No Robots

The Journal of Higher Criticism is Robert M. Price's platform for his mythicist hobby-horses. Its specific intent seems to be to provide mythicists with something that they can call a peer-reviewed journal.

aa5874

I would expect Marcion to have done some research before he propagated his Phantom Jesus.

It is likely that based on the information that Marcion collected that the Phantom Jesus was the best solution at the time.

Marcion, supposedly a salior, a mariner, captain or owner of a ship, may have gone to Jerusalem and Galilee looking fior evidence of Jesus, that is , the tomb, his place of crucifixion, and his relatives and perhaps could not find any thing.

By the way, I can't find any first century Jesus the (GOD/MAN) believers, perhaps Marcion did not either.

I found information that Christians, almost all of Samaria and other nations, believed in Simon Magus the magician and Holy One of Samaria during the days of Claudius. See the writings of Justin Martyr.

I think Marcion was right. Jesus only seemed real and was not of the God of the Jews, that is the reason no historical evidence can be found in Jerusalem or Judea. He came direct from heaven to earth and left in reverse.

These passages may have helped to shape Marcion's Phantom Jesus.

These are the words of Jesus according to gJohn.

John 3:6 - Now the author of gMatthew admitted that Jesus was born of Spirit.

Mt 1:18 - Marciom was spot on using extent information from antiquity.

Jesus was born of Spirit

Jesus was a mirage, a Phantom.

Toto

There is no scholarly consensus on Mark or Q. There are historicists who see Mark as pure allegory, with minimal or no historical value. There are scholars who rate Mark as containing 20% history, or perhaps 80%. Take your pick.

There are historicists who do not accept the existence of Q, and hold that Luke used Matthew and Mark as a sources.

Is this an argument from personal incredulity?

Are you familiar with the theological debates of earliest Christians? They center on whether the Son was of the same substance as the Father or merely a similar substance. Which way does this cut as far as Jesus existing?

We had a long thread on this subject a while back - the critical issue at that time was not the existence of Jesus, and the enemies of Christianity would not have scored any points by showing that Jesus was an immaterial spirit. The material existence of Jesus only became an issue for Christians after the Enlightenment, when the prevalent worldview started to reject spirits.

This is false, Please stop repeating this canard. A historical but not divine Jesus is popular among some atheists and is a better sell for activists.

I gather that you have not read Earl Doherty's 800 page book on the evidence for his position.

No Robots

All Christians of all times have positively affirmed that Christ is fully a man. Where they disagree is on the question of whether he is also a god.

show_no_mercy

I think the earliest Christians argued over whether Jesus was a human being or simply a spirit that looked like a human being so that he could sneek past the god of this age and get crucified by the ignorant rulers of this age.

ApostateAbe

OK, thanks, I didn't know that.It isn't an argument from personal incredulity. If the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was myth, then there was a transition at some point between the Jesus-myth Christianity and the Jesus-flesh Christianity. It would be a transition accompanied by fierce rhetorical debate, like any other major theological transition. The debate you mentioned doesn't seem so relevant on the surface, but maybe an argument can be made. I don't know that much about it.

I have come to the conclusion I have about sociology and the JM position because of my own experience (I very quickly embraced it), seeing the enthusiasm of the advocates, and seeing several ex-Christians claim that they lost their religion because of the JM theories, especially the ones that claim that the myth developed from and was shared with a bunch of other god-men. And, yes, I haven't read Earl Doherty's book. I haven't put as much investigative time into the argument as my confidence suggests.

No Robots

The reappropriation of Christ for Judaism is the principal event in NT scholarship of the past century. Non-Jewish responses to this reappropriation range from enthusiastic acceptance to outright rejection. Ultimately, though, rejection of the idea that Christ is a Jewish man resolves itself into one of two positions: either he is not a Jew, or he is not a man. Mythicism tries to make the case for the latter. Of course, proving that he is not a man would also prove that he is not a Jew.

bacht

Well, I came from a family of Protestants, mostly mainline with some evangelicals, and no-one ever mentioned the idea that Jesus wasn't really a man. I went to university and took a couple of courses in the Religious Studies department, including a "Historical Jesus" semester, and no-one there ever mentioned the MJ idea (no mention of Wells or similar "eccentrics"). I never heard the idea from anyone in my life until I stumbled onto Doherty's website a couple of years ago (though I have encountered various theories about who the "real" Jesus was).

Everyone seems to want to believe that this guy really existed. I don't identify with atheists as a group, but I agree with their skeptical attitude. I don't know that even the majority of atheists deny that Jesus walked this earth.

If you're serious about social science then you must acknowledge that people have a great capacity to believe in unreal things. I don't see why Jesus is any different from believing in Atlantis or UFOs or Loch Ness monsters or a countless multitude of urban myths, old wives' tales and fantasies.

No Robots

Yep, there's yer problem right there.

Steven Carr

So what should we make about the silence about these 'theological debates and arguments' that you would expect on Doherty's theory?

Should we expect Christians to claim that they were not following cleverly invented stories when they told others about Jesus?