Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 12-05-2009, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

The OP asks for evidence that Jesus was mythical. spin has provided this "scale", for us to employ in assessing the evidence:

No. For you to understand the terms people use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

Class:....... Real/Imaginary..Historical/not.... Mythical/not
1.............. real.................. historical........... not mythical
2.............. real.................. ahistorical......... not mythical
3.............. imaginary......... ahistorical......... not mythical
4.............. imaginary......... ahistorical......... mythical

I find it difficult to employ spin's "scale".

Was Paul Bunyan real or imaginary? Whole cities have his statue....
Was Paul Bunyan historical or ahistorical? Newspaper articles of his accomplishments are not rare.
Paul Bunyan is fictitious, but quite possibly based upon a real live human possessing a more conventional physical stature.

In other words, I think that spin's "scale" leads us away from the OP. The only evidence we need to procure, in my opinion, to demonstrate the mythical character of Jesus, is that which asserts that Jesus' behaviour comprised actions lying beyond the limits of human capability.

Here's is the table I gave so that someone might understand how the specific terms in the table map against each other:

Quote:

[t2="p=4;bdr=1,solid,#000000"]1.|{c:bg=lightgreen;rs=2;w=60}Real
|{c:bg=silver;w=80}Historical|{c:bg=#FFA0F0;rs=3;w =80}Not mythical

||2.|{c:bg=lightblue;rs=3}Ahistorical||3.|{c:bg=wh ite;rs=2}Not real||4.|{c:bg=yellow}Mythical[/t2]

A. If something is historical, ie demonstrably a past reality, it is naturally real and not mythological.

B. Something can be real without it being historical. So much about the past we lack historical information about, so there's a lot of real that's just not historical and of course not mythical.

C. Something can be not real and therefore not historical, but not mythical. The example I often use is Ebion.

D. Something can be mythical, therefore neither real nor historical. Think of the Cyclops.

(I could of course add another category or more, such as fictional/not fictional, which would look similar to mythical.)

There are of course other terms that one might wish to consider as I hint at in this parenthesis and they will have their own mappings.

The thought about someone being based on a real figure is in no way relevant. Miriam in "Sons and Lovers" is supposed to be based on a real woman that D.H. Lawrence had relations with, but so what? Sherlock Holmes is supposed to have been modeled on a famous Edinburgh doctor who Conan Doyle studied under, and again so what? This information is for the idle curiosity of literary critics and text scholars. It has no bearing on the fact that neither Miriam nor Sherlock Holmes can be demonstrated as having existed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

LaoZi may or may not have been "real", but he certainly was "historical",

This is the misuse of "historical" I've attempted to weed out for a long time. It is an utter blunder. No, Lao Zi was not historical. The best you can claim is that the literary figure can be shown to have been known.

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

in the sense that we possess 2000+ years of written documents, stones, ivory, and leather parchment representing DaoDeJing, his most famous contribution. His life was credible, human like, absent any notion of supernatural capability, hence, "not mythical", but he may have been fictitious, hence, "not real". Notice that spin's "scale" does not embrace such a circumstance: i.e. "not real", "historical", "not mythical".

You didn't even read what accompanied the table.

I have made clear in the explanatory notes how I was using the terms. If you want to persist in using the term "historical" in one of its colloquial meanings, it would help if you label it "historical1" or some such.

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

The OP asked for evidence of the mythical nature of Jesus of Nazareth. Then, I suggest we need to first agree on what one means by "mythical". I find spin's "scale" unsatisfactory in attempting to differentiate "mythical" from historical. To me, a mythical creature is simply one possessing a demonstrated ability to perform actions which lie outside the range of human capabilities. spin's parameters "real" and historical, simply muddy the waters...

Achilles and Paul Bunyan, to my way of thinking, both acknowledge my simple minded definition of a mythical being--one capable of performing deeds which no mortal can accomplish.

What about evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was mythical? Like the former two, it is claimed that Jesus performed actions (raising the dead, walking on water) which ordinary mortals cannot achieve. Proof that Jesus was fictitious, i.e. imaginary, is not readily found, just as with Paul Bunyan--> One finds on the contrary, plenty of evidence that Bunyan was a genuine lumberjack....Several cities in North America have statues commemorating Paul's accomplishments...

Writing from an archaeological perspective, two thousand years from now, when excavating Klamath, California, or, Bangor, Maine or Bemidji, Minnesota , one will surely debate whether or not Paul was historical or real, etc.... One thing is for sure: the excavators will find lots of concrete with Paul's image expressed upon it....

In my opinion, we require neither "historical", nor "ahistorical" evidence to declare a creature mythical. Its mythical stature is defined simply by its supposed, fantastic accomplishments, lying well beyond the human landscape.

This all seems to me to be an exercise based on not reading what is being talked about.

spin

spamandham · 12-05-2009, 10:34 PM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Arguably Cyclops is real.

They have definitely been recognised as a misinterpretation of mammoth skulls.

Based on what?

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What category does a misunderstanding of a real thing fit in?

When it's as gross a misunderstanding as what you just described, we call it myth. For example, the ancients also thought the stars were gods, but it would be absurd to talk about the planet Jupiter as being the historical Jupiter (the god).

aa5874 · 12-05-2009, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

....A. If something is historical, ie demonstrably a past reality, it is naturally real and not mythological.

B. Something can be real without it being historical. So much about the past we lack historical information about, so there's a lot of real that's just not historical and of course not mythical.

C. Something can be not real and therefore not historical, but not mythical. The example I often use is Ebion.

D. Something can be mythical, therefore neither real nor historical. Think of the Cyclops.

(I could of course add another category or more, such as fictional/not fictional, which would look similar to mythical.)...

But, if you can put Ebion and Cyclops where you think fit, then any one else can put Jesus wherever they think is fitting.

How is it Cyclops can be declared a myth, but not Jesus, when this Supernatural creature was documented for hundreds of years the offspring iof the Holy Ghost of God, born without a human father, perhaps more than any other Roman/Greek mythical entity?

Jesus, Cyclops, Achilles, Romulus, Zeus and the hosts of Greek/Roman legendary hero/god figures are all mythical creatures.

spin · 12-06-2009, 03:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

What category does a misunderstanding of a real thing fit in?

When it's as gross a misunderstanding as what you just described, we call it myth.

This would be using the term "myth" in a colloquial manner with no need for any religious narrative. Misinterpretations of data leading to erroneous assumptions aren't myth. I think my overused example of Ebion is a good example.

Unable to provide a Venn diagram of the information, here I present of how I see various attributes map to real/unreal:

[t2="p=4;bdr=1,solid,#000000"]{c:bg=lightgreen;rs=2;w=60}Real
|{c:bg=#FFA0A0;w=120}Historical||{c:bg=lightblue}( Undemonstrable)||{c:bg=white;rs=4}Not real|{c:bg=yellow}Mythical||{c:bg=#8080FF}Fictiona l||{c:bg=#F0F080}Erroneous||{c:bg=#F080F0}(Other)[/t2]

Something that is historical is a datum that can be shown about the past. Only a subset of the past can be shown. The rest is not historical, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Myth is only one category of not real. Another is fictional, as in those claims that the Romans or whoever invented christianity. Ebion would belong to the erroneous category.

spin

Clivedurdle · 12-06-2009, 03:22 AM

Quote:

The myth of the Cyclops may have been fueled by fossil discoveries of dwarf elephants with the central nasal cavity—where the trunk was attached—mistaken for a single eye socket.
© D. Finnin/AMNH

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/myth...land/greek.php

The american Museum of Natural History, the British Museum and many others may also be using mythic in a colloquial manner.

Quote:

Cryptozoology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cryptozoology (from Greek κρυπτός, kriptos, "hidden" + zoology; literally, "study of hidden animals") refers to the search for animals which are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream biology.

This includes looking for living examples of animals which are extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical support but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and el Chupacabra;[1] and wild animals dramatically outside of their normal geographic ranges, such as phantom cats or "ABC"s (An acronym commonly used by cryptozoologists that stands for Alien Big Cats).

According to authors Ben Roesch and John Percy Moore, "Cryptozoology ranges from pseudoscientific to useful and interesting, depending on how it is practiced." They further note that it is "not strictly a science", that "many scientists and skeptics classify cryptozoology as a pseudoscience" and that "papers on the topic are rarely published in scientific journals, no formal education on the subject is available, and no scientists are employed to study cryptozoology."[2]

Those involved in cryptozoological study are known as cryptozoologists. The animals they study are often referred to as cryptids, a term coined by John Wall in 1983.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology

Should we be calling Jesus a cryptid, because of its mixed god human nature?

Is Jesus therefore in the same category as St Christopher?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynocephaly

Clivedurdle · 12-06-2009, 03:41 AM

Quote:

This would be using the term "myth" in a colloquial manner with no need for any religious narrative

Spin, please explain, are you saying mythical entities have religious bits?

Quote:

Various forms of functionalism in anthropology—which understood social patterns and institutions in terms of their function in the larger cultural context—proved illuminating for religion, such as in the stimulus to discover interrelations between differing aspects of religion. The Polish-British anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942), for instance, emphasized in his work on the Trobriand Islanders (New Guinea) the close relationship between myth and ritual—a point also made emphatically by the “myth and ritual” school of the history of religions (see below Other studies and emphases). Furthermore, many anthropologists, notably Paul Radin (1883–1959), moved away from earlier categorizations of so-called primitive thought and pointed to the crucial role of creative individuals in the process of mythmaking.

A rather different approach to myths was made by the 20th-century French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose rather formalistic structuralism tended to reinforce analogies between “primitive” and sophisticated thinking and also provided a new method of analyzing myths and stories. His views had wide influence, though they are by no means universally accepted by anthropologists.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...dy-of-religion

Clivedurdle · 12-06-2009, 03:48 AM

Are there any good books for the layperson on anthropology and sociology of religion and myth and the heavy weight religions?

There might be a market gap here - equivalent to Chown popularising Quantum Mechanics!

The arguments about a mythical Jesus may be because the viewpoints have not been successfully summarised.

More than an essay is needed!

spin · 12-06-2009, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

This would be using the term "myth" in a colloquial manner with no need for any religious narrative

Spin, please explain, are you saying mythical entities have religious bits?

Myths are narratives created to explain or embody religious ideas or practices. (It might at times seems wider than this but in ancient times the religion controlled all aspects of life, so when Eve was created out of Adam's rib, it explained why a man and a woman belonged together in the sight of god.)

spin

maryhelena · 12-06-2009, 05:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Are there any good books for the layperson on anthropology and sociology of religion and myth and the heavy weight religions?

There might be a market gap here - equivalent to Chown popularising Quantum Mechanics!

The arguments about a mythical Jesus may be because the viewpoints have not been successfully summarised.

More than an essay is needed!

I don't know about any modern book but this is one that comes from 1974.

Myth In Old Testament Interpretation by J.W.Rogerson, 1974. (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I only have a few photo-copied pages from the Conclusion:

Quote:

1. Myths are attempts to explain things......origin, nature and functioning of the world; the origin of social organisation; social habits and customs; and religious beliefs and practices. Myths may also seek to explain unusual natural phenomena.....

2. Myths arise from personification of natural phenomean....

3. Myths are stories arising from misunderstood descriptions of the workings of nature.

4. Myths are narratives about humans and human events, but the narratives are infact in the first instance derived from astral or similar phenomena....

5. Myth is a mode of cognition distinct from empirical consciousness. It would be wrong to call this a theory of primitive mentality, because it has been given an application not only to primitives, but to the civilised men of the ancient word....

6. A myth is a text inextricably bound up with a rite.....

7. A myth is a text less closely connected with a rite, designed possibly to interest the worshipper or to explain the meaning of a rite where the original meaning and purpose of the latter have been forgotten....

8. A myth is one of a series of narratives which, taken together, enable primitives to solve problems at a level below that of conscious thought by blurring of binary oppositions.

9. A myth is a narrative which expresses the tensions of a primary existential symbolism.....

10. A myth is a single story, or longer stretch of narrative, which expresses the ideals, hopes and faith of a people.....

11. Myth is a necessary way of speaking of transcendent reality. This view is a characteristically theological one.......

12. A myth is a story about the gods.....

Now that the different uses of the notion of myth have been roughly distinguished, certain general comments can be made. Of the views described above, we can say that numbers, 3, 4 and 5 are probably false. While 3 and 4 have in any case ceased to have any real influence in Old Testament interpretation, 5 is still influential, and although its bases may be untenable, the problems it seeks to answer remain important in a way that is not true of the other two theories. Of the remaining views, 8 and 9 have yet to prove themselves, although both contain much that is incidentally highly illumination. There is much that can be accepted as true in the remaining views.

Other general observations can be made as follows. Some views seek to explain the origin of myths, although there is not necessarily any agreement about what sort of stories myths are. These are views, 1, 2, ,4, 7 and 8. Other views take myths or myth (where this is understood as a type of mentality) as given, and seek to explain the meaning and function of myth or myths. These are numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11. Some views can be seen to belong to both groups. In views 3, 5 and 8, myth is primarily a means to an end, which is the maintence of theories about primitive mentality. Also these three views are all closely connected with theories about language.

.............One way of achieving this would be to adopt a literary and functional definition of myth. From this point of view, myths would be stories or literature which expresses the faith and world view of a people. Myths would have much to say about origins, and they would express a people's intuitions of transcendent reality. Marchen would be stories whose aim was to entertain or amuse. ..........Saga would be traditions arising from the folk transmissions of events which occurred either in the prehistoric period of a people's life, or in non-literary circles within the historical period. These definitions would not depend on the presence or absence of the divine, gods, rituals or religion. Rather, the distinctions would be based on function. Once these distinctions were made, it would have to be recognised that all three types could mutually contaminate each other....

Well, I think the best that can be said in connection with myth is - its rather a complicated area......

Solo · 12-06-2009, 05:36 AM

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Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

The Lord would not have been passing information, as e.g. the naive interpolator of 1 Cr 11:23-25 sough to affect.

Why isn't the interpolator (and I agree it looks fishy) merely copying Paul's manner of speaking in Galatians 1:12?

It looks like the interpolator knew Paul enough to make it seem like the former received verbiage from Luke' last supper as bona fide direct communication from the Lord.

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That, it seems to me, is the clearest evidence we have of visionary experience. He can't have received it from a human being, because Jesus is no longer on earth at that time (on any reading). The only live option (apart from lying, of course!

) is visionary experience.

Gal 1:12 can only evidence what the lawyers call a state of mind. Paul claims to have had a revelation of Jesus Christ that came from God. One cannot prove he had a revelation, that it was of Jesus Christ, even if one knew what that was, and that the assurances came from God, assuming there is one.

What Paul actually saw, if anything, will forever remain a mystery. That of course on the predicate that doctor Detering is mistaken in thinking there was no Paul and therefore no mystery of any sort about his mind.

I hope this makes things clearer.

Jiri

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12-06-2009, 03:48 AM	#147
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Are there any good books for the layperson on anthropology and sociology of religion and myth and the heavy weight religions? There might be a market gap here - equivalent to Chown popularising Quantum Mechanics! The arguments about a mythical Jesus may be because the viewpoints have not been successfully summarised. More than an essay is needed!

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