped me understand these main points:

• there were were people who could have written about Jesus or we could have had the actual words of Jesus (through a scribe or another person who was literate and saw these miracles or spoke to Jesus personally)
• one must begin with the null hypothesis because one can provide evidence of existence while it's a tad more difficult to provide evidence of non-existence
• most people (probably including myself) don't really understand probabilities or how they are applied which produces faulty results

As for Socrates or Pythagoras, I haven't read any information about them that would give me a more informed position on whether or not they were real. Are Socrates or Pythagoras written in holy books? I don't know is why I'm asking.

Why would you, I've only posted this about ten times already. It's not as if you could have seen it.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras/

Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts of his thought written by contemporaries. By the first centuries BCE, moreover, it became fashionable to present Pythagoras in a largely unhistorical fashion as a semi-divine figure, who originated all that was true in the Greek philosophical tradition, including many of Plato's and Aristotle's mature ideas. A number of treatises were forged in the name of Pythagoras and other Pythagoreans in order to support this view.

The Pythagorean question, then, is how to get behind this false glorification of Pythagoras in order to determine what the historical Pythagoras actually thought and did. In order to obtain an accurate appreciation of Pythagoras' achievement, it is important to rely on the earliest evidence before the distortions of the later tradition arose. The popular modern image of Pythagoras is that of a master mathematician and scientist. The early evidence shows, however, that, while Pythagoras was famous in his own day and even 150 years later in the time of Plato and Aristotle, it was not mathematics or science upon which his fame rested. Pythagoras was famous (1) as an expert on the fate of the soul after death, who thought that the soul was immortal and went through a series of reincarnations; (2) as an expert on religious ritual; (3) as a wonder-worker who had a thigh of gold and who could be two places at the same time; (4) as the founder of a strict way of life that emphasized dietary restrictions, religious ritual and rigorous self discipline...

...{snip stuff covered by Sleepy Lioness}

One other point I'm most curious about: you personally have said you believe in Jesus the Zealot with a 90% confidence level, yes? But you are posting here on behalf of a vague handwavey Jesus and treat this vague Jesus as what all historians agree existed. To me, this is somewhat of a contradiction. Why do you not argue for a ZJ?

No.

I said I have a 90% confidence in the Academic HJ. That is the minimum claim of a real Jewish preacher.

I'm not as confident about Eisenman's specific Zealot scenario, but I don't think it is impossible.

 

[dejudge]

This seems to be a pretty good encapsulation of your whole view on this with the straw man arguments and the antagonism removed.

Most people participating in this thread agree with a good part of it.

I disagree that there is no evidence of an HJ. I agree that that evidence is not reliable enough to develop a provable theory about the nature of a hypothetical HJ. And I agree that even the available evidence can't be proven to be true. I think there is a mystery about the origins of Christianity which can not be solved with the evidence available today. It is a true historical void for which the speculation of thousands of people that have studied it have not been able to illuminate with anything more than their unproven speculation, including the unprovable speculation that an HJ didn't exist.

What is that evidence for HJ ? Where is it found? Is the evidence for HJ in Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger? Where is the mystery evidence for Jesus of Nazareth?

If there was evidence then why does one Biblical Scholar claim Jesus was a Cynic, another a Zealot, another a Prophet, another the Christ, another a faith healer and another an Apocalyptic?

It is clear to me that there is no evidence from antiquity and HJ is a product of logical fallacies and an article of faith.

Please identify the evidence that you claim exist and the source where it is found.

I can tell you exactly where Jesus was described as a MYTH in the NT and Apologetic sources so I would expect you to tell me exactly where the evidence for HJ can be found.

There is no mystery for the start of the Jesus cult of Christians.

THE evidence is right in front of us--on a platter.

There is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth up to c 115 CE.

There are recovered manuscripts from the 2nd century.

The evidence clearly shows that the Jesus cult is 2nd century.

Those who do not want to accept the evidence are inventing their own myth called HJ from their imagination.

 

[dejudge]

I said I have a 90% confidence in the Academic HJ. That is the minimum claim of a real Jewish preacher.

I'm not as confident about Eisenman's specific Zealot scenario, but I don't think it is impossible.

What?? Your 90% confidence was invented because you have NO evidence at all for an HJ. There is no such thing as an Academic HJ. A claim is not evidence of anything. There is no evidence at all that there was a Jewish preacher called Jesus of Nazareth who was eventually worshiped as a God by Paul a Pharisee since the time of King Aretas c 37-41 CE.



It is virtually impossible to show that any book of the NT is an historical account of Jesus, the disciples and Paul.

By the way Your Jesus is a myth if Jesus was a Zealot.

Biblical Scholars and Historians who argue for an HJ must be Myth Makers once they present multiple versions of an historical Jesus.

 

[davefoc]

What is that evidence for HJ ? Where is it found? Is the evidence for HJ in Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger? Where is the mystery evidence for Jesus of Nazareth?

I'd be curious why you wrote this sentence? By now, it seems like you must understand that I believe that none of those people provide any reliable evidence of an HJ.

...
It is clear to me that there is no evidence from antiquity and HJ is a product of logical fallacies and an article of faith.

Paul's writings are clearly from what most people would judge as "from antiquity". The possibility exists, I believe, that they are not complete fiction. Of course, I also believe that any of the various Paul theories are possibly correct also including that the writings are complete fiction by somebody other than Paul and they are complete fiction by Paul himself.

Please identify the evidence that you claim exist and the source where it is found.

My evidence list is short: The writings of Paul. I have mentioned this before I believe. As has been mentioned, there also seems to be some small bits of the Gospels where it seems like the author might have inserted some information that he just didn't make up. Maybe somebody else made it up and if he repeated it he hoped it would give his work credibility or maybe it was from an oral tradition from an early first century Jewish Jesus Sect.

I can tell you exactly where Jesus was described as a MYTH in the NT and Apologetic sources so I would expect you to tell me exactly where the evidence for HJ can be found.

Again, my view is that the most probable situation is that the Gospels are pure fiction. The style of writing is that of fiction. Events are described by somebody that is unidentified and couldn't possibly have been in every situation where he describes events. I am a bit intrigued about a few bits where the author seems to have included items that aren't completely consistent with the story of the superman Jesus he's pushing.

There is no mystery for the start of the Jesus cult of Christians.

THE evidence is right in front of us--on a platter.

There is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth up to c 115 CE.

There are recovered manuscripts from the 2nd century.

The evidence clearly shows that the Jesus cult is 2nd century.

Those who do not want to accept the evidence are inventing their own myth called HJ from their imagination.

Great. Would you write out a little history of the beginning of Christianity with references to the supporting documents? I'd like to know who wrote the various elements of the NT. I'd also like to know whether Christianity grew out of an existing religious movement or was started from scratch. Whichever it was, I'd like to see the details for that in your history of early Christianity. It is so good to finally have somebody in one of these threads that isn't just spouting opinions and who actually knows what happened. I've been trying to figure it out for years and the more I've looked at the situation the more I think just about everything about the early formation of Christianity is unknowable. Did the early Jewish Christians exist that were supposed to have been kicked out of the synagogs? Were they associated with a Jewish Jesus sect in Palestine or did the early Jewish Christian movement grow up on its own besides the Gentile Christian movement? Which group was first, the Jewish Christians or the gentile Christians? Which Gospel was first and where was it written? What was the relationship between the authors of Paul and the authors of the Gospels if any?

Thanks for explaining this stuff. I had pretty much assumed that I wasn't going to know the answers to any of the above questions before I died, but now it turns out that a real expert has shown up on the JREF forums that knows how Christianity began.

Thanks in advance.

ETA: I realize that I've asked a lot, but it is rare that one gets a chance to ask questions of somebody that knows so much about the history of the early Christian Church. I'd also be interested in information about the apostolic fathers (Clement, Ignatius & Polycarp). Were they real or made up? When did they write? etc.

 

[Craig B]

.. I realize that I've asked a lot, but it is rare that one gets a chance to ask questions of somebody that knows so much about the history of the early Christian Church. I'd also be interested in information about the apostolic fathers (Clement, Ignatius & Polycarp). Were they real or made up? When did they write? etc.

Yes, I've been wondering about these guys myself. Here's Clement.

Clement of Rome's first epistle, 1 Clement (c 96), was copied and widely read and is generally considered to be the oldest Christian epistle in existence outside of the New Testament. The letter is extremely lengthy, twice as long as the Epistle to the Hebrews, and it demonstrates the author's familiarity with many books of both the Old Testament and New Testaments. The epistle repeatedly refers to the Old Testament as scripture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathers

But as I've said before, dejudge's schema is irrefutable. All pre-115 or pre-180 writings are simple fiction forged later like the stories of Baron Munchausen for no other motive than to deceive people. And if that can be shown not to be true, well the Jesus or the Christ must refer to somebody other than the Nazarene and anyway Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus never refer to Jesus by name. Using these devices - pure fiction and wrong identification - you can say anything you like about any text or author at all. So, in order not to have to read any more stuff like this I have abstained from troubling dejudge about the Apostolic Fathers.