The Jesus Myth: An unrelenting case for history

[dastardly stem]

Whoever told this to you was lying to you. There are only a handful of mythicist and they are considered to be cranks.

https://ehrmanblog.org/the-gospels-and- ... -of-jesus/

Nobody told me this. It's my conclusion. Well somebody told me then I looked into it. Bart's blog does not provide a good case for historicity and otherwise is not scholarship. I've read his book and dissected on this forum. It too is not considered scholarship. There isn't any. His case is weak for many reasons. Here's a linkt to my reivew. I welcome thoughts and ideas on it. No problem. But I've already addressed this, is the point. And no, you are simply wrong here.

[drumdude]

A historic Jesus who didn't tell people the silly myths in scripture is himself a myth as far as we can tell. That dude was so unknown and unremarkable everyone who ever wrote anything about him, didn't know him, but made his story something it never was.

This sentence seems to me you haven’t taken Ehrman’s arguments seriously. He points out in very detailed lectures exactly how Jesus morphed and why.

[dastardly stem]

Nothing in this list is something crazy. I wish the mythesists would focus on this list instead of the list of supernatural things about Jesus. We all agree that Jesus was a myth.

yes, if you strip any mythical story down to a few mundane sounding elements then it might as well be true that all characters are simply people who used to live. Superman? Osirus? Thor? Sure. They are just people, but were highly mythologized on the grounds of we can pretend all the magical elements of their stories weren't really there. I guess. I find such analysis silly and disrespectful to the discipline of history.

[dastardly stem]

This sentence seems to me you haven’t taken Ehrman’s arguments seriously. He points out in very detailed lectures exactly how Jesus morphed and why.

All my ears here. How so?

[drumdude]

Nothing in this list is something crazy. I wish the mythesists would focus on this list instead of the list of supernatural things about Jesus. We all agree that Jesus was a myth.

yes, if you strip any mythical story down to a few mundane sounding elements then it might as well be true that all characters are simply people who used to live. Superman? Osirus? Thor? Sure. They are just people, but were highly mythologized on the grounds of we can pretend all the magical elements of their stories weren't really there. I guess. I find such analysis silly and disrespectful to the discipline of history.

I think the Superman comparison is pretty silly and disrespectful, but illuminating as to where you’re coming from now.

I’ll stick with Ehrman, since the mythesists don’t seem very serious.

Jesus’ historicity matters almost nothing to me, and I think Ehrman is open to the possibility he didn’t exist. But the mythesists seem to be on a crusade to turn Jesus into a comic book character. Jesus may have become that eventually, but just looking at the gospels you can see the progression from human to God right there in the text.

[honorentheos]

I'm curious how this theory addresses the appearance of the Gentile controversy between Paul and the Jerusalem Christians?

We can probably flesh that out some, but am not sure there's a point here. Paul claims in his letters that his meeting with Peter and James, apparently 2 leaders among Christians in Jerusalem, ended, basically, with Paul disagreeing. Who knows what Peter and James thought? It is assumed Peter and James were illiterate. But Paul was obviously quite literate. His letters seem to acknowledge them for the sake of perhaps other believers but also suggest he doesn't really see them adding to his work and perhaps hindering it if he allowed it. He has power, it seems, to over-run them. Paul is making a move to spread the belief to different areas amongst various types of people--his working to mke the religion cosmopolitan. Paul seems to suggest Peter wishes to move the religion slowly amongst Jews. But Paul has the upperhand. he has the skill of writing, which perhaps Peter didn't realize would be so important going forward, and he has connections amongst other believers, through writing, that Peter apparently does not have.

What any of that does to ideas about whether Jesus existed or not is beyond me.

The epistles written by Paul that describe these interactions such as in Galatians show that a) the body of disciples existed independent of him and, b) he was modifying a prior belief regarding the role of Jewish tradition in the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem where he didn't have the upper hand. He was clearly subservient to James as was Paul. His letter bragging to the gentile churchs of his ability to sit at the table as an apostle include the acknowledgement in 1 Corinthians the leadership questioned his status as an apostle which he claims for himself.

There is clearly a prior belief system in place that not only superceded Paul but which was in tension with Paul's claims.

[honorentheos]

What makes more sense is that a real leader named Jesus was martyred by the Romans, and they had to come up with a reason for why his failure was actually a victory.

Check.

[huckelberry]

So when you strip off the ex-post facto mythology built up around Jesus by generations of his followers you get the following picture:

• Obscure rural Galilean apocalyptic preacher

• A disciple of John the Baptist

• Started his own following after John the Baptist's death

• Had a reputation as a faith healer

• Was known for short, memorable aphorisms and parables that tried to overturn the social order

• Preached against things like wealth, divorce and remarriage

• Had a small following

• Did not think he was the divine son of god

• Went to Jerusalem during passover, caused a ruckus at the temple

• Was crucified by Pilate for sedition

• Later his followers had some kind of vision that convinced them he was resurrected

• From this followed the mythology about Jesus that lead to the formation of Christianity

Nothing in this list is something crazy. I wish the mythesists would focus on this list instead of the list of supernatural things about Jesus. We all agree that Jesus was a myth.

I for one most emphatically do not agree that "that" Jesus is myth. At the same time I am capable of thinking in more skeptical historical terms within which the above list of Jesus characteristics makes a good general picture and starting point.

I find it easy to think of the star story as myth. I believe virgin birth but recognize it has a possibility of being myth. The resurrection is an experience of Jesus followers after his death so is itself not myth. It could be ,logically, imagination generated but is still something that happened in history to his followers. The concept of Jesus death being a basis for renewed relationship to God is something that has mythological meaning whether factual or just a representation of meaning. That meaning is fundamental to Jesus movements from early on after his death.

[PseudoPaul]

Whoever told this to you was lying to you. There are only a handful of mythicist and they are considered to be cranks.

https://ehrmanblog.org/the-gospels-and- ... -of-jesus/

Nobody told me this. It's my conclusion. Well somebody told me then I looked into it. Bart's blog does not provide a good case for historicity and otherwise is not scholarship. I've read his book and dissected on this forum. It too is not considered scholarship. There isn't any. His case is weak for many reasons. Here's a linkt to my reivew. I welcome thoughts and ideas on it. No problem. But I've already addressed this, is the point. And no, you are simply wrong here.

"Biblical scholars who disagree with my conspiracy theory don't count as scholarship."

A note on Carrier's misleading claims about the "popularity" of mythicism:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblic ... _scholars/

[drumdude]

Nothing in this list is something crazy. I wish the mythesists would focus on this list instead of the list of supernatural things about Jesus. We all agree that Jesus was a myth.

I for one most emphatically do not agree that "that" Jesus is myth. At the same time I am capable of thinking in more skeptical historical terms within which the above list of Jesus characteristics makes a good general picture and starting point.

I find it easy to think of the star story as myth. I believe virgin birth but recognize it has a possibility of being myth. The resurrection is an experience of Jesus followers after his death so is itself not myth. It could be ,logically, imagination generated but is still something that happened in history to his followers. The concept of Jesus death being a basis for renewed relationship to God is something that has mythological meaning whether factual or just a representation of meaning. That meaning is fundamental to Jesus movements from early on after his death.

I agree. I wasn’t thinking of the resurrection, more of the deification and eventually turning Jesus into God himself.

I’m not sure what to make of the resurrection. The gospel also says the graves were opened up and people visited with their dead relatives. Obviously the resurrection narrative is much more detailed and integral to the story. But people, as far as we know, don’t rise from the dead. I’m skeptical, especially since this was before the age of photography, the enlightenment, and mass education.