Why The Gospels Are Myth

[Overcame Faith]

 

 

See "Arguments for partial authenticity" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Arguments_in_favor_of_partial_authenticity Carry on.

Thanks, but I'm more than familiar with the scholarship on the TF. The textual and stylistic evidence makes it pretty clear that the additions to the passage are the ones that bolster Christian theological claims about Jesus - i.e. that he was the Messiah and that he rose from the dead. They don't support the idea that he was somehow "a fiction". Quite the opposite.

I posted that for the lurkers.Carry on.

And thank you for posting this for the lurkers. They might find it helpful to put some things in context.

[Sextus]

Just two documents that we know have been edited by Church leaders in order to make it look like Jesus was real.  One of them is the Book of Galatians which was written by Paul who's entire career was based on the Jesus religion.

Sorry - we "know" that Galatians was "edited by Church leaders in order to make it look like Jesus was real"? How do we "know" this? Evidence please.

 

So Paul could have lied, could have been mistaken or could have been edited.

There are three mere "maybes" in that sentence. "Could have"? Yes. Or when he makes his passing mention of meeting Peter and James he could have been ... telling the truth. Why not include that "maybe"? Then why not examine the context to see which is most likely? You have a strange habit of starting by assuming what you'd like to be true. That's not a very rational way of doing things. In Galatians 1 Paul is trying to argue that he didn't get his teachings from the leaders in Jerusalem. So he assures his readers that he didn't meet with them when he was there soon after his conversion. But then he has to add that he did meet Peter and James. This admission weakens the point he's trying to make. So the idea that he is somehow "lying" here makes no sense.

 

Nor does the idea that this was somehow added to the text later "in order to make it look like Jesus was real". Why would anyone need to do this? No-one doubted that Jesus existed prior to the eighteenth century, so who was adding this "to make it look like Jesus was real", when and why?

 

 

The other document was written by Josephus who was basically impartial to Christianity.  Josephus claims that James had a brother named Jesus.  It is implied that Jesus was dead and Jesus had been anointed.  But again there are several question marks.  Is this an edit Church leaders made later?  Was Josephus misinformed?

The idea that this reference to Jesus - in Antiquties XX.9.1 - is somehow an interpolation also doesn't work. In the case of the interpolations in the TF we have ample evidence that they are later additions: they don't fit with what we know about Josephus' beliefs, they serve a clear Christian apologetic purpose and there is variant textual evidence that shows they are later additions to what Josephus originally wrote. We have zero indications of this kind for the reference in Antiquties XX.9.1. On the contrary, the linguistic evidence - the fact that the key phrase uses a Semitic construction of a kind peculiar to Josephus - indicates it is original to his text. And the textual evidence also indicates its authenticity. This passage is referred to three times by Origen and he quotes the key phrase - "brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah" - each time. Origen was writing too early for the text to have been altered by Christian scribes by this stage, so this tells us the passage and the key element in it was original to Josephus.

 

Put Galatians 1:19 and Antiquties XX.9.1 together and you get a historical Jesus.

[Overcame Faith]

Here is something else for the lurkers.  I found this video very  helpful to understand the issues being discussed on this thread since, like many of you, I am not all that familiar with the debate.  This is a video of a debate between Zeba Crook, Professor of Religious Studies, and Richard Carrier, Historian and Philosopher.  The debate is, of course, whether Jesus was a man or myth.  They explain themselves very well since they are in front of an audience and they work very hard to make sure the audience understands the concepts which they discuss.  They are also very civil with each other and they make it fairly clear on which points they agree and on which they disagree.

 

I hope you find it helpful to help you further put the issues being discussed on this thread in context.

 

[Blood]

 

Your question is purely an argument from personal incredulity.

No, it's an argument from parsimony. We have evidence of first century Jewish men claiming to be the Messiah and being acclaimed as such. We have evidence of Jewish prophets proc,aiming the coming apocalyptic kingdom of God. We have evidence of a belief in both a coming general resurrection and of executed prophets being thought to rise from the dead as a precursor of this. Put all that together and you have a context in which an executed prophet who was thought to be the Messiah could also be thought to have risen from the dead. Enter Christianity. Your "dying and rising Messiah", on the other hand, doesn't have this evidential context and is pure suppostion. Occam's Razor doesn't favour hypotheses that are based on pure supposition.

 

And it doesn't help solve the Jesus problem at all, since there is no precedent in Judaism for not only a "dying and rising god" but also for turning a man into the co-equal to God.

But that later stage of the progression didn't happen within Judaism. It only arose much later, after the Jesus sect had sufficiently drifted from its Jewish roots. And we do have precendents for exalted mortals being recognised as gods in the non-Jewish context in which the Jesus sect then found itself a part. Again, this idea has an evidential context. Your's doesn't. And Occam's Razor comes into play.

 

 

And of course, the idea that the Jews would commit Deicide, and that this was all "predicted" in the Law and Prophets, would have been insane, unthinkable blasphemy to a first century Jew.

The people who first came up with idea of Jesus as a sacrifice and his death as atonement didn't believe he was God. You're reading later developments into the earlier material.

 

 

"But that later stage of the progression didn't happen within Judaism. It only arose much later, after the Jesus sect had sufficiently drifted from its Jewish roots. And we do have precendents for exalted mortals being recognised as gods in the non-Jewish context in which the Jesus sect then found itself a part. Again, this idea has an evidential context. Your's doesn't. And Occam's Razor comes into play."

 

Ah, but this is quite begging the question. We need to first prove that there actually were "Jewish roots" (in reality, not LXX exegesis) before we can posit a supposedly "later progression" that drifted from those roots. What you are calling "later developments" may actually be "early developments," but it doesn't help your theory at all if they were. You're inventing an evidential context for your rationalization of the myth that the texts don't support at all. The texts support a bizarre syncretic Messiah-Savior-God figure "killed by the Jews," something utterly alien to the cultural context of 1st century Palestine. Occam's Razor cuts both ways. 

[sdelsolray]

 

We don't need to know who wrote a piece of fiction in order to realize that an idea is fiction.

You've "realised" it's fiction? I can't see any basis for this "realisation". You seem to have simply assumed it's fiction because this idea appeals to you emotionally. Sorry, but I'm a rationalist, so emotional assertions without an evidential basis don't do much for me. Where is the evidence and reasoning that supports your claims?

 

Perhaps you assume too much.  Perhaps.

 

Portions of the Jesus account are mundane, e.g., he walked from one place to another, he spoke to others.  These mundane actions fall within the laws of physics and chemistry (as we understand them) and have been repeated by nearly every human who has ever lived.  Conversely, some of the account is extraordinary, e.g., he walked on water, he rose after dying.  These actions violate the laws of physics and chemistry (as we understand them) and, not surprisingly, no credible evidence exists that any other human has done such extraordinary things.

 

Perhaps poster mymistake was simply referring to these extraordinary accounts when he stated the relevant writings were fiction.  Perhaps.

 

If so, please explain how you "can't see any basis for this...." (your words).  Please also demonstrate how his statement is an idea which "appeals to [mymistake] emotionally." (again, your words).

 

It appears you have failed to distinguish the mundane from the extraordinary, the normal from the Sky Fairy stuff and the typical from the imaginary.  Whether you have done so because it appeals to you emotionally remains to be seen.

[Blood]

 

We don't actually know that the people who wrote the texts actually lived in a culture expecting or not expecting "the Messiah." No information on the gospel writers, their location, their sources, and their motives is available at all. But this idea that they must have actually lived in, or been connected intimately with, Galilee or Palestine, is not at all supported by the gospels.

Where did I say they lived in or were even intimately connnected with Galilee or Palestine? Or that they needed to be?

 

 

Quite the opposite. Mark has no idea where anything is in Galilee and doesn't care. Mark has to explain to his non-Jewish readers the peculiar habits of the Jews in chapter 7. And of course they all write in Greek, not Aramaic, which would be the historical expectation for the vast majority of people in that area. Not to mention that all of their theology and quotations are based on the Septuagint, not the Hebrew Tanakh.

Yes, the gospels seem to have been written in the context of Greek-speaking Jews, "God Fearers" and converts to the new Jesus sect. But the focus, content, message, background and context are all firmly Jewish. 

 

Roman soldiers didn't live in areas where people were "expecting" a Persian savior figure. That doesn't make any sense in their social or cultural context. Yet they venerated Mithras anyway.

Since the only things "Persian" about Mithras were his name, his trousers and his hat, that's not a very good analogy.

 

 

The gospels are not written by, or for, "Greek speaking Jews." That much is obvious from Mark 7 alone. They are written by, and for, Gentiles who are already steeped in exegesis from the Septuagint. They have already evolved the idea that the texts "are our scriptures, not yours," as Justin Martyr would later explain to his Jewish opponent in Dialogue with Trypho. "Our" meaning Gentiles. "Scriptures" meaning the entire Bible, not simply the gospels or New Testament. 

 

Actually, I think the Mithras analogy was quite appropos. The Romans who converted to that religion didn't care about the "historical Mithra" or the Persian context of the god. Do you think that the Gentiles in Rome really cared about the "promised Messiah of the line of King David" in some insignificant Oriental province? Of course not. They cared about the cosmic soteriological figure whom "the Jews" had killed, God had punished, thereby "saving" the Gentiles. All they cared about was the myth, and no "historical Jesus" was needed or necessary for their conversion. And no, this didn't need to "come much later" -- it was right there in 49, when Suetonius mentioned Claudius expelling the Jews because of the instigation of Christ. 

[mymistake]

Sextus, can we do without the personal comments?  I am a rationalist too.  When the demons, angels, Holy Spirit, Satan, flying people, rising from the dead, healing magic, telepathy and so on are in a story these things indicate that the story is fiction.  No appeals to emotion are required.  We are not assuming.

 

Of course the motive, intent and date of writing are not needed to tell if something is fiction.  Otherwise we would have to file the Epic of Gilgamesh as nonfiction.  We would have to file the ancient Egyptian religious writings as nonfiction.  Most works and mythology would have to be moved from fiction to nonfiction if I am wrong.  Surely you don't believe that all the ancient gods and goddesses are real based on these works.

 

 

If you want to actually present an argument that makes sense . . . 

 

Positive claims have the burden of proof.  I simply find the evidence for this "brother of James" to be flimsy and thin.  I've already explained why.

 

 

the writer of gMatt in particular gives good evidence of being very clear on things Jewish. And if Jesus was a Nazarite, how does this fit with Jesus not existing?

 

Isn't Matthew the one who made Jesus ride two donkeys because he didn't understand how Jewish poetry works?  I believe so.

 

And I didn't say Jesus was a Nazarite.  I said maybe the author misunderstood the Nazarite custom and was trying to force it into another prophesy.  As I understand it there is no Old Testament prophesy that says Jesus had to come from Nazareth.  The author of Matthew made it up.

 

I will get to the question of editing when I have more time.

 

 

 

 And the overwhelming majority of people who have devoted their professional careers to studying this stuff agree with me. Perhaps you should look at why you don't find this perfectly sensible, entirely rational and wholly scholarly conclusion easy to accept. Is it rationality that is the cause of this reluctance, or is it emotion? I suspect it's the latter. 

 

I don't care if you have ten billion scholars.  Positive claims have the burden of proof and the evidence for a historical Jesus is flimsy.  Evidence alone is what matters, not the number of scholars who agree.  You are not going to bully me into agreeing with you by painting yourself as rational and accusing me of being irrational unless I change.  Evidence is what we should base our conclusion on.  I accept that a historical Jesus is possible but unless better evidence comes along Jesus remains unlikely.

 

Meanwhile nothing stops an author from writing fictional characters that are just as powerful as the Jesus found in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

[mymistake]

Regarding editing:

 

Titus is forged.  Timothy 1 and 2 are forged.  James, Peter and the books of John were not written by any disciple of Jesus.  Thes 2, Ephesians and Colossians.  The ending to Mark was forged.  The "cast the first stone" parable in John was forged.  Luke 3:22 was altered.  John 5:3-4 is forged.  John 21 is forged.  Paul telling women to be silent in Corinthians is forged.

 

Modern Bible translators have been embarrassed about some of these passages and have been omitting them or marking them with asterisks or footnotes.

 

The Bible contains many errors.

 

1 John 5:7-8 is a huge one.  Somebody went back into the text and forced it to support Trinity.  Did they think God needed help?  Did they think God forgot to mention Trinity?  Somebody was changing scriptures to make them say what they wanted it to say.

 

 

The Great Commission in Matt 16 is also a forgery.  All the early Church fathers quoted it as saying "make disciples in my name" so a Trinitarian tried to help God because God had forgotten something important.

 

 

Galatians 1:18-19, Galatians 2:7-8 and Galatians 4:4 are suspected of being forgeries as well.

 

 

Scholars call this type of forgery "interpolation" so often you will see it referred to by that name.

 

 

 

Of course none of the Bible is a history book.  Every Bible book was written with a religious agenda.  However Josephus is a historian who was writing near the end of the first century.

 

 

On passage in Josephus' work Antiquities of the Jews is widely considered to be a later forgery or interpolation.

 

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Whitson, 379)

http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm

 

 

So Church leaders didn't hesitate to rewrite scripture and history to suit their needs.

[mymistake]

Regarding the author of Matthew's expertise on all things Jewish:

 

Keep in mind some of these mistakes may be things the author of Matthew copied from Mark.  I'm not going to take the time to cross reference Mark to check.  However the author of Matthew had a copy of Mark in front of him and the vast majority of Matthew is simply a strait copy.  It is almost as if Matthew was a critique or a reboot of Mark.

 

Matt 1:23  The author misunderstands the Hebrew word for young maid and forces Jesus to have a virgin birth in order to fulfill a prophesy that wasn't about the Messiah to begin with.  Isaih 7 was a prophesy but it was one that was suppose to be fulfilled in Isaiah's life.  It has nothing to do with Jesus.

 

Matt 2:5-6  The author thinks that the prophesy of Micah means the town of Bethlehem when really it doesn't.  The prophesy of Micah is about a general who will wage war against the Assyrians but the author of Matthew didn't seem to care.

 

Matt 2:15  The author mistakes a reference to the Exodus for a prophesy about Jesus.  He must have read Hosea 11 but not understood it.

 

Matt 2:17-18  The author attempts to turn Jer 31 into a prophesy about Jesus but if you read Jer 31:15-17 it is really about being exiled in Babylon.

 

Matt 2:23   And Jesus came to live in Nazareth so that the prophesy could be fulfilled "He shall be called a Nazarene".   There is no such prophesy.  None.  What is the author of Matthew talking about?  This is one of the author's many attempts at forcing Jesus to fulfill prophesy but the author doesn't seem to know what he is talking about or else he is quoting a book that was later burned as heresy by the Catholic Church.  We can't allow a book to survive if it indicated the Catholic Church isn't the legitimate authority.

 

Matt 12:5  The author quotes a passage that also doesn't seem to exist in the Old Testament.

 

Matt 13:35  The author tries to make Jesus quote Psalm 78 but gets the quote wrong.

 

Do you see the pattern?  The author is going through the Old Testament and adding anything he thinks will fly.

[Sextus]

Ah, but this is quite begging the question. We need to first prove that there actually were "Jewish roots" (in reality, not LXX exegesis) before we can posit a supposedly "later progression" that drifted from those roots. What you are calling "later developments" may actually be "early developments," but it doesn't help your theory at all if they were. You're inventing an evidential context for your rationalization of the myth that the texts don't support at all. The texts support a bizarre syncretic Messiah-Savior-God figure "killed by the Jews," something utterly alien to the cultural context of 1st century Palestine. Occam's Razor cuts both ways.

You keep talking about the earliest Christian texts reflecting some "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God". If there was actually any indication that the Jesus of the earliest strata - the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material - was somehow "God", you might have an argument. But I'm afraid I can't see anything like that. In fact, I can't see anything in that earliest material that a Jew couldn't potentially believe without breaking a sweat (which is why at least some of them did). So can you present your evidence from the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material that you believe depicts Jesus as a "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God"? With the Pauline stuff, please stick to the seven epistles that most scholars accept as genuine: First Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, First Corinthians, Galatians, Second Corinthians and Romans.

[Sextus]

Perhaps poster mymistake was simply referring to these extraordinary accounts when he stated the relevant writings were fiction.  Perhaps.

Looked at in context, he was clearly saying it was all somehow "fiction", both the mundane and the supernatural. He says this is something he's somehow "realised", but hasn't explained how he arrived at this "realisation".

 

If so, please explain how you "can't see any basis for this...." (your words).  Please also demonstrate how his statement is an idea which "appeals to [mymistake] emotionally." (again, your words).

 

It appears you have failed to distinguish the mundane from the extraordinary

No, I haven't. You've just barged into a discussion without bothering to understand what was said previously.

[Sextus]

The gospels are not written by, or for, "Greek speaking Jews."

 

That's a very brave assertion, given that whole books have been written on the various intended audiences of the gospels.

 

That much is obvious from Mark 7 alone.

gMark is pretty obviously aimed at a mostly non-Jewish audience. gMatt, on the other hand, places a lot of emphasis on Jewish prophecy, scripture and ideas - odd if none of its audience had a Jewish background. You can't make an assertion about the intended audiences of the gospels (plural) and then refer to a passage in one gospel. They had differing audiences.

 

 

They are written by, and for, Gentiles who are already steeped in exegesis from the Septuagint.

Which would be very odd for Gentiles that had no interest in or exposure to Judaism.

 

They have already evolved the idea that the texts "are our scriptures, not yours," as Justin Martyr would later explain to his Jewish opponent in Dialogue with Trypho. "Our" meaning Gentiles. "Scriptures" meaning the entire Bible, not simply the gospels or New Testament.

Specific citation please. There was no such thing as the "New Testament" in Justin's time.

 

Actually, I think the Mithras analogy was quite appropos.

No it isn't. Mithraism had zero to do with anything Person apart from Mithras' name, his trousers and his hat. Christianity, on the other hand, was intimately entwined with Jewish ideas, Jewish scriptures, Jewish prophecy and a Jew as its founder and his followers.

[mymistake]

 

Perhaps poster mymistake was simply referring to these extraordinary accounts when he stated the relevant writings were fiction.  Perhaps.

Looked at in context, he was clearly saying it was all somehow "fiction", both the mundane and the supernatural. He says this is something he's somehow "realised", but hasn't explained how he arrived at this "realisation".

 

If so, please explain how you "can't see any basis for this...." (your words).  Please also demonstrate how his statement is an idea which "appeals to [mymistake] emotionally." (again, your words).

 

It appears you have failed to distinguish the mundane from the extraordinary

No, I haven't. You've just barged into a discussion without bothering to understand what was said previously.

 

 

I happen to agree with sdelsolray regarding the extraordinary.  Perhaps you rush to judge too quickly.

 

 

 

How do you arrive at the realization that a person who can appear floating in the sky and speak with a booming voice, somebody who has the power to strike men blind at will, someone who visits the gods in heaven and bargains with them . . . might be fiction.  Gee, that is a conundrum.  Is this person able to speak to us using telepathy?  Can this person hear prayers to him even when we don't see him?  Can he turn invisible?  Don't these traits strike you as fictional?

 

(edit:  Okay I realize I am probably mixing in some of the concepts from Acts but you get the idea.  Paul's Jesus has cosmic powers.)

 

Gandalf the White can ride a horse.  That doesn't make Gandalf into a historic person because fighting a Balrog, coming back to life, shooting magic and all that other fictional stuff is an integrated part of the story.

[Sextus]

Sextus, can we do without the personal comments?

What "personal comments"?

 

I am a rationalist too.  When the demons, angels, Holy Spirit, Satan, flying people, rising from the dead, healing magic, telepathy and so on are in a story these things indicate that the story is fiction.

No, they don't. They simply tell us those particular elements are not historical. Other elements could be historical, which is exactly what is at issue here. And "fiction" means the writer made the whole thing up and knew they were doing so. If you want to say the gospels are wholly fiction, you need to prove that intention as well. Or are you using the word "fiction" some other way here?

 

 

Of course the motive, intent and date of writing are not needed to tell if something is fiction.

Actually, motive and intent most certainly are. 

 

I simply find the evidence for this "brother of James" to be flimsy and thin.  I've already explained why.

Your "explanation" didn't amount to much more than a cluster of "maybes" and wishful thinking about how Galatians 1:19 and Ant. XX9.1 were "possibly" altered for some reason. And I've responded with detailed contextual, linguistic and textual evidence that shows you're almost certainly wrong.

  

Isn't Matthew the one who made Jesus ride two donkeys because he didn't understand how Jewish poetry works?

No, but it looks a bit like he did in some English translations.  

 

And I didn't say Jesus was a Nazarite.  I said maybe the author misunderstood the Nazarite custom and was trying to force it into another prophesy.

We have consistent references to him being from Nazareth, we know from archaeology that there was a village there. We also have a reference to descendants of Jesus' cousins who still lived there in the second century. So, sorry, but all that stacks up better than yet another vague "maybe".

 

I don't care if you have ten billion scholars.  Positive claims have the burden of proof and the evidence for a historical Jesus is flimsy.  Evidence alone is what matters, not the number of scholars who agree.

If I came to a conclusion about something and pretty much everyone in the field who had a far greater grasp of the material than I did disagreed, that would ring an alarm bell for me. But not for you, it seems.

[Sextus]

So Church leaders didn't hesitate to rewrite scripture and history to suit their needs.

Sorry, but that isn't good enough reason to suppose that these two references to James' brother Jesus are interpolations. And I've given you detailed contextual, linguistic and textual reasons that indicate very strongly that they aren't interpolations. You need to deal with those.

[Sextus]

I happen to agree with sdelsolray regarding the extraordinary.  Perhaps you rush to judge too quickly.

 

 

 

How do you arrive at the realization that a person who can appear floating in the sky and speak with a booming voice, somebody who has the power to strike men blind at will, someone who visits the gods in heaven and bargains with them . . . might be fiction.  Gee, that is a conundrum.  Is this person able to speak to us using telepathy?  Can this person hear prayers to him even when we don't see him?  Can he turn invisible?  Don't these traits strike you as fictional?

 

(edit:  Okay I realize I am probably mixing in some of the concepts from Acts but you get the idea.  Paul's Jesus has cosmic powers.)

 

Gandalf the White can ride a horse.  That doesn't make Gandalf into a historic person because fighting a Balrog, coming back to life, shooting magic and all that other fictional stuff is an integrated part of the story.

Tacitus tells us that Vespasian could heal the blind and lame. That doesn't strike me as historical, but it does seem that Tacitus believed it. So was Tacitus writing "fiction"? Is Vespasian therefore "fictional"? Perhaps you could explain exactly what you mean by this word "fictional".

[mymistake]

 

What "personal comments"?

 

If I came to a conclusion about something and pretty much everyone in the field who had a far greater grasp of the material than I did disagreed, that would ring an alarm bell for me. But not for you, it seems.

 

 

 

Stuff like what is in blue.

 

Look Sextus I do enjoy debate.  And this topic gives me a chance to do something with all the brain cells I wasted on bible study for all those decades.  But the way you insist on making it personal just sucks all the fun out of it.  You came here complaining about how some author had a personal grudge against you and he was getting all emotional with you.  But ever since then you have been trying to get a personal grudge started with me.  You do yourself a disservice by being so negative and talking about people rather than the issue.  You hurt your own message by making this personal.

 

I'm not irrational.  I'm not doing wishful thinking.  I'm not choosing the conclusion I want.  I've made no emotional appeals.  If I was doing those things I would still be the fundamentalist Christian I was raised to be.  Like it or not the burden of proof is on those who make positive claims and in this debate I happen to be making the negative claim while you are making the positive one.  Attacking me personally does not make the evidence of a historical Jesus stronger.  Since you are not going to respect me as a person I am not going to continue debating with you.

[Storm]

  You hurt your own message by making this personal.

 

I totally agree with MM here, Sextus. Its clear that you have done much studying and have a good grasp of the information you have presented, but the way you attack people and the method that you dismiss them so easily is very off putting. I am not a scholar, but I have enjoyed reading this thread. I love this kind of debate and I learn a lot of things from this. But, despite what you believe is solid evidence to dispute the myth theory, you presentation and delivery of that information to those who disagree really puts a damper on your message.

 

I also agree with MM that the default position should be myth, because of the positive claim that a historical person existed needs to be proven.

 

At this point, I am on the fence about it. I see valid points from both sides. 

 

That being said, has there been any scholarly work done to address that Jesus may have been an amalgamation of several different people and that, while they may have been real people, their amalgamation is, in fact, not a real person? I haven't done the research and this may have been addressed  and I missed it, but I am curious to know.

[Brother Jeff]

I have been a lurker in this topic that I started, which interestingly, has turned into a discussion about the historical Jesus. My personal opinion is that there probably was a historical man behind the mythical stories about Jesus we find in the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels is myth. The real historical man Jesus (about which basically nothing reliable can be known other than that he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher) has been dead for a very, very long time. 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. Lurkers who come here (some of whom may be Christians questioning their beliefs) need to be able to see the freedom that we enjoy NOT being religious and they need to be able to see how easy the Bible and Christian beliefs are to debunk. My personal opinion is that that is where the focus should be, rather than on debates about whether Jesus really lived or not, which is not something most lurking Christians will even be willing to consider. Going from "Jesus is God" --> "Jesus was just a man or maybe even a myth" is quite a journey to take. 

 

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. 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.

 

My 2 cents...

[directionless]

Anyway, I would love to see this discussion turn back to Richard Carrier's video.

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.

 

Carrier seemed to say that the gospel of Mark is a gigantic chiasm that includes smaller chiasms. 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.

[Blood]

 

Ah, but this is quite begging the question. We need to first prove that there actually were "Jewish roots" (in reality, not LXX exegesis) before we can posit a supposedly "later progression" that drifted from those roots. What you are calling "later developments" may actually be "early developments," but it doesn't help your theory at all if they were. You're inventing an evidential context for your rationalization of the myth that the texts don't support at all. The texts support a bizarre syncretic Messiah-Savior-God figure "killed by the Jews," something utterly alien to the cultural context of 1st century Palestine. Occam's Razor cuts both ways.

You keep talking about the earliest Christian texts reflecting some "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God". If there was actually any indication that the Jesus of the earliest strata - the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material - was somehow "God", you might have an argument. But I'm afraid I can't see anything like that. In fact, I can't see anything in that earliest material that a Jew couldn't potentially believe without breaking a sweat (which is why at least some of them did). So can you present your evidence from the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material that you believe depicts Jesus as a "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God"? With the Pauline stuff, please stick to the seven epistles that most scholars accept as genuine: First Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, First Corinthians, Galatians, Second Corinthians and Romans.

 

 

Romans 1:1-5 "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— ² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.⁵ Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake."

 

That's pretty clear. "Christ Jesus" (Messiah/Savior) was appointed Son of God through his resurrection in order to save the Gentiles. So the Messiah is a god, co-equal to "God the Father" -- a completely unknown and blasphemous concept to a first century Jew. So, right from the beginning of this supposedly "early" Christian text, we have the Messiah appointed as a god to save .. Jews? No, Gentiles. According to you, this is all supposed to be a "later development." 

[Sextus]

 

What "personal comments"?

 

If I came to a conclusion about something and pretty much everyone in the field who had a far greater grasp of the material than I did disagreed, that would ring an alarm bell for me. But not for you, it seems.

 

 

Stuff like what is in blue.

 

That's nothing more than a very mild way of saying "WHY doesn't the fact that you are supporting a position that virtually no expert on the planet accepts as even likely give you pause?" Because it should.

 

 

I'm not irrational.  I'm not doing wishful thinking.  I'm not choosing the conclusion I want.

You sure about that? Take your claims about Galatians 1:19 and Antiquities XX.9.1. You asserted very confidently a number of posts back that these are later interpolations. But when challenged to back this bold assertion up with evidence, you responded with ... well, nothing much. You simply presented some evidence of other likely interpolations and seemed to think that had made your case. That on its own was weak enough, but I had already detailed a range of reasons that they are not interpolations - drawing in detailed contextual, linguistic and textual evidence. Your response? Nothing - you just completely ignored this.

 

I can't see anything rational in those responses. Nothing at all. Countering evidence with hand waving? Completely ignoring detailed counter-arguments? I've seen that kind of behaviour a lot before - from fundamentalists, New Agers, Creationists and other emotionally-motivated true believers. So can you explain?

 

 

If I was doing those things I would still be the fundamentalist Christian I was raised to be.

Then perhaps you aren't as far from the fundamentalist mindset than you think. You seem to be sticking to a belief in the face of counter-evidence, it's just a non-Christian belief.

 

 

Like it or not the burden of proof is on those who make positive claims and in this debate I happen to be making the negative claim while you are making the positive one.

"Like it or not"? I have zero problem with the onus of the argument being on me. I'm the one presenting detailed arguments, remember? You are the one countering with little more than wishful thinking.

[Sextus]

I also agree with MM that the default position should be myth, because of the positive claim that a historical person existed needs to be proven.

"Proven" how, exactly? Leave Jesus out of this for a moment - let's take another, similar first century Jew as our example. Let’s take Theudas. He was another early first century AD Jewish preacher-prophet who declared that he was going to take people who wanted to be saved to the River Jordan, where the waters would miraculously part as a sign of God’s favour. The Romans took a dim view of this kind of thing and what happened instead is that he and his crowd of followers were met by a squadron of cavalry who killed lots of them, captured Theudas and beheaded him.

 

He’s mentioned exactly twice in the whole of history – once by Josephus and once in a slightly confused reference in Acts 5:33-39. How would we “prove” that Theudas was historical? And is the default position that Theudas was a myth who got historicised or that there was actually a Theudas?

 

That being said, has there been any scholarly work done to address that Jesus may have been an amalgamation of several different people and that, while they may have been real people, their amalgamation is, in fact, not a real person? I haven't done the research and this may have been addressed and I missed it, but I am curious to know.

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.

[mymistake]

. . .  from fundamentalists, New Agers, Creationists and other emotionally-motivated true believers. So can you explain?

 

Didn't happen.  I'm not going to keep repeating myself just so that you can ignore, distort and mischaracterize.

 

If you can't disagree in a civil manner then I will put you on ignore.  Feel free to make long speeches about all my character flaws that you can imagine.  You don't need anything from me.

[Sextus]

 

You keep talking about the earliest Christian texts reflecting some "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God". If there was actually any indication that the Jesus of the earliest strata - the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material - was somehow "God", you might have an argument. But I'm afraid I can't see anything like that. In fact, I can't see anything in that earliest material that a Jew couldn't potentially believe without breaking a sweat (which is why at least some of them did). So can you present your evidence from the synoptics, Acts and the Pauline material that you believe depicts Jesus as a "syncretic Messiah-Savior-God"? With the Pauline stuff, please stick to the seven epistles that most scholars accept as genuine: First Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, First Corinthians, Galatians, Second Corinthians and Romans.

Romans 1:1-5 "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— ² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.⁵ Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake."

 

That's pretty clear.

 

It is? I can’t see anything in there that meets my challenge at all. You seem to be reading this stuff with some very Christian residual assumptions.

 

"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 …

 

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.

 

So, right from the beginning of this supposedly "early" Christian text, we have the Messiah appointed as a god to save .. Jews? No, Gentiles. According to you, this is all supposed to be a "later development."

Wrong and wrong. Try again.