physicalist

What exactly is the appeal of bashing people that doubt the historicity of Jesus? Even if there was a guy named Jesus, so what? What's the prize? How does it change anything?

Chaucer

I suppose one might ask in response, what's the appeal of going up proactively against Creationism? Essentially, Creationism reflects and promulgates profoundly misleading notions of current "state-of-the-art" scientific exploration and research. In fact, scientific exploration and research has developed to such a sophisticated level today that evolution is now accepted by all scientific professionals as a fact. Similarly, a steep trajectory of steadily more sophisticated techniques in historical research has developed to a point where reasonably acute assessments are possible on a whole range of ancient historic texts. Such assessments can recognize the plainly mythic aspects in extravagant embellishments like a virgin birth versus secular accounts reflecting genuinely historic doings of their day. An extremely misleading picture of a whole nexus of highly developed "state-of-the-art" historical exploration and research is being given by Jesus mythicist "historians" in the same way that Creationism misleads people about science today.

Well, I stand by -- frankly -- what I said in my OP respecting the peril that Jesus mythicism (potentially) poses to Humanism -- IMO <shrug>.

Sincerely,

Chaucer

bacht

Citing Creationism to a skeptic forum is kind of insulting. You must know that the majority of Creationists are religious fundamentalists, not atheists or undecided. As for Jesus mythicism posing a threat to humanism you haven't provided any support for this (like maybe a quote from a famous believer like C.S. Lewis?) so I'll just take it as your own (provocative) opinion.

Toto

We've gone through this all before. The Historical Jesus theories have more in common with Creationism than Jesus Mythicism does. They take the Biblical accounts as true or basically true, and shape the evidence around them.

Evolution is based on careful, detailed scientific observation and theorizing, backed by numerous data point, debated by scholars for generations. It works.

The historical Jesus theories are based on speculation, carried on by a small group of theologians, most of whom have some sort of commitment to the existence of a historical Jesus. When you look into them, they are built on sand. They don't work. Some HJ theories have Jesus as a deranged, first century nutjob like David Koresh, some have him as the first century Ghandi, some as a would be royalist, some have him as the first century Sabbatai Zevi. None of them are very good at explaining the disconnect between the gospel Jesus and the early or later church.

There is no historical Jesus equivalent to talkorigins.org. The claims about the historical Jesus have only scraps of literary evidence behind them, if that.

Proponents of the Historical Jesus can't come up with any good evidence, so they all seem to rely on name calling, comparing the opposition to a variety of evils, or professional defamation, as your internet source did with Richard Carrier, who started his research on the historical Jesus with no commitment to any position.

As to the claim that a historical Jesus is necessary for Humanism - I think it could be necessary for socialism. If you wonder whether people can somehow overcome their basic human instincts and become self-sacrificing, you might need an example of one person who did that, and others who were inspired by him. But socialism has failed, and we need a more rationally based society, not one based on some utopian belief that human nature can be reworked into the New Socialist or Christian Man.

Wiploc

1. That guy has too many axes to grind to be taken seriously.

2. Hey, let me show you my axes!

Toto

Thank you.

You still have no business propagating defamatory statements about Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, or Acharya S, all of whom are registered posters here. Tim O'Neill is a blogger and an executive recruiter, not a professional historian. He seems to like to throw insults around, but he doesn't have the facts to back him up in this case.

Chaucer

I may have painted with too broad a brush myself in what I said about Jesus mythicists, but what you say here is also plainly wrong. In fact, today's consensus around a historical Jesus comes primarily from an extremely secular academic discipline, not primarily from still-devout theologians. It comes primarily from a highly developed scholarly and secular assessment that has converged in academe around a concept of a real rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, who lived during the early part of the first century c.e. and preached a countercultural ethic recalled mainly in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. He was probably executed by crucifixion ca. 30 c.e., but he was not the product of a virgin birth and there was no resurrection, for the simple reason that he was just a simple human being, and the supernatural embellishments on his life in the Gospels -- which get more and more extravagant the later the texts -- are just that: embellishments.

Ironically, there is in fact a consensus among traditional theologians, even today, widely decrying the efforts of such secular academics as somehow an affront to the Christian faith because the academic consensus does not give any credence to the virgin birth or to resurrection or to the rest of the supernatural flourishes! If most theologians had had their way, there would never have been any systematic research and analysis -- philological, sociological, linguistic, historical, and so on -- of this academic sort at all from numerous scholars who specialize in close professional scrutiny and study of all the artifacts of the ancient world, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and African. The Jesus Seminar, much criticized by most traditional Christians, would never have proceeded at all without the courage of precisely such scholars who represent the combined development of decades and decades of careful secular research often launched in defiance of traditionalists everywhere. This parallels the decades and decades of steadily developing scientific research that has also resulted in an academic consensus -- this one built around things like evolution and particle physics.

Bottom line: Traditional Christians highly disapprove of the prevailing academic concept of a normal human being who lived in real history and preached in Tiberius's reign and was soon crucified. Such a humdrum notion does not sit well with traditional Christians at all. It hardly represents the speculation of a small group of theologians, most of whom would probably be the first to disown such a naturalistic portrait of a historic Jesus altogether.

Actually, considering the way the capitalist system seems to be also collapsing globally like a house of cards -- on Wall Street, in housing, in financial markets around the world, etc. -- it's entirely possible that the future may see the development of a global society whose stability will be ensured by being neither socialist nor capitalist but a mixed economy instead with both socialist and capitalist elements as part of the mix. And yes, given the way that global capitalism too seems to be teetering today in the same way that doctrinaire socialism went off the rails in the 1980s, the existence of historic models of altruism like Siddhartha Gautama, Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, Gandhi, MLK and Mandela may prove essential to keeping humanity inspired enough to see through adopting a new ethic of greater engagement with one's neighbors and stabilizing a new social compact in which fewer members of the human race are left to starve.

Chaucer

Toto

Have you looked at the backgrounds of the Jesus Seminar and the other relatively secular scholars who write about the historical Jesus? They are not traditional religionists, but they still tned to take a theological approach to their subject. Many of them are the products of seminaries. There are not that many of them, compared to the number of practicing scientists, and they don't have a lot of material to work with.

Can you find a recent book that examines the real history parameters of the historical Jesus? Most of the scholars won't even write about the subject. They confine their work to textual analysis, for good reason. They know that the texts exist, but they can't say much about the historical Jesus.

The historical Jesus theories have more in common with phlogiston than particle physics.

spin

What is supposed to follow is something to back this claim up. Instead, what follows is pretty contentless.

This gets a "gosh, really?" But the evidence? Still waiting...

So we get a rehearsal of the basic story without any evidence yet.

You may be right here, but it's still evidenceless waffle.

Great, if theologians had their way there would never have been any change in the perception of the structure of the universe. We'd still be with Ptolemy. Observation would mean nothing. All that you need is in the bible. And culture and technology would be at a standstill.

Rubbish. The Jesus Seminar is about trying to make one's beliefs fit better into a more scientific world. It assumes its conclusions and then attempts to find ways of getting there from what they've got. Hmm, let's see, what do we have to get rid of to present a more scientific face to ourselves.

Academic concept? Unplumbed presupposition. If you want to treat texts that embody a developing tradition as history without any way of testing it, what you end up with is a web of conjecture, nothing more.

Does that fact help you at all? I mean so a bunch of believers don't like the methods that other people find to deal with christianity. So?

It's been varying degrees of both since all this democracy claptrap. Welfare, health care, America might be way behind on both, but check other societies. The social wing of political thought has had nothing specifically to do with any religion.

If you haven't noticed capitalism is doing just fine. You just mightn't like the social consequences. China's doing great in international capitalism. It's destroyed the clothing industry and lots of manufacturing in many countries. Capitalism is great, isn't it? Small capitalism is going to the wall and big capitalism is thriving. It no longer has to depend on the local market to survive. That market can dry up: who gives a fuck about petty local concerns? So you don't have a job: that's no skin off our nose and if we can get someone to do your job cheaper that's all the better for us, so we'll sell your job overseas if we can.

You've seen how inspired people have been over the last sixty years by altruism. If I'm not hurting, I'm fine. So the neighbors have been evicted. They should've paid their mortgage. So some people are hungry. If you keep a steady job, you don't go hungry.

If the politicians are driving the train off a cliff, can someone in one of the carriages stop it?

Altruism isn't the prerogative of religion. Catholicism was fine with Mussolini. The bible belt was fine with the shrub. Italian Jews were sent to German concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed for lies.

So we come back to the issue after various sidetracks: if you have no evidence for a position you strenuously hold -- and it seems you haven't got a skerrick -- you should consider shutting the fuck up about it rather than showing everyone you have no justifiable reason for your opinions. You don't have to decide that Jesus existed or not. It won't change your life one way or another. Jesus historicism and Jesus mythicism to me are the same thing: a lot of talk and no evidence (though I must admit the apologetics that hide behind Jesus historicism have been around for nearly two millennia, while a coherent apologetic behind Jesus mythicism has only had a number of decades, so it's more likely that the former will have more impact on the common-sensicals, because it's more familiar).

Our job here is to sift through the evidence, whatever there is. I don't think anyone has posted any evidence for a real Jesus here yet. Why don't you be the first? How do you get beyond the text? It has no real-world support. Fiddling with textual content is nothing more than some variety of literary criticism. The sermon on the mount shows altruism! There is no sermon on the mount in three gospels, so was it from a character in the text or from the writers of the particular gospel?

We've seen all sorts of cogitations on the contents of the gospels that never reach the real world. We have to do better than that.


spin

judge

Jesus Mythers seem to have more in common with creationists. Creationists, seldom if ever come up with any actual evidence. They rather spend time desperately explaining away evidence.
This is what Jesus Mythers do, desperately explain away evidence, and propose vague improbable theories instead.

But , living in the USA (or its shadow) who wouldn't want to wish away the Jesus foisted on them by fundamentalists.
Which is, again, why it is a reactionary phenomenon. It is just part of the reaction against fundamentalism.