Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[dejudge]

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.

I asked you those questions because you said that you disagreed that there is no evidence for HJ.

Can't you remember what you wrote?

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.

What evidence are you talking about??

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?

Paul's writings are clearly from what most people would judge as "from antiquity".

Who are these most people? What evidence did these people use?

Your claim appears to be the product of Chinese Whispers because there is no evidence whatsoever to show that any Pauline letter was composed before c 180 CE.

I have no interest in "most people" unless they are willing to present evidence and not Chinese Whispers.

My evidence list is short: The writings of Paul. I have mentioned this before I believe.

Which Paul is evidence of what?? There may have been at least 7 different persons who were posing as Paul.

The Pauline writings are manipulated forgeries and cannot be accepted as a credible historical source without corroboration.

ETA: I realize that I've asked a lot, but 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.

Well, instead of asking me a lot questions you can do some homework yourself. You can start with Clement.

The first writing to mention Clement as bishop of Rome is "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus

Please first read "Against Heresies" 3.3.3 and make note of the chronological order for Clement as bishop of Rome and also make note of the event that caused the supposed Clement epistle to be written.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book3.html

The "history" of Clement as bishop is most fascinating. You will discover more forgeries than you will ever imagine.

After you read "Against Heresies" 3.3.3 we will go to writings attributed to Tertullian.

 

[Craig B]

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.

Wow! I only had to wait two minutes to get this!

Your claim appears to be the product of Chinese Whispers because there is no evidence whatsoever to show that any Pauline letter was composed before c 180 CE.
I have no interest in "most people" unless they are willing to present evidence and not Chinese Whispers.

The "history" of Clement as bishop is most fascinating. You will discover more forgeries than you will ever imagine.

 

[dejudge]

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.

Do you not even understand the NT itself is a compilation of forgeries? Even if you believe that some Pauline letters are authentic there would still be at least 18 books and letters in the NT that are forgeries or falsely attributed.

There is also a massive amount of forgeries or falsely attributed apologetic writings.

Effectively all Gospels "according to disciples or apostles of Jesus " in or out the Canon are likely to be forgeries and all epistles written by apostles or disciples suffer the same fate.

It is clearly not logical to assume only the Canon contains forgeries.

 

[davefoc]

...

Besides an unusually high level of antagonism you also have a bizarrely skewed idea about evidence. You are the one making the strong claims here, not me. You claim that every Christian writer that is alleged to have written before 100CE is made up. I think you might be right. I also think you might be wrong, so I've asked for some evidence and you've replied with some insults, some repetition of what you believe and no evidence.

It is very easy to say that Irenaeus made Clement up and if that notion supports your confirmation biases I can imagine that it is pretty easy to believe it. But for those of us that don't have your particular confirmation bias right now could you provide some evidence for your claim?

 

[maximara]

I think you will find it's Maximara who would be raising the example of John Frum (I know zero about Mr Frum) .

But if you are saying the likely real figure here is Paul, and the likely unreal figure here is Jesus (certainly the biblical Jesus as "unreal", and he's the only "Jesus" they ever wrote about), ie see highlight above, then I agree with you .

From the rationalwiki Jesus myth theory article:

Jesus Frum; John Christ

The strongest argument for the Jesus myth theory is the John Frum cargo cult.

According to the cult, John Frum was a literate white US serviceman that appeared to the village elders in a vision in the late 1930s. However as early as 1949 there were people saying the "origin of the movement or the cause started more than thirty years ago" ie putting "John Frum" in the 1910s.

However, the closest thing actual recorded history shows is not one but three illiterate natives taking up the name John Frum and being exiled or thrown into jail for the trouble they stirred up in the 1940-1947 period: Manehivi (1940-41), Neloaig (1943, inspired people to build an airstrip), and Iokaeye (1947, preached a new color symbolism)

The John Frum cult caused so many problems that in 1957 there was effort made to prove John Frum didn't exist--it totally failed.

By the 1960s, the natives were carrying around pictures of men they believed to be John Frum. In 2006, when asked why they still believed in his coming after some 60 years of waiting, the Chief said “You Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to earth, and you haven’t given up hope.”

"Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed. [...] John Frum, if he existed at all, did so within living memory. Yet, even for so recent a possibility, it is not certain whether he lived at all."

Everything the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened regarding Christianity appears to have happened with the John Frum cargo cult – it evolved from the preexisting beliefs without a clear definitive founder. Moreover in a seven year period we see various believers taking up the mantel of "John Frum" despite being totally difference in terms of literacy, nationality, and race not even a decade later. There is a hint in Paul's own writings (2 Corinthians 11:3-4) that this had happened with Jesus as he warns against other Jesuses other Gospels other then the ones he and his followers were preaching.

Furthermore, as seen with the Prince Philip Movement, there are variants of the cult that connect the mythical John Frum to real living people (Prince Philip is the brother of John Frum in this variant even though Prince Philip has no brothers), something the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened with Jesus.

References in section:

Dawkins Richard (2006) The God Delusion pgs 202-203
Guiart, Jean (1952) "John Frum Movement in Tanna" Oceania Vol 22 No 3 pg 165-177
Lal, Brij V.; Kate Fortune (2000) The Pacific Islands: an encyclopedia; University of Hawaii Press; ISBN: 978-0824822651; Pg 303
Raffaele, Paul "In John They Trust" Smithsonian magazine, February 2006.
Worsley, Paul (1957) The Trumpet Shall Sound, pp. 153–9.

------

John Frum shows that you don't need a founder for a religious cult to come into being and that inspired people will take up the name of the supposed founder and preach ideas in his name.

If you take the tack that Manehivi was the founder of the John Frum cult you run into the issue that as far as oral tradition is concerned his relationship to the "real" John Frum is nil. And if that is true of John Frum then it implies that the connection between the Gospel Jesus and the historical Jesus may also be nil and like John Frum the Gospel oral tradition in essence describes a person who never existed.

 

[Craig B]

Do you not even understand the NT itself is a compilation of forgeries? ... Effectively all Gospels "according to disciples or apostles of Jesus " in or out the Canon are likely to be forgeries and all epistles written by apostles or disciples suffer the same fate.

Lets get this clear, then. The entirety of the early Christian corpus was forged - all of it - by Severus Archontius-style falsifiers and fabricators post 180 AD, as conscious composition of fiction for the purpose of deceiving readers, for some unspecified, but doubtless nefarious, motive.

None of this material at all contains garbled (or accurate) oral traditions, written historical notices of any kind, whether dependable or not, speculative compositions, hymns and other devotional texts, inserted marginal glosses, sincere but deluded visionary compositions, texts - fragmentary or more complete - of letters and other communications: none, you say, of any of this. No, mere fiction cut from whole cloth more than a century after the event. Like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

 

[Brainache]

Lets get this clear, then. The entirety of the early Christian corpus was forged - all of it - by Severus Archontius-style falsifiers and fabricators post 180 AD, as conscious composition of fiction for the purpose of deceiving readers, for some unspecified, but doubtless nefarious, motive.

None of this material at all contains garbled (or accurate) oral traditions, written historical notices of any kind, whether dependable or not, speculative compositions, hymns and other devotional texts, inserted marginal glosses, sincere but deluded visionary compositions, texts - fragmentary or more complete - of letters and other communications: none, you say, of any of this. No, mere fiction cut from whole cloth more than a century after the event. Like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

The old Dead Sea Scrolls idea's not looking so crazy now, hey Craig?

 

[Craig B]

The old Dead Sea Scrolls idea's not looking so crazy now, hey Craig?

Still looks loopy to me. Even if the NT contains fragments of speculative works, the reverse doesn't follow - that all fragments of speculative works refer to things that are in the NT.

 

[Brainache]

Still looks loopy to me. Even if the NT contains fragments of speculative works, the reverse doesn't follow - that all fragments of speculative works refer to things that are in the NT.

No. They refer to things poorly covered up in the NT. That's why it looks so much like a CT. But it's off topic here. I shouldn't have brought it up. Sorry.

 

[Craig B]

No. They refer to things poorly covered up in the NT. That's why it looks so much like a CT. But it's off topic here. I shouldn't have brought it up. Sorry.

Dear heaven, don't be sorry. It's a fair point to make, if the NT has the disparate origin usually proposed. And it's not off topic either. I just find the chronology impossible in the Paul = Spouter of Lies theory.

 

[David Mo]

(…)
That is why we DO ask for proper convincing evidence of Jesus, whereas we don’t care whether philosopher X is known from any evidence or not.

(…)
That is utterly and completely the very opposite of Jesus! Jesus is NOT known for any such normal non-supernatural deeds at all. Jesus is known ONLY for the supernatural and entirely fictional deeds claimed in the religious preaching which was grouped together to form the NT bible.

(…)

And if you disagree with that, then you need produce any other such hypothetic person X, who like Jesus is believed to be real, on the basis that they are known only as supernatural figures with not a shred of any supporting evidence, and known only from the anonymous writing of uneducated religious fanatics none of whom ever knew this person at all … who else in all history is like that? … and which other such person is even remotely as important and therefore as requiring of serious investigation as Jesus has become in the basis of worldwide Christianity and it's power & influence across governments and world affairs everywhere today? Who are these other poorly evidenced persons X who are even remotely anything like that?

I agree 99% with you about the qualifications of biblical experts. But what I'm trying to discuss with you does not depend on what these experts are, or genuine historians or propagandists of their faith. I offered an argument based on a renowned Spanish militant atheist. And in any case, I present it and I am neither a Christian nor a believer in any other religion. And I give a damn about what Abert Schweitzer, Rudolf Bultmann or Ernest Renan thought. Much less Bart Ehrman, James Dunn, John Crossan or Jospeh Meier, who seem less intellectually interesting to me.


My argument is built on the fact that the Gospels narrate supernatural events and also facts that would be normal for a prophet or preacher of the first century Palestinian. For example, to be crucified by the Romans as a subversive. And only this point affects to my argument.

I don’t know if this argument is strong or weak, but it is an argument and has some consistence.

I summarize it: In the First Century some people believe in a prophet named Jesus who was crucified by Romans. We have a choice:

One. The character was invented from solar and imperial cults and ideas drawed from other religions. He didn't really exist.
Two. There was a real individual that was mythologized by his followers attributing to him divine features and amazing facts.

I find more convincing the second alternative for the reasons I mentioned in another post. I can expand the reasons against the first alternative seems more inconsistent.

Neither would I use the word "BOGUS" or any other contemptuous term. They are more or less convincing. That's it all.

My argument:

Nobody assumes artificially data or evidences that harm one's own interests, unless there is a written or oral tradition impossible to “overlook”, in which case it only remains the unsafe recourse to remodel or reinterpret "misrepresenting" his genuine sense.

This is a criterion to admit some events narrated in the Gospels as presumably historical. Especially the death by crucifixion of a man called Jesus mythologized by his disciples. There is an evident difficulty to think that people who invent a god can imagine a despicable end for him as the cross was in Roman Empire. It is more economic to suppose a real individual mythologized by his followers in a classical escape ahead.

 

[AdMan]

I asked you those questions because you said that you disagreed that there is no evidence for HJ.

Can't you remember what you wrote?



What evidence are you talking about??

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?



Who are these most people? What evidence did these people use?

Your claim appears to be the product of Chinese Whispers because there is no evidence whatsoever to show that any Pauline letter was composed before c 180 CE.

I have no interest in "most people" unless they are willing to present evidence and not Chinese Whispers.



Which Paul is evidence of what?? There may have been at least 7 different persons who were posing as Paul.

The Pauline writings are manipulated forgeries and cannot be accepted as a credible historical source without corroboration.



Well, instead of asking me a lot questions you can do some homework yourself. You can start with Clement.

The first writing to mention Clement as bishop of Rome is "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus

Please first read "Against Heresies" 3.3.3 and make note of the chronological order for Clement as bishop of Rome and also make note of the event that caused the supposed Clement epistle to be written.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book3.html

The "history" of Clement as bishop is most fascinating. You will discover more forgeries than you will ever imagine.

After you read "Against Heresies" 3.3.3 we will go to writings attributed to Tertullian.

So much repeated frothing at the mouth.

A bit tiresome, really.

So you don't think that there actually was a Jesus--why are you so worked up about a nonexistent person?

 

[GDon]

From the rationalwiki Jesus myth theory article:

Jesus Frum; John Christ

The strongest argument for the Jesus myth theory is the John Frum cargo cult.

This is argument by counter-example. It means nothing, unless the argument is "there is no possible counter-examples to the existence of Jesus". Since no-one is arguing this, the John Frum myth is irrelevant as an example.

Think of the following argument: "My argument about X is against the scientific consensus. But Galileo argued against the scientific consensus, and he was right! Therefore my argument about X is strengthened."

But of course such an argument is not strengthened, since the argument isn't "the scientific consensus is never wrong".

So how does the John Frum myth apply to Jesus mythicism? What argument is it addressing, if not a strawman one?

Furthermore, as seen with the Prince Philip Movement, there are variants of the cult that connect the mythical John Frum to real living people (Prince Philip is the brother of John Frum in this variant even though Prince Philip has no brothers), something the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened with Jesus.

Serious question, and relevant to the OP: does anyone on this thread really care what Christian apologists are claiming? Why does this "Christian apologists argue" theme pop up again and again? And not just in this thread, but in nearly all mythicist threads and mythicist books that I've seen.

Let's say then that the Prince Philip as brother of John Frum is "something the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened with Jesus". (This seems to be a strawman argument you made up, but anyway). How does this progress the mythicist argument? Where does it get you?

 

[Belz...]

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

I haven't seen anyone do that in the current threads on the subject. I've seen it happen in previous threads, but not the ones currently active. Most seem to conclude that a flesh and blood person probably existed, which is a very weak claim, and some seem to conclude that some of the mundane stuff may have happened, but no one's doing much assuming.

Could you provide some quotes of people assuming that the mundane are historical accounts ?

 

[Belz...]

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?

Everything about Jesus is evidence of a certain degree. Much of that is unconvincing. Do we agree on this ? Because after we do, we still have to explain the religion's existence. Others have provided an explanation, but so far you've avoided doing so.

Do you not even understand the NT itself is a compilation of forgeries?

Do you understand that making a statement does not automatically make it true ?

 

[Belz...]

The strongest argument for the Jesus myth theory is the John Frum cargo cult.

It's a strong argument for the possibility of the MJ theory. But how does one determine that it's more likely than the alternative ?

 

[Scopedog]

So much repeated frothing at the mouth.

A bit tiresome, really.

So you don't think that there actually was a Jesus--why are you so worked up about a nonexistent person?

It seems like he's trying to employ some sort of reverse psychology to put his non-believer opponents into the position of arguing for a historical Jesus and the veracity of the Bible.

 

[zugzwang]

This is argument by counter-example. It means nothing, unless the argument is "there is no possible counter-examples to the existence of Jesus". Since no-one is arguing this, the John Frum myth is irrelevant as an example.

Think of the following argument: "My argument about X is against the scientific consensus. But Galileo argued against the scientific consensus, and he was right! Therefore my argument about X is strengthened."

But of course such an argument is not strengthened, since the argument isn't "the scientific consensus is never wrong".

So how does the John Frum myth apply to Jesus mythicism? What argument is it addressing, if not a strawman one?


Serious question, and relevant to the OP: does anyone on this thread really care what Christian apologists are claiming? Why does this "Christian apologists argue" theme pop up again and again? And not just in this thread, but in nearly all mythicist threads and mythicist books that I've seen.

Let's say then that the Prince Philip as brother of John Frum is "something the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened with Jesus". (This seems to be a strawman argument you made up, but anyway). How does this progress the mythicist argument? Where does it get you?

It's a bit like saying that a strong argument for a mythic Jesus is the existence of mystery cults with dying and rising gods. Look, Mithras! Isis! Osiris! Ra!

The trouble with such parallelomania is that it's not an argument, it's a parallel. But then you have all your work cut out demonstrating how the Jesus cult began and developed as such a mystery cult. Where did this happen? Who promulgated it?

It's equivalent to saying 'somebody started a Jesus myth cult', as if that was a self-confirming argument, and not an assertion. It also seems open-ended - look, there are 12 disciples, but hang on, there are 12 signs of the Zodiac! Aaagh! Jesus is a sun/son god!

On the other hand, it strikes me that some of the HJ proponents can point to a sociological context - charismatic (and apocalyptic) Judaism of the 1st century - in which Jesus as a Jewish preacher makes sense, especially as he gives basic rabbinic-type teaching through stories, interpretations of the Torah, and answers questions on points of law, including trick questions. This doesn't make HJ certain, but plausible.

 

[Craig B]

@zugzwang

Yes the positive Jesus myth theory has even less evidence going for it than the HJ theory. The HJ theory accounts for a belief system known to have been current at the time, and attested in literature, if only devotional literature - which is evidence for existing beliefs. The "Jesus was crucified in a sub-lunar but non-terrestrial domain, and was not believed ever to have been a human on earth" belief system is not well attested as having obtained in those days. It needs more evidence, therefore, than a physical Jesus.

 

[zugzwang]

Craig B

I think GDon has commented somewhere that there are in fact no known mystery cults with a 'Middle Platonism' set of ideas, or if you like, a Platonic world of 'higher reality' where the gods die and rise. If there were such cults, where is the record of them?

One example: Adonis is recorded in the myths as having been killed by a boar. OK, does this happen in some Platonic higher realm, where there are Platonic boars? Where are the texts indicating this?