Toto

These should be removed (not to concede that you have a point on the others):

It clearly states that Jesus was born and was created. How can you continue to distort this to interpret it to mean that Jesus was never born or created or existed? IT SAYS HE WAS BORN. The point is that he was not pre-existent.

WHY DO YOU KEEP QUOTE MINING THIS?

The only indications are that Julian believed that Jesus was a mere man. The fabrications of the Galilaeans were that he was a god.

If you want to claim that we don't have anything that Julian actually wrote, then you can't use that paragraph. If you think that what we have of Julian's bears any resemblance to what he wrote, Julian was not a mythicist.

Diogenes the Cynic

I think Ehrman is essentially right as far as it goes, Jesus mythicism is a relatively new as a serious suggestion for historical endeavor (even if a few stray mythi-ly inclined individual can hypothetical be found earlier). However, Historical Jesus research is pretty new too. So is a a lot of modern historical method.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the theory of evolution is less than 200 years old too. All of scholarship in every field changed dramatically in the 20th Century. Just because a question is new doesn't mean it's invalid.

Not that I think Ehrman was really trying to rest his case on that or anything, but it's specious. It's smoke.

And I like the guy and have a bunch of his books and I'm not a myther.

aa5874

You don't understand what is being argued by HJers. They are arguing that Jesus was HUMAN with a human father.

The BELIEF that Jesus existed does NOT disqualify Jesus from being a MYTH.

You very well know that people BELIEVE the Angel Gabriel exist and was on EARTH.


You very well know that People BELIEVE THE DEVIL EXIST and was on the Pinnacle of the Jewish Temple with Jesus.

Let us NOT WASTE time. You need credible sources OF ANTIQUITY to show that YOUR JESUS was human with a human father.

You have NOTHING.

According to Origen, CELSUS invented a falsehood when he claim Jesus was NOT FATHERED by a Holy Ghost.

LegionOnomaMoi

The question concerns whether or not the notion that Jesus did not exist is a modern one or not. If the ancient sources all thought he was akin to Herakles or Zeus, but that he did exist, then the answer would still be "we have no ancient sources arguing that Jesus did not exist." We have sources claiming he only appeared human, we have sources claiming he was human but attributing supernatural powers to him, and we even have sources like Celsus, who argues that he was nobody special, just the illegitimate son of a roman soldier.

Doug Shaver

He could do that by claiming that the writer was referring to docetists. They believed that Jesus existed but was incorporeal although he looked as if he were corporeal. They were like people nowadays who think they have seen ghosts.

Vorkosigan

As Doherty points out, in Trallians (?) Ignatius speaks of those who argue Jesus never existed.

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon

According to Wiki, the full quote for the first one is:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arius

"If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he had his substance from nothing."
* As quoted in Church History, Book I, Ch. 5, by Socrates of Constantinople.

Is that quote accurate? If so, then it doesn't support the idea that Christ never existed as far as I can see. The idea seems to be similar as found in Tertullian's Ad nationes, Aristides' Apology and M. Felix's Octavius:

* But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human?

* They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death; they who allow their mortality must not suppose them to be gods.

* Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies

* It is impossible that a god should be bound or mutilated; and if it be otherwise, he is indeed miserable

* Besides, if they were able to make gods of themselves after their death, pray tell me why they chose to be in an inferior condition at first?

* It is a settled point that a god is born of a god, and that what lacks divinity is born of what is not divine.

Also from the same Wiki quote:

Arius began to say things like this in his sermons and writings: "If God and Christ were equal then Christ should be called God’s brother, not God’s Son." People puzzled about that. They were hearing now something different from this presbyter than they were hearing from the bishop. And Arius also created the very famous saying, "There was a time when He was not." "There was a time when the Son did not exist." So in his view, Christ became what we could call a third thing. He is neither God nor is He man, but something in between. There is God and there is the Son and there is the rest of creation. So rather than having two things you have a tertium quid, a third thing — neither god nor man.
* David Calhoun, in Ancient & Medieval Church History (2006), Lesson 12

Does that accurately reflect Arius, in your view?

Vorkosigan

Moreover, if Doherty is right, that was the ancient Christian belief.

mountainman

It must be clearly noted that the writings of each of these people and groups (i.e. Arius, the Arians, the docetic gnostics (in fact all gnostics), Emperor Julian, Nestorius, and even Celsus (according to mainstream thinking) were designated to the oblivion of the eternal flames. They were purposefully and utterly destroyed by the victorious heresiologists.



The idea I am exploring is that the idea that Jesus did not exist exploded at Nicaea and persisted for centuries, but was searched out and destroyed by the orthodox heresiologists. The sources that I have cited above, have been censored, and in their place we are looking at the formal refutations of their heresiological censors.

The idea is that Jesus is either a myth or a "Big Lie", and that the entire phenomenom of the non canonical literature and the Arian controversy, and the masses of heretics that followed Nicaea was in a direct response to this "Big Lie" or myth.


I do understand Ehrman's claim, and that is is ostensibly the claim of many mainstream people. However this does not make it true. In order to evaluate its potential truth we need to examine the negative evidence against it, and I am here attempting to list the negative evidence.



I understand the above is a two-edged sword.

In the OP I also asked:

Is the (mainstream) claim of Ehrman disprovable?

mountainman

Characters are also born in fiction books.

It is quite reasonable and conceivable that people may have thought that Jesus did not exist at Nicaea. If 90-95% of the population was pagan, then it is very reasonable that the bulk of people had never before even heard of Jesus or read the New Testament, which over-flowed with its encrypted words.

Therefore how can we be absolutely certain that when Arius was called the worst kind of heretic by all and sundry, called the antichrist by Athanasius and others, that in fact Arius did not believe Jesus existed?



The murdering terrorist-boss and thug Bishop Cyril, nephew of the murdering terrorist-boss and thug Bishop Theophilus, is on record stating that he felt compelled to refute the LIES of Emperor Julian and burn his three books "Against the Galilaeans", because they were turning many people away from the church.

Julian's books were written to be orated to his subjects. The title of the book and the opening paragraph of the books would have been common knowledge, and quite sensational. Cyril could not afford to change them or censor these, but he could freely censor the contents and present his own watered down bullshit. This is precisely what I think the murdering terrorist-boss and thug Bishop Cyril of Alexandria did.