brianrein

Well, I don't know. As a through-and-through atheist, I'm not sure you could call me an apologist, and anyways, if the last time Will Durant has been mentioned on the forum was in January 2004 then it seems the apologists have not brought him up nearly enough times to become tired of him. The stuff I posted was not the result of careful consideration or my own personal belief that those people are the last word. The stuff I posted is what came up when I Googled "did jesus exist". Somebody asked if there was any historian or scholar at all who was not Christian who thought Jesus existed, so I obliged.

I'll grant you that the first two guys are old and out-of-date, but the original poster wasn't asking for "current, living, religious scholars of great renown who are atheists and think Jesus existed." The poster was asking for (I quote) "any HISTORIAN or any book of history about Jesus of Nazareth." I could have cited Richard Dawkins ("It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all ... [however,] Jesus probably existed..." The God Delusion, paperback, page 122), but Dawkins is not a "HISTORIAN".

Not for that much time as a believer. His beliefs started falling apart while he was still learning the trade and realized just how insurmountable the problems with Christian tradition and texts were. And what I think is ridiculous is dismissing a scholar who is an expert on a historical Jesus, from a discussion of the possibility of a historical Jesus, because he is a scholar on the historical Jesus. How does that make sense again?

Anyways, I assume that it would be a much easier game to find atheist religious scholars who think Jesus exists, than to find some who think he doesn't. I've taken classes from at least two of the first category.

lpetrich

On that subject, there has been a LOT of argument about what the "historical Socrates" had been like; that's the "Socrates problem."

Nice to see that acknowledgment from a historical-Jesus advocate -- I'm considering starting a thread in which I ask historical-Jesus advocates about what they consider historical in the Gospels.
What's hooey here is your claiming that Aristophanes's references to Socrates are much like Josephus's references to Jesus Christ. Socrates is a central character in The Clouds, as opposed to being in a few paragraphs inserted here and there. However The Clouds is a satire, and Aristophanes might have wanted to satirize philosophers in general as opposed to Socrates in particular; he could have chosen Socrates for the sake of definiteness and familiarity.

So The Clouds may not tell us much about Socrates.

Chapter and verse, please. Also, if the resemblance is real, the TF's author could have copied off of Luke.

brianrein

EDIT: removed what I originally wrote. Please do start that thread.

mens_sana

I would add that he was associated with John the Baptist, preached an imminent apocalyptic kingdom, and that he seems to have concentrated his work in the Capernaum area. And tentatively, that he had few followers because the Romans were satisfied with his death and did not search out those around him. Pretty reasonable bios — in my view.

spin

OK, sorry about about the "apologist" label, just spokesperson for the christian hegemony.

Yup, Dawkins is not a historian.

As I said, he's not a historian.

The power of christian hegemony. But you're still in binary land thinking existed or didn't exist, which is another sign of christian hegemony. It's healthy to admit "don't know/not enough evidence" or "don't know/don't care" -- two very different positions, but I guess there'd be a fair few people in the latter category and I'm in the former.

(A lot of people are in denial about christian hegemony while using expressions like "god-forsaken hellhole", using money which says "in god we trust", swearing on a bible in court, singing "god bless America", having presidents who have to nominally be christians, having laws against non-believers holding office in various states, etc.)


spin

aa5874

Your post is total nonsense.

Jesus of the NT is presented and described as a God born of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1.18 Luke 1.35 I am making it clear to you that Jesus was depicted in the NT as the child and offspring of a Ghost also by Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and Eusebius.

Your man Jesus exists only in your imagination and must be fabricated by faith or belief without evidence.

aa5874

But, the HJ theory is all conspiracy, it is not based on credible evidence, it is based on the NT where Jesus is depicted as the some type of Ghost that floated away to heaven.

And I am not interested in what scholars BELIEVE, I am looking for the history of Jesus the man, from credible non-apologetic sources, like Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger.

But these writers never wrote a single word about Jesus, the man, so from where did Will Durant get his historical Jesus?

Straight out of his head, or maybe just like one of the "Pauls", not from man but by revelation.

nerv111

I think part of the reason why most historians appear to believe in the existence of a Historical Jesus (setting aside the question of whether this belief is justified or not) is because the historians most likely to even discussion the historicity of Jesus happen to be the ones who have a stake in that historicity, namely, religious historians, or, alternatively, theologians (much of the work, from the, I admit, little I’ve seen, comes from those who already accept the divinity of Jesus, it is hardly a surprise that they would also accept his historicity).

I don’t pretend to be an authority on the subject (I’m a philosophy graduate student), but the impression that I get from colleagues in other departments (specifically history and Classics) is that Jesus is hardly ever, if at all, really a serious topic of study. Most ancient historians or classicists don’t really pay all that much attention to Jesus as a historical figure. Since, let us face it, Jesus (provided he existed) didn’t really have much impact upon history until the Christian cult got under way, more than a century or so after his life.

SLD

Our standard Western Civilization book from used at my University claimed that historians were generally agreed that Jesus was a real person from the first century but that was all that a historian could truthfully determine about him.

Sorry no author - I think it was one of those committee books.

SLD

Styrofoamdeity

Back to the original question, the answer is rather obvious. For example, why do the majority of theologians believe in God? Mainly because people who already believe in God choose to be theologians. In fact it is exceedingly difficult to become a Theology professor unless you first confirm that you believe in God. So you have people who must believe in God teaching those who already believe in God. Not too hard to get a "majority" out of that. It may not be good or interesting scholarship, but you will have a majority.

As for historians, what a specialist in, say, Chinese History or 19th Century Industrial Economics believes about Jesus is rather irrelevant. Their knowledge may be no better than your own. So what type of person chooses to specifically study Jesus? Mainly just besotted Christians. Some of them will eventually go dig up a few bricks in the Holy Land and claim that have found Jesus' bungalow or John the Baptist's hut in the desert. These people have deep, deep confirmation biases. If a Jesus Mythicist became a full professor at an American state college, the little Christian kiddies would refuse to pay their tuition after Day One.

So the point about a "majority of historians" is rather irrelevant. Visit a class about Biblical History in America on the first day of class. Ask the Christians to raise their hands. It'll be all hands (unless there is some sort of academically suicidal atheist in there, who didn't realize how futile the semester was going to be).