Carrie

I know not ALL secular scholars think Jesus was just a myth. But is Earl Doherty's theory the majority opinion, or not? Why do some secular scholars think Jesus WAS a historical person? And why would they disagree with Earl Doherty's theory of a mythical Jesus?

spin

Doherty is not the majority opinion.

The weight of tradition is heavy on most people, even secular students of the past, so it's not surprising that many hang on to literary shreds. Doherty has apparently jettisoned all the literary shreds. This is not a bad thing to do. The literature was preserved by xian scholars with xian interests and it's not strange that xian ideas creep into non-xian texts preserved by xians. This does not mean that all references to Jesus and/or xianity were the product of xian scribes, but reasoned cases can be made against many of them.

"who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell


spin

Legion

Claims about Jesus aside, there's still a significant amount of evidence (beginning with letters from people claiming to have known him, with varying levels of authenticity; and then the large amount of correspondance from people who knew people who claimed to have known Jesus) that he at least existed. It's not proof, but the circumstancial evidence is strong nonetheless.

Jayhawker Soule

I am unfamiliar with these letters. I also do not understand why letters of questionable authenticity should be deemed compelling evidence. So, could you give me a few examples of authentic letters by those claiming to have known Jesus?

spin

Are Homer, Hesiod, Aesculus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Apollonius of Rhodes sufficient circumstantial evidence for you to say the same thing about Zeus?

Historical analyses are based on historical data, each piece of which needs to be shown to be relevant to the period under question.


spin

Legion

There are no examples of guaranteed authentic letters by someone claiming to have known Jesus, but the letters of James of 1 & 2 Peter may be authentic and both persons are listed amongst his closest followers. About 7 of Paul's letters are pretty much unqestionably attributed to him and he frequently refers to having met Jesus' immediate followers.

Legion

Since I haven't read each and every one of those, I can't really say, but if it could be reasonably demonstrated that each of those persons really lived and really wrote the writings attributed to them and those persons were claiming that Zeus were a literal person who literally existed and they had literally seen him, I would have to at least give their testimonies reasonable consideration; however, it takes a far higher standard of evidence to believe what is said about someone than it does to believe that someone existed.

I've never said otherwise, and literary evidence is a legitimate piece of evidence, though their credibility as well must be examined.

mrmoderate

Where is the physical evidence that any of these men were real? We are not even certain if the poet Homer really did write The Illiad and The Odyssey. What we have are writtings of others claiming that these men existed and of course the writings attributed to these men themselves.

Disclaiming Jesus's existance based on lack of physical evidence takes us down the slippery slope of having to find where historical figures lived and have their names inscribed in the cornerstones of the homes.

Historical evidence of most of these infamous persons is mostly confined to literary text. Literary text can always be disputed by someone for some reason. We need to put historical characters who's only source of proof of being on trial as to what are the rational pro's and con's of their existance or why would they have been conjured up.

Legion

Exactly. And let's not miss the distinction between evidence for someone existing and evidence for what is said about that person also being true. I've simply suggested that there is a significant (though not conclusive) amount of evidence that Jesus actually existed; that's a far cry from saying anything at all about the things said about him. I've heard many times (and I haven't really investigated this so I can't verify that it's true, though I suspect it is) that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for many other historical figures whose existence we accept unquestionably--beginning with some of the Roman emperors who were roughly contemporary to Jesus.

Toto

I suggest that you investigate before your claim something like that. There are coins, monuments, contemporary writings for many of those Roman emperors. We have things that they themselves wrote, descriptions by their enemies. We have a tomb for the father of Alexander the Great. (See the threads referenced here on Alexander.)

But let's go back to Paul. Where in his letters does he identify James or Peter as a follower of a human named Jesus who lived in recent times? "Brother of the Lord" is too ambiguous.