Did the man "Jesus" exist?

[geo]

Geo wrote:

Someone who wants to believe in Jesus isn't going to be open to the mythicist question or even pay it lip service.

Honestly?

Hmmm,

I'll prove you wrong.

I want to believe in Jesus. Maybe for not the same reasons as Christians, but still.

I am open to mythicists' questions. However, at this point they yet to have any serious publications that would demonstrate scholarly understanding of the complexity of the time in question and would subject it to peer review.

As I've pointed out before, some mythicists more prominent than Doherty are now leaving behind their claims of astrology, myth connections because of the lack of anything substantial to back it up. Also, the conspiratorial aspect of it is what turns me off the most.

I've read some blogs by mythicists who want notoriety because of their claims that they've been researching this for years and years and years.


Sorry, I need more than that.

I just mean that, generally, believers aren't going to be very motivated to look into the mythicist position. Why would they? They not only believe that Jesus was a person, but he was a God. So maybe simply wanting to believe isn't enough. Heck, I want to believe in Jesus too. I guess you have to want to believe to the extent that you're willing to uncritically suspend disbelief.

[ant]

Pauls letters were the earliest, but his Jesus is very different from the gospel Jesus that came along later:

I can't view the links you sent me.
In short, tell me what you are concluding from this.

I know each gospel portrays a different Christ. The position of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet does not disagree with that assertion.

[youkrst]

The mythical as opposed to the historical interpretation of the Gospels has been presented with some clarity by such men as Dupuis, Drews, Robertson, Smith, Renan, Strauss, Massey, Higgins, Mead and others. The historical view of Jesus’ life is stubbornly maintained in spite of the evidence adduced by Comparative Religion and Mythology, which points with steady directness to the fact that the events of the Gospel narrative are matched with surprising fidelity by the antecedent careers of such world saviors as Dionysus, Osiris, Sabazius, Tammuz, Adonis, Atys, Orpheus, Mithras, Zoroaster, Krishna, Bala-Rama, Vyasa, Buddha, Hercules, Sargon, Serapis, Horus, Marduk, Izdubar, Witoba, Apollonius of Tyana, Yehoshua ben Pandira, and even Plato and Pythagoras. It is also held in the face of the consideration that the body of the material used in the ceremonial dramas performed by the hierophants in the early Mystery Religions for 1200 years B.C. constitute by and large the series of events narrated as the personal biography of the Galilean. It is worth impressing on all minds that the legend of the historicity of the Gospels is only to be held by ignoring the solid weight of such - and vastly more - significant testimony. Instead of permitting its adherents to move in the freedom of a spiritual interpretation, the ecclesiastical power is holding them rigidly to a doctrinal meaning that is badly vitiated by literalism. In exalting Jesus in unique magnificence, it lets the divinity in every man’s heart lie (Page 48) fallow. The deity that needs exaltation is that which is struggling within the breasts of the sons of earth. Theological dogmatism fails utterly to see the ultimate Pyrrhic nature of its victory. Jesus’ enthronement is the disinheritance of common man. Taught to look outside ourselves for the source of power and grace, we ignore the real presence within us that pleads for closer recognition. The historical Jesus blocks the way to the spiritual Christ in the chamber of the heart.

[ant]

The mythical as opposed to the historical interpretation of the Gospels has been presented with some clarity by such men as Dupuis, Drews, Robertson, Smith, Renan, Strauss, Massey, Higgins, Mead and others. The historical view of Jesus’ life is stubbornly maintained in spite of the evidence adduced by Comparative Religion and Mythology, which points with steady directness to the fact that the events of the Gospel narrative are matched with surprising fidelity by the antecedent careers of such world saviors as Dionysus, Osiris, Sabazius, Tammuz, Adonis, Atys, Orpheus, Mithras, Zoroaster, Krishna, Bala-Rama, Vyasa, Buddha, Hercules, Sargon, Serapis, Horus, Marduk, Izdubar, Witoba, Apollonius of Tyana, Yehoshua ben Pandira, and even Plato and Pythagoras. It is also held in the face of the consideration that the body of the material used in the ceremonial dramas performed by the hierophants in the early Mystery Religions for 1200 years B.C. constitute by and large the series of events narrated as the personal biography of the Galilean. It is worth impressing on all minds that the legend of the historicity of the Gospels is only to be held by ignoring the solid weight of such - and vastly more - significant testimony. Instead of permitting its adherents to move in the freedom of a spiritual interpretation, the ecclesiastical power is holding them rigidly to a doctrinal meaning that is badly vitiated by literalism. In exalting Jesus in unique magnificence, it lets the divinity in every man’s heart lie (Page 48) fallow. The deity that needs exaltation is that which is struggling within the breasts of the sons of earth. Theological dogmatism fails utterly to see the ultimate Pyrrhic nature of its victory. Jesus’ enthronement is the disinheritance of common man. Taught to look outside ourselves for the source of power and grace, we ignore the real presence within us that pleads for closer recognition. The historical Jesus blocks the way to the spiritual Christ in the chamber of the heart.

P and Q are similar in respect to properties a, b, and c.
Object P has been observed to have further property x.
Therefore, Q probably has property x also.

Fallacy of Argument from Analogy.

[Robert Tulip]

the Jews who built this story over the decades after an ostensible hero was sacrificed, believed according to their tradition that Things Had Happened. That few or none of them might have happened, in the sense of happening to one, discrete person, seems not to indicate that the purpose of the writings was to be mythic and allegorical.

In trying to reconstruct the actual process of the writing of the Gospels we are looking through a glass darkly, as Paul put it. The entire period is hidden by the fragmentary nature of the records, by the deliberate effort to promote religious stories that are not plausible, and by the massive historical success of these religious fantasies. Achieving objective knowledge may well be impossible on many of the details.

And yet, some readings are possible and some are impossible. One method is to start with modern scientific reason, and say that events that are compatible with science are possible history and events that are incompatible with science are impossible myth. This already narrows down the Bible, putting all the miracles into the mythical category.

It may well be that some writers were personally convinced that impossible events actually happened, through divine intervention. And yet, looking at the provenance of these stories, whether the physical resurrection, the virgin birth, the feeding of the five thousand, or any other of the miracles ascribed to Jesus Christ, if we hold to a scientific outlook, we regard them as myth, not fact. Somewhere in the oral tradition, someone deliberately invented a story. Later tradition may have accidentally added to this story, in ways that were completely sincere, but the fact remains the germ is fantasy, not fact.

Considering the entire story of the individual existence of Jesus Christ, the fact that many people sincerely believe and believed in him does not make it objectively true. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. This objectivity gap involves what we call allegorical purpose, the use of imaginative fiction to point towards a deeper truth. So, when DWill says the combining of stories did not constitute myth, it is hard to see in what sense this might be true. Sincere and honest belief in a myth does not make it any less a myth.

In baseball, if we tell a story about one player who was the greatest hitter, pitcher and fielder of all time, combining true anecdotes from many sources with the intent that people believe it, we are engaged in the production of myth. In religion, if we combine numerous sources to produce a plausible account of a wonder worker, aiming to meet the emotional desire of the public for a real savior, we are engaged in the production of myth. That is how Christianity started. It does not matter if final authors were consciously and deliberately falsifying, what is important is whether their sources were historical or imaginative.

[youkrst]

P and Q are similar in respect to properties a, b, and c.
Object P has been observed to have further property x.
Therefore, Q probably has property x also.

Fallacy of Argument from Analogy.

to which i respond, if it looks like a myth, if it contains common mythological motifs and symbols, if it makes sense mythologically...then.......... IT'S A MYTH!

myth as in symbolic allegorical metaphorical representation of principles and energies in the psyche or unseen parts of man.

inversely if it doesnt make sense historically, if it doesnt make sense literally then it aint history!

i dont go around thinking gee... if there REALLY is more than one way to skin a cat how come i encounter so few cat corpses.... it's a metaphor, it's not about literal historic cats

and yet there is more than one way to skin a cat. (my cat will be fine i'm not a literalist)

[ant]

to which i respond, if it looks like a myth, if it contains common mythological motifs and symbols, if it makes sense mythologically...then.......... IT'S A MYTH!

Uhhhh..,although "If it walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck" is a fun little nursery rhyme to share with the kitties, it's far from effective reasoning when examining manuscript evidence from antiquity.

[youkrst]

"If it walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck" is a fun little nursery rhyme to share with the kitties, it's far from effective reasoning when examining manuscript evidence from antiquity.

so contrarily you suggest

if it looks like a myth interpret it as literal history

sheesh ant you really are a patronising pedant

[ant]

"If it walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck" is a fun little nursery rhyme to share with the kitties, it's far from effective reasoning when examining manuscript evidence from antiquity.

so contrarily you suggest

if it looks like a myth interpret it as literal history

sheesh ant you really are a patronising pedant

It's actually a bit more complex than that, but if simplifying it that much will help you sleep better at night, then I'm all for it.
It may be time to ask yourself why you believe what it is you think you believe.

[youkrst]

It may be time to ask yourself why you believe what it is you think you believe.

at the moment i'm too busy asking myself how you can fail to see the blinking obvious.

the only explanation i can think of is that you are somehow blind.

to interpret the bible as a book chock a block full of religious metaphor is to see the obvious

to interpret the bible as literal history is absurd

this seems to me self evident, do you disagree in some way??