Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The evidence is in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, and the Pauline epistles, the earliest sources on Jesus. I don't want to go through all the evidence with you again. Just see this thread of mine I made years ago: http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=157236

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I am glad you told me that. Which proponents are those? My experience has been that the greatest proponents of the Jesus-myth theory are those who wish to ridicule it to the maximum extreme, so to defeat popular acceptance of the religion. I thought of mountainman on this forum (Christian and Jesus-myther) as sort of an exception.

Originally Posted by fatpie42

The main argument you propose is the false prophecy (i.e. the evidence that early Christians thought Jesus would be coming back soon and had to make excuses for why it wasn't happening as quickly as originally expected). However, the problem with this is the assertion that a historical Jesus figure must have made this claim himself. By the point when Paul's letters were written this was already becoming a major issue, so it is unsurprising that the gospel writings, being written later than Paul's letters, should put much less emphasis on this idea.

Originally Posted by fatpie42

The main argument you propose is the false prophecy (i.e. the evidence that early Christians thought Jesus would be coming back soon and had to make excuses for why it wasn't happening as quickly as originally expected). However, the problem with this is the assertion that a historical Jesus figure must have made this claim himself. By the point when Paul's letters were written this was already becoming a major issue, so it is unsurprising that the gospel writings, being written later than Paul's letters, should put much less emphasis on this idea. However, doesn't this just prove what it suggests - that it was originally extremely important to believers that the Jesus figure was going to return soon? This doesn't really seem like enough to suppose that an actual historical Jesus made the claim himself.

You claim that early Christian cultists would not have come up with the prophecy of Jesus' return, but why then is it any more likely that a historical Jesus would have done so? In spite of your claim that such a prophecy would not evolve naturally through myth, it actually seems pretty common. The heaven's gate group claimed that the comet coming soon would cause major changes. Followers of Nostradamus' prophecies and those waiting for the rapture regularly emphatically assert specific dates when something major is going to happen before quietly shifting the date. It should be entirely unsurprising that this exact same thing happens here when Jesus' return turns out to be less prompt than expected. The religious group is inspired by a message which requires urgency in its response and the message cannot be taken back later. Eventually excuses are made for the prophecy and the myth adapts to make up for prior inconsistencies. The initial prophecy was nevertheless so central to the original understanding of the group that when the ideas are formed into a narrative the idea cannot help but be included, even though it is undoubtedly becoming increasingly embarassing.

The thing that confuses me most about the thread you link to is your assertion that the Jesus myth view supports apologists. Just because I decide to suggest that Jesus never existed doesn't make it any easier for apologists to explain the false prophecy.

Originally Posted by Transient

You don't see how a mythical Jesus would hurt christianity?
Really?
Blimey mate - you ever met any real christians?

Originally Posted by Transient

Blimey mate - you ever met any real christians?

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Ahh! But they not be True Xians! They be literalist xians as against the original gnostic ones!:devil1:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Christians would be completely devastated if it was revealed that Jesus did not exist and they won't be seeing him in heaven. Complete devastation.

Originally Posted by LogicandReason

This thread is dedicated to the idea that Christianity is the product of Hellene syncretism and that Islam is but a further example.

I posit with others that:

1. The first Christian writings, the epistles from the letter-writer known as Paul (others write in his name), describe a spiritual, non-earthly, dying/rising Savior. This is a Greek, not Jewish concept.

2. Christianity is but one group of sectarian Jews who broke from Judaism just after the civil war (Seleucid conflict/Maccabean revolts) in the middle of the 2nd century BCE. The eschatology come from writings of that period, Daniel and Enoch.

3. Christianity is born in the Diaspora, not Jerusalem.

4. The Gospels created an earthly Jesus from oral traditions to reinforce local teachings.

Those ideas presented for a framework, let's look at some obvious mythology. You know your Savior is myth when:

He/she is born of a virgin.

Antecedents:

Pereus: Born of Zeus and the virgin Danae
Heracles: Born of Zeus and the virgin Alcmene
Romulus: Born of the God Mars and unnamed human virgin
Alexander the Great: Legend says that Zeus, not Philip, sired Alex with Olympias when she was still a virgin
Dionysus: (post Christian sources) Born of Zeus and the human virgin Semele

We notice old Zeus really got around in his day. We also notice that virgin birth is a very Greek idea. Is Christ's virgin birth dependent on Greek myth? Christian apologist Ronald Nash, Ed Komoszewski, James Sawyer and Daniel Wallace will all argue otherwise...saying that Christainity is not 'dependent' on the prior myths. We know, from another Christian apologist, Church father Justin Martyr that the Greek stories were well known to him and others...as he cites them in his First Apology.

Two of the Four Gospels mention a 'virgin birth.' Many scholars believe this to be confusion or mistranslation of the Hebrew word 'alma' (which literally means 'young woman' and may infer a virgin) into the Greek word 'parthenos' which is literally a virgin.

Why the myth? Simple, early Christians were competing against the legends of pagan gods, many of which were magically born of a virgin.

So post 1: If your Savior requires a virgin birth then he/she is a myth.

Biology: people are born when a male sperm fertilizes a female egg...no Holy Spirits required.

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

If the prophecy comes out of the mythical mouth of a mythical Jesus, and the myth is told after the generation of the mythical Jesus, then the prophecy either failed immediately upon the telling of the myth, or it is already well in the process of failing. The best option would be that the myth was told during the generation of the mythical Jesus, but then it is strange that there is a gullible cult following Jesus that never gets to see his immediate disciples, and it rules out all the variations of the Jesus-myth theory that claim Christianity started well afterward.

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

It is possible, I suppose, that a mythical apocalyptic prophet can exist in myth. But it would make very little sense for a mythical apocalyptic to say that the end of the world would happen in the same generation and lifetime of those in his company. Suppose that is possible, though unlikely--then where is the evidence?