DiscussMormonism.com

dartagnan wrote:Historians have overwhelmingly accepted Jesus' existence for many, many centuries. Only recently have atheists tried to argue the untenable by saying he never really existed. If you find historians who reject the historicity of Jesus, then they are the ones on the fringe, not vice versa.

I wanted to give this another shot, and I was surprised (not really) to find a long list of scholars that publicly challenged the assumption that Jesus really existed. Considering the consequences for unbelief and challenging the church, and the consequences that most listed below suffered, I suspect this list is missing quite a few less courageous folks.

1600 - 1700's

Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Count Constantine Volney

Edward Evanson,

Charles François Dupuis

Thomas Paine


1800's

Robert Taylor

Godfrey Higgins

Bruno Bauer

Allard Pierson

Bronson C. Keeler

Abraham Dirk Loman

Thomas William Doane

Samuel Adrianus Naber

Gerald Massey

Edwin Johnson

Rudolf Steck


1900's - 2000

Thomas Whittaker

Albert Kalthoff

Gerardus Bolland

Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian

John E. Remsburg

Arthur Drews

John Robertson

Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga

Edward Carpenter

Rudolf Bultmann

James Frazer

P. L. Couchoud

Georg Brandes

Joseph Wheless

Henri Delafosse

L. Gordon Rylands

Edouard Dujardin

John J. Jackson

Alvin Boyd Kuhn

Herbert Cutner

Georges Las Vergnas

Georges Ory

Guy Fau

Max Rieser

Abelard Reuchlin

Hermann Detering

Gary Courtney

Michael Kalopoulos

Gerd Lüdemann

Alvar Ellegard

D. Murdock (a.k.a. 'Acharya S')

Earl Doherty

Timothy Freke

Peter Gandy

Harold Liedner

Robert Price

Hal Childs

Michael Hoffman

Burton Mack

Luigi Cascioli

Frank R. Zindler

Daniel Unterbrink

Tom Harpur

Francesco Carotta

Joseph Atwill

Michel Onfray

Kenneth Humphreys

Jay Raskin

Thomas L. Thompson

Am I missing any others?

Where did you get that list from GoodK?

Also did you notice Ehrmans' comment in the debate between him and Craig that most scholars today dealing with the scholarship of Jesus are not historians and are religious. I'm too lazy to get his exact words. No wonder in scholar's writings addressing Jesus there is an automatic assumption he existed.

The other night I came across something written by a Christian apologist, Justin Martyr, he lived (100 - 165) and wrote Dialogue with Tryphpo. It is a discussion he had or theorectically had with a Jew regarding Christianity. One of the things I took away from that dialogue was that in Justin Martyr's day Jews argued Jesus was a fictitious character. The parts interesting are Trypho's responses. Trypho argues the same as you, that the scriptures are being used as proof and they aren't proof and that there is no evidence for Jesus, and certainly no evidence that Jesus is a messiah as Christians mean by a messiah.

GoodK wrote:

dartagnan wrote:Historians have overwhelmingly accepted Jesus' existence for many, many centuries. Only recently have atheists tried to argue the untenable by saying he never really existed. If you find historians who reject the historicity of Jesus, then they are the ones on the fringe, not vice versa.

I wanted to give this another shot, and I was surprised (not really) to find a long list of scholars that publicly challenged the assumption that Jesus really existed.

I'd like to see where Rudolf Bultmann, Gerd Lüdemann, Burton Mack, or even Robert Price, have ever denied Jesus' existence.

Nevo wrote:

GoodK wrote:

dartagnan wrote:Historians have overwhelmingly accepted Jesus' existence for many, many centuries. Only recently have atheists tried to argue the untenable by saying he never really existed. If you find historians who reject the historicity of Jesus, then they are the ones on the fringe, not vice versa.

I wanted to give this another shot, and I was surprised (not really) to find a long list of scholars that publicly challenged the assumption that Jesus really existed.

I'd like to see where Rudolf Bultmann, Gerd Lüdemann, Burton Mack, or even Robert Price, have ever denied Jesus' existence.

Robert Price, 2000, Deconstructing Jesus. 2003 Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?

Ex-minister and accredited scholar shows Jesus to be a fictional amalgam of several 1st century prophets, mystery cult redeemers and gnostic 'aions'.

Gerd Lüdemann

Lüdemann was expelled from the theology faculty at the University of Göttingen for daring to say that the Resurrection was "a pious self-deception."

Rudolf Bultmann

He argued that the search for a historical Jesus was fruitless: "We can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." (Jesus and the Word, 8)

Marg,

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html

Forgot one:

Burton Mack, 2001,The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.

marg wrote:Where did you get that list from GoodK?

Also did you notice Ehrmans' comment in the debate between him and Craig that most scholars today dealing with the scholarship of Jesus are not historians and are religious. I'm too lazy to get his exact words. No wonder in scholar's writings addressing Jesus there is an automatic assumption he existed.

Yes I think I did see that, actually Nevo quoted his exact words, I believe, in the now dead Evidence for Jesus thread.

Ehrman was saying it is a theological issue, not a historical one - I think he was speaking specifically of the Resurrection, but I am too lazy to go through it again right now too. Such a long text to read on a computer screen...

GoodK wrote:

Nevo wrote:

GoodK wrote:I wanted to give this another shot, and I was surprised (not really) to find a long list of scholars that publicly challenged the assumption that Jesus really existed.

I'd like to see where Rudolf Bultmann, Gerd Lüdemann, Burton Mack, or even Robert Price, have ever denied Jesus' existence.

Robert Price, 2000, Deconstructing Jesus. 2003 Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?

Ex-minister and accredited scholar shows Jesus to be a fictional amalgam of several 1st century prophets, mystery cult redeemers and gnostic 'aions'.

Gerd Lüdemann

Lüdemann was expelled from the theology faculty at the University of Göttingen for daring to say that the Resurrection was "a pious self-deception."

Rudolf Bultmann

He argued that the search for a historical Jesus was fruitless: "We can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." (Jesus and the Word, 8)

Forgot one:

Burton Mack, 2001,The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.

I am aware of these books but none of them deny that Jesus existed. It is one to thing to question how much of the historical Jesus is recoverable from the gospels. It is quite another to deny his existence.

Of these four scholars, only Price questions whether Jesus actually existed ("There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure"). The others all accept his existence. Lüdemann even wrote a book called Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did (Prometheus, 2001)!

Nevo wrote:

GoodK wrote:

Nevo wrote:

GoodK wrote:I wanted to give this another shot, and I was surprised (not really) to find a long list of scholars that publicly challenged the assumption that Jesus really existed.

I'd like to see where Rudolf Bultmann, Gerd Lüdemann, Burton Mack, or even Robert Price, have ever denied Jesus' existence.

Robert Price, 2000, Deconstructing Jesus. 2003 Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?

Ex-minister and accredited scholar shows Jesus to be a fictional amalgam of several 1st century prophets, mystery cult redeemers and gnostic 'aions'.

Gerd Lüdemann

Lüdemann was expelled from the theology faculty at the University of Göttingen for daring to say that the Resurrection was "a pious self-deception."

Rudolf Bultmann

He argued that the search for a historical Jesus was fruitless: "We can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." (Jesus and the Word, 8)

Forgot one:

Burton Mack, 2001,The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.

I am aware of these books but none of them deny that Jesus existed. It is one to thing to question how much of the historical Jesus is recoverable from the gospels. It is quite another to deny his existence.

Of these four scholars, only Price questions whether Jesus actually existed ("There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure"). The others all accept his existence. Lüdemann even wrote a book called Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did (Prometheus, 2001)!

I used the word "challenged" in my OP to try and avoid tripping up over the semantics of the word deny.

You say they all accept his existence? Is not denying the same thing as accepting his existence?

GoodK wrote:

Ehrman was saying it is a theological issue, not a historical one - I think he was speaking specifically of the Resurrection, but I am too lazy to go through it again right now too. Such a long text to read on a computer screen...

Yes he was speaking specifically about the Resurrection. Essentially he was saying the probability of miracles described such as the resurrection are so improbable, that no historian would assume it as a probability of being historically true. So it is a theological concern, an historian can't touch it as a historical issue, given the improbability and lack of evidence.

I see that same problem occurring with Jesus's existence. The evidence is so problematic that an historian is in no position to comment on it being historically true. Absence of a denial by an historian of Jesus's existence is not acceptance of Jesus's existence. Just as absence of an historian denying the resurrection of Jesus is not acceptance of the resurrection. Were it not for Christianity, Jesus would be a non-issue to an historian.

GoodK wrote:You say they all accept his existence? Is not denying the same thing as accepting his existence?

Maybe not. But in any case Bultmann, Lüdemann, and Mack all accept that Jesus existed, so they don't belong on your list.

I'll get back into this soon enough -I'm still bogged down a work and it seems Nevo is doing a better job with this anyway- but I just wanted to note that again, we see the JAK method being played out to perfection.

Someone runs to an anti-Jesus website, throws up all kinds of stuff without verifying the sources, and we're expected to do the real research by verifying what they were too lazy to verify. GoodK just takes it for granted that all of the people in that list, none of whom she has ever read, count as something in favor of her argument. But hey, it shows up on some website, so that should count for something right?

Well, not if you expect to be taken seriously. Not in the world of critical thinking.

I couldn't help but notice that "Achyra" (D.Murdock) is in that list as well. Achyra is not a historian, but is in fact the moron who was beind the ridiculous Zeitgeist show over on youtube. Practically everything she based her conclusions on was a book written by Gerald Massey, who again, wasn't a historian but a 19th century "self-taught Egyptologist" which, til this day, nobody seems to understand just what exactly he thought he was "translating" since none of his arguments and claims from Egyptian can be verified from any extant papyrus. It is as if he was just making stuff up and taking advantage of the fact that virtually nobody in his day could verify what he was saying. I addressed this in detail on the Zeitgeist thread. When asked to produce the anciet document that "proves" Jesus was a borrowed idea, the moronic Zeitgeist fans would throw Massey my way.

I think it is funny that the names that we are familiar with, don't actually make the claims GoodK and others assume. What if we took the time to research each and every name on that list? To what end? We already know GooK is willing to list people who don't even come close to holding this position, so what's the point? We're not dealing with a serious effort to find truth.

I also thought it was odd that GoodK underlined a portion of my citation calling the Christ myth "untenable." Presumably she was going to present something to refute that. Bu nothig has been done to show it is tenable. This is just window dressing with no real counter arguments.