Roland

Brian Flemming, the atheist filmmaker whose documentary "The God Who Wasn't There," has been generating quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere of late, has been profiled in an article in the August 20th edition of the Los Angeles Times (section B, page 2).

The title of the article is "Documentary Quesions the Existence of Jesus." It's a fairly sympathetic and balanced treatment of Flemming and the film, but it doesn't go into any real depth on the subject of Jesus being a myth (no surprise given that this is an article in a mainstream newspaper and not a scholarly journal). Still it's interesting to see the subject actually brought up in a venue such as this one.

Of course, the article quotes several people who challenge Flemming's assertions. Chris Leland, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, is quoted as saying, "It ignores an enormous range of Jewish research on a person called Jesus, archeological confirmations...as well as other external historical documents."

The article also quotes Father Thomas Rausch, a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, who says that "I don't know any serious scholar who questions the existence of Jesus." Of course, he brings up Josephus and the Testimonium Flavianum, arguing that "most scholars accept as aunthentic Josephus' description of a wise teacher called Jesus who did 'startling deeds' and 'gained a following among many Jews and many of Greek origin' and was condemned to the cross."

On the flip side, the article references Richard Carrier, claiming that Carrier didn't become convinced of Jesus' lack of historicity until he was interviewed for the film. He cites the lack of any reference to Josephus' quote in the writings of Origin as strong evidence against any of the Testimonium being genuine.

Like I said earlier, the article isn't very deep, but it's one of the first times I've seen the issue even raised in a mainstream publication.

butswana

Yeah, I just about popped a boner when I read the Mythicist sidebar in the U.S. News and World Report DaVinci Code Special Magazine. It was by Freke and Gandy. Suprised the shit out of me to see it even mentioned. My wife doesn't want to talk about it because it fucked with her so bad(shook her faith). She thought I was just doing my "god-hating rant" thing when I would proclaim Jesus never existed.

Toto

Documentary Questions the Existence of Jesus

You will find a number of prior threads on this film in this forum and PS&SA

AFisherOfMen

Find me one other person besides Jesus who lived before the invention of the printing press who had 4 bios written of him within 100 years of his life. Until you can do that, it looks like "Jesus Myth" is about as rational and historically responsible as {inflammatory comment and further comment deleted}

Oh yeah -- and if you want to defend "Jesus Myth", it should be 4 bios within a century of the life of someone who never existed ...

JustFishin'

JF - it is not kosher to reedit a mod's remarks. I will PM you

Toto

Well, there weren't 4 "bios". There was one story written by Mark, which was reworked by a number of other people. But we have no reason to think that Mark intended to write a biography.

Roland

Well, maybe two bios (Mark and John), since Matthew and Luke seem to be pretty much expansions of Mark's work.

I guess if we had a bio or two in which this guy DIDN'T walk on water, raise people from the dead, calm storms etc., I might be more willing to agree with you. However, "four" biographies consisting of little more than one absurdity after another don't bode well for their subject's historicity.

AFisherOfMen

Two points:

First, the 4 bios:
1) Mark, which many people consider to have been written first;
2) John, which most people agree doesn't depend on Mark;
3) Matthew, which has roughly 50% new material (most of it sayings and teachings) and therefore has legitimate claim to have its material considered;
4) Luke, the only one to take the approach of a historian.

Next, the argument that "if we had bios where he didn't walk on water, raise the dead, calm storms etc" begs the question as to whether he actually did them. Remember, even his enemies granted that he was a wonder-worker of sorts (though they made it "sorcerer" or otherwise uncomplimentary, see the Talmud).

---

So that leaves the "myther" position no better than it started off. If you want to go find 4 comparable bios -- you can include borrowing and re-use of previous sources, which is hardly an unheard-of thing -- of someone who never existed, go for it.

Until you can provide other examples, I don't see why the "myther" position should be taken seriously.

Toto

Fisher:

You are getting to this debate very late. We have already hashed out many of these issues to the point of exhaustion (even if one side has not convinced the other).

You are not doing yourself any favor by repeating standard apologetic arguments that have been demolished time and time again, such as the idea that the gospels are biographical material, or that there is more documentary evidence for Jesus than any other figure in ancient history.

You might want to compare the biographical material of Jesus to Alexander the Great (see this old thread - unfortunately some of the links are dead.)

For Alexander, we know that the following records were made (some have not been preserved, but are attested by later documents that rely on them):

Callisthenes, the official court historian, wrote 'Deeds of Alexander' during his lifetime

Onesicritus, who was Alexander's chief helmsman, a Cynic philosopher and a pupil of Diogenes, wrote 'How Alexander was educated' shortly after Alexander's death

Also records by Ptolemy, commander in Alexander's army and later successor king of Egypt, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty that ended with famous Queen Cleopatra in 30 B.C., and Aristobulus, a member of Alexander's staff of engineers.

For Jesus, there is no contemporary record, and no record of any writing by anyone who knew him (that cannot be shown to be forged).

With this sort of record, it is not clear why the idea that Jesus was a historical figure should be taken seriously.

If you want to discuss this question intelligently, I would advise you to start with www.jesuspuzzle.com - Earl Doherty's site. Then we can talk. :wave:

Sparrow

Well, for 'bios', there's remarkably little detail about someone whose birth was so heralded. There's that star thing and all the gifts from the magi. That should have merited some quill and papyrus time. Son of god as a toddler? The crowds are enthralled. His teenage years could have been among the first rebels with a cause. Yet for someone who supposedly was prophecied so clearly, nothing survives of any writing from when he was alive? Earliest estimates of the writing of GMark put it 30 or 40 years after his alleged death. Earliest fragments of an actual gospel are nearly 100 years (maybe more) after that and only include parts of 7 verses. Wow that's well attested.

Next time you go to the library, check out the fiction section. It's full of the most imaginative stories. Some of them are set in real places. There's really a 221B Baker Street in London, but Sherlock Holmes is still a fanciful creation.

AFisherOfMen

I looked at the old Alexander post. Some of the "facts" in it are incorrect, for example, the "fact" that the "earliest sources" on Jesus don't mention Jesus' mother being Mary, which is not correct (Mark 6:3), or the "fact" that we don't know whether Jesus was literate -- which is also not correct, we know he was literate from our records of him reading from the prophet Isaiah at the synagogue, see Luke 4:16 & forward). The "no portraits til the 6th century" bit is also incorrect, there are older portraits in the catacombs. I think I've read enough of that.

Meanwhile, Jesus still has more bios than Alexander does despite the fact that he never conquered vast swaths of the world or employed a court historian, and also we'll remember that Alexander is still solidly historical ...

Nobody has yet to produce 4 bios of someone else who existed before the printing press, or even a single bio (much less 4) of someone who *didn't* exist as you claim for Jesus. The conditions of my challenge just weren't met. The Jesus Myth is what's the myth.

I've laid down a fair challenge, and nobody has taken it. I suspect the challenge cannot be met, but unless someone actually proves me wrong -- which is to say, responding with 4 bios within a century/before the printing press of someone who never existed, I'm going to remain convinced that the evidence shows the Jesus Myth has no solid ground on which to stand.

And again, unless someone comes up with those 4 bios within a century, before invention of printing press, of someone who never existed ... I don't see the point of responding further to your posts on this topic unless you meet a fair historical challenge which I've laid out twice now.