Doug Shaver

That's not quite the right analogy. That would suggest that Christianity originated with people who thought that the canonical gospels were true stories. That is not what the regulars in this forum take it to mean.

It's not easy to give an account that everyone will agree to, but here is my attempt.

JM is the hypothesis that the Jesus Christ worshipped by the first Christians was a purely spiritual being who had never inhabited this world. Mythicists believe that the crucifixion and resurrection occurred in a heavenly realm, not anywhere on earth. They believe that the gospel stories in their original versions probably were works of the authors' imaginations intended solely for instructional purposes, not meant to be regarded as biographical accounts of Christianity's founder (who in any case never existed as a single individual). Sometime in the second century, the gospel Jesus was conflated in some Christian communities with the Christ Jesus of Paul and other first-century writers, and only from that point on does history begin to coincide somewhat with Christian orthodoxy.

Chaucer

This seems a fair description of the JM stance. More broadly, I'm now interested in addressing a further question respecting "demographics". DS has made reference here to "the regulars in this forum". Now I feel that DS is essentially correct in characterizing the JM stance as reflective of the regulars in this forum. Consequently, I'm curious as to any thoughts here on how come the regulars in forums such as these seem to adopt the JM stance, while the whopping majority of skeptics in the "off-line" world are much more like the skeptic that Toto encountered at UCLA, who see no problem with viewing the historic record as sufficient enough to show a likelihood of Jesus being a historic human being? How come these forums hardly reflect the viewpoint of the whopping majority of educated skeptics around the world in this respect?

There is indeed a huge contrast here, and I'd appreciate any reflections on it, please.

Thank you,

Chaucer

Trog

I see. So that would make me a non-Jesus Mythicist who considers BibleJesus mythological? What is the local term for that? Is there something between Jesus Mythicist and Jesus Historicist, or would I fall fully in the Historicist camp?

And should I take it from the above that the local definition of "Christian" does not include the belief there was an actual corporeal Christ? Because if that were part of the definition, then presumably you could be a non-mythicist even if you believe the notion of a corporeal Christ came from a spiritual or metaphorical tradition (since that would not contradict the proposition that the first "Christians" did believe in an actual corporeal Christ).

If it is just a hypothesis (a tentative account, subject to revision, or a working assumption set forward for the purposes of argument or investigation) I don't see what's so irrational about that. It certainly seems easily within the realm of possibility, given the mystery-play feel some of the Jesus stories have (especially the bits which no human could have attested to).

So mythicists believe in this heavenly realm, or was this a shorthand way of saying Mythicists believe that others believed that these things occurred in a heavenly realm?

thedistillers

What is irrational is not the hypothesis itself. What is irrational is to cling to that particular hypothesis, when all you've got is basically arguments from silence and questionable biblical exegesis.

aa5874

That is not what all MYTHICIST believe, you have just simply stated Doherty's theory. And it is not even necessary to have a theory.

I find it futile to develop all sorts of theories about Jesus Christ when the Church has already claimed that Jesus was truly the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God, and was God, who created heaven and earth for himself, was truly transfigured, truly resurrected and truly ascended through the clouds.

Jesus Christ was just a myth as described by the Church.

I do not need any theories for Homer's Achilles.
Homer presented Achilles as a mythical figure.

I do not need any theories for Joseph Smith's angelic Moroni.
Joseph Smith presented Moroni as a myth.

I do not need any theories for Jesus Christ.
The Church presented Jesus as a myth.
The Church Jesus was a myth.


That was a fair description of Doherty's stance. I am not aware that there has been a concensus regarding any JM theories.

I am interested in the sources of antiquity that support the human only Jesus. When are you going to present your evidence for the human only Jesus?
On this forum people are looking for evidence of the human only Jesus and cannot find any. Do you have any evidence for Jesus as a mere man? The authors of the NT and Church writings claimed Jesus was both God and man, pease tell me what source of antiquity can show that Jesus was just a man.

These are some of the writers that claimed or implied Jesus was God and man and had no earthly father.

Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Chrysostom, and the authors of the NT.

Please tell me how do you intend to show that Jesus was only human?

Toto

First of all, let me be clear that I don't think there is a vast conspiracy of academics against mythicism or Doherty in particular. Doherty is still trying to find the best way to get his ideas across, but his battle has been with group think and normal academic politics.

Rick Sumner claims that I make assumptions, but he is arguing against positions that I don't hold, perhaps because I have been discussing this on the boards for so long that I no longer want to repeat myself.

But for Chaucer:

The Internet Infidels established a forum around 2000 of the Common Era, as internet technology advanced and more people got internet access at home and at work. It attracted a lot of atheists looking for community and Christians who were in the process of losing their faith, so it also attracted a group of Christian apologists who came here specifically to proclaim the truth of Christianity and bash atheism.

One of the constant claims from these Christian apologists was that there are some people who are so deluded that they don't think Jesus existed, ha ha, but the scholarly consensus is that Jesus existed. Why, these deluded people are just like Creationists who reject the scholarly consensus on evolution!! At that point, I suspect most atheists here, like me, had no concerns about mythicism, and thought that there probably was a historical Jesus, but he wasn't the son of god and didn't rise from the dead, and this alone was enough to make Christianity false, so why go further? But the Christian apologists kept raising the issue, and I became aware that Campus Crusade for Christ made the existence of a historical Jesus a key point of their recruitment of naif students into their cult.

And then there was Peter Kirby, of legendary status, a young man who lost his Catholic religion about the age of 16, but was devoting his talents to maintaining his websites, including www.earlychristianwritings.com . Peter had a particularly civilized and rational approach to internet debates, and he was aware of Doherty's work.

One thing led to another. Doherty joined the debate here. One of the Christian apologists engaged in a Formal Debate with Doherty, but Doherty withdrew because he considered the quality of the Christian's arguments to be insultingly farcical. In general, the arguments from the Christian apologists did not hold up - they depended on unwarranted assumptions, logical disconnects, and appeals to authority. This should not be surprising since their main evidence for Jesus was that he had touched their hearts or their lives or fixed their drinking problem.

Finally, Richard Carrier agreed to do a review of Doherty's work from the standpoint of a professionally trained historian (Carrier was at the time in the process of getting his PhD in ancient history from Columbia University. He how has that PhD.) You can read the result here. Carrier decided that Doherty had presented enough of a case for mythicism to shift the burden of proof to the historicists.

So, for many on this board, it was at least clear that the mythicist case was worth taking seriously and was not a lunatic fringe theory. It was also clear that the historicist case was on shaky grounds.

About this time, the Christian apologists withdrew from the boards. Ironically, we suddenly had a few atheists take up the cause of the historical Jesus with an even greater passion - but they still couldn't come up with any better arguments.

Subsequently, Carrier adopted more of a mythicist stance, and then raised some money to write a book on the issue of the historicity of Jesus. I have seen a preliminary draft of that work, which is due out in 2010, and I think it will at least change the debate. Carrier's position (stated in his latest lectures) is that the question is open, but the balance of evidence is against historicity. Carrier is also upset with the quality of a lot of the popular mythicists' work (e.g., the movie Zeitgeist.)

So I am not all that interested in discussing the issue any more, at least until Carrier's book comes out. I feel an interest in keeping the debate civil, which means preventing people from demonizing their opponents, especially with the over the top rhetoric that Chaucer employed (some of which has been removed.)

And for the record, I would not consider the UCLA professor I referred to as a "skeptic." He was trained in theology, and Jesus was an important cultural icon for him. I can sympathize with this. Jesus is an important part of our culture, and the gospel stories that we tell ourselves contain a lot of valuable insights and cultural wisdom. But are they parables or real history? How are the gospels used and how are they misused? How can Jesus be both a socialist-pacifist hero and the hero to militarists and American conservative free market fundamentalists? Can we get beyond their current misuse if we are stuck on trying to prove that Jesus existed?

We depend on mythological narratives to make sense of our world and our psyches. Is it actually important that Jesus existed in history? I'd like to move on. But the issue won't go away.

Chaucer

That's an excellent question. I have a feeling each answer you get may depend more on each individual mythicist's own personal take than anything else. But I'd still be interested in seeing any responses you get to this one. Personally, as one who views Jesus the simple human being as somewhat more likely to be historical than not, I can only answer that question from my perspective: I'd say -- given that caveat -- that you would probably still be a mythicist to me, since in believing that Jesus of Nazareth of Mark, Josephus et al, is an amalgamation of a number of Jesuses, rather than one identifiable individual, you thereby take away the uniqueness of one special human being who attempted to raise the consciousness of all in stressing the giving and service to others, the last being first and the first last, the loving of one's enemies, and so on. It's that unique counterculturalism and the state's execution of such a unique counterculturalist that makes Jesus of special interest to a skeptic humanist like me.

OTOH, since you do credit the notion that there was one unique Nicholas in particular rather than several, I'd say that puts you in the historicist camp when it comes to Santa Claus. As in the case of Jesus, though, no self-respecting educated skeptic is going to credit the tall tales involving immortality and/or supernatural miracles associated with Santa Claus. Crediting such tall tales is not necessary to being a historicist in either case. Only crediting the likelihood of such a figure having lived once and died normally and of not being confusable with anyone else makes one a sensible skeptic historicist.

That would depend on which generation you're applying it to. The mythicist believes that the first Christian generation only believed in a spiritual Christ in the Great Up There somewhere, whereas later generations steeped in the Gospels believed in a corporeal Christ. (Of course, this ignores Pauline references to Jesus sayings here on Earth in his Corinthians, but <shrug>.) If you're referring to the majority of Christians during the first 500 years or so, then the mythicist might concede that most Christians believed in a corporeal Christ -- might -- but if we're talking of Christianity's first inception, then the mythicist would answer your question with "Being Christian did not include the belief in a corporeal Christ".

Ah, but since the mythicist says that the first Christians did NOT believe in a corporeal Christ ..............:-)

The problem is -- and whatever others' experiences may have been, I can only attest to what I have personally encountered -- the degree of frequency with which this notion has been dogmatically presented on line as more than a hypothesis but absolute fact instead, to the point where skeptics like me are dismissed as Christian fundamentalist trash, is frankly chilling. Maybe some here sincerely feel that many mythicists are not absolutist at all, and that could well be based on sincere reflections of their own personal experience; but where I sit, as a skeptic who started out quite neutral on Jesus mythicism for many, many years, in fact rather uninterested in the whole question, further more detailed reading of people like Doherty, Price and Wells, plus interactions with a number of mythicists on line, have started to suggest to me the mindset of a crusade rather than a wish to seriously test a hypothesis. Perhaps the pending Jesus Project will change that. It would be good if it could.

The latter: mythicists believe that others, specifically the first generation of Christians, believed that these things occurred in a heavenly realm.

Best,

Chaucer

aa5874

There has been no concensus on any JM theories. The "heavenly realm" theory was developped by Doherty. He does not represent all mythicists.

Now, who developped the theory that Jesus was only human after the Church claimed he was truly God and man? And what evidence did they present?

Toto

Enlightement era humanists and Deists originated the idea that Jesus was a mere human. Evidence? The Bible, read with the supernatural elements ignored because they were obviously impossible. But the idea that the texts are correct because they are ancient is a hard one to shake.

Rick Sumner

The assumption you make is that academics listed by Chaucer have "assumed" the existence of an historical Jesus. Without knowing for sure whether or not they have done any inquiry, you presume they have not, based on their failure to address an issue they reasonably don't know exists.

You went so far as to suggest that it "makes them uncomfortable."

I cheerily invite the reader to go back and have a look at whether or not that is an accurate depiction of the words that have come out of your posts.

Regards,
Rick Sumner