ant wrote:I'm being sincere when I say that the above makes for interesting discussion. Honestly, I would be open to reading Doherty's latest work, but right now I'm tied down with
Structure of Revolutions and
The Social Construction of Reality 
The view that Jesus Christ actually existed is far and away the dominant mainstream assumption. To challenge this assumption invites ridicule and ostracism. So it is not for the faint hearted. It requires a high level of familiarity with historical data, and a willingness to look at this data to see if it can be explained in ways that make more sense than conventional opinion.
What I have found in reading books by authors such as Doherty, Freke and Gandy and Murdock is that they compile strong logical arguments using a forensic approach to evidence. It is rather like any technical scientific or historical subject - until you are acquainted with the detail of the argument, your opinion is based on prejudice rather than evidence. I don’t think that any of the mythicists have as yet moved fully from the negative task of showing that conventional opinion is wrong to the positive task of providing a fully worked out explanation of how Christianity actually developed and why the Christ myth was so seductive, but this looks to be something that is very close.
I do not argue with astronomers about relativity because they know more about it than I do. But in this case, the Christ Myth Hypothesis, we have a real problem identifying who are the relevant experts. Asking Christian theologians for their opinion would be like asking a Newtonian scientist for an opinion on relativity. New work on the topic simply has not yet found its way into the old sources.
Scholars favor the existence of H J, but also recognize that each gospel author added material evidently to prove separate theological points. However, that does not necessarily mean because there are inconsistencies throughout the gospels that we are okay to throw the baby Jesus out with his bathwater. That is a conclusion that would no doubt (and often is) be made by someone with an aversion to Christianity in general, or by someone unaware of the criteria used to determine the existence of a figure from antiquity.
The inconsistencies between the Gospels are only one among several reasons for questioning the existence of Jesus. The factual contradictions, geographical errors and imaginative miracles show that the source for the gospels is more in fantasy than in historical testimony going back to Jesus. Real testimony from real witnesses to a real crucifixion would not be liable to production of such diversity as we see between the gospels. This invites the plausible hypothesis that the events described are not real.
Just taking the example I raised before, when
Jesus expels the moneychangers from the temple in Jerusalem. If Holy Week was real, as described in the Synoptics, and began with this episode in the temple and ended with the cross and resurrection, the least we could expect would be that the Christian community would preserve an accurate oral tradition regarding their main central event of faith. Instead, we find that the Gospel of John completely contradicts the other three. Instead of putting the clearing of the temple a week before the cross, John puts this main event three years earlier, at the start of his ministry. Such errors are possible when there is nobody with a real oral tradition who can correct them, but not when an actual community remembers a real event. If someone now wrote a book stating that the First World War started in 1913, they would be rapidly corrected by people who know it was 1914. But if someone said Bilbo Baggins left the shire in Third Age 2941, the need for correction would be far more hazy.
Apologists argue that Jesus cleared the temple twice. I think that is absurd.
”John2” wrote:When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
”Mark11” wrote: 15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’[a]? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.
Wikipedia, being dominated by Christian apologists, describes these as two different events. How likely is it that Mark and John would provide such exact identical detail of two different events but both be entirely oblivious to the fact that this major activity happened twice? This shows the desperate lengths that apologists go to if they want to preserve any semblance of history in the gospels. It might look easier just to say John does not present the life of Christ chronologically, but that opens up further cans of worms and weaves a rather tangled web.
There is a very good wiki page,
Gospel Harmony, which provides a portal into this whole question of logical analysis of the gospels, including links to the “First Temple Cleansing” described by John and the “Second Temple Cleansing” described in the other gospels.
Remember, we still live in a world where the phrase “Gospel Truth” is widely accepted as an idiom meaning something that is undeniable. Yet when we read the actual Gospels we find they contain much that is absurd.
Determining what happened in the past is not a matter of guess work. It is a matter of evidence. It is fair to say that you and I both agree with this reasoning. When reading a detailed, vigorous examination of evidence, you have a right to see what that evidence is. Again, I think this is something we both agree on. When examining available evidence to reconstruct the life of Jesus, we turn to the primary sources that give mention to his existence. Likening this to the investigation of a crime, we go to the scene of the crime: 1) The canonical Gospels and other writings in the New Testament 2) Gospels that did not make it into the New Testament (non canonical) 3) Pagan and Jewish sources (Josephus, Tacitus, etc) The above sources available for direct examination are the only sources available. If someone claims something about Jesus that’s not based in any of the above sources, that person is simply making it up – PERIOD
Courts do not accept hearsay as evidence. The Gospels are hearsay. They are not primary sources.
Often, evidence of a crime includes non-textual sources such as fingerprints or blood stains. In the ancient world, coins, buildings and other archaeological sources provide evidence of real people. The only such sources for Jesus Christ are, (how should we put it?), imaginary.
Despite the existence of more fragments of the
True Cross than is plausible (Calvin said there is a “shipload”), Wikipedia sensitively says “their authenticity is not accepted universally”. No. The wiki page on the true cross, like the
Holy Lance, is instructive regarding the construction of Christian legend.
Having said all that, look at what you wrote;
Freke and Gandy say in their excellent book The Jesus Mysteries: "Jesus surrounds himself with 12 disciples. This is usually taken to be symbolic of the 12 tribes of Israel. This notion of 12 tribes, however, is itself a symbolic reference to the 12 signs of the zodiac in Babylonian astrology, which the Jews adopted whilst in exile in Babylon. The zodiac was an extremely important symbol in the Pagan world. Osiris-Dionysis is symbolically represented as the still spiritual center of the turning wheel of change represented by the 12 signs. [...] [In] the Mysteries of Mithras 12 disciples surrounded the godman, just as the 12 disciples surrounded Jesus. The Mithraic disciples were dressed up to represent the 12 signs of the zodiac and circled the initiate, who represented Mithras himself."
What segments of the above are extracted from the available evidence we are working with?
What segments of the above are not included in the body of said evidence?
What segments of the above are simply conjecture? How about the claim "is itself a symbolic reference to the 12 signs of the zodiac"? This claim is "WHAT IF the 12 tribes of Israel is itself a symbolic reference to the 12 signs of the zodiac" conjecture.
You may recall earlier in this thread (assuming you read my posts) I cited Josephus and Philo as stating the twelve jewels on the breastplate of the Jewish High Priest are the twelve signs of the zodiac, and that Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria found it necessary to reject widespread gnostic teaching that the twelve disciples were the twelve signs of the zodiac. In Revelation 21, the twelve jewels are linked to the twelve tribes. You are welcome to ignore these sources if you find their views inconvenient.
The remaining portion of the above quote is entirely speculative. It is "what if" reasoning in its purest form, Robert. It makes for a fascinating story line but is not conducive to the examination of hard evidence to determine if Christ existed or not.
But that entirely begs the question regarding the existence of "hard evidence" of which there is none, unless you join the holy crowd of saints and martyrs in counting late fictional hearsay as "hard evidence".
The essay by Crabtree is yet more of the same conjecture. It is not following a systematic approach to available evidence. It is more "what if" dressings. I really have nothing further to add to the remaining portions of your post. I think you get my point here though. Thanks
So, having gaily cast nasturtiums around the whole framework of the cosmological basis of the gospels, you feel happy to ignore the analysis of how Jesus accused those who fail to understand this material of being blind, deaf and hard of heart. The point of this material is to show that the myths of the Bible make sense against the hypothesis of a secret hermetic tradition in which observational cosmology was central, and that they do not make sense as literal history. We have abundant historical evidence linking Jesus and the twelve disciples to the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, for example in the
magnificent stained glass windows of Chartres and St Denis Cathedrals. This suppressed hermetic tradition, termed by Coleridge the River Alph, has to be recovered to start to make any sense of the Bible.
