Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[IanS]

What you wrote was the "terms" being supernatural as your previous sentence made clear. But now you're telling us that what you were saying was "both of those figures are fictional in fictional terms". If I wasn't so certain of your unimpeachable veracity I would permit myself to doubt that you were really saying any such thing.

I think you are getting mixed-up with posts from two different people. You can avoid that if you just quote people properly.

 

[Brainache]

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.

There is this Symmachus bloke:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14156-symmachus

...
Swete holds it probable that when Symmachus made his translation he had before him the work of both of these translators. In Symmachus' variations from the Septuagint, Geiger finds unmistakable traces of Jewish tradition in that he takes into account the dogmatic convictions of Judaism at the time (avoiding anthropomorphisms, referring to resurrection and everlasting life, softening harsh expressions), follows rabbinic interpretations in other ways also, and adopts for many words in the Bible a meaning which occurs only in the later Hebrew. This does not contradict the fact that he was an Ebionite—a fact of which Harnack has furnished important proofs, even tracing back to him the name of the Ebionite sect of the Symmachians. Jerome often made use of the translation of Symmachus, for which compare Field, l.c. xxxiv.-.xxxv., in which work also (xxxvi.-xxxvii.) an alleged second recension of his translation is mentioned.

 

[Craig B]

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?

That is equivocation. You are avoiding addressing the points I made. The first you strive to confuse with arbitrary conditions ("part of the setting", indeed!), the second, on the progressive character of the development of supernatural elements, you ignore. Wisely, too, from your point of view.

 

[Craig B]

I think you are getting mixed-up with posts from two different people. You can avoid that if you just quote people properly.

if I was, sorry. What you have reproduced from me is not a quote, but an analysis of wording I was looking at. Try also please not to be so peremptory. If I mistook one person for another, that was not my intention. "Just quote people properly" is not very nice.

 

[Craig B]

... The trick is to tie the Ebionites to a Palestinian Jewish Jesus sect dating from about 30CE.

Very much agreed, that's a problem. They appear, like so many other things, only in later texts. But it is accepted that they

denied the divinity of Jesus and accepted the Jewish law ... they believed in one God, the creator, thus rejecting the views of Marcion; and further that they rejected Paul.

This makes them a possible very early sect, perhaps from Paul's days, and thus possibly the primordial Jesus group. But we can't know for sure. However, James looks like such a person as the Ebionites were supposed to be. Pious, observant, hostile to Paul.

 

[Brainache]

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?

Here are some people who aren't Christian Apologists:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10113.html

...
Both of the chief sources of the Synoptic Gospels, the old account, and the collection of Jesus' sayings, were produced in the primitive Christian congregation in Jerusalem, and were translated into Greek from Aramaic or Hebrew. They contained the picture of Jesus as seen by the disciples who knew him. The present Gospels are redactions of these two sources, which were often changed as a result of ecclesiastical tendentiousness. This becomes especially clear in the description of Jesus' trial and crucifixion in which all Gospel writers to some degree exaggerate Jewish "guilt" and minimize Pilate's involvement. As the tension between the *Church and the Synagogue grew, Christians were not interested in stressing the fact that the founder of their faith was executed by a Roman magistrate. But even in the case of Jesus' trial, as in other instances, advance toward historical reality can be made by comparing the sources according to principles of literary criticism and in conjunction with the study of the Judaism of the time...

...

Like the Essenes, Jesus also regarded all possessions as a threat to true piety and held poverty, humility, purity of heart, and simplicity to be the essential religious virtues. Jesus, as did the Essenes, had an awareness of and affection for the social outcast and the oppressed. The Essene author of the *Thanksgiving Scroll (18:14–15) promises salvation to the humble, to the oppressed in spirit, and to those who mourn, while Jesus in the first three beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount promises the Kingdom of Heaven to "the poor in spirit" to "those who mourn," and to "the meek" (Matt. 5:3–5). Moreover, Jesus' rule "Do not resist one who is evil" (Matt. 5:39) has clear parallels in the Essene Dead Sea Scrolls...

So show me the Christian bias there IanS.

He won't. I'm on ignore.

 

[IanS]

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.

Belz - the question you are asking should not be merely "is the legend based on a real person?" , but should actually be “what is the EVIDENCE that the legend was based on a real person?” .... what is the evidence for any such belief.

It is that test of real genuine credible evidence, which is always the crucial question in any such investigation like this

And that evidential requirement (the requirement for real, genuine, credible and verifiable evidence of that which is claimed … not some other entirely irrelevant information incorrectly offered as “evidence” of any sort of claim at all) is what was eventually discovered with the advent of what we now call “Science”. And it’s that genuine evidential basis that has lead to the huge success of science in replacing the failed earlier reliance upon philosophy and theology as claimed ways of truly knowing anything in this real material universe …

… the test here is actually a scientific one of “Evidence”. Not anything else, but objective credible, relevant, and verifiable evidence.

And the fatal problem here is that the bible, as our only source of any such evidence for Jesus, is certainly NOT a credible source of any of the claims it makes in describing Jesus. That biblical writing is completely discredited by it’s own constant claims of the impossible. That is simply not a trustworthy reliable source of anything remotely worthy of the adjective “evidence”.

That is THE problem in all of this - our only evidential source is not trustworthy in any measure at all.

 

[zugzwang]

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.

Well, you hit the nail on the head there. The amateur mythicist just seems to be very ignorant about historical method, and ignorant about particular periods, although they may have watched a few videos about it and read a couple of popular paperbacks. Compare with scholars who know Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and who have studied the period intensively. It's not surprising that they ignore the amateurs, who generally bumble around making egregious errors.

I used to teach linguistics in a uni, and you got used to people saying stupid things about language, which were obviously based on ignorance. In the old days, they used to write letters in green ink, but the internet has given them fresh wings! There is no point in engaging with them, as they usually have total certainty, and just repeat stuff over and over.

Well, we will see with any new books on mythicism, if there is anything more to it than this nonsense.

 

[Belz...]

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

If you are unable to see the difference between giving a higher probability to one scenario and believing that scenario to be true, I can't help you. You have demonstrated an inability to understand anything but extremes in every situation.

You believe Jesus existed.

No, I don't. Don't tell me what I believe. You believe that leprechauns are telling you what to eat.

I cannot speculate about unknown never seen evidence.

I am not asking you to speculate. I am asking you a question about whether or not a scenario is plausible. Here's the question again. AND READ IT SLOWLY: 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 ?

 

[Belz...]

The HJ argument is essentially dead and without a resurrection.

Which only serves to show that you don't read your opponents posts. You are only here to preach, ironically.

 

[Belz...]

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.

Eating bread with people, and making parables and sermons isn't supernatural.

Belz - the question you are asking should not be merely "is the legend based on a real person?" , but should actually be “what is the EVIDENCE that the legend was based on a real person?” .... what is the evidence for any such belief.

Yes, indeed. And in the absence of conclusive evidence, what is the question we have ? We can say "we don't know", but then what ? You still seem to be failing, like dejudge, to see the difference between the two claims and the two situations. Would you be happy with this history timeline :

-2500: We dont know
-2200: We dont know
-2000: We dont know
-1800: We dont know
-1700: We dont know
-1500: We dont know
-1200: We dont know
-1000: We dont know
-700: We dont know
-500: We dont know
-200: We dont know
-48: Julius Caesar probably crossed the Rubicon
-0: We dont know

?

 

[IanS]

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.

.

David - have a look at the highlighted part which is the basis of your argument. What you are saying there amounts to an argument from incredulity. That is - you are saying that you find it difficult to believe that gospel writers would have invented an untrue story of the crucifixion of Jesus, because you think that death by crucifixion would have been a humiliation of Jesus and thus a denial that he was truly the messianic Son of God. That is the argument you are making about the crucifixion, correct?

OK, well that is wrong. For the reason I explained before. To repeat - iirc, you can find in the OT, prophecies that the coming messiah will be rejected by his own people (ie by fellow Jews), and will pass unappreciated and unrecognised as the true messiah by his own people (ie the Jewish nation as a whole). So that is the first part of the explanation, where in fact the letters of Paul himself do say that "according to scripture" Jesus will be betrayed in this way by his own Jewish people.

And then further, again iirc (and I gave the OT refs to all of this before;- you can find them very easily from Wikipedia and Bible Gateway), there are various passages in the OT which could very easily have been interpreted by Paul and the earliest gospel writers to mean that this prophesised rejection and persecution of Jesus, would end in the death of Jesus, and quite possibly even nailed to a "tree" or "cross" in a form of crucifixion. For example, there is the famous passage which talks of the messiah saying something to the effect of his feet and hands having been "pierced" or pinned like the "Bite of a Lion" ... and I think there is even one OT passage that talks of someone who might be the messiah being "hung on a tree", which is apparently a reference to one of several forms of crucifixion (though as I have stressed several times here in the past concerning that very specific passage about being hung on a tree, do NOT quote me on that because I cannot now easily find that particular reference).

So what I am saying to you in all of the above, is - what we are really talking about with the crucifixion story, is the letters of Paul, and his belief that OT scripture revealed to him a fact of prophecy saying that the messiah would be persecuted, rejected, betrayed, and perhaps even put to death by his own Jewish people.

IOW - that appears in the NT bible as a result of what is said in the letters of Paul, and where the writer of those letters believed (rightly or wrongly) that his OT scripture contained the revelation that the messiah had passed out of earthly existence as a result of being "persecuted, unrecognised or not believed/appreciated as the true messiah" and even put to death, perhaps by crucifixion, and thus betrayed by his own Jewish people.

So that is one very obvious source of where that crucifixion idea came from - it came from the OT, and Paul himself even repeatedly says exactly that in his letters. And that is why Jesus has to die a humiliating death in that way … because Paul believed that was precisely the messiah prophecy revealed by OT scripture.

IOW, this was a way of people like Paul preaching to the faithful, that they must not again make that same mistake of rejecting this revelation of Jesus as the true messenger of God (as Paul now believed). He is telling them of this terrible mistake that the Jewish people themselves had made in destroying their own true messiah, because of their lack of true FAITH in the true message of God that Paul was now preaching to them … they must not again reject this messiah as they did in the past when, according to the certainly of scripture, their lack of steadfast faith caused them to destroy their own true messiah of God. It's a preaching message from Paul emphasising the dire apocalyptic need for Jews to now keep the faith in Paul's messianic message which was revealed to him directly from God.

 

[tsig]

​

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!

I'd give him a "P" for Persistence.

 

[Craig B]

... For example, there is the famous passage which talks of the messiah saying something to the effect of his feet and hands having been "pierced" or pinned like the "Bite of a Lion"

This is Psalm 22. In Mark, Jesus is made to utter Ps 22:1 on the cross. About being forsaken by God. "Pierced" is in 22:16. It has this note in Bible Gateway:

Psalm 22:16 Dead Sea Scrolls and some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Syriac (have "pierced"); most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text me, / like a lion.

Now, this psalm is not about a messiah. It's about a person suffering horrible misfortunes, and hoping God will rescue him. Messiahs are kings anointed by The Lord. Here's one. It's Cyrus King of Persia, in Isaiah 45. Is this King suffering horrible things? You decide:

1 This is what the Lord says to his anointed, ("Christ" in the Greek version) to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: 2 I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. 3 I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,so that you may know that I am The Lord.

That's what Jesus was supposed to do. He was to restore Israel, and his twelve disciples were to rule over the Twelve Tribes.

But instead of this he finds himself reciting Psalm 22. It's not Messianic, but the very opposite. "Counter-messianic" if you will.

 

[IanS]

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.

We know very well that most of the people who teach and research the history of biblical writing about Jesus (whatever you want to call those people, whether "bible scholars" or "historians" or whatever). That is not in dispute.

What is in dispute, and what has been disputed by numerous academic authors from fields outside of that special interest in Jesus, the bible & Christianity, is whether of not those pro Jesus authors have any genuine credible evidence for what they claim about Jesus as a real 1st century human.

So far, despite all of these HJ threads, not a single person here (or anywhere else in other forums) has ever been able to cite even the most microscopic spec of anything which could honestly be called real, objective, credible, and verifiable evidence of Jesus as a real person. And moreover, when you read books by people like Bart Ehrman and other well known academic experts who are being constantly cited here as the true expert "historians" who surely must know what they have as evidence when they write to say that Jesus "certainly existed", it turns out that their books are utterly 100% devoid of any such credible verifiable evidence at all.

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.

I'm sorry to say that your above quote (see the highlight) is so utterly absurd and uncomprehending of what constitutes "evidence" and establishes "theory" in science, that it should be an embarrassment to you that your ever wrote such a thing. But moreover, it shows why you cannot grasp the evidential problem that is being spelt out to you here about the biblical claims of Jesus.


On which note, you will have to forgive me (or not, if you prefer) if I don’t respond directly to your previous long reply re. OT references etc., because in the light of comments such as you just made above (the highlight) it is clear that you are a million miles away from ever appreciating the nature of objective evidence and the evidential void in the case of Jesus.

 

[IanS]

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"?

Who are you talking about? You give no quote and no name.

Who is it that you think has said here that "probability" is the same as "certainty"?

The problem with anyone here saying they think it's "probably" true that Jesus existed, is - what evidence are they basing that belief on?

 

[Belz...]

So far, despite all of these HJ threads, not a single person here (or anywhere else in other forums) has ever been able to cite even the most microscopic spec of anything which could honestly be called real, objective, credible, and verifiable evidence of Jesus as a real person.

You know, I said the same thing a few months ago, and we are both right for saying it. However, that's irrelevant to what's being claimed, namely that it's a likely, and perhaps the most likely, explanation for the birth of Christianity. I don't see you tackling that one.

 

[Belz...]

Who are you talking about?

I think he's talking about Dejudge, who has indeed shown that he can't distinguish between the two.

Don't let that happen to you !

 

[Foster Zygote]

If you are unable to see the difference between giving a higher probability to one scenario and believing that scenario to be true, I can't help you. You have demonstrated an inability to understand anything but extremes in every situation.

I can't see dejudge being selected for jury duty any time soon.

"You must vote to acquit if you think there is a reasonable possibility that the defendant is innocent."

"Got it. I only vote to acquit if I believe that the defendant is innocent."

"No. You don't have to believe that the defendant is innocent, just that there is a possibility that he is innocent."

"Why are you so certain that he is innocent?"

"What? I never said he is innocent."

"So he's guilty then. What makes you so sure?"

"I haven't said he's guilty, either."

"So which is it? Is he guilty or innocent?"

"We haven't even had the trial yet!"

"Yet you've already decided that he's guilty! What monstrous malevolence!!! You obviously aren't qualified to be a judge!"

"NEXT!"

 

[sleepy_lioness]

Deleted