Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[maximara]

Then I wouldn't be calling it a "Jesus Myth" theory. Just Historical speculation.

What you call it does NOT count. It is how the apologists themselves define Christ Myth and they have defined it as the story of Jesus "possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes"

Eddy and Boyd (2007) and Stanton (2002) by classifying Jesus Myth (1996), which accepted a historical Jesus being behind hypothetical Q Gospel, as Christ Myth confirms this.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth and you cannot go all Humpty Dumpty and say the term means what you say.

Price stated "For even if we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus." (Price, Robert (2012) The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems pg 387-8) and yet G. R. S. Mead and Alvar Ellegård who have suggest this position have been called "Christ Mythers" by the apologists.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth as covering what you want to called historical speculation which puts us right back a square one.

 

[Brainache]

What you call it does NOT count. It is how the apologists themselves define Christ Myth and they have defined it as the story of Jesus "possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes"

Eddy and Boyd (2007) and Stanton (2002) classifying Jesus Myth (1996), which accepted a historical Jesus being behind hypothetical Q Gospel, as Christ Myth confirms this reading.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth and you cannot go all Humpty Dumpty and say the term means what you say.

Price stated "For even if we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus." (Price, Robert (2012) The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems pg 387-8) and yet G. R. S. Mead and Alvar Ellegård who have suggest this position have been called "Christ Mythers" by the apologists.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth as covering what you want to called historical speculation which puts us right back a square one.

I don't care if the Apologists call me late for dinner. the language doesn't belong to them.

There is no communication problem with anyone that I know of, except you.

Why is that?

 

[maximara]

Hey Maximara,

Just in case there was some confusion there, dejudge doesn't hold to an actual Jesus existing; he holds Jesus was a myth created in the 2nd c CE.

Then why in the name of sanity is dejudge putting out what amounts to apologistic song and dance? That does NOT help the Christ Myth position one bit.

Besides everything does point to the Jesus of the Gospels beings a myth created in the 2nd c CE.

1) Paul is going on about the Jesus in his own head and warning people to avoid "another Jesus" who preached "another gospel". And he is vague regarding the actual life of the Jesus he is writing about...just like we see with John Frum accounts.

2) No reference to any of the Gospels occurs until c130 CE. If Mark was written c70 CE and the other Gospels shortly afterward as apologists often assert then why is there no reference to them until about 60 years later?

3) On every point that we actually can cross check with history the Gospels have problems. Either there is no independent verification requiring ad hoc handwaving to salvage the account (Herod's slaughter of Innocents) or events are at odds with what we do know (the two trials of Jesus; Pontius Pilatus' unhistorial behavior, the quick removal of Jesus body from the cross, the lack of any contemporary accounts of the supposed darkness or the dead taking a little walk, and we could go on)

None of this means a flesh and blood Jesus wasn't in 1st century Galilee but it does indicate that the relationship between him and the Jesus of the Gospel other then name is likely nil.

 

[maximara]

I don't care if the Apologists call me late for dinner. the language doesn't belong to them.

Why you in such denial that the apologist have defined Christ Myth so broadly?

 

[JaysonR]

Doherty is not evidence that Jesus was a figure of mythology. Please stop hiding behind Doherty's opinion and expose the evidence for myth Jesus.

Why can't you show the evidence that Jesus was God and born of a Ghost?

I am amazed that even Christians and atheists are scared of the evidence for myth Jesus.

1. Ignatius' "Epistle to Ephesians"


2. Aristides' "Apology"


3. Hippolytus' "Refutation of All Heresies"


4. Justin Martyr's First Apology


5. Jerome's The Perpetual virginity of Mary


6. Origen's De Principiis


7.Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ

Those are all forgeries of the 4th and 6th century.

 

[JaysonR]

Then why in the name of sanity is dejudge putting out what amounts to apologistic song and dance? That does NOT help the Christ Myth position one bit.

Besides everything does point to the Jesus of the Gospels beings a myth created in the 2nd c CE.

1) Paul is going on about the Jesus in his own head and warning people to avoid "another Jesus" who preached "another gospel". And he is vague regarding the actual life of the Jesus he is writing about...just like we see with John Frum accounts.

2) No reference to any of the Gospels occurs until c130 CE. If Mark was written c70 CE and the other Gospels shortly afterward as apologists often assert then why is there no reference to them until about 60 years later?

3) On every point that we actually can cross check with history the Gospels have problems. Either there is no independent verification requiring ad hoc handwaving to salvage the account (Herod's slaughter of Innocents) or events are at odds with what we do know (the two trials of Jesus; Pontius Pilatus' unhistorial behavior, the quick removal of Jesus body from the cross, the lack of any contemporary accounts of the supposed darkness or the dead taking a little walk, and we could go on)

None of this means a flesh and blood Jesus wasn't in 1st century Galilee but it does indicate that the relationship between him and the Jesus of the Gospel other then name is likely nil.

Unless I'm conspiring against dejudge in some attempt to make him look bad, and have myself insulted again, I believe dejudge holds that the Pauline corpus is also a forgery entirely.

 

[Brainache]

Why you in such denial that the apologist have defined Christ Myth so broadly?

I don't deny it, I just don't care. If they want to make the definition of a term so wide that it is useless for anything at all, that's their choice. I don't have to go along with it.

 

[Craig B]

Why you in such denial that the apologist have defined Christ Myth so broadly?

Can you help me to understand what you mean here? It isn't very clear to me.

 

[Brainache]

Can you help me to understand what you mean here? It isn't very clear to me.

As far as I can tell Maximara's position is that anyone who doesn't accept the gospel stories at face value is talking about a "Jesus Myth" theory.

So basically all Historians are already mythers, therefore Jesus was a Myth. QED.

 

[zugzwang]

Kevin Rosero, like me, is an amateur on this topic, but he includes a lot in his articles and has a focus like a laser beam.


Did you know that some mythicists like Doherty propose that virtually the entire NT is the product of mythicist writers, with the exceptions of Acts of the Apostles (which doesn't have any actions or sayings of a Jesus on earth anyway) and some interpolations?

Which means that, not only did the proto-historicist Christians destroy all the evidence of a "mythicist" Christianity, but late in the Second Century CE the proto-historicists decided to adopt the mythicist Christian works for their own. Rosero's article does a good job of laying out the beliefs of the writers and whom they were writing against.


Yep. That's what it is about: the best and most parsimonious explanation. It's still possible that there was no historical Jesus, but I think there are more unneeded assumptions on that side.

That is a brilliant coup - to argue that the mythicist works have been subsumed by the historicist Christians. So they didn't destroy the evidence - like the dog, they ate it!

This seems to posit some extra stuff really, machinery for removing one Jesus (celestial), and replacing with another (human). It seems to produce lots of twists and turns also, as apparent anomalies are explained (away), e.g. interpolations, forgeries.

Hmm, somehow I am drawn to the thoughts of the good friar and his razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

 

[eight bits]

max

Besides everything does point to the Jesus of the Gospels beings a myth created in the 2nd c CE.

Then you and dejudge agree about the essential controversy. You divide over some details and over the best way to argue for the position.

We have to be careful regarding the use of the term "mythicist" because it has been applied to people who said there was a flesh and blood Jesus in the 1st century:

Yes, but that's typical of words in general. Atheist used to mean somebody who didn't believe in the gods that the speaker expected, whether or not the "atheist" believed in other gods instead. Similarly, agnostic changed meanings during the lifetime of the person who coined it (as Huxley observed with some rue), and not long thereafter was joined in a shotgun marriage with an obscure older homonym, probably in a conscious effort to discredit Huxley.

The main issue here was whether the term "mythicist" can reasonably be taken as offensive by somebody who professes "Jesus is a myth." Off hand, the answer would seem to be just as much as "historicist" can reasonably be taken as offensive by somebody who professes "Jesus was a historical person." In my opinion, that would be "not very offensive."

The actual occasion of offense was that an aggressive mythicist misread a moderate poster, and mistook "mythicist" for something like "mysticist." No criticism intended; I do stuff like that every day. That term would be offensive, since there was nothing "mystic" about the person's position. However, the moderate poster didn't write that.

Looking at earlier uses of the term, then, so far as I know, everybody agrees that the received body of Jesus stories contains ample mythological material. The only objection to that statement I've ever heard is to the word myth, since it has the connotation of something which isn't literally true. Now, there's an example where the term "mythicist" would be offensive: to describe somebody who believes that some of the mythological material is factually true.

Some of your older references reflect the then-recent conscious and publicly discussed realization that what many English and German speaking people believed to be true was mythological in character. That hasn't been news for generations. Around here, little time is lost on whether anybody walked on water or rose from the dead. We divide over whether the ghost Paul supposedly thought he saw was that of a flesh-and-blood Jewish fellow whom Pontius Pilate had ordered to be nailed up and hung out to dry.

 

[zugzwang]

There is also the question as to whether some of this material - e.g. walking on water - is genuinely mythological, or might be better termed 'legendary'. However, this would probably take us way off topic.

But the word 'myth' seems to be very elastic - see for example 'urban myths', which are of course, not mythological!

 

[Brainache]

That is a brilliant coup - to argue that the mythicist works have been subsumed by the historicist Christians. So they didn't destroy the evidence - like the dog, they ate it!

This seems to posit some extra stuff really, machinery for removing one Jesus (celestial), and replacing with another (human). It seems to produce lots of twists and turns also, as apparent anomalies are explained (away), e.g. interpolations, forgeries.

Hmm, somehow I am drawn to the thoughts of the good friar and his razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

There was a poster here a few years ago (not sure if he's still around) who coined a term for the way Conspiracy nuts always seemed to prefer the most complicated explanation for something.

I think I see echoes of it in the way some people here approach the study of History.

SMACCO'S ROZAR - The antonym of Parsimony.

 

[Craig B]

... This seems to posit some extra stuff really, machinery for removing one Jesus (celestial), and replacing with another (human). It seems to produce lots of twists and turns also, as apparent anomalies are explained (away), e.g. interpolations, forgeries.

Hmm, somehow I am drawn to the thoughts of the good friar and his razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

That's why it's so necessary to distinguish clearly the two types of mythicism. The weak mythicists merely say, there isn't enough evidence to show that HJ existed, which is fine, and even true. But the strong mythicists have elaborate scenarios like the above, which in my opinion are less probable than an HJ, and so they require even more evidence. But the strong mythicists hide behind the weak ones and add their voices to the chorus calling for evidence from the Historicists.

 

[zugzwang]

That's why it's so necessary to distinguish clearly the two types of mythicism. The weak mythicists merely say, there isn't enough evidence to show that HJ existed, which is fine, and even true. But the strong mythicists have elaborate scenarios like the above, which in my opinion are less probable than an HJ, and so they require even more evidence. But the strong mythicists hide behind the weak ones and add their voices to the chorus calling for evidence from the Historicists.

Well, the chorus itself seems a bit vague here. When they ask for evidence, do they mean 'evidence as it is used in historical method'? Or do they mean scientific evidence? The two are not the same.

 

[Belz...]

Oh, Oh!! You got caught!! You conveniently believe the very Bible without external corroboration.

That is a lie. He does not. But you do, seeing as how you keep quoting the damned thing.

 

[pakeha]

Your above statement is directed at Belz, but if we are to believe Bart Ehrman, the evidence for an historical Jesus is quite strong. He is leaning to Jesus not being divine but he certainly believed Jesus existed. Ehrman even stated there are good reasons to believe Jesus was betrayed by Judas.

Nice to see you back and posting, DOC!
Do you remember off-hand what those good reasons are?

...Bottom Line - what is the actual evidence of Jesus as a living person, please?

Apparently, if I've understood the last several pages correctly, it's parsimony.

Yes, hence the comparison with creationism, which also attacks the academy, not for scientific reasons, but ideological ones. Of course, it's possible that some mythicists are not motivated by anti-Christian sentiment, but it's striking how many seem to exude it. I think Tim O'Neill refers to it as a historical illiteracy among some atheists, (but not all). But then historical illiteracy is probably very wide-spread.

How does skepticism of an historical Jesus attack the academy?

Who cares ? No one here is trying to establish a biblical Jesus.

True, yet it seems we're expected to find an historical Jesus by sifting the bible.

--
The presence of "imminent" apocalypse talk in the seven authentics is a potential embarrassment in 180 c.e. -- as well as for Christians in any subsequent period -- that no second-century Christian forger is going to insert in a Pauline forgery. This is why the presence of just such "imminent" talk in the same seven Paulines duly authenticated by academe must be a sign of authenticity and can come only from Paul's lifetime, when the notion of imminent apocalypse was still seriously considered and not yet a source of embarrassment.

Stone

That's an interesting argument, Stone.
But at the same time a weak one, since "imminent" apocalypse talk is evident in cults even to the present day and doesn't seem to embarrass the believers one jot.

 

[Belz...]

Your constant propaganda is really useless.

Your constant insults are, however, quite useful. Just not the way you think.

What utter nonsense.

Translation: "I disagree."

I am amazed that even Christians and atheists are scared of the evidence for myth Jesus.

You are amazed at a fiction of your own making.

 

[pakeha]

Well, the chorus itself seems a bit vague here. When they ask for evidence, do they mean 'evidence as it is used in historical method'? Or do they mean scientific evidence? The two are not the same.

The chorus?
I've asked about the 'evidence as it is used in historical method' specifically as applied to ancient history.
The replies seem to revolve around the criteria of embarrassment, parsimony and multiple attestation.
Have I missed anything in the list?

 

[Craig B]

Well, the chorus itself seems a bit vague here. When they ask for evidence, do they mean 'evidence as it is used in historical method'? Or do they mean scientific evidence? The two are not the same.

Depending where you go, there all sorts of evidence being produced. I can't resist this item.

Maria Luisa Rigato Biblical scholar and author I.N.R.I. Il titolo della Croce.

"I am convinced it's the sign of Pilate. Until there's evidence that the Shroud is fake, I believe the titulus is completely authentic. I think it was was close to the body because it would have been absurd to leave it at Calvary since that was the cause of condemnation. They placed it beside the tomb, and it had the same fate as the Shroud. Again, the writing follows the original version of the Gospel.”

Just like the Shroud, the "Titulus Crucis" was also tested by carbon-14, but it did not provide definitive results.

With the possibility of it being an authentic recording of the Cross, this relic is venerated in Rome. It reminds Christians of why Jesus died for all men.

For Maria Louisa Rigato's sake, I hope he died for women too.