Apropos of my recent post on the historicity of a Jesus-figure, Reader Pliny the in Between posted this on his/her site Evolving Perspectives. The cartoon’s called “Independent variables”:
Was Jesus real, and who cares?
April 7, 2016 • 2:30 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I’d say the importance becomes obvious if you consider what a world would be like in which overwhelming majorities of Americans insisted that Perseus really was a really real figure who really was born of a virgin according to the Delphic prophecy and so on.
Nobody even for a moment considers any of the other ancient demigods to be real historical figures in any form.
The only reason anybody takes seriously the proposition that there might have been an historical Jesus is because so many are convinced that the divine Jesus really did really make a personal appearance in Jerusalem a couple thousand years ago. And while there’re those willing to go so far as to point out the Emperor’s nudity, few are comfortable observing that the Emperor hasn’t ever actually been seen by anybody nor left behind any actual evidence of his existence aside from the stories of his sartorial splendor.
…even at the same time that nobody thinks any of the foreign emperors were ever real, let alone well dressed….
Cheers,
b&
Nice work.
Weather forces Northwestern open practice inside, closed to fans, off of Big Ten Network
by Ben Goren
Different Ben Goren.
b&
>
“Nobody even for a moment considers any of the other ancient demigods to be real historical figures in any form.”
Actually, I’m perfectly willing to consider that any of them might be based on real figures.
The ancient world was lousy with self-proclaimed prophets reputedly (surely falsely) to be wonder workers. One of them was probably bound to hit the jackpot. Jesus was the one who did — or more accurately his followers, since Jesus was dead by the time anyone outside of a tiny cult paid any attention.
sub
sub
J as a historical figure, even if he wasn’t divine, gives comfort to the religious because it means the rest of the bible has some historical validity, rather than a book of fairy tales.
I Have to say I disagree with that. When debating your average Christian one of the first things I point out is that the gospels aren’t first hand accounts written by Jesus’ disciples. More often than not this is something they weren’t aware of and it often shakes their faith to the core. I can only imagine what would happen if the consensus was that Jesus never existed, but I suspect for many, particularly cafeteria Christians, it would be a nail in the coffin.
Looks like I might have gotten my x, and y axis confused. That being said if people people didn’t believe in a divine Jesus there would be little reason to try to convince others he was real. There aren’t many apologists for Aristotle trying to prove he’s real. Only his words matter, not whether a real guy named Aristotle actually said them.
Given that one of Aristotle’s pupils is Alexander the Great who conquered many other countries, it is in fact highly important whether Aristotle lived and said what he did.
Ideas have cultural consequences, and are born in a cultural milieu. That’s what the question of who said them and what their personal background is remains important.
The character of Jesus has had many cultural consequences beyond institutional Christianity as illustrated by many things ranging from Gandhi’s statement to Westerners “I like your Jesus, but not your Christianity” to Richard Dawkins’s little-known essay “Atheists for Jesus”. (There is also a little known 1971 book by a Polish atheist entitled in German “Jesus for Atheists?” but which the American publisher unfortunately retitled “A Marxist Looks at Jesus” although Marxism has nothing to do at all with the book’s argument.)
There is also the continued production of works of fiction from a non-Christian perspective including Jesus as a character, many irreverent such as “The Brook Kerith” in which Jesus converts to Buddhism or Robert (I, Claudius) Grave’s novel “King Jesus” in which Jesus’ biological father turns out to be King Herod. The most recent is Philip Pullman’s “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” about two twin brothers…”
The only definitely known-to-be-mythical figure with comparable impact is likely King Arthur, whom modern authors keep re-configuring into an allegory of modern times. Both T.H. White and John Steinbeck used the Arthurian stories as allegories for contemporary political problems, and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s feminist retelling of the Arthur stories (greatly overrated IMO) remains a best-seller.
Ergo, the question of Jesus’ historicity and real nature remains a live one.
While I don’t think Paula Fredriksen has made an airtight argument for Jesus’ existence (there is not one IMO- one can only argue in balance of probabilities), she does have one of the most convincing reconstructions of what Jesus was like if he did in her book “Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews”. It’s merit is to not rope Jesus into any 20th/21st century agenda but to read him squarely as a man of his own era, a 1st century Jew, not a 20th century progressive Christian nor proto-socialist, etc.
“it is in fact highly important whether Aristotle lived and said what he did.”
First of all I apparently got my Aristotle, and Socrates mixed up. That being said does it really matter if the person who is attributed with saying something actually existed. For example if someone believes in the philosophy of “love thy neighbor”, or “turning the other cheek” does it really matter if an actual man named Jesus said them?
I meant to add, it only matters with Jesus because these statements are either simply good ideas, or ideas that are unquestionable because they come from the all powerful creator of the universe, which certainly isn’t true if he never existed.
In the examples you give, it might or might not.
But consider the case of, “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
If you think the Jesus who said that was the living incarnation of the divine Word who Spoke all His Creation into existence, it most certainly matters.
If you think the Jesus who said that was a mere mortal but still one of the greatest and wisest of philosopher-teachers and the most important pacifist of the ancient Classic era…well, it probably still matters an awful lot.
But if you think it was just some anonymous schmuck using the pen-name, “Luke,” making a rhetorical point by putting words in the mouth of a then-already-centuries-ancient primitive Hebrew demigod, it becomes no more nor less remarkable than any similar sentiments expressed by any other ancient end-of-the-world war / death / judgement god.
Cheers,
b&
>
Given that this occurs in one of the two Gospels with strong anti-Jewish/anti-ancient-Israel sentiment (the other being John), it’s fairly safe to say this is penned by Luke.
The parable is situated JUST before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his alleged prediction of the destruction of the Temple, so the target of the saying is awfully clear.
Erm…missing the point.
The whole thing is obviously a fabrication, soup to nuts.
But there’re millions of Americans, including a significant fraction of those who have a real chance of being the next President, who would assure us, in all sincerity and seriousness, that the Gospel According to Luke is a trustworthy account of events as they unfolded a couple millennia ago in Judea, and that the central figure of those events really was the human manifestation of the divine Creator of all humanity (and everything else)
That you can see that it’s bullshit is good, but irrelevant to the matter of whether or Jesus’s existence is a question worth caring about.
Cheers,
b&
>
I think it is Socrates about whom we lack any direct evidence — solely the writings of his contemporaries, particularly the Dialogues of Plato.
Many of Aristotle’s written works survived, leaving little doubt as to his existence.
Although Socrates didn’t leave any writing, I don’t think many people doubt his existence.
Oh, I agree. But the crucial thing is not whether Socrates existed, but that Socrates’ ideas (as attributed to him by Plato) exist. No one claims Socrates was divine. After all, as the major and minor premises of Aristotle’s most famous syllogism have it, all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man …
If, OTOH, it were claimed that Socrates was divine — and that belief that he was God incarnate was the key to eternal salvation — then we’d have to confront the Socrates mythicist position, (i.e., the possibility that he was the fictive creation of Plato and Aristophanes and Xenophon), is what I’m saying.
But if someone later claimed Socrates was divine, that doesn’t weaken the prior evidence that he was a real person.
JC as [total crap, my nine year old could have writ better] myth.
People want to live forever. JC_Real or JC_Faux: they wants Nirvanadom and that want fuels the faith and blinds reason.
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus)
Of even if you do not wish for it…
Sysyphus, Prometheus, and Atlas…poor lads.
And a demonstrably inauspicious outcome for atheists
Sod off, I didn’t want any angels
I would happily admit I was wrong if there was an eternity of angels offering (non-fattening) cream cakes, and no damn Xtians to preach at me…
cr
Much though I like David Mitchell-Coren’s contributions, I think he’s got his logic confused on this one. The question was one of afterlife versus non-afterlife, not one of theism versus atheism. It is credible to believe in an afterlife without believing in any sort of a god. Look, for starters, at the “cryonics” movement : fundamentally, it’s a science-based technical fix for death which is utterly independent of whether someone believed in a god, or many gods, or the vital necessity of toenail-hygiene.
Actually, it’s almost interesting to ponder what the religious make-up of their customers is. After all, committing to have your head cut off, and your bank account put into escrow in the faint and uncertain hope of some sort of resurrection is a pretty financially bold act of faith … which is placed in slightly credible science, not the platitudes of religion.
I almost feel a rant coming on.
Sooner or later we all conclude that Santa does not exist. But Xmas just gets bigger and more expensive every year. There may be no evidence for Jesus but there is little affect on religion.
Only if you buy into it.
This panel isn’t about the perception of divinity that is reinforced in many peoples’ minds by a historical Jesus. It’s a comment on the fact that the mere existence of someone about whom extraordinary claims have been made isn’t in any way empirical evidence that those claims are true. I would argue that mere historical existence doesn’t shift the burden of proof. After all, there is strong evidence that L Ron Hubbard existed, but not so much for his claims.
But it’s not a question of whether or not Hubbard existed or his claims are valid.
It’s a question of whether or not Xenu is real and how he controls us through Thetans.
Can you not see how you’ve already lost the rhetorical battle if you’re willing to consider, for the sake of argument, that maybe Xenu really is real after all, or at least has some meaningful historical orgin in an actual person? And do you not see how, in doing so, you become just as crazy as the Scientologists themselves?
b&
>
The metaphor is poor because Xenu is postulated as being in the distant past and everything attributed to Xenu is in the realm of the fantastic, and Xenu is not situated in any known historical time, any more that Conan the Barbarian.
No actual historical figures appear in the Xenu stories, but Pontius Pilate, King Herod, and John the Baptist are all verified historical figures.
Herodutus’ account of the Battle of Salamis has supernaturalism, but it is generally acknowledged to have a historical core.
On the contrary. Xenu originally populated the Earth and is responsible for all our modern artistic archetypes and the like. We wouldn’t be here nor who we are without Xenu.
And Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, turned water into wine, was followed by hordes of zombies, zombificated himself, flew up into the sky…what part of all that is not in the realm of the fantastic?
Indeed, I dare you to name one Gospel story that’s devoid of obvious fantasy. Just one!
I mean, sure, you can pick the Sunday School summary of a few stories, like the stoning of the adulteress and the washing of the feet of the disciples, which are superficially mundane…but you can’t even get a dozen verses into them without Jesus portrayed as the source of all light in the world or the ultimate judge of all mankind or the like…and it’s those supernatural bits that are very obviously the point of the texts and the only reason the author fabricated the events in question.
Cheers,
b&
>
Timothy Flint’s biography of Daniel Boone is filled with obvious fabrication from start to finish, from Boone escaping from Indians by swinging on vines like Tarzan, hand-to-hand combat with bears etc. This, in turn, inspired a bunch of comic books & movies even more fantastical.
Davy Crockett likewise came to be portrayed early on as someone who could fire a rifle at an axe so precisely the bullet would split into two pieces.
In the case of both men, the legends came to eclipse the real person. Both men were portrayed on TV by Fess Parker whose Boone interpretation is essentially a synthesis of both characters. (Neither is ever known to have worn a coonskin hat, although both are frequently portrayed so.)
Nonetheless, they are both historical real people.
Paul Bunyan is known to be legend, while the provenances (real or fiction?) of John Henry and Robin Hood remain unknown.
Thus while the evidence for Jesus’ existence is slim, slender and fragile, his mythical origins are not self-evident.
Huh?
Not self-evident?
When the dude’s first Biblical appearance is in the Old Testament, in Zechariah, which was written centuries before the Caesars?
What more do you want?
b&
>
Older legends could congeal around a real person. That has happened often. Arguments of the form “Stories about X resemble stories about mythical being Y” do not imply that X is an entirely mythical being. Ben, your argument isfar from being definitive, in fact it is almost irrelevant.
Let me turn it around.
Which specific elements of the Jesus story do you believe have their origins in an actual flesh-and-blood human? And what evidence do you have to support your position?
I’m not even asking you to construct a coherent picture of a flesh-and-blood Jesus; I’m just asking you to point to something that you’re confident saying, “This came not from myth but actual happenings.”
b&
>
The process I see in many of these discussions goes like this:
If Jesus was a real person, then the Gospels are totally true.
This is an enormous leap in logic.
Going from ‘there was some guy called Jesus about whom many fantastic claims were made’ is where the heavy lifting begins. And it’s a long way before you legitimately get to “wow, all those claims really are true.” That part gets glossed over in the debate about historicity.
But you’re missing the whole bit in the other direction.
Since Jesus is so obviously a fantasy figure who was already ancient centuries before the time of the Caesars, there’s no point in even pretending to consider the significance of anything written about him at that time.
Which discussion would you rather have: one pointing out how obvious it is that Hercules is a fictional character and how silly it is to take his story seriously, or a debate over which Labors he might or might not have performed?
b&
>
Not missing it Ben, just addressing one aspect of the issue in the limited context of one panel and my artistry. I’ve taken shots at the mythological element from time to time in older panels.
Exactly. Solving the puzzle of whether J was an historic human (a puzzle that might never get solved), would not solve the question of what he actually said, let alone who he metaphysically was / is. So, are all of the thoughts attributed to J (including ones such as social justice or class or ethnic issues, or the spreading of human kindness issues) affected by the historicity issue?
Jesus’s views on social justice were extremely regressive and oppressive. Slaves shouldn’t rock the boat and instead meekly submit to their masters — indeed, everybody should just turn the other cheek because the world was ending Real Soon Now and it’s not worth making a fuss. And that’s before we get to some really nasty specifics, such as infinite torture for those who divorce and remarry.
“Ethnic issues” is a modern construct. And even viewed through that lens, Jesus is horrific…the Pharisees, the high scholars of Judaism at the time, were portrayed as vicious scum, the worst of the worst, deserving of the death and destruction that ultimately befell them. Remember the scene outside the Temple with Jesus running amok?
And “spreading human kindness”…please. Luke 19:27 commands all Christians to kill all non-Christians. Yes, yes — “parable”…but the parable is of Armageddon, when Jesus himself will do the same (and then infinitely torture all non-Christians for good measure afterwards). He came not to bring peace but a sword. Those who love their families more than Jesus will be infinitely tortured. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, men who look with lust upon a woman to whom they’re not married…and who fail to immediately gouge out their own eyes and chop off their own hands…are condemned to infinite torture.
It’s a good thing the whole mess is nothing but fantastic bullshit. And high past time we grew up and let go of it.
Cheers,
b&
>
@Ben. Thanks, Ben, for taking the time to answer in clear details. Do you have any take on the idea that the capacity to create and / or imagine supernatural stories was naturally selected, or instead some kind of evolutionary mis-step, or something else altogether?
I don’t have any expertise in cognitive evolutionary biology. However, I don’t see any fundamental mystery here. We make our best guesses as to how the world around us works. Our most intimate experience of the world is of magic; we think something (raise a glass) and it happens. Is it really that surprising that early guesses would invert that — assuming that everything that happens is the result of intelligent agency?
b&
>
I think your panel expresses the situation perfectly.
In that case, I think the more apt analogy would be whether an affirmative case that L Ron had never been a flesh-and-blood human being — that he was instead a mythical creation by Miscavige and his henchmen — would further erode the metaphysical claims of Scientology.
I think that it would in that, although (as you’ve postulated) historicity is not affirmative proof of divinity, a lack of historicity constitutes evidence that no divine being made incarnate in this instance.
Of course, if you’ve set your baseline at zero even assuming historicity, then there’s no room for incremental erosion.
I find this preliminary investigation to be promising, if a bit flawed. I agree that it is most exciting to discover that differences in the hypothetical state of temporal corporeality of JC had ZERO effect upon the variable “divinity,” which at that point I must plead ignorance, as I am simply not clear as to the intended meaning of the term. I have always associated the word “divine” with a set of desserts which necessarily have the traits of “cold,” “creamy,” and “chocolate.”
That aaid, since the variable “divinity” does seem to imply a state of being utterly dependent upon the perceiver for its validity, we run into a potentially serious problem. Does Dr. PtiB mean the x-axis to measure “actual” divinity, or “perceived” divinity? I feel this distinction is important because of the associated implications of the y-axis measurements. If the x variable is “actual divinity,” we might conclude that whether Temporal Hypothetical Corporeality of Jesus (THC-JC) approaches 0 or 1, it has no effect on divinity, which creates an ontological minefield of Sartre-like proportions. Or we may conclude that THC-JC has, conversely no measurable EFFECT upon perceived divinity, rather than on the presence of perceived divinity itself. This far more distressing conclusion would suggest that the THC-JC factor creates its own divinity within the mind of the perceiver, such that evidence which contradicts the integrity of the THC-JC narrative is not merely dismissed, but is not acknowledged at all. Indeed, it seems that the factor THC-JC creates a dangerous, elevated or “higher” feeling within the perceived divinity cohort. I was not able to discern from Dr. PtiB’s study if there was any correlation between the “high” produced by the THC-JC factor and an increased desire for communion wafers.
All that said, I am greatly looking forward to seeing a more thorough extrapolation of this exciting work in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Thank you, Dr. PtiB, for sharing your work with us.
The original view of Jesus seems to view him as some sort of semi-demi-God. He becomes technically “divine” at the Council of Nicaea, which was fairly clearly politically motivated.
And people give me grief for my convoluted jokes 😉
Jesus is Real!
(Christ is Imaginary).
cr
…and the Holy Spirit is Integer….
b&
>
And God is Irrational.
Spoken like a “shaggy-dog story” being pulled by the tail by a joint degree holder in philosophy and analytics.
Kudos, cc.
While I tend towards the “JC” was a real person (or maybe an amalgam of a couple of real people) I do find the mythicist arguments interesting.
However there is the distinction that needs to be made among both those who think JC was real and those who don’t because there are several conversations happening.
On one hand there is academic arena where the discussion is on historicity. In this area the historicists place JC as a figure like Alexander the Great – a real figure that, over time, had many supernatural components added to his story. The mythicists posit that JC is more like Heracles/Hercules – a mythical figure that had, over time, come to be placed in “real history”.
That discussion I find interesting as my undergrad degree was in History (but I will admit that I have simplified it here).
However that argument is not to be confused with the claims of the “True Believers” (JC was real and magic) and the conspiricists (JC was not real but invented by group X for Y reasons).
Like button.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the roots of the archetypes do very significantly trace back to solar deities. And strong echoes remain…consider the Lord’s Prayer with a literal Sun as the Lord giving us our daily bread and an all-seeing eye in the sky and so on.
For the more immediate source of the Gospel Jesus, read Justin Martyr’s complaints about the “Sons of Jupiter.” Martyr accused Pagan daemons of copying Jesus centuries and millennia before his arrival; however, aside from his confusion about the arrow of time, he did a good job at identifying the Pagan original and Christian copy — with, of course, nothing significant left of Jesus after all the copying is struck.
The theological Jesus is taken wholesale from Philo’s Logos. The quickest summary is that, just as Adam was the Platonic archetype for the human body, Jesus was the Platonic archetype for the human soul. The rest can mostly be derived from there.
And the Jesus character himself and his basic role in the Hebrew pantheon comes from Zechariah (at the tail end of the “Old Testament”). That would be the architect and high priest of YHWH’s temple, the Prince of Peace, the anointed savior crowned with many crowns, and so on. Philo even explicitly connected the Jesus in Zechariah with his own theological invention (significantly inspired, of course, from the Hellenists) of the Logos.
Cheers,
b&
>
Evolution is true, right? For several million years humans had no recorded stories about anyone, and humans survived. Humans have had thousands of religions, right? … including, presumably, many that were prehistoric … and we have survived all of them. So why does it matter whether JC was an historic figure? Maybe humans advanced over the ‘lesser’ animals in part because we have had so many different religions. Maybe the capacity to imagine religions was selected for?
To take another approach, how has science and technology made anything better? Global warming, maybe? Perhaps the higher functions of the human brain, evolved in our lineage (as opposed to elephants or whales, for example), will prove to be an evolutionary dead end for our species? And before I get jumped, I have an undergraduate degree in chemistry, a graduate law degree, and prefer truth over falsehood, but am not sure I see any evidence that modern technology has made anything better. What is the evidence for that?
In 1994 I wrote this, for anyone interested:
http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1974&context=ndlr
There are mountains of evidence everywhere you care to look. I don’t think evidence is the issue. Rather, I think the issue is that the criteria being judged, “has technology made anything better,” and by “anything” I presume “with respect to human lives” is central, is very un-specific and also can be very subjective.
But, for one example, if you look at specific criteria like social and economic security, health outcomes and similar there is little doubt that technology has been a major factor in improving such measures. The question then becomes whether or not those improvements constitute “better.” I think most people would say yes to that.
The electric toothbrush?
@darrelle and rickflick, thank you .. Yes, what are the criteria for “better”, where does the criteria come from, and why would real or imagined religion not qualify as a means for improving one’s life condition? Why should I prefer 1) an electric toothbrush, 2) the smog over Bejing, or 3) gazing fondly at some religious icon?
Was Jesus real, and who cares?
————————–
There is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.
Who cares? I care if Jesus was real. Why? Because this figure is part of the intellectual world that I inherited. I need to know if that intellectual world is one that reflects reality or fantasy. Fantasy might well have its moments of value – but I need to be aware of those moments. I need to be able to distinguish between knowledge and imagination.
Knowledge of evolution, of science, enables me to leave behind the Adam and Eve fantasy. On a physical level I know where I have come from. Likewise, on an intellectual level, I also want to know where I have come from. That requires a knowledge of the history of ideas. Ideas, intellectual evolution, is a vital part of how we live our physical lives – particularly so within a social/political environment.
The Jesus idea has a 2000 year history. During most of those years Jesus was believed to be a historical figure. Modern day NT research has brought up the question of historicity – perhaps inadvertently as a consequence of research methods – but nevertheless it is scholarly work that has opened the floodgates and allowed non-scholars to see for themselves the fragile underpinnings of the historical assumption.
Intellectual evolution has no care in the world for how emotional people might be when a cherished idea is brought down. It is relentless in it’s forward movement. Sure, like physical evolution, there are periods of quite, of slow changes hardly noticed. But rapid change can sometimes occur.
The big difference between physical evolution and intellectual evolution is that we, ourselves, are the driver. We can get lazy, old slippers are comfortable compared to that new pair of shoes. Old ideas don’t go easily to their neitherland. They very often need a push – the glory days of their youth are keenly remembered….
Intellectual evolution, intellectual growth is a vital part of our humanity. Understanding our intellectual history is nowhere as important as in the case of Jesus. Not only because millions of people are living in an intellectual fantasy world – but because our social/political world is imbued with reflections of that historical Jesus fantasy. From politics to psychology – the historical Jesus assumption infiltrates.
So, methinks, if one cares about living in a rational world, then one will care whether Jesus is real or not. If he was real then our western social/political world is doomed to intellectual stagnation. If he was ahistorical then the floodgates are open for intellectual evolution and social/political renewal 😉
But this is why many mythicists go wrong. They really WANT Jesus to be ahistorical. From that we get the same kind of motivated reasoning we see in Christians, but in the opposite direction.
I think the best scholarship is done by people who are more neutral, who don’t have a dog in this fight. And Pliny’s cartoon sums up the case for staying neutral.
Being neutral, sitting on the face, never got anyone anywhere. Keeping ones bottom warm might be comforting but living requires that we also keep our intellect warm; keeping it warm by constantly facing intellectual challenges that disturb our comfort zone.
Sure, one can make wrong choices which, hopefully, one is humble enough to correct. I find that making a decision and then running with it to see where it will take one has more potential than staying neutral.
That said, sometimes one does not even make a conscious decision. Sometimes things just fall into place and one sees things differently. Perhaps a bit like that famous two faced vase. Why that happens I don’t know – it’s almost like a switch – and then one is up and running to wherever the new insight takes one.
Yes, mythicist make many mistakes – but the drive for intellectual change is with them not the historicists.
Errm, I think sitting on the *fence* is the phrase you want…
🙂
cr
Yep, need a proofreader – or a window for editing…
Thanks for the quick correction…
sitting on the ‘fence’….
“Knowledge of evolution, of science, enables me to leave behind the Adam and Eve fantasy.”
“Intellectual evolution has no care in the world for how emotional people might be when a cherished idea is brought down. It is relentless in it’s forward movement.”
So, my question is, does the manner in which a “cherished idea” is brought down matter to the development of society as a whole? Are we all in this evolutionary thing together? Are there enough electric toothbrushes to go around?
So you know the motivations of ‘many mythicists’? How did you find this out? And, as for being ‘neutral’ on the issue of historicity, either Jesus was a real, historical human person or he wasn’t. What does the evidence, or lack thereof, say? Pretty much that the absence of evidence for yes indicates the likelihood of no.
“There is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.”
Nor is there any for the existence of Hannibal, Catiline, Socrates — except written accounts of them, or artistic depictions of them.
Point under discussion is Jesus. The circumstances regarding the other figures you mention are irrelevant for a search for early christian origins and the gospel story. Focus needs to be kept on the NT story itself. That story stands or falls on it’s own merits not the merits, or lack thereof, regarding the other figures you referenced.
No, the point under discussion is *evidence*. Your claim was “There is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.” That is a claim about *evidence*. The evidence for Jesus as a historical figure and cult leader is of the same kind as for many historical figures, and better than that for most whose existence you do not question.
Do we really need to go down this rabbit hole again?
For Jesus as a first century historical figure, we’ve got nothing until decades after the events in question. The official “evidence” is absurd religious propaganda and forgeries in the hand of a man (Josephus) not even born until years afterwards. And, at the same time, Jesus and all relevant events are entirely missing from the extensive first-person contemporary eyewitness accounts we have (such as from Philo).
For Jesus as an ancient Jewish demigod, we’ve got Zechariah, part of the Old Testament, written centuries before the Caesars.
Compare that with Julius Caesar. We’ve got his autobiographical account of his conquest of Gaul, substantive details of which have been confirmed by modern archaeology. We’ve got contemporary writings by others, including correspondence with Caesar. We’ve got contemporary portraits of him, including on coins for sale on the private market affordable to middle-class Americans. We’ve got buildings and monuments and inscriptions, again contemporary. We’ve got political maps (heard of the Rubicon?) that wouldn’t have existed without him. And I haven’t even gotten started.
It always astounds me when people trot out this canard of there being overwhelming or even merely credible evidence for the existence of Jesus. It tells me that either they think that a text in which the climax is the zombification of a miracle-worker born of a virgin is an historical record of real events, or it tells me that they’ve never even pretended to look at the friggin’ dates on the extra-Biblical “evidence,” or it tells me that they’ve no clue what the actual historical record of Classical Rome is like.
Cheers,
b&
>
Must I repeat myself?
There is no evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.
What we have is a story; a gospel story. The historicists interpret that story, yes interpret, as referencing a historical figure. The ahistoricists/mythicists interpret, yes interpret, that story as referencing a literary creation.
The only way past this interpretation cycle is for historical evidence. We don’t have it
What we have are written sources. A story. A story that has to be interpreted. Interpreted not by some sort of pot luck method, keep this reject that, but by lining up that story against, not another interpretation – as though the issue boils down to a question of who has the better interpretation – but lining up that story against Jewish history.
Slowing but surely the historicist interpretation is being discredited – and will continue to be discredited. Why? Because the historicist interpretation lacks plain common sense. There just is no way that the historicist assumption of historicity can ever be validated. In fact the historicists should do the right thing and give up the term ‘historical Jesus’. They cannot lay claim to it and should abandon the pretense.
They should simply be saying we believe that there is a possibility that Jesus was historical. They need to stop the grandstanding that they hold some sort of trump card against the ahistoricist/mythicists. They do not.
Whatever are the faults of the ahistoricists/mythicists – these do not give the Jesus historicists a ‘win’ by default.
Why is everybody so vigorously limiting the consideration of evidence to that which at least superficially supports the historicist position?
Where are all the citations of the overwhelming mountains of positive evidence that Jesus was always a fantasy figure?
Why does nobody ever mention Zechariah, part of the Old Testament canon centuries older than the Caesars, where Jesus makes his first appearance (that I know of) in the historical record, as a celestial Hebrew demigod?
Why does nobody ever mention Philo, who not only was in a position where he must have noticed an historical Jesus but didn’t…but who also explicitly connected the Jesus of Zechariah with the Logos — and whose theology Paul, the first quasi-but-not-really historicist source, adopted wholesale?
Why does nobody ever mention Justin Martyr, the first of the Christian apologists, whose dates roughly overlap with the authorship of the Gospels, who wrote chapter after chapter railing about how the Pagans “stole” each and every biographical detail of Jesus by using time-traveling daemons to lead honest men astray with identical stories before Jesus could arrive on the scene to really carry out the fantastic deeds in actuality this time?
Oh…that’s right. Once you take the historicist position, the “history” has to become either the religious position — that the celestial Jesus of Zechariah manifested by being born of a Virgin — or that some random schmuck somehow managed to convince people that he was the Word that Spoke all of Creation into Existence.
…and, of course, at this point the historicists start concocting insane “can’t-prove-me-worng” conspiracy theories about how somebody named, “Bob,” conned Paul into thinking he was Jesus, and Bob is therefore the real Jesus.
I mean, really? By that same logic, every department store Santa is the real Santa, and each one is proof positive that Santa really is really real.
Cheers,
b&
>
‘. . . except written accounts of them, or artistic depictions of them.’
Your ‘except’ pretty much gives the game away to the opposition, since it discounts everything (other than archaeology) that we can use positively to reconstruct the historicity of post-literate yet ancient humanity. Sure, EXCEPT for all that written stuff and EXCEPT for all those statues, there’s nothing to show that Hannibal and his elephants ever existed.
It is fascinating that so many people have been conned by the Jesus myth.
Now that Christianity is no longer a coerced religion, I wonder why so many people choose to believe in it? Are they just gullible, do they lack discernment or does the promise of an afterlife overwhelm their ability to think critically.
Indeed. This is why the whole, quixotic, “Jesus never existed” stuff seems so misdirected. It actually strengthens faith, because when you frame the argument that way, and when the argument is very weak (as it is), people see your defeat on that narrow issue as defeat on the greater one.
Even Richard Carrier recommended that people debating Christians should accept, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was a real historical figure, for exactly the reason you mention.
Any mythicist who says his or her thesis is “blindingly obvious”, or words to that effect, is not being honest with the data. It’s tough to say what is the best explanation for the Jesus myth. The evidence is not strong for either answer (and the right answer is probably a combination of both mythical beings and a real one). It bugs me when people are so sure that they KNOW the answer.
If you’re bugged by the confidence of the mythicists, why not try to refute their position with argument and evidence. Start with Ben Goren’s, as reflected in his many posts here over the past couple of years on this very matter, including several on this thread. You see to be referring obliquely to Mr. Goren in this post. So tell us where he is mistaken and reveal what evidence you have for Jesus’ existence as a real, historical human person. Knowledge on historical topics is of course probabalistic, as with any empirical question. Yet we usually allow the verb ‘know’ only for predicates that are the most likely to be true. Thus, the question is, can you make Mr. Goren’s position the less probable of the two? Be our guest.
See my answers throughout this thread. Ben distorts evidence from both Paul and Josephus. He also ignores the very good points made on the previous thread about the odd common trivial details of the gospels (like the fact that Jesus was from Nazareth) and the improbable gyrations the gospel writers go through to connect to these “fixed points” while still having Jesus fulfill their desired prophecies (such as that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem), as if there were historic constraints on the myth-making process (ie the writers could not just say Jesus was from Bethlehem, they had to make excuses, different excuses in different gospels, to get him there).
Ben has been confidently making claims that are false or misleading, without skipping a beat. When I mentioned that Paul persecuted Christians, he went into a tirade about how this might be an example of the church brainwashing us, etc, etc. Two seconds of googling showed that Paul himself tells us he persecuted Christians.
Ben confidently stated that Josephus always used the Jesus bar-X format when identifying a specific Jesus character; two more seconds of googling showed that was false too.
Ben thinks that just because myths later associated with Jesus existed long before Jesus’ time, Jesus could not have been a real historical character. That’s not logical.
Ben claims that Paul never talks about a physical Jesus. But Paul claims to have met Jesus’ brother. (There are some claims below and in the mythicist literature that this was a figurative reference, but in that line of Paul, it is used exclusively for James, not Cephas/Peter who is also mentioned. It sure seems to refer to biological kinship.)
Etc.
I care because the truth about something that has been a part of the human experience for so long should be analyzed.
I care because it is a very interesting problem, ripe with challenges and things to learn.
The thing that’s surprised me about the mythicism debate is that it’s asking the wrong question – at least as far as most of us are concerned. The origins of Christianity and the historicity of the Jesus figure is a question best left for historians – those trained in how to tease out fact from fragments of information.
For the rest of us, the question is theological – “in what way is the biblical Jesus historical?” We’re interested in this because the truth of Christianity hinges on this question. A historical Jesus that didn’t raise from the dead is uninteresting theologically, hence why there’s so much effort to try to show the gospels as reliable factual accounts. But the basic scepticism of miracles applies for the rest of us.
Leave the historical question to historians. And leave the plausibility of the theological claims to common sense. And if common sense fails you and somehow you think claims of miracles and the dead rising to life perfectly reasonable, try Hume’s “Of Miracles” instead.
@Ben Goren.
Ben, referencing Philo and his views on Zechariah is not an argument against the Jesus historicists. Yes, one can use a midrash type argument to connect with Paul’s celestial christ figure – but Philo does not name his Logos as Jesus. In any case, one is then back to square one of Carrier’s theory – the historizing of his Pauline christ figure as the gospel Jesus.
Earl Doherty, the mythicist writer that influenced Carrier, does not support Carrier re a historizing of the Pauline christ figure.
Doherty: ‘You have little or no knowledge of my case if you think that I am saying that the Gospels, or Mark, are entirely based on historicizing the Pauline Christ. In fact, the Gospels would not ever have been written on such a basis, for in large part they are dependent not on Paul or any celestial Christ but on an historical “kingdom of God” preaching movement of the first century centered in Galilee and represented in the Q document…..an imagined founder of the Q movement…’ (FRDB forum)
Contrast that with Carrier in OHJ.
“At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was though to be a celestial deity much like any other.
“As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.’
Carrier has an invisible celestial being morphing into an invisible allegorical ‘man’….is it any wonder that the historicists shake their heads….
A way out of this gospel Jesus vs Pauline christ quagmire is very simple. The NT has two Jesus stories. The gospel Jesus story and the Pauline celestial Lord Jesus Christ story. While there is a connection between these two NT figures, a relationship, they do not morph one into the other. They keep their distinctive characteristics. The gospel Jesus figure is earthly. The Pauline Jesus is heavenly. The focus of each story is different.
Yes, John’s gospel has the Logos becoming flesh. That is theology, or better philosophy, not reality. Logos, wisdom, becomes flesh when we give ‘flesh’ to our ideas or thoughts; when we let ‘spiritual’ values become part of our experience of living. Non-material values such as love, appreciation, loyalty, morality etc.
Sadly, while the Carrier mythicist hold on to the morphying Pauline celestial christ into gospel Jesus – the historicists are laughing all the way to the bank of public opinion….
Doherty says regarding the gospels – ”…. in large part they are dependent not on Paul or any celestial Christ but on an historical “kingdom of God” preaching movement of the first century centered in Galilee.”
Methinks, Carrier has stepped too far away from Doherty. Doherty, for all his faults (including himself stepping away from Wells)has retained an earthly, historical, relevance to the gospel story.
The mythicists are fond of saying to the historicists – don’t read the gospels into Paul. Likewise then, let the Carrier mythicists stop reading the gospel Jesus story through a Pauline lens.
Yep, as I once said to Doherty, Ben, don’t put all your eggs in a Pauline basket….;-)
Third way out–the memory of some random charismatic preacher named Jesus ended up accumulating lots of pre-existing myths that were floating around at the time.
Often when there are endless indecisive controversies like this, the real answer turns out to involve elements of both sides.
‘some random charismatic preacher….ended up accumulating lots of pre-existing myths’.
——————
The gist of that is that a flesh and blood figure had myths attached to his life.
Although that idea has value and more plausibility than invisible celestial figures morphing into invisible earthly men – it still cannot be historically verified.
So, rather than a random figure switch to a figure that can be historically verified.
Step two, since the figure being debated is the gospel Jesus, i.e. a figure which has contradictory characteristics – man of war plus man of peace (i.e. the seditious Jesus and the turn the other cheek Jesus)a composite Jesus seems the more realistic approach to the gospel Jesus figure.
With this approach one can then attempt to look for historical figures that meet the criterion of ‘man of war’ and ‘man of peace’.
All you need then to do is to assign only one of these historical figure to the time of Pilate and the other to an earlier time frame – a time frame in which the last King and High Priest of the Jews was executed for sedition against Rome.
Thus, re the gospel Jesus story, two historical men but only one historical man executed by Rome. i.e. the lives of two historical men have been *fused* by the gospel writers into their gospel Jesus figure.
(a similar type of thing to the creation of James Bond – Fleming used characteristics of people he actually knew.)
The historicists are right to uphold a historical core to the gospel Jesus story – but wrong to assume that the historical core is the figure of Jesus.
The ahistoricists/mythicists are right to uphold that Jesus ( whatever variant of that figure historicists dream up) was not a historical figure. They are wrong when they attempt, like Carrier, to morph the Pauline celestial christ figure into the gospel Jesus figure.
“it still cannot be historically verified”.
So that means it isn’t true? It is historically impossible to verify that I ate cooked dinner last Tuesday. But it is true or false. And it is such a likely claim that it would be silly to argue that there is no proof, and so it must be a myth.
You are forgetting the point made very well by one of the commenters in the previous thread. The question is not “Is there proof that Jesus existed?” but rather “What is the best explanation for the set of stories and myths about him?”
Lou, it’s not something as mundane as what you ate for breakfast.
There are only two possibilities for the historicist claim, neither of which is even remotely plausible.
Remember the starting point: Jesus had already been around for centuries as a Jewish demigod, the architect and high priest of YHWH’s celestial temple.
So, either the orthodox position could hold and Jesus really did manifest as the son of a Virgin, or some mere nobody managed to convince his followers that he himself really was the Platonic archetype of the human soul.
But even that second one doesn’t get you to an historical Jesus — unless you want to grant the title to David Koresh as well. Even if you’re going to claim that some random unknown-to-his-contemporaries cult leader conned his followers into believing that he was a living incarnation of Jesus, by what reasonable measure are you concluding that he really was Jesus, and that he’s the only one deserving of that claim as opposed to the countless others throughout history who’re indistinguishable? Why does that delusional conman get the title and no other?
Cheers,
b&
>
Your version of the historicist claim is twisted beyond recognition and is not the least implausible. Read Carrier’s article about the kooks and quacks of the early Roman empire if you haven’t done so. We KNOW that there were lots of messianic and apocalyptic preachers around at that time. Lots of them had little cults. There’s nothing improbable about one of them converting some fishermen who then converted some more people, etc, with the story, like most fisherman’s tales, growing with each retelling, and gathering the mythology of the day.
Paul says he met Jesus’ brother. Paul makes it clear that Jesus, before he died, had a physical body.
There is nothing extraordinary about those claims, but the mythicists must deny them. They make the much more extraordinary claim that Paul really didn’t mean “of the flesh” when he says “of the flesh”, etc.
No, Paul said he met “a brother of the Lord”, which is *not* the same thing at all, especially as we know (from Paul) that “brother” and “sister” were used to refer to other Christians.
…and Paul was quite clear that he “met” Jesus and — more importantly — got his information about Jesus and his wishes directly from him. And that the other contemporary Christians “met” and spoke with Jesus in exactly the same way. But historicists ignore that inconvenient fact, for it demonstrates that the Jesus of Paul’s time wasn’t even hypothetically a flesh-and-blood human who walked amongst them.
b&
>
“..the Jesus of Paul’s time wasn’t even hypothetically a flesh-and-blood human who walked amongst them.”
Paul refers to James (whom Paul met, so we are talking about firsthand knowledge) as the brother of Jesus. You have to make strained arguments to explain that away. Do you see Paul refer to any other single individual as “the brother of Jesus”? Sure he often says “brothers and sisters in Christ” or words to that effect, but as far as I know, only James gets the singular epithet. Cephas/Peter is mentioned in the same line as James, but he doesn’t get the epithet.
…so, by that same logic, the Angel Moroni must have been a real historical person. After all, Mary Whitmer was visited by his Brother Nephi. You’d have to make some mighty strained arguments to explain that one away.
b&
>
So you’re going to ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit your mythicist theory.
MH. “it still cannot be historically verified”.
——————
So that means it isn’t true?
MH. Of course not. Thousands of people have lived and yet left no trace of their existence. Therefore, they are not *historical* in that their existences cannot be verified. And that is where the historicst stand regarding Jesus. They can assume he was ‘real’, that he existed, but they cannot establish historicity. That’s why I said in an earlier posting – the historicits should drop the term ‘historical Jesus’….
Yes, one can believe the best explanation is that Jesus was real, that he existed. Other’s can believe the best explanation is that Jesus is a literary construct.
Quite frankly I find the historicists vs mythicist debate uninteresting. There is no proof for historicity and the Carrier mythicists have a theory that cannot be falsified. Which means there is really nothing to debate. The debate is empty of any substance.
Arguing that ‘my interpretation is better than your interpretation’ cannot be the way forward. The NT writings are ambiguous, contradictory and just too full of theology for any one interpretation to be the ‘truth’.
In other words, the NT is not somehow going to justify itself by having one true interpretation. That being the case its necessary to, as it were, look for outside help. What purpose does the gospel story serve? Was there something in Jewish history that motivated the gospel writers to create their Jesus story? Was it the historical event of 70 c.e.? Or was it earlier historical events? Was the loss of Jewish sovereignty in 63 b.c.e any less important than the loss of the Temple in 70 c.e.?
These questions need answers prior to interpreting the gospel story; a story that arose from within that Jewish historical context.
Of course it could be falsified.
You could, of course, for starters, produce solid evidence for an historical Jesus — such as could very easily be imagined being dug up in an as-yet-unknown archaeological site.
You could demonstrate that the Jesus in Zechariah isn’t the Christian Jesus, though that would be very hard to do. You could claim that it’s just somebody remarkably similar to the Christian Jesus, but that’s most awkward, what with him having the same name and epithets and theological role and significance and what-not. You could claim it’s a later forgery, but you’d still be left with the later references to it as an ancient text.
You could propose that Philo didn’t equate the Logos with the Jesus in Zechariah, but he did quote the text rather extensively and unambiguously and wrote a fair amount about it.
You could claim that Paul’s Jesus wasn’t Philo’s Logos-Jesus, except for the fact that their theology is indistinguishable.
You could claim that Paul’s Jesus isn’t the Jesus of the Gospels. That’s actually a much better route to take, since the Jesus of the Gospels is of a Hellenistic Greek demigod set in the theological role of the ancient Jesus. But that still doesn’t get you to an historical personage; it just makes the syncretic nature of Jesus that much more obvious.
I’m sure there’re other possibilities…but all come down to the same basic problem that Creationists face when attempting to falsify Evolution. Yes, we could find the proverbial rabbit in the Precambrian. But who seriously thinks that that would happen? Or the Flat Earthers: we could observe the Sun to pause for a few days at noon all over the globe at the same time. But you’ve got to be crazy to expect it to happen.
So, have at it. Falsify the theory that Jesus is an ancient Hebrew demigod first (best I know) mentioned in Zechariah and explicitly linked by Philo to the Logos.
“Good luck with that,” as they say.
Indeed, you’re already basically on board:
That’s true of any interpretation that assumes them to be a clear and consistent expression of actual history. But, of necessity, any interpretation that assumes that they have nothing whatsoever to do with actual history is perfectly consistent with them. That, naturally, doesn’t tell you anything about how the myth actually arose, but it does tell you that the only reasonable conclusion is that the Gospels are, indeed, mythical.
And you’ll note that it’s perfectly consistent (and falsifiable!) to conclude that Jesus started with (roughly) Zechariah, got his Hellenistic theology from Philo, and got the Pagan biography (as so meticulously catalogued by Justin Martyr) from “Mark” (who may or may not have been the first to think of it but was one of the earliest to set it to paper).
Cheers,
b&
>
MH: The Carrier mythicists have a theory that cannot be falsified.
BG: Of course it could be falsified.
————————–
For a theory to be falsified it must relate to reality, to something that is observable. Carrier’s theory is a theory about invisible entities. As such it is a theory that is not falsifiable. *God* is a theory but is a theory that cannot be falsifiable. It’s a theory that, as it were, floats above observable phenomenon. Carrier’s theory is in the same boat – it floats – like fairies at the bottom of the garden 😉
For instance: Creationists make a claim that can be falsified. They make a 6 day creation scenario. That is a claim regarding physical, material, reality. That claim can be falsified by evolutionary evidence that demonstrates a slow development, evolution, that took place over millions of years.
The Jesus historicists make a historical claim; Jesus existed and lived between 4 b.c. and 30/33 c.e. Ahistoricists can falsify that claim by demonstrating that within Jewish history, over a wider period of time, historical figures existed from whose lives a composite literary Jesus figure could be created.
Carrier makes no physical/material or historical claim. Carrier claims an invisible, cosmic figure was historicized, morphed, into the mythological, invisible, gospel Jesus. That theory ‘floats’ – it makes no landfall. As such it cannot be falsified.
Doherty, by ditching an earthly crucifixion for an invisible celestial crucifixion did, to my mind, lock the door to research for early christian origins. Carrier, with his purely invisible theory, threw away the key. Carrier has brought the ahistoricist/mythicist position into a cul-de-sac. Carrier needs to turn back and heed the words of George Wells:
‘…if I am right, against Doherty and Price – it is not all mythical.’
Yes, imagination can be beneficial, it can advance our thinking. But it can also take us to Cloud Cuckoo Land. At some stage our ideas, to be beneficial to living on earth, have to find landfall. At this stage, as the saying goes – Carrier is away with the fairies…..
Sorry, but that mischaracterization is so far afield that it tells me you can’t possibly have read anything from him.
His On the Historicity of Jesus performs a Bayesian analysis of the evidence.
He starts by defining what he means by historicity for Jesus, and uses Haile Selassie as an example.
He sets his prior by observing that Jesus is a perfect fit for the Rank-Raglan heroic archetype, better than any other examples from the literature, and that, in all other cases, the better the fit, the less likely the individual is to be historical and more likely to be fictional. His prior is therefore weighted against historicity, but proportional to the chances that somebody who appears to be as much a larger-than-life figure actually is larger-than-life.
He then analyzes each piece of evidence, from Zechariah through Philo to Paul and Mark, and including all sorts of documents you’ve likely never even heard vague mention of before unless you’re a scholar in the field. For each, he assigns a probability that the document, considered in isolation, is consistent with an historical individual. He also assigns two scores for each: his own assessment and the most overwhelmingly generous over-the-top best-possible-case-for-historicity value he can imagine.
At the end, he multiplies everything together according to Bayes’s Theorem. Even the overly-generous version still leaves slim odds for an historical Jesus, and his honest assessment leaves the odds at some fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent.
If you like, you can trivially perform the exact same analysis for yourself using the framework he already laid out. Take each of the figures and assign your own numbers to them, do the math.
In the end, the only really reasonable conclusion is the blindingly obvious one: that the celestial Jesus of Zechariah is the same Jesus that Philo equated with the Logos, which Paul adopted wholesale (either directly or indirectly) for his own Jesus. A generation later, Mark wrote an Homeric epic biography for that celestial Jesus, adopting the same Pagan story elements as Justin Martyr identified.
So, there you go. You’ve got basically four paths you can take from here.
You can demonstrate why statistics in general or Bayes specifically doesn’t apply to history, but that would mean making history unscientific.
You can use the framework Carrier already set forth to work your own numbers, but even unapologetic Christian apologists would have a difficult time breaking over 50% odds and maintaining a straight face.
You can chip away at the mythicist claim by attacking that Zechariah to Philo to Paul to Mark alternative I keep outlining, but there’s really nothing you can claim that I’ve mischaracterized.
Or you can continue to stamp your feet and mischaracterize our position and ignore what we’re claiming.
My money’s on that fourth option. You’re clearly convinced that there’s no conceivable way that somebody could make up the Jesus story unless it was real…and, for your sake, I hope this is the only such matter in which you’re so gullible.
Cheers,
b&
>
Richard Carrier’s minimal Jesus myth theory:
1. At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.
2. Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus ‘communicated’ with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration
(such as prophecy, past and present).
3. Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.
4. As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth,
in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.
———————–
There you go. Carrier has one celestial, invisible, entity. A celestial, invisible, entity that, re Carrier, was placed on earth in an ahistorical, allegorical story setting. Invisible in the celestial setting and invisible in the earthly setting….and you want to talk to me about how Carrier got to this ridiculous position!
Come now, Carrier’s conclusion should be ringing bells as loud as any church tower that his approach to the NT material is in serious need of re-evaluation.
Gullible? The only people who are gullible are those believing that celestial invisible entities become earthly invisible entities….
Congratulations. You’ve just put forth a most emphatic argument concluding that Xenu must, of necessity, be an historical figure. Moroni, too — along with every other wackaloon nutjob deity of history, going back to long before the Olympians.
And you still haven’t even pretended to address the question of Paul’s theology being indistinguishable from Philo’s, or Philo’s explicit identification of the Jesus in Zechariah as being an incarnation of the Logos, or of the Jesus in Zechariah being a perfect fit for the essential theological elements of the modern Jesus still worshiped to this day.
Instead, all you do is claim that it’s laughable to even consider that the Jesus in Zechariah could have evolved to include a Hellenized metaphysical role and later had syncretic accretions of Pagan myth. Despite, for that matter, no less a figure than Justin Marty himself confirming the latter. And Philo, the greatest Jewish philosopher of antiquity, making the former his life’s work.
Maybe you’re confusing the mythicist position with the orthodox? Maybe you think that Carrier is proposing that Jesus really did actually physically manifest and that the Gospels really are historical accounts? Because that would certainly explain your accusation of gullibility.
b&
>
For heavens sake – it was you that accused me of being gullible…
—————-
BG: I hope this is the only such matter in which you’re so gullible.
———————-
Carrier’s position is what is it. I don’t care what means, what interpretation, he used to get to his conclusion. His conclusion is not only untenable and irrational in regard to the NT story – it is simply beyond the pale as an argument against the Jesus historicists. It’s unacceptable because it’s useless.
This is the end of the exchange for me.
Probably best to end it here. But you at least owe it to yourself to consider why you’re not even pretending to acknowledge that Philo and Zechariah wrote of Jesus long before any Christian ever did.
Cheers,
b&
>
So if Jesus is 99 44/100% myth and only 0.56% human…in what sense is that human the “real” Jesus?
And if that remaining 0.56% was itself spread across dozens of individuals, which of them deserves sole claim to the title?
b&
>
Let me turn that around for you. Some people think the best explanation for the data is that there really was a person named Jesus, who knew the apostles that Paul met, and that myths were added to that real person’s memory. As many people including Carrier have pointed out, there is nothing the least bit improbable about this, and the statement would be true even if all of the gospels were rewritten OT myths, as you think.
Instead of accepting this very reasonable and likely scenario, you insist that the WHOLE story, 100% of it, including Paul, has to be pure myth. And you are sure of it.
That’s an over-precise claim in relation to what the data can support. And as others have mentioned, there are awkward parts of the gospel which seem to reflect an attempt to fit the myths to a real person.
Ah, and no part of the secular claim of historicity insists that it was just one person. There could well have been several. But most historicists would say that one of them actually had as disciples the people Paul met and called “apostles”.
If Jesus could have been several anonymous people, he could have been anybody. And if it could have been anybody…well, then I have just as much claim to being Jesus.
Worse, if you can’t even identify a single bit of the story as clearly being tied to actual history, what you’ve done is invented a pure fantasy of this being historical. You might as well claim Luke Skywalker to be a real historical figure because, hey, you knew some guy named Luke, and this other person was a good swordsman, and there was some weird hermit who lived in the mountains, even though none of them lived long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Or, in other words, “I have this idea completely unsupported by evidence but you still can’t prove me worng”…well, that’s the archetypal definition of a crazy conspiracy theory.
So, again: what about Jesus do you think is actually historical, and on what basis do you make that claim?
Cheers,
b&
>
“If Jesus could have been several anonymous people, he could have been anybody.”
In a way, you are right. Any charismatic preacher named Jesus who lived at the right time and place could have been the inspiration for the beliefs of the early Christians. The mythicist position is that NO ONE inspired these guys. That is an impossibly strong claim to be able to make with confidence.
“And if it could have been anybody…well, then I have just as much claim to being Jesus.”
What???
“You might as well claim Luke Skywalker to be a real historical figure because, hey, you knew some guy named Luke, and this other person was a good swordsman, and there was some weird hermit who lived in the mountains, even though none of them lived long ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
Think about that example; it is a good one. It is entirely possible that Luke Skywalker was inspired by a real person. Or maybe not. I don’t know. The fact that the movie is not true has no bearing on whether a real person inspired the writer.
As Jerry has noted in past posts here, there really was a historical James Bond who inspired the James Bond movies, which are complete fiction.
There was a real LA police chief named Parker. He was portrayed in a Nick Nolte movie which took liberties with history. He also inspired a few fictional characters, including Spock and Jack Webb. Yet he was real person.
No secular historicist thinks the myths about Jesus are true. All they say is that it is likely there was real person who served as the nucleus on whom the myths converged.
Paul met a James the “brother of Jesus”. Sure, he could have been using “brother” in a non-biological sense, but in early Christian writing James’ name gets that epithet often, and the other apostles individually do not, suggesting it did mean something biological.
Paul talks very directly about the physical nature of Jesus’s body before his crucifixion, and contrasts that with his non-physicality after his crucifixion.
Proof that Cephas/Peter and James knew a real Jesus? No, definitely not. But it is the plain reading of the words. It’s the mythicist position that requires the conspiracy theory and constant appeals to forgeries and interpolations and strained interpretation of plain text.
‘As Jerry has noted in past posts here, there really was a historical James Bond who inspired the James Bond movies, which are complete fiction.’
——————
There was no historical James Bond. James Bond is a composite literary figure.
from Wikipedia:
‘Fleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, admitting that Bond “was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war”.[1] Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war.[2] Aside from Fleming’s brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond’s make up, including Conrad O’Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill “Biffy” Dunderdale.’
There really was a James Bond, who was, IIRC, an ornithologist who wrote a book on Caribbean birds. Ian Fleming came across it, liked the name, and stole it.
So in one (nominal) sense, yes there was a real James Bond. In another sense, considering the attributes of the fictional character rather than the name, you’re right there wasn’t.
This ‘identity’ stuff can be tricky.
cr
Secular historicists are making a fairly weak claim of identity, mainly that Jesus was a real person who had actual followers, whom Paul met, and probably had a brother, whom Paul met. They don’t claim that any particular story of the gospels applies to him. Just that the gospels seem to have been written in a way that was constrained by some slight knowledge of a real Jesus’ life (the different nativity stories showing this especially well).
Lou, there are millions of people who have equal claim to this homeopathetic Jesus you’re proposing as the “real” one.
I mean, you know what else the Gospel authors seemed to be slightly constrained by? Then-contemporary Greek with a smattering of Aramaic and Hebrew. They didn’t have Jesus say anything in Japanese, after all!
Seriously, how can you make such a claim? The constraint you propose isn’t even enough that your Jesus had to be named, “Jesus.” He didn’t even have to be male.
In fact, he didn’t even have to be real at all!
b&
>
The mythicist position is that NO ONE inspired these guys.
—————————
No, that’s not the ahistoricist/mythicist position – it’s only one version of it. Carrier’s version.
Sometime around 20 years ago I first went online. I was pleased to find that a view I myself held was being promoted online by Earl Doherty. I wrote to Doherty and he put a reply on his website. Unfortunately, during the years since then, in online forums,I was unable to get Doherty to produce some historical names to support his statement in answer to me. (at one time he named a figure from Josephus but a figure that he could not provide historical evidence for…)
————————-
Response to Mary:
Models for the Gospel Jesus
“I can well acknowledge that elements of several representative, historical figures fed into the myth of the Gospel Jesus, since even mythical characters can only be portrayed in terms of human personalities, especially ones from their own time that are familiar and pertinent to the writers of the myths.”
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/rfset5.htm#Mary
I’m sorry, but there’s no point to further discussion. If you’re going to suggest even for a moment that there’s any meaningful way in which one can claim an historical Luke Skywalker…you’re simply not operating in the real world.
Of course there are real elements to every story. Jerusalem was a real place. Is that fact alone enough to make the Jesus story historical? Because it was set in a real place?
No. For the concept of historicity to have any meaning, the events in question have to be substantially true. Just taking somebody’s name, or the fact that a real person had the same thing for breakfast, or that it tangentially mentions some actual fact…sorry, but if your standards are that low, then you have no way of distinguishing fact from fiction. The world you’re describing you’re operating in is completely disconnected from reality.
Cheers,
b&
>
There is indeed no point in further discussion, Ben. I said the core of the historicist claim is that the Paul met real followers and probably a brother of a real person named Jesus. To this Ben answers “The constraint you propose isn’t even enough that your Jesus had to be named, “Jesus.” He didn’t even have to be male. In fact, he didn’t even have to be real at all!”
You do know that “Jesus” was at least as popular a name then as its modern version, “Joshua,” remains today? I’ve known at least a couple “Josh”es over the years, and I’m pretty sure at least one had at least one brother. And my best friend in elementary school was named, “Paul.”
And, miracle of miracles, by your criteria, that makes me a disciple of the real historical Jesus!
So, either your idea of who the “real” Jesus was is more specific than that, or there’re millions of “real” Jesuses alive today.
That’s another perspective on the knots the historicists tie themselves into. The one consistent attribute that the “real” Jesus always has is that he’s so nebulous that there’s no way even in theory to tie him down to a single individual.
Unless you can put forth some means of distinguishing the “real” Jesus from the hundreds (thousands?) of contemporaries with the same name or the millions of other men (and women?) who lived at the same time, you don’t even have a coherent theory from which you can claim to plausibly propose existence in the first place.
b&
>
“You do know that “Jesus” was at least as popular a name then as its modern version, “Joshua,” remains today?”- Ben
Paul was writing about “the” Jesus when he wrote those lines. If suddenly he started talking about another Jesus in the middle of the page about “the” Jesus, don’t you think he’d add an epithet “Jesus bar-whatever”, as other writers do? It looks to me like it is the mythicists who tie themselves into knots here and elsewhere.
…and it never even occurred to you that “the” Jesus Paul was referring to was the architect and high priest of YHWH’s temple and the Platonic archetype of the human soul?
You know, the same one that Zechariah had written about a few centuries earlier and that Philo had just been re-popularizing as a manifestation of the Logos?
What makes you think that some random schmuck wandering the streets is a better fit in Paul’s mind for “the” Jesus than…well…you know? The Jesus?
b&
>
No, of course not. What he does is the extact opposite: name Jesus as the Logos. That is, Philo had his Logos, and observed that the Jesus in Zechariah is an earlier development of the same theme.
…and more, of course….
Cheers,
b&
>