eheffa

ApostateAbe...

I know that the mythicists are derided as fringe-like conspiracy theorists but like aa says the evidence for the physical historical miracle-working Jesus is virtually absent. ( The Testimonium Flavium is not submissible by virtue of its obvious contamination & probable creation by Christian interpolaters.)

It seems utterly amazing that someone like Josephus, Philo of Alexandria & other contemporaneous historians could have missed noticing this amazing & public wonder-worker. After all, according to the Gospel "histories", he healed the sick & raised the dead, attracted huge crowds who spread the word of his power far & wide. He came to Jerusalem during the festival of Passover to a King's reception, got into a violent confrontation in the Temple, was publicly flogged & tried before the Roman Governor. He was publicly crucified & when he died the most amazing signs accompanied his death with earthquakes & an untimely prolonged eclipse. The Temple curtain was torn in two and formerly dead people were resurrected to walk the streets of Jerusalem. He was subsequently seen alive by more than 500 witnesses after he was raised from the dead and was seen to return to heaven into a cloud.

His followers then began to multiply rapidly, displaying miraculous powers of healing to the disbelieving populace. They provoked persecutions from the established Jewish authorities far & wide; from Palestine to Syria....

And yet, Josephus missed all of these significant events. The historian who wrote about some of the most mundane developments of the time & many "Jesuses" seems to have missed noticing these Christians & their charismatic founder. The Jewish leaders of the day also seemed to have neglected to write anything about their new found opponents - this heretical sect of Jesus followers.

So what conclusion would one come to, with this state of documentation?

Could it be that this Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than a later legend fabricated to provide a founder for an already existent messiah sect?

I think that the Mythicist position is a very viable hypothesis. To dismiss it just because it differs so radically from the traditional understanding is not a valid argument.

-evan

aa5874

When a person examines the NT and Church writings, it borders on insanity for Peter and Paul to have offered to Jews as good news, salvation based on a crucified blasphemer who claimed he was the son of God while the Jewish Temple was still standing.

Jesus the son of Ananus was beaten to a pulp and declared a madman just for saying "woe unto Jerusalem" according to Josephus. John the Baptist was executed because Herod felt threatened by his large following as recorded in Antiquities of the Jews. The false prophet from Egypt was attacked and his followers were killed as written in Josephus.

Yet, Jesus who was believed to be of Beelzebub by the high priests, had massive crowds , referred to the high priests, Pharisees and scribes as vipers, was beating people in the Temple, and violated the sabbath day, was still allowed to preach in the synagogues and was never arrested, stoned or beaten, attacked until he decided it was time to die or go on trial.

Even if all the miraculous events are removed the life of Jesus is just not realistic.

Worshipping a blasphemer as a God is not good news to a Jew, abandoning circumcision is not good news to a Jew. Predicting the destruction of the Temple is not good news to the Jews.

The gospel is just bizarre.

The gospel of Peter and Paul just makes no sense while the Jewish Temple was still standing.

ApostateAbe

eheffa, you might have misunderstood. My argument is NOT the mythicist position differs from the traditional understanding ergo the mythicist position is wrong. My argument is that the objective evidence is against the mythicist position ergo the mythicist position is wrong. A fringe position can be correct, but it needs evidence. Without the evidence, it should not be taken seriously.

Also, don't confuse my position with the Christian position. The reason that Jesus was not cited by contemporary historians was because he was a small-time cult leader who didn't really stand out from all of the other rabble rousers of the time. The religion grew because of the strength of the persuasion, and the miracles and so forth were myths that were tacked on at a later time.

If you claim that Josephus missed Jesus entirely, then that is probably not true, because the Testimonium Flavianum exists. It is certainly an interpolated version, but you should be careful about claiming that the interpolation implies that Josephus never wrote about Jesus. In fact, a citation of Josephus' work by Origen sort of proves that Josephus did write about Jesus, before the Christian interpolation of Josephus' writings. Origen twice claims that Josephus did NOT believe that Jesus was the Christ, contradicting the apparent interpolation of the Testimonium Flavianum. That is largely why critical scholars claim that Josephus did write about Jesus. But it may not be all that relevant one way or the other, since The Antiquities of the Jews was written well after the life of Jesus (90 CE), and Josephus would have been citing the Christian myths of the time.

The evidence of the historicist position is this:

1) Paul writes about his associations and communications with the disciples and brothers of Jesus. He writes about his conflicts with the apostle Peter. The disciple Peter thinks that only circumcised Jews should join the church, whereas Paul thinks that Gentiles should join too. Paul also writes about seeing "James, the Lord's brother," a name that is listed in the Gospels as one of Jesus' four brothers.

2) The failed prophecies of Jesus. According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus claims that the world will end and the son of man will return within the lifetimes of his listeners and before "this generation" passes away. The prophecy apparently failed, and later Christian writings offer awkward defenses of this apparent failure (see John 21:22-23 and 2 Peter 3:3-8). That is typical of apocalyptic cult leaders today and throughout history, but it is not seen in myths. At best, it would put a severe time limit on when the myth began, since it would not be a persuasive myth if it started a generation after Jesus existed. But, if it is a myth that started in the same generation as Jesus, then that would beg the question among prospective adherents: where is this Jesus?

3) The accurate descriptions of the social environment of Jesus. The gospels got some details incorrect, but very much of the details are spot on, which is a problem for those who would claim that the myth started in Greece or anywhere but Palestine. The temple of Jerusalem, the passover, the governor of Israel, the Pharisees, the Jewish scriptures, and so on. The details match what is historically known.

It is not impossible that Jesus started as a myth. It is simply much more likely that Jesus started as a human and later became a myth. The mythicist theory is fringe for very good reason: it does not fit the evidence and it does not seem probable to a person educated in the field. But there are a bunch of people like me and you out there who would love it if the evidence showed that Jesus really did start as a myth, because that would be a highly embarrassing thing for Christianity. If it is any consolation, the position of Jesus as a loony cult leader is also very damning.

aa5874

It is the mythicists that need NO evidence. NO evidence was needed for Achilles, Apollo, Zeus, and the hundreds and posible thousands of figures that were once worshipped as God and all declared mythical

NO evidence of Jesus is the fundamental strenght of the mythicist position.

Your position can be confused with the Christian position. It is almost identical. You believe Jesus existed using no evidence as the backbone of your argument.

It is laughable to argue that Jesus existed without evidence and then to compound your error by claiming he was a leader when there is also no evidence that even if Jesus lived that he led anyone. And your imaginative evidence make you assert that Jesus was the leader of a small cult.

There is no evidence of a small cult of Jesus believers, except in your head

The "TF" ,as is, describes some mythichal or legedary character that rose from the dead.

But, the Gospels already claimed Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and had a human mother. Now if the offspring of the Holy Ghost had a human mother, having human brothers and sisters has no effect on the fact that Jesus was acknowledged to be a God by all the authors of the NT including the letter writers called Paul.

The so-called failed prophecies are actually the words of the author of the Jesus story. The author may have thought that the world would have ended very soon after he had written his story.

And by the way, this so-called failed prophecy may indicate when the author wrote his Jesus story. It may have been written just at around the end of the 1st century.

The authors of the Jesus stories appear not to be Jews and may have gotten their information from the writings of Josephus.

You have not provided one single source external of apologetics that mentioned a human Jesus, you have only used a known forged source, the TF, where a dead man was resurrected.

You theory has no support at all.

eheffa

Thanks for your thoughtful reply Abe
I would have to say that the absence of third party verification of an historical Jesus is evidence in and of itself. Someone with such a prominent & public ministry would have been noticed & worthy of comment by someone with Josephus' interests.

The lack of mention of the Christian movement by Josephus is also very significant & would be best explained by the hypothesis that the Christian sect was a late development in Palestine & may have even started after the fall of the temple. The Pauline letters seem to be only datable by the historical construct of the book of Acts & by the 1 Clement and Ignatius writings which have their own problems with dating etc.


I wonder if you could quote or direct me to these quotes by Origen. It would seem to me that there would be a subtle but significant difference in meaning between Origen saying "Josephus did not believe in Jesus Christ" vs. "Josephus rejected Jesus as the Christ". The first statement could be made even if Josephus had said nothing about Jesus of Nazareth whereas the second would be based on a direct & clear mention of Jesus of Nazareth by Josephus.

I have not read Origen but Doherty makes a pretty clear case for Origen not having any knowledge of a Josephan mention of Jesus Christ.
See: http://www.humanists.net/jesuspuzzle/supp16.htm#EusLies


Except he never mentions "Christians": Correct?


I would love to be able to resolve this question but suspect that we may never know. I am impressed that the evidence for an authentic JC is so weak that one can postulate & support a Mythical position without too much of a stretch. I think the HJ position has a bigger problem finding good positive evidence & support for the existence of a Christian movement in Palestine prior to the fall of the temple. The Jesus founder seems even more elusive.

-evan

ApostateAbe

aa5874, the theory has plenty of support, and I listed the evidence. If you have explanations that can force-fit the evidence to your theory, then the evidence does not become null. One explanation remains more probable than the other. And that principle is true for any weird proposition against a better theory. If someone wishes to make the claim that Jesus was a time traveller from 2500 CE, then there is enough historical ambuiguity that the theory can be logically consistent, with enough imagination.

"The authors of the Jesus stories appear not to be Jews and may have gotten their information from the writings of Josephus."

That is an example of what I am talking about. You can certainly explain the beginning of the myth like that. But do you have evidence? There is a big difference between a proposed explanation and evidence. And that is the sort of hypothesis that can possibly be confirmed. For example, is there anything peculiar to Josephus that can be found in the gospels? Is there anything Josephus got wrong that the gospels also got wrong? Who was the author who had access to the writings of Josephus, and what was his motivation? But perhaps this point is moot since the gospels are linguistically dated decades before the writings of Josephus.

"The so-called failed prophecies are actually the words of the author of the Jesus story. The author may have thought that the world would have ended very soon after he had written his story."

So the story originated around the proposed ascension of Jesus, which means the previous problem of the source of Jewish culture magnifies itself further. Maybe you should abandon the idea that the author of the story sourced Josephus. Maybe he got his information of Jewish culture from someone else, because Josephus would have been a child at the time. Whoever the sourse was, now you have a very narrow time line for the origin of the myth. It was after Jesus would not be expected to be anywhere to be found, but before the prophecies seem ridiculously failed, maybe between 30 CE and 50 CE. Any variation of the mythicist theory that proposes that the story started at any other time can now be ruled out.

"But, the Gospels already claimed Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost and had a human mother. Now if the offspring of the Holy Ghost had a human mother, having human brothers and sisters has no effect on the fact that Jesus was acknowledged to be a God by all the authors of the NT including the letter writers called Paul."

You sort of miss the point (or maybe I don't get what you are saying). If Paul cites human interaction with the associates and family of Jesus, then it can be presumed that Paul had human interaction with the associates and family of Jesus. That would mean Jesus probably existed, the same as any other historical figure with a family and followers. Maybe he lied. If so, then your camp needs to explain the reasons why, with evidence, because on the face of it, it seems to be something Paul said in passing, without an apparent motivation to lie about it. If you don't have those details worked out, then, once again, one explanation is more likely than the other.

ApostateAbe

The problem is that we don't really know how prominent Jesus was in his time. You can trust that it wasn't nearly as huge as Christian legend would lead you to believe. We are living in the information age today, where a gluttonous amount of knowledge is printed and disseminated everyday all over the place, but even today, I have trouble tracking down information on small cults and religious sects. Pretty much the only information I can typically find for a religious following with a few hundred members is information published by the cult itself. And, what do you know, that seems to be true for Christianity. The problem is magnified in the ancient world, where only a small elite could read and write. When something was written, that would not be all it takes for it to survive to this day. It would either need to be buried in a way that would preserve it, or it would need to be repeatedly copied, time and again (paper lasted a number of years before it would fade into dust). Jesus mythicists make what they think is small demand for extra-Christian writings on Jesus. They don't seem to grasp the true scale of that demand.
Sure. Here are those passages:

Maybe, maybe not. It would have been in the same passage that was changed and interpolated. Josephus would have been giving his interpretation of the Christian myth. Christians were still a small religious minority at the time.


Right. I would take the mythicist position much more seriously if someone could narrow down a more precise description of who it was that invented the myth, so that the theory could become capable of being either confirmed or falsified. The historicist position is relatively simple and unified--it was Jesus himself who started the whole evolution.

Amaleq13

According to whom?

ApostateAbe

I don't know, maybe you can look it up. It seems to be common knowledge that the synoptic gospels are linguistically dated around 70 CE, and Antiquities around 90 CE. Do you have another set of dates?

Toto

I have read quite a bit about the dating of the gospels, and I have never heard of a date based on linguistics, and I cannot imagine that Koine Greek changed enough, or that enough is known about its development, to allow a precise dating of 70 vs 90 CE.

The date of 70 CE for Mark is based entirely on internal evidence, not on linguistics.