Switch89

Funny. I found that much of Tim O'Neill's comments were lifted verbatim from my blog, without due credit:

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/0...air-scott.html

Now that that's out of the way, let me address a few things:

"In fact, positing that he was indeed a simple non-miraculous human being is not at all ludicrous."

I agree completely. However, I would like to find out whether it is reasonable to posit such a Jesus or simply posit that Jesus was a myth. I haven't figured it out yet, so I'm still exploring.

"This is precisely what we find with the Jesus Mythers. Yes, the James mentioned by Josephus could be some other James who, like the one mentioned in the Christian tradition, just happened to also have a brother called Jesus who was also called “Annointed” and he could also have been executed by the Jewish priesthood just like the James who Paul claims he met. This remarkable sequence of coincidences are all possible."

I've read a few mythicists who cite evidence for the above proposition, however, I'm not familiar with that evidence and so I will not defend it. There is, however, a good case to be made that the James passage is inauthentic. See: K. A. Olson, “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61.2 (1999) 305-322.

By the way, I want to make two things clear:

1. I am, and have been, agnostic on the historical Jesus for a long time now. Though I've occasionally waffled back and forth on the issue, sometimes siding with historicists and other times with mythicists, I've never been very certain of any of this. The evidence I've seen does not allow me to be very certain one way or the other. When I was a mythicist I was one with doubts, when I was a historicist I also had doubts.

2. I have nothing but respect for those who study the New Testament professionally. In fact, that's one of the things that often keeps me from siding with mythicists completely. I can't ignore the concensus.

judge

If you read the OP you will see it is not really about bashing people who doubt the historicy of Jesus (although there may have been a jibe or two).
The concern is that if jesus mythicists are prepared to use questionable methods to proselytise, and repeat questionable things ad nauseum, as if true, and receive a warm welcome for doing so,then what is to stop us allowing this continuing to happen in a wider scope?



What is amazing is the reception the OP got here, on a forum supposedly dedicated to freethinking and rationalism.

lpetrich

Although I think that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels was most likely a myth, I think that it's not impossible that he had some dimly-remembered historical prototype (or prototypes!). Someone who was not nearly as well-known as the JC of the Gospels was portrayed as being, thus escaping the attention of possible chroniclers.

In any case, if one strips away the miracles, the account in the Gospels does seem at least half-plausible, at least if one does not try to look at it very closely.


Also, capitalism vs. socialism ought to be moved off to World Issues & Politics -- especially capitalist triumphalism and trying to induce altruism by hero-worship.

Turdus merula

You may meet very different Christians than I do, but my experience is that most Christians are more than willing to latch on to any and all accounts of a historical Jesus, including accounts that discounts miracles. Some follow up with a (more or less conscious) fallacy of thinking the non-magical account verifies their own belief in a miraculous story. Others specifically admit that the miracles and the resurrection cannot be proven by ordinary historical studies but is a matter of faith. But both groups are more than willing to use a (percieved) consensus about a human historical Jesus as an argument against sceptics.

As a bit of an aside, I think the subject needs a clarification of terms. First, there's the issue of what it really means that someone is a "historical" figure. The dichotomy between historical and mythical can hide a middle ground of "mythical embellishment of a vague historical prototype", and I suspect some historicists and mythicists agree on almost everything except what to call it. Second, there's a difference between stating "we have no evidence for a historical Jesus" and stating "we have evidence for a mythical Jesus as origin for Christianity" that is often overlooked - on both sides.

aa5874

Whatever proposition you propose there are fundamentally three possibly outcome. 1. True 2. False 3. Uncertain.

The proposition that Jesus of the NT never existed at all cannot be proven to be false using all extant information.

The Jesus of the NT was presented as a God/man, offspring of the Holy Ghost of God, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

The church writers vehemently denied that Jesus was only human and that he had an earthly father.

No such creature, Jesus Christ, ever existed.

But, again you seem not to understand your dilemma.

The Church is claiming that Jesus had no earthly father, that Jesus existed before the world began and was in effect the Creator.

Another church writer Jerome claimed that James was NOT really the brother of Jesus, effectively destroying the use of AJ 20.9.1.

Jerome has put an end to the use of AJ 20.9.1.

According to the Church, Jesus had no earthly father, therefore Joseph was not the father of Jesus.

James the Just was the son of Joseph and the SISTER of the mother of Jesus.

This is Jerome effectively putting a monkey-wrench in the quest for the historical Jesus using AJ 20.9.1

De Viris Illustribus 1.2 It is all over. The only extant sentence in Josephus that mentions a Jesus with a brother called James cannot be confirmed to be Jesus of the NT AT ALL.

According to Jerome, James the Just could only been the COUSIN of Jesus, since Joseph was not the father of Jesus.

Based on Jerome, the claim that James the Just had a brother called Jesus was false and mis-leading as found in AJ 20.9.1 and Galatians 1.19

There is no corroboative evidence to support the proposition that Jesus of the NT existed.

The proposition that Jesus of the NT never existed at all can be upheld or deemed to be true.

Chaucer

Which is yet another unprovable assertion.

That latter concept ("before the world began") comes first in John. It's not in any of the Synoptics.

Positing that an historic human being was fathered by God(!) is hardly creditable enough to discredit the more sensible notion that he was really fathered by a human being all along! Furthermore, it hardly hurts the historicist case to suppose that James was an adoptive brother instead of a blood brother. There is still a twice-attested family tie there, one attestation actually being in a secular text.

In fact, in one Nag Hammadi text, The (First) Apocalypse of James, James is frankly described as an adoptive brother, not a blood brother at all.

So that's nothing new.

Yet another proposition that cannot be proved.

Chaucer

spin

ETA:

This may not be correct in the Greek of the time. Starting from Mt 2:23 "he shall be called a Nazarene" being derived from Jdg 13:5 "he shall be a Nazarite" and one will find other examples in the nt versions based on the Hebrew bible. (The verb in the above is not legomenos but a near synonym.)

Nevertheless, yours is another deflection. Quibbling on "called" won't change the issue that this one is the one recognizable by the term "christ" and it needs no explanation. That means that it's a valid moniker.

Umm, so you're going to be pedantic about case?

Ever heard of declensions?

Some hokey term meaning not nominative case.

SFA.

There's no finite verb to take tense. The phrase means "the (one) called christ". (English needs the "one" though it's not in the Greek.)

And do you think that Josephus, who claims to be of priestly descent and who has just repackaged most of Jewish literature for Greek speakers, would leave unexplained a reference as important as the christ?

I suppose that it will give a little encouragement to the mythers.

(Just to be clear, I am not a mythicist or a historicist. Neither position is based on historical evidence, so how anyone can seriously choose either beats me.)


spin

Toto

Robert Price is technically a Jesus agnostic. His position is that if there ever was a Jesus of history, he is lost and can't be recovered. He is a favorite of the mythicists because he has deconstructed the case for a historical Jesus that is the basis for the so called scholarly consensus.

spin

Sorry, my understanding was that anyone calling themselves a christian is of the opinion that their Jesus was in this world at a specific point in history.


spin

Chaucer

Actually, I tried to provide the full URL, but somehow the Preview, which I always use first before posting, wouldn't accept it (I think probably because I hadn't posted enough here to facilitate providing links). So all I could provide was "(from a page at the "aigbusted.blogspot")", which I hoped might make it relatively easy for readers here to go there if they chose. I am, in fact, a frequent and grateful reader of your blog, and I'm pleased to take this opportunity of saying so publicly. I particularly appreciated one more recent blog that you submitted on May 12:

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/0...t-america.html

Well conceived. My compliments.

That's right. He deals with the James passage in pp. 314 - 319.

I've read his argument against its authenticity. I have yet to be convinced by it. In particular, I believe his argument founders on his readiness to suppose that "called Christ" is somehow not acceptable on its own without an explanation to the reader of some kind. Now since he argues that Antiq. 18 is a Eusebius interpolation, something which I actually deem not improbable, he adds to that the supposition that the Christ reference in Antiq. 20 is a similar interpolation, since it appears to him to hark back to Antiq. 18, rather than being a standalone passage. Now this I think is a stretch. In fact, in our own day, I've seen and heard Ronald Reagan referred to by young adults as "the Gipper" -- young adults who, when asked, showed not the remotest idea of why Reagan was called that, even though they casually adopted the term anyway! It seems entirely plausible to me that this is how many contemporary readers would have taken the words "called Christ" in Antiq. 20.

Talking about consensus, I cam across an interesting analogy from a chemist with whom I corresponded on line. He wrote --

"Being a scientist, a chemist, I am often confronted by ambiguous or seemingly contradictory data. Two chemists can look at the same data set and come to two different conclusions. I have, in fact, learned to "fly under the radar," not telling my boss or others about my ideas until after I've tried them to avoid the possible, "That's a silly idea, Dr. X, don't waste your time." It happened this last week, as a matter of fact. I can respect two people looking at the same data set and reaching different conclusions. In the case of Jesus, the conclusion cannot be tested in the lab, so we are left with the endless debate. The best we can do is say, "There is a consensus"."

Cheers,

Chaucer