Toto

But you went on to say "The best competing explanation has neither plausibility (we have no other example of a merely-mythical allegedly-human cult founder) nor explanatory power (it cannot explain the evidence without great difficulty)."

Which I object to. A mythical Jesus is plausible - religions start around supernatural gods all the time, and you had to carefully carve out your "merely mythical allegedly human cult founder" to say that there are no other examples that match this model.

And a mythical Jesus does explain the evidence neatly and elegantly - unless you think that the mere mention of an ambiguous brother of the Lord could not possibly be questioned. Historicists, not mythicists, have to invent difficult explanations for the lack of evidence for a historical Jesus where it might be expected, the contradictory nature of the earliest evidence, etc. They have to invent special rules, such as the hermeneutics of charity, or the various criteria that don't hold up when you look at them.

outhouse

yes, they wrote theology AND mythology about a man.

usually they do, and many real men were always added into the mythology, and these men almost always took on mythical porportions.


thats only a matter of your opinion



there is no difficulty at all seeing the mortal man involved in the theology created.

aa5874

The preponderance of evidence show that the NT is a compilation of Myth Fables.

A careful study of the Existing Recovered NT manuscripts do show that each author merely fabricated events that could NOT have happened or could have only been Believed to have happen if Jesus was considered a God.

The accounts of Jesus, although they appear to be total fiction, was accepted as historical in antiquity once it was accepted that Jesus was a God.

Essentially, No account of Jesus is implausible or fiction if Jesus was the Son of a God.

It is BELIEVED, up to day, that a real God can do anything.

Examine the words of Jesus in gMark.

Mark 10:27 KJV In gMark, God can do anything.

In gMark, Jesus was the Son of a God.

Mark 14.61-62Mark 15:39 KJV Everything that Jesus did in gMark is True once it is BELIEVED Jesus was the Son of a God.

The NT is a compilation of 2nd century or later Myth Fables about the Son of a God that was Killed or caused to be killed by the Jews.

ApostateAbe

I had to carve out the "merely-mythical allegedly-human cult founder"? I suppose, but all three of those characteristics are fundamental to the earliest myths of Jesus. If we see nothing but oranges in the basket, then apples in the basket are not plausible. It hardly matters that both apples and oranges are fruit. Would I be "carving" out my criteria if I were to delineate the differences between apples and oranges? Arguments from plausibility need to make at least a few distinctions. Ambiguous things are always plausible.

The first characteristic (merely-mythical) is merely a delineation of the difference between the two competing explanations.

The second characteristic (allegedly-human) is a very important point, though it is lost to as many mythers as Christian apologists, that the earliest myths about Jesus clearly portray him as a mere human being, not as God nor as a god of any sort. Making sense of the beginning of the myth must incorporate that reality. We cannot pretend that a merely-mythical Jesus is plausible just because there are many merely-mythical gods, because that bears no relation to the earliest myths of Jesus as we know them. This is also fundamental to the identity of Jesus per the earliest myths.

The third characteristic (cult founder) is the essential trait that makes the myth of Jesus relevant, the same as so many other religious myths in the ancient and modern worlds.

My argument would be unfair if Jesus were the only actual-and-alleged-human cult founder that we know about. But, the ancient and modern worlds are of course pouring over with them.

ApostateAbe

Also, I figure the best way to effectively rebut this argument from plausibility is to "carve out" your own set of criteria that makes a merely-mythical Jesus typical but an actual-human Jesus atypical.

Toto

No, they don't. What are you talking about? The earliest sources of the Christian myth are Paul, whose Jesus has no significant human story, or possibly Mark, much later, where Jesus is a semi-divine spirit in a human body who performs miracles, walks on water, and rises from the dead.

The earliest sources that portray Jesus as merely human might include the Ebionites in the second century, although little is known about them and at least some thought that Christ was an archangel who was incarnated in Jesus, or the critics of Christianity, such as Celsus or the Emperor Julian.

Part of the argument for mythicism is that the earliest versions of Jesus have the fewest details, while as time goes on, later stories accumulate narrative details of his early life, and Jesus becomes more concrete. These details came from the human imagination, not remembered history.

ApostateAbe

Paul never says nor implies that Jesus is God--an implausible thing for him to believe given that he was a Jew--but a handful of times he implies that Jesus was a human being. Paul placed pronounced importance on the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Before Christianity, gods generally did not die. They were generally immortal. I will repeat my old list of things Paul says about the apparently human Jesus. I know you love this list.

• Paul believed that Jesus was born from a woman as the Son of God in a Jewish society - Galatians 4:4-5.
• Paul believed that Jesus "was descended from David according to the flesh" - Romans 1:3.
• Paul believed that Jesus taught that "those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel" - 1 Corinthians 9:14, see also Luke 10:7.
• Paul believed that Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, gave thanks, broke it, said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me," took the cup, said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me" - 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, see also Luke 22:17-20.
• Paul believed that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, appeared to Cephas, to the twelve disciples, to five hundred Christians (some of whom have since died), to James, to all of the apostles, and much later to Paul himself - 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.
• Paul believed that Jesus commanded that a wife should not separate from her husband and a husband should not divorce his wife - 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, see also Mark 10:11-12.
• Paul believed that Jesus had a brother named James - Galatians 1:19, see also Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55.

Mark of course is far more clear on the point that Jesus was a human being. Jesus per Mark ate, drank, walked, taught, had parents, brother, friends, disciples, he rode donkeys, he was a Jew and was bound by Jewish laws. There can be absolutely no doubt--Mark believed Jesus to be 100% human. Mark's Jesus all but says so explicitly himself, per Mark 10:18. The miracles of Jesus per Mark are irrelevant (many ancient human beings were reputedly miracle-workers).

outhouse

if a rebel doomsday cult leader avoidiong taxation and corruption in the temple lived


and was martyred after his death fighting against the roman corruption in the temple and was later deified.


what kinds of writings would we get??? exactly what we have

ApostateAbe

We probably would not have, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," in response to a question about whether to pay taxes to Rome.

aa5874

HJers cannot find a single contemporary source that claimed to have become a member of the Jesus cult because of a direct relation with Jesus.

Essentially all the the people who wrote about Jesus did NOT ever acknowledge any actual sighting of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Gospels are useless because from the very start they are filled with fiction and implausibilities.

The Pauline writer although implying he was alive during the time of King Aretas wrote NOTHING of sighting Jesus Before the supposed Resurrection.

In effect, we have NO known witnesses of an historical Jesus.

The historical Jesus is DEAD out of the water.

We have NOTHING--no artifacts, no eyewitnesses, no writings from Jesus, no recovered writings in the 1st century.

We have a BIG BLACK BOTTOMLESS hole for Jesus.

No matter how much you dig you will never get to the "bones" of Jesus.

Jesus story is represented by an Empty Tomb.