Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[The Norseman]

Jesus was mythicaly historical?

No, Jesus was historically mythical. Or is that hysterically mythical?

 

[Belz...]

Ah! The lightbulb just went on! We need a lightbulb smiley. Thank you, that was what I needed to understand properly.

I frequently realise that other people express my own thoughts better than I do.

 

[Craig B]

Jesus was mythicaly historical?

If he was, he's not alone.

In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to the historian Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity. From these, versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great_in_legend Being the centre of a collection of myths doesn't necessarily mean a person is fictitious.

 

[Craig B]

I'd love a response to my earlier question if you could recall. I don't know now which thread it was in, but it was an honest question. You got prickly when IanS didn't answer your question, so it's only fair you answer mine.

Most willingly, if you can remind me where and what the question is. Its honesty I do not doubt.

 

[Craig B]

... It is quite illogical to assume that characters named in the Bible are historical simply because some one wrote about them.

So it would be. But davefoc merely stated that being named in the Bible is evidence that people existed. It does not mean that they necessarily existed. Nor does it mean, even if they did exist, that everything stated about them in the Bible is true. MJ exponents demand evidence, and they are given evidence. They then say, not that the evidence is not conclusive, which is fair enough, but that it is not evidence, and then they fill the air with accusations of equivocation, prevarication, procrastination, falsification .... etc, etc.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Hundreds of pages, multiple threads, thousands of posts, and yet never does the HJ side give any of the "overwhelming evidence" they claim to have. If we are REALLY lucky they say "why should I do your work for you, the evidence has been stated, somewhere"

I'm still stuck at "what the hell would count as a historical jesus anyway?"

I mean really...a guy named jesus said spiritually stuff and got crucified? OK, I'm 100% on board. What in the world does this have to do with the kind of jesus we're talking about here?

 

[Brainache]

Hundreds of pages, multiple threads, thousands of posts, and yet never does the HJ side give any of the "overwhelming evidence" they claim to have. If we are REALLY lucky they say "why should I do your work for you, the evidence has been stated, somewhere"

I'm still stuck at "what the hell would count as a historical jesus anyway?"

I mean really...a guy named jesus said spiritually stuff and got crucified? OK, I'm 100% on board. What in the world does this have to do with the kind of jesus we're talking about here?

You could try actually reading the whole thing and following links and stuff as they come up.

Or, you could just show up at any random point in the thread and demand that everyone run around trying to overcome your ignorance by repeating themselves for you.

Guess which one you picked?

 

[pipelineaudio]

Or, you could just show up at any random point in the thread and demand that everyone run around trying to overcome your ignorance by repeating themselves for you.

The only thing that's been repeated is exactly what I said, in that allegedly there is a mystical repository someplace with this overwhelming evidence

 

[Craig B]

... I mean really...a guy named jesus said spiritually stuff and got crucified? OK, I'm 100% on board. What in the world does this have to do with the kind of jesus we're talking about here?

Lots of people here are not "on board" with that. That's not what any mythicists worth their salt are in fact stating. See wiki

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory or Jesus mythicism) is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed but was invented by the Christian community.

Robert M Price observes that

There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources ... all that can be taken from the epistles ... is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly realm (much as other ancient gods, e.g. Horus), there died as a sacrifice for human sin, was raised by God and enthroned in heaven.
The Jesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising gods ... which, he writes, survived into the Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early Christianity.

That's the kind of Jesus, among other kinds, we're talking about here. Join in, if you wish, and welcome.

 

[Craig B]

The only thing that's been repeated is exactly what I said, in that allegedly there is a mystical repository someplace with this overwhelming evidence

Ah! You repeat not only the content, but also the degree of courtesy, exhibited by the other MJ proponents contributing to these threads. Earlier I contributed the following, as regards evidence in the Gospels, which you may feel moved, unlike some other MJ supporters, to read. Or you may follow the previous example and disparage it, unread.

The bible attests to a belief in a human Jesus. One of the reasons why people might have believed in a human Jesus, is that there may in fact have been a human Jesus. Historical authenticity is a very powerful (though not the only) motive for belief.

Apart from that consideration, there are others. The gospels derive their material from more than one source. Best known, the later Synoptics have both Mark and a sayings source unknown to Mark, called Q from the German word "Quelle" meaning simply source. And both these sources contain a human Jesus. I have discussed the increasing supernaturalisation of the sources through time, eg with the addition of (divergent and therefore manifestly fictional) miracle birth stories in Matthew and Luke ...

That is not all. Some of the stories are embarrassing to the gospel writers, particularly the post-Marcan ones. Compare the simple account of Jesus' baptism in Mark with the tortuous justifications and circumlocutions intended to cover the distress of the later evangelists at having to relate this awkward event, which you may peruse in Matt and Luke. (John is off the wall on this one.) Why would such a thing be invented? Why would Mark invent that his family thought Jesus was insane? Mark's Jesus has a perfectly normal family as far as we can see.

Now none of these things ... makes it certain that there was a Jesus. What I am trying to argue is that the evidence for Jesus which may be inferred from the NT has absolutely nothing to do with people accepting that collection of writings as the word of god, or infallible.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Well for example lets say I was asked to give evidence for evolution

I could say "the phylogenetic tree looks pretty good"

Why is this never done about jesus on these threads?

 

[pipelineaudio]

When I read the bible, I see paul saying that he got it all from scripture, not from any man, and he certainly never met a human jesus. The gospels to me, seem like a fleshing out, Homer style (especially mark) to make a human version of jesus the way they made human versions of herculese

I certainly don't see the gospels as any sort of evidence for a human jesus guy, I don't think they're meant to be, nearly everything in them is fictional and fantastical

 

[dejudge]

Or look at it this way: If someone casts a six-sided die behind a screen so that you cannot see the result, you can be assured that the chances are five in six that the number showing is not a six. But if you say, "the result is most likely not a six", it doesn't indicate that you believe that the result is not a six.

I am afraid that you cannot say that "the result is most likely not a six" if someone cast a six-sided dice.

It is a one in six probability that any number on the dice will be the top number.

 

[davefoc]

Well for example lets say I was asked to give evidence for evolution

I could say "the phylogenetic tree looks pretty good"

Why is this never done about jesus on these threads?

I don't know what Jesus threads you've been looking at but it is a mainstay of the Jesus threads I've participated in. People ask for evidence all the time and people provide the evidence that they believe supports the premise that an HJ existed.

Depending on who is participating in this thread the claimed evidence can range from very little to the whole panoply of evidence that is put forth to support the notion that an HJ existed.

One thing that your question suggests is that you think either there should be the kind of evidence to support the existence of an HJ that is available to prove evolution or that there isn't and you want to make that point. Assuming the latter, I would suggest to you that this isn't much of a point. If an HJ existed he was involved with a small sect from which no writings and no other contemporaneous evidence has come down to us. I suspect there were a lot more small sects in first century Palestine that this would be true of than those whose existence is documented with evidence available today.

The closest thing available to contemporaneous writings with a early Jesus sect are the works of Paul. That's pretty much it and without corroboration people are pretty much free to believe whatever Paul theory they like, they might be right. The Jesusneverxisted.com site puts forth about the best case that I've seen that Paul's writings are made up. On the issue of the HJ you can pick a theory and you can find somebody to support it or you can pick a particular speculator and go with his theory. Or you can just accept that the facts about the origin of Christianity are unknowable in its earliest stage.

 

[Craig B]

When I read the bible, I see paul saying that he got it all from scripture, not from any man

You appear to be referring to Galatians 1:11-12

For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

So he doesn't claim here "not man but scripture": he claims "not man but direct personal revelation"

and he certainly never met a human jesus.[but he believed in the existence of a human Jesus, as he states in Romans 1

3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

The gospels to me, seem like a fleshing out, Homer style (especially mark) to make a human version of jesus the way they made human versions of herculese

I certainly don't see the gospels as any sort of evidence for a human jesus guy, I don't think they're meant to be, nearly everything in them is fictional and fantastical

Is that your response to my observations on the Gospels as a source of information? I had hoped for something supported by argument and at least a cursory reference to the text, rather than merely what you do or don't "see as evidence for a guy". I see it as evidence for a guy, though not conclusive evidence. On this point see my # You have asked for evidence from others, nay, required it in peremptory terms. I am therefore returning the complement. In detail, why do you dismiss the whole of the Gospel material?

 

[tsig]

You appear to be referring to Galatians 1:11-12 So he doesn't claim here "not man but scripture": he claims "not man but direct personal revelation"

and he certainly never met a human jesus.[but he believed in the existence of a human Jesus, as he states in Romans 1 Is that your response to my observations on the Gospels as a source of information? I had hoped for something supported by argument and at least a cursory reference to the text, rather than merely what you do or don't "see as evidence for a guy". I see it as evidence for a guy, though not conclusive evidence. On this point see my # You have asked for evidence from others, nay, required it in peremptory terms. I am therefore returning the complement. In detail, why do you dismiss the whole of the Gospel material?

Same reason I dismiss the Book of Mormon.

Why do you think some things in the bible are true?

 

[tsig]

Hundreds of pages, multiple threads, thousands of posts, and yet never does the HJ side give any of the "overwhelming evidence" they claim to have. If we are REALLY lucky they say "why should I do your work for you, the evidence has been stated, somewhere"

I'm still stuck at "what the hell would count as a historical jesus anyway?"

I mean really...a guy named jesus said spiritually stuff and got crucified? OK, I'm 100% on board. What in the world does this have to do with the kind of jesus we're talking about here?

HJers, in their quest to separate the mundane from the magical, sound like Christian apologists, they even use the same arguments, one of them is the argument from embarrassment, that is that the writers wouldn't mention something because it would make it look bad so what they write must be true i. e. the crucifixion.

When this argument was used to defend the 'empty tomb' "women were looked down on in the ancient world therefore we can believe the ET narrative" it was roundly trashed, here it's held up as one of the pillars of the historical method.

The argument assumes we can correctly read the minds of the early Christians and determine what they believed and why they wrote what they did.

 

[tsig]

If he was, he's not alone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great_in_legend Being the centre of a collection of myths doesn't necessarily mean a person is fictitious.

What part of did you miss?

 

[eight bits]

Norseman

Thank you for writing to just about everybody. That way, I can formally respond to you, and not worry about messing up who was who again .

The writer of Paul clearly state that he got his info from a spiritual Jesus just as Joe Smith did.

Paul does not say in what sense he was informed by Jesus, nor that any part of what he taught was personally told to him by Jesus. Paul also cites his own exeprtise in scriptural and Jewish doctrinal matters and narrates a long history of interaction with other Jesus preachers. So, the two cases are very different.

It occurred quite frequently in that time period so I understand.

Perhaps you could give an example of what you mean. Space aliens in filmed science fiction often resemble human beings. This doesn't reflect the audience as much as the storyteller-producer's needs. Even when a conscious effort is made to avoid human-likeness, using puppet technology (Farscape), the not-so-human aliens have faces ("Pilot's" being both his own and the ship's) and use their faces expressively.

The Jewish religion has managed quite well without a human-like God, and Islam has been even more successful with it for a shorter span of time. There is notthing in either Paul or Mark that depicts the living Jewish Jesus as anything other than a human being, and much in Paul's story requires Jesus to be human. Being human suffices to explain human-likeness. Apotheosis after death also occurred in that time period.

How about mentioning all that is alike between Jesus and other god myths? Of course there will be some differences, that's not important.

Didn't you just point out how similar the characters in god myths are to human beings? What then, besides the differences, are important in your view?

How can we dismiss the pagan mentality? What's the reasoning for dismissing it?

The earliest version of the story comes to us from a credibly and avowedly Jewish source, by definition not a pagan.

You seriously don't think that Paul just made stuff up regarding what someone else said? Don't you think it's likely that Paul used a Jesus figure to lend credence to his words and ministry?

No, I believe that articulating Paul's opinion about Jesus was Paul's ministry. He obviously was checked out on "doing well by doing good," but I think Paul was sincere about having seen a ghost, was reassured that he wasn't the only one to say he had done so (even though many of the others were thorns in his side), and Paul had enough ego to imagine that his interpretation of the experience was better than theirs.

pipelineaudio

I mean really...a guy named jesus said spiritually stuff and got crucified? OK, I'm 100% on board. What in the world does this have to do with the kind of jesus we're talking about here?

Here at JREF? Few people who are more than 50-50 demand all that much more of a historical Jesus to count (see the thread of more-or-less that title for details). At CARM? Those people have to pinch themselves to remeber that the Nicene Creed says Jesus is also human.

Similarly, the "overwhelming" evidence chit-chat is more readily found at CARM and such places than here.

BTW, if you're looking for a reasonably neutral recital of what evidence there is,

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

and check out their links to early Jewish writings and a special page devoted to the question of a historical Jesus.

 

[Craig B]

You appear to be referring to Galatians 1:11-12 So he doesn't claim here "not man but scripture": he claims "not man but direct personal revelation"


Same reason I dismiss the Book of Mormon.

Why do you think some things in the bible are true?

It is like the Book of Mormon? It is so obvious to you that the bible was composed all at once by a single charlatan as part of an obvious scam, that you don't need to provide any evidence to demonstrate this? A bare assertion will suffice, will it? No it won't! As to my attitude to the gospels; I have indicated that at #486 and elsewhere by discussing the gradual development of increased supernatural elements in the gospels; and I also wrote:

One of the reasons why people might have believed in a human Jesus, is that there may in fact have been a human Jesus. Historical authenticity is a very powerful (though not the only) motive for belief.

Apart from that consideration, there are others. The gospels derive their material from more than one source. Best known, the later Synoptics have both Mark and a sayings source unknown to Mark, called Q from the German word "Quelle" meaning simply source. And both these sources contain a human Jesus. I have discussed the increasing supernaturalisation of the sources through time, eg with the addition of (divergent and therefore manifestly fictional) miracle birth stories in Matthew and Luke ...

That is not all. Some of the stories are embarrassing to the gospel writers, particularly the post-Marcan ones. Compare the simple account of Jesus' baptism in Mark with the tortuous justifications and circumlocutions intended to cover the distress of the later evangelists at having to relate this awkward event, which you may peruse in Matt and Luke. (John is off the wall on this one.) Why would such a thing be invented? Why would Mark invent that his family thought Jesus was insane? Mark's Jesus has a perfectly normal family as far as we can see.

Now none of these things ... makes it certain that there was a Jesus. What I am trying to argue is that the evidence for Jesus which may be inferred from the NT has absolutely nothing to do with people accepting that collection of writings as the word of god, or infallible.

Comment on that if you will, or say WHY you think the Bible is like the Book of Mormon. In fact the bible contains historical material, some of which may well not be entirely false. It is an important source of information on the history of the Ancient Near East.

The Book of Mormon came out of the head of a liar and scammer, and the society it describes never existed. The bible not merely describes, but is the product of, a society which is indeed known to have existed as a historical reality.

You have asked me a question, which is have tried to answer. Now please return the favour by telling me, in sufficient detail to support your argument, why in point of possible authenticity of material the bible resembles the Book of Mormon.