mountainman

In the analogy I provided it is intended that Group A represent the people who TODAY claim that there are no sources that mention Jesus up until the 18th century which assume that he actually did not exist. They follow the paper trail like good textual critics while ignoring history. They cannot find any fish. They do not bother to ask the historical record (Group C) whether anyone was systematically removing the fish (the evidence that they seek, and finding none, claim there was none).

Group B represent the heresy hunters and the Inquisition and all the other defenders of the faith who IN THE PAST found the instances of written and oral blasphemy (in the form of the myth-fish) and removed them from the pond by means of the sword, and fire and inquisitional systematics. This group did not need to mention anything about the insignificant powerless freethinking opinions that they silenced. Their job and charter was associated with the glorious power and authority of the church and its state, and later the state and its church. They saw all these blasphemers as the "OTHER", and the "OTHER" was to be eradicated. They did not need to mention the different species of the "OTHER" because they were not concerned with the details, only with the execution of the law of the land.

Group C represent the onlookers who can see the political history of the fish, and the points of view of Group A and B.

Like I said, maybe a better analogy is required here.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

One must first know or understand what happened BEFORE the 12th century to understand why people were TERRIFIED to even argue that Jesus existed just as a mere man or was only Divine.

In any event, please examine the Papal Bull of Pope Eugene in the 15th century.

See http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmes...=&Pgnu=&recnu=

Who would argue that Jesus was a mere man or merely Divine in the time of Pope Eugene?

People today, even Ehrman, seem not understand that the historical Jesus argument, that Jesus was mere man, was not entertained at least up to the 15th century by the Roman Church.

In the 15th century, HJers would be candidates for eternal fire prepared for the Devil.

Up to at least the 15th century, one would be candidate for eternal hell fire if he claimed "there was a time when Jesus was NOT God".

mountainman

Would anyone like to comment on the claim that the Jews also constituted the earliest mythicist 'archetype'?


See also Papal Bull of Gregory IX Si vera sunt of 1239 CE


Thanks aa5874 for the reference to the Papal bulls:

List of Papal Bulls [WIKI] (1059-1998 CE)
List of Papal Bulls on Jewish Question (598-1735 CE)
List of Papal Bulls on Freemason Question (1738-1965 CE)






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

Again, any manuscript or book that claimed Jesus was a mere man was subject to severe sanctions. In other words, the Historical Jesus argument was treated identical to the argument that Jesus was only Divine up to at least the 15th century.

Typically, Jews would argue that the Expected Messianic would be a mere man which would be regarded as Heresy or Blasphemy by the Church and Jesus cult from the at least the 2nd to the 15th century.

Essentially, the Roman Church and Jesus cult only entertained ONE MYTH argument---Jesus was God the Creator, born of a Ghost and a Virgin up to at least the 15th century.

PhilosopherJay

Hi all,

I'm not sure why the origination of the Jesus Myth theory in the 18th Century should count against it being correct. Many theories originating in the 18th Century replaced long held prior theories.

For example, Antoine Lavoisier, Joseph Priestly and others discovered the element "Oxygen" in the 18th Century. Should we dismiss the idea of oxygen because nobody before the 18th Century thought of it or wrote about it? Charles Messier more or less discovered galaxies in the 18th Century. Should we deny the existence of galaxies because no ancient or medieval astronomer ever thought of them?

Shall we also reject the absurd modernist idea of Benjamin Franklin that Lightning Bolts are nothing but electricity. Clearly they are made by Zeus or Jehovah and created to show their power. That is what almost all men believed before this time. George Cuvier came up with the absurd notion that species could go extinct. Before him people had always been certain that when God created a species it was for once and all time.

James Watt's steam engine, the Pacific Islands discovered by James Cook, The planet Uranus discovered by William Herschel and Daniel Fahrenheit's mercury thermometer had few or no proponents before the 18th Century.

Finally, let us throw out John Dalton's crazy 18th Century "Atomic theory". While Democritus, Epicurus and others may have formed the basis of the theory in Ancient Greece, nobody before Dalton had suggested that each element was made up of a different type of atom.

The 18th Century which spawned the Jesus Myth theory saw the birth of all these other ridiculous, previously unheard of theories too.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Grog

There is no evidence that anyone questioned the existence of William Tell for 300 years after the events occurred. That in itself is not positive evidence in favor of his existence. It's interesting that the argument from silence is only fallacious in one direction.

aa5874

But, what about the Quest for the Historical Jesus? The Quest for the Historical Jesus was initiated when it was realized that NT Jesus was a Myth.

The Quest for HJ is still on-going and it is not known who they are looking from since at least the 18th century.

aa5874

There is no evidence that anyone questioned the existence of the Angel Gabriel and Satan who was with Jesus on the Pinnacle of the Temple.

Robert Tulip

The concept of blasphemy cannot really be restricted to the last millennium, considering the legend that the bakeries and kilns of Alexandria were fired for six months by the Christian destruction of the classical wisdom held in the library of that city.

As Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount at Matthew 5:11, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven." In other words, blessed are the heretics and blasphemers who are falsely condemned by the hypocritical politics of piety for seeking an accurate understanding of the Christ Myth.

The secret tradition of esoteric wisdom, with the understanding that the idea of Christ is purely spiritual, can be seen in a range of concealed metaphors, including the zodiac stars used as the template for The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. But the strong effort to conceal this tradition indicates the level of social condemnation that scientific analysis of religion received, and still receives today.

mountainman

Hi PhilosopherJay,

Excellent catch! The proponents of all these wonderful discoveries, many of them freely admitting that they were standing on the shoulders of earlier giants (earlier researchers), seemed to have been awarded by the community of scholars, all sorts of recognition, such as Nobel Prizes and the like.

It would seem that the scholars in the field of Biblical History, in the recognition of a seemingly new discovery of (Jesus) mythicism are inclined to denounce the proponents as "holocaust deniers", "crackpots", "pseudo-scholars" and worse.

It would also seem, to my research and way of thinking anyway, that the mythicists of modern times are also standing on the shoulders of giants, but that these earlier giants were heretics and blasphemers.

Social conditioning seems to play a great part in this reception to mythicist theories in the modern epoch and it would seem that although the blasphemy laws have been relaxed by the nations and the states (well most of the western nations anyway) there persists a great deal of emotional, even knee-jerk reaction to the discussion of mythicist theories by the modern biblical scholars and academics.

Your parallel to many great discoveries in the fields of science is very apt, but I am wondering why committed historicists like Ehrman and Casey do not recognise it, and in fact go out of their way to indicate that mythicism is as blasphemous and pseudo-scholarly as, well, holocaust denial.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia