show_no_mercy

http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.c...henticity.html

It looks like mythicism has been completely demolished!!!!!!!!!!

maryhelena

Wishful thinking - can't they hear the banshee keening.....

Steven Carr

So if Glenn Beck says something so embarrassing that even Fox News has to apologise for it, we know that Glenn was simply blurting out the truth?

Minimalist

So..........the xtian story is so embarrassingly stupid that it must be "true?"

Yeah...it's that kind of logic that convinced me that it was bullshit in the first place.

aa5874

The truth hurts.

Jesus was a MYTH is true since this embarrasses the Church.

ApostateAbe

The series of articles on Slate.com seems to be a pretty good way to get a feel of what the secular scholars actually think about Jesus and Christian origins. In this case, no party involved in the debate is defending the Christian story as truth. They are in agreement about the scarcity of truth found in the gospels. I think we should best avoid being antagonistic against these scholars, because the arguments seem to be both non-religious and sound of reasoning. Here is another paragraph.

For all the rigor of the standard it sets, the criterion demonstrates that Jesus existed. Here are some facts in the Gospels that embarrassed the early church: Jesus was baptized by John (a great theological problem). He preached the end of the world (which did not come). He opposed the Temple in some way (and this opposition led directly to his death). He was crucified (a disreputable way to die). The inscription on the cross was "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (the church never preached this title for Jesus and shortly lost interest in converting Jews). No one actually saw him arise (though evidently his disciples almost immediately felt that he had). Ironically, it's the embarrassing nature of these facts that assures us of their authenticity. The exalted figure of Jesus as a heavenly redeemer and the Lord of the Hebrew Bible, on the other hand, was the response of Jesus' closest disciples to the events of Easter morning. These are tenets of faith, not claims that can be demonstrated historically.

It is not that there could be no possible alternative explanation for why the gospel accounts describe Jesus as being baptized by John. Maybe it was some sort of spiritual pre-Christian ritual that wasn't embarrassing for Jesus at all, and the historical evidence to prove it is simply lost. But, the explanation that Jesus really was baptized as a disciple of John the Baptist is both plausible and least ad hoc.

By itself, that isn't so much evidence. But, the argument again leans in favor of a historical human preacher Jesus when you consider Jesus' prophecies of the end of the world that would happen within "this generation" and never did. Maybe that myth was developed right at the start of the Jesus myth, before the failed deadline would be embarrassing. And, again, the plausible and least ad hoc explanation is that there really was a historical Jesus who really said such a thing.

Whenever we consider the arguments for a historical Jesus, we can always find salvation in the ad hoc explanations. When Paul says he met "James, the Lord's brother," maybe it was a James who wasn't really the literal brother of Jesus, contrary to what the gospels of Matthew and Mark state. Maybe "brother of the Lord" was only an honorary Christian title, and the historical evidence was lost to history. And maybe this myth of "James, the Lord's brother" developed into a literal brother of Jesus, so that the synoptic gospels and Josephus' statement of "...James, brother of Jesus, called Christ...", interpolation or not, can be explained as mere myth. And, again, the most plausible and least ad hoc explanation is that Jesus really did have a brother named James, and that Paul met him.

When these explanations are considered together, then the explanation that Jesus existed has the compounded advantage of explanatory scope. Explanatory scope is the advantage of one single explanation covering many pieces of evidence.

Nobody was expressing the hyperbolic level of certainty that show_no_mercy implies. But, I do think that the position that Jesus existed as a historical human does have a clear advantage, enough that those who may argue the position that Jesus never existed will have to be swimming against the current, alongside the millions of people who craft their model of Jesus according to what they hope, not according to the evidence.

Dirac_Delta

I'm sorry but this is circular reasoning. There is no reason to assume the stories were embarassing (at least in their original form).

aa5874

There is ZERO historical source from antiquity for HJ. An explanation about one's BELIEF is NOT evidence.

You don't understand the difference between OPINION and historical EVIDENCE for Jesus.

Perhaps BILLIONS of people BELIEVE Jesus did exist but NOT ONE can support their BELIEF or OPINION with any credible historical evidence.

It is HJers who are DISPUTING the EVIDENCE of myth and are swimming AGAINST the MYTH evidence.

HJers cannot swim away from Matthew 1.18, Luke 1.35, John 1, Mark 6.49, Mark 9.2, Mark 16.6, Acts 1.9, Galatians 1.1 and 1 Cor.15.3-8.

HJers have NOTHING but IMAGINATIVE IDEAS about Jesus using the same UNRELIABLE NT as history, the very NT that HJers claimed is NOT historically credible.

It was the Child of the Holy Ghost that was BAPTIZED by John in the Gospels.

It was Jesus who CREATED heaven and earth and was EQUAL to God that walked on water, transfigured, RESURRECTED and ASCENDED to heaven.

There is NO benefit to the Church that Jesus was just a man, there was NO benefit to Jesus believers that Skeptics knew that Jesus was just a man and NO author of the NT or Church writer ever claimed that Jesus was a MERE MAN.

Jesus was just a MYTH fable that was BELIEVED to be true like the MYTH fable of Marcion or like those MYTH fables of other Christian cults.

It is UNDISPUTED that there were many Christian cults of Antiquity that BELIEVED in MYTHS Gods and Sons of Gods that were WHOLLY FABRICATED without the need of a human being.

And further, Jesus BELIEVERS did NOT worship men as Gods.

Jesus was ONLY known as or BELIEVED to be the OFFSPRING of the Ghost of God, the Word, and the RESURRECTED Creator.

ApostateAbe

Yes, well, sort of. It is only a probabilistic inference from the evidence available, and the probabilities are what we are concerned with. For example, the Christian gospel stories seem to show some embarrassment emerging from their rivalry with the cult of John the Baptist. Each time the story is told in each of the four gospels, there seems to be a different method of combating the ridicule from the JtB cult. For example, JtB is described as unusually humble and deferential to Jesus in the few quotes he is given, "not worthy to tie the sandals on his feet" and "you should baptize me." You have heard those quotes many times in Sunday school, but I think the secular scholars have made the best sense of them. In one gospel, JtB is thrown in jail before the baptism occurs, implying that he wasn't there at the event. It isn't for certain, but it does seem to be the best explanation.

Dirac_Delta

I think that only the gospel of Mark is relevant here, since the others are based on it. So we have two scenarios:

1) the four gospels are trying to explain an embarassing historical situation.

2) the later gospels are trying to explain an embarassing situation received from earlier tradition.

I think that it is impossible to distinguish these two scenarios with the information we have. The JtB stuff is only evidence of rivalry with the christ-cult at most, but not necessarily even that.