Why The Gospels Are Myth

[Joshpantera]

Tim wrote: 

 

"I know of no scholar who proposes the idea that Jesus was some kind of “amalgam of various people”, mainly because there is no evidence that I know of to indicate anything like this. And we know what that kind of evidence looks like. In the later stories of King Arthur there is a story about him winning a great victory at Badon Hill and also a story about him being betrayed while away from Britain campaigning against the Roman Emperor. But when we examine the origins of these stories we find the Battle of Badon one was originally told about Ambrosius Aurelianus and the betrayed while in Rome story was originally told about Magnus Maximus. Both of these figures were Romano-British leaders in the fourth and fifth centuries, so at least some of the Arthur legends are amalgams of earlier stories. This means it could be that there was no “Arthur” at all and that he is simply an amalgam of several figures from the time of the fall of the Empire.

We have nothing like that for Jesus. I’ve only ever come across this “Jesus as an amalgam of several people” presented as a serious idea in discussions like this. Though when I’ve asked what evidence suggests this, I’ve never been given anything. It seems like a way to accept that the stories probably had a historical basis of some kind while avoiding a single historical Jesus. Some people really seem to want to find a way to avoid that conclusion."

 

Tim, I'm posting this again here because it's relevant when considering claims that any one makes about the "real" Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. And also about Jesus as an amalgamation of different people. 

 

Here's the entire debate: http://www.debate.org/debates/The-historical-Jesus-Christ-was-a-doomsday-cult-leader/2/

 

And here's some of the relevant summaries of the debate from the winner who argued against the "real" Jesus as an apocalyptic cult leader:

 

 

I said I would remind my opponent of all the arguments he dropped in the last round. Here we go.

Dropped:

1) John's beliefs are the EXACT same as a real tribe, the Essenes, whose beliefs are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essenes believed in BAPTISM to wipe away sin, asceticism (fasting), AND that the world would soon come to an end. If John the Baptist and Jesus are based on real people, it seems obvious that John must have gotten his beliefs about baptism and fasting from somewhere. Obviously, the Essenes are the perfect candidates. So if John completely mimicked their first two beliefs, why wouldn't he mimic their apocalyptic beliefs as well. Thus, why should we not believe that John was the apocalyptic and not Jesus? It fits with his other beliefs.

2) Jesus' followers completely differed from those of John. In Mark 2:18, John's followers are fasting and Jesus' are not. We can clearly see whose followers were following in the footsteps of the Essenes.

3) According to one of the Gnostic gospels, the Gospel of Philip, Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers. Since Jesus did not deny himself the pleasures of the flesh, he clearly differed in beliefs from John and his ascetic apocalyptic followers.

4) People often confused Jesus with John according to Mark 8:27-28. "On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist."" When the gospel authors took random quotes from quote books (like "Q"), they obviously made the same mistake. Or else the gospel authors borrowed from oral tradition, which would also be corrupted by people confusing Jesus with John. The concession of this point is HUGE. The gospels themselves prove that people confused Jesus with John.

5) Robert W. Funk and most Biblical scholars (two thirds of them) believe that Jesus was not predicting apocalypse when he predicted the coming of the "Kingdom of God." Instead, they believe he meant this in the Gnostic sense: that people would achieve paradise here on Earth through salvation of the soul by righteous practices. Two thirds of Jesus scholars believe that: the historical Jesus was merely a holy man and John the Baptist was the apocalyptic.

This takes out all but one of my opponent's quotes.

6) The concession of #5 only leaves my opponent one apocalyptic passage in Mark 8:34. I showed that in this passage, Jesus refers to himself and the Messiah as different people (so the true speaker probably wasn't Jesus, but John). My opponent answers this with a "Jesus scholar" who claims that Jesus did not consider himself the Messiah. We only have to go back 4 lines to see this isn't true: "Peter answered, "You are the Messiah."Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him."" Lastly, Mark 8:34 begins with an exhortation to the audience to "deny themselves." This is yet more evidence that the doomsday predictions in the New Testament are false attributions of quotes from John the Baptist (or another ascetic apocalyptic preacher), since we saw that Jesus did not ask his followers to fast or deny themselves (Mark 2:18).

ALL of the above arguments were dropped.
 

Con thus doesn't defend his original apocalyptic claims from the New Testament. As such, CON HAS NO BIBLICAL EVIDENCE LEFT AT THE END OF THE ROUND PROVING A DIRECT QUOTE FROM JESUS THAT WAS APOCALYTPIC. He thus clearly fails to meet the burden of proof, especially with all his complaining that everything has to be proven by primary sources....

 

== Jesus as an amalgamation ==

This argument has been dropped the entire round. Many Talmudic scholars, like Hayyim ben Yehoshua, believe Jesus was based on a number of false messiahs who were all crucified, such as Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin. Christians have many responses to this argument (and deny that any of these people were Jesus), but my opponent never ventures any. Yeishu ben Pandeira, who was branded a sorcerer by the Jews, according to Talmudic writings, had two of Jesus's disciples: Matthew and Thaddeus. If you add in enough other false messiahs, you can get all 12 disciples' names.

 

Now that ending claim was odd, but the point being that there stands a Jewish idea that the story of Jesus is an amalgamated character. 

[Sextus]

Tim, I'm posting this again here because it's relevant when considering claims that any one makes about the "real" Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. And also about Jesus as an amalgamation of different people.

 

Here's the entire debate: http://www.debate.org/debates/The-historical-Jesus-Christ-was-a-doomsday-cult-leader/2/

 

*Snip*

Now that ending claim was odd, but the point being that there stands a Jewish idea that the story of Jesus is an amalgamated character.

Wow. All that “debate” proved is that if people don’t really know what they’re talking about they’ll just vote the side that appeals to them as the “winner”. I’ve come across ApostateAbe on other fora and he generally knows his stuff. But the so-called “winner” in that so-called “debate”? Holy crap. It would take me hours to detail exactly how much they get wrong. And I don’t mean just a little bit wrong. They cite Richard Dawkins, a biologist, on the Bible. Then they refer to some online nobody calling themselves “Hayyim ben Yehoshua” as a “Biblical scholar” and base most of their arguments on the confused and error-laden nonsense in their online article. And they repeat total nonsense like “Mithra had twelve disciples and died and then rose after three days”.

 

Sorry, but I really don’t have to the time to unpick a cluster of utter garbage like that, at least not in detail. If there was something in that fester of confusion that you found convincing feel free to highlight it and I’ll explain what I mean, but mountains of bollocks like that are just not worth the effort, sorry.

[Sextus]

So, as interesting as the debate is, what does it really matter? Jesus is dead and it is easy to debunk the Bible and demonstrate the fact that Christianity is not true. I think that's where our focus should be.

Where people here want to put their focus is up to them. As a rationalist with a background in ancient history and about 30 years of research into this subject and about 15 years of analysing the relative strengths of the Mythicist thesis and the mainstream historical view, my focus is on people understanding this subject and not latching on to fringe ideas because they find them appealing emotionally.

 

Anyway, I would love to see this discussion turn back to Richard Carrier's video. Sextus doesn't like the guy and he claims that the video I started this thread with is "more crap",basically, from Dr. Carrier. I find the information presented in the video very interesting and rather non-controversial.

Since I’m not prepared to do a point by point debunking of everything Carrier says in an one our + presentation, tell me what elements you found convincing and I’ll give you the more mainstream perspective. Because Carrier is certainly not mainstream.

 

I may well take the time to watch it again today. It's been a while and I need a refresher. As for Dr. Carrier, I would love to know if I should change my opinion, and why. I don't currently share the low opinion Sextus has of Dr. Carrier, but I'm open to hearing why I too should have a low opinion of the man.

The low opinion I have of the man and the fact that I disagree with his conclusions are two very different things. I find the man a fatuous, self-aggrandising narcissist with delusions of grandeur, if anyone wants to know. But that’s got nothing to do with my problems with his conclusions. As I note above, I’m happy to discuss anything he says in that video that you think was significant, convincing or swayed your opinion one way or the other.

[Sextus]

What I found interesting about the video was the info on chiasm and Markan sandwiches. I actually went to a Christian bookstore over the weekend with my mother and looked at about 10 commentaries on Mark. I couldn't find any mention of chiasms or Markan sandwiches. That confused me because the chiasms would seem to be critical to understanding the author's message.

You won't find books of critical scholarship in Christian bookstores. The kinds of studies that look at things like the use of chiastic structure in gMark tend to be found in major research libraries.

 

It would be interesting to see if this structure could help us reconstruct the original wording of Mark before the errors and forgeries. I suppose historians have already thought of this angle.

I can't quite understand what you're saying here. What "original wording of Mark"? And what "errors and forgeries"?

[FreeThinkerNZ]

 

 

I find the man a fatuous, self-aggrandising narcissist with delusions of grandeur, if anyone wants to know.

 

Ok, ok, we get it, lol.  And no, I don't think any of us particularly wanted to know.  For someone who claims that his view of the man is completely separate from his disagreement with his conclusions, you sure are unconvincing on that score.  Why not just stick to disagreeing with the conclusions? (Rhetorical question).

[Sextus]

 

I find the man a fatuous, self-aggrandising narcissist with delusions of grandeur, if anyone wants to know.

 

Ok, ok, we get it, lol.  And no, I don't think any of us particularly wanted to know.  For someone who claims that his view of the man is completely separate from his disagreement with his conclusions, you sure are unconvincing on that score.  Why not just stick to disagreeing with the conclusions? (Rhetorical question).

 

Yes, that one sentence, with no elaboration and a repeated stress on my interest in sticking to the arguments, was totally over the top. Bad me.

I disagreed with his conclusions for several years before I had enough to do with him to have any kind of opinion on him as a person. That came much later.

 

I'm only interested in any of his conclusions that people want to discuss here. As I said.

[Storm]

If my understanding regarding the creation of many of the books of the bible is accurate, then it is my understanding that these books have been written many years after the supposed events that "occurred" and that the oral traditions of these stories eventually became what ended up being written and is what constitutes what we now have as the books of the bible (in most cases).

 

So, the gospels have been confirmed to have been written decades after Jesus supposedly existed and that these stories and words attributed to him are the passed on traditions of him. As Joshpantera mentioned above, the gospel of John does indicate that some confused Jesus and John the Baptist. How does this not add any question to the possibility that Jesus was an amalgamation? We live in a society of instant information, but that was not the case then. Word of mouth was the main source of information, and we known that as information gets passed from person to person, that information gets changed based on the perceptions and extent that the person who is sharing it understood it and heard it.  So how do scholars deal with the fact that they are dealing with stories and ideas that have very likely been exaggerated and personally reinterpreted and likely added to over such a long period of time?

 

How can it be determined that these events and stories actually happened? How can you make a legitimate scholarly determination that someone existed based on stories and retellings of things that clearly humans have a propensity of changing and making fit a particular agenda or idea?

 

You have acknowledged that few contemporary sources exist that indicate that Jesus existed. Even if Josephus' reference to James the brother of Jesus is true, how can it be known that James really was the brother of Jesus? We cant know. We can assume that people generally tell the truth, but from what I understand about people, is that they do lie and they do exaggerate things and use specific information to create a specific persona and identity for themselves. I am not claiming that James did this, but we know that this is a characteristic that humans can exhibit. It would certainly lend credence to someone to have the title of Jesus' brother to create a position of authority and to establish "dominance" in a particular situation. My understanding of human nature leads me to apply logic to this situation and think that James had a motive and a "legitimate reason" to make such a claim to be Jesus' brother. Religious zealots trying to distinguish themselves as some sort of "legitimate" spiritual authority is a common trait among religions and this particular trait still occurs today. So why would I not conclude that it may very well have been occurring then?

 

These are simply some of my thoughts on the subject. I am open and willing to accept that Jesus was a real person, but I find that my limited understanding of ancient times and how the gospels came about leads me in the other direction at this point. But not convincingly enough to declare that I am a myther.

[directionless]

 

What I found interesting about the video was the info on chiasm and Markan sandwiches. I actually went to a Christian bookstore over the weekend with my mother and looked at about 10 commentaries on Mark. I couldn't find any mention of chiasms or Markan sandwiches. That confused me because the chiasms would seem to be critical to understanding the author's message.

You won't find books of critical scholarship in Christian bookstores. The kinds of studies that look at things like the use of chiastic structure in gMark tend to be found in major research libraries.

 

It would be interesting to see if this structure could help us reconstruct the original wording of Mark before the errors and forgeries. I suppose historians have already thought of this angle.

I can't quite understand what you're saying here. What "original wording of Mark"? And what "errors and forgeries"?

 

On the "original wording of Mark" here is what I mean:

We know that the verses at the end of Mark that inspired the snake handling churches was not original because the earliest manuscripts don't have these verses. There are probably other verses that were inserted or modified that we might not know about. If the entire gospel of Mark is a chiasm enclosing smaller chiasms, then it would make sense that any deviation from this chiastic structure would indicate a modification of the original text.

 

I have been trying to find more information on the overall chiastic structure of Mark that Carrier showed in one of his slides, but so far I haven't found anything on the internet. Maybe I misunderstood what Carrier was saying.

[mymistake]

 

On the "original wording of Mark" here is what I mean:

We know that the verses at the end of Mark that inspired the snake handling churches was not original because the earliest manuscripts don't have these verses. There are probably other verses that were inserted or modified that we might not know about. If the entire gospel of Mark is a chiasm enclosing smaller chiasms, then it would make sense that any deviation from this chiastic structure would indicate a modification of the original text.

 

I have been trying to find more information on the overall chiastic structure of Mark that Carrier showed in one of his slides, but so far I haven't found anything on the internet. Maybe I misunderstood what Carrier was saying.

 

 

Perhaps you mean stuff like this:

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark01.html

"Ehrman (1996, p72-5) makes a strong case that the phrase "Son of God" in v1 is a later interpolation."

 

further down . . .

 

"In sum, the historical fact of Jesus' origin in Nazareth cannot be deduced from this passage (or anywhere else in Mark, since the place-name "Nazareth" is never used).  "Nazareth" only crops up later in the tradition, in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, both of whom copied Mark, and in John, who also appears to have known Mark's gospel. Here in Mark 1:9, its only appearance in the Gospel, it appears to have been interpolated." 

 

It's full of stuff like that.

[Orbit]

I don't think either proposition can be known or proved, whether historical or myth. But what can be known is that this historical/mythical figure was not the son of God. The world was supposed to end in his generation, and it didn't, so Jesus clearly was not God.

[directionless]

Perhaps you mean stuff like this:

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark01.html

"Ehrman (1996, p72-5) makes a strong case that the phrase "Son of God" in v1 is a later interpolation."

 

further down . . .

 

"In sum, the historical fact of Jesus' origin in Nazareth cannot be deduced from this passage (or anywhere else in Mark, since the place-name "Nazareth" is never used).  "Nazareth" only crops up later in the tradition, in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, both of whom copied Mark, and in John, who also appears to have known Mark's gospel. Here in Mark 1:9, its only appearance in the Gospel, it appears to have been interpolated." 

 

It's full of stuff like that.

Thanks. There is a long section on chiasms that might go a long way towards educating me about them. I haven't read it yet, but it looks very promising. Here is a quote that seems to say that historians have tried to use the chiastic structure to detect modifications but this method is very subjective.

 

Proposed chiastic structures for the Gospel of Mark have in the past foundered on the inability to spell out rules for constructing them, resulting in great subjectivity and widespread disagreement among scholars over the actual structure of the chiasms.

...

Be aware that such constructions can never be more than reasonably possible. To reconstruct Markan chiasms is to make an assertion that one has access to the mind of the author, always an iffy supposition. Further, the Gospel of Mark has been redacted. Material has been removed, edited, or replaced. At least two verses appear to have dropped out for no reason at all, as my chiastic structures appear to reveal. This makes all chiasms suspect.

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark01.html

[Storm]

If my understanding regarding the creation of many of the books of the bible is accurate, then it is my understanding that these books have been written many years after the supposed events that "occurred" and that the oral traditions of these stories eventually became what ended up being written and is what constitutes what we now have as the books of the bible (in most cases).

 

So, the gospels have been confirmed to have been written decades after Jesus supposedly existed and that these stories and words attributed to him are the passed on traditions of him. As Joshpantera mentioned above, the gospel of John does indicate that some confused Jesus and John the Baptist. How does this not add any question to the possibility that Jesus was an amalgamation? We live in a society of instant information, but that was not the case then. Word of mouth was the main source of information, and we known that as information gets passed from person to person, that information gets changed based on the perceptions and extent that the person who is sharing it understood it and heard it.  So how do scholars deal with the fact that they are dealing with stories and ideas that have very likely been exaggerated and personally reinterpreted and likely added to over such a long period of time?

 

How can it be determined that these events and stories actually happened? How can you make a legitimate scholarly determination that someone existed based on stories and retellings of things that clearly humans have a propensity of changing and making fit a particular agenda or idea?

 

You have acknowledged that few contemporary sources exist that indicate that Jesus existed. Even if Josephus' reference to James the brother of Jesus is true, how can it be known that James really was the brother of Jesus? We cant know. We can assume that people generally tell the truth, but from what I understand about people, is that they do lie and they do exaggerate things and use specific information to create a specific persona and identity for themselves. I am not claiming that James did this, but we know that this is a characteristic that humans can exhibit. It would certainly lend credence to someone to have the title of Jesus' brother to create a position of authority and to establish "dominance" in a particular situation. My understanding of human nature leads me to apply logic to this situation and think that James had a motive and a "legitimate reason" to make such a claim to be Jesus' brother. Religious zealots trying to distinguish themselves as some sort of "legitimate" spiritual authority is a common trait among religions and this particular trait still occurs today. So why would I not conclude that it may very well have been occurring then?

 

These are simply some of my thoughts on the subject. I am open and willing to accept that Jesus was a real person, but I find that my limited understanding of ancient times and how the gospels came about leads me in the other direction at this point. But not convincingly enough to declare that I am a myther.

I guess what I am wondering is whether or not historians and people who study texts and cultures take the human condition into consideration regarding their conclusions. We still behave now in many ways that people would have behaved then. In a less intellectual society such as the new testament times, people were even more likely, imho, to have been deceived and lied to. This is clear from the numerous texts that exist. using pseudonyms to indicate authorship and to try and create a higher level of spiritual authority were common practices as far as I can tell. This is clearly something that has to be considered in the overall framework in deducing things from a historical perspective. Simply because there are texts that mention people isn't a clear 100% proof that someone existed. I know that you have acknowledged this, Tim. But in all of your responses, you only rely on the texts themselves. This is understandable, but I wonder if using the other sciences comes into play and how scholars have used this information in coming to their conclusions.

 

Before you rip me to shreds, please understand that I am a simple guy who has done a small amount of research and I am by no means claiming to be knowledgeable about any of this stuff. I am simply thinking out loud and asking questions in response. I hope I at least am asking legitimate questions and that you are understanding what I am trying to say.

[Overcame Faith]

Before you rip me to shreds, please understand that I am a simple guy who has done a small amount of research and I am by no means claiming to be knowledgeable about any of this stuff. I am simply thinking out loud and asking questions in response. I hope I at least am asking legitimate questions and that you are understanding what I am trying to say.

Storm, do not worry. No one is going to "rip you to shreds" for making a comment and asking questions. In fact, I found your comments interesting and look forward to the response(s).

[directionless]

^ Storm, I was wondering if you might have an example of the sort of thing you are wondering about?

 

I have wondered some about applying cladistics to the existing gospel manuscripts along with other clues such as type of ink, type of parchment, church-political connections between different manuscripts, etc. This might reveal something about the evolution of the gospels? I suppose most of what we have is partial scraps and that would make it difficult.

 

Here is a link to the wikipedia article on cladistics. It seems to me that it might be helpful for tracing the evolution of manuscripts possibly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics

[directionless]

In an effort to keep more on the topic of the thread, here is a thought:

 

As I mentioned earlier, I looked through about 10 commentaries on Mark over the weekend and not one of them mentioned chiasms. I wonder if chiasms are taboo for Christians, because they show that the events in the gospel of Mark are probably not in chronological order and that leads to further questions about whether some of the events are allegorical or even fictitious.

 

Carrier seems to use the chiasmic structure to support his idea that Jesus was not a historical person. That argument doesn't seem very persuasive to me. Knowing about the chiasmic structure makes me appreciate that Mark was carefully composed more like a poem as opposed to a simple chronological record of the life of Jesus from oral history available to the author, but it doesn't persuade me that Jesus never existed.

 

I guess it comes down to what we mean by saying that the gospels are myth.

- Do we mean that the gospels include a few mythical events?

- Do we mean that all the supernatural events were mythical?

- Do we mean that many of the natural events were also mythical?

- Do we mean that the character of Jesus was not based on a real person?

[Storm]

^ Storm, I was wondering if you might have an example of the sort of thing you are wondering about?

 

I have wondered some about applying cladistics to the existing gospel manuscripts along with other clues such as type of ink, type of parchment, church-political connections between different manuscripts, etc. This might reveal something about the evolution of the gospels? I suppose most of what we have is partial scraps and that would make it difficult.

 

Here is a link to the wikipedia article on cladistics. It seems to me that it might be helpful for tracing the evolution of manuscripts possibly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics

I think that I am trying to see how ultimate determination is made regarding whether or not someone is historical by using the totality of information that is available for making that determination. Using ancient texts is only part of the overall equation. One must also consider the culture of that region, the roles that religion played, the general consensus about whether people were educated, or uneducated. How they interacted with each other. Their understanding of human psyche and how that understanding affected their interactions. Then you consider the general human nature of humans and how people lie and exaggerate and make things up. Especially in this context of putting to paper stories that have been circulating by word of mouth and through tradition for such a long period of time. All of these factors play a role in the overall determination of whether or not a particular person may or may not have existed.

 

We can see how our interactions work today and we can extrapolate that information back through time by looking at our means of communication and how we transmit information. We like to sit around in groups and talk about things and oftentimes, in my own experience, we tell stories of our "conquests" and significant events in our life and when others hear those stories, sometimes they try to make their story better and more dramatic and so on. We do this now as humans. Its logical to think that they did this back then as well. And since they had less things to distract them and take their attention away (i.e. TV, internet, laptops, iPad, etc.), they were more likely to be sharing stories and hanging out and making comparisons and one upping each other's stories. And then you add in that there were competing religions in the area and Christians were trying to break from Judaism, it would be logical to assume that there were often "my god is better than your god" situations for stories and the like. It would be easy to see how stories can be exaggerated and changed over a matter of decades. Then add in the unification of pagan and Christian and jewish ideas and you have  a mish mash of crazy and blown up ideas and this affects the stories and traditions that are passed down and eventually led to the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

 

The New Testament era was a society that was highly religious. Because of this, the role of being spiritually "significant" is a powerful motivator to adjust human behavior in order to achieve status and power among the ranks of people of shared faith. Because of this religious aspect, it is important to understand human behavior and how people acted and how they treated others in their religions and things like that.

 

So, like I mentioned, James may have been the brother of Jesus. He may have lied about it to make himself someone of Spiritual heritage and thus making him someone "important" in christianity. There is motive and reason for someone to do this. So simply because Josephus mentions James as the brother of Jesus, this doesn't necessarily mean that he was, in fact, a brother of Jesus. There is no way to know for certain. We are at the mercy of our own beliefs in this regard.

 

I hope this explains it all a little better.

[seven77]

In an effort to keep more on the topic of the thread, here is a thought:

 

As I mentioned earlier, I looked through about 10 commentaries on Mark over the weekend and not one of them mentioned chiasms. I wonder if chiasms are taboo for Christians, because they show that the events in the gospel of Mark are probably not in chronological order and that leads to further questions about whether some of the events are allegorical or even fictitious.

 

Carrier seems to use the chiasmic structure to support his idea that Jesus was not a historical person. That argument doesn't seem very persuasive to me. Knowing about the chiasmic structure makes me appreciate that Mark was carefully composed more like a poem as opposed to a simple chronological record of the life of Jesus from oral history available to the author, but it doesn't persuade me that Jesus never existed.

 

I guess it comes down to what we mean by saying that the gospels are myth.

- Do we mean that the gospels include a few mythical events?

- Do we mean that all the supernatural events were mythical?

- Do we mean that many of the natural events were also mythical?

- Do we mean that the character of Jesus was not based on a real person?

 

My Thoughts:

 

The Gospels are mythos centered around a Christ-figure, a supposed Messiah. That is:

 

•     (in literature) a traditional or recurrent narrative theme or plot structure. (Narrative theme: Redemption through death. Plot: Death and lots of it.)
•     a set of beliefs or assumptions about something. (Assumptions: Christ overcame death. His death atones for our sins. Law no longer in effect.)

I think of the entire NT as being an addition to the much older mythology found in the OT. The NT is a lot like fan fiction or speculative fiction, perhaps some combination of both, based on themes and stories from the OT combined with some Pagan elements of the Hellenistic world.

 

-----------

 

The supernatural events were most likely mythical (ie wishful thinking, embellishment, lifted from older Pagan stories, based on events in nature that we have since lost the context for interpreting, or outright lies). People do not come back from the dead. Babies are not born of virgins. Grown men can't be swallowed by whales. The laws of physics do not permit walking on water without some sort of trickery. Fish and loaves don't magically multiply. Touching a magic man isn't going to stop a lady from bleeding out. I can go on for awhile, but anything that breaks the laws of physics or violates our notion of common sense is not to be believed or taken seriously, imho.

 

Inclusion of supposedly miraculous elements is good storytelling, but to take these elements at face value is foolish. We stop believing in Santa when we understand that the tale isn't within the realm of reason. The same goes for the Tooth Fairy, Bloody Mary, the monster under the bed, and many other such things. Children believe that such things are real because they cannot discern fantasy from reality. Perhaps this is why Christ says this in the Gospels:

 

 

Matthew 18:2-4 (ESV)

 

2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 

--------

 

The question of the natural events being mythical (metaphorical, allegorical, fictional, or highly embellished and slightly fantastic accounts of actual events) are quite likely. I think that Gospels are fan fiction written several years after the original idea came about. There were many sects in the early days of Christianity. The first Christians were Jewish defectors. They still considered themselves Jewish and only separated from the Jewish community because they believed that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah.

 

That was the version of the events that I was taught in my Messianic church and it still makes the most sense to me given what I know of church history. (Which isn't much and is by no means authoritative.) Jesus' Jewishness is emphasized in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. Luke was the Jewish-tinged Gospel written to address the Pagan converts. John was written much later and is the source for much of the doctrine that would be put together later by various councils and various sects. The Epistles were actually among the earliest writings of the church.

 

The Epistles seem out of step with the ideas and themes expressed in the Gospels. Paul talks very little about Jesus', says nothing of His earthly ministry and spends a lot of time on trivialities that were particular to the audiences that he was supposedly addressing. (For more on this point, I suggest this article.)

 

I suspect that the NT is not based around a literal Jesus figure who did all of this amazing stuff, but is instead based upon the mythos of some Hellenistic splinter groups of the first century Jewish church. Some of these groups were likely Jewish. Some attracted the sick, poor, widowed and the like. Others attracted women and some were egalitarian and reliant upon oral traditions that were emphasized via storytelling, singing and poetic performance aka the Gospels.

 

The death of Jesus is a passion play. Other faiths and cultures use passion plays to pass along stories of faith. The passion play originated in the Greek and Roman tragedy tradition. It is likely that the Hellenized Jews and the Pagans that later joined their movement were very familiar with theatrical tragedies and viewed them as entertainment as well as informative. Whether they believed the events depicted literally took place mattered very little. These stories depicted things that weren't earthly. They were filled with philosophical metaphor, meant to convey meanings beyond what we would consider in our modern mindsets.

 

Many ancient Greek and Roman myths were heavily steeped in nature and were attempts to explain things such as the precession of the stars, the cycle of seasons, planting, harvesting, warfare, birth, death, etc. I view the Christian mythos through this lens as well. (If you've not seen "Zeitgeist", give the first part a view here. Many of Joseph's theories are iffy, but the content is a good introduction and jumping off point for further investigation in this area. Also, I highly recommend the book "The Alphabet Vs. The Goddess" if you are wanting a thorough and entertaining take on the adapted mythos of both Judaism and Christianity.)

 

--------

 

Was Jesus based on a real person? Sometimes I think so. Most of the time, I think Jesus was a character based on characters from Pagan mythos and probably some radical street preachers and/or Gandhi-ish types. Each Gospel puts a different spin on the Jesus they present. Is that each author taking liberties with an original character or is it because they are each working from their own archetype? Just because you give authors the same prompt or character to build a story from doesn't mean that they will write the same story.

 

That's the beauty of the works of the Gospels, as far as I see any. They are each unique portrayals of a single character. Out of the fours, I think Mark is probably closest to the actual archetype, the original character of Jesus that was passed around in oral tradition for some time before being committed to paper at some point. Mark is short and Mark is written to be read aloud. Mark seems to include more pauses and prompts and when you read it aloud or listen to it read as dramatized audio or in a small group church setting, it feels very natural, imho. Almost as if the original author just listened to someone tell the stories from memory and wrote them down as the teller was talking.

 

No other NT book has that "feel" to it, imo. Mark seems to be similar to my personal favorite of book the Bible, Ecclesiastes. (Although the teller of Mark is nowhere near as sarcastic and affected as the teller of Ecclesiastes.) Mark also seems similar to the stories found in Genesis and the books of Ruth and Job. It lacks the meat, though. The teller of Mark wasn't much on fleshing out details. They seemed to be rushed and assume that the audience will fill in the blanks. Which the authors of Matthew and Luke did at later dates, each filling in the details that they thought pertinent to their audiences.

 

---------

 

TL;DR Answer:

 

Yes, I think the Gospels are myth, Jesus was based on myth and it is likely that most of the Gospels stem from older oral traditions that lost a lot of their flair and meaning upon being written down.

[Joshpantera]

Tim, I came across that debate when Apostate Abe linked me to it a few years back. There are a lot of asides as you noted. But the point is that Abe was unable to show a clear link to Jesus as an ascetic so basically all of the apocalyptic material could have been from John the Baptist or some other ascetic dooms day apocalyptic preacher and not even from Jesus originally.

 

This goes back to outlining the uncertainty of what would be original to a proposed historical core. As positive claims emerge, they tend to get hammered with counter arguments and basically I don't know of any one successfully showing who the real historical Jesus was which still remains illusive.....

[Blood]

Sextus, on 28 Sept 2014 - 10:09 PM, said:

 

Quote

"Christ Jesus" (Messiah/Savior) was appointed Son of God through his resurrection in order to save the Gentiles.

 

“To save the Gentiles”? You seem to be reading in some very weird soteriology in there in claiming Jesus was only to “save the Gentiles”. Because Romans 1:16 makes it clear that this was not the case. But anyway …

 

Quote

So the Messiah is a god, co-equal to "God the Father" -- a completely unknown and blasphemous concept to a first century Jew.

 

Woah – hold your horses there partner! The “messiah is god”? Pardon? “co-equal to God the Father”? What? Where is any of that in this passage?! You’re seeing very Christian things in this Jewish statement that are simply not there. On the contrary, what we see here is an adoptionist Christology where Jesus becomes the “Son of God” (that’s the Jewish Messiah) by appointment BY God. That’s not even close to “co-equal” and is actually counter to the idea of Jesus being God. So, no.

 

 

 

Sextus,

 

Christian soteriology was indeed very weird. That's why I stressed our disadvantage in trying to understand the religious imagination, ancient or modern, through normative historical arguments. The religionist will always have the upper hand. We have to try to make sense; they don't. 

 

The myth is that "the Jews" had to kill the Messiah so that the Gentiles could be saved. It is this core myth that the anonymous writers of the New Testament are trying to philosophize, rationalize, and historicize. The Jews' "rejection brought reconciliation to the world" through Christ (Romans 11:15). This is not, nor cannot be, a Jewish conception, based as it is on a completely mythical theology in which "the Jews" are not a people so much but as a collective Sacred Executioner to the Christ, who "saves" Gentiles through his resurrection after that mystical event. 

 

Romans 1:16? 


"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile." 

Quote

 

This "salvation" to the Jews by God (not Christ) is meant in past tense, as the rest of the letter makes clear. They were once saved by God, but they transgressed, and "through their transgressions, salvation came to the Gentiles." (Romans 11:11). The only person who can save "some" of the Jews is Paul (Romans 11:14) and, presumably, his fellow "apostles."

 

As for some other statements in Romans ... 

 

Quote

"you died to the Law (of the Torah) through the body of Christ ... we have been released from the Law so that we serve in the new way of the Pneuma, and not in the old way of the written code." (Romans 7)

 

The Law is bad. You must be released from it. The "written code" of the Bible is worthless. Not a Jewish statement. 




Quote

"for the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed" (Romans 8:19)

 

Christians are the children of God, not Jews. Not a Jewish statement. 




Quote

"Christ Jesus who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God" (Romans 8:34)

 

Christ is at the right hand of God. That's a pretty high Christology for the 50s. 




Quote

"Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all..." (Romans 9:5)

 

Uh oh. The Messiah is God over all? But Tim just said it was hundreds of years before people thought that. 




Quote

"It is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring." (Romans 9:8)

 

So Jews are not God's children, Christians (Gentiles) are. If you think a Jew wrote this, you must be high on something. 

 

Quote

"My heart's desire is and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved ... since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." (Romans 10:3-4)

 

"Paul" hopes that one day in the future the "Israelites" may be saved. So, they weren't saved when the Lord Jesus was resurrected. Jews didn't know the righteousness of God. Again, not a Jewish statement. 

 

Quote

"Did they (the Israelites) stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather, because of their transgressions, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater will their full inclusion bring ... inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:11-15)

 

Because of the "Israelites" transgressions, salvation has come to ... wait for it ... the Gentiles! The Jews will be saved, perhaps ... by Jesus? No, Paul!

 

Quote

"Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved ... as far as the gospel in concerned, they are enemies for your sake, but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable." (Romans 11:25-29)

 

So according to Paul, in case the reader wasn't clear, the "Israelites" are your enemies. This is not a Jewish statement. "Israel" will only be saved when all the Gentiles have converted. It isn't clear how that will save Israel, but perhaps "Paul" explained that more clearly in a letter that got lost in the mail. 

[Blood]

In an effort to keep more on the topic of the thread, here is a thought:

 

As I mentioned earlier, I looked through about 10 commentaries on Mark over the weekend and not one of them mentioned chiasms. I wonder if chiasms are taboo for Christians, because they show that the events in the gospel of Mark are probably not in chronological order and that leads to further questions about whether some of the events are allegorical or even fictitious.

 

Carrier seems to use the chiasmic structure to support his idea that Jesus was not a historical person. That argument doesn't seem very persuasive to me. Knowing about the chiasmic structure makes me appreciate that Mark was carefully composed more like a poem as opposed to a simple chronological record of the life of Jesus from oral history available to the author, but it doesn't persuade me that Jesus never existed.

 

I guess it comes down to what we mean by saying that the gospels are myth.

- Do we mean that the gospels include a few mythical events?

- Do we mean that all the supernatural events were mythical?

- Do we mean that many of the natural events were also mythical?

- Do we mean that the character of Jesus was not based on a real person?

 

 

Some theologians indeed seem to be somewhat lax in treating chiastic structure (which is actually how large chunks of the Bible were written, not just Mark or the New Testament), but good academic commentaries usually discuss them. Chiasmus in the New Testament by Nils Wilhelm Lund is still probably the standard book on the NT chiasms, though the date of the book (1942) is a telling sign of how enthusiastic theologians feel about the subject.  

 

 

[Blood]

There are two different streams of thought that keep getting confused in this thread. 

 

The OP, video, and presumed subject of the discussion is "Why the Gospels Are Myth." This is a completely separate question from the historicity of Jesus. 

 

I think almost everyone here, including Sextus, thinks that the gospels are mythical -- that is, they are legendary tales not literally based on historical events, but are didactic theological stories, sayings, and parables, often based on OT scripture or prophecy, intended to advance the ideals of the church(es). It is conceivable that they contain historical elements. "Myth" does not necessarily connote "100% fiction" in every case. 

 

Are the gospels based on a real person, "Jesus, son of Mary"? That's a separate problem. You can't prove a negative. Nobody's trying to. They're simply reading the texts and asking what's possible or probable based on those texts. 

 

 

[Sextus]

If my understanding regarding the creation of many of the books of the bible is accurate, then it is my understanding that these books have been written many years after the supposed events that "occurred" and that the oral traditions of these stories eventually became what ended up being written and is what constitutes what we now have as the books of the bible (in most cases).

That’s a more or less correct summary. Then we have the fact that some of the works we have were at least partially based on works we no longer have (e.g. at least some of the “Q” material) and, in two cases, on one that we do have (gMark).

 

As Joshpantera mentioned above, the gospel of John does indicate that some confused Jesus and John the Baptist. How does this not add any question to the possibility that Jesus was an amalgamation?

Because that’s a very strange misinterpretation of a couple of references. Firstly, these references are not in the gospel of John – they are in the synoptics (Mark, Luke and Matt). Secondly, they are not references to Jesus being “confused with John the Baptist”. They are references to people thinking Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead. These references (Mark 6:14; Matt 14:2 and Luke 9:7) all depict Herod Antipas hearing about Jesus and saying that he must be John resurrected, with gMark and gMatt then using this as a preface to the story of how Herod had John executed. Then we have another set of synoptic references (Mark 8:27-28, Matt 16:13-14 and Luke 9:18-19) where Jesus asks “Who do men say that I am?” and they reply “Elijah, John the Baptist or one of the prophets”.

 

These stories are not about Jesus being somehow “confused” with John the Baptist. They are remnants of a belief that existed outside the Jesus sect that John the Baptist was like one of the old prophets (e.g. Elijah or Jeremiah) and that, like them, he was going to rise from the dead or otherwise appear again just before the apocalypse. This is why we find a reference in Acts to people all the way over in Greece who were followers of John the Baptist and were baptising people in his name, long after John’s execution. It seems his sect survived his death. This means if people believed Jesus was John risen from the dead, the idea of a prophet who had been executed and would came back from the dead as a sign of the impending apocalypse was already around in Jesus’ time. And what do we find after Jesus gets executed? Exactly the same belief arose about him.

 

So these references aren’t support for this rather incoherent idea about Jesus as an amalgam. But they are support for the idea that executed prophets were expected, by some at least, to possibly rise from the dead in the Jewish environment of the time. The stories that arose around Jesus fit his historical context every single time.

 

So how do scholars deal with the fact that they are dealing with stories and ideas that have very likely been exaggerated and personally reinterpreted and likely added to over such a long period of time?

 

How can it be determined that these events and stories actually happened? How can you make a legitimate scholarly determination that someone existed based on stories and retellings of things that clearly humans have a propensity of changing and making fit a particular agenda or idea?

Anyone who has training in the study of pre-modern history deals with these issues all the time. They train for years in universities using historiographical methods of textual analysis and apply the principles of the historical method that historians have been developing for about the last 250 years. These issues are not unique to the question of the historicity of Jesus – anyone who has studied ancient or medieval history at any level higher than high school deals with them constantly. I don’t mean to be rude, but your questions above are a bit like someone who has never studied science asking “How do scientists control for variations in conditions when repeating experiments?” or “How can they be sure their data is valid?”

You have acknowledged that few contemporary sources exist that indicate that Jesus existed. Even if Josephus' reference to James the brother of Jesus is true, how can it be known that James really was the brother of Jesus? We cant know.

As I keep repeating, people who want to “know” and to “prove” things in ancient history are usually going to be disappointed. Historians deal in parsimony – a rational, evidence-based assessment of what is most likely, based on the widest range of relevant evidence and avoiding suppositions where possible. In other words, to put it very broadly, they apply Occam’s Razor.

This idea that we can and should reject any idea unless it can be “proven” and we “know” it to be true is total nonsense as far as historiography is concerned. Yet it’s an amateur misunderstanding that plagues this topic constantly. I’ll say it again – historical analysis is an assessment of relative likelihoods. People who can’t handle that level of uncertainty should probably stick to mathematics or physics.

 

We can assume that people generally tell the truth, but from what I understand about people, is that they do lie and they do exaggerate things and use specific information to create a specific persona and identity for themselves. I am not claiming that James did this, but we know that this is a characteristic that humans can exhibit. It would certainly lend credence to someone to have the title of Jesus' brother to create a position of authority and to establish "dominance" in a particular situation. My understanding of human nature leads me to apply logic to this situation and think that James had a motive and a "legitimate reason" to make such a claim to be Jesus' brother. Religious zealots trying to distinguish themselves as some sort of "legitimate" spiritual authority is a common trait among religions and this particular trait still occurs today. So why would I not conclude that it may very well have been occurring then?

Well, you can go back to what I said above about historical analysis being a matter of an assessment of relative likelihoods. Yes, some people do sometimes lie and could therefore possibly be lying when they say they are someone’s brother. But this is rare. Most of the time, someone who says they are someone else’s brother are saying this because it’s true. In fact, if we took millions of examples of people saying they are someone’s brother, in 99.9999% of cases it would be true.

 

So why would we simply assume in any given case that it was a lie, given that it’s usually true? Simply coming up with a possible motive (“his supposed brother was a spiritual figure, so it gave him status”) isn’t good enough – we can dream up all kinds of motives that are simply plausible. We would need some evidence that the person was lying. Because given that 99.999% of the time this fairly ordinary statement is true, a merely conjectural motive isn’t enough on its own to support the idea the claim is a lie .

 

So you need to come up with some evidence this particular claim was a lie. Otherwise all you are doing is using baseless conjecture to try to dismiss evidence for no good reason at all. You could play that game to dismiss pretty much anything and everything in pre-modern history if you tried hard enough, which is clearly not rational.

[Joshpantera]

Sextus wrote: "So these references aren’t support for this rather incoherent idea about Jesus as an amalgam. But they are support for the idea that executed prophets were expected, by some at least, to possibly rise from the dead in the Jewish environment of the time. The stories that arose around Jesus fit his historical context every single time." 

 

I don't think the con in the debate didn't understand what you've just explained, Tim.

 

His point was that sayings that were floating around from John the Baptist were likely confused with sayings from Jesus, after they were both dead, due to the fact that some people had associated John and Jesus for reasons stated in the verses sited. And he argued this because John was an ascetic doomsday personality but Jesus didn't appear to be ascetic at all. So the doomsday material, per the argument, is likely not from Jesus because it's ascetic doomsday material. That doesn't appear to be a strange misinterpretation.

 

 People often confused Jesus with John according to Mark 8:27-28. "On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist."" When the gospel authors took random quotes from quote books (like "Q"), they obviously made the same mistake. Or else the gospel authors borrowed from oral tradition, which would also be corrupted by people confusing Jesus with John. The concession of this point is HUGE. The gospels themselves prove that people confused Jesus with John.

 

Wouldn't people thinking John had resurrected as Jesus, first of all, be a confusion of the two as if they were one, and secondly, be cause to have their different sayings confused later on down the road due to the close association that the two previously shared which would have possibly feed the quote books or oral tradition that the later Gospel writers drew their sources from? 

 

[Storm]

As I keep repeating, people who want to “know” and to “prove” things in ancient history are usually going to be disappointed. Historians deal in parsimony – a rational, evidence-based assessment of what is most likely, based on the widest range of relevant evidence and avoiding suppositions where possible. In other words, to put it very broadly, they apply Occam’s Razor.

This idea that we can and should reject any idea unless it can be “proven” and we “know” it to be true is total nonsense as far as historiography is concerned. Yet it’s an amateur misunderstanding that plagues this topic constantly. I’ll say it again – historical analysis is an assessment of relative likelihoods. People who can’t handle that level of uncertainty should probably stick to mathematics or physics.

and 

 

Anyone who has training in the study of pre-modern history deals with these issues all the time. They train for years in universities using historiographical methods of textual analysis and apply the principles of the historical method that historians have been developing for about the last 250 years. These issues are not unique to the question of the historicity of Jesus – anyone who has studied ancient or medieval history at any level higher than high school deals with them constantly. I don’t mean to be rude, but your questions above are a bit like someone who has never studied science asking “How do scientists control for variations in conditions when repeating experiments?” or “How can they be sure their data is valid?” 

 and 

 

Well, you can go back to what I said above about historical analysis being a matter of an assessment of relative likelihoods. Yes, some people do sometimes lie and could therefore possibly be lying when they say they are someone’s brother. But this is rare. Most of the time, someone who says they are someone else’s brother are saying this because it’s true. In fact, if we took millions of examples of people saying they are someone’s brother, in 99.9999% of cases it would be true.

So why would we simply assume in any given case that it was a lie, given that it’s usually true? Simply coming up with a possible motive (“his supposed brother was a spiritual figure, so it gave him status”) isn’t good enough – we can dream up all kinds of motives that are simply plausible. We would need some evidence that the person was lying. Because given that 99.999% of the time this fairly ordinary statement is true, a merely conjectural motive isn’t enough on its own to support the idea the claim is a lie .

 

I copied all the above quotes because they all tie into what my response will entail 

 

I understand what you are saying and it makes perfect and logical sense. But you failed to answer my question because I am not sure you may have understood what I am asking in regards to human behavior and how people respond and act in certain situations. I have clearly seen that you are proficient in historical literature and I can deduce that you have a strong grasp of history in regards to the new testament era and its range of beliefs. However, that is only part of the total picture needed to gather all the pertinent information in being able to make a clearly deduced conclusion regarding the authenticity of Jesus. The other aspect of this whole line of questioning isnt to ask elementary questions. Its to ask how much particular weight the topic of human behavior and how people live and react to things in a given set of circumstances was given to this conclusion that you and other scholars have reached. 

 

I am a professional people profiler. I work in the criminal justice field as a criminal profiler. I also am a counselor and I work with offenders to modify behaviors and to help them with Addictions issues. I have a degree in Counseling and Psychology and I would say that its not a far fetched statement to say that I am more than adequately versed in human behavior and how people work in given situations. I understand human behavior pretty well. 

 

That being said, I also spent more than 30 years of my life heavily involved in Christianity and with associated religious activity. I also have a good understanding about how people work within that paradigm and how fanatical many people can get in regards to Christianity. 

 

The reason I bring this up is simply because you mentioned that Historians work in parsimony and that they apply parsimony towards their conclusions and using Occam's Razor is an adequate and responsible way to reach these conclusions. This fits entirely into my original line of questions in regards to how Human behavior plays a role in this final deduction. 

 

We know that people who are heavily into religious communities and belief are often have distorted worldviews and that they have personal agendas. Humans have typically used any advantage they can find to get ahead of their peers. This is especially true in the religious arena. This behavior is still typical today. It can be easily extrapolated back into history because it is not really a type of behavior that has evolved significantly throughout human history. I would even argue so much as to say that this type of behavior was more likely to happen in those times due to the significance of religion and the desire to be a person of power and authority in one's chosen religious sect. With the amount of information regarding particular beliefs and ceremonies and other related religious stuff being so limited and often only coming from the leaders of particular sects and religions, the onus on being a spiritually strong person and having some advantage spiritually plays into the passing of stories and traditions. 

 

You talk about likelihood and whether or not something is very likely and that whatever the most logical and likely things that would be true about a given situation, is likely the most accurate answer (Occam's razor).

 

Human behavior was certainly more primitive in the new testament era and people were illiterate and easily manipulated into things simply because there wasn't a major proliferation of information for them to draw conclusions from. Add to that the high dominance of religiosity that existed in the culture and the numerous sects and religions competing in that area at that time, and you have the perfect whirlwind for deception, exaggeration, con-artistry and gullibility for many people. This is what I am talking about. This is the most likely scenario. So how have scholars like yourself taken this into account and used this towards coming to your logical conclusions about the nature of a real Jesus or a mythological Jesus? We know, and you basically agreed with, the premise that the gospels and the other books of the bible were likely written forms of stories and traditions that had been in circulation over decades, being a strong part of this previously mentioned whirlwind that was volatile and prominent. That information, coupled with the fact that there are few contemporary references to Jesus and who he was, wouldn't that be a sign that the application of Occam's razor would be to default to the mythological rather than the real in regards to a Jesus figure, at least in the realm of human behavior and attitudes?

 

[Overcame Faith]

Perhaps this article will be of some interest on the topic:

 

'Jesus NEVER existed': Writer finds no mention of Christ in 126 historical texts and says he was a 'mythical character'

 

Historical researcher Michael Paulkovich has claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was a ‘mythical character’ and never existed.

 

The controversial discovery was apparently made after he found no verifiable mention of Christ from 126 writers during the ‘time of Jesus’ from the first to third centuries.

 

He says he is a fictional character invented by followers of Christianity to create a figure to worship.

 

Full article:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2776194/Jesus-never-existed-Writer-finds-no-mention-Christ-126-historical-texts-says-mythical-character.html