Did the man "Jesus" exist?

[Robert Tulip]

Mythicism is open to peer review. The issue is that those who should conduct this review, the academic keepers of the Jesus tradition, regard mythicist arguments as beneath contempt and so refuse to review them. Earl Doherty has published a fat book that sets out compelling arguments for why Christ is a myth. Apologists resort to subterfuges such as claiming his arguments have previously been refuted. Earl points out this is a lie, as the supposed refutations do not exist, but he gets ignored for his troubles.

And now we get ant claiming it is Earl's fault because somehow he refuses to submit his views for review. Even ant can do a peer review - read Earl's book and submit a review of it to a theology journal. If the review does not toe the party line that Jesus was real it will not be published. We live in censorious times.

Ant's comment about Popper and mythicism being 'unfalsifiable' reads like a garbled piece of evangelical rhetoric, designed only to raise doubts while not providing any content. Or perhaps ant can provide something substantive on the falsification argument that goes beyond mere evangelical slurs?

Earl Doherty has cited hundreds of examples where it would have helped early Christians to cite the ideas of Jesus but they chose not to. This is purely falsifiable empirical research, but is inconvenient for true believers, because it presents the disturbing idea that perhaps there was no oral history going back to a single man Jesus Christ. Put the pieces together and the most logical explanation is there was no one man called Jesus Christ.

[Vallhall]

The fact that mythicists look only to confirm their theories is telling.
Also, mythicists apparently do not considered mythicism to be unfalsifiable. This goes to the essence of Popper's demarcation which setsforth certain criteria to distinguish science from pseudo science.

Definitive proof is demanded for the existence of the H J while claiming that as long as mythicism has not been falsified, that is enough.

I stand by my assertion that as long as mythicism is not open to peer review, it is pseudo history. That does not mean it can never become more than pseudo history.

Bart Ehrman's ebook is due out late March. I believe he will address this.

I think you are somewhat confused about what mythicism in essence is. Stories about aspects of human life, humanity and the environment humanity experience. Father, sons, mothers, birth/dead, trials and tribulations, experiences and perceptions, the known and unknown. All things mentioned issues of a humans life, and therefore common elements found in stories about human life. How could humans explain or tell about aspects of reality in different terms than how we perceive reality. Is it so strange to think that it is more than just difficult to tell stories about things one know little about, as well as telling them in terms that are unknown.

Perhaps you could tell me about a story where fusion of mythical elements and human experience does not exist? How could the abstract interpretation and expression of how humans experience reality that language in essence is, not contain mythical elements.

If anyone knows about such a story, I would appreciate if someone could post examples. Keeping in mind that even math, 1+1=2, is simply the abstract mythical representation of reality. To my knowledge no two absolutely identical objects of any form that 1 + 1 represents have yet been found. This does not imply rejecting the usefulness of this system, as it is the most precise system yet to be developed by humans. It only implies importance of understanding what it in reality is.



Judgment scene of Hunefer



Hunefer guided by Horus, the representation of the living God on earth, to the judgement and weighing of the heart in death. Where all sins will be weighed to decide afterlife. Thoth in companion with the devourer examine to see if the scale is balanced, Ma`at. After passing the examination, Horus ( the son ) presents Hunefer to Osiris ( the father ), where afterlife is decided. At the top you see Hunefer "confessing" to the father/son, while twelve witnesses are present.

Is it really possible to deny knowledge of stories familiar to this, either in context or symbolic images represented in it?


Since we describe reality in human terms, and add human attributes to elements in our description to create meaning, we in many ways personify everything to some extent. Some parts of life can be experienced differently, others not. Using the obvious example of the sun, since humans experience it very similar across the globe. Is it not amazing that all cultures and societies have and still personify the sun. Not only do we personify it, but we give it the same attributes.






To think of myths in terms of something proven correct or false by science derives simply from lack of understanding what myths are. Regarding history as something related to science, thus proven correct or false in scientific terms, also comes from lack of understanding what science is.

I would challenge anyone to present texts, either historical or newer about events in history, not containing mythical images or elements. That would make it easier to explain and elaborate about why history must not be confused with science. Science is a tool that can be used to construct how history is portrayed. But science is only one of many elements influencing how history is portrayed.

[tat tvam asi]

The fact that mythicists look only to confirm their theories is telling.

Which is different than believers and evemerists how exactly?

Believers only look to confirm their theory about Jesus as historical, and God on earth.
Evemerist's only look to confirm their theory about Jesus as historical but not God on earth.

What does this tell us about believers, evemerists, and mythicists ant?

Please put the entire scenario into perspective and then continue with your point....

Also, mythicists apparently do not considered mythicism to be unfalsifiable. This goes to the essence of Popper's demarcation which setsforth certain criteria to distinguish science from pseudo science. Definitive proof is demanded for the existence of the H J while claiming that as long as mythicism has not been falsified, that is enough.

I actually just posted a long series about falsifying mythicism: http://www.booktalk.org/jesus-hebrew-hu ... 12158.html

I stand by my assertion that as long as mythicism is not open to peer review, it is pseudo history. That does not mean it can never become more than pseudo history.

Mythicism is simply an analysis of existing history. Which historians said what. Which early church fathers said what. What is present in the historical record and what is missing. What have scholars pointed out about what parallels and from what primary source evidence. It's a scientific analysis of the situation without assuming apriori that the religion is based on a core of literal historical truth.

The above series is a primary example. Murdocks Christ in Egypt is another. The point is that existing history displays several smoking guns and unflattering commentary from church authorities and pagan writers that give away a lot of the problems with the historical interpretation of these blatantly supernatural and mythological story lines referred to as the NT. If it looks like mythology, then it probably is mythology. Isn't that simplest explanation anyways?

Bart Ehrman's ebook is due out late March. I believe he will address this.

He may. But I'd be shocked if Ehrman raised anything new that hasn't already been considered and addressed many times over already. The situation is that just about everyone already knows all of the points raised in favor of an HJ. Unless Ehrman can manage to scour the sands of the near east and unearth some new and never before seen scrolls of antiquity that say something about Jesus that no one has ever seen or analyzed before, well then it's simply more of the same old same old that has been going around and around for centuries already with no resolve in sight. We're all actually interested in seeing what Ehrman has to offer....

[Robert Tulip]

Did the man Jesus exist? ... Claiming to know with certainty is becoming unfashionable because it can't be proven.

Looking more broadly than just the hypothesis of the Historical Jesus, certainty is a trait of all fundamentalist faith. Fundamentalist Christianity is becoming less fashionable not because it cannot be proven but because it has been disproven. We can't prove the world is 6000 years old because it is not true. It is impossible to prove an error.

With the Historical Jesus, many would say that the Biblical account is disproved by its internal contradictions and errors, its copying of myth from previous societies, and its recording of physically impossible events. Disproof of such a story is difficult. What it really requires for people to accept that it is probably wrong is a new interpretation that provides a more compelling explanation for all the available facts. This is a topic that can be explored against a range of themes, including comparative myth, cosmology and politics.

Just on the politics, there is an arguable case that the Gospels were written as a weapon of war, in response to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and expulsion of the Jews from Israel. Recognising that military tactics were not feasible, the Jews turned to spiritual warfare, seeking to destroy the moral legitimacy of Rome, its 'mandate of heaven'. By showing that the Romans were so depraved that when they encountered the Son of God they nailed him to a tree, the Gospels encourage moral revulsion for the Empire, aiming to foment a gradual crisis of social licence, hollowing out public support for the empire by showing the evil nature of its values.

This political strategy of spiritual warfare required a symbolic rallying point, provided by the Historical Jesus. An heroic leader was needed who would bring together a realistic image of a non military defiance, whose physical defeat by nails could be transformed into a spiritual victory of the word. The plausibility question rests on the timing. The complete absence of the Gospel story from the historical record until the Jewish War suggests it was manufactured as a tactic within that war.

Paul's Epistles fit within this schema, as a spiritual way of describing the escalating conflict between Israel and Rome, with Christ as cosmic demiurge. Paul symbolically calls the cosmic seers 'Greeks', as a way of ironically turning the tables on the political dominance of Greeks and Romans as an elite, while calling the Romans barbarians, accusing them in code of being ignorant greedy illiterates with no spiritual vision. This moral framework provided the conceptual basis that was later filled in by the invention of the Historical Jesus as the fulfiller of messianic yearning and prophecy and the point of social unity against the evil empire of the world.

[DWill]

Just on the politics, there is an arguable case that the Gospels were written as a weapon of war, in response to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and expulsion of the Jews from Israel. Recognising that military tactics were not feasible, the Jews turned to spiritual warfare, seeking to destroy the moral legitimacy of Rome, its 'mandate of heaven'. By showing that the Romans were so depraved that when they encountered the Son of God they nailed him to a tree, the Gospels encourage moral revulsion for the Empire, aiming to foment a gradual crisis of social licence, hollowing out public support for the empire by showing the evil nature of its values.

First facts to be taken into account would have to be from a reading of the Gospels themselves. They don't contain anti-Roman sentiments to an appreciable degree. What they do have is a great deal of commentary about a different war from the one you suggest. There was clearly a fierce war between factions, one identified as "the Jews," the other not named but consisting of alienated Jews and Greeks--the emerging Christians. You don't credit anything about the Gospels as reflecting history, but it is easy to believe that the Jewish-Christian enmity in the Gospels is not made up. Certainly the Jews must have had great reason to hate the Romans, but it just doesn't get into the Gospels, and I think that's a problem for your speculation.

[Robert Tulip]

from a reading of the Gospels themselves. They don't contain anti-Roman sentiments to an appreciable degree.

So Herod, the Roman client king of Judaea, massacres the innocents and readers are meant to be sympathetic to him? He beheads John the Baptist and this is not meant to suggest anti-Roman sentiment?

The anti-Roman sentiment in the Gospels is mostly more subtle than the portrayal of Herod as a tyrant. The Virgin Mary prays in the Magnificat at Luke 1 "He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." The context was that Romans were rich but Jews were poor. Jesus says 'render unto Caesar' in the context that rendering unto God is more important, but with his questioners using fear of Rome as the framework for acceptable speech.

When Pilate confronts Christ in the Gospel of John, Jesus says he has come into the world as a martyr for the truth, and Pilate asks the famous question 'What is truth?' This pragmatic amoral relativism defines Roman ethics. Paul expands this theme in his letter to the Romans 1, saying "God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Of course this condemnation is presented as about everyone, but it is in a letter specifically addressed to Rome.

The cross is a purely Roman instrument of political torture. It is implausible to suggest the Son of God was murdered in this way, and that those who designed and perpetrated the deed are somehow innocent. The pervasive presence of the military government was well understood, and is continually referenced, as with the soldiers playing dice at the cross. When Jesus says turn the other cheek, it is a statement of defiance in response to a dismissive Roman backhander. When he says walk the extra mile, it is intended to humiliate Roman soldiers. You need some heavy duty anti-liberationist spectacles to avoid seeing the pervasive anti Roman sentiment. And then of course there is the Apocalypse, in which Nero is conventionally understood as the Beast.

Blame for the Jewish authorities in the Gospels is primarily in terms of their alliance with Rome. Recall especially John 11:48 "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

It is purely fear of Rome, the massive imperial force in the world, that inspires the Jewish authorities to suppress Jesus.

[tat tvam asi]

Dwill, mythicists tend to view all of the anti-semitism in the gospels as addressed to blame put on the "Jews" after the war and holding them responsible for the outcome of the destruction of the temple. They seem to blame the Jews as much or more so than Rome for this outcome.

It's mainly diaspora Jews and Christianizing gentiles who were responsible for the gospel texts that have made it into the literary and historical record, and all of these were probably written after the destruction of the temple and don't appear into firm history until after Marcion's canon. So the anti-semitism doesn't necessarily point to early dating....

[DWill]

Robert, if you tell me that as a reader of these small books, you see a greater sense of outrage shown against Rome than against the Jews who delivered Jesus for crucifixion, I have to accept that as your reading while saying that mine strongly differs. The Romans are portrayed largely as indifferent, amoral agents. If the Gospels were really a weapon of war against Rome, as you claimed, we would get a more frontal assault. The fact that it makes so much sense for the Jews to see the Romans as hated figures doesn't matter if such hatred isn't in the forefront in the literature.

Tat, I wasn't saying that the anti-semitic rants in the Gospels necessarily point to early composition. As for the blame of "the Jews" for the destruction of the Temple, is it supposed to be Jews blaming Jews? It makes more sense for it to be Christians blaming Jews, but then of course there would need to be a different complaint from the destruction of the Temple.
.

[tat tvam asi]

It's mainly diaspora Jews and Christianizing gentiles who were responsible for the gospel texts that have made it into the literary and historical record, and all of these were probably written after the destruction of the temple and don't appear into firm history until after Marcion's canon.

As for the blame of "the Jews" for the destruction of the Temple, is it supposed to be Jews blaming Jews? It makes more sense for it to be Christians blaming Jews, but then of course there would need to be a different complaint from the destruction of the Temple.

That's the point, Christians blaming the Jews was a combination of diaspora Jews and Hebrew interested gentiles blaming the Jewish religious authorities for what happened.

I've always had the impression that both Roman and Jewish authorities were the focus of aggression. It seems odd to suggest that it was mainly against Rome or mainly against the Jews when both are presented as basically evil. One an evil political force of power in the world the other as a religious force of power in the world and both responsible for rejecting the messiah figure with each playing their role in this great rejection. And this aggression that we read through in manuscripts of antiquity and bibles of today is mostly coming from the opinions of Alexandrian's and those of Asia Minor (the Alexandria - Antioch connection), sort of sandwiched between Israel and Rome observing both from a distance. Those are literally the regions responsible for rendering what do have to analyze of the gospels. They used the Septuagint. They were largely ignorant about the layout of the land in first century Israel in a variety of examples. There's clues all over the place. But long story short, it makes sense to see such an analysis of both the Jews and Rome coming from these people....

[DWill]

Your reply has depth, subtlety, and historical context. A further problem I have, though, is that we have to accept a kind of transference--that the real beef concerned the destruction of the Temple and of Israel instead of religious rivalry itself, symbolized in the-Jews-against-Jesus in the Gospels. We need to believe that centuries of pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust, were the result of people believing a pure fiction (repeated by at least 4 authors) that stood in for the real anguishing event. Jews were never reviled for responsibility for bringing down the Temple, but for killing Jesus. With contention between rival religious groups being one of the most commonly observed phenomena even today, it seems reasonable to accept the essence of the Gospel account of that struggle as historically-based, just as your alternate account is historically based. There doesn't need to be any insistence on the accuracy of particular details of the story. It's the enmity behind it that is real and is most likely the true subject of the narratives.