Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Knupfer · 06-12-2007, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

If one asks the question "Who is the Mythical Jesus?" the answer is fairly straightforward: it is the Jesus of faith, seen as myth. Who the Jesus of faith is is also fairly straightforward, we can for example find his attributes, sayings and deeds in the Gospels. Not every Christian will agree with each other Christian as to the exact "definition" of the Jesus of faith, but we have at least something to talk about.

This is not the case with the Historical Jesus, who, as opposed to the Jesus of Faith, is supposed to have walked the earth even according to those who don't believe in the Jesus of faith, or at most believe in the historicity of a relatively small subset of his attributes. If there is one thing that has been constant in the HJ camp, it is the steadfast and unswerving refusal of its members to describe who, what and when the Historical Jesus was.

When we consult Webster's for a definition of "Myth," we find the following:

1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

When we are talking about the mythical Jesus, we are using the definitions of myth as given in 1. and 2. above, the ones, that is, which belong in the scholarly realm of comparative mythology. Definitions 3-5 are more colloquial, they indicate things that are not true, or for which there is no evidence, but which people believe nevertheless.

It occurs to me that the Historical Jesus could be mythical in the sense of definitions 3-5, simply because there can be no evidence for something that has never been described. The Historical Jesus is certainly more evanescent than the Mythical one, as we have a fairly good description of the latter but none of the former. The Mythical Jesus, in other words, is something we can get our hands on, the Historical Jesus is not. In a sense that to me makes the Historical Jesus more mythical than the Mythical one.

Gerard Stafleu

Sorry but in no history book (including all world history books) is Jesus described as a legend. So that's your first mistake.

And claiming that Jesus was both historical and mythical is an oxymoron. So that's your second mistake.

We have the words of Jesus just like we have the words of Caesar or any other historical figure. And denying that is no different than denying that the words in the Gettysburg address are Lincoln's. :grin:

But God said that Satan blinds the eyes of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of Christ. So in trying to deny Christ, I expect contradictions from unbelievers because the truth does not contradict itself, nor does it contradict what happened in history as unbelievers always do. :wave:

BALDUCCI · 06-12-2007, 06:43 AM

I have always been troubled by the screaming illogicality of proclaiming a belief based on faith and not requiring verification of fact. Sit an ardent Christian down in front of you, one who claims to operate purely by faith, and ask him what is really important to him about Jesus. He/she is bound to say something like "He died on the cross and rose again.."

That is not a faith statement, it is a (highly debatable) fact statement. It is drawn from a set of assertions of fact contained in the scriptures, supported by sets of assertions of facts contained in religious commentary, credo etc.

You point out that this FACT, which the Christian so ardently asserts, is widely and strongly contested, and that the burden of evidence leans away from this fact being true. The Christian then says something like "Well, facts dont come between me and my faith", which is patently a lie, because the Christian is basing his/her so-called faith on a contestable fact.

So its actually misleading to talk about a Jesus of Faith. There is just a Jesus, and many theories about what that Jesus was. The faith bit has nothing to do with Jesus at all. The faith bit is purely confined to the mind and psychology of the Christian, and cannot be projected outwards. It in no way affects or influences the objective fact of Jesus (whichever set one finds most convincing).

So when the Christian pretends that his/her faith is not fact based, and responds to presentations of fact that should cause doubt, what the Christian is actually saying but would never admit is "I like that version of the story and I am going to stick to it, no matter what. But to make it sound as if I am being profound in some way, I am going to call this act of obduracy, "FAITH".

gstafleu · 06-12-2007, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chili

But "more mythical" is a contradiction since it denies the reality behind myth, kind of like being 'a little bit pregnant'.

I was using "mythical" here in the sense of definitions 3-5 for "myth" in Webster. These definitions allow for varying amounts of "mythicalness."

Quote:

In myth the man is real forever while in history the person was an illusion even if he talked the talk and walked the walk; here again because he presented the reality of the myth while he was just the messenger of the same.

This would be the reason why the historical Jesus is not important to the Church, and never was.

Quite so, which is why it is my opinion (which I think I have stated on occasion) that the MJ-HJ debate is, on the whole, an excercise in missing the point. It is the religion here that is important, history--at least of the figures in the myth--is secondary, if not n-ary where n approaches a large number. Of course we do have the interesting circumstance that mainstream Christianity, roughly following Josiah's about 7C BCE example, has chosen to have a rather large stake in the actual historicity of its myths

.

Gerard Stafleu

Chili · 06-12-2007, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

[Quite so, which is why it is my opinion (which I think I have stated on occasion) that the MJ-HJ debate is, on the whole, an excercise in missing the point.

Yes, I know you knew and I wish that more preachers knew the difference. Put this on a slippery slope and there soon would not be a preacher left.

post tenebras lux · 06-12-2007, 09:46 AM

Hi Masorah613 and welcome to IIDB. Have you read THE JESUS THE JEWS NEVER KNEW Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Frank R. Zindler?

I have it on order and - if you don't know it - here's a review by Earl Doherty.

wordy · 06-12-2007, 11:11 AM

Quote:

n fact, Jews honor Peter as a Pharisee. We say that he was the one that composed one of the prayers that we recite on Sabbath called the 'Nishmat'. This prayer is known as a cry against idolaters and the declaration of the sole oneness of G-d. There are also many Rabbis today that will attest to just that. Of course, some Jews, knowing the connotations that accepting Peter as one of our own will say that it was a sage by the name of Shimon ben Shetach who composed the prayer of 'Nishmat'. However, with good reason, those of us that do espouse that Peter (shimon) composed this prayer, say that he did so because it was in the first century and on-ward that Jews began to compose prayers for liturgy other than the normal blessings that we had brought down from Ezra and Shimon the Just, and from some portions of Scripture.

I know nothing so sorry me write about things me not nothing.

But is it not very likely that these existed while both Paul and Jesus was made up by a political group living some 100 to 200, 300 years later people close to Constantine? A kind of political spin? Isn't such more likely then Jesus existing as a HJ. He is so obviously made up and mythical. Almost nothing is real about him.

ok one thing being real is that he got extremely angry. That could indicate that he is real. I mean if they made it all up did they really live in a culture that failed to get how bad it looks if a real god or moral leader or a Rabbi behaved in such a childish and uncontrolled and almost ADHD or ADD or such.

Jesus as a kind of totally unreliable human. I mean didn't they realize how bad it looks?

Doesn't it show that those made it up was brutish people who wanted to overthrow the rulers and they did kill all resistance and to make Jesus short tempered and moody and unreliable was how they perceived the world and they failed to see anything wrong with that so that is why Christianity is such a bad fundie religion. They set it up that way to be able to get political power from day one. It is all made up, the historical persons are only there to give a local historic touch, a patch work of spin?

Or should I believe that all persons living at that time was incredibly brutish? How them to explain such people like Epicurius and Seneca and such noble persons?

Jobar · 06-13-2007, 06:11 AM

I'd have to get out my copy of Wells' Did Jesus Exist? (or via: amazon.co.uk) and check, but as I recall he had a chapter in it devoted to Jewish sources.

His conclusion was that all the Jewish writings concerning Jesus and his supposed family were derivative from, and in reaction to, Christian writings on the subject. Although there were certainly historical Jews and Romans who were written into the story, and the Jewish records of those real individuals are consistent with Christian ones, the Jewish Jesus is no more historical than the Christian one.

mountainman · 06-14-2007, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

When we consult Webster's for a definition of "Myth," we find the following:

3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

The above three definitions may as well serve for the
definition of "Fiction", as in Julian's assessment etc.

How are myth and fiction to be separated?
Need they be separated?

gstafleu · 06-15-2007, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

When we consult Webster's for a definition of "Myth," we find the following:

3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

The above three definitions may as well serve for the
definition of "Fiction", as in Julian's assessment etc.

How are myth and fiction to be separated?
Need they be separated?

Currently the two are often conflated, but separating them is useful. Webster's first two definitions (1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.) give an idea of how to do this, but it is rather sketchy and misses some important points.

As Chili (iirc) at times points out, myth has a "real" or non-fictional component. The idea that this is so arose from observing the remarkable similarity of myths from all over time and place. This commonality then justified putting myths in a genre of its own. The similarity might be the result of similar structures in the mind/brains of humans, a point brought forward by evolutionary psychology. But even without that explanation, the simple observation of the similarities is enough to justify the genre (postmodern anti-intellectual nihilism set aside, of course).

Defining myth in one paragraph clearly runs the risk of being either too wide or too narrow. I'll attempt it nevertheless: Myth is a form of story (or more generally, if more vaguely, a method of thinking) that teaches you (1) to understand with the universe and how to live with it, and (2) to understand yourself and how to live with yourself. It does so by using symbols, meaning its language and images are generally not literal but more metaphoric. The symbols used seem to have a commonality among all cultures, although all are of course culturally modified.

As I said, this definition is no doubt wanting, but it may give at least some idea of what myth is about.

Gerard Stafleu

mountainman · 06-16-2007, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

Defining myth in one paragraph clearly runs the risk of being either too wide or too narrow. I'll attempt it nevertheless: Myth is a form of story (or more generally, if more vaguely, a method of thinking) that teaches you

(1) to understand with the universe and how to live with it, and
(2) to understand yourself and how to live with yourself.

It does so by using symbols, meaning its language and images are generally not literal but more metaphoric. The symbols used seem to have a commonality among all cultures, although all are of course culturally modified.

As I said, this definition is no doubt wanting, but it may give at least some idea of what myth is about.

Gerard Stafleu

Your definition does not mention history, and I
think it needs to do this, in the context of this forum.
Or are you aiming at a more general definition of myth?

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06-12-2007, 06:43 AM	#22
BALDUCCI Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: scotland Posts: 365	I have always been troubled by the screaming illogicality of proclaiming a belief based on faith and not requiring verification of fact. Sit an ardent Christian down in front of you, one who claims to operate purely by faith, and ask him what is really important to him about Jesus. He/she is bound to say something like "He died on the cross and rose again.." That is not a faith statement, it is a (highly debatable) fact statement. It is drawn from a set of assertions of fact contained in the scriptures, supported by sets of assertions of facts contained in religious commentary, credo etc. You point out that this FACT, which the Christian so ardently asserts, is widely and strongly contested, and that the burden of evidence leans away from this fact being true. The Christian then says something like "Well, facts dont come between me and my faith", which is patently a lie, because the Christian is basing his/her so-called faith on a contestable fact. So its actually misleading to talk about a Jesus of Faith. There is just a Jesus, and many theories about what that Jesus was. The faith bit has nothing to do with Jesus at all. The faith bit is purely confined to the mind and psychology of the Christian, and cannot be projected outwards. It in no way affects or influences the objective fact of Jesus (whichever set one finds most convincing). So when the Christian pretends that his/her faith is not fact based, and responds to presentations of fact that should cause doubt, what the Christian is actually saying but would never admit is "I like that version of the story and I am going to stick to it, no matter what. But to make it sound as if I am being profound in some way, I am going to call this act of obduracy, "FAITH".

06-12-2007, 09:46 AM	#25
post tenebras lux Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Republic and Canton of Geneva Posts: 5,756	Hi Masorah613 and welcome to IIDB. Have you read THE JESUS THE JEWS NEVER KNEW Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Frank R. Zindler? I have it on order and - if you don't know it - here's a review by Earl Doherty.

06-13-2007, 06:11 AM	#27
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	I'd have to get out my copy of Wells' Did Jesus Exist? (or via: amazon.co.uk) and check, but as I recall he had a chapter in it devoted to Jewish sources. His conclusion was that all the Jewish writings concerning Jesus and his supposed family were derivative from, and in reaction to, Christian writings on the subject. Although there were certainly historical Jews and Romans who were written into the story, and the Jewish records of those real individuals are consistent with Christian ones, the Jewish Jesus is no more historical than the Christian one.

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