No Robots

You seem like a pretty good guy, Petrich. Maybe we can talk things over in a general way in some other thread.

gdeering

Very true, but when atheists start looking at the Christianity the possibility of an historical Jesus quickly diminishes, evaporating into insignificance. It's easy to see based on other mythologies that Jesus is a fiction too. That's what I find so amazing about western christianity, people actually believe this stuff.

It's a sop of the theists that atheists are anti-God, so most atheists keep a low profile on the subject of MJ/HJ. If we were not so worried about making the poor victimized religious folk angry maybe more atheists would see the importance of recognizing the fact not only is the whole notion of God is a fiction, but the historical core of the NT is an illusion as well.


Gregg

lpetrich

I would not want to jump to that conclusion; I think that there has to be some plausible path of mythical development. Fortunately, Earl Doherty provides one in his theory that he was originally a sort-of god proclaimed by Paul in his letters.

That aside, I think that another good comparison would be to the question of the historical King Arthur. I've seen several speculations on who he might have been, and also some speculations that he was completely mythical. But a nice feature of the debate about that question is the lack of a Church of King Arthur and its associated doctrinal commitments.

mountainman

But in which century? Dont forget, when christianity first arose in the Roman empire the empire was Greek. The NT was authored in Greek, for the Greeks. It is not a matter of just looking at how a modern atheist would react to the rise of christianity, it is also a matter of asking how the Greeks reacted to it. The Greeks in the Eastern empire, particularly those around Alexandria during the period between Philo and Porphyry. Is there any evidence that the Greeks said "This is fictitious bullshit"? I think there is such evidence.

There is a disconnect in the integrity of the correspondence of Paul, much of which is recognised to be forgery, and some of which, such as the letters between Paul and Senecca, fourth century forgery.

But the greatest disconnect from reality in the field of BC&H is widely recognised as archaeological - the new testament has an extremel poor and scant record when it comes down to the archeological evidence, and more forgeries flood the media every century. Advancement in understanding of christian origins implies that it is about time for the field of BC&H to address the "Great Silence of the Archaeology for the first Three Centuries". The BC&H concept of "Early Christianity" remains utterly disconnected from recognisable ancient history.

aa5874

HJers cannot show how their Jesus was constructed whether he was constructed solely from a single character, multiple characters or was only constructed using Hebrew Scripture and Pagan ideology.

The historical Jesus is dead.

The historical Jesus cannot be salvaged, his construction is unknown.

mountainman

I object to making reference to Greek ideology as "Pagan" ideology
on the basis of the appearance in the archaeological record of this
term "pagan". Prior to Nicaea we have the Greek civilisation. After
Nicaea we have the split between the Christians and the Pagans.
This is like a fundamental particle and its anti-particle. But we
cannot so perceive direct evdience of this political tension prior
to the fourth century, at which time the term "pagan" appears
as a Christian perjoritive term against non-christians.

Before he was born he was not.

The question to be faced by all parties is whether (or not) the HJ ever lived and breathed and walked on the planet Earth.

And this is a slightly different question from the question as to whether Harry Potter lives in your heart and mind.

gdeering

Hi lpetrich,

I think that the agnostic view is the wisest (so it’s not one I’d subscribe to, if only for that reason). Still, if the Christian reaction to Jesus were similar to the one that they might have for H-Arthur: “how interesting that an epic scale example of telephone created a legend out of a minor figure in history,” I’d have an easier time being agnostic on the subject.

If the question of HJ/MJ had the burning importance in the west as H-Buddha/M-Buddha currently has, then I’d be happier to admit that there his no conclusive evidence to dismiss either side. Both HJ/MJ removes the supernatural, so I'm satisfied, but HJ is also a tool of the theists so it moves me to root for the MJ side. Unfortunately it not an academic debate entirely.


Gregg

bacht

Like others here my journey began with religious faith in the Christian message. After leaving the church I assumed there was some Jesus who became the grit for the pearl. I even studied the "historical Jesus" in university, along with some mythology.

As a churchgoer I was ignorant of the intertestamental history of the Jews, and no-one encouraged me to investigate even Josephus. Discussion of pagan Hellenistic religion wasn't even on the radar.

But after encountering Earl Doherty I saw that the mythic position (which I had never heard of before) made a lot of sense and answered a lot of questions about the NT, such as the contrast between the epistles and the gospels.

Having reached the point of complete skepticism about the supernatural I can now see that most of the NT is built on miraculous ideas like resurrection, exorcism, eschatology etc. It's also easier for me now to see how the Christian interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures is arbitrary and significantly different from Jewish understanding both before and after the 1st C.

afaik the official position of this forum is agnosticism re Jesus' existence on earth. If nothing else, starting from the premiss of myth is a useful tool for examining the texts with fresh eyes. Since I no longer see Christ as a teacher or leader there is no personal stake for me other than curiosity, and a bit of "de-programming" from my time with the God squad.

wordy

I have read Doherty since 1997 or so but not so carefully that I remember what you refer to there.

Could you say it in other words? that he was originally a sort-of god proclaimed by Paul in his letters.

By he your refer to Jesus as Christ. Christ being a spiritual emanation from God?

graymouser

I've lurked on this forum for years, and it's been interesting, enlightening and infuriating at times. The "disconnect" between mythicism and the scholarly world at large is not particularly hard to understand when the majority of scholars are either Bible scholars who are oath-sworn to uphold a particular anti-mythicist point of view, or historians who are not, generally speaking, Bible scholars. The former don't believe in a "Historical" Jesus at all, instead believing in the full-on Christian Jesus. The latter either believe in CJ or HJ depending upon their personal religious convictions.

Personally, I think that both strict mythicist and historicist viewpoints are overrating the claimed unity of early Christianity. I'm skeptical of the idea that there was one historical person, or one mythical invention, around which the whole Jesus movement cohered. I'm more interested in a view that looks at it as having been a number of distinct movements that were cobbled together after the fact, and the literature was redacted in certain ways to give the impression of a more significant unity. Certainly this is what a lot of the mixed messages in the NT say to me - the faith soteriology in Paul versus the works in the Gospels, the tension in the Gospels between the eschatological Jesus and the wisdom teacher Jesus. Some of these may have been based around a historical character, but I tend to think that there probably was not a single guy, and even if there was, he is so shrouded in legend that we cannot know anything positive about him. (If anyone knows of good sources that delve into possibilities of a multiple-source Christianity, I'd definitely appreciate pointers.)