Antipope Innocent II

That's part of my interest in the JM position as well, along with the fact that I find the historical origins of Christianity fascinating. I'm not sure how or why Flemming first came across this position is terribly relevant to my point on why a certain type of ex-Christian often finds it attractive though.

I must say I'm finding hard to believe that the JS simply collectively shrugged and said they weren't interested. Since Earl posts here perhaps he can give us more details. That aside, I'm finding it similarly difficult to accept that the late Bultmann simply waved his hand, declared the JM position dead and, behold, it was so.

Plenty of valid theories about Jesus get a run for their money in the academic sphere, and it's not like the conservatives or even the Christians have a stranglehold on the field. Yet the JM idea has been out in the cold for ages. This is meant to be because, despite a kaleidoscopic variety of Jesus theories and ideas in all other respects, there's a monolithic and blanket disinterest in the JM position? That really doesn't wash.

Johnny Skeptic

If creation is true, other than the fact that an intelligent being created the universe, what does that tell us about God? If neither side has all of the answers, which is probably the case, how do you suggest that people determine which side has correctly answered which questions? I must say that other than for entertainment, I do not have and idea what you are trying to accomplish at this forum. What do you care about whether or not a historical Jesus existed? You believe that if he did exist, he was an ordinary man, and that many if not most of the New Testament accounts of his life and what he said are false.

JoeWallack

JW:
Maybe Chris has finally put himself on his own Ignore list.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Amaleq13

You were this close (and my fingers are almost touching) to getting my laptop covered in nose beer!

:notworthy:

JoeWallack

JW:
Aww, I'm just kidding Doug. Probably what really happened is that Chris wrote the post to Toto and forgot that he had Toto on his Ignore list. The best thing here is that I can write whatever I want about Chris and he will never see it!



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Toto

Flemming was an atheist and a skeptic and an ex-fundamentalist well before he came across Mythicism, and would be all of that without Mythicism.

I don't know why the Jesus Seminar did what they did. But if you can find an alternative narrative about Bultman, I would like to know about it. Bultman wrote: That was it, no analysis, no reasoning, just fiat, and his prestige made the topic verboten.

Perhaps you should just say that plenty of theories about Jesus get a run for their money. I doubt sincerely that all of them can be valid. But from the time I have spent on this, it does appear that there is a massive disinterest in delving into the whole topic of historicity, and it is easy to suspect that the reason is a reluctance to admit how thin the evidence is, or even to have to admit that perhaps Jesus' existence is in doubt. Mainline scholars seem content to accept a few scraps of evidence - the mention in Josephus of James the Brother of Jesus called the Christ seems to be the favorite, and then to just want to talk about something else.

And I suspect that it doesn't help that there are some real crackpots in the field, who make Acharya S look like a staid conservative. (I'm thinking of the guy who advertises in the classified ads in the Nation - Proof Jesus Never Existed! $5! not to mention all of the other theories of how Jesus survived the cross, married Mary Magdalene (in spite of being gay), traveled to France, then India, then Japan.) So some professors warn their students away from mythicism or other alternative scenarios so as not to be associated with crackpots. Look at the recent scholarship from younger scholars in the NT field: meticulous examination of textual issues, post-colonial feminist reinterpretations, socio-rhetorical analysis, nothing where the existence or not of Jesus would make much of a difference.

dog-on

HJer;

One who adheres to a belief in the literal existence of a character, most often portrayed as supernatural by his followers, based on nothing more than tradition and providing no supporting evidence for saids existence other than the propaganda of those who espoused the existence in the first place.

close?

Toto

I would like to move away from this sort of polemical statement of the problem.

HJ'ers think that they are stripping away mythological accretions to find the real person at the core of the legend. They can point out that all historical persons have some mythological accretions.

Antipope Innocent II

Okay. My point remains that he, like other ex-fundies I've come across, seems to rather like the black and white absolutism of the JM position because of his fundie background. I watched his DVD with an atheist friend of mine and when we got the bit where he does a Mike Moore on his old teacher my mate turned to me and said "Woah! Ummm, issues?!!" The guy really seemed like he now has a lot emotionally invested in the whole idea that Jesus didn't exist.

Speaking of which ... :

I'm pretty familiar with the "Shakespeare wasn't written by Shakespeare" theorists and there are certainly some analogies with JMers. They believe that there is some kind of monolithic, blanket acceptance of the idea that their theories are wrong, despite lively debates and a vast variety of theses about Shakespeare within the academic sphere. They think their theories are stymied purely by academic conservatism, despite a total lack of conservatism in the field (quite the opposite, in fact). They can't understand why their theories are considered so silly by the academy and assume it's some kind of narrow-mindedness at best or conspiracy at worst. They can't accept that it's actually that their ideas don't stand up to objective application of Occam's Razor, assume their own conclusions and are contrived way past the point of stretching incredulity.

But what we don't see from the "Non-Shakespearian Shakespeare" amateurs is this kind of fervid evangelical zeal. The meandering cottage industry of self-published books and occasional articles in the "Human Interest" section of the Sunday papers by doddering eccentrics pottering around with their odd and batty ideas about how Edward de Vere was "real" author of Shakespeare are one thing. But they have no equivalent to the burning drive to "prove" Jesus never existed by fundamentalist atheists like the "Rational Response" kids. This is from the FAQ to their, like, totally awesome "Jesus Mythicist Campaign":

"The Jesus Mythicist Campaign is aimed at the education of millions of lay-people all over the globe who are under the false impression that Jesus existed. These are your normal, everyday people, your teachers, your cab drivers, your parents, a sibling. Some of them are even peers of yours, or a scholar or professor who have long - too long - fit into the mold of trying to please the majority.

Well no longer will we stand idle and allow the false perception of a myth to be propogated as fact continue."

Word! Those "Rational Response Squad" dudes are going to don their matching hooded sweatshirts and, like, set those deluded cab drivers straight!

So while there may be some common analogous elements between the "Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare" eccentrics and JMers, the reason the Creationist analogy is more than just "a highly inflammatory and insulting comparison" is that prominent elements within the JMer position adopt a wildly Creationist-style evangelist zeal that the muddle-headed retirees who think Shakespeare was written by a different man of the same name simply ... ummm ... don't.

Sorry, but I can't say my reading of someone as hoary and outdated as Bultmann extends beyond reading Primitive Christianity on a train across Ireland a decade ago. My thoughts at the time were that Bultmann was "quaint" and "old fashioned". So I'm still finding your idea that his stentorian fiat somehow totally killed ALL academic contemplation that Jesus never existed dead with a word rather surreal. Bultmann thought and said all kinds of things that are now widely trashed. So can you please explain why his ex cathedra pronouncement on this particular matter has somehow remained untouchable, while anything else he said has been totally sliced and diced? Why, in particular, have atheist and agnostic academics bent the knee at the pronouncement of the great Prophet Bultmann, when they have rejected vast amounts of his other ideas?

Sorry, but this just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It seems a rather contrived blanket excuse aimed at avoiding some more uncomfortable alternatives.

Maybe, maybe not. What they have stood up to, however, is peer review. And that can't be said of the various JMer ideas. You say this is because of this (supposed) all-encompassing blanket ban on the whole concept by the "Great Lord Bultmann". Sorry, but that convenient feint doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

The real reason no-one in academia takes the JMer idea seriously is that it never manages to answer the key questions about who invented Jesus, when they did so and why , without descending into some kind of convoluted and contrived fantasy. Building a The Da Vinci Code-style pseudo historical fiction whereby "someone" invented him for "some reason" at "some stage" is dead easy - anyone with an imagination can do that. Making that fiction more plausible than the idea that an historical guy is the source of the later stories and doing so in a way that stands up to the shredding of Occam's Razor ... well - that's another hurdle.

And it's a hurdle the JMers keep stumbling and falling at in the academic sphere. For decades now. That's why the JMers stay out excluded in the gloomy twilight of self-publishing, shrill websites and the fundie-style rhetoric of the "Rational Response" kids while the real party of varied and hotly-debated ideas about Yeshua is going on within the centuries-old bastions of solid academic process.

dog-on

Maybe I was amiss in my choice of wording...

The problem is that there is no identifiable 'who' to 'strip away' to.

The guy they are trying to find is a creation of the HJers, none of them can point to the particular individual they are trying to find without circling back to the mythology to support the existence of this individual in the first place.

If all the mythology is stripped away (and by the way, whose scissors should we use), what are you left with? Should I look at Mark:

9At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
12At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, 13and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

...and try to determine where to start cutting?

You may say, "Well, let's get rid of the part about the spirit and the voice and maybe the 40 days in the desert being tempted by Satan. Oh, and let's not forget about the angels and wild animals that were attending to him part."

If that much of just this small section is bogus, what are we supposed to do with the rest, from a literal and historical viewpoint?

Even worse, get rid of the gospels/acts and derive your HJ from the epistles...right!

HJers needs to produce the man, then show why that man should be tied to the story, the other way around is just a funny form of apologetics, imo...