patcleaver

I define a "Jesus myther" as someone who claims that Jesus is a myth.

Jesus is the Judean man-God of the Christian religion. I can not imagine any atheist not believing that Jesus is a myth.

The fact that there may be some human on which the Jesus myth is based is irrelevant unless that human was also God the Son.

Even if we found out that the myth of Santa Clause was based on some generous Bishop of early Christianity named Nicolas who was historical, Santa Clause would still be a myth. Even if we found out that there really was an historical king Midas, the King Midas in the fable who turned everything he touched to gold would still be a myth.

Most Christians define Christianity according to the second Nicean creed (of 381). That is, you have to believe that the core Christian beliefs are literally true. Gnostics are not literalists. Most Christian literalists would say that Christian Gnostics are not really Christians because they claim that Christian beliefs are just metaphors.

Gnostics are more eclectic than literalists. If you believe that religious stories are metaphors that have to be contemplated and studied to find deeper truths, then you are more likely to be willing to try out different metaphors if they appeal to your tastes.

Since there was lots of Gnostic literature in the first century, then there were probably lots of Gnostics, so presumably the developers and earliest followers of most religions in the Roman Empire were probably Gnostics.

It is very unlikely that someone who was writing midrash based on the OT and other sources would not know that he was writing fiction.

If that is true, why don't you classify yourself as a Jesus-myther?

The Robin Hood of TV is a myth, and so is King Author, and so is William Tell, and so is Johnny Appleseed, and John Henry, and Paul Bunyan, and Pecos Bill, and Uncle Remus, and Rip Van Winkle.

I do not need to prove that there is no human that the Christian Jesus Myth is based on, because that is not required to know that the Christian fable of Jesus the God-man, is a myth.

I do not understand how dismissing the Christian fables as myths is in any way less scientific than or otherwise different then dismissing the Greek Gods as myths or dismissing Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, or Jack Frost, or the wicked witch of the West or fairies as myths.

Diogenes the Cynic

The biggest problem for the resurrection story (aside from the fact that it's impossible) is the fact that there is no real evidence that a single person ever claimed to have witnessed it. There is no first hand attestation for it. There's not even any second hand attestation for it. We simply do not have a word of first hand testimony from any of the alleged disciples or other witnesses or, for that matter, anyone who ever met Jesus.

What we have are claims from Paul that Jesus "appeared" to some people, but he does not describe the nature of these appearances, he does not say it was a physical resurrection (as opposed to a spiritual one), and in fact he denies that physical resurrections are possible, calling people fools who believe that it is. He says nothing about an empty tomb, he says that he got his information "not from any man." but from his own hallucinations and he does not draw any distinction between the alleged appearances to Cephas et al and to himself.

After Paul (and long after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus) we get an obviuously fictionalized story from Mark with a fictional trial and the first appearance (at least 40 years after the supposed crucifixion) of the empty tomb in Christian literature or traceable tradition. Aside from the extreme unlikelihood that Jesus would have been released for burial in a private tomb, this is a feature that does not appear in Paul, Q or Thomas and from all appearances could well be (and I think probably is) Mark's own invention.

Mark's story leaves off with the women running from the tomb. The other Gospels copy the broad outlines of Mark's story (with some significant differences) until the point where Mark's story finishes at which time the other Gospels veer off in wildly contradictory directions as they invent their own appearance narratives.

None of the Gospels were written by witnesses. It's highly doubtful the gospels were written by anyone who ever met a witness.

So the evidence in favor of a resurrection is basically nothing. Some wildly contradictory stories written by non-witnesses 40-70 years after the alleged events occurred, none of them corroborated by any real evidence or testimony and, frankly, none of them remotely believable.

The evidence AGAINST the resurrection? Simple. It's impossible. We assume that the impossible is impossible until proven otherwise. Thus far, not a single shred of proof has been offered and the arguments which have ben offered don't stand up to the least bit of real scrutiny.

spin

And a claim without any evidence at all to support it held as strenuously as most MJers is a belief.

Stop waffling. You need to understand that anyone who ardently holds an unsupported claim, be they that christ existed or that he did not exist, is a believer. The onus is always on the claim-maker.

So you can accept that there may have been a Jesus who was the basis of the traditions that led to what you call the Jesus myth. That you call those traditions at a particular time "Jesus myth" is fundamentally another belief, as things stand. You have no way of supporting it with evidence.

This bunch of claims isn't answering the basic question of how you know the gnostics were the early christians. Beside he cache of 4th c. documents from Nag Hammadi we basically have to trust what church fathers said. How do you separate veracious traditions from crap?

So you base your conclusions on your ability to read minds and guess genres.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt about in your philosophy. The world is not all yes-or-no. There's a lot of we have to make do with the little information we have.

You're starting to flow logorrheaic. Get back to Robin Hood who may have had a real life core underlying all the accretions that developed around him. You were actively trying to discount a real life core to the Jesus who may have been behind the gospels on mere bluster.

Christians plainly think your assertion is wrong. I just think your comment is rhetoric looking for believers.

Science talks about what it can, based on the available evidence for it. Dismissing traditions as myths is a polemical act, not anything scientific.

If the world acts differently outside our perception range, though science acts on the belief that it doesn't, then all of our thoughts on religion have the possibility of being just plain wrong.


spin

Crowley

Diogenes,

Can you point me to the verse where Paul states that anyone who believes in a physical resurrection is a fool?

Thanks!

Diogenes the Cynic

1 Corinthians 15:36 (but read the whole passage).

stuart shepherd

Excellent! I think that your analysis of the situation is very reasonable.

Stuart Shepherd

Dogfish

Well, as long as they were correct...

aa5874

There is no resurrection described in the Gospels, all the disciples and women met an empty tomb. No-one claimed to see him actually RISE, that is, to be witnesses to the resurrection, they first must see a dead body in the tomb on arrival, then actually see the body come back to life. There is no such accont in the Gospels. The disciples and the women are not witneses to the resurrection, just an empty tomb.