Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[pakeha]

.
Any good tale spinner knows to include the real world in the story. When the audience hears about Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar and Moses, knowing that two of the three existed adds credence to the third.

Ouch.

The whole December 25th thing is an effective read herring anyhow...
some were saying January 6 (the birthday of Osiris)...

Yay!
Another reason to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas and splurge on the Feast of the Three Kings.

...However, my view today is that Mark is historical fiction and it isn't possible to extract any facts about the HJ from it reliably. I base this mostly on my own non-scholarly reaction to Gospel itself. It reads like fiction to me and every event is so tied up with fictional elements that it just isn't possible to know if there is any truth in it or not.

Thanks for so ably summing up my own POV.

Thank you very much, how "I don't know" gets twisted into being an evolution denier, ect. ect. is beyond me. ..

That's one that has me puzzled as well.

 

[Kapyong]

Gday,

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.

Isn't that the very problem that certain posters like IanS keep bringing up - that the existence of Jesus is ASSUMED?

Did Robin Lane Fox ever do a proper historical study on WHETHER Jesus existed ?


Kapyong

 

[Brainache]

Gday,



Isn't that the very problem that certain posters like IanS keep bringing up - that the existence of Jesus is ASSUMED?

Did Robin Lane Fox ever do a proper historical study on WHETHER Jesus existed ?


Kapyong

Here is the book sleepy lioness mentioned:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Unauthorized-Version-Truth-Fiction/dp/0394573986
Here is part of a review by a Christian:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1E5EH05RVUUPD/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R1E5EH05RVUUPD

...
Robin Lane Fox is often discounted, particularly by Christians, because he purposely writes for Christian-dominated audiences, but does so from the stated standpoint of being an atheist. He does make a few historical errors in his framework -- he would say they are matters of interpretation, but I dispute that. For instance, he claims that his address to Christians rather than Jewish readers is because the Bible is a Christian creation. He discounts the Jewish influence in formation of the canon (both the positive and negative aspects related to that, yet another double-edged scenario in history). He reads the biblical texts as he would any other ancient narrative -- this is perhaps what he considers objective. However, I would submit that to write as an atheist is already to import certain judgements into the scheme of analysis and interpretation, rather like those early Enlightenment scientists and philosophers who assumed the aura of objectivity but then discounted the value of thing that didn't fit the framework of their approach.

Robin Lane Fox discounts the idea of getting beyond the translations of texts back to original documents for closer understanding. Almost in an ironic position, Lane Fox argues for the 'standard' versions over the scholarly reconstructions primarily because of the level of influence and acceptance they have gained through recitation, spiritual development, and liturgical use. This reminds me of Luke Timothy Johnson's arguments against the quest for the historical Jesus, although this is a parallel Johnson would perhaps not appreciate...

 

[dejudge]

Really ? Could you quote me saying that I believe Jesus is a figure of history ?

About 3 minutes have elapsed and you have already forgotten you said Jesus probably existed.

Yes we're all agreed on that. But the question is: is the legend based on a real person and, if so, to what degree. I say "probably", but that's about all I can say, and I don't even say it with any confidence.

Seriously, if you pay so little attention to what people post, how can you expect to have conversations with them ?

You pay very little attention to what you yourself post. You believe Jesus existed.

You are answering a question which I did not ask. Here is my question again: do you agree that a flesh-and-blood Jesus, irrespective of how he fits within the gospel narrative, is a possible explanation for the birth of Christianity ?

How many times must I answer your question??

There is NO evidence from antiquity to support the HJ of Nazareth theory.

HJ is a myth.

A flesh and blood Jesus can only be argued with known evidence. Theree is no known evidence to support the possibility of a human Jesus.

I cannot speculate about unknown never seen evidence.

In the NT, Jesus was the Son of God and God Creator. It is impossible for me to change the story.

Adam and Eve were created by God--the story of Creation in the Bible cannot be altered.

Romulus was the founder of Rome---the story cannot be altered.

Rats followed the Pied Piper--the story cannot be changed.

Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of mythology and the story is cast in stone---No changes can be made today.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

Gday,



Isn't that the very problem that certain posters like IanS keep bringing up - that the existence of Jesus is ASSUMED?

Did Robin Lane Fox ever do a proper historical study on WHETHER Jesus existed ?


Kapyong

Yes, I thought that one would come up when I used the word 'assumed'. I can't remember whether or not he directly addresses the question of Jesus's existence in the book. I think probably not. This is for the same reason that modern writers on nuclear physics don't need to argue in detail for general relativity, they just assume it.

You will be hard-pressed to find any ancient historians or mainstream Biblical scholars who argue the case for Jesus's existence, just as you will not find many modern physicists who are still arguing the case for Einstein's theories. Bart Ehrenreich is unusual in addressing the issue so directly. I think precisely because he is an atheist and well-known in the atheist and skeptical communities, he felt he had to address the Myther arguments that were becoming known there. Most ancient historians and Biblical scholars will go their whole careers without ever really coming across such arguments because those arguments are based on a deep ignorance of the period and of historical methodology, and professional historians don't tend to hang out with people suffering from such simultaneous ignorance and certainty. If such scholars do hear these arguments, they will not consider it worth their while spending much energy contradicting them. Jesus's historicity is 'assumed' in the same way that general relativity is assumed in modern physics. It doesn't mean that nobody's ever thought about it, just that the case for it is so overwhelming that reasonable scholars don't bother to argue it.

 

[Foster Zygote]

How can one even begin to have a productive discussion with someone so poorly educated in critical thought, and the English language in general, that he thinks the word "probably" is a synonym for "certainly"?

 

[dejudge]

Yes, I thought that one would come up when I used the word 'assumed'. I can't remember whether or not he directly addresses the question of Jesus's existence in the book. I think probably not. This is for the same reason that modern writers on nuclear physics don't need to argue in detail for general relativity, they just assume it.

You will be hard-pressed to find any ancient historians or mainstream Biblical scholars who argue the case for Jesus's existence, just as you will not find many modern physicists who are still arguing the case for Einstein's theories. Bart Ehrenreich is unusual in addressing the issue so directly. I think precisely because he is an atheist and well-known in the atheist and skeptical communities, he felt he had to address the Myther arguments that were becoming known there. Most ancient historians and Biblical scholars will go their whole careers without ever really coming across such arguments because those arguments are based on a deep ignorance of the period and of historical methodology, and professional historians don't tend to hang out with people suffering from such simultaneous ignorance and certainty. If such scholars do hear these arguments, they will not consider it worth their while spending much energy contradicting them. Jesus's historicity is 'assumed' in the same way that general relativity is assumed in modern physics. It doesn't mean that nobody's ever thought about it, just that the case for it is so overwhelming that reasonable scholars don't bother to argue it.

Your post is really worthless rhetoric. It is of no value. These forums and threads were set up for ordinary people to discuss any matter.

It is completely unheard of that ordinary people cannot examine written statements and form conclusions about them.

The mere fact that ordinary people can read a newspaper or a witness statement and make logical deductions shows that they can re-construct the past based on the evidence presented.

The fact is that there is NO known evidence for HJ of Nazareth so the HJ argument cannot be sustained.,

The HJ argument is essentially dead and without a resurrection.

Ask anyone who argues for HJ for evidence and the silence will be DEAFENING.

 

[dejudge]

How can one even begin to have a productive discussion with someone so poorly educated in critical thought, and the English language in general, that he thinks the word "probably" is a synonym for "certainly"?

What total nonsense!! I never claimed probably means certainly.

You do not understand what "probably" means. Belz claimed Jesus probably existed which means he believes Jesus did exist.

My position is that Jesus was probably a figure of mythology based on hundreds of manuscripts, Codices and Apologetic writings.

 

[Craig B]

​

... There is NO evidence from antiquity to support the HJ of Nazareth theory.

HJ is a myth.

A flesh and blood Jesus can only be argued with known evidence. Theree is no known evidence to support the possibility of a human Jesus.

I cannot speculate about unknown never seen evidence.

In the NT, Jesus was the Son of God and God Creator. It is impossible for me to change the story.

Adam and Eve were created by God--the story of Creation in the Bible cannot be altered.

Romulus was the founder of Rome---the story cannot be altered.

Rats followed the Pied Piper--the story cannot be changed.

Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of mythology and the story is cast in stone---No changes can be made today.

it's weird, freakish, that you can keep churning this out, absolutely undeflected by anything anyone else writes - hundreds and hundreds of times. It's superhuman!

 

[Craig B]

What total nonsense!! I never claimed probably means certainly.

You do not understand what "probably" means. Belz claimed Jesus probably existed which means he believes Jesus did exist.

Eh? Try again. And please don't let your second sentence contradict your first next time, if you can avoid it.

 

[maximara]

Another parallel with science strikes me: the use of 'myth'. Just as creationists deride evolution as 'just a theory' because they are only familiar with the colloquial use of the term (=guess) and not the scientific use (=best way of explaining all the evidence), so those ignorant of historical methodology deride 'myth' because they only know its colloquial use (=fiction, untruth) and not its scholarly and correct use (=story to explain something, such as national origin, which will may be truth or fiction or a mixture of both, and serves some useful purpose to the teller and hearers).

To be fair to the apologists myth doesn't have a hard and fast definition. If you compare Bascom, Dundes, Doty, and Segal you find essentially four different definitions of the word myth.

Bascom, for example states that myths are sacred stories generally regarded as a true account of the remote past to separate then from legends (recent past) and folktales (not regarded as true or sacred)

This definition falls flat on its face when you consider myths like that of Christoper Columbus and Robin Hood (total devoid of supernatural elements and therefore not "sacred) or myths of the Spanish Inquisition (formed while the organization still existed) or AD&D (formed during the height of the game's popularity) and that other scholars call these things "myths". Throw in urban myth/legend which refers to the same group of stories and Bascom's definition implodes.

If scholars are not on the same page regarding the definition of myth then how can the apologists use it correctly?

References:

Bascom, William. (1984) "The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 5–29

Doty, William. (2004) Myth: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood

Dundes, Alan. (1984) Introduction. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1–3.

Segal, Robert. (2004) Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP.

 

[David Mo]

I am afraid your argument is not built on facts. In the Gospels Jesus was NOT a Roman subversive.

I’m claiming for a critical review of the Gospels. My question is if it is possible to extract information from the Gospels about some facts. I’m arguing it is possible to the item of the existence of Jesus at least. I apply my own version of the difficulty rule: we have an indication of a fact when this fact disturbs the ideological outlook of the narrator. Crucifixion was an infamous death. No inventor of a god (or “ghost”, as you name him) would have invented this especial kind of death for his invented god. It was reserved to slaves, killers, bandits and subversives. Early Christian writers made big efforts to reinterpret or simply deny this death. This is an indication that this death really happened to some individual named Jesus or otherwise and was the point of departure of the Gospel narrative.

You are right. The evangelists bend over backwards to misrepresent the event. But my argument develops independently from the evangelists’ beliefs. Anyway, they spoke about the sign “INRI” on the cross. And you know that it means “Jesus of Nazareth King of Jews”. It is to say a subversive name. I cannot say if this particular point is historic, but it is a supplementary support for my assert.

Your argument is based on imagination. In effect, your Jesus is a myth--a character without real history.

This is your turn. I have shown my reasons and now it is your turn to criticise them. Not claiming in the wind, please. Concrete arguments directed to mine.

 

[David Mo]

To be fair to the apologists myth doesn't have a hard and fast definition. If you compare Bascom, Dundes, Doty, and Segal you find essentially four different definitions of the word myth.

"Myth" is a polysemic word. It has several meanings. It is not the same thing the myth of the Titans than the myth of Marilyn Monroe.

In Christian apologists "myth" means a false belief about the gods or devils.

In Anthropology Robin Hood is a legend. As defined by Mircea Eliade, which is quite accepted on this concrete point. However, there are other definitions. For example, Roland Barthes uses the word as overmeaning and popularized and false belief.

 

[davefoc]

...

Nowhere is it asserted in the OT that the messiah would be crucified. Also, we know the Romans crucified people, it's hardly a big leap to think this applied to the historical Jesus. And crucifixion was a deep humiliation, particularly for Jews (because of the Deuteronomy passage), so the early Christians, who were Jews, would hardly have made it up if they wanted their leader and messiah to be taken seriously. We have evidence that the Romans and probably the Jews mocked the early Christians for worshipping a crucified messiah. In fact, the earliest crucifix (portraying Jesus) that we have is the Alexamenos Graffito (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito) which portrays a crucified victim with a donkey's head and the legend, 'Alexamenos worships his God'. A crucified messiah was shocking, not expected, and this is one reason why scholars are practically unanimous that one of the few sure things we can know about the HJ is that he was crucified.

It is the highlighted part that I think is a key issue about whether an HJ existed or not. Find proof an a Jewish Jesus sect located in Palestine dating from about the time of the hypothetical HJ and the HJ issue is close to resolved. For a long time I assumed that the fairly well documented Jewish Christians were evidence of a Jewish origin of Christianity. But I was never able to find evidence for a link between the Jewish Christians referred to by church fathers and a Jewish Jesus sect located in Palestine dating to the time of the hypothetical HJ.

My view today is that Christianity, as we know it, was a gentile religion from the start. There never was any transition from the Jewish Christianity to the gentile Christianity. Christianity was created by gentiles who followed aspects of Judaism but were by their nationality, their culture and their language not Jewish. One question I wondered about was how could Christianity be so different from Judaism at such at an early date if the Christianity developed out of a Jewish Jesus sect. The simple explanation is that Christianity developed from a religious group that had already differentiated significantly from Judaism before the rise of Christianity.

I would love to see some evidence outside of the NT for this early Jewish Jesus sect that supposedly founded Christianity. I don't think it existed, but I also think it is unknowable whether it existed or not.

 

[Craig B]

Jesus was, according to any reasonable reading of the texts, a "subversive". His disturbance in the Temple during Passover was subversive. He told his men to arm themselves. He claimed in Pilate's presence to be King. (Pilate's alleged response at the time is incredible, but Pilate put "King" on the notice he attached to the cross.)

Along with Jesus of Nazareth, there was in custody at the same time a criminal arrested during an "insurrection". So one happened then. This person's name was Jesus Barabbas, which means "son of the father". Conclusion, because he was so evidently a rebel, the gospels split him off from the Nazarene; but in all probability they were originally the same person. Notice that the people are shouting for this rebel Jesus just as they were shouting hosanna - save us! - at the Nazarene a few days before.

The disciples say after Jesus' death that they thought he had come to "restore Israel". In Ch 5 of Acts, Gamaliel compares Jesus' companions with the rebels Judas of Galilee and Theudas, in a speech to the Sanhedrin.

For a more scholarly treatment of all this see some of the works of Hyam Maccoby, in particular Revolution in Judaea. See abridgement at http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/maccoby.htm For an earlier treatment see Joel Carmichael The death of Jesus, 1963. Thomas Paine took the same view in Ch 3 Vol 1 of The Age of Reason.

 

[davefoc]

I’m claiming for a critical review of the Gospels. My question is if it is possible to extract information from the Gospels about some facts. I’m arguing it is possible to the item of the existence of Jesus at least. I apply my own version of the difficulty rule: we have an indication of a fact when this fact disturbs the ideological outlook of the narrator. Crucifixion was an infamous death. No inventor of a god (or “ghost”, as you name him) would have invented this especial kind of death for his invented god. It was reserved to slaves, killers, bandits and subversives. Early Christian writers made big efforts to reinterpret or simply deny this death. This is an indication that this death really happened to some individual named Jesus or otherwise and was the point of departure of the Gospel narrative.

I don't find this argument (which is made often) persuasive.

First think about the difficulties of creating a new religion based on a predicted Messiah. If you make your Messiah too powerful and omniscient people will be skeptical because such a fellow would be well known in his own time and there would be evidence of his deeds. But unless you give him some cool powers nobody is going to care about him so you need to strike a middle ground. And one thing you're probably going to need to do is to kill him off. If he was still around people would wonder why he couldn't do any of his cool tricks anymore.

So how are you going to kill the messiah off in your religion? You certainly don't want to give him an ordinary death. That doesn't sound too messiah like to me. So you've got to kill him off with some drama. So what are your ideas? Maybe you're more creative than I am, but crucifixion seems like a pretty good idea. You've got lots of opportunities for drama, you can put in a few details to jazz up the story and make sure that your target audience realizes this isn't just your garden variety crucifixion.

There is also the argument that despite the sense that some people have that the story doesn't work because the main guy is being embarrassed, the fact is the story did work in terms of grabbing the hearts and minds of the target audience. Maybe the creator of the story just new more about how to write a story that would gain traction than the people that think he made a misstep.

 

[IanS]

The very same credibility problem that afflicts just about every figure from antiquity that we know about. Do we write off the historical existence of Constantine I because the stories about him contain miracles (seeing the sign of the cross before a battle, for instance)? Pythagoras is right out. And so on.

You should be ashamed of yourself for even attempting that bogus Christian apologetics argument yet again.

Look - none of those other figures in history are known entirely for the supernatural things they did. They are known almost entirely for a whole mass of perfectly ordinary human things which they were said to have done. And in many cases, there is overwhelming evidence of their existence ... often inc. museums all around the world, stuffed full of physical evidence of their actions.

To claim any such thing for Jesus or God is laughable, if not outright disingenuous.

The only source of anything which could possibly be called "evidence" of Jesus, is the NT bible. But that is a religious book composed from various early preaching pericopes, in all of which Jesus is portrayed entirely in terms of the supernatural.

Any non-supernatural actions of Jesus, simply have Jesus walking to some named local place where he then performs a miracle or where he then makes some amazing wise or prophetic saying. So the names of those places and the fact that someone was said to walk somewhere, are just part of the setting for each miracle/supernatural story ... the fact of places like Jerusalem existing, and people being able to walk and talk, is not evidence of Jesus ... those elements are just a necessary part of each story (you can't have Jesus making amazing wise insightful sayings unless he speaks and people hear him!).

That is emphatically NOT the case with any other genuinely "real" figures of ancient history, is it!? No it's definitely NOT!

Which other figures from ancient history are claimed to be real, and yet are like Jesus in being known only from a book of religious preaching, known/famous entirely for their miraculous supernatural deeds and not known to have done anything else at all, where nobody who ever wrote about them ever met them or knew them in any way at all, where their claimed presence on earth had been predicted 500 years or more before in the religious books that everyone believed, and where there is no evidence at all that they ever existed? Which other world famous figures in history are like that?

There are lots of other ancient figures like that. But they are all gods, devils, spirits and demons of other religious beliefs such as the gods of Greek, Persian and Roman legend of that same time in that same region.

 

[Craig B]

... I would love to see some evidence outside of the NT for this early Jewish Jesus sect that supposedly founded Christianity. I don't think it existed, but I also think it is unknowable whether it existed or not.

The Ebionites are a strong candidate to be regarded as the sect you postulate. They are attested in many early sources, and there is a large literature on this group. See eg http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5411-ebionites

 

[davefoc]

The Ebionites are a strong candidate to be regarded as the sect you postulate. They are attested in many early sources, and there is a large literature on this group. See eg http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5411-ebionites

I have almost no doubt that the Ebionites that were referred to by some of the early Church fathers existed and who may have existed until quite late (one theory has them affecting the beginning of Islam). The trick is to tie the Ebionites to a Palestinian Jewish Jesus sect dating from about 30CE.

 

[IanS]

For the millionth time, for what it's worth, Jesus is not only described in supernatural terms. And the supernatural element becomes more pervasive and highly developed as one proceeds from earlier to later gospels. It is least prominent in, though not absent from, Mark, the earliest, and entirely dominates the latest, John. Now please deny this, or comment on it. Plenty of the deeds attributed to Jesus are perfectly human and natural, and others are supernatural. What you write simply isn't true, is well known not to be true, and is inconsistent with the texts.

OK then, so tell us which actions of Jesus are not part of the setting for any of the miracles or any of the prophetic and wise sayings of Jesus?

What is this biblical information (because the bible is the only source), where it tells us important and very human details of Jesus, that are NOT very obviously part of each of those individual miracle pericopes or wise sayings pericopes?

What is it in the bible, and since you are singling out the earliest gospel writing, what is it in the letters of Paul or the gospel of Mark, that gives us a credible non-messianic description of the real human life details of Jesus?