trexmaster

I found this pro-historicist page by someone called "Bede", who I recall has posted on this forum a few times. I've decided to respond to it, or part to it; you can find the original here.

This reminds me of the creationist argument that "evolution is losing ground by scientists". Bede presents no evidence of a scholarly consensus.

Besides, [sarcasm]we all know that Christian scholars (that is, scholars indoctrinated into Christianity, which teaches that Jesus DID exist) aren't common and that arguing for Jesus's non-existence won't arouse the ire of some fundies.[/sarcasm]

That's because the passages in question has suspect authenticity/relevance to the Christian demigod:

1) The first Jesus passage, the third paragraph in Book 18 ("[Jesus] was the Christ") interrupts a continuity between a paragraph preceding it, and a paragraph following it. The paragraph preceding the Jesus one reports Pilate's massacring of some Hebrews protesting his construction of an aqueduct. The paragraph AFTER the Jesus one starts with, "At about the same time, another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder..." There exists no mention of a previous "sad calamity" in the Jesus paragraph, so if it was to make any sense, the "another sad calamity" paragraph apparently followed immediately after the one mentioning Pilate's massacre. The ENTIRE Jesus passage was probably a sloppy insertion by Christians.

2) The second Jesus passage, in Book 20, is actually believed to refer to a Jesus of Damneus, with "Christ" a dishonest Christian's addition.

Though some of his passages do suggest that Paul did "humanize" Jesus a little, and therefore he wasn't writing about a "spiritual Christ" as some have argued, a few of his other passages refer to a "Lord", NOT Jesus of Nazareth! He could have meant Yahweh! In any case, those passages no more argue for Jesus's historicity than the details of the Hercules myth prove Hercule's existence.

Finally, Bede mocks the mythicist position by comparing it to a possible argument one could make for Hannibal's non-existence. However, the exists an important distinction between Hannibal and Jesus. The reason we have little contemporaraneous evidence for Hannibal is because those sources were probably destroyed, as Bede admits. We have no documents from the time in which Hannibal lived. But we do have Josephus, whose works do come from Jesus's time, and with the exception of two insertions/"editings" by dishonest Christians, NONE OF THEM MENTION JESUS OF NAZARETH!

Yellum Notnef

Don't even bother with it.
Bede is a prolific internet scribbler who does a lot of huffing and puffing for Jesus.

trexmaster

Perhaps, but I felt like I had to respond anyway. Don't want the next generation to get misled.

My feeling is that we can't really tell whether or not Jesus existed or not. I have leanings towards the "total fabrication" camp, but I have yet to grow fully convinced that there didn't exist a small grain of truth to the Jesus story.

That said, I think we can all have certainty that the Jesus as defined by the New Testament never existed. If you define Jesus as a popular miracle-worker in ancient Israel, then Earl Doherty, Kenneth Humphreys, and Acharaya S are correct in saying that Jesus never existed. It appears that the possibility of Jesus's historicity positively correlates to the liberties you take with the NT story.

ziffel

I don't mean to derail, but this is a subject I'm very interested in. Does anyone have any recommended books on the subject of the historicity, OR mythology of Christ? I am also interested in a secular historical account of the beginnings and development of Christianity in general.

Julian

The premier site on the mythicist stance: http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/

Julian

Wads4

He also plugs the notion that Christians should take all the credit for the rise of Science in the West; never mind the achievements of the Greeks and the Chinese, and the Christian suppression of classical culture.

jakejonesiv

Earl Doherty's work is very valuable, but it is not the end all and be all of the case against the historical jesus.

Take a look at RadicalKritic. You will need some German, but there is also some info in English.

Also, The Journal of Higher Criticism

The books by Robert Price are very good. I would recommend the Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and Deconstructing Jesus .

Price, along with Jeffery Jay Lowder also contributed to and edited the book, The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave. This book contains articles by many notable persons of IIDB.

To top it all off, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources by Frank R. Zindler "amputes the Jewish leg" upon which historical Jesus is said to stand.

Jake Jones IV

Julian

I am familiar with almost all of the above. The reason why I linked to Doherty's site is that it contains his entire book for free. We like free. Also, Detering can be hard to follow unless one has a good amount of knowledge. I do speak German but I suspect that most here don't. I have both of those Robert Price books, they are very worthwhile. All in all, Jake gives us some good links here.

Julian

Amaleq13

Please avoid comments about the individual and confine your criticisms to the arguments and evidence presented by the individual.

Thanks in advance,

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator