Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[pakeha]

What foolishness!! It is total nonsense to use the very questioned Pauline writings, riddled with forgeries, to date itself.

You NEED to examine the EXTERNAL evidence.

There is a massive amount of external evidence that has been ignored. It is FOOLISH to do so.

It is I who have introduced external evidence, eg the Claudian inscription at Delphi. But not even I claim to be in possession of a "massive amount" of this valuable commodity. Can you share your good fortune with us?

The Delphi inscription was discovered in the last century. (ETA: in 1905.) According to wiki, it is fragmentary, and has been deciphered to read

Tiber[ius Claudius Cae]sar Augustus Ge[rmanicus, invested with tribunician po]wer [for the 12th time, acclaimed Imperator for t]he 26th time, F[ather of the Fa]ther[land...]. For a l[ong time have I been not onl]y [well-disposed towards t]he ci[ty] of Delph[i, but also solicitous for its pro]sperity, and I have always guard[ed th]e cul[t of t]he [Pythian] Apol[lo. But] now [since] it is said to be desti[tu]te of [citi]zens, as [L. Jun]ius Gallio, my fri[end] an[d procon]sul, [recently reported to me, and being desirous that Delphi] should retain [inta]ct its for[mer rank, I] ord[er you (pl.) to in]vite well-born people also from [ot]her cities [to Delphi as new inhabitants....]

Craig B, as I think over this external evidence, all it actually shows is that Gallius was mentioned in an inscription ordered by Emperor Claudius and found in Delphi in 1905.
If anything, it indicates the cult of Pythian Apollo and the population of Delphi was declining when Claudius was acclaimed Imperator for the 26th time, rather than the truthiness of Acts.

 

[Craig B]

Craig B, as I think over this external evidence, all it actually shows is that Gallius was mentioned in an inscription ordered by Emperor Claudius and found in Delphi in 1905.
If anything, it indicates the cult of Pythian Apollo and the population of Delphi was declining when Claudius was acclaimed Imperator for the 26th time, rather than the truthiness of Acts.

The inscription can be dated, as already discussed, from its textual content. It has been asserted that there is nothing in the nature of evidence indicating that Paul existed at the time usually accepted for his writings. This inscription is evidence, because a person named in it is named in Acts, and the title of his office is correctly given in Acts. It may not be conclusive, and it may be challenged, but it is evidence. So also is the reference to Aretas, as a contemporary, evidence for the date of the Pauline epistles. So also is the setting of certain incidents in an obviously pre-revolt Jerusalem evidence for an early date. The Delphi inscription indicates the truthiness of Acts, in regard to the time of Paul's travels at least, by reason of being evidence. It may not be conclusive evidence. However, it is evidence. I was told there was no evidence. But that's wrong. This is evidence. Now, if you think it's not conclusive, please say why.

 

[David Mo]

This argument has been made a few times in this thread and is certainly a common argument that at least the crucifixion is an accurate fact from the NT.

I'm not so sure how strong this argument is though. Suppose you are a mucky muck in a religion that has believed the coming of the Messiah is imminent and you need to deal with the fact that your flock is wandering away because they've been waiting for the Messiah and they've noticed he hasn't come.

(…)

My thought is that a crucifixion is a pretty good way to kill off your super hero. It is something that everybody knows about at the time so it's plausible. It is maximally dramatic. It is, as you note, perhaps embarrassing that your super hero is getting killed in a horrible way, but you can deal with that by claiming that the super hero acquiesces to his own death.

And whether somebody dreamed up the Jesus story out of whole cloth or there was a real HJ that served as a seed for the origin of Christianity you can't argue with the results. The story resonated with people and one of the most compelling elements of the whole thing is the narrative around the crucifixion. So it looks like it might have been a pretty good strategy for somebody to make it up if that's what somebody did.

I'm not saying that the hypothesis "mucky muck" or Pauline (that is different) is impossible.
I am saying that this hypothesis is less plausible than the hypothesis of a mythification of an actually existing person. Reasons: If the ‘mucky muck’ invented a semi-divine messiah who disappeared after promising to go back to finish the job that was not done…

1. To invent a violent death is more complicated than an ascent to heaven with a miraculous artefact as a chariot of fire, for example. Elijah.
2. To invent a respectable death for their demigod is more natural than a shameful death. Like all other Mediterranean gods known.
3. We know examples of 1 and 2. We also know some prophets who have been killed or punished and after these followers jumped forwards by transforming their leader in a myth. We know of no religion that starts from a murdered god as a slave. Historical data available point to a real person deified.

The argument that after all it worked only proves that a crazy religious theory can work. It is to say, it is possible. But do not make it more plausible to be invented. By arguing this I pass the buck to the myithicists. Now, they must show that my argument of probability does not work or that Jesus never existed.

Those who affirm that the famous Fitzgerald's 'Ten Christian Myths' prove that Jesus never existed are wrong and logically inconclusive. Those ten points only show that the Gospels are plenty of myths. But everybody knows this. ADDED: In this forum at least.

Those who affirm that we cannot (critically) analyze the Gospels searching for some fact because they are plenty of mythical narrative are wrong. Pharaonic steles are plenty of mythical narrative about divine Pharaohs and their even more divine sponsors and everybody analyzes these steles searching for some factual truths.

Conclusion: I don’t know any reason to believe that a real Jesus is not more plausible than an invented Jesus.

 

[davefoc]

...
1. Reliable

2. Credible in what it claims.

3. Actually evidence of what is being claimed (and not evidence of something else entirely).

...

I dispute your definition of evidence although I recognize it as the one you have been using with regard to the HJ question.

I don't know what your first criteria means exactly. My criteria is that for something to be evidence of a proposition it must not be known to be false and it is must be supportive of the truth of the proposition if it is true.

I don't know that any of the first six items I posted are false and each one of those items if true would support the existence of an HJ. I think it is very likely that some of the items are false and as such I would describe them as weak or very weak evidence. I don't know that any of the items are true but even if some of them were I don't think the evidence from them would add up to proof that an HJ existed.

The seventh item in my list (Talmud and DSS) looks to me to be of such a low level of reliability that I would agree that claiming that anything in these documents is evidence of an HJ is a stretch too far. I think they provide more support for the idea that an HJ didn't exist than that he did.

 

[pakeha]

The inscription can be dated, as already discussed, from its textual content. It has been asserted that there is nothing in the nature of evidence indicating that Paul existed at the time usually accepted for his writings. This inscription is evidence, because a person named in it is named in Acts, and the title of his office is correctly given in Acts. It may not be conclusive, and it may be challenged, but it is evidence. So also is the reference to Aretas, as a contemporary, evidence for the date of the Pauline epistles. So also is the setting of certain incidents in an obviously pre-revolt Jerusalem evidence for an early date. The Delphi inscription indicates the truthiness of Acts, in regard to the time of Paul's travels at least, by reason of being evidence. It may not be conclusive evidence. However, it is evidence. I was told there was no evidence. But that's wrong. This is evidence. Now, if you think it's not conclusive, please say why.

This inscription is evidence, because a person named in it is named in Acts, and the title of his office is correctly given in Acts.
Craig B, by the logic in that hilited bit, we'd be expected accept the truthiness of Scarlett O'Hara's flight from Atlanta in Gone With the Wind.

I see I should study why people take Acts as anything but straight-up hagiography. Off to read.

 

[David Mo]

I have the impression that what the mythicists want is to disqualify the attempts to give credibility to the Gospels in one hit. I do not know why. Attempts to give credibility to the Gospels dissolve when one analyzes one by one its passages. And this activity is much more instructive than becoming radical. And more funny.

 

[pakeha]

I have the impression that what the mythicists want is to disqualify the attempts to give credibility to the Gospels in one hit. I do not know why. Attempts to give credibility to the Gospels dissolve when one analyzes one by one its passages. And this activity is much more instructive than becoming radical. And more funny.

You have a point, David Mo.
However, HJ proponents claim point by point arguments lose sight of the bigger picture.

 

[IanS]

We're getting there. "Belief in the holy bible" has now been downsized to mere "boils down to ... belief in the bible". A step forward! the "holy" has gone away, and the "belief" is reduced to a more palatable state by boiling, like bones into soup stock.

I have used all variations of that phrase many times throughout all these threads. You are being far too sensitive about anything at all which you assume to be critical of yourself ... whilst at the same time never complaining at the huge mountain of vitriolic and entirely untrue abuse being constantly poured out by your fellow pro-HJ people in these threads.

You know very well, and in fact you repeatedly insisted that people knew very well, that your claim IS that you rely on believing what is said in the bible as your source of belief in Jesus.

The problem in every single one of these threads is that all the pro-HJ arguments lead straight back to a belief in the bible. And that bible is not remotely reliable or credible in any measure whatsoever.

If the bible is the best you can do, then you most certainly do not have any genuine evidence of Jesus.

And that is of course precisely why no evidence is ever produced in any of these threads, despite all the hot air and venom.

 

[IanS]

I dispute your definition of evidence although I recognize it as the one you have been using with regard to the HJ question.

I don't know what your first criteria means exactly. My criteria is that for something to be evidence of a proposition it must not be known to be false and it is must be supportive of the truth of the proposition if it is true.

I don't know that any of the first six items I posted are false and each one of those items if true would support the existence of an HJ. I think it is very likely that some of the items are false and as such I would describe them as weak or very weak evidence. I don't know that any of the items are true but even if some of them were I don't think the evidence from them would add up to proof that an HJ existed.

The seventh item in my list (Talmud and DSS) looks to me to be of such a low level of reliability that I would agree that claiming that anything in these documents is evidence of an HJ is a stretch too far. I think they provide more support for the idea that an HJ didn't exist than that he did.

The material you are using from authors like Tacitus and Josephus is not reliable or credible as evidence for what those authors supposedly wrote about Jesus though, is it!

How is it reliable when we have not a single word any of those authors ever supposedly wrote about Jesus? When all we have is a few very brief mentions actually coming from what Christian copyists themselves produced 1000 years later? How is that reliable?

It would not be credible even if you had a copy actually dated 100AD in Tacitus's own hand! Because he was not even born at the time of Jesus! And gives no name of anyone who gave him any details of Jesus, and so his source could never be traced to find out if they were habitually lying religious nuts or whatever! How on earth is that supposed to be credible!? It most certainly is not.

Copyist 11th century Christian writing like that is absolutely zero use as evidence of Jesus.

 

[Craig B]

This inscription is evidence, because a person named in it is named in Acts, and the title of his office is correctly given in Acts.
Craig B, by the logic in that hilited bit, we'd be expected accept the truthiness of Scarlett O'Hara's flight from Atlanta in Gone With the Wind.

No. But the occurrence of correct historical data is evidence for the truthiness of Gone With The Wind. It is overwhelmed by other evidence in favour of untruthiness. Acts purports to be a true account of certain events, so it may well contain real factual data, along with errors and possibly lies. Here we have something which was shown by a discovery made eighteen centuries or more later to be consistent with the dates implied in Acts. That is evidence. It's not quite the same thing as finding out that, say, Gulliver's Travels includes the correct information that the moon goes round the earth, so saying that the book must all be true. No. It's not the same as that.

 

[Belz...]

I have the impression that what the mythicists want is to disqualify the attempts to give credibility to the Gospels in one hit. I do not know why. Attempts to give credibility to the Gospels dissolve when one analyzes one by one its passages. And this activity is much more instructive than becoming radical. And more funny.

I've said it before: I used to be on the MJ side, and I think it was because it suited me -- if Jesus never existed, Christianity was even more wrong than it is now.

 

[maximara]

Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed.
How ridicules this thread is, the most remembered person throughout all of history never existed? You would think that right off if he didn’t exist they would have put a stop to it and they tried just as you are, ever wonder why? I never seen so many people try to prove something they can't? But you'll convice yourselves you have, funny that too, LOL.

The highlighted point is easy:

"Euhemerism mind set of the day

Perhaps the greatest Miner issue is the fact that all claims of evidence must take into account the mind set of the day. Herodotus (c484 – 425 BCE), the father of history, had argued that myths were distorted accounts of real historical events. Euhemerus (4th century - 3rd century BCE) took that idea and kicked it up to the next level suggesting that all myths had some basis in historical fact.
"The work is of immense importance, for Euhemerus proposes that myth is history in disguise, that deities were originally living men and women who were elevated to divine status because of heroic feats when alive."

The statement "Osiris, Attis, Adonis were men. They died as men; they rose as gods." captures this mind set perfectly.

In fact, Euhemerus himself stated that Zeus had actually been a mortal king who was buried on Crete and Eusebius in the 4th century CE accepted Heracles as a flesh and blood man who by birth was an Egyptian and was a king in Argos This assumption of men becoming mythical gods could have been what Justin Martyr really meant when he wrote "When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter."

If the mindset is that every known deity is actually the distortion of a once living person then the concept that a deity was the product of hallucination with no real person behind them would never occur to you.

So in the Euhemerism mindset something like the Grim Reaper would not be viewed as the personification of a concept but rather that there once had been an emaciated person running around with a scythe killing people."

 

[Craig B]

... So in the Euhemerism mindset something like the Grim Reaper would not be viewed as the personification of a concept but rather that there once had been an emaciated person running around with a scythe killing people."

Is that your own thought, or is it a quote from some other source?

 

[maximara]

Is that your own thought, or is it a quote from some other source?

"The work is of immense importance, for Euhemerus proposes that myth is history in disguise, that deities were originally living men and women who were elevated to divine status because of heroic feats when alive."

The statement "Osiris, Attis, Adonis were men. They died as men; they rose as gods." captures this mind set perfectly.

In fact, Euhemerus himself stated that Zeus had actually been a mortal king who was buried on Crete and Eusebius in the 4th century CE accepted Heracles as a flesh and blood man who by birth was an Egyptian and was a king in Argos This assumption of men becoming mythical gods could have been what Justin Martyr really meant when he wrote "When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter."

Read the rest of the information and you will have your answer.

 

[Craig B]

@ maximara

Sorry I was asking, are you quoting all of this or part of it? If so from where? I wanted to consult the source. Sorry if I'm being stupid, I just wanted a link or a reference, if relevant.

ETA
It's not clear if the Grim reaper idea is your own or from another source. I just wanted to check. Thanks.

 

[Brainache]

@ maximara

Sorry I was asking, are you quoting all of this or part of it? If so from where? I wanted to consult the source. Sorry if I'm being stupid, I just wanted a link or a reference, if relevant.

X 2

 

[pakeha]

No. But the occurrence of correct historical data is evidence for the truthiness of Gone With The Wind. It is overwhelmed by other evidence in favour of untruthiness. Acts purports to be a true account of certain events, so it may well contain real factual data, along with errors and possibly lies. Here we have something which was shown by a discovery made eighteen centuries or more later to be consistent with the dates implied in Acts. That is evidence. It's not quite the same thing as finding out that, say, Gulliver's Travels includes the correct information that the moon goes round the earth, so saying that the book must all be true. No. It's not the same as that.

It's evidence the author of Acts got the name of a Proconsul right.
I liked the reference to GT, Craig B.

I'm slogging through analyses of Acts and am hoping to find something that shows Acts to be other than propaganda.

 

[Craig B]

It's evidence the author of Acts got the name of a Proconsul right.
I liked the reference to GT, Craig B.

I'm slogging through analyses of Acts and am hoping to find something that shows Acts to be other than propaganda.

Propaganda is valuable, as I've pointed out before. What is the propaganda about? Compare what Acts has to say with what Paul says where there is a reference to the same event or the same people. Most propaganda is not pure invention; it is "spin" put on something to justify a particular opinion or ideology. Do propagandists, on the occasions when they're telling complete lies, write down things that are embarrassing to themselves? It's like a case I gave in another thread: if Soviet sources in 1941 claimed that the Red Army had routed the Germans in Smolensk, we wouldn't know if they had or not, because the Soviet propagandists might say that anyway, no matter how things really went. But we would know for sure that these propagandists didn't invent the fact that the Nazis had got as far as Smolensk. That bit must be true!

 

[pakeha]

"But we would know for sure that these propagandists didn't invent the fact that the Nazis had got as far as Smolensk. That bit must be true! "

Promise me, Craig B, that you'll never commit yourself to helping an orphan claiming to be in a Red Cross refugee camp in Dakar.

 

[tsig]

I've said it before: I used to be on the MJ side, and I think it was because it suited me -- if Jesus never existed, Christianity was even more wrong than it is now.

And since that was your mindset you project that on everyone who doesn't agree there was an HJ.

Did you ever stop and think that someone could simply did not think there wasn't enough evidence or are you convinced that the only reason someone would doubt an HJ is because they hate Christianity?