The Historical Jesus III

[Leumas]

Is that what Higher Criticism is? Trying to bamboozle people. What for?

"Higher criticism"?? Hahaha ... quite the joke you make... you mean more like imbecilic toeing the line rather than any criticism let alone the most highly laughable of the most illogical claptrap.

I think you'll find the answers to your disingenuous questions in these books as a starter

• On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
• Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

But I know you will never read them because just like the rest of your illogic you've PREJUDGED them and their author as not up to par with your biased authority which you prefer to blindly and illogically follow.

I also know that you would never gather enough rational impartiality or logical objectivity to bother to watch these videos either, in which all your disingenuous queries are answered in full.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPZ39rqaIZ0 (and part 2)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUZOZN-9dc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDFW-1vPHnY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYRoYl7i6U
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MUUP4l6l4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3jvINxIcwc

 

[GDon]

Carrier points people to a blog review of "Zeitgeist" "Zeitgeist" is just painful to deal with as there is so much wrong there.

That link points people to my website for my review of "The God Who Wasn't There", calling it "a nice fair-minded critique", which is pleasing!

That in a nut shell is what we have got and the fact part of the historical Jesus group is comparing this pathetic joke to the freaking Holocaust and Moon Land (which Ehrman on three separate occasions I know of has done) shows shows anyone who actually looks at the material that something is way wrong with the historical Jesus position for them to create such an emotional, as well as IMHO intellectually and morally bankrupt, strawman.

I'll address your points on Paul in a separate email, but let me respond to your comments above here. I can't see how you can note the sheer nuttiness of a conspiracy movie like "Zeitgeist" and other conspiracy Christ Myth theories, and then say that Ehrman was out-of-line with his Holocaust comments.

This is Ehrman's Huffington Post article that started the whole thing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?

That is the claim made by a small but growing cadre of (published ) writers, bloggers and Internet junkies who call themselves mythicists. This unusually vociferous group of nay-sayers maintains that Jesus is a myth invented for nefarious (or altruistic) purposes by the early Christians who modeled their savior along the lines of pagan divine men who, it is alleged, were also born of a virgin on Dec. 25, who also did miracles, who also died as an atonement for sin and were then raised from the dead.
Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds -- thousands? -- of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study.​

Ehrman then goes on to talk about the poor amount of evidence for Jesus coming out of the First Century.

You can see who Ehrman is referring to in the short Huffington Post article: those Christ Myth theories in line with the Zeitgeist movie. Elsewhere (like in his book 'Did Jesus Exist?') he gives a certain amount of credit to Dr Price, Carrier and Doherty and differentiates them from the conspiracy Christ Myth theories.

Generally speaking, his comments are accurate: If there are people who deny that something with so much evidence like the Holocaust didn't happen, how can we be surprised that there are people who deny there was a historical Jesus?

 

[Mcreal]

It would seem a key aspect of the genesis of Christianity is

(a) the development, existence, and nature of the 'Marcion canon'

(i) ten(?) parts of Luke, or 'Ur-Lukas';
(ii) ten Pauline epistles;​

and, according to the Muratonian canon,

(iii) a Marcionite pseudo-Paul 'epistle to the Alexandrians', &
(iv) an 'epistle to the Laodiceans',​

(b) and reactions to the 'Marcion canon'.​

Marcion's theology was essentially a di-theism: Christ was a spiritual entity that was sent by the Monad-God to reveal the truth about existence, and thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly trap of the Demiurge¹. Marcion and his followers are understood as having portrayed the incarnation in a docetic manner; ie. that Jesus' body was only an imitation of a material body, and consequently denied Jesus' physical and bodily birth, death, and resurrection.

Paul was, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ.

In 1881 Charles B. Waite [History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two-Hundred] suggested that Marcion's Gospel may have preceded Luke's Gospel. John Knox, in Marcion and the New Testament (1942), also defends this hypothesis. In the 2006 book Marcion and Luke-Acts: a defining struggle, Joseph B Tyson makes a case for not only Luke but also Acts (see Luke-Acts) being responses to Marcion rather than Marcion's gospel being a rewrite of Luke.

A well-known response was Tertullian's 'Adversus Marcionem'.

eg. Tertullian, in 'Adversus Marcionem', noted Hippolytus reported that Marcion's phantasmal (and Docetist) Christ was "'revealed' as a man, though not a man", and did not really die on the cross.​

Another interesting response was the Dialogues of Adamantius.

1 According to Marcion, the title 'God' was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament; the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messiah of the Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.

 

[Leumas]

...Generally speaking, his comments are accurate: If there are people who deny that something with so much evidence like the Holocaust didn't happen, how can we be surprised that there are people who deny there was a historical Jesus?

Is it something they now teach in apologetics ministries as ethical to equate people who point out Christian illogic with holocaust deniers?

I could explain to you the utter imbecelic illogic of the above statement.... but then I would not expect you to understand the reasoning process given that you have fabricated a god right out of a collection of fables and myths and then proceeded to worship it as the O³ creator of everything but yet who had no other recourse than to rape a 13 years old married virgin and then sit inside her womb for 9 months before slithering out from between her legs to wait 30 years doing absolutely nothing and then participate in a brief farcical tragic playacting of undergoing a gay BDSM session ALL FOR YOUR SAKE.

But I will try a slight paraphrasing of your own words.

If there are people who are crazy enough and incapable of evaluating rationally and logically the evidence for the Holocaust so as to deny it happened, how can we be surprised that there are Christians who are incapable of thinking logically so as to deny all the evidence pointing to the facts that their Batman Jesus — whom they have OOZED right out of what they themselves know and aver is nothing but a collection of myths and fairy tales — was only the fabrication of the PREPOSTEROUS imaginations of hucksters and bamboozlers of an especially desperate and benighted epoch of human folly?​

...I converted from agnosticism to theism, and then to a liberal Christianity (I won't go into reasons why here). Even though I'd never thought the Bible was anything other than a collection of myths and fables, ...

 

[Mcreal]

This is Ehrman's Huffington Post article that started the whole thing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil ... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?​

Generally speaking, his comments are accurate: If there are people who deny that something with so much evidence like the Holocaust didn't happen, how can we be surprised that there are people who deny there was a historical Jesus?

Ehrman's analogy was a false one. It is a spurious and disingenuous illogical assertion.

A significant irony about the Holocaust is

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."

Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

'Fighting Jews as Defending God' [p.60], in Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf,​

.
"The Jew’s domination in the state seems so assured that now not only can he call himself a Jew again, but he ruthlessly admits his ultimate national and political designs. A section of his race openly owns itself to be a foreign people, yet even here they lie. For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks."

'On the Weapons of the Jews' [pp. 293-296], Mein Kampf,​

 

[Leumas]

Ehrman's analogy was a false one. It is a spurious and disingenuous illogical assertion.

A significant irony about the Holocaust is

Not to mention that many Christians are hoping for the holocaust of "the Jewish race" so as to hasten their MORONIC god taking yet another Mulligan due to his repeated failures in corralling and subjugating humanity.

And that is on top of many also agreeing that their IMBECILIC DESPOT of a god wanted to curse the "whole Jewish nation" to death because like a fruitless fig tree they did not give him fruit that they could not give because they were diligently obeying his previous FOREVER commandments he gave them during one of his many guises and threatened to make them eat their children if they do not observe them forever.

Also let's not forget that Hitler was only following the advise of THE FOUNDER of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther, who had in mind all the cursing and wishing dead the Jewish nation that Jesus did when he wrote his book

• The Jews and Their Lies - Martin Luther.

And in which he wrote the following moronic despotic advice on how to "cut down" the tree in following with Jesus' own moronic despotic claptrap.

1. to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against them;
2. to refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians;
3. for Jewish religious writings to be taken away;
4. for rabbis to be forbidden to preach;
5. to offer no protection to Jews on highways;
6. for usury to be prohibited, and for all silver and gold to be removed, put aside for safekeeping and given back to Jews who truly convert; and
7. to give young, strong Jews flail, axe, spade, spindle, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their noses.

But even Christians would be the first to admit that heinous hucksterism and hypocrisy and lying for Jesus' sake are long cherished traditions for Christianity anyway, so one more vile lie is nothing surprising.

Paul dissimulated and huckstered for Jesus's sake

• 1 Corinthians 9:20-23 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

Eusebius, Emperor Constantine's bishop, legalized deception for Jesus' sake

• How it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived.

And Martin Luther the founder of Protestantism sanctified lying for Jesus' sake

• What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.

 

[GDon]

Ehrman's analogy was a false one. It is a spurious and disingenuous illogical assertion.

Why? Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

Ehrman's position again:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?"

If you admit that there are kooky conspiracy Christ Myth theories out there -- and Ehrman clearly has those in mind as you can see in his article -- then his point has some validity. So the point is:
(A) Very kooky conspiracy theory (Holocaust denial) out there, therefore
(B) not surprised at kooky conspiracy theory (the Christ Myth theories Ehrman refers to in his article).

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths are not kooky conspiracy theories. Given that the best known Christ Myth theory is Acharya S's/Zeitgeist's, I doubt that that claim can be substantiated. And even if you think the claim is correct, it is obvious Ehrman is criticizing the kooky ones as representive of the majority of Christ Myth theories.

 

[Leumas]

Why? Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

Ehrman's position again:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?"
...

And is it kooky to worship Batman Jesus and to think that a character right out of a comic book collection of myths and fairy tales must have been a normal flesh and blood human GOD?

Let's have a look at Ehrman's position again but with a slight rephrasing:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed there are liberal Christians or Christians of any kind still in the 21st century?"​

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths liberal Christianity and Christianity in general are not kooky conspiracy theories. Given that the best known Christ Myth theory is Acharya S's/Zeitgeist's Christian theory is the fables of the MORON Jesus, I doubt that that claim can be substantiated. And even if you think the claim is correct, it is obvious Ehrman is criticizing the kooky ones as representive of the majority of Christ Myth Christian theories.

There... IFTFY.

 

[Mcreal]

Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

If you admit that there are kooky conspiracy Christ Myth theories out there -- and Ehrman clearly has those in mind as you can see in his article -- then his point has some validity.

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths are not kooky conspiracy theories. Given that the best known Christ Myth theory is Acharya S's/Zeitgeist's, I doubt that that claim can be substantiated. And even if you think the claim is correct, it is obvious Ehrman is criticizing the kooky ones as representative of the majority of Christ Myth theories.

You seem to be maliciously muddy the waters about Christ Myth and muddying this forum. You're talking ****. Please desist.

 

[GDon]

You seem to be maliciously muddy the waters about Christ Myth and muddying this forum. You're talking ****. Please desist.

I am providing background to the charges against the out-of-context quote by Ehrman.

Like it or not, the "Zeitgeist" movie (with millions of views on Youtube) and "The Christ Conspiracy" book represent the most popular Christ Myth views. It is obvious that Ehrman had those sources in mind when he made his comments.

Here are some quotes from "The Christ Conspiracy" (all quotes below are from this thread: http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=380

Unbeknownst to the masses, the pope is the Grand Master-Mason of the Masonic branches of the world... Masonry originally held, and still does at the higher levels, the knowledge that the Christ character was the sun. This knowledge has obviously been hidden from all but the few. (TCC, page 348)

It is reported that priests, high-ranking Masons and members of other such brotherhoods are informed about the real origins of Christianity but are sworn to a blood oath against revealing the truth. Perhaps some of these individuals will be encouraged that others not thus bound are exposing this all-important information. (TCC, page 374)​

Also from here: http://tbknews.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/pygmies-in-christ-conspiracy.html

The Pygmies believed in a Father-God who was murdered, and a Virgin Mother, who gave birth to a Saviour-God Son, who in turn avenged the death of his father... The Pygmy Christ was born of a virgin, died for the salvation of his people, arose from the dead, and finally ascended to heaven. Certainly this looks Christianity before Christ.​

What does Earl Doherty think about "The Christ Conspiracy"? On Amazon, he gives it 5 stars out of 5, and writes: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QE1L...annel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books

Acharya S has done a superb job in bringing together this rich panoply of ancient world mythology and culture, and presenting it in a comprehensive and compelling fashion. She grabs the reader from the first page and doesn't let go...​

Perhaps you aren't aware of Acharya S and the other conspiracy Christ Myth theories, and only think of it in terms of Richard Carrier's theory. Fair enough. But it is clear that Ehrman is framing his comment in terms of the kookier ones.

 

[Mcreal]

I ascribe to the Christ Myth theory. I think the story of Jesus the Christ of Nazareth developed out of a Gnostic theology that proliferated at the same time there was an increasing Jewish Diaspora and increasing hellenization of Judaism. I think the early Pauline texts were initially part of that. As was Marcionism (see my post above). I think Christianity developed as the textural trail shows: theology developing via diverse and adversarial interactions.

I think mystery religions contributed to the syncretism that Christianity is; including Egyptian mystery religions along the lines as outlined by Achyara S / DM Murdock and others.

I think the character of Jesus, and possibly others, such as Paul, were 'fleshed out' as per the Gospel according to John.

 

[Mcreal]

Almost all of the 2nd century Christian literature affirms a then Gnostic-Christian narrative and theology. There is little reference to completed Books of the New Testament.

 

[Mcreal]

Diversity in Christ Myth theories are theories about how the myth might have developed; they do nothing for the proposition for an historical Jesus.

Given the paucity of information about Jesus until the production of Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and the disparities between them and later bibles, and the essential lack of non-biblical evidence for an historical Jesus, including no artifacts and no archaeology, the historical Jesus seems to be nebulous.

Which is ironic given the Greek word for Spirit is derived from the word for air or breath.

 

[maximara]

That link points people to my website for my review of "The God Who Wasn't There", calling it "a nice fair-minded critique", which is pleasing!


I'll address your points on Paul in a separate email, but let me respond to your comments above here. I can't see how you can note the sheer nuttiness of a conspiracy movie like "Zeitgeist" and other conspiracy Christ Myth theories, and then say that Ehrman was out-of-line with his Holocaust comments.

This is Ehrman's Huffington Post article that started the whole thing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?

That is the claim made by a small but growing cadre of (published ) writers, bloggers and Internet junkies who call themselves mythicists. This unusually vociferous group of nay-sayers maintains that Jesus is a myth invented for nefarious (or altruistic) purposes by the early Christians who modeled their savior along the lines of pagan divine men who, it is alleged, were also born of a virgin on Dec. 25, who also did miracles, who also died as an atonement for sin and were then raised from the dead.
Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds -- thousands? -- of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study.​

Ehrman then goes on to talk about the poor amount of evidence for Jesus coming out of the First Century.

You can see who Ehrman is referring to in the short Huffington Post article: those Christ Myth theories in line with the Zeitgeist movie. Elsewhere (like in his book 'Did Jesus Exist?') he gives a certain amount of credit to Dr Price, Carrier and Doherty and differentiates them from the conspiracy Christ Myth theories.

Generally speaking, his comments are accurate: If there are people who deny that something with so much evidence like the Holocaust didn't happen, how can we be surprised that there are people who deny there was a historical Jesus?

Except from Ehrman's other comments we know that is NOT what he is saying:


"The denial that Christ was crucified is like the denial of the Holocaust. For some it's simply too horrific to affirm. For others it's an elaborate conspiracy to coerce religious sympathy. But the deniers live in a historical dreamworld. - Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008

Please not that at that time GA Wells idea of Paul's Jesus legendary with Gospels based on flesh and blood man who was NOT crucified was being called "Christ Myth" the majority of the people out there. Wells current position of an actual teacher being plugged into an existing movement has credence when you look at John Frum which if the 1947 letter regarding the movement going back 30 years is accurate has the same thing.


Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust? - Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008

For the record historical evidence for the Holocaust is 3,000 tons of truly contemporary (i.e. between 1938-1945) much of which was presented at the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trials. The 1958 finding aids to this evidence was 62 volumes--just 4 books shy of the number of books (66) traditionally in the entire Bible! Then between 1958 and 2000 they added another 30 volumes, bringing the total to 92. Anyone who even implies the evidence for Jesus is this massive is being intellectually dishonest.


“There are people out there who don’t think the Holocaust happened, there wasn’t a lone JFK assassin and Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.,” Ehrman says. “Among them are people who don’t think Jesus existed.” - John Blake, CNN (April 7th, 2012) The Jesus debate: Man vs. myth

While I pointed to the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations evidence and asked if Ehrman was that ignorant of the history he had actually live thought then how could we trust comparison with supposed events near 2000 years ago (and was pointed to a report that challenged that idea), there are other problems with the "lone JFK assassin" idea, nearly all extending from how the Warren Commission report was handled both in execution and explanation to the public

The fact that several people saw Lee Harvey Oswald on the first or second floor between 12:15 to 12:31 when according the report he was supposed to be up on the sixth floor no later then 12:15 is a problem. And that is just one of the let's drop the ball moments one sees in this.

The doubt that there was a lone JFK assassin has some degree of rationality behind it in that the investigation and handling of its results has all the grace and form of a one legged man in a butt kicking contest on a dance floor covered in banana skins

The other two things Ehrman compares thinking Jesus didn't exist to here are tinged with racism and bigotry.



These other comparisons give a better insight to what Ehrman is really saying...and it is not pleasant and you really can't defend it.

 

[Leumas]

<snip a lot of rubbish>

Trying to explain the chicanery and claptrap of Ehrman does not make it any less so especially when being presented and defended by a person who worships Batman Jesus as a flesh and blood human GOD extruded right out of a comic book collection of myths and fairy tales.

Ehrman's shenanigans are heinous poisoning the well and appeal to motive illogical fallacies made in a book full of nothing but UTTER ILLOGIC of the worst kind.

They are the kind of vile and villainous sophistry that we have seen time and again deployed by theists and pretend atheists calling their debaters crazy or ex-altar boys or motivated by hatred due to previous abuses they suffered and so on and so forth of piles of viciousness they pull out of a garbage bag for brains full of the most heinous kinds of illogical fallacies and venomous ad hominems and fetid red herrings.

As I have shown, Ehrman's argument can be just as illogically (perhaps even less so) applied to the arrant illogic of liberal Christianity or any type of Christian kook theories about the O³ creator of the universe who had no other recourse than to slither out the womb of a virgin with whom he committed adultery so as to thirty years later participate in a gay BDSM session in order to forgive humanity a grudge he unjustifiably and moronically held against them for millennia but yet failing and now having to take a mulligan any time soon.

Even the most baseless mythicist theories are PROFOUND SANITY in comparison to the preposterous and laughable insults to logic, science, humanitarianism, sanity, logic, reason, freedom, democracy and rationality that are the Christian Theories,

Christianity is a ludicrous delusion. Just because it is a MASS DELUSION does not make it any less so.

Have a look at this video if you doubt my assertion.

 

[Mcreal]

The one thing about Paul though is that he rarely dates anything in his epistles. That's to do with Jesus as well as with himself and the early church. But this is not unusual for letters in his day. I wrote about this on my website, here: http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Carrier_OHJ_Review.html#Section3

You list there "writings which don't list details like Galilee or Nazareth, Pilate, Mary, Joseph, no details about the miracles Jesus did, nor details about Jesus' life."

Theophilus's Apology to Autolycus doesn't even mention Jesus [Christ] (no mention in any of the three Books!);

nor does Tatian's Address to the Greeks, the Shepherd of Hermas, or The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.

How many others don't ??!

eta: You address that for the Shepherd of Hermas, further down

[the Shepherd of Hermas] doesn't include the names “Jesus”, “Christ” nor any explicit references to historical details about an earthly Jesus nor the early church.

but you then seek a low common denominator when you seek to

... set our expectation about what we should see in Paul.

You do realise the Shepherd of Hermas was in the Codex Sinaticus canon?

 

[maximara]

Why? Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

Actually based on other comments that seems to be EXACTLY the analogy.

Ehrman's position again:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?"

What do those two points have in common? They are heavy based on racism.

Note that Ehrman does NOT here make ANY distinction here between John Mackinnon Robertson, Robert Price, Andrew Drews or similar more on the ground ideas to Christ Myth theories on par with "Zeitgeist".

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths are not kooky conspiracy theories.

Since most historical Jesus theories support the idea that Gospels are EXACTLY WRITTEN are history that same hooky logic could be applied the the historical Jesus theory as a whole as well.

I mean look at how popular historical Jesus drivel like Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict and Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ are. McDowell is the Murdock of the Pro-historical Jesus theory and there are place where he make even some of her more off the wall silly stuff look rational by comparison.

I had the misfortune of being subjected to a video promoting McDowell's book at the University of Utah back in the late 1980s.

You knew you had entered the land of the clueless when the video stated that the existence of Jesus "cannot be proved scientifically" by using physical science with is repeatable experiments as an example. By this goofy logic NO social science was a science because they didn't involved repeatable experiments. So in McDowell's world of the mid to late 1980s anthropology, archeology, communication studies, economics, education, geography, and about any other social science you could mention was NOT a science. For the record the bachelor of science I was getting at the time was in anthropology; so I knew McDowell was talking nonsense from the get go.

Things didn't get any better from there. McDowell's logic makes the nonsense Irenaeus presents in Against Heresies as why there are only four Gospels look rational by comparison.

I think the only thing I have seen more off the wall bonkers is the stuff Jack Chick and those who think like him crank out. If you want to see the world of stark raving crazy, off the wall ready for a love me suit and the nice men in the white outfits, bonkers Christianity not much beats Jack Chick's little tracks. In them you will "learn" how the Devil created the Catholic Church and how the Catholic Church not only had President Lincoln assassinated but had a direct hand in creating both modern Communism and Naziism. And that is the more "rational" stuff.

Carrier correctly points out there are as many bad historical Jesus theories out there are as there are bad Christ Myth theories.

 

[dejudge]

Why? Some seem to make it sound like Ehrman was implying that Christ Mythicists are like Nazis or anti-Semitics, but that's not the analogy.

Ehrman's position again:

"In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil... is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?"

If you admit that there are kooky conspiracy Christ Myth theories out there -- and Ehrman clearly has those in mind as you can see in his article -- then his point has some validity. So the point is:
(A) Very kooky conspiracy theory (Holocaust denial) out there, therefore
(B) not surprised at kooky conspiracy theory (the Christ Myth theories Ehrman refers to in his article).

The only way to claim that Ehrman's position is wrong is to claim that the most popular Christ Myths are not kooky conspiracy theories. Given that the best known Christ Myth theory is Acharya S's/Zeitgeist's, I doubt that that claim can be substantiated. And even if you think the claim is correct, it is obvious Ehrman is criticizing the kooky ones as representive of the majority of Christ Myth theories.

Your post is irrelevant since you cannot and is incapable of presenting evidence for an historical Jesus.

It is a fact that Christians admitted their Jesus was a born of a Ghost and God Creator.

In fact, Christians of antiquity also admitted Jesus was WITHOUT birth and without flesh

Ehrman position is extremely illogical since he uses the very same Christian sources for the history of Jesus that he argues are riddled with discrepancies, contradictions, historical problems and events which most likely did not happen.

Ehrman had NO idea that he should have found EVIDENCE outside the Christian Bible that identifies Jesus of Nazareth.

Non-apologetics have NO record of Jesus of Nazareth and ALL the characters directly named as his disciples and apostles.

 

[GDon]

Actually based on other comments that seems to be EXACTLY the analogy.
...
What do those two points have in common? They are heavy based on racism.

Well, I'll grant you that. In his book "Did Jesus Exist?" he includes the Moon Landing Hoax, FWIW.

Note that Ehrman does NOT here make ANY distinction here between John Mackinnon Robertson, Robert Price, Andrew Drews or similar more on the ground ideas to Christ Myth theories on par with "Zeitgeist".

In that short Huff Post article, no he doesn't. But in DJE? Ehrman writes on page 5:

As I will indicate more fully later, I think Wells--and Price, and several other mythicists--do deserve to be taken seriously, even if their claims are in the end dismissed.​

He then does spend time on their theories.

Since most historical Jesus theories support the idea that Gospels are EXACTLY WRITTEN are history that same hooky logic could be applied the the historical Jesus theory as a whole as well.

And I agree! As you point out, include McDowell and Strobel and others of similar ilk amongst the "historical Jesus Theory" proponents, and you can indeed make the claim that 'in a society where some deny the Holocaust, who can be surprised that some think the Gospels are completely accurate?'

I'm sure Ehrman would agree with your use there. But doesn't your point actually support Ehrman's use?

 

[maximara]

And I agree! As you point out, include McDowell and Strobel and others of similar ilk amongst the "historical Jesus Theory" proponents, and you can indeed make the claim that 'in a society where some deny the Holocaust, who can be surprised that some think the Gospels are completely accurate?'

I'm sure Ehrman would agree with your use there. But doesn't your point actually support Ehrman's use?

The problem is that Ehrman is given the impression in what he is publicly saying that the Christ Myth theory in its entirety is the domain of the kind of loony toony world that Holocaust deniers and believers in the Moon landing hoax believers live in.

As for Ehrman's book well Carrier, Thomas Verenna; Earl Doherty and Neil Godfrey have all basically beat the thing up, taken its lunch money, shoved it in a garbage can, and repeatedly kicked it down the stairwell of a 100 story building.

Ehrman states in his book “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” If you want to split hair that is basically true as Pliny was a Jew not a Roman but it still leaves a misleading impression. Also as Carrier points out "Philo’s cititizenship would hardly matter for this purpose; and at any rate, as a leading scholar and politician in Alexandria and chief embassador to the emperor, Philo was almost certainly a Roman citizen"

Things don't really get any better.

Carrier also tears the Huffington post article apart.